High Speed Net Access Defining College Life 315
peter303 writes "Todays LA Times has an article on how high speed InterNet access (defined as 10 Mbit ethernet
in your dormroom or 100+ times T-1/ISDN/fast modem)
is revolutionizing college life: such things as routine streaming
video and free long distance phone calls. It is creating a generation
of "speed-junkies" that is affecting college admissions,
employment and housing decisions, and propelling consumer demand for high bandwidth pipes. " Bandwidth convinced me to move on campus. The lack of bandwidth nearly kept me there (despite paying like 4x as much as I did simply renting a house nearby). Its very true.
That is soooo true (Score:1)
Other implications (Score:5)
Of course, free stuff isn't always "free" -- there are ads, and antiprivacy crap like monitoring your web usage. I wouldn't be surprised to see legislation about that in the next three years.
Pirating on school networks (Score:2)
or it backfires (Score:1)
DSL should come soon
Dorms Generally Suck... (Score:1)
I'd settle for cable-modems, but, the local cable co. (Time Warner) hasn't gotten around to that yet. I wish they'd realize the demand, given the number of off-campus students who miss being able to view pages in under 2 minutes.
Oh, well...I'm stuck in the backwoods, maybe that's why...
Re:That is soooo true (Score:1)
Not necessary to live on campus. (Score:1)
Re:Dorms Generally Suck... (Score:1)
high speed reclusivity (Score:3)
High Speed Access (Score:3)
Routine things like asking a friend to go to dinner is now done on AIM. Discussing things for the weekend is now done on AIM with 5 friends at once, even though they live next door.
At one point I used to msg my roommate questions because the music would be to loud I would first have to ask him to turn down the music then ask him the question.
We never bought a tv, we just watched realplayer videos of South Park on our computers, that we d/l right before.
Once your submerged in high speed access you never want to go back. The small things in life become fun and you become extremly efficient.
Right now i have my 1st post (Score:1)
High Speed Connections (Score:1)
UMR (Score:1)
And *now* there's something to do with it (Score:1)
Back in early '93 I looked at going to St. Andrews (SE Scotland) and they'd just built a new hall right next to the CS building. Apparently 10-BaseT was going into all the rooms. It seemed kind of weird back then: "Can I grab my FidoNET echomail without running up a huge phone bill?"
And now we have AOL eating the world, and you can buy rubber dogshit online from the comfort of your armchair. It's great to be working in the spearhead of progress...
T3 == Bad Grades (Score:1)
I really enjoyed living in the dorms (I met my wife there, how cool is that?) and I know that when I started college the dorms with ethernet were in higher demand than any others.
I think I also contributed to my dorms having the highest campus bandwidth utilitzation!
Mordred
dorm ethernet (Score:2)
High Speed Access in Dorms also promotes piracy (Score:1)
All too true (Score:1)
pluses of internet usage (Score:2)
Of course, I'm sure all of my time spent on my computer has a drastic effect on my GPA (which is quite low at the time). However, it's not like I'm just sitting around and getting drunk - I'm learning something most of the time. When I need Linux help, I check the #linux channel on my favorite IRC server. Even though my GPA might not reflect it, I've got a good bit of practical experience from my time spent on the internet. Too bad Linux knowledge doesn't help too much with engineering.
Re:That is soooo true (Score:1)
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:5)
Many of us despise day to day contact with most of humanity in any case. I recently closed my brick and morter bank account because I can't stand dealing with the tellers. I hate having to talk to people on the phone if I don't know them already, and I have no desire for personal contact with random strangers. I've met quite a lot of friends on the net who I later met (two of whom now live with me and my GF in our new house) and liked. I find it easier to communicate through this medium than through the telephone, I can communicate adequately in person but I don't prefer it. And yet I have a fairly healthy social life, it's just that I have time to focus on doing ONLY what I want to do and with whom I want to do it. I don't have to deal with the stupidity of clerks or the inane questions asked by losers I run into on the street. The few mass social contacts I have are at things like conventions or M:TG tournaments where I know the people all have at least one interest in common with me.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with preferring electronic contact to personal/physical....
Kintanon
yeah, our t1 is great... (Score:1)
xDSL (Score:1)
What about Canada? (Score:1)
I go to a Canadian university (SFU to be exact) and there is a severe shortage of on-campus housing, and no high-speed dorm connections either. Most Canadian colleges/universities are public, and I believe fewer have ethernet connections to residences (Gotta save that government money for adequate computer labs I guess :/ ). They have it in the labs, but they have strict rules about what you can do in the labs (No games, and the lack of audio capabilities or zip drives strongly indicates they discourage large multimedia downloads). Just as well 'cause the labs can scarcely accommodate the demands for word processing as it is. You Statesiders don't know how lucky you are!
