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A Lament for the LAN Party

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Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#151

Post by digi_owl »

uola wrote: post #119
digi_owl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Maker, hacker, geek, sure. But nerd is still nerd. I may well go so far as to say that geek was "introduced" so as to allow people to be interested in computers (or more correctly, web/game design) without being boxed in with "the nerds" in the computer lab. Or it may be that it is cool to "nerd out" about fashion, sports, or anything not historically associated with the term nerd.

Not only is the computer lab cooler than being into books or playing an instrument these days, but "nerds" themselves are much "cooler" in that they enforce all sort of arbitrary social rules. When I got in to computers it was enough to be interested in technology. It's more the rule than the exception these days to hear "nerds" talk derogatory about things people are interested in that don't make enough money, other…

Sounds like a SV mentality...

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#152

Post by zerohp »

uola wrote: post #119
digi_owl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Maker, hacker, geek, sure. But nerd is still nerd. I may well go so far as to say that geek was "introduced" so as to allow people to be interested in computers (or more correctly, web/game design) without being boxed in with "the nerds" in the computer lab. Or it may be that it is cool to "nerd out" about fashion, sports, or anything not historically associated with the term nerd.

Not only is the computer lab cooler than being into books or playing an instrument these days, but "nerds" themselves are much "cooler" in that they enforce all sort of arbitrary social rules. When I got in to computers it was enough to be interested in technology. It's more the rule than the exception these days to hear "nerds" talk derogatory about things people are interested in that don't make enough money, other…

My girlfriend had that experience with her high school friend group. Nearly all of them went to the same college for Computer Science but she chose Electrical Engineering to study computer hardware. They poked fun of her major and talked down to her for not learning to program until her second semester in college. It wasn't as "cool" as CS to them. She still gets the occasional derogatory remark when she sees them because they chose jobs in SV after college but she went to graduate school.

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#153

Post by 6stringmerc »

True story circa late 1990s:

As a high school student in a religious affiliated private college prep environment, the Senior/Junior class members could be a part of a nearly "free study" computer course, contingent on acting as the school's basic IT resource. I was among a team of about 6 total, and we were very close knit. There was a 'brother' who ran the computer lab, about 30 networked PCs, and along a back wall, we had our array of about 7 machines on a separate network.

So what did we do with our unchecked, unmonitored machines?

Installed Duke Nukem 3D, natch!

When the Brother eventually noticed we were playing against each other instead of, you know, doing work related stuff, he came over and the discussion went as follows:

"Hey I don't think you guys are supposed to be playing games."

"It's okay Brother J, we wrote this one."

"Oh! Wow, that's pretty good. Okay then."

Not sure who it was who threw that Hail Mary but it landed and we couldn't believe it.

...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is but a sliver of my life that would eventually be dominated by Half-Life until finally putting down the mouse for a guitar pick once and for all.

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#154

Post by tracker1 »

LukeShu wrote: post #33
tracker1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea, I remember playing around with 10-base-t coax a few times...

To clarify vt240's reply: If you were playing with coax, that would have been 10base-2. 10base-T is twisted pair Cat3 cable that used the same 8P8C connectors we use today.

You are correct... :-)

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#155

Post by agret »

barbs wrote: post #23

For anyone that likes this sort of thing, I found a few videos of old LAN parties from 1998-2001: https://youtu.be/ch__Ah2iCtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X43soJt7jI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ6bzgl6vKA Also, this is much more recent but really captures the whole LAN party spirit. It's a basically bunch of guys playing sudden-death Minecraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUNF3_hO_no There are some othe…

That third video was awesome. That footage of the guy playing q3test must've had the best computer at the LAN, it was running sweet!

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#156

Post by agret »

Bromskloss wrote: post #7

> The LAN party, where you and six mates cram yourself into a dining room for a weekend, hook up your PCs with a complex series of switches, routers and CAT9 cables, somehow became quite the thing. What is a CAT9 cable?

I think he meant DB9

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#158

Post by vkjv »

ModernMech wrote: post #22

LAN parties were an interesting normative force at my high school. You always hear about the tension between jocks and geeks. But jocks like playing video games as much as geeks, who had the technical know-how to get networked games going. So the jocks at my high school were really interested in being friends with us nerds. We finally had something in common! Our LAN parties were this strange alternate universe where…

I am about the age and had a very similar experience, but it went beyond LAN parties. In retrospect, I went to a very quirky school. It was public, but you need to apply to go there--it was no one's default school.

Despite that, we had some of the best sports teams in the state, debate teams, and engineering teams. It was a culture of excellence and it was difficult to even classify geeks and jocks because so many individuals fit into both groups.

I'm not sure what this school did to get it right, but it's sad to see it not replicated many times over.

Re: A Lament for the LAN Party

#160

Post by peatmoss »

vkjv wrote: post #158
ModernMech wrote: post #22

LAN parties were an interesting normative force at my high school. You always hear about the tension between jocks and geeks. But jocks like playing video games as much as geeks, who had the technical know-how to get networked games going. So the jocks at my high school were really interested in being friends with us nerds. We finally had something in common! Our LAN parties were this strange alternate universe where…

I am about the age and had a very similar experience, but it went beyond LAN parties. In retrospect, I went to a very quirky school. It was public, but you need to apply to go there--it was no one's default school. Despite that, we had some of the best sports teams in the state, debate teams, and engineering teams. It was a culture of excellence and it was difficult to even classify geeks and jocks because so many in…

> I'm not sure what this school did to get it right, but it's sad to see it not replicated many times over.

> but you need to apply to go there

It sounds to me as if the school had a filter function to sort the unmotivated (or disadvantaged) out at the gate. If your strategy is to sift though the general population to find exceptional individuals, pretty much by definition you will not be making all schools in the same manner.

I think that's why successful charter schools are so hard to replicate. For every successful charter school, there are some number N that aren't.

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