Slashdot Mirror
Bandwidth Demand at American Universities
Robert Rwebangira writes: "There is an article in The New York Times (free reg required), discussing college students 'insatiable demand for bandwidth.' Of particular interest is the continuing prominence of file-sharing (inspite of the demise of Napster) and the amount of bandwidth consumed in even 'legitimate' activities. It seems students demand for bandwidth just keeps growing."
Fuck you. Honestly. Fuck you. What gives you the right to dictate how my tuition dollars should be spent? Are you paying for my tuition, room & board, fees, books, etc? No - I am. Not financial aid & not my parents - I am.
I'm a Systems Analysis major and do you know how many classes I have that have computers in them for the students? Zero. Not this semester at least, and I have two programming classes. Why not? Because we're doing a lot of theoretical stuff and discussion, rather than coding. Furthermore, why go to the library to get online, when I have a much faster computer in my room? And, email for file sharing??? What the hell planet are you on? First, most servers limit the size of attachments and second, it's inefficient as hell! Did it ever occur to you that all of this "ridiculous" file sharing, whether it be through Napster, Gnutella, or good ol' fashioned FTP, is useful to the learning process? Maybe a lot of the English majors who would otherwise only use word processing and email, now understand about file transferring, boolean searches, and general bandwidth issues a little bit better. Maybe I benefit from being able to run and FTP server and play around with it, and in doing so - learn about it.
Also, pherhaps it's nice for a poor college student to be able to entertain themselves with new and interesting things on a PC they've already paid for, through bandwidth they've already paid for. It beats getting yourself deeper into debt. Finally, if file sharing doesn't educate students about the ins-and-outs of copyright law and the ideas and concepts behind intellectual property, I don't know what will.
mr. trudging through snow uphill both ways..
The undergrads at Stanford, for instance, are required to pay about $8000/quarter tuition, in addition to about $900/month room and board. What they get for that room and board money is (the plans vary) two meals a day and half of a small room with a sink and a closet. Many students --depending on their seniority-- are required to live in these rat holes.
You seem to think they are eating caviar and lounging in spas.
For all that money, they damn well better get gold plated 1MB/s bandwidth. Instead, the optical ring around campus is already stopped up on high traffic times, and download speeds are routinely around 5-6Kbytes/second.
You say they're spoiled, I say they're getting screwed.
And to those who laud schools which firewall out IM clients, or who complain about use of pr0n, remember: it's not like the terminal at your work. These people live on campus. They're adults, and they are paying a lot more per unit of square foot than 90% of the (non-student) slashdot crowd. Let them use the internet and download whatever the hell they want in their off-times. Just like you do, even though you are paying less.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.