Meanwhile I had a summer job on campus, and I was literally getting up at 5 am so that I could get there by bus and have a free hour to play with that precious ethernet connection before my shift started. Mmm, speed.
Off campus living and DSL == A whole lot of lovin' (Score:1)
High speed access (Score:1)
What do you mean, not *cable* modem? (Score:2)
It's become such a part of my life that I can't imagine not having it, just like those poor geeks in the article. It's how I communicate with the outside world. Every time I'm around a computer, I automatically assume it has an instant and fast connection. At a friend's house recently I wanted to check what movies were playing. He suggested I buy a newspaper.
A what?
So I turned to his computer to check the listings online, and ...
What?
What do you mean you don't have internet access? It's a COMPUTER, isn't it?
My mind has been warped permanantly by having instant access from every computer I use on a regular basis. This is the future.
Was I rambling? I'm not awake yet.
Ivy vs Wired (Score:3)
Either way, internet access does and will continue to raise interesting implications in regards to how a university is rated. Maybe the demand and competitiveness for Ivy league schools will be superseded by a demand for Wired schools?
Regards.
- tokengeekgrrl
The Bandwidth Arms Race? (Score:1)
Up to now our annual costs for supplying campus with this kind of bandwidth was been a couple hundred thousand or so, which is low enough that it's a dept budget item and "under the radar" -- but we are projecting our costs will be in the millions/year in the nearish future -- and that number attracts attention from the big suits.
Will schools start to suffer a Soviet-like collapse when they no longer have the resources (or the will to use them) to keep up with other schools?
IIRC, we are already at an OC-48 (48 T3/DS3's) for data/video/phone and OC-192 can't be far -- madness!
Re:Other implications (Score:2)
I think we will have to make a lot more giant strides in our technology and rebuild a lot of backbones with newer equipment on the world infrastructure before this can really happen. As far as I can tell, the traffic and userbase is increasing faster then the underlying infrastructure and that can't hold forever.
/serious
as long as we are using lynx, though, we don't need to worry about web ads &c.
#include <signal.h> \ #include <stdlib.h> \ int main(void){signal(ABRT,SIGIGN);while(1){abort(-1)
this is very true.. but we're faster! (Score:1)
but seriously, i can see a few benefits: first, as a researacher, i don't have to live with crappy bandwidth hogging up my download times for articles, experimental work etc. secondly, as astudent, you get to play with some neat technology and raid the Inet for information (like free Cisco books!) and pilfer all you want. thirdly, if you'd like, you can set up a nice server and have some fun.
yeah, a lot of the network around here is used to stream video (ie pr0n), mp3's or whatnot, but those are practical skills, setting up a high demand server (the pr0n archive) or indexing everything (like the Samba indexer for the WIndows network).
it's not all fun and games, just mostly.
Definitely becoming a factor (I feel old) (Score:2)
The year after I graduated, they installed fiber optics. I recently dated a girl who is about four years younger than me and had just moved out of the same dorms. She mentioned that $her_isp is really slow and crappy, and that she really misses having such a high-speed connection. Made me feel ancient.
(Of course,
College students greedy? (Score:1)
Speaking of internet connections, does anyone have a reasonable idea why DSL service hasn't expanded and is there any way to light a torch under the ISP/Phone Company's ass (Bell Atlantic) to get them to move quicker?
Highest-Bandwidth College (Score:1)
Re:High Speed Access in Dorms also promotes piracy (Score:1)
It's true! (Score:1)
Bandwith problems at U's. (Score:1)
They finally got a 10mbit fractional DS3 and it improved the bandwith significantly. I was about to get a dialup account w/the local ISP for 11.95/month and use 56k. It would have beat the 2k/s I was steadily recieving...
I just hope as the University expands, that they don't neglect the needs of us "speed junkies"
Calling entrepreneurs! (Score:4)
--
I live online (Score:1)
Over the summer, I live on my t-3 at work.
I moved into a house this year, and totally need my connection back!
I will probably be moving back into the dorms in the fall, and getting a job as a Resident Network Consultant, just so I can get a 100 megabit connection.
Re:or it backfires (Score:1)
I'm not holding my breath for any high-speed access from home.
In my particular section of the Raleigh NC area, there are two local exchanges which can't be served by DSL yet -- and guess where we live? Essentially, if you have fiber anywhere in your local loop, or if the loop is too long, you lose.. just like we're losing. BellSouth probably won't be adding the necessary peripherals anytime soon, due to their crappy pricing structure. (I wouldn't use HellSouth as an ISP, nor would most people. I guess they figure that they needn't add equipment if I'd only give my money to another ISP (read: competing local exchange carrier)..)
