Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Nexus/nexus.info/nexus-2.faq

Internet Message Format | 1994-05-22 | 19KB

From: heath michael rezabek <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 13:29:54 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: NEXUS.FAQ.2  [communiTEK]
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]

< N E X U S - G a i a @ >  --  NEXUS.FAQ.2  [TECHNICAL & STRUCTURAL ISSUES]

--

> what does it take to make virtual culture into a lifestyle?  i mean to
> completely integrate my net.concerns with my RL concerns?  what does it take
> to gather together the people from the Net i've most grown to love and with
> whom i can work together the most efficiently -- what does it take to get us
> under one roof, to get us a node, and to link that node to yet another NEXUS
> under another roof with a slightly different approach in some other city?

> [free agent .rez, Mon Nov 15 12:55:21 1993]

--

There are TWO [2] sub-FAQs which make up this primer, CommuniTek-oriented
<NEXUS.FAQ.BUNDLE> ... this is FAQ [2] : TECHNICAL ISSUES.

See the end of this FAQ for further details on the NEXUS project and the other
FAQ in the current bundle.

--


[ 2 ]                   N E X U S   c o m m u n i T E K :

T E C H N I C A L   &   S T R U C T U R A L   I S S U E S


Q 2.1: How is such a thing set up and financed?

A: This depends on what kind of access you want.


1: El-Cheapo, do-it-now-approach [adamfast's, at the moment ;) ]

METHOD:  Everyone in the house has their own Unix shell accounts on a local
         public access Unix box.

COSTS:   CAPITAL - $0.
         MONTHLY - Anywhere from $50 to $5 per month per person, depending.
         In some places [rural areas or urban i.Net-ghettoes] this isn't even
         an option.

PROs:    Cheap, easy.

CONs:    Not enough if you get hooked.  Can't run a business easily.  Can't do
         graphics, other cool stuff.


2: Pretty Cheap, techie solution [a la Dwayne and peter van heusden]

METHOD:  Unix box or BBS with a UUCP link to the i.Net via intermittant phone
         calls, possibly long distance or international.  Ethernet or other
         network inside the NEXUS.

COST:    CAPITAL - About $1000 to $3000 for the machine.  From $0 [and hours of
         time, for Linux] to $1000+ [for custom BBS warez]
         MONTHLY - $0 per month if you are close to a free UUCP site.  From $30
         to $80 if you have to pay for UUCP or have to pay long distance
         charges.

PROs:    Easy to set up if you are a nerd. ;) or if you have friends who can
         work on it.  Can learn lots of technical stuff about system
         administration, mail, etc this way.  With a network in the NEXUS, you
         can learn some of the basic network stuff hands-on.  Good transitional
         method, esp. if combined with #1.  Easy to set up email lists and
         personal mail archives.  Good 3rd world solution.

CONs:    Need some amount of technical knowledege.  No direct internet
         connection, so you only get mail at intervals.  No ftp, gopher, irc,
         MOOs, etc, only email.  [Eliminated if you have #1 along with.]


3: Dedicated or dialup SLIP/PPP connections

METHOD:  Voice telephone line; commercial internet provider.

COSTS:   CAPITAL - software for your PC, $0 to $300.  [Lots of freeware like
         MacSlip.]  Intallation charge for provider, $100 to $500.
         MONTHLY - $80 to $350 [$300 average.]

PROs:    Graphic User Interface [GUI], easy to use.  Cool warez.  Can do World
         Wide Web or Gopher using a GUI.  Can run information servers on home
         machines.

CONs:    Slow.  Not enough for more than a few [3-4] people, even if they stick
         to telnetting.  Not enough to do much satisfying multimedia work.


4: Hi-speed direct access.

METHOD:  Leased lines from telephone company; commercial internet provider.

COSTS:   Vary considerably by method, equipment, locality.  Cost sharing is a
         must here, in condos, apartments, artist lofts, or farm districts.
         The same router can server one machine or 30, in one house or in a
         whole apartment building.  As long as you can string wires!
         CAPITAL - To do it right, about $5,000 to start.  [$1500 for a
         CSU/DSU, $3000 for a used Unix workstation or a router, and $500
         installation fee from the phone company.]
         MONTHLY - About $1000-$2000.  [Average, $1700.] [$300 for the leased
         line, $1400 for the Internet.] [If there are several NEXI in a
         locality, this cost can drop radically.]

