High Speed Net Access Defining College Life

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.

Comments

Other implications

[generic-man]

Just think about what will happen when broadband access is as widespread in the "real world" as it is in corporate/educational America. Free, high-quality phone calls and videoconferencing. Lightning-fast transfer speeds. Industries such as the long-distance telecom industry are already changing to meet this demand. Notice how phone rates are trending towards a flat rate per month plus nominal charges for calls.

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.

Re:Other implications

[cdlu]

All yours with a private OC-48 connection!

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); }return(0);}

Pirating on school networks

[NeuroKoan]

Ha, this is good because today in my school's newspaper there was a frontpage article on pirating that goes on in our Resident Halls Networks. They want to stop these pirates but they can't reach them all but one way of curbing them is to NOT improve the school network. "The students are not using the school network primarly for school work" I think was the main arguement on why the staff network was going to be upgraded before the Residents Halls networks.

high speed reclusivity

[BadERA]

studies are beginning to point towards a relationship between time spent on the 'net and a loss of mental or physical well being ... from experience, I can attest that high speed access in a college environment is like a drug -- you've got your gamers, your chatters, your pr0nners, etc. etc. etc. and the newfound freedom of college seems to encourage abuse of this access ... is society as a whole headed for trouble, or, worst case scenario, a disaster, when the day comes that people prefer electronic contact over personal/physical ... ?

Re:high speed reclusivity

[Kintanon]

studies are beginning to point towards a relationship between time spent on the 'net and a loss of mental or physical well being ... from experience, I can attest that high speed access in a college environment is like a drug -- you've got your gamers, your chatters, your pr0nners, etc. etc. etc. and the newfound freedom of college seems to encourage abuse of this access ... is society as a whole headed for trouble, or, worst case scenario, a disaster, when the day comes that people prefer electronic contact over personal/physical ... ?


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

Re:high speed reclusivity

[jd]

Studies show what they want to show. Psychologists are notorious for experiments with no control group, no variable checks, and very poor random selection. As a result, studies of that kind are invariably influenced more by who's footing the bill than by the people being studied.

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.

Re:high speed reclusivity

[jd]

Law of High Speed Dorm Networks:

(Quake Score)^(Netrek Rank) * GPA = Constant

Re:high speed reclusivity

[MillMan]

You're right...it can be like a drug. I mean exactly like a drug. When you go off on your own to college, the "real you" begins to emerge. Your parents have little influence on you at that point, they can't push you where they want you to go anymore. So people that simply aren't motivated for college work tend to wander off into other activities...a regular job, drugs, video games, whatever.

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:high speed reclusivity

[bakreule]

I'm trying to keep an open mind about your views but something inside me is just screaming that this is wrong. I understand how computers can become addictive (I left a party one time just so I wouldn't miss my clan game of TF Quake.), but to actively shun people in the "outside world" is so bad for your soul and your health. To not communicate with people just because they aren't in your m:tg group is blatently juding people. You assume that you won't like them just because they don't play m:tg. I don't care what anyone says, if you can't communicate face-to-face with someone, there's a problem. You say that you don't have to deal with "losers" anymore, yet you deal with stupid people and spammers on IRC, email, etc. You haven't gotten rid of contact with them, they've just taken on new form. Can you honestly tell me that everyone you contact on IRC (or however you get your social contact), or even here on /. doesn't have some kind of faults, just like the people in the "real" world??

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.

Re:high speed reclusivity

[Kintanon]

I'm trying to keep an open mind about your views but something inside me is just screaming that this is wrong. I understand how computers can become addictive (I left a party one time just so I wouldn't miss my clan game of TF Quake.), but to actively shun people in the "outside world" is so bad for your soul and your health. To not communicate with people just because they aren't in your m:tg group is blatently juding people. You assume that you won't like them just because they don't play m:tg. I don't care what anyone says, if you can't communicate face-to-face with someone, there's a problem. You say that you don't have to deal with "losers" anymore, yet you deal with stupid people and spammers on IRC, email, etc. You haven't gotten rid of contact with them, they've just taken on new form. Can you honestly tell me that everyone you contact on IRC (or however you get your social contact), or even here on /. doesn't have some kind of faults, just like the people in the "real" world??

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

[Kintanon]

I also used to believe that there was nothing wrong with living an electronic based life. And I guess there isn't.


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

High Speed Access

[Lalhira]

It is true I live in San Jose and go to SJSU. Many of my friends have failed classes because of all night crusades to play StarCraft over the high speed access.

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.

dorm ethernet

[Anonymous Coward]

revolutionizing college life: such things as routine streaming video and free long distance phone calls

...and most importantly, HIGH-SPEED PORN

pluses of internet usage

[dboyles]

My Ethernet connection is really the only thing keeping me on campus. I run a relatively small server (actually, my IP is the number 3 user of bandwidth on campus, behind 2 official school servers) from my desktop machine, and it's a lot of fun. And if I need anything - an ISO of RH6.1, any program, etc., it's right there at my fingertips. I use the internet to check the weather before I go to class, to check for my assignments, to converse with all of my friends, and just to have fun.

