Slashdot Mirror
Constructing A Geek House
Tilde~ writes: "Ever since the first time i read about a geek house, i've always wanted to live in one... very badly... to share an internal network with several like minded individuals just seemed like a perfect...
What i could never do... was find one. So, for those people out there who are living in the know, how does one go about founding a geek house? And are there any individuals in the atlanta area with the same dream?"
There's plenty of opportunity to be a hacker in a home or make use of products designed by hackers. At the same time you can make a positive impact on the environment, or at least less negative one than your neighbours. Consider the homes at Entertia, they're designed to make it possible to live off the grid, they do their heating and cooling via non-photovoltaic solar energy. The designer of the concept behind these homes is somebody I'd be proud to see use the term 'hacker' to describe themselves. Much more proud than seeing the Kevin Mitnick's of the world describe themselves as such.
There are other alternative energy or renewable resource methods too, this just happens to be one I'm seriously considering for my own housing needs. A home is a system, there's got to be better systems than just a simple thermostat, or even standard electronic thermostats. Put your coding skills to good use and design a heating and cooling system with mechanically inclined friends.
Sounds like you have an embryonic Geek House -- perhaps that means you qualify as proto-geeks. :-)
:-)
I think the Real Deal has at least one (preferably about four) cat5 drops in every room and at least a small networking closet. A well-funded Geek House would have a switch as a network backbone, a good-quality firewall that does NAT/PAT, local WINS, DHCP, and DNS servers (can all be on the same box of course) and some sort of high speed connection to the outside world. It would also have a server with installation programs for all the house network games.
Target functionality: any geek can walk in, wire his computer in using DHCP, and be off and running. No CDs or other admin attention required. This allows you to throw impromptu LAN parties, a staple in any modern geek house.
If you have a house full of college-age geeks, you may also want to have a fridge with plentiful alchoholic beverages. But geeks of all ages will appreciate a good stock of liquid caffeine-infusion mechanisms. Coffee is relatively inexpensive but usually doesn't go over with the under-18 crowd. Colas work for almost any guest. If you have an extremely well-heeled geek house, you can even provide munchies, but this will impact the pocketbook nearly as much as a bad computer-games habit.
It is generally a good idea to have maid service, too.
You need the following things:
* a big fat pipe that everyone pays for (DSL or cable is fine). And I'm not talking about a bucket bong here.
* an agreed administrator for the firewall and internal infrastructure (dhcp, mail relay, etc). This person then gets to choose the One True Operating System(tm) for the firewall and the rest of you can get stuffed. Rotate on a three month basis to reduce friction
* bins a fair way away from the kitchen or dining room (the pizza boxes get gross when people "forget" to take the rubbish out)
* a large fridge to take the booze (this is not optional for Australian-infested geek houses)
* lots of fridge magnets for the pizza menus
* A WaveLAN gateway for resident and itinerant geeks, and lots of long cat5 cables for those who are WaveLAN challenged. Spare WaveLAN cards
* rules on significant others staying more than about three nights a week. Even when everyone in the house is earning more than six figures.
* rules on who buys the next bottle of single malt scotch, cognac, brandy, even *shhudder* bourbon (there's nothing worse than using a marker on a Glenlivet or Glenmorangie)
* Sound padding for the walls when people spank the monkey. Got to have privacy, man.
* A damn fine hifi with a large CD and DVD collection. Most geeks will supply this one without too many problems
* Big ass TV. None of this 34 cm crap. Most geeks disdain TV publically, but are closet watchers. Example, ask who the Android is and why they identify with him. You'll get an answer from 99.99% of all True Geeks(tm).
* Cable or satellite TV with as many channels as the house can afford
* UPS for the machine room. Get an extractor if gets warm like ours does.
Tips for living with a geek
Get a cleaner at least once every two weeks. This works fine for me.
Get a gardener if you have a garden. Geeks do not garden on a regular enough basis. Things will die and overgrow and look messy and you can get evicted.
Work on the chores. Geeks are naturally lazy and refuse to do the dishes if they do the rubbish or vice versa. Don't mention the bathroom
Kick the mess back into the responsible person's bedroom. The shared areas shouldn't be cluttered with people's crap unless it's really geeky and can be used or admired by all.
Andrew van der Stock
It seems to me that a geek house,
or as we refer to it, a house o' l33t,
just sort of happens...
Two of us moved into an apartment, networked 2 computers.
Some friends moved in, brought more equipment...
with each addition, it grew, in an organic fashion.
Now cat 5 runs throughout the entire apartment, to every corner.
The moral is, don't set _out_ to make a geek house, it will come to you eventually,
just build it up peice by peice, and one day you'll notice: damn this place is sweet.
I'm going to die from EM radiation, and I _like it_.
-Slackergod
First these geeks lure in young attactive women with 56K analog connections, frozen pizza and anime re-runs on the Sci-fi channel. They give these women the first slice and download for free. After that, the overwelming urge to "be a geek" sets in.
Soon these women are trying the "hard stuff", Full blown unsat T1, "extra toppings" pizza and warezed unreleased anime from japan.
They know having a full dedicated T1 to their selves and doing nothing but using it for playing Q3. They know this is wrong, they know they should setup mirror of free software, but the hold is to strong on them, they want 100% of the fiber optic for fragging.
Then reality sets in, they must move out for some reason or another. Sure they can get 56K analog at their new place, but it isn't the same. Sure cable is avaiable, but the shared laggy connection doesn't give them the same rush a full T used to give them. They start shaking and waking up in cold sweets, they need bandwidth.
They then start trying to find their "fix" outside their current location, but going to sleezy locations like "cyber cafes" and "libraries" even "schools" and "college" to get their bandwidth fix, but it isn't the same.
It isn't the same rush, it isn't the same bandwidth, they get depressed and angry. They look for thigns to fill the void that was the bandwidth, but nothing is the same...
This is the reality of "geek houses"
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
When you're thinking about a geek HOUSE, wiring is probably the most important (and sometimes frustrating) concern. I used this link when I was helping out a friend... and we were both pretty clueless when it came to how to start. Tons of links on this page and it really helped us out... hope it does the same for you.
love,
br4dh4x0r
By the way... for the time being, I'd stay away from wireless networks. We tried that at the beginning and it was just a mess of problems... interference, poor response time, dropped packets...