Schadenfreude » college

Gabe does it again

Erik — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:04:00 +0000

Back in my college days, Gabe and I were pretty good buddies. DeathNET was going strong, and we were having fun running it. You heard the legend of his downloading of 1.3TB of data, which got his internet disconnected in his dorm room.

As a result of this, Gabe decided he was out to get the DCC, our computing department, which is portrayed as the Evil Department of Computing Syndicate in the following short I helped film:

As you can see, I have a couple minor roles (playing cards and the exciting finale scene). Good times. Around that time we also constructed a 802.11b antenna from a dish Gabe bought from FAB-Corp, a bunch of packing tape, and my musical horse, Alpo:

He then dropped out and started his own business, called OvernightPC (I still have one of the CDs they passed out at a LAN party). They would come to your dorm room or home or business and fix your machines. The business did alright for a while, but eventually failed. Gabe moved to Portland, OR.

I went to OSCON in the summer of 2006, and stayed with Gabe. He had started running a web proxy service under various different names, like VTunnel. Wanting to expand his business (he was already pulling 6 figures in advertising revenue at that time), he flew a kid from England to Oregon to work on a new idea: Pay VPN service for anonymity. I’m not sure how this ended up working out.

I left after the conference, and the next thing I heard about him was that he moved to Florida and was loving it. Now, he’s at the center of the entire Sarah Palin Email Account Scandal. His service was apparently used to do the email password hacking deed. I’ll have to give him a call and see what he thinks about all this.

Update

I talked to Gabe on the phone today, and he told me he had done a video interview with Fox. It sounds like he’s doing well.

Video mirrored here:

How much college cost

Erik — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:18:09 +0000

I decided to go back through the records and dig up exactly how much it cost for me to go to the University of Alaska, Fairbanks for 4 years. It was technically 8 semesters and 2 summers. This is not yet figuring in books because I don’t have the figures for that at the moment, but I might add them in the future. I’m just going to guess about $500/semester, and $200 total for summer. So we can add about $4200 to the final cost out of pocket, and it should be almost right on. Also, I’m neglecting cost of living, which was a little high. But, if I wasn’t going to school, I would have had to pay that anyway, so I’m going to ignore that completely.

Cost

Health Center Fees	660
Transportation/Parking Fees	342
Computer Science Dept. Fees	84
Campus Activity Fees	12
General Tech Fee	435
Culinary Arts Fee	75
Computer Network/Use Fees	356
Student Government Fees	195
Student Life Fees	520
Meal Plan	7320
Student Recreation Center Fees	300
Lower Level Tuition	6266
Orientation	30
Sports Pass	49
Upper Level Tuition	6129
Campus Housing	12944
Off-Campus Housing	1500
Lab Fees	387
Alcohol Education Class/Punishment	25
Fine for leaving peanut butter out over XMAS	50

Payment

Employee Training Tuition Waiver	327
UA Scholars Tuition	11000
UA Scholars and RA Housing	8442
Payment	17693

So, I went to school for around $20,000 once you include books and all. Not too bad when you consider the average college tuition.

The average tuition at four-year public colleges and universities is $5,836 for the 2006-07 school year.

Total Out of Pocket: 17693 (47%)

Total Paid by UA: 19769 (53%)

Total: 37462

So, I made out pretty well, I don’t have any debt, and I’ll make that money back in one year easily working in my field.

Mr. Cory

Erik — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:56:33 +0000

Holy crap. Our friend Mr. Cory is currently working for Boeing. I can barely
believe it. It even sounds like he might go back to school and get his
degree. I’m happy to know that the king of the manatees is finally quitting
the Entropia. He tells me he will cash out with $10,000, which is disgusting.
But, whatever floats your boat.