Constructing A Geek House

Tilde~ writes: "Ever since the first time i read about a geek house, i've always wanted to live in one... very badly... to share an internal network with several like minded individuals just seemed like a perfect... What i could never do... was find one. So, for those people out there who are living in the know, how does one go about founding a geek house? And are there any individuals in the atlanta area with the same dream?"

Fun for a while

Living in a geek house is fun for a while. I used to live in what can only be described as a "geek house" for a couple of years. We even started a company together and worked out of our living room.

We were all single when we moved in together. Actually the reason we moved in together was because some of us had just become single and wanted to realize some of our dreams of starting a company.

After a while some of us got new girlfriends. Some were more serious about it than others. My girlfriend even lived with us for a short while, but it was clear that living together with your colleagues, friends and girlfriends was not an arragement that would work wery well. People would always work in the living room, day and night. The place was always messy and the kitchen was a disaster. To those who didn't have girlfriends it may also have been a tad traumatic to hear loud noises of people having sex at all hours of the day.

So eventually people started moving out and the geek house dissolved. It was fun to live in one for a while, but you have to remember that things change. People grow up, they meet other people, fall in love, job situations change etc. Today I live with my GF and work with the same people I used to live with. We managed to break up the geek house successfully, so those people are still my best friends.

So do remember that eventually you will want to move out. Make sure that you've thought about what happens if you want out. Make sure that everyone is aware that priorities can change. Make sure that you stay friends.

Most geek houses are geek wannabe houses

Whether its a communal geek house or the prize home of a lone geek most geek homes are only geek wannabe homes. Pervasive network wiring throughout the house, more than the usual number of computers and a pretty well decked out entertainment system... *yawn*

There's plenty of opportunity to be a hacker in a home or make use of products designed by hackers. At the same time you can make a positive impact on the environment, or at least less negative one than your neighbours. Consider the homes at Entertia [enertia.com], they're designed to make it possible to live off the grid, they do their heating and cooling via non-photovoltaic solar energy. The designer of the concept behind these homes is somebody I'd be proud to see use the term 'hacker' to describe themselves. Much more proud than seeing the Kevin Mitnick's of the world describe themselves as such.

There are other alternative energy or renewable resource methods too, this just happens to be one I'm seriously considering for my own housing needs. A home is a system, there's got to be better systems than just a simple thermostat, or even standard electronic thermostats. Put your coding skills to good use and design a heating and cooling system with mechanically inclined friends.

Re:IMHO...

Sounds like you have an embryonic Geek House -- perhaps that means you qualify as proto-geeks. :-)

I think the Real Deal has at least one (preferably about four) cat5 drops in every room and at least a small networking closet. A well-funded Geek House would have a switch as a network backbone, a good-quality firewall that does NAT/PAT, local WINS, DHCP, and DNS servers (can all be on the same box of course) and some sort of high speed connection to the outside world. It would also have a server with installation programs for all the house network games.

Target functionality: any geek can walk in, wire his computer in using DHCP, and be off and running. No CDs or other admin attention required. This allows you to throw impromptu LAN parties, a staple in any modern geek house.

If you have a house full of college-age geeks, you may also want to have a fridge with plentiful alchoholic beverages. But geeks of all ages will appreciate a good stock of liquid caffeine-infusion mechanisms. Coffee is relatively inexpensive but usually doesn't go over with the under-18 crowd. Colas work for almost any guest. If you have an extremely well-heeled geek house, you can even provide munchies, but this will impact the pocketbook nearly as much as a bad computer-games habit.

It is generally a good idea to have maid service, too. :-)

What now, Personals? =)

Well, danged if slashdot isn't turning into geek classifieds of sorts, but I'm heading out to the San Francisco area in the next two weeks and am looking for a geek pad myself, to crash at for a few months to a year. Anyone within 50 miles of SF? =)

Seriously, though, is there a real place for geek classifieds and roommate ads?

David E. Weekly [weekly.org]

Essential bits for a well oiled geek house

You need the following things:

* a big fat pipe that everyone pays for (DSL or cable is fine). And I'm not talking about a bucket bong here.

* an agreed administrator for the firewall and internal infrastructure (dhcp, mail relay, etc). This person then gets to choose the One True Operating System(tm) for the firewall and the rest of you can get stuffed. Rotate on a three month basis to reduce friction

* bins a fair way away from the kitchen or dining room (the pizza boxes get gross when people "forget" to take the rubbish out)

* a large fridge to take the booze (this is not optional for Australian-infested geek houses)

* lots of fridge magnets for the pizza menus

* A WaveLAN gateway for resident and itinerant geeks, and lots of long cat5 cables for those who are WaveLAN challenged. Spare WaveLAN cards

* rules on significant others staying more than about three nights a week. Even when everyone in the house is earning more than six figures.

