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Apartments for Techies?
thedistance asks:
"I'm wondering if anyone has heard of companies retro fitting any
of the failed telecom hotels for apartment use? It sure would be nice
to find an apartment complex that was designed just for the tech
croud with a fiber/cat5 infrastructure throughout. It sure would make
it a lot easier to setup highspeed internet access, video on demand,
and wlans... not to mention an easy way to borrow the spare NIC from
your neighbor... (we can just leave the sugar borrowing to the rest
of the non-techie world)" If you know of an apartment complex
offering high bandwidth, please post a comment, below. Aside from
bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal
for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
A sorority full of tech-worshipping nymphomaniacs living next door...
...maybe not so realistic, but a good idea none the less.
Who did what now?
WaldenWeb has a few apartment complexes in the Houston area; they run an OC-3 from an ISP to their NOC, and run OC-3 from their NOC to each of their apartments. My apartment has 3 RJ-45 drops (only one of which I can make active at a time, but that's what a hub is for). Rent is reasonable, Internet access runs about $50/month.
Having an apartment complex like this would be a social disaster. There would be people who would never leave their apartments, spending hours and hours surfing the web, playing Everquest, and posting continuously in online news forums...
Wait, never mind.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
A friend of mine who just moved to Virginia, is planning on doing just that. He going to purchase an apartment complex (his family has lots of money) and outfit it to be geek friendly. He's planning on running gigabit ethernet to every apt for apt-to-apt networking and use highspeed ADSL with several static IPs (one for each apt) for outbound internet access. Then start playing with video-on-demand and other cool technologies on his apt complex as a testbed for others. Once he gets it right he'll start outfitting other apartment complexes for other realtors. Of course he'll be using Linux and FreeBSD for just about everything from the router to the "apt game servers" and video on demand servers.
E-paper, e-paper, e-paper and e-paper! On the walls! On the ceiling!
Imagine reading /. on the ceiling while falling asleep, instead of at work! Now *that's* productivity!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Anything that is as techie friendly as you describe isn't going to be setup for individual billing. There wouldn't be any separate meters for utilities, so how would you know what to pay for gas/water/electricity? I sure wouldn't want to pay for the juice to power my neighbor's huge racks of drive arrays.
Also, anything that was a former hotel or business complex would be zoned commercial, thus not allowed for apartment rent/lease, right?
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century?
More bandwidth!
What were the skies like when you were young?
Don't be ashamed; that happens to a lot of folks, especially geeks who've been getting free broadband through their educational institution for four (six, ten..) years, and are somewhat scared of a world where they've heard that some folk still use dialup.
Your idea has merit, though... if it were me, I'd model it as a 'halfway house' for recent grads who aren't quite 'equipped' to make it 'out there' just yet. It would be somewhat similar to a YMCA, except without the fitness opportunities. You could call it the 'Y' Adapter, and you'd probably fill up all your cells in no time.
Amenities could include communal laundries, in-house cafeteria, and a 30-terabyte KaZaa! mirror in the basement. You could offer regular field trips to local social establishments and real apartment communities, as well as social counseling and maybe dance classes.
Oh, and after you've been there a month, you lose network connectivity between 4 and 6 AM. After two months, no connection between 2 and 6 AM. You lose one more hour per month until after 6 months, you can't get on the 'net after dark. This would offer an excellent incentive for finding your own place, negotiating your own broadband connection, and starting a real life on your own.
He's planning on running gigabit ethernet to every apt for apt-to-apt networking and use highspeed ADSL with several static IPs (one for each apt) for outbound internet access. [...] Of course he'll be using Linux and FreeBSD for just about everything from the router to the "apt game servers" and video on demand servers.
It sounds like either your friend doesn't have a good handle on the technologies involved with this, or there was some miscommunication between the two of you.
It sounded good up until "use Linux and FreeBSD for the router".
