[luau] ics412: operating systems

[Jimen Ching]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2002, Charles Lockhart wrote:
>It was one of the things I too felt like I missed out on when I was a
>full time student.  Work played a significant part in killing many
>aspects of student life for me.

I guess things haven't changed much since when I was at UH in the '90 to
'95 time frame.  I also agree that UH seems to be an 'off-campus' school,
even back then.  But, there are always exceptions.

Back in the 'old days', there were no RoadRunner or DSL.  So if you wanted
a fast connection to the net, you basically need to stay on campus.  I
knew some of the lab monitors at Holmes Hall, and once in a while they
would stay to 2am in the morning playing nettrek and avatar.  You learn a
lot by building your own games off the net.  That's how I got started with
free software.

My point is, one doesn't need the entire student body to stay on campus to
experience a cooperative culture, though it would be nice.  But if you can
find a niche, you can gain a lot of knowledge and fun.  Of course, I had
an on-campus part-time job, so that helped a lot.

When I was faced with the same problems you guys are running into now, I
took action and downloaded every game I could find and compiled it on the
school's mainframe.  Then I opened up my home directory for anyone who was
curious enough to find my binaries and play the games.  This way, you get
to meet people who are as curious and as knowledgable about computers as
you are.  Soon, other students would join in and offer more games from
their own home directory.

It seems to me that there are a few students at UH who want an academic
culture.  Someone just needs to be pro-active in bringing about such a
culture.

--jc
-- 
Jimen Ching (WH6BRR)      jching at flex.com     wh6brr at uhm.ampr.org