PROs:    The whole ball of wax.  GUIs, cool fast access, ability to connect
         machines to the i.Net when and where you want, sell any kind of
         service you want.  Becoming the focus for inter-communication and
         creativity for your locality.  Meeting lots of cool people, in the
         flesh.  Helping other NEXI start.  Helping your community...

CONs:    Requires some minimal kind of organizing -- just the willingness to
         spend time talking with people is enough, no experience needed, but a
         lot of time to get people together in the same building or area.
         Willingness to learn lots of weird technical gobblydygook about the
         Internet.  Some financial commitment.  [You basically need 5-20
         people in the same locality; a lot of work to be done.]


NOTES:         For your end of a directly connected network, you need:

CSU/DSU:       Basically a fancy modem that can handle 56kbps or 1.544Mbps [T1]
               stands for Channel Service Unit/Digital Service Unit.  You can
               get these used, about $500, new $1500.  Get a Black Box catalog,
               [phone].  This'll give you a good idea of what to expect.
               Read the back of trade mags like Communicatins Week.  They'll
               confuse the hell out of you, but eventually you'll get it.
               It helps to talk with other people who are learning too --
               that is the whole reason for NEXI!

ROUTER:        You need a standalone box [a Cisco, etc] or a Unix workstation
               [don't try to use a Linux or SCO machine here].  Communications
               Week, again.  College library.  [I don't have an address handy.]

ETHERNET HUB:  About $150-$250, depending on how many machines.  Just gets the
               ethernet to the other machines on your little network.  In an
               apartment building, you need a hub for each floor, probably.

NAMESERVER:    This needs to be on a different Unix box from your router  [This
               part is optional.  You can pay your provider to do it for you,
               or use a Linux box.]

Used equipment is as good as new, here!  Better in many cases, since you may
also be able to sucker the poor soul who sold it to you into helping you learn
it or fix problems later... :)  Used is a lot cheaper too, thanks to this
consumer mentality we have ["gotta have this year's new model with tail
fins!"].  When i comes to Unix boxes, most [esp. Suns] are pretty good, even if
old...

[I hate unix, but for now ya just gotta live with it if you do networking.
<sigh.> ]


Q 2.2: The first step seems so expensive; are there any ideas on how this step
might be more easily managed?

A: Yes; one is being implemented right now in the Seattle SPI-co-op system.
Initially they are going to use communications servers to feed Internet, using
PPP or SLIP protocols, through regular voice phone lines that never hang up.
Eventually they'll get enough members [about 60-80] that they will be able to
move the communications server out of their Internet provider's
Point-of-Prescence [PoP], and stick it in one of their NEXI.  That way at least
one NEXUS will have a T1 line and ethernet, giving them a lot of flexibility to
grow...  They can then run T1s and 56ks to other NEXI easily, and can change
Internet providers at will.  Then... sustainable growth.

[wherever you see "communications server" below, you can insert "router"
or "file server", "mail server", "web server" or whatever...]

THE PROBLEM:
------------

They can borrow some of the startup costs [$3000] from their members to buy a
communications server; but when the loan is paid off, how do they recapitalize?
They can't keep depending on large loans from their members.  Yet, a
communications server can only hold about 30 ports.  And they only have enough
committed members to fill 15 ports... just barely enough to buy only one
server... yet their first priority is to /grow/....

How do they grow without financing???

THE ANSWER:
-----------

One of their members, Bill McCormick, thought of this one...  obvious, once you
think about it.

What you do is work things out based on having your server half full.  It turns
out this is possible.  Even with only 15 members, they can pay for the server
and pay off the loan and pay for everything in one year, and /still/ have their
costs be low [about a third of what local providers charge].  So that part
works.

But.  They have 15 spare ports.  So when new members come in, they add capital
to the co-op [about $300 per member] and when 15 new members come in, all the
ports are filled up.  And they have $4500 in the bank, which is enough to buy a
new server!

So they buy a new server, and transfer all the new members over to the new one.
Now there are two servers, each half full.  Then /they/ start filling up their
ports...  eventually they will both fill up, and the co-op system itself will
have $9000 capital.  Then they buy two more servers.... and so on... and so
on...

Just like cells fissioning, exponential growth.  And with each doubling, the
costs drop, and drop.  They don't drop by half each time, but soon the
structure co-op reaches the 60 or 80 user mark when it can transplant itself
into a NEXUS and become independent.  Then they can start routing hi speed
lines into the NEXI, and whooosh!!!  Not factored in is growing capital
reserves for new technology replacement, emergencies, etc... but this is a
/start/.  The crucial trigger.

Another thing this approach will eventually provide is a way for the
NEXUS-NetWeave to loan start-up capital [money or equipment] to other NEXI...
since we can recapitalize so fast, we may be able to start a kind of micro-loan
fund, where each NEXUS puts a little of their spare cash into a pool that other
NEXI can use to start up.  This is possible, since while the extra 15 ports on
that server are filling up, the capital that members bring in is just sitting
in a bank somewhere.  It sits there [1,2,3, .., 14] until the 15th and /last/
port is full, and /then/ the NEXUS goes out and buys another server.  But until
then -- for a month, or two months, or a year even... that capital just sits
there.  If 5 or 10 NEXI had similar situations, we could each pool a little of
our capital [maybe one or two shares each, not a crippling risk] and combine
them to loan to a new NEXUS... which would go out and, using the existant
model, pay off the loan in one year [or whatever] and fission [bifurcate??]
when it could.  Then the capital could be put into another NEXI, or given back,
or whatever seemed best.  [Once a NEXI or a co-op has two servers with some
empty ports, it always has a little capital left over between fissionings, of
course.]

Eventually, the number of NEXI around the country [and around Gaia] become
great enough that even by putting a few bucks a month into a kitty, we can pool
enough resources to make start-up loans possible.  This would also make some
sort of loan insurance possible -- although the best insurance is to work with
the new NEXUS through constant tek and moral support, and have experienced
NEXIans close by or part of the new NEXI, to make sure new NEXI don't fail --
by loaning experience and support along with just money.

Sustainable growth for the NEXI.  Yow.


Q 2.3: What is the ideal size of a Nexus?

A: Whatever feels comfortable for you!  If you and 7 other friends think that
you can or want to form a NEXUS, then it looks like the ideal for you is 8.
This is oversimplifying, of course.  To be honest, this is a question of
interpersonal dynamics, and one which is hard to explore without first
establishing a few NEXI to look at.  In each case the numbers will vary, based
on the people interested and, often, their relations to each other before the
NEXUS forms [are there couples involved who are intimate, etc etc...]  It seems
that for a PoP to run efficiently would require at least 5 people, and for it
to remain efficient it couldn't rise too much over 20.  The entire NEXUS
community is in a sense pre-geared towards smaller communities which share
personal connection and then share larger connection to the other NEXI
worldwide.


Q 2.4: What ideas for a living space have come up?

A: There are several ideas which seem to consistently re-emerge.  One is that
of a warehouse space, partitioned off into individual living spaces and perhaps
cultural spaces [cafe's, performance spaces] so that the NEXUS could also act
as a community center.  Another is the wiring of an entire apartment complex.
Still another involves the construction of inexpensive and energy-efficient
foam-bubble modules, connected to each other in a living complex.  Only
experience will show which of these and other ideas works best in practice; the
only way to get to that experience is to bootstrap each other into existence.


Q 2.5: What about the list infrastructure?  How is the virtual community itself
organized?

A: Currently, there is one core list: <[e-mail]> ... This is not
the only NEXUS list, but simply the list on which we will form the core
community.  As it grows, we can fission off smaller more focussed topical
lists; <[e-mail]> will remain as an initial hub/roundtable/jumping-off
point and a continual resource.  We also plan on securing a domain name for use
by NEXI worldwide; <[e-mail]> ... we are not an organization or a
business; we are a support network.  Once the domain name is in place, however,
there is a second but of e.mail routing "technology" we plan to implement.

