FW: Oxford, and things

[Robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

 > From: Brian <http://www.cs..edu/~b>
 > Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:28:15 -0800
 >
 > On 12/10/17 9:26 AM, Robert wrote:
 > > Sonic.NET (we've had Sonic since returning to Ca in 2003).
 > 
 > Turns out they're both.  Took me a while to figure out why Password Hasher 
 > didn't recognize the login I had just created, but the password-creation page 
 > was on sonic.com and then the login page was on sonic.net.
 > 
 > > That's funny.  With us, they offer POTS.
 > 
 > Yeah, but not with fiber to your house; there aren't any wires to multiplex.
 > 
 > > Water came through our living room ceiling.  I climbed up on the roof and
 > > applied a bunch of goop.  I'm hoping for the best.
 > 
 > You're a brave man.  I'll do wiring in my house, but for roofing (like gas 
 > plumbing) I want a professional.
 > 
 > > I still hate hardware.
 > 
 > Actual hardware can be annoying, but, for example, appreciating that the stored 
 > program architecture wasn't historically an obvious idea is cool, and the idea 
 > of cache memory is cool, and (not that we do this in our course) pipelining is 
 > cool.  And it's interesting that the first physical limit we hit wasn't the 
 > speed of light or atomic-scale component density, but rather generating enough 
 > heat to melt the chip.  (And it's way cool that information is energy, but 
 > that's also way beyond our course.)
 > 
 > > BTW, Noelle suggested that you could rent out your house on airbnb for
 > > thousands of dollars per month.  (Someone on our street is doing this for
 > > their house while they're in Europe or something.)
 > 
 > I rented out my house once while I was in Boston.  The tenants destroyed the 
 > nice furniture (scratches and water stains) and the (tiny) garden.  So I'm 
 > reluctant to try again.
 >