Cable modem? Forget it; Time-Warner owns the cable systems in my burg. Had not A55holes Out Loud not bought them, this might still be a possibility.
And I'd kill for hi-speed access, if only to get decent X11 response from work.
-----
You young whippersnappers! (Score:1)
Spoiled little k1dd13z. Furrfu.
P.S.:
24 and already an old fogie (Score:1)
Re:High Speed Access in Dorms also promotes piracy (Score:1)
Re:T3 == Bad Grades (Score:1)
Hell, college would be sooo much better w/o classes -- drugs, sex, and quake -- what else is there?
Access for All (Score:1)
Now that students and business professionals are getting a taste of a "real" internet connection at school or work, why shouldn't we expect the same at home or on the road? I work for a company that provides DSL/Wireless service in apartment complexes and hotels. In the past year I've been amazed at how quickly the demand for high speed connections from these type places has increased. People want there access and they want it to be fast. I think this is a great thing, the dream of a wired world is starting to look like a realistic goal.
Now if only my local Bell would hurry up and get me connected!
-Calvin A. Hobbes
Oh no! (Score:1)
The 90's teens/20-somethings used to be "Generation X", but that's old now so we need a new name.
The most significant occurrence in the late 90's was the explosion of the Internet.
The 80's were the "Me Generation".
We will be "The iGeneration".
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Re:Dorms Generally Suck... (Score:1)
Oh yeah and with how much they charge to live in the dorms, it is cheaper to live off campus with a cable modem, that generally has a better connection (the again my schools network was just a T1 for 6 residents halls) then it is to live on campus and have to deal with residents halls idiots. (i.e. freshmen)
Also, cable modems (and cable TV too) only cost me and my roommate about $50 dollars a month and there was NO cost to buy the equipment.
Not always good! (Score:1)
I'm not arguing with high-speed access ;) but I realize that this is a nightmare from the University's perspective... maybe that's why I got a cease-and-desist message in my Appleshare drop box threatening me with legal action if I didn't stop sharing content. Interesting to look at the situation from 'the other side.' Think Carnegie Mellon, MP3s...
Re:Other implications - follow college trends. (Score:1)
Now we hear about other benefits of the big pipe. Those kids just keep moving the target further and further away for the private corps who are trying to satisfy the public - it is really great. If any large corporation really wanted to see what is going to be cool in a couple years (or months?!!?) they should employ (and listen to) a panel of college tech student. If they don't the students may just have to do it themselves. [linux.org]
Yeah.
Re:What about Canada? (Score:1)
My Experiences (Score:1)
I attend the University of Arkansas, where about half of the dorms have been wired. Not mine, however.
When I signed up for the dorm, I was under the impression that it was wired, so high-speed 'net access was a contributing factor there. Likewise, it was a major part of my decision between the two schools that I had narrowed my college choice down to.
Now I have a cable modem at home and dial-up at school. Despite the 'reversed' situation, the effects are largely the same...it irritates me so much when I have to download large files over dialup (kernel and xfree updates, anyone? :) that I often walk to a computer lab with a zip disk or two rather than wait an hour in my room. Works out pretty well, given that I can bring headphones and listen to the latest from mp3.com.
Re:What about Canada? (Score:1)
For other universities, I'm not sure what the situation is like. I know both Guelph and Carleton have wired residences, but I've not heard about the situation from other schools.
[1] As a side note, when the connections were first introduced the external pipe was swamped -- now you're only allowed ~25MB of external traffic a day. Generally not too bad (I liked the connections for the 24/7 uptime, not the bandwidth), but download anything like a service pack and you're hosed).
Re:Another Twist (Score:1)
resnet regrets (Score:1)
Why not eGeneration? (Score:2)
Flummery! (Score:1)
8^D
Seriously, I can't imagine how much MORE time would have been wasted with today's bandwidth! Bonghits, beer, acid, etc. was plenty to keep me occupied and away from my studies. If I had access to the endless streams of info, games and other distractions on the Internet today, I might not have graduated at all, let alone in four years.
Re:Don't mean to pick on anyone BUT . . . (Score:1)
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:4)
I agree that the Internet can be used addictively, but so can anything. There are probably as many, if not more, tiddly-wink addicts and canasta addicts as there are Internet addicts, on a global scale.
The world is heading for no more "trouble" now than it was when it discovered alchohol, or those curiously coloured mushrooms. College has always been a hotbed of alchoholism, drug-abuse, sex addiction, eating disorders, adrenalin addiction, etc. The death-toll from just the ones I've listed is probably higher than the total number of dorm terminals installed in the entire US.
Nor does access to a terminal, or even excessive use, necessarily mean anything. Plenty of students drink like fish (though the fish would have to be fairly large), without any serious long-term psychological or physical harm. The same goes for computer-use. It's entirely possible to sit in front of a computer 20 hours a day, every day, for months on end, and not suffer any more ill-effects than perhaps a mild migrane and bags under the eyes.