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.

What do you mean, not *cable* modem?

[sudotcsh]

After reading the article, I feel as though I know all those people. A lot of my friends live in the dorms here, and I've seen many of them switch dorms just for the beloved cat5 jacks in the walls. I don't live on campus, though, so I have to get a cable modem to my house. When I come to work (I work in a hospital playing with Linux boxen) I've got cable access. When I go to school I have their access (at least cable speed if not better).

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

[tokengeekgrrl]

I am more intrigued by schools that have wireless LANs that allow you to be anywhere on campus with a laptop and hook up to the network - an edge for schools that don't have the coveted Ivy status. I especially like it because it allows for the convenience of technology without the isolation from socialization which I think makes up for the lack of speed in comparison to DSL, (I have a wireless modem on my laptop).

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

Re:Ivy vs Wired

[CJ Hooknose]

wireless LANs that allow you to be anywhere on campus with a laptop and hook up to the network - an edge for schools that don't have the coveted Ivy status.

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...

Definitely becoming a factor (I feel old)

[devphil]

Our dorm rooms had telephone lines made out of human hair. Dialing up to campus involved horrible line noise that would spew all over your text editor. It was more efficient just to walk up to campus (through the snow or rain or whatever), sit in the labs, and walk back.

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, /all/ of my connections were high speed because I didn't have to compete with eight million fucking yuppies trying to stream radio stations from the other coast.)

Calling entrepreneurs!

[Tau Zero]

Heck of an opportunity for an apartment developer, isn't it?
--

Re:Calling entrepreneurs!

[TeknoDragon]

We have ethernet in our appartment complex near campus (wsu - #1 most wired state university).

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!)

Why not eGeneration?

[D3]

I mean really, we have the eBusiness, eCommerce, etc.

Because that's not "funny"

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Me Generation. I Generation. Get it?
---

slightly disturbing

[x mani x]

is it just me, or is it not at least mildly disturbing that someone's college life can be _defined_ by the bandwidth of their network connections?

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 :)

Re:slightly disturbing

[Kintanon]

is it just me, or is it not at least mildly disturbing that someone's college life can be _defined_ by the bandwidth of their network connections?

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:slightly disturbing

[Kintanon]

however, i would categorize spending 16-18 hours a day using a computer as potentially harmful behaviour. just physically, it's not healthy to be in a sitting position for that many hours, as well as using a keyboard/mouse for that long, as well as being exposed to a high-frequency CRT for that long, etc, etc. psychologically, we really don't know at this point what kind of effect living an internet-based social life can have on a person - and to me that's reason enough to avoid doing it (excessively).

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

It's only great when it works...

[Darlok]

High speed net access is great! The only problem with doing it in an academic setting is that "Academic System" does not equal "Production System." Why is that important? Well, when you're so wired that people integrate it into their academic lives and it becomes required for them to complete homework, get course notes, and even register and receive grades, its stability is vitally important! Let's face it, you can browse the web all you want with lightning speed, but at a University, it should be a reliable, stable, teaching and research tool.

I'm probably going to ruffle some feathers by mentioning this in a non-CWRU (Case Western Reserve University) 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 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'll be impressed

[jd]

When college dorms have 100Mb ethernet for the slowest segments, and 1Gb ethernet (at least) for everything else.

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:I'll be impressed

[mindstrm]

10Mbps is not pitifully slow.
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 .1 microsecond intervals or .001 microsecond intervals.

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:I'll be impressed

[jd]

"Everyone" (a distant cousin of "Anyone", who is the long-lost aunt of "Someone") uses ICQ exclusively, of course.

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.

Re:T3 == Bad Grades

[aphrael]

freely admit that the free high-speed connects caused me to miss my share of classes playing Quake and also kept me up late at nights running an mp3 server

Ah .... And 5 years ago my friends were getting thrown out for failing classes because of time spent on MUDS. Same thing, just less good graphics. :)

Bandwidth at Duke

[Sargent1]

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

[jabber]

You know what, I just don't know about that Christopher fellow.

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?

[proj_2501]

Wow, your school has more bandwidth than THE ENTIRE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND!
--
"I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."

Re:What about Canada?

[twit]

Likewise for my alma mater, Queen's University at Kingston. Queen's has had network ports in the residences for four years now - maybe five, but I think four. A friend of mine ran the program during those early years.

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 . . .

[Saige]

I still regret not living in a dorm my first year or two of university

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... :)
---

Re:What, me a high speed junkie?

[mindstrm]

Just a question..
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).

stay in school to keep net access ?