You need something better than a PC to route many apartments' worth of gigabit ethernet to each other. A PC doesn't have the internal bandwidth for more than one gigabit connection. If you're using an off-the-shelf gigabit ethernet hub or router, it'll be running its own embedded OS from the vendor (if it's complex enough to run anything at all). If you're using a souped-up non-PC workstation as the router... you're spending far more than you have to for a simple router.
In a similar vein, you'll have an interesting time getting enough static IPs for a medium-sized apartment building without a fight. Maybe when IP6 finally takes over.
This sounds like a really cool project, and your friend deserves praise for trying to pull it off, but he'd better take a close look at the tools he's planning to use for it, and make sure that he's using the right tools for the right parts of it.
In the past week or two, we've had questions about
a. Building a house for networking from the ground up (if cat6 isn't enough for your damn HOUSE then you have problems)
b. Putting a server room in your house (hint: walk-in closet. If you have enough hardware to cause heat problems, you are beyond help.)
c. Living in a fucking HOTEL, because there's a network drop in your room?
Gimme a break! Think about living in a hotel for a second. It's ONE ROOM, first of all. No kitchen. No living room. No den, no dining room, and I'm pretty sure there's NO FUCKING SERVER ROOM. Do you want to live in a hotel room?
So what does that date think when you ask her to come over to your place for dinner, and bring her to a hotel? Are you gonna break out the foreman grill and cook up some burgers for her? Just cut straight to the streaming porn, over that 'LEET "data port" conveniently located in your PHONE. Folks there are reasons that most people don't live in hotels.
My neighbour lives in a high-tech house already. Oh, it's not that fancy being built 50 years ago with its original kitchy furnitures. From outside, it looks like it's falling apart as no one has been maintaining it. Last month, his toilets broke and I found out that they are not flushing anymore last time I visited him. Recently, his kitchen has been invaded by cockroaches because the dishwasher needs to be fixed. His lawn has grass about 5 feet high. Newspapers and junk mail are building up a barricade outside since he doesn't even bother fetching them anymore. Sometimes I bring him some food, but the rest of thet time he gets pizza delivered. However, the one thing he is proud about is that he's got a top notch DSL connection that I am sure bits everyone else online experience in the street. He is able to play online games as no one else can really do around here. Nothing else seems to matter to him. He looks so happy facing his screen all the time.
PPA. the girl next door
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
You DO realize, there's a difference in all 3.
One is looking for a hotel/isp. A hotel may not necessarily BE an ISP. He's looking for a combination package. Not necessarily a studio like you badly imply.
Wiring your house is a VERY different project. Discussion involved the type of wiring to buy, which is VERY different than finding an internet appt building. Your house doesn't necessarily mean you'll be an ISP.
Building a server room is a bit of a task. All the user was looking for is cheap rack equpitment.
If you can't deal with the ask slashdot's, how about turning them off, eh?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
http://www.tower801.com
Features at Tower @ 801
View balconies outside every livingroom and bedroom
Outdoor deck with pool
24 hour fitness room with separate saunas
Club room with DVD home theater system and large laundry room
Cafe Lado open from 5:30 am to 11:00 pm
Laundry facilities
High speed Internet access
Digital cable
Secured underground parking
Storage facilities
Small pets allowed (larger pets upon approval)
Concierge Services
Onsite dry-cleaning pick up and drop off
Package acceptance/delivery
Fax/copy service
Concert and Broadway ticket packages
Restaurant packages
Dog walking
I believe they also have a video library you can check stuff out of. AND, if you're got good enough line-of-sight, you can easily snipe major bandwidth from all the wide-open 802.11 networks downtown! Mwuahahah!
As a student at McMaster (Canada) there's a tonne of houses around the University that are 'swiss cheesed' with wires running here and their through walls, taped to walls (God bless duct tape) baseboards or anything else you can think of.
To break away from university life - but who would want to - you are going to have to move into a new complex. Who can afford a new home though, not this poor student?
