I'm not sure why you're here. I'm not sure why you ever visited this place, this idea of mine in the first place. What I am sure of though, is that this site, this blog, this outlet of mine will soon draw to a close.
Two weeks from this Saturday, my college career comes to a close. I will graduate in Rose-Hulman's One Hundred and Thirtieth Commencement alongside my Class of 2008 colleagues. Soon thereafter, my accounts at Rose will expire, and this site will be done. Case closed. Over.
My first saved post dates back to April of freshman year. I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into with my personal webspace here, but I knew I had to take advantage of this resource. I had started previous sites that did not hold a true purpose like this one now does for me. As time progressed and I went through some hard things at school and some exciting things in life, I was able to document them with accuracy as I would sit down when the time came and let it pour out. If you've been with me long enough here, you can tell that my posts have become increasingly longer while the frequency of my posting has dropped significantly. I've taken pride in the archival of old stories, placement of media, connection to readers, and overall stance this site has taken. It's been a long ride through a short time, and I'm a bit sad it has to go.
And now I find myself where I have many times before as I try to write here. It seems there is some feeling about the subject that I want to express, but the only way I can begin to detail it is by explaining the entire picture. I wanted to get out my thoughts about class. I wanted the ability to express concern about events around me. I wanted a connection to friends and family that wanted an alternative way to keeping in touch. I wanted to tinker with the technology of the web. I wanted to explore my thoughts more than I had before, and hopefully entertain and/or invite personal connections into those endeavors. I feel like I've succeeded with all of the above, and that seems like a good way for it to go out.
So that's where it stands. My account literally expires July 7th, and this site will no longer be available. I intend on fully archiving this site, which includes all the stories, features, and structure. There are no current plans of creating a new site or reviving this one as it is. I'm sure I'll create some sites in the future, but they likely will not take this form. I hope you've enjoyed it while it lasted.
Incredulous
I've got to be careful here about how much detail I go into or I could get myself in trouble. Required by my upcoming employment, I am in the process of obtaining a certain government clearance. Approximately a month ago, I filled out about 40 pages of information about my life: where I had lived for the past 7 years and a references there; where I had worked and gone to school for the past 7 years and references there; had I been out of the country; had I attempted to overthrow the US government. The list went on and on, but the form itself was simple considering most of the information was just reference card type stuff. I'm a good clean American born kid trying to get this clearance, so there were no problems. The next portion of the process is a bit more intense. I had been informed that an investigator would be contacting me to conduct a personal interview. Little did I know they mean business and they mean it ASAP.
Just a few days after completing and sending in that giant packet of questions, I was contacted by an FBI agent for a personal interview. She called and left a message, but before I had time to check the message and call her back, she had called again and this time I answered. She asked if I could interview tomorrow (did I mention she wasn't even in Terre Haute?) . Wow, they mean business. So within 18 hours of talking to her, I was answering her questions in person at the library here. She started by showing me her shiny badge and telling me the rules of this dialog. She proceeded to check my knowledge of my provided information on the form. "How do I get to your Mom's house?", to which I proceeded to explain the directions. After repeating my birthday back to her, "Happy Upcoming Birthday". I felt like I was authenticating into some huge terminal and the retina scan was coming up. She asked for phone numbers of people for all the places I had lived and worked in the past few years. She asked about drugs, alcohol, and convictions ever. For all of these questions, I felt like a broken record player "No, No, No."
After we were done, she went outside and instantly began calling all the references I had given her. They really mean business. "Has Gareth ever done this..." "Have you ever seen Gareth involved in this...." "Is Gareth a trustworthy person?" And so forth. I knew these conversations were coming, but I can't say that any mental preparation was enough on my end. Even though I've nothing to hide, I felt violated in the least regard. I told this person my life story, and they turn around and call all your friends and references as if to dig up any dirt on you ever. I guess the matter at hand requires this detail and this exhaustive research, but I have never been exposed or even exploited in this sort of manner and so it all just felt awkward. I guess you could kind of compare it to the first time your doctor checked you for hernias. I just hope it all turns out well so I can put this behind me. It wasn't comfortable and no one likes turning his head and coughing.
I actually just go the call from Bettis, and the clearance went through.
No Tech Here
Buckle yourself in, I'm about to defame our institute, but in a legal and constructive sense. Rose-Hulman subscribes to a 45 M bps DS3 backbone for internet. For direct comparison, standard cable lines in residential areas offer about 1.5-2 M bps down and only about 512 k bps up. In any event, that shows you the direct comparison of systems here on campus. Now that that's out of the way, let me explain to you what used to happen.
The policy on campus used to mean that you were limited to downloading about 3 GB in 24 hours, or about 5 GB in 72 hours. I only once went over my download limit, and you get a little unfriendly notice that just says don't do it again. It all worked out pretty well, and then our brilliant Academic Computing Committee decided to change the policy. The only thing they really did was remove these quotas. You can now download as much as you want at any time. This means I could go to any site every day, and download all they have and not worry about the total amount of data transferred. Well guess what, we just shot ourselves in the foot because there are many people on campus that decided to eat this alive and begin torrenting like crazy. What you immediately see is that the 'tubes get full real fast. I told my dad it's like me operating my own snail mail spam operation from a residence. I mail out thousands and thousands of messages because there is no imposed limit, and what happens? Other customers' messages take longer to get delivered. This direct analogy works because now any time I try to download or upload, I'm constantly fighting for the availability of the routers to use the bandwidth. The policy still makes it so that users get adequate proportions of the bandwidth, but it doesn't work. Look at that ceiling going on over there-->
Back to torrenting, it simply works because what you do is get a TON of really small connections from uploaders and pool it together. User A (me) has one or two connections totaling to some X bps connection, BUT the torrenters have hundreds to thousands of connections totaling to the same X bps. It's fair in one sense, but the system doesn't work. Not only do we have this problem, but the bandwidth is saturated ALL THE TIME! (take a look at the provided graphic) Guess what the analogy is here? One 50 gallon water heater for the entire campus to use for showers in the morning. Brilliant. You keep admitting more and more students but you don't have the funds to build more residence halls or upgrade the internet connection.
Rose-Hulman Institute of Dial-Up Technology
Bonus Fourth Section!!!1!
So this is the last post (probably), so I figured I would have a bonus fourth section. What goes in this bonus section you might ask? Oh only a bit of junk I want to get out that doesn't go in the other sections.
I voted Tuesday. It was awesome. I convinced myself early that the November general election in Indiana is going to be useless because we always vote R. So I took it upon myself to vote in a more important election. I want Obama to beat out Hillary and Hillary to go away. I went in, voted, and then stayed up watching the results. It was exciting and I was really glad to see a good turn out. She won Indiana by 2%. Without calling any names or making any fun, I just want to say thanks a lot to the people that voted for her that didn't think their decision through.
Classes are closing up and I finished my last lab ever Wednesday. Devin and I are having fun playing around with electronics and messing with the Wii for 2 credit hours, and it's like we won't get out of here soon enough. I have an optional, take home final in Boundary Value Problems, and I have a "final" next week in Power. I'm ready to put my fancy black gown on and stroll around like I mean something. Today I attended an Indiana RF Alliance workshop in Indy. Chris and I presented our poster, and we got to see some exciting research being done at PU and ND here in Indiana; those were exciting!