I'd say that everyone has to look at their own experience, decide if the short-term benefits are worth the long-term costs, and experiment to see if they can stop. If they -can- stop, when they choose, with no impact, then there's no addiction. If they can't, especially if the benefits are increasingly not worth it, then there's a serious problem.
Case in point: (Score:1)
Of course having a T1 connection in my room does not make a big difference when it comes to slashdotting, but it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to watching BBC news 24h videostream.
By the way, I am in UK, and, because of JANET [ja.net] business, p0rn of any form is illegal. However, most of the l33t people have found a way around it. Warez is illegal too. But half the guys have put up leech FTPs, with ratios running from 1:3 to 1:1
My exam is on 17th, and here I am slashdotting. I blame the university for my (probable) bad grades.
Because that's not "funny" (Score:2)
---
This is very true (Score:1)
I currently live in an area where the fastest internet access available is mediocre 56k with Cable coming possibly in 2001 and ADSL, who even knows? Bell Atlantic sais its "Available in [my] general area" but its not "Available in [MY] fone line", well, GREAT, THANKS.
Every time I get on a fast line (and by this I mean 20KByte/sec transfers plus) I feel like I am in heaven! Whether or not Cable/ADSL access is available in the region I move to next (after High School, etc) will be a big part of my decition to live there or not.
'Nuff said.
Re:Oh no! (Score:1)
Well, I like it enough to pass it on at least.
Speak for yourself... (Score:1)
At my school, on-campus is the only way to live. The T1 is a nice added bonus.
Re:What about Canada? -- UNBC (Score:1)
slightly disturbing (Score:3)
i'm in college, and while the high bandwidth is great, all it means to me is that slashdot and the 5 other sites i visit regularly load up faster. sometimes it also means that downloading that > 10 meg file isn't that big a deal.
those people whose lives are being defined by this "bandwidth glut" should perhaps re-evaluate how they're spending their free time
It's only great when it works... (Score:2)
I'm probably going to ruffle some feathers by mentioning this in a non-CWRU (Case Western Reserve University [cwru.edu]) forum, but so be it...
CWRU installed an ATM network long before their technology was stable, and as a result, the network was down a significant portion of the time, and you could count on it going down at the times when it was utilized and important (such as before finals.) That decision was made not with the best student interests in mind, but with publicity-oriented politics handed down from on high. As a result partially of that, CWRU was voted Yahoo!'s Most Wired Campus [cwru.edu] in 1999, but was less of a testament to it's fantastic high speed network, and more of a Bill Clinton-style Legacy Building attempt by the out-going CIO. Much of the information cited in that award, such as 90% of facilities availble around the clock and 25MB of free web space, were not really true, and the topic of much controversy at CWRU for months thereafter. The University made lots of excuses of how that really was policy despite the fact that nobody knew about it, and the U didn't have the resources to back it up even if they wanted to.
My point: High speed net access is great, but many Universities use it as a selling point rather than a resource. When it becomes a political marketing tool, it's reliability suffers, and the students are the ones left out in the cold. As a student, there are MANY times I would have much rather had a 33.6 modem and a simple network that worked, than a space-age technological marvel that swallowed my code and locked up my homework the night before it was due...
I don't care if you give me credit.... (Score:1)
---
Seen this one before somewhere (Score:1)
In many cases there is a nice culture going which makes you feel quite priveleged to be able to access.
I'll be impressed (Score:2)
Let's face it, 10Mb is pitifully slow. Networking hardware is vastly superior to that, and has been for some considerable time.
Fitting the dorms with 10Mb ethernet is basically saying "we don't want to waste money storing these old cables, and this router is a pathetic piece of trash we couldn't pay anyone to take away, so we'll make you have it, AND charge you for the privilage of having our scraps and left-overs, either in rent or gratitude. Grovel before us, pathetic scum, for you shall sing our praises for giving you this scrap-iron and calling it a benefit!"
Re:T3 == Bad Grades (Score:2)
Ah
Bandwidth at Duke (Score:2)
This has been something of an issue here at Duke for a little while. For years there has been a tradition of Duke students camping out on the front lawn of the athletics building for admission into the men's basketball games. Duke has just completed some additional construction to the athletics complex. While they were at it, they ran cabling everywhere and have added ethernet jacks at the base of all lamp posts on that lawn so students who are camping out can be on the network.
It was also interesting to read how universities are trying to deal with students trading illegal MP3s and the like. Duke administrators have been struggling with this issue as well, especially after the recent crackdown at Carnegie-Mellon.