The cheapest and most efficent way I'm sure is to get a dedicated line, T3 perhaps and share the bandwidth with other neighbours in the area (5, 10 people should bring the bill down). Check contracts for that though, some providers don't like you networking too many computers because you turn into an ISP. Don't get your connection though them if that's the case.
Competition is great.
Cheers.
Yeah, feeding the trolls.. Maybe you're right. I guess I've been on slashdot so long I'm just descending into troll zone out of boredom.
there is cambridgeside near kendall square in cambridge - they are pretty damn expensive (last I looked was a year or two ago and they were $1600 for a 1 bedroom) and they have like 8 billion phone lines per apt, lots of outlets, and a T1 in every room...
I'm plenty happy in my place with cable modem - but I only have one outlet and the place is old so the power sucks...
I'm out in Somerville (slummerville)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I live @ in Philly at an apartment building called The Left Bank. Right now, i get synchronous 640k wireless ethernet w/ 802.11b (11mpbs to the access points, of course), for $50 / mo. The building was originally going to wire all the apartments w/ ethernet, but they switched when the realized a wireless infrastructure would be much cheaper. One thing that bugs me no end is that they don't use WEP at all, although they restrict access to the network to known MAC addresses. Anyway, i'm pretty happy w/ it. I wish the downstream were a bit faster, but i challenge you to find an ISP that has 640k upstream for so cheap.
Apartments with high-speed are nice, but you need a consierge or something. The really high tech apartments around here in seattle have a guy you can call for stuff. Food, Movies, Car wash...
Everyone at work used Kozmo till they went out of business. Was a shame, they sure had alot of business...
Of course the apartments that come with a consierge are 3x the price of a normal apartment. Doable if your 3 guys all working at startups. (-;
What sort of firewall do they provide, or are they the targets of the next DDOS kiddies?
Wow. I've got a few points of view on this. My first reaction? None, hopefully. When I buy access - that what I want, RAW ACCESS - Each user should provide their own security, I can certainly run my own damn network. Now for the reality. This won't work unless you live in a complex full of people in the know about network security/admin'ing. I know that I certainly dont trust my current bozo neighbor to provide ANY security except the never updated norotn anti-virus prog he runs. Which would of course leave a shared link open to rampant abuse. I dont want my bandwidth killed because his computer is busy sending gargantuan pings to me or the target of some ddos'er. So I would say that some sort of firewall should be provided. But by the same token, I dont want my ports filtered, blocking services i want to run, I mean, who wants to spend a month trying to convince the landlord to call the network guy out to open up some port... I wish you could be cited for a blatant security problem (read: email virus propagators)that affected other users, then be banned from the network until you attended some basic security class and proved your network was at least decently secured....
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
What do you do when one of you starts lagging/dropping other people of the net while (s)he grabs an ISO or something? I know rate limiting is possible with FreeBSD (and linux too?)... For only a couple users that would probably work. I'm trying to figure out if that is the right approach here. Lagging out the counter-strike players gets old (actually what gets old is waiting until they aren't playing to apt-get and cvsup).
>Do you realise the amount of retro-fitting...
Not to mention the fact that very few providers or Telcos would want a bunch of techies crammed into a building, what with all the wireless antennae strung out the windows and on the roof, cat5 all over the damn place, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry with their own private WLAN.
Yep, like they are ever gonna let us get our hands on that kind of fiber. Upload cap at 250kbps, NO servers. Like having a hotrod that won't fit through the garage doors.
Here on the Eastside of Seattle there are scads of wired apartments. Ironically, there's also a surplus of technology businesses. But you probably are only interested in an apartment near to (insert backwater Walmart town here). Gee, sorry I couldn't help.
BTW, I'm looking for a great pizza place. Anywhere in America's fine with me. TIA.