* rules on who buys the next bottle of single malt scotch, cognac, brandy, even *shhudder* bourbon (there's nothing worse than using a marker on a Glenlivet or Glenmorangie)

* Sound padding for the walls when people spank the monkey. Got to have privacy, man.

* A damn fine hifi with a large CD and DVD collection. Most geeks will supply this one without too many problems

* Big ass TV. None of this 34 cm crap. Most geeks disdain TV publically, but are closet watchers. Example, ask who the Android is and why they identify with him. You'll get an answer from 99.99% of all True Geeks(tm).

* Cable or satellite TV with as many channels as the house can afford

* UPS for the machine room. Get an extractor if gets warm like ours does.

Tips for living with a geek

Get a cleaner at least once every two weeks. This works fine for me.

Get a gardener if you have a garden. Geeks do not garden on a regular enough basis. Things will die and overgrow and look messy and you can get evicted.

Work on the chores. Geeks are naturally lazy and refuse to do the dishes if they do the rubbish or vice versa. Don't mention the bathroom

Kick the mess back into the responsible person's bedroom. The shared areas shouldn't be cluttered with people's crap unless it's really geeky and can be used or admired by all.

Target

Good idea - advertise to the world that you are going to move in with five geeks and having many thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment in there.

While it sounds like a good idea, after a short time it _also_ sounds like a perfect target for theft. Padlock them doors, kiddies. Then deadbolt 'em, and do everything short of setting spring guns.

Non-geek geek house

I recently moved into a house with three other non-geeks. I was determined to make it a geek house and that's just what I did.

I ran some CAT5 cable, picked up a hub and got a cable modem. It all works great and you get to be the alpha geek for sure.

Plus, you get to live with people that you actually like. Strong advice: live with people you like because you have to live with these people.

Greg

Re:Essential bits for a well oiled geek house

Rimmer is a hologram (hence the H), not an android.

At least I think computer generated human-shaped holograms don't count as androids. Aw crap, now I don't know... thanks alot.

IMHO...

It seems to me that a geek house,
or as we refer to it, a house o' l33t,
just sort of happens...
Two of us moved into an apartment, networked 2 computers.
Some friends moved in, brought more equipment...
with each addition, it grew, in an organic fashion.
Now cat 5 runs throughout the entire apartment, to every corner.
The moral is, don't set _out_ to make a geek house, it will come to you eventually,
just build it up peice by peice, and one day you'll notice: damn this place is sweet.

I'm going to die from EM radiation, and I _like it_.

-Slackergod

That's easy

Take a short trip down to Home Park (roughly the neighborhood between 10th and 16th Streets north of Ga Tech). Take a look at git.ads or the campus newspaper [gatech.edu] for people looking for housemates or to rent a house with.

Home Park is full of houses of Ga Tech people very eager to have/share a high speed connection. Also it's damn close to the GT campus itself which is one of the most wired places in the country thanks to the 1996 Olympics (fiber, fiber everywhere), so I am sure DSL will be easy to find.

I am not a wreck anymore (pun intended) but I do live about 2 miles north of Tech and my ADSL happily clocks at 1.5Mbps down :-)...

Re:What we did.

you forgot a few things:
1. Cable TV that only tunes in to Cartoon Network
2. Dartboard, everybody needs a sport and the arm muscles required for darts are already in top shape anyway :-)
3. A Coffee Maker in every room (maybe a refrigerator for M.Dew-etc?)
4. and if you want me to visit: a life-size Devil Ducky doll.

The one thing you won't ever need: a stereo, just build a MP3 server :)

Devil Ducky

Physical Home Networking: HOWTO

ArsTechnica has the hookup:

http://arstechnica.com/guide/networking/installa tion-1.html

Re:Essential bits for a well oiled geek house

* lots of fridge magnets for the pizza menus

Real geeks get rare earth magnets [ebay.com] for their fridge. I bought some of the smaller ones from ebay a bit ago. They rock. You can stick a half an inch thick stack of menus to the fridge with no problems. CDs, magazines, power tools, small furry animals, whatever, rare earth magnets hold them. :-)

the key is communication

The key of finding a geek house is social networking... get to know people, talk to others, perhaps suggest starting one? Maybe place a classified ad.

I got to live in a geek house this summer and it ruled (mad props to The Geek Empire). i simply got to know everyone else in the house over the course of my college career, and got invited.

however keep in mind that you will have a house of geeks. got personal quirks you might not like? well multiply those by the number in the house. however, if everyone communicates there personal needs and wants, things can work out fine.

also search on the web! be agressive, B-E agressive B-E-A-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!

I live in one

Once upon a time, my best friend from high school (like-minded geek) offered for me to live with him and bring my computers...

Now we are both professional programmers, both married, and I've lost count of the computers and monitors. It's sweet, all right.

We've been told countless times that this would not work; that we both needed to grow up and realize that having our wives together in the same (admittedly HUGE) house was a bad idea.

Oh, there are issues:

• Bandwidth
• Doze vs. Linux vs. Be vs. BSD vs. (the per cap winner: Amiga)
• Mountain Dew vs. Coke
• Perl vs. C
• The occasional meat-space squabble

Benefits are there, too: N64 AND PlayStation; LOTS of CD's in the collective; beefy MP3 server (of course), DVD, pool table, toys, toys, toys.

It's not for everyone; and I know it won't last forever. I'm hitting 30 this year, and I'm still waiting to grow up. My life is little different from the average college student, save the college and the occasional international business trip.

You know you're in geekdom when the whole house heads out at 1am for "burritos as big as your head" and/or Pizza.

So it isn't a myth. Geek houses exist. But they grow by themselves. I don't think it would have worked if we tried to make one. It's just what naturally fit for us.

-Ouija-

Re:chicks

First these geeks lure in young attactive women with 56K analog connections, frozen pizza and anime re-runs on the Sci-fi channel. They give these women the first slice and download for free. After that, the overwelming urge to "be a geek" sets in.

Soon these women are trying the "hard stuff", Full blown unsat T1, "extra toppings" pizza and warezed unreleased anime from japan.

They know having a full dedicated T1 to their selves and doing nothing but using it for playing Q3. They know this is wrong, they know they should setup mirror of free software, but the hold is to strong on them, they want 100% of the fiber optic for fragging.

Then reality sets in, they must move out for some reason or another. Sure they can get 56K analog at their new place, but it isn't the same. Sure cable is avaiable, but the shared laggy connection doesn't give them the same rush a full T used to give them. They start shaking and waking up in cold sweets, they need bandwidth.

They then start trying to find their "fix" outside their current location, but going to sleezy locations like "cyber cafes" and "libraries" even "schools" and "college" to get their bandwidth fix, but it isn't the same.

It isn't the same rush, it isn't the same bandwidth, they get depressed and angry. They look for thigns to fill the void that was the bandwidth, but nothing is the same...

This is the reality of "geek houses"

Re:What now, Personals? =) -- Bay Area Livin...

I have bad news. There are few to no living spaces in the city and bay aarea in general. What ones there are are expensive and pretty hard to
come by overall.

I spent almost two months surfing couches of very good friends until I made a combination of decisions. I knew that I could not afford my own
place (nor had the proper rental history to do so - not that mine is bad, but just compromised of mostly shared living situations that never show up
on your credit history...). I looked into roommate referral services and followed craigslist religiously (www.craigslist.org).

I had good credit (thought sparse), a great demeanor, a real job and (after the first couple weeks of looking) the willingness to break my rent
ceiling of under 600 bucks.

Finally after what seemed like forever I got a place. Not my own, but a room in a flat. I pay 650, plus utils, cable and everything else. I also
paid a security deposit and first and last moths rent. Just to get a room was almost 2000 bucks.

My suggestion?

1) Have really close friends that know and love you already living in the City.

2) Be ready to get your own place (and pay at least 1000 for a studio in the heart of the ghetto aka; the beeyootiful Tenderloin).

3)check these places out
http://www.metrorent.com/
http://www.renttech.com/
http://www.RoommateLink.com/
http://www.therentalsource.com/
http://www.craigslist.org/

the last being where i got my place.

Sorry if this letter is so cynical, you might have a lot better luck than me.

I hope so.

Virgil

Wiring is important...

When you're thinking about a geek HOUSE, wiring is probably the most important (and sometimes frustrating) concern. I used this link [us-epanorama.net] when I was helping out a friend... and we were both pretty clueless when it came to how to start. Tons of links on this page and it really helped us out... hope it does the same for you.

love,
br4dh4x0r

By the way... for the time being, I'd stay away from wireless networks. We tried that at the beginning and it was just a mess of problems... interference, poor response time, dropped packets...

I LOVE the Commodores!

*singing* It's a geek... House... It's mighty mighty, just lettin it all hang out... Oh, sorry, that's BRICK house...