Month: April 2006


Optimum Online Blocks Limewire


Edit: Limewire may or may not be blocked anymore. Some people are now reporting being able to connect.

It’s official. If you’re on Optimum Online, you won’t be connecting to Limewire’s network because they have taken measures to block all of peer to peer traffic. Besides Limewire, some other P2P applications are also affected.

In order to get around this, you kind of have to know what you are doing and it is beyond the basic skill level of average computer users. I am not giving detailed instructions here (Google it), but this is basic idea: 1) In Limewire options you have to change the default port. 2) Forward that port in your router control panel to the internal IP of the computer on your network.

This is completely uncool. Not all P2P traffic is illegal. There are perfectly legal things licensed under Creative Commons that are free to distribute (free internet shows, podcasts etc.). The whole point of P2P is not piracy, but rather to take a load off one central server and distribute the content among users. This is useful for linux distributions and other things of that nature. I lost most of my respect for Optimum Online and Cablevision as a result of this. For a while, I always thought cable was good because of it’s high speeds. However, many people started complaining that excessive bandwidth usage led to individual bandwidth capping restrictions. Optimum online is doing this because it is less expensive for them when customers use less bandwidth. And that is not the point of paying for internet access.

School LAN Party


This is awesome. Without mentioning names, someone hid TrackMania Nations on the share drive and we had an über LAN party during programming class. At the height of it’s popularity, there were about 10 people connected, which was cool for a while until the server started crapping out. And here’s why:

Doing some simple math, the game is about 300MB. So each time it is launched, it has to be loaded from S:\. Lets estimate that only 100MB of that 300MB got loaded. By the time we loaded a few levels, we’ll add on another 20MB. When all 10 players needed to load the same level, the server kind of blew up and lagged badly, so everyone’s game froze and we stopped playing. I’ll bet we sucked up a few gigs of bandwidth for this. And also, we kind of lagged up the entire school for 20 minutes. Oops. And the share drive kind of sucks because it consists of old hardware. So now we have to limit connections in the game (or play a less intensive game)

Last semester, the admins emailed our teacher and told him that we were using way too much bandwidth in class. Let’s see how long it takes them to notice now.

End of Spring Break


What a shame… Spring break is over: Here is a brief, undetailed recap that is not in sentence form (not that anyone cares).
Friday – Went to Evac and ate good barbecued food there. Saturday – Fairfield’s accepted students day (out in the cold rain). Sunday – people came over for dinner. Monday – Did nothing in the morning and then at 9 I drove Drob around Eastchester doing Eastchester-like things (Borders, etc.). Tuesday I fixed the ninja’s computer (turns out his video card wasn’t in all the way) and I had to reformat and get him wifi and whatnot. I also had a sore throat and that was the beginning of my sickness. Wednesday – Took a ride up to the Catskills and spent the day there. I was also sick… (cough, cold, sore throat was starting to go away). Thursday and Friday were boring. Saturday was also boring and Sunday I had food and then visited people for Easter. Monday I did nothing thanks to my dumb cell phone not ringing (thanks Verizon). Wait, I lied – I worked on some longterm work and things that needed to get done. And that was my break. So if anyone went away or did better things, good for you, I don’t care. No refund for you.

Six Flags Goodness + Kingda Ka


Today was awesome – Six Flags with Gruber’s physics classes and random other people. We arrived around 10AM just as the park was opening. I was worried that it would be crowded because it was opening weekend and a nice spring, sunny day (compared to last year’s cold drizzle). My group of awesomeness went straight for Nitro (three times in a row) since Kingda ka was closed for repairs, followed by Batman, Batman and Robin, Medusa, Kingda Ka (see below) and the Scream Machine.

There were technically no lines at all in the park, except for Kingda Ka. We ended up waiting on on line for 2 hours and 45 minutes, and in that time, it was shut down for about 20 minutes for repairs and there was this crazy DJ named Scott playing 80s rock and giving out stuffed crayons. We all got crazy sunburns while waiting forever on that line. But yeah, Kingda Ka kicked… The acceleration was insane and the twisty 400+ foot drop was great. Nitro is probably still the best ride in the park because it lasts so long and is a classic, but Kingda Ka is awesome just so you can say you’ve been on the fastest, tallest roller coaster in the world. Our group was lucky to get on – some people got screwed big time. After waiting 3 hours in line and sitting in the car waiting for launch, it broke for the rest of the day. Not only did they miss out on that, but they wasted 3 hours of other activities.

Pure fun… Best day of 2006 so far… It was even better than last year’s Six Flags trip (it was cold rainy and Kingda Ka/ Medusa were closed. If you don’t agree with me, I’ll eject you without a refund.

Senior Buddy Day


Jackie ended up buying me at the senior auction, and Friday was dress up day. For anyone who has no idea what’s going on, certain people get auctioned off and your “owner” gets to dress you up for a day. All money collected benefits the senior class to reduce the cost of the prom, which I’m probably not going to, dammit! Anyway, I had no Idea what I would be dressed up as in the morning, but I ended up being a gangster. Some other notable people: Steve – Knight in a full suit of armor, Rameez – Arab Crusade Warrior and some others (emo kids, another gangster, Barney, needle/steroids, old people, a cowboy, an Easter Bunny, a witch, etc. sorry if I left you out)