Anyway, he has an unusual approach to running his business. He doesn't rent out whole apartments or houses. Instead, you rent a bedroom and you agree to help take care of any common areas. The whole business evolved out of the hippie commune the landlord himself lived in back in ancient times.
Anyway, one of the perks of renting from this guy is free DSL service. Which turns out to be his main way of keeping his tenants in line. Fall behind on the vacumming, or allow the kitchen to get too toxic, and the DSL goes away until things improve. Now that is social engineering!
- High Speed Internet (1.5 - 10Mb+)
- Building Area Network (100Base Switched)
- Server Room (Racks, UPS, Cooling)
- Exercise room and equipment
- Common Room (Big HDTV, THX Sound system, etc.)
- Game Room (Pool table, Fussball, etc.)
- Outdoor Party Area (Pool, Bar-B-Que, etc)
- ???
Any sgguestions?I live in one (The Enclave, San Jose -- http://www.theenclave.com). CAT5 drops to every room, RJ45 in every wallplate. Two 3Com CoreBuilders and a Cisco 7500 as the gateway to an AT&T fiber drop from their backbone. Only problem is, it's expensive ($2000-$2500/mo. for a 1000 sq. ft. 2-bedroom), and the net feed is currently through ATTBI, even though there aren't any cable modems in use here.
.@.
A couple years ago a complex off the Lawrence Expressway and 101 in Sunnyvale, CA (San Jose area) was supposed to have T1 access in each apartment. Last thing I heard there was T1, but the main feed was insufficient as many tenants decided to put up servers and maxed it out. An upgrade was supposed to be forthcoming, but I haven't checkin on it lately. Complex name was Tuscan or Tuscany something. ~2400/mo, IIRC
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Late night quake sessions? That new Squarepusher 12" dying to be played at 4 AM? Cut the midrange, drop the bass?
Any good geek hovel must have good soundproofing. Even if you aren't the type to play loud music all the time, common everyday sounds can get annoying (particularly if people are keeping erratic schedules, as many of us like to do). Soundproofing is a must.
I still can't see why anybody would want to run public servers out of their house. That's what hosting companies are for. Let somebody else fix the servers.
A great amenity would be the positioning of soda machines, stocked bi-weekly, at both ends of each floor. Caffeinated beverages preferred.
Bandwidth's not the most important thing in a geek-friendly apartment by a long shot. In many American cities, you can get a cable modem connection for $40-$50 a month, which is plenty of bandwidth. Having the apartment wired with cat5 is a plus, but it's not hard to do yourself and wireless 802.11b also works pretty well.
What you really need in a geek's apartment is lots of power. Well-placed outlets in every room are key, as is not having to worry about blowing a fuse if you have a whole bunch of equipment running at the same time. Pretty much anything else you can set up yourself if you need to, but if the wiring is lousy and the landlord's not interested in improving it then you're probably screwed.
Other sites you may consider include near Broome, with it's fabulous beaches, or Denmark, much colder and more crowded but with many lovely large trees, or perhaps somewhere along the scenic vehicle-destroying Gibb River Road.
(some Hamersely views included here, mostly from Transmission Hill (AKA Wireless Hill or Radio Hill depending on sobriety levels) at Paraburdoo, Western Australia, some Broome views in the earlier sessions).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Just what the stereotypical tech needs - less socializing with real people and more with the same kind of poeple you see at work . . .
Display some adaptability.
I'm a lonly single sig, who likes to show myself, see me on my webcamat http://www.Imaprostituesig.com/
In about a month, I'm moving to a "wired" apartment complex in Cherry Hill, NJ (about 15 minutes from Philly)
The rent includes broadband Internet access. Each room in the apartment has a jack with a DSS, cable, and 3 or 4 RJ-45 jacks for network/phone. There is a patch panel in the front closet where everything ties in. See http://www.roselandmgt.com/ and look in the "Roselink" section for more info)
Here are some of the items that I would look for in the ideal apartment setting (tech or not)
Sound Dampening:
There's nothing like the rumble of Quake at high volume, but don't inflict it on me in the wee hours of the a.m. I would want to protect my neighbor from my own noise as much as I would protect myself from his. Abundant sound dampening would be a big plus.