Sargent
New Tech Reclusivity - blast from the past (Score:5)
He used to spend time with us here in the market place, but ever since Guttenberg invented printed books, he's become a recluse.
He just sits there, burning perfectly good candles at night, reading and mumbling about 'feeding his head'.
You know, I don't think he's even bothered to plow his field this season. Surely, these books are the work of the devil.
Re:The Bandwidth Arms Race? (Score:2)
--
"I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."
Re:What about Canada? (Score:2)
This inevitably causes problems, of course, with shared resources, such as QLink (the student unix server - 16k accounts on one box). And it causes intermittent network degradation, although not as much as you'd think.
--
Re:Don't mean to pick on anyone BUT . . . (Score:2)
You didn't miss much...I have found that the social structure here is very similiar to high school.
Hmmm... I actually find it odd that you'd feel that way.
I spent 4 1/2 years living in a dorm, the last 1 1/2 after the dorm was wired for ethernet (which I helped do). And I would never have said it was like high school in any manner - about as different as you can get. Mainly because those groups of people that didn't want to be in HS and just caused trouble weren't present in college.
Just about ALL of the bad stuff about high school, to me at least, was gone from college. You didn't have the people going after you if you were different. Professors treated everyone like adults, not like kids they were paid to babysit. Busywork, which is so popular in public schools, was darn near non-existent.
And I'd encourage everyone to at least give the dorms a shot, especially with the internet access. There's nothing like having all of your friends on a couple floors in the same building, being able to all get together at a moment's notice. Having rather little cleaning, cooking, etc, to worry about.
I would have liked to have stayed there a few more years...
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Re:I'll be impressed (Score:2)
100Mbps is becoming the standard.
1Gbps is far from standard, it's rather expensive, and far from economical to deploy for anything but backbone and high-performance computing applications.
Average pc-pc transfer speeds over FD 100mbps ethernet is about 70mbps, if only two stations are talking. This is often constrained by both the OS, the media overhead, the theory of relativity (the interframe gap on 100base is the same as on 10base, i believe (9.6 microseconds) which equates to 96 bits in 10base, and 9600 in 100base (several ethernet frames as opposed to a fraction of one frame) so efficiency goes down (when 2 stations are the only ones talking, as in a fully switched network). Of course, with multiple stations, the usage can approach 100%.
The main purpose of 100base is to handle more stations at a higher rate.
And I don't know why I'm saying it.. but it occurs to me that many don't realize that the 10baseT or 100BaseT doesn't refer exactly to 'transfer rate', but the baseband signalling rate of the media itself.
Bits are clocked into the ethernet at either
Or rather, 2 hosts can *never* transmit data at 10m\Mbps between them using 10base (I believe it is around 9.8Mbps) and around 86Mbps for 100base.
Re:slightly disturbing (Score:3)
i'm in college, and while the high bandwidth is great, all it means to me is that slashdot and the 5 other sites i visit regularly load up faster. sometimes it also means that downloading that > 10 meg file isn't that big a deal.
those people whose lives are being defined by this "bandwidth glut" should perhaps re-evaluate how they're spending their free time
Why?
Is there something inherently wrong with spending a large amount of time playing and socializing through the net? What if someones college experience is defined by the # of sports available to them? Or the number of Artistic clubs? Or the number of resteraunts? Is there anything more or less wrong with that than if their experience is defined by their bandwidth? Some of us do spend 16-18 hours a day on the net, because that's what we do at work, and at home for fun. If it isn't physically damaging to us then what's wrong with that that we should be re-evaluating our free time?
Kintanon
Re:What, me a high speed junkie? (Score:2)
How did you ftp at 80Mbps on a fractional T1? (T1 being 1.544 Mbps, and fractional being some fraction of that (usually 384Kbps, but who knows).
Re:I'll be impressed (Score:4)
Everyone would not be caught dead using multicasting to watch the Shuttle launches. In fact, Everyone hasn't even -heard- of multicasting, videocasting, audiocasting, whiteboards, shared text editors or shared polls.
Everyone uses Windows, rather than X, so doesn't even -have- to think about display redirects, especially when playing XTank.
Everyone has their own printer, so doesn't have to send those 100-page end-of-semester reports to the laserjet down the hall, which include large, high-res graphics.
Everyone uses floppies, so doesn't need Samba, CODA, NFS, or any other such stuff.
Everyone restricts FTPs to 4K UUencoded BASIC programs for saying "Hello World". Everyone doesn't understand who would download 100 megabytes of DB/2, or the sources for X11R6.4. Large downloads are for prawnography, surely, so downloading industrial-strength software just doesn't make any sense. PGCC 2.95.3, the Linux kernel, Kerberos, Emacs, amateur astronomy software such as AIPS, geography systems... Who could possibly want any of these? They're... USEFUL! Especially in relevent classes. Why would anyone wany something they could -learn- with, when ICQ is so much better!
