Howdy neighbor! Can I borrow an egg, some sugar, and a SCSI cable?

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

--- begin forwarded text


Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:32:14 -0500
To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Subject: Howdy neighbor! Can I borrow an egg, some sugar, and a SCSI cable?
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:36:36 -0500
From: glen mccready <glen@qnx.com>
Resent-From: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Resent-Sender: 0xdeadbeef-request@substance.abuse.blackdown.org


Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: "Kevin D. Clark" <kclark@cabletron.com>

Source: http://online.guardian.co.uk/theweb/911396071-geekville.html

Leander Kahney inspects a des. res. for hackers

House fit for a mouse

TO RENT: apartment; sleeps 2.8 computers; unique address (on the Web);
Linux in all rooms; only geeks need apply.

This isn't quite how Walden Internet Village advertises itself but it is
how the complex sees itself: 'run by geeks for geeks'. The 12-building
complex in Houston, Texas, boasts pleasant decor and beautiful landscaped
gardens but for the tenants it is trying to attract the most important
feature will be the way it is wired for the future, offering the kind of
high-speed Internet access enjoyed only by big companies and universities.

"It's a community for hackers," says Alan LeFort, marketing director and
network administrator. "It's not easy to find a place where your
neighbours are Perl programmers or Linux freaks."

Every apartment has a 10 Megabit per second pipe to the Internet -- a
connection about 175 times faster than the standard 56k modem. It also
has assigned its own unique Web address, so residents can run their own
Web sites from inside their apartments.

"We don't care what they run as long as its not a porn site," LeFort said.

All apartments also have wiring built into the walls for their own little
home network. "The average resident has 2.8 machines," LeFort says. "They
like to connect them together." The complex also offers several big
computers on an internal network, one dedicated to the game Quake and
another for storing the GNU/Linux software favoured by most tenants. The
few running Windows NT will have to be "educated", LeFort said.

At first sight, Texas with its cowboy image, might seem an unlikely place
for a geek community. But Houston is home to Nasa's Johnson Space Center,
Compaq, and a major axis for the engineering, medical, and, of course,
the oil and energy industries. Already geeks have snapped up about half
the 200 apartments. The company hopes to fill the rest with geeks as
non-hackers' leases expire. Rents range from $675 (L409) per month for a
one-bedroom flat to $1,400 a month for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home.
The complex boasts an active social life. Every fortnight is party night
when up to 50 people turn up with their computers and hook them into a
fast Local Area Network for playing games.

Walden is a pilot project. The company owns five other complexes in
Houston and is considering re-wiring three of them for hackers.

Visit Walden Internet Villages at http://www.waldenweb.com and two of the
complex's game sites at http://www.gamerscircle.com, http://www.quake2.com

18 November 1998

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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'