Air Filtration:
With all of the different lifestyles (smokers, non-bathers, obscure candle lovers) I want to make sure that I only get the scents that I invite into my apartment. I currently have neighbors who smoke like chimneys, and it has seeped into every fiber of my carpeting. Then they installed a bunch of air ionizers, so now my apartment smells like a mix between an ashtray and a public pool.
Multiple Multi-Connector Outlets:
You can never have enough power/cable/telephone outlets.
No Exterior Stairs:
Either give every apartment ground floor entry, or provide an elevator. The stairs should be an emergency exit only. I've had too many drunk neighbors stumble home late at night.
Package Safe Deposit:
I hate getting home to find a note that the office is holding my package. I have to plan my day around the office hours so I can get my shipment of penguin reds. Not good. Give me a large safe deposit that I can give the FedEx/UPS guys access to.
Thick Window Coverings:
Most apartments come with your typical set of slat blinds. These are great until you try to watch a movie on your big screen at 5 pm and find the glare obscuring your view. The ideal apartment would have blinds capable of completely shutting out outside light sources.
Independent Hot Water Heater with Large Capacity:
Let me adjust my hot water to the temperature that I like, and make sure that I never run out. Same goes for the HVAC system.
And for the ideal techie apartment I would add
Electronics Closet:
An extra closet with a monster UPS/Line filter. Run all of the CAT-5, speaker, KVM, S-Video, etc. cables here. This is where I would keep all of my A/V equipment, big iron/Beowulf Rack, High Bandwidth uplink, and a router. This room would also need an independent temperature setting, as all of this equipment will be generating a lot of heat.
Pre-Routed CAT-5:
I don't want my apartment complex supplying my internet access, as I wouldn't put my faith in their capabilities. But if they would run CAT-5 throughout the apartment and leave the connections exposed next to the washer and dryer so I could hook up a router: fabulous.
Pre-Routed A/V wire:
Run speaker wire throughout the apartment. Run S-Video/Optical/and component outs throughout each room as well. Make sure the outlets are on multiple walls on each room so I have a choice of where to put my equipment, but also provide covers so the unused ones aren't exposed.
Remote Control Extenders:
Since all of my A/V equipment is in the closet, I'll need some RF/IR repeaters to get my remotes signal in there.
Sorry, it's been tried. I live in a complex that was built brand-new with built-in broadband connections to every unit (for an extra cost turned on, of course) but the company that provided it (and the service for a number of other similar complexes) went kablooey in the Spring of 2000 in the dot-com crash.
No I didn't get any warning from ReFlex Communications, although there were 3 days between when they filed and when they shut off the service.
Too bad, it was pretty sweet and a very good deal.
Our business in Madison, Wi does exacly that! we offer short term corporate housing with resort style services, including free broadband in every apartment, as well as internet appliances, computer room, etc.
Sig this.
One of the more obvious ones is the hideous green painted ex IBM building near the Harbour Bridge exit (city end). It has full cat 5 wiring and (if you want it) centralised Net - BUT as all city apartments you had better have a lot of cash around to be able to afford it ..
Jon - TheSpork
Have you ever been inside a "telco hotel"? They would need a lot of work to be human friendly. In the process, most of the infrastructure be in peril.
All your nightmares are belong to us!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
The majority of GWB's tax cuts benefitted the rich minority. People who already had more money than they could spend. People like Bill Gates stated that they didn't need the tax cut and that it wouldn't help. If Bush really wanted to kick start the economy, the tax cuts would have gone to the lower paid brackets. Those measly checks obviously were never going to make a difference, but they made good politics. GWB hid behind a shield of lies just like Reagan did. It took well into the Clinton years to recover from Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. It seems in America that it is the Democrats who are the economic conservative. It is the Democrats who understand the economy and how to implement prudent fiscal policies.