Everyone would never dream of running a Student Society web server or FTP server. In fact, Everyone hates student activities, as they take him away from ICQ. Actually contributing something to student life is beyone Everyone. After all, Everyone is out for himself.
Everyone would never think of hooking up the dorm phone system to the computer, to supply the campus with zero-cost phone calls. That's so... ...unselfish!
"Everyone", in my books, is a pathetic, weazeling moron, and any person who thinks at waist-height and believes ICQ is the best thing ever, is an unenviable toad. Computers do more than play at teletype for real-life cowards who daren't just go to the next room and say what they have to say to the person.
stay in school to keep net access ? (Score:2)
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:2)
(Quake Score)^(Netrek Rank) * GPA = Constant
Consciousness deformer (Score:3)
This is so true (Score:2)
______________________________________
um, sigs should be heard and not seen?
These comments remind me of the drug culture (Score:2)
culture. Interesting isn't it, a network
connection has replaced a dealer connection.
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:2)
So for the type of person that reads slashdot, it tends to be internet related, video games, porn, irc, whatever. That happened to one of my friends and it was happening to me. I moved into an apartment in fall '96 on campus that had a new t1. My friends and I were playing quake all day. My grades were suffering. After a year of this, I simply cleaned up my act. Studied harder. Started reading books. Got out of the apartment more. Ate better. Got exercise.
My friend didn't change and he still hasn't, currently he's addicted to ultima online and has no hope of gradauting from college anytime soon, and no hope at all if he doesn't change.
My point is this: the fact that high bandwidth connects are available isn't a problem for society. This is the way people are whether it's genetic or cultural. The drug issue is similar. It's not a supply/demand problem. If you want people to stop, you have to give them a reason to. I found one, I simply didn't want to be a loser with no job, no interests, and no life.
Re:Other implications - follow college trends. (Score:2)
If anything, I see less coverage of the MP3 situation these days.
-jwb
You all have it *lucky*. (Score:2)
In a way, I'm rather bemused by all the talk of wired dorms, and people being required to stay in dorms their freshman year...
At the university I attended (University of Louisville), you literally cannot get campus housing, period, if you live within thirty miles of the campus--so in essence, if you live ANYWHERE in Jefferson County, KY you can't get campus housing. The CLOSEST one can hope to get to campus housing is a co-op (read: indentured slavery) program with UPS for housing near UPS as long as one does co-op work for Oops Inc. :P
AFAIK the dorms at U of L are probably not wired, either (of course, we poor city-students would never know that...we aren't allowed dorms, because they are short of dorm space to the point where many houses are rented out for student apartments near the campus...)...then again, it IS a state university that seems to concentrate on its athletic program to the detriment of what was once one of the better engineering schools in the US (Speed Scientific School)...
Fortunately, the school has X-terms damn near everywhere in the Speed School areas :) so most folks just hop on the X-terms...
Then again, Louisville isn't particularly wired at all, though. Even though we have no less than three big ISPs in the area, one which is supposedly going to be a backbone site soon, the fastest options are Insight@Home (which as we all know, @Home is about to be UDPd because their abuse department mail goes to /dev/null, so THAT sucks) and HellSouth ADSL (which can only be installed if you are less than 5 miles from a switching station, and if there is no fiber between you and the switching station, and only if you are running Win95/98 or MacOS 8, and only if there is no "old copper" between you and the switching station, and only if you are willing to pay $400 for installation and $80/month (regular line cost of $20/month + $60/month for ADSL), and only if you are willing to pay MORE per month if you don't want to use Hellsouth.net [in Louisville they actually charge you MORE if you want to go with one of the local ISPs that support ADSL like iglou.com--and the average cost of ISPs here is around $17.50-$20.00/month, but Hellsouth specifically charges extra if you don't want to use Hellsouth.net], and only if the stars are right and you are willing to give your firstborn child...). The cable, we're fucked on till 2006 (because our beloved city and county officials [NOT] signed exclusive monopoly agreements with what was then Storer Cable for 25 years, and the cable franchises run out respectively in 2002 and 2006 (if memory serves) so we can't get anyone else to get cable service from) and with ADSL we're as badly and permanently fucked as anyone unfortunate enough to be in Hellsouth country (they charge out the arse so they can sell frac-T1 lines; they have pretty well locked everyone else out of the local residential phone market by charging telcos the same rates they would charge businesses to lease lines (which are among the most expensive in the US, and which make it literally impossible for ANY company to provide local phone service cheaper than Hellsouth unless they lay the line directly to one's house) and do other crap like charging MORE if you don't want to go with Hellsouth because you have an ISP already [so it's the same crap as you'd have dealing with Insight@Home, except it is far likelier that you can actually get Insight@Home installed and running] and illegally offering data services before they've even opened up the local phone monopoly (which I don't see them doing until a) someone who can lay lines like Sprint comes in, b) a class-action lawsuit is filed against Hellsouth, or c) the FCC finally gets the cojones up to give Hellsouth the spanking it so badly deserves)...).
