Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!utegc!utai!tjhorton From: tjhorton@utai.UUCP Newsgroups: ont.singles Subject: Re: Undergraduates ? Message-ID: <3822@utai.UUCP> Date: Mon, 30-Mar-87 01:25:54 EST Article-I.D.: utai.3822 Posted: Mon Mar 30 01:25:54 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 30-Mar-87 05:05:19 EST References: <12667@watnot.UUCP> Distribution: can Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 109 > I am just wondering. How many of you are undergraduate students? > > Or, the question should probably be "How many universities in Canada > give undergrad students access to usenet?" > > This come up my mind because I read an article somewhere in netland, > someone mentioned that the traffic of this group mostly come from > U. of Waterloo. > > Send me a short note if you are an undergraduate student and not > attending U. of Waterloo. Comments may be posted or e-mailed to me. > > P.S. I am an undergraduate student. > > -- > Oliver Oey > University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada > ojjoey@watnot *** REPLACE THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR LINE *** People at Waterloo generally DO NOT realize that they have a cadillac of computing services. I don't believe that ANY university in Ontario has ANYTHING like the amount of accessible computing resources. I did my undergrad at Waterloo - so coming to UofT (a much much larger university) was a bit of a shock. Waterloo has its Sytek network that goes from anywhere - to anywhere, the gigantic CMS "pool", terminals all over the place, and lots and lots of centrally controlled and thus accessible computing power in many forms. Toronto has no network to speak of (only locally convenient connections) so your only recourse is to get a modem and run at whatever baudrate the gods allow (with your own terminal on your own phone line), a few tiny services at exhorbitant (but recently falling) rates, a dearth of good terminals even locally connected, and university groups tend to hide their "own" stuff in their own closets here. Do Waterloo people realize the size and price tag on their Computing Services - that's why the incidental computer fee business all came about. I doubt anyone knows what all that bunch is up to (they develop things like "Waterloo Script" for instance - what is a University doing developing and selling a near clone of IBM's word processing package). There really are two edges to the sword, though. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages - and there's a lot of pressures and movements of the 'powers' that overlap with seemingly detached sorts of factors: Waterloo -highest paid faculty in Ontario -lots of central control (king Bruztowski?) -industrial courting a specialty (millions of dollars in donations, and co-ops running amock at IBM etc) -enormous investments in buildings to get the techies together (ie CS and EE, who have displayed NO interest in each other at the levels of graduate study or research, nor made accomodation for it) to the tune of $55million + $2.5million/year to keep the toilets clean -several million scraped right off the top of the budget to keep the place looking like a park -industry-happy profs migrating south in search of money Toronto -second highest paid faculty in Ontario (one with quite the union mentallity) -considerably weak central control (everyone's blaming it on our unicameral system of goverance here) -autonomy and self-determination are de rigeur (I've had my ears open, but I haven't yet heard of any major donations or industrial agreements - and people wonder what "co-op" means) -no particular interest in the techies at all -just about every usable acre of land is developed or rented or parking lot and its safe to say the place gets most of its esthetics from the 100 year old buildings that don't have to be mowed or trimmed to be of "university calibre" (oh so-o-o important to your education) -lots of world class profs sticking around, and enthusiastic about their work There are quite a few other factors involved, too. Like the fact that Waterloo's governance has been Engineering-dominated for years (Batke, Bruztowski, and all the rest). No-one realizes that the Ontario government recognizes the higher costs of technical programs and intentionally targets technical fields as well, by paying the university twice as much per techie student as artsy. Really. But it's split evenly according to the numbers of students in each department. Once in a while, it's safe to expect that the techie rulers would rather lean the bowl in the techie direction where the money could be argued to "belong". It's a matter of watching for the opportunities, I suppose. They are looking to develop their idea of a "strong" technical component at the University of Waterloo, and have taken some of those "opportunities" quite evidently. I won't argue in any direction, because there's several factors and several pros and cons to be understood before one can say which things are the right things to do. But your question was roughly "are there any undergrads with access to the computer 'net' from universities other than Waterloo?" This reply portends to answer more of the question than you asked, because it's really a 'million dollar question'. How's that for ont.singles talk? Timothy J Horton Department of Computer Science (Formerly a UW Engineer, but I grew out of it) University of Toronto (416) 979-3109 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself, therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw --------------------------------------------------------------------------