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MIT's Bathroom Server

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the leave-the-seat-down dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Some of the undergrads wired Random Hall's (an undergraduate dorm) bathroom system up to the net so that you can visit http://bathroom.mit.edu and see which stalls on which floors are vacant, and if they're in use, how long whoever's been in there. It's a pretty good idea-- you can scout your stall from your dorm room, and watch it to make sure nobody's taken a s$#% there recently."

5 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Google's cache... by cperciva · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ok, so it's almost a month out of date, but this at least lets you know what it looks like.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    1. Re:Google's cache... by GC · · Score: 3, Informative

      The finger server is up and running still, even if the web interface isn't.

      Just do:

      finger @bathroom.mit.edu

  2. You mean like this... by jareds · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Switzerland Coke Machine

    Actually, it doesn't seem to be working now. Oh well.

  3. Sodalord by InsaneFolder · · Score: 2, Informative

    As an entering frosh at MIT, I've already seen bathroom and laundry. But it wasn't until I moved to 3rd East that I came upon sodalord.mit.edu. We've got a really old soda machine in the hall, and it's connected to a server. Log in to your account, get your soda, put it on your tab. Check out the hall's habits, or any member thereof, on the web. Fun.

    --

    -InsaneFolder
    My other char is '!'
  4. Our Bathroom Server by jimatjtan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow. We weren't ready for Slashdot. We knew that our server couldn't take more than a handful of requests at once, and were planning on fixing that before sending anything off to Slashdot.

    I moved the IP address to a faster machine that performs proper caching of the generated images, etc, so this one should have absolutely no problem handling the load (assuming that our building's network can take it).

    Don't forget to try out the finger interface, much preferred by all here in the dorm. "finger @bathroom.mit.edu" to see it.

    One of these days we'll get around to putting up a page describing how the hardware and software works for both that and our friendly laundry server.

    jim@jtan.com, for Random Nerds