(Did I mention that monopolies in general truly suck and actually DECREASE options for consumers? I pray every day that someone comes in to break the phone monopoly (and I don't care whom--Sprint, Unidial, two kids with cans and a string--I ain't choosy at this point) so I don't have to deal with the heap of incompetence that makes US Worst actually look GOOD that is Hellsouth, and so I don't have to wait for @Home to be spanked into submission and them having to open the cable up without making me pay for @Home as an ISP as well as a cable feed (I have my own local ISP, thank you, and I'd rather use them, thanks)...)
Re:slightly disturbing (Score:2)
you might feel that i'm nit-picking, but many,many people will attest that the above problems are all too real.
and that's not even mentioning that the internet is a great big trap for people who are prone to addictive behaviour.
does that satisfy your question?
Only partially. In that yes remaining in one position for long periods of time is physically harmful, but as far as that goes watching TV involves less movement than SLEEPING for cryin' out loud. So that in itself need not be harmful, especially in a proper environment. My home computer area will soon be the extreme end of comfort, hopefully meaning I will only leave it to eat, piss, sleep, and have sex. OF course, I will probably continue my martial arts studies simply because I enjoy them as well as everything else I do. But I'm doing my best to eliminate all of the physically harmful aspects of my computer usage. Especially since I like to keep my wrists operational.>:)
I do understand your point about addiction, but that problem isn't strictly limited to the net, nor is it the worst in reference to the net.
Kintanon
Not sure why anyone would care about this (Score:2)
The thing is, you can spend the rest of your life at some boring job surfing the web and diddling through email for a few hours a day. Or you can do the same thing while hiding from the wife and kid at home, saying that you're working on something important. But why someone in college would want to be glued to a monitor is beyond me.
What about all the cool shit you can do... (Score:2)
If anyone else is in my situation, you owe it to yourself to check out these pages, if you haven't already done so:
http://www.vpn.outer.net/2e/vpnssh.html [outer.net] - This site is basically a re-interpretation of the SSH VPN FAQ below, but it's better-written, IMO, and was extremely helpful. I followed its instructions and everything worked beautifully the first time.
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/VPN- 4.html [linuxdoc.org] - Another helpful site, the original VPN HOWTO, has the proper location of some of the tools you'll need.
Good luck, and have fun busting huge, gaping holes in your school's firewall. :)
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Ivy vs Wired (Score:2)
The University of Michigan, who you'd think would be way out in front with a campus-wide wireless LAN, has very spotty coverage and a couple of different wireless networks. There's one network that extends over the space of 1.5 square blocks. They're probably not going to make the coverage area larger because the transceivers are expensive. Max speed I ever observed on this wireless LAN was 400 Kbits/second--nice, but 3x slower than people would get on a bad day with a standard 10bT hooked into a nearly-ubiquitous RJ-45 port.
Security might also be a concern with a wireless net. Wireless sets should have encryption built in and done in hardware, but that adds cost. And when a university sets up a large wireless net, a $10 difference in the price of each transceiver can make a big difference. Better hope those smart CS kids aren't feeling antisocial and h4x0rish...
The future is most definitely wireless; the future is also Not Here Yet. Give it a couple of years...
Re:Calling entrepreneurs! (Score:3)
It is more expensive than any other place around, and untill now the only draw (not for me, for other students) was the insane parties.
Now if only our network wasn't poorly maintained and run by M$ software, not to mention 100+ users on one T1 (still better than oversold local DSL).
And hey... 100+ on a T1 is better than 25000+ on 4 T1's!!! (the dorms' current staple). Besides that the school has to fight some stupid burrocratic network called K-20 net... sure UW has it nice, but we're fed by their bandwidth... so we get the short end of that stick!
When we move out after we graduate a T1-T3 connection is just about prerequisite to any living arrangements. (heck, I'd gladly manage the lan for free to make sure it's done right!)
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:2)
Please don't take this as a flame, I don't mean it so. It just bugs me when people tune out the outside world around them. To me it shows a lack of confidence in your ability to present yourself. Then again, I'm juding you before I know you, which I apologize for.
There are things you will NEVER (yes, never is pretty strong word. Let's just say "never in our time") be able to do on the net. Smell roses, go up the eiffel tower, drink a German beer in a german pub, etc.
Here's a broader question. Lots of people are tuning out the "real" world and focusing online. Is this a real social trend, or is this just a few people who have gone "astray", for lack of a better term.
Go In the Dorms (Score:2)
Sorry you feel that way (Score:2)
I met a friend or 2 (lasting), lots of acquaintances, 3 or so real jerks, and an SO with whom I've been >1yr.
The dorms can be hell, once in a while, but sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's the best thing you ever did.
If you;re having problems, TALK TO YOUR RA. There are plenty of people who can help you with your problems. Universities want to make sure no one kills himself over a drunken-continually roomie or anything. Counselors, Residential Assistants, a lot of people ae available to help you.
It's true for me... (Score:2)
The whole "high-speed access addiction" is true, too. I'm not addicted to the Internet, but I am addicted (in a different way) to high-speed access, in that when I don't have it I go through a sort of withdrawal. Over Christmas break I was back at my parents' house using their 28K modem. Find something I want to download: "A meg and a half? No sweat! (click) (a few seconds pass). What? Whaddaya mean time remaining: ten minutes? ... Oh yeah, I forgot." Fortunately for me, by a year and a half from now (when I graduate) market forces will probably have gotten ADSL installed in most large towns, and I'll have a decent chance of getting it.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
It would make me *more* likely to leave the kbd (Score:2)
Of course, that's because they charge us for local calls over here...
--
I _wish_. (Score:2)
The cable system there was a private system, just for the apartment complex, and they were having problems keeping the complex full. So, our suggestion to them was to set up a network for cable modems, or some other high speed access. We backed it up with various articles on how hotels and apartments were able to charge more if they had good connetivity, etc. They ignored us.
Within a year, the main cable company in town had their system up and running. Shortly after that, GTE was up with DSL. (and our complex was 19k feet from the switch...we just barely passed spec for ISDN.)
Needless to say, none of us live there anymore.
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:2)
Please don't take this as a flame, I don't mean it so. It just bugs me when people tune out the outside world around them. To me it shows a lack of confidence in your ability to present yourself. Then again, I'm juding you before I know you, which I apologize for.
There are things you will NEVER (yes, never is pretty strong word. Let's just say "never in our time") be able to do on the net. Smell roses, go up the eiffel tower, drink a German beer in a german pub, etc.
Here's a broader question. Lots of people are tuning out the "real" world and focusing online. Is this a real social trend, or is this just a few people who have gone "astray", for lack of a better term.
Hmm, I never said I shunned people if they weren't in my M:TG group. I said that most of my personal contact is at things like M:TG tournaments and Conventions where I know people share my interests.
And no, I don't have to deal with spammers, or lamers on IRC. I have this neat little function called Ignore, in my IRC program, and a similar function of my e-mail prog called Delete. Which completely silences anything I don't want to bother with.
As for things you can't do online, I understand that. I love to walk around outside, alone or with my fiance, stroll through the woods, sit on a fallen tree over a stream. But I don't like to do those things with hordes of other people around me. I don't need a lot of people around me to enjoy those things.
As for not being able to present myself in person, I did quite well in extemporaneous speaking a couple of years ago, and I get along with the people I do meet. But I prefer not to meet a lot of people at random. I like to meet people that I know have something in common with me. That's why even without the 'net I'd never go to a singles bar, or any kind of bar. I despise alcohol for one thing, and I tend to be easily irritated by drunk people.
The whole point of using the 'net for my main social contact is that I have more control over who I come into contact with. I don't have to put up with people begging for change while wearing leather coats and levis while I run around in my 3 year old lettermans jacket and some 8$ noname jeans. I just like being to control my social interaction.
Oh, and I find it hilarious and a bit odd that my original post was moderated Funny...
Kintanon
Re:high speed reclusivity (Score:2)
But, you ARE missing out on another side to life. This is the side that involves going to parties, nightclubs, pubs, meeting strangers, going outdoors, camping, exercising your body as well as your mind. Don't dismiss this lifestyle as inferior, give it a decent go, you may be surprised.
I don't LIKE parties, or nightclubs, or pubs. I don't enjoy meeting strangers, they always ask me for money. I spend plenty of time camping and outdoors, I grew up on 15 acrs of forest. But I don't need to socialize with people to go camping. I also keep up with my martial arts training in the comfort of my own home. I'm in better shape than most people I know. I just maintain the choice of 'Do I want to put up with these idiots at this store in order to purchase this widget, or do I want to just order it?' I don't HAVE to come into contact with anyone I don't want to. And I LOVE IT!
But I still go places that I want to go, like JohnCon, a convetion at John Hopkins University where I will be involved in kicking serious ass at Soul Caliber on a 24 foot screen, playing D&D, Magic, Chess, and any number of other things, and socializing with people who have similar interests. I'm not isolated, I'm just isolated from people I don't want to talk to.>:)
Kintanon