On this thread IP sharing OTFR several people claim that MIT was harrassed by pollys. A letter was posted (from Phil Greenspun) where he denies that MIT knows anything about his forums. THEN someone posting as "andrew raymond" (godawefull red text) posted a link to an old thread which Phil makes this statement...

Remember that this forum all by itself consumes a good fraction of a $250,000 machine.

-- Philip Greenspun (philg@mit.edu), April 17, 1999.

I can't understand this. Help anyone?

-- confused (trying@to.sortitout), June 22, 2000

Answers

The question is this: If Phil's tired little machine crash was the reason for TB going down, and phil was irritated that people were e-mailing MIT (because he SAYS they have nothing to do with his forums)

how can TB one consume a good portion of a "quarter million dollar machine"?

-- curious (asking@ques.tions), June 22, 2000.

The question is this: If Phil's tired little machine crash was the reason for TB going down, and phil was irritated that people were e- mailing MIT (because he SAYS they have nothing to do with his forums) how can TB one consume a good portion of a "quarter million dollar machine"?

I'm not sure how one is necessarily related to the other. If I read your question correctly, you seem to be assuming that only a university would have the resources to afford a $250,000 machine. While that's certainly possible, there are plenty of other ways one can acquire this machine depending on one's own resources. Phil appears to have other ways of aquiring what he needs and even says something to that effect in that very thread:

The banner ideas don't help us cover the cost of running the service. We're not linking to commercial sites (though I guess if we found interesting ideas on some we would) and we're not getting paid for the links. It just makes it worthwhile to put so much money and effort into this. It doesn't appear, to me at least, that there is any indication that MIT has provided Phil anything more than a room in which to house the equipment.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), June 22, 2000.

Hello;

I don't know about the machine; the BANDWIDTH, however, is MIT's own.

FWIW.

Jonathan

-A computer glitch yadda yadda-

-- Jonathan Latimer (latimer@q-a.net), June 22, 2000.

money talks---bulls..t walks.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), June 22, 2000.

Where have you people been?... The BB's are for Phil's students to learn and play... ( you know, "puter science :-)

Phil funds them anyway he can... some from his own pocket, some thru donations, some thru Gov grants... get over it if you don't like the content..... you wouldn't be here without his efforts...

-- Netghost (ng@no.yr), June 22, 2000.

nothing for me to "get over" Carlos, I am trying to make sense of Phil's statements....trying to reconcile what he said in one place with what he said in his e-mail's.

If these forum's are for greenspun's students....and he teaches at MIT....wouldn't that make them part of MIT? Yet Phil denies that the presisdent of mIT knows anything about them. A president of MIT that doesn't know what is going on on campus? NOT a good thing.

Anyway, if you can't help answer the question, I'd appreciate it if you'd just shut the hell up, 'K? :-)

-- still curious (still@wonder.confused), June 23, 2000.

Oh and you know what else? you state that some of the funding comes from "government grants" You better be careful there, son. The powers that be denied over and over again that Timebomb2000 was supported by government money (one of the reasons some people wanted it moved from MIT's servers)

If your statement is true............

-- still curious (still@wonder.confused), June 23, 2000.

If these forum's are for greenspun's students....and he teaches at MIT....wouldn't that make them part of MIT?

Not necessarily. If they belong to Phil, then they're Phil's. If he set up forums on Yahoo for the students, that wouldn't mean that the Yahoo forums are "part of MIT." Phil has indicated that he has paid for the servers through other means. It would stand to reason that if Phil left MIT, the servers would go with him rather than stay at MIT.

Yet Phil denies that the presisdent of mIT knows anything about them. A president of MIT that doesn't know what is going on on campus? NOT a good thing.

LOL. Show me a university president who actually knows the details of the campus computer lab in any case, much less one in which the university has not financed any of the equipment. A lot goes on at a university and a president is usually too busy trying to get more donations and give speeches than care about an obscure forum on an obscure machine buried in some computer lab.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), June 23, 2000.

The forums, Greenspun, the gubmint, and MIT are all related.

There're bills being paid by MIT for stuff that's simply inseparable from MIT and the grant money MIT receives from the gubmint.

The reasons for the obfuscatory emails and refusals to answer the most direct questions was simple, it's all mixed up in there together. And the "deleting doomer" sysops and Phil all knew it was at the time.

The pollys that attacked on the MIT front got somewhere - trust me they did. Phil felt the heat. And that's why he got so pissed at the doomers for their complaints, ESPECIALLY after THEY were the ones who brought down their own forum!

Oh, and for those who are wondering, Phil believed the end of civilization was imminent. He was a doomer. He said so in class. Repeatedly.

Here at MIT...

-- ...it just keeps getting... (...curiouser@curiouser.com), June 23, 2000.

..it just keeps getting..

So now you are saying that Phil said one thing but published another?

Phil, (what I say with my MIT hat on) - April 18, 1999.

Phil, (what I say with my Internet services company hat on) - April 18, 1999

QUOTE: Basically my message is that most computer stuff doesn't work well enough that anybody relies on it now.

Quote From E-mail: The user community of the Y2K forum contains a remarkably high percentage of aggressive and mentally disturbed individuals. Over the past two years these people regularly send email to senior MIT administration officials complaining about their treatment from other Y2K forum users. Imagine the president of MIT getting email from someone on the Internet, complaining about Philip Greenspun. The poor guy (a) has no idea that the Y2K forum exists, (b) doesn't understand the connection between the greenspun.com service and MIT (in fact there is hardly any; the box sits inside a machine room at MIT but that's about it; MIT does not endorse or care about the service), (c) doesn't really know who I am (so he has to go look me up). The temptation at these times is simply to delete the entire forum and its 300,000 messages from the system (would take me, as server administrator, one mouse click or one Oracle statement).

A 250,000 "box" that MIT doesn't know about? And doesn't care it is using their electricity? Doesn't care that it is taking up spcae that might be better suited for other purposes?

Many MANY Q's......

-- very curious (now@home.again), June 23, 2000.

It appears "..it just keeps getting.." is just trying to be funny. That's how I read it anyway.

As for your comment:

A 250,000 "box" that MIT doesn't know about? And doesn't care it is using their electricity? Doesn't care that it is taking up spcae that might be better suited for other purposes?

I am unfamiliar with the box itself, but such a computer doesn't necessarily take up a great deal of space or use much electricity. In any case, there are probably a few MIT personnel who would be aware of the existence of said box, but the President of MIT himself would not likely be one of them.

If you are unfamiliar with the operations of a university, you should be aware that most appear to be run much like any other large beauracracy. Having a $250,000 machine sitting in a room somewhere that only a limited few are even aware of is really not that far fetched. If you changed "MIT" to "US Government" it probably wouldn't seem like an unusual situation at all. LOL.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), June 23, 2000.