[Ojing Eo]

1990: (pre-ISP days) enroll in grad school to keep next access we became addicted to as undergrads. 2000: Enroll in summer school/extra senior year to keep high speed access. What sort of withdrawl symptoms do these high speed residents have when they go home for the holidays ? Ojing. ojingeo@yahoo.com

Consciousness deformer

[Jart]

So I've been on the computer for a while writing code. Dissatisfaction bug (you know, that bug without which we would never do anything) says "waaa!", so I briefly consider my options and decide to play a video game. Play a video game a while. Bug says "waaa!". Consider options. Go on IRC. Do IRC for a while. Bug goes "waaa!". Consider options. Go back to coding.... WHAT'S WRON WITH THIS PICTURE? I'll tell you. How come, when I'm considering my oprtions, I don't choose a non-computer option? Huh? It's like being on the computer for a long time *molds* my consciousness into a shape more suited for being on the computer, and less suited to doing other stuff. Being on the computer for a long time makes me more into a computer person. Good or Ill? Ill I say. Machines, tho vastly palatable and convenient, are finite. Reality, nature, people, etc... is infinite. Computers point straight into the land of dreams. Dreams are hollow.

This is so true

[Evro]

My girlfriend was accepted to Columbia's Teacher's College. She told me there was no way she would attend if she did not get housing (else she would have to make a 4 hour commute from eastern long island to class) and now that she HAS housing, she has found out that the building she will be living in may not have Ethernet. That, she has told me, will be the deciding factor in whether or not she accepts housing. What is the point of a dorm, she asks, if it doesn't have a fat pipe running through it? And I wholeheartedly agree. The ONLY advantage I see of living on-campus is the Bandwidth. Well, also financial aid can cover the cost of on-campus housing, so those are two things. But I would much rather live off-campus, in a private apartment. But the price of xDSL/Cable/ISDN/other-high-bandwidth is so prohibitive... and the ethernet (sadly, only 10mbps in my dorm... then again I think the entire school here only has 2 T1s en total) is so addictive. Pages often load faster from remote servers than they do from my hard drive, defeating the purpose of the hd cache!

______________________________________
um, sigs should be heard and not seen?

These comments remind me of the drug culture

[Jimhotep]

These comments remind me of the drug
culture. Interesting isn't it, a network
connection has replaced a dealer connection.

Re:Other implications - follow college trends.

[Jeffrey Baker]

Your statement about MP3 reporting is not true. Wired was reporting on MP3 from the very beginning. When I was running the Tek web site in 1996, articels about Tek appeared in Wired News, Village Voice, EETimes, and elsewhere. The reporters were all over it.

If anything, I see less coverage of the MP3 situation these days.

-jwb

You all have it *lucky*.

[Windigo The Feral (N]

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)...)

Not sure why anyone would care about this

[Junks Jerzey]

When I was in college, not too long ago, but before the web was big, I had a computer in my room. Before college I was an obsessive hacker, writing all sorts code all the time. And after college I did the same thing. But when I was in college, I always felt like there was so much to do, so many things to try, so many practical jokes to pull, so many people to run into, that I hardly ever turned on that computer except to do classwork.

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...

[Wakko Warner]

...when you've got a linux box sitting on a cable modem at *home* _and_ you've got ethernet in your _dorm_? That's my situation now. I really wanted a simple way to be able to access the files and stuff on my home network. Ssh simply would not do. That is, until I found the SSH-VPN FAQ. I've now got a secure, *fast* connection to all my home machines. I can mount filesystems there on my machine here, easily login to everything, and I don't have to worry about anyone on this (broadcast) network sniffing my passwords (and believe me, it's simple to do.)

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 - 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 - 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

Go In the Dorms

[sumana]

I did not go through hell in the dorms. It was an experience that I'm glad I had. I met my SO (been together >1 yr now) there, and yes, it progressd quickly, for some of the reasons you state. And my roommie wasn't too bad, although my SO's was. I made friends, quickly, or at least got o know pepople, which is important your first few weeks. Community-building. Our floor did stuff together --- yes, there was cliquiness, but also lasting friendships-and-more. Dorm life can suck sometimes but more often than not (from what I know) it can shine.

Sorry you feel that way

[sumana]

One reason universities may require freshmen to live in the dorms is to get them into the campus community. (I read an economic expl. above that makes sense, but apart from that...) I got to know people, and most of them were fun. I woulda been a lonely, possibly mentally ill person without meeting a lot of people I could hang out with. Getting-to-know-you activites are WORTH IT (at least here, at Berkeley).

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...

[Robin Hood]

Well, it's true for me. When I graduate in a year and a half, I'm going to be basing my housing decisions on whether I can get ADSL in the area. Now naturally that's not going to be my only criterion, and price is going to be a larger factor that Internet access until I get a decently-paying job (which I'm well aware may not be for several years, I'm not that naive), but it's certain that between two similarly-priced apartments, one of which is in an ADSL area and the other one of which isn't, I'm going to choose the one with the high-speed Net access.

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

[Paul Crowley]

...because I wouldn't be sitting there trying to get as much done online as possible during the time I was dialled out; I'd just stop and start as I pleased.

Of course, that's because they charge us for local calls over here...
--

I _wish_.

[oneiros27]

2 years ago, I was living in a nice little apartment complex in Lexington, KY. It wasn't too bad, and there were a few of us (5) geeks who all worked at an ISP (which conveniently, wasn't a local call).

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.