Semi OT: Academic Firewall Rules

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

> Back when I went to Ryerson, we only had an IBM mainframe available.  We
> had to use whatever was provided, as we couldn't download anything to
> it.

For years, faculty had been asking for an upgrade to that system. Then,
the story goes, there was a tour group of high school students being taken
around the place. On seeing the mainframe, one of the students said 'This
stuff belongs in a museum. I'm going to go to Waterloo where they have
modern equipment.' Suddenly, a new computer system was on the agenda.

So a large committee was convened. I was invited to be on a subcommittee
about 6 levels down from the root directory and, sensing the futility of
the whole thing, declined - much to the annoyance of the person organizing
this thing. The committee laboured for months and came up with A Plan.

Then one day, the then president had lunch with someone from IBM and
suddenly, without any consultation with the committee, we had a new
computer system, which apparently was a Steal of a Deal. Ultimately, it
turned out (I heard) that the computer needed additional memory and ended
up costing much more, but we did get a new computer system.

Too late for the student in question, however.

-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Prof Emeritus, Ryerson EE

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