posted
Background: I run a webserver from an old iMac at my dads house over the DSL line there. Its a MUD server, from which Middle Earth Mud runs. MEM is a project I've been working on for 2 years this month. Its been online for over a year and a half. A whole ton of my spare time gets put into that, and I have a lot of friends who are players and builders on it. Its finally getting to the point where its playable and there are people starting to play it, which has had me really happy recently and bouncing off the walls.
This morning as I was wandering downstairs for my morning (ok, ok, it was 1 PM) tea in preparation for a concert I had to play in this afternoon (when it was the first beautiful day of spring) he told me that he was going to get my brother an xbox. Whats so bad about that you might ask? Well heres the problem: our modem has only one ethernet port. Currently its plugged into my server. We've tried various hubs, but they don't work. All the other machines in the house connect via wireless. The xbox COULD get a wireless card, but according to dad 'your brother said it would lag'. Oh, so it doesn't matter that my MUD would lag? Of course, thats not the problem, my brother is gonna unplug the webserver to plug in his xbox. It won't just be that the server would lag, it would be that its gonna be down. My brother has an xbox at my mom's house. When he's there, he plays in virtually all his free time. Its all he does is play halo 2 on that thing. Now I do a lot more than just play on MEM, but I've put a lot of hard work into it over the last 2 years. Hours of coding a building time. I'm only now just getting to reap the rewards of it by seeing other people play it and enjoy and getting to do so myself. By what my dad is proposing it is basically going to go down every other week for the entire week. He doesn't seem the care about the fact that my brother already gets to play xbox at my moms house and that I can't set my server up there. His argument is that its not fair that I should get the entire ethernet port. Maybe thats right, but the way he's putting it to me now, my brother is going to get the ethernet port as of his birthday in april. He's letting my brother have his halo 2 24/7 not just every other week, but every week now. And he's not letting me keep up my project of two years into which I've put more time than I can count.
Whats more is, if he just waited maybe 3 or 4 months before getting my brother the xbox, I would move out to college and take the server with me. I even offered to get my brother the xbox as a going away present and help him set it up if dad would wait. But no. He just doesn't seem to care about me and my server. And there is nothing I can say, no argument i can come up with that could possibly convince him other wise. I don't know what to do. Its so frustrating and its just adding on top of every other blasted frustration I've had to put up with this year. And there are way too many to name.
And no, I can't run the web server from my moms house, which is his suggestion. Its a different kind of connection, cable, and the router there doesn't have enough firewall pinholes in order to run it. It only allows a few of them, and many of them are already taken up by my brothers warcraft III, starcraft, halo and halo 2.
*sigh* I don't know what to do, and I'm frustrated beyond belief.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
You've got what, a 2wire DSL modem? What all have you tried plugging into it that doesn't work? It shouldn't be too hard to get something working with it (I did support for SBC DSL for a bit, not for 2wire officially, but we ended up doing a fair amount of support for them anyways).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Spoken like someone who thinks parents will be around forever.
It might be frustrating but parents that presumably haved loved you and cared for you don't deserve hate. Michelle
Posts: 152 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:You've got what, a 2wire DSL modem? What all have you tried plugging into it that doesn't work? It shouldn't be too hard to get something working with it (I did support for SBC DSL for a bit, not for 2wire officially, but we ended up doing a fair amount of support for them anyways).
Yes, dads house has a 2wire DSL modem. We had it plugged into a 4 port ethernet hub, a 3Com I think, for a long time. About as long as we had the modem. But that hub randomly stopped working a little while ago. It could still read the modem, but it could read neither the server nor another imac we tried plugging into it, nor could it read my ibook. When either one of those machines was in it. It could read my ibook when it was just the ibook and the modem. But soon as you added one of the two imacs it stopped. When it was just the two imacs they could not read each other.
We got another 3Com port, a newer one, on the theory that the old one had just died or been fried or something. Same thing happened. When I plug the server directly into the modem it works. If we were to get a linksys router, which is what we have at my moms house, I'd have the same fire wall/pin hole problem as I have at my moms house. So basically I dunno what to do.
quote:Spoken like someone who thinks parents will be around forever.
It might be frustrating but parents that presumably haved loved you and cared for you don't deserve hate. Michelle
Spoken like someone who has been out from under their parents tyranny for long enough to forget what its like. Or maybe you were one of the lucky few who had parents who were good enough that you never felt their tyranny and control.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Uh, you do know that any limits on firewall port forwardings are purely artificial, and that many routers can have quite a few?
Also, while the Linksys WRT54G we just got only has ten fields to set port forwarding with, it accepts ranges of ports, so most likely you can just group some of the ports being forwarded to the same computer all together.
The hub thing is sort of weird, you might try a smart hub, or a dumb switch.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Also, while the Linksys WRT54G we just got only has ten fields to set port forwarding with, it accepts ranges of ports, so most likely you can just group some of the ports being forwarded to the same computer all together.
I didn't think of that... thanks Fugu! That oughta do the trick Won't solve the lag problem, but having the server laggy for a few months is better than having it go down every other week for a few months.
posted
\\\\\\\Spoken like someone who thinks parents will be around forever.
It might be frustrating but parents that presumably haved loved you and cared for you don't deserve hate. Michelle --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spoken like someone who has been out from under their parents tyranny for long enough to forget what its like. Or maybe you were one of the lucky few who had parents who were good enough that you never felt their tyranny and control. /////
Not quite. I came from an upbringing of real abuse. What you describe is neither tyranny nor control. It's a nuisance, an annoyance - it's not a cause for hatred.
These are your parents! Life is too short! Someday when you visit your graves this will all seem like small potatoes.
I read your story and thought your dad was being a big old pain in the ass. Okay. I understand that. I also can tell you worked your ass off. Go on and be angry; I'm just saying hate is a strong word.
Take it for what it's worth, but a lot of people would kill to have had that be the worst thing our parents ever did to us.
Since you imply I'm so long in the tooth that I don't recall what it's like to be under my mother's roof - it involved her buying razor blades and telling me that when I did "it" not to get blood on the carpeting. It also involved me trying to hide the bruises in the shape of fingers along my throat.
Do your parents make it to big events like graduations, recitals, etc? My mother was too busy reading a romance novel to go to my high school graduation. She couldn't make my wedding either. She has also said less than a dozen words to me in the last decade.
I guess I'm not so far from my parent's tyranny to recall that. Or does that make me one of the lucky few? Michelle
Posts: 152 | Registered: Jul 2004
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There's more lucky few than you think, Michelle, that grew up like you did. You aren't alone in it.
Alcon, you need a reality check. Yes, it sucks. From your perspective, it sucks major eggs.
But it isn't as bad as you think. It isn't as bad as it could be. Just put a little perspective on it.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I understand how it is, Alcon, but there as a world of difference between an inconvience and abuse. I know you care about this MUD, and while I don't think what your dad planned was fair, I also know he doesn't deserve you hate. I hope you don't really hate him for this, and that is was just a word chosen in haste.
If Fugu's suggestion doesn't work (and I think he knows a lot more about that stuff than I do) you could always talk to your mom about why you thin it isn't fair, and have her discuss taking away one of your brothers ports at her house so you can use her system for a few months until you leave.
posted
I can understand your father's perspective to a certain extent. Perhaps he thinks the xbox is as important to your brother as your MUD is to you. Since he doesn't understand anything about xboxes or MUDs, he probably thinks they are equally important/silly.
Or, maybe he thinks you are the more mature one and therefore you should make the sacrifice?
quote:Whats more is, if he just waited maