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The Official Geekhaus Plans
So, this is somewhat of a spill-over from the other thread, but I'd like to have a thread specifically stating everyone's plans (without a detailed discussion on excrement, please). To this end, I'll post my plan, which should come to fruition by the end of next year. I also extend an open invitation to all members of the FRC Forums to come and stay, once we have set up space for guests. This geekhaus is located on Barton St. in Rochester, NY, and its designation shall be Geekhaus 001.
Intro:
Right now I live in a shitty house. I pay barely any rent, and everything is cheap. The cost of living is low, and I’m getting a better job soon, so things should slowly improve financially for me. Right now, though, the house is terrible, and the people living with me are awful.
In a year, things will have changed.
Jordan (a Han Solo-like associate of mine), Haewon (my new girlfriend), and I are going to get people (Jordan, Haewon, and others) to move into this house starting in the spring. We are in the process of transforming this shitty house into a Steampunk Geekhaus.
To that end, I have started a corporation, Geekhaus Systems, Inc., to handle our financial operations. We’re working with Time Warner (the local ISP) to get business-class fiberoptic cable routed to the house, and we are planning to buy this house outright if the current landowner wishes to sell (which he does).
Plans:
We can do this because things in Rochester are cheap, from houses to the cost of living itself. We will use the money we (GHS) make as a technical consulting firm, as well as our regular salaries (less food and such expenses), to improve the Geekhaus, including renovating the basement and attic. Here is the new floorplan, floor by floor:
Floor 0: Basement. Storage, Laundry, and Workshop.
Floor 1: Living floor. This contains the Kitchen, the Office, and the Executive Lounge.
-Kitchen - Complete renovation, including new stove and washing machine. We’re also getting a table, possibly new counters, and a small networked computer to look up recipes. Both Jordan and I are increasingly good cooks, so expect excellent cuisine.
-Office - This is where it all happens. We will have desks on the walls and a table in the center (For boardgames and P&P RPG's). We’ll also have a server rack and our desktops down here. The plan is, we should begin to have weekly LAN parties starting in the fall. This room is large enough to support about 20 computers, and we will have a 35 megabit connection, both up- and downstream. There will be gigabit ethernet throughout the house, as well as Wireless-N.
-Executive Lounge - We will have a 720p or greater projector, which will be hooked up to the main (currently unnamed) media server. On this server will be terabytes and terabytes of movies, music, anime, and such that is shared throughout the house. We will also have very comfortable couches and chairs, where we shall regularly serve tea, coffee, and cake/pie. Yes, motherfucking CAKE. Oh, and we’ll have a standup piano, and a record player, so we can enjoy some analog media as well.
Floor 2: Sleeping Floor. This floor has four bedrooms and one bathroom. We will run brass pipes up the stairwell, with ethernet cables inside them, so all of the rooms will be wired. The rooms also take advantage of our wireless network, for those who require it. Our bedrooms are also, in the case of Haewon and the MYSTERY GUEST, workspaces, as they are artists. Oh, yeah:
MYSTERY GUEST: We have a free room, and haven’t found anyone awesome enough to fill it yet. When we do, the Geekhaus will be complete. Anyways...
The bathroom will have a MOTHERFUCKING CLAWFOOT TUB. It will be fantastic.
Floor 3: The Attick. This attic is one of those old, Victorian attics with slanted roofs and large windows. In other words, beautiful. In the attic, we shall have The Library. Basically, we’re pooling all of our books together into a library that will soon have most awesome books known to man, from Plato’s Republic to Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. We will use a sophisticated computer system to keep track of all books, so we can note which books are whose.
Intro:
Right now I live in a shitty house. I pay barely any rent, and everything is cheap. The cost of living is low, and I’m getting a better job soon, so things should slowly improve financially for me. Right now, though, the house is terrible, and the people living with me are awful.
In a year, things will have changed.
Jordan (a Han Solo-like associate of mine), Haewon (my new girlfriend), and I are going to get people (Jordan, Haewon, and others) to move into this house starting in the spring. We are in the process of transforming this shitty house into a Steampunk Geekhaus.
To that end, I have started a corporation, Geekhaus Systems, Inc., to handle our financial operations. We’re working with Time Warner (the local ISP) to get business-class fiberoptic cable routed to the house, and we are planning to buy this house outright if the current landowner wishes to sell (which he does).
Plans:
We can do this because things in Rochester are cheap, from houses to the cost of living itself. We will use the money we (GHS) make as a technical consulting firm, as well as our regular salaries (less food and such expenses), to improve the Geekhaus, including renovating the basement and attic. Here is the new floorplan, floor by floor:
Floor 0: Basement. Storage, Laundry, and Workshop.
Floor 1: Living floor. This contains the Kitchen, the Office, and the Executive Lounge.
-Kitchen - Complete renovation, including new stove and washing machine. We’re also getting a table, possibly new counters, and a small networked computer to look up recipes. Both Jordan and I are increasingly good cooks, so expect excellent cuisine.
-Office - This is where it all happens. We will have desks on the walls and a table in the center (For boardgames and P&P RPG's). We’ll also have a server rack and our desktops down here. The plan is, we should begin to have weekly LAN parties starting in the fall. This room is large enough to support about 20 computers, and we will have a 35 megabit connection, both up- and downstream. There will be gigabit ethernet throughout the house, as well as Wireless-N.
-Executive Lounge - We will have a 720p or greater projector, which will be hooked up to the main (currently unnamed) media server. On this server will be terabytes and terabytes of movies, music, anime, and such that is shared throughout the house. We will also have very comfortable couches and chairs, where we shall regularly serve tea, coffee, and cake/pie. Yes, motherfucking CAKE. Oh, and we’ll have a standup piano, and a record player, so we can enjoy some analog media as well.
Floor 2: Sleeping Floor. This floor has four bedrooms and one bathroom. We will run brass pipes up the stairwell, with ethernet cables inside them, so all of the rooms will be wired. The rooms also take advantage of our wireless network, for those who require it. Our bedrooms are also, in the case of Haewon and the MYSTERY GUEST, workspaces, as they are artists. Oh, yeah:
MYSTERY GUEST: We have a free room, and haven’t found anyone awesome enough to fill it yet. When we do, the Geekhaus will be complete. Anyways...
The bathroom will have a MOTHERFUCKING CLAWFOOT TUB. It will be fantastic.
Floor 3: The Attick. This attic is one of those old, Victorian attics with slanted roofs and large windows. In other words, beautiful. In the attic, we shall have The Library. Basically, we’re pooling all of our books together into a library that will soon have most awesome books known to man, from Plato’s Republic to Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. We will use a sophisticated computer system to keep track of all books, so we can note which books are whose.
Comments
In terms of mystery guests, is that an open invitation to geeks from the forum who might be traveling through the area?
Also, what about zombie preparations? Any plans on having a room with a steel door that can be locked (with steel bars) from the inside and has a ladder or similar to the roof and provisions? This room could be called Alpha Romero. The second Geekhaus can then have Beta Romero, and these rooms would have their own fail proof way of communicating with each other.
As for the media server, perhaps give it the name of a god(dess) related to the arts, or a famous person related to art.
I would really like to see this come to fruition, and when it does I'll have to do something to commemorate the event.
My grandfather is a watchmaker, so I've learnt a bit about machinery from him, and Jordan can weld, plumb, electrize, and such, so we have some toolworking skills. I can carpentize passably, but there shouldn't be many major projects that really need "renovating" (The kitchen and bathroom do, though. Desperately.) We also have some contacts who are willing to help with certain specific things, from donating networking equipment to properly fitting the door locks. Don't worry. Everything in the Geekhaus will be somewhat ornate and beautiful. I won't get a shoddy tub, and we might add on some stuffs to it. It is steampunk, after all. That is a fantastic idea. Haewon has some sketches, but I need to take measurements so I can draw up the blueprints. I should be finished with that by mid-November at the latest. I'll upload the sketches whenever she sends them to me. Because we're not actually touching the structure of the house (knocking down walls, etc) I'm not sure how much permitage is needed (if any). I will look into this, though, just to be safe. The basement, besides being used for storage and utilities, can also double as a zombie shelter, if when that need arises.
Any other suggestions for steampunkery?
check it out
Another addition I wish it had was the ability to associate album tracks and info with saved audio files and then play them through Foobar. That would probably make Libra the most useful piece of software ever, since I have never managed to find a program that can competently acquire Album Art for my huge music collection and play it with a small footprint, and possibly in lossless formats.
EDIT: OH GOD. I can configure it to launch VLC on command to play movies and episodes of TV shows!? This is amazing. I wish I could integrate RSS feeds so that both BitTorrent and Libra would automatically download and update my library with each new episode, respectively. That'd be killer.
Also, how about not VLC?
Poor Emily...Now there's a bunny with the taste of brains. *Pumps shotgun* Not for long.