Most areas around large colleges have apartment complexes with such wiring...so far the ones I've seen though really aren't worth living in. The apartments themselves are overpriced, generally crappy, and you're very likely to end up with 3-4 rather noisy and inconsiderate neighbors. The "broadband" access they offer is usually a T1 or 3 for the complex...or in some cases complexes. The one I lived at had our bandwidth capped at 150 k/s (up and down) and during the day and peak hours our rates would drop to sub dialup rates (2 k/s and less)...
there are these Studentappartements over here in Munich/Germany. It is sooo great, they are a bit out of the city and every room has their own Lan-Connection (I think the Uplink is a shared T1 as well). Whats more theres a cigarette machine in the lobby and a 24/7 Store in every building. In the basement there are different kinds of pubs, cafes and partyrooms, it is so great that i almost wish i would study something. People really live together in there, they learn, eat, hack, and party together...
;-)
Then again, I live in a small backyard building in munich and we got DSL a few months ago and wiring the old House was a blast and our small Lan is really a lot of fun ever since. Even better, a coworker of mine just wired his own house he was building. He also included a dedicated Serverroom...cost him a bit though
Have a fun xmas everyone...
There are a variety of apartments, townhouses and free-standing homes in the Dulles Tech Corridor.
.bomb era and anchored by more stable techs, like TRW, NEXTEL, and Oracle.
Caution: in Reston, stick with the north side of the tollroad, in Herndon the south side seems to be wired better.
You have your pick, from do-it-yourselfer hack apartments like mine at The Summit of Reston: washer and dryer in apt with outlet that is suitable for SGI Crimson, cable modem service, DSL available through everybody except AOL (no loss there), decent insulation and sound dampening between apartments, etc. There are also apartments with extensive internal networks, huge bandwidth, etc.
Part of the "charm" is there are very few old buildings around here, most of the construction has been leading into and during the
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"Aside from bandwidth, what other amenities would make an apartment complex ideal for the high tech worker in the 21st Century"
;-)
Two Words: Beer and Women
Merry X-Mas
S.t.e.v.e.
Yeah, you know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. I refer, of course, to IBM mainframes!
At somewhat the opposite ends of the spectrum, friends of mine who lived in an apartment building Palo Alto a decade or so ago wired it for Ethernet (Thinwire, aka 10base2, aka Cheapernet.) They had a startup company with offices in one apartment and several of them living in various apartments in the building, so telecommuting was even more convenient. I think they had a T1 feeding the business at the beginning, and after the business moved out to a Real Apartment they shared some kind of fractional T connection among the interested tenants.
The first network wired house I looked at when househunting achieved its status in about the most minimal form possible - there were two adjacent rooms with 10base2 jacks on the wall connected by about 6 inches of cable
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, Big Social Experiments inspired by Karl Marx and his buddies have mostly failed. But that's true of all BSPs, right wing and left wing. That's what "experiment" means -- you do something new and different, and end up either with a useful success or an instructive failure. The real danger of social experiments is that they tend to be supported by zealots who won't ever admit to failure, and often get quite nasty with anybody who suggests their ideas have flaws. The example you're probably thinking of is Osama. But there are others almost as scary, and not a few of them are in places of power in this country.
And let's avoid glib statements about "property which belongs to everyone". Life isn't that simple. Yes, socialists and communalists are often naive about how their fellow humans behave. But so are libertarians and free-marketeers. Whenever I tell a libertarian I'm not ready to disband the local police force, I get precisely the same childish assertions about expecting the best from people that I get when I tell a commie that I'm not ready to dispense with private property.
If your Toronto cyber-commune "proves" that socialism is absurd, what does the failure of Enron do? The fact is that neither experiment proves anything, except that selfish people will behave selfishly, if nobody's watching.