From: heath michael rezabek Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 13:29:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: NEXUS.FAQ.2 [communiTEK] To: geoffw@nexsys.net Cc: nexus-gaia@netcom.com < 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 ... 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, (412) 746-5500. 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. ] 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: ... 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; 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; ... 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 . 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 . 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: 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 , to which each individual in the NEXUS is subscribed; there they can run through local necessities. THEN, however, they unsubscribe as individuals from and the entire /list/ is subscribed as a single send-to address for . 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 will be forwarded to the list, and thence to all of its subscribers. Let's then say that a NEXUS forms in Austin, TX. subscribes itself to 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, is meta-subbed to , which is meta-subbed to which is meta-subbed to . 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 so that they could trickle down the Cascade to each and every individual. Meta-subbing could be carried through at every level; , Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, etc etc etc ... Unlimited expandability and refinement of the NEXUS-Cascade based on geographic reality. This allows for floating "host-status" for 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 list will work its way down the Cascade ... through ... through ... 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; ... 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 with "subscribe NEXUS-GAIA" in the body.