Ideally, each NEXUS-List will run from and provide a home-base for a single
given NEXUS.  You'll note that the name of the list currently up and running is
called <NEXUS-Gaia@>.  Clearly we do not all live in one spot, much less one
spot spread evenly around the globe [well, in a sense we do, but...].

Usually, individuals themselves are subscribed one by one to an e.list.  Every
message they send to that list's address is re-dispersed to all other
subscribers.  This is currently the case with <[e-mail]>.  The idea is
for the NEXUS-community [a net-work based explicitly on self-creation] to be a
home-base and forum for technical and idea-support for those forming new NEXI
around the globe.

When another NEXUS is established, here is what we hope to have happen: we hope
to have that list, which operates as local home-base for that NEXUS, subscribed
/itself/ to the larger list.

Here is the scenario.  We establish a list: <[e-mail]> to act as a global
"hub" for what we call the Cascade.  Then a NEXUS in Seattle starts up, and
establishes a PoP.  They then set up a local list, which they name
<[e-mail]>, to which each individual in the NEXUS is subscribed; there
they can run through local necessities.  THEN, however, they unsubscribe as
individuals from <[e-mail]> and the entire /list/ is subscribed as a
single send-to address for <[e-mail]>.  In other words, they are
"meta-subbed."  The list itself is subscribed to the larger list.  What this
means in effect is that messages sent to <[e-mail]> will be forwarded to
the <[e-mail]> list, and thence to all of its subscribers.

Let's then say that a NEXUS forms in Austin, TX.  <[e-mail]> subscribes
itself to <[e-mail]> and each individual unsubs.  The same mechanix
apply.  Soon, individual NEXI around the globe can be meta-subbed to the next
larger NEXUS-List.  For instance, <[e-mail]> is meta-subbed to
<[e-mail]>, which is meta-subbed to <[e-mail]> which
is meta-subbed to <[e-mail]>.  This does mean, of course, that we are
planning practically to slowly phase the larger meta-lists into more and more
limited use.  Eventually, only items of global import would be sent to
<[e-mail]> so that they could trickle down the Cascade to each and every
individual.  Meta-subbing could be carried through at every level;
<[e-mail]>, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, South America,
etc etc etc <[e-mail]>  ...  Unlimited expandability and refinement
of the NEXUS-Cascade based on geographic reality.

This allows for floating "host-status" for <[e-mail]> throughout its
incarnations, so that no single node is the "center" [and so that cases of
catastrophic destruction of the NEXUS-community become increasingly impossible
with every new sub-NEXUS added to the Cascade].

As you can see, we are planning initially for dramatic potential redundancy in
the system, thus failsafing against catastrophe, and we are also planning for
limitless expandability, growth, diversification, and adaptation.  This means
that, in the case of some emergency of which all global NEXI should be alerted,
one message to any existing <[e-mail]> list will work its way down the
Cascade ... through <NEXUS-Europe/Africa/Asia/Australia/Americas> ... through
<NEXUS-LocalCity@Amsterdam/Johannesburg/Bejing/Melbourne/Austin> ... to every
single individual at every single NEXUS on Gaia.

Eventually, we plan on there being many, as many as there are neurons in the
brain...

Use Only As Directed.

Of course, there will be day to day conversation which we will not want to
meta-sub, thus allowing PoP lists to be meta-subbed and still be able to handle
traffic for daily self-organization.  We plan to do that by setting up topic
lists to which interested individuals could be subbed; <[e-mail]>
<[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>
<[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]>  <[e-mail]> ...


THE NEXT STEP:

...is entirely up to you and those you work with and love on the Net.
You can take the idea and implement it any way you can.  You can start
threads about this idea -- it's strengths and weaknesses, its visions
and blind-spots -- in the virtual communities you now belong to.  Those
interested in working further on this project from within an existent
community setting can do so by sending a message to
<[e-mail]> with "subscribe NEXUS-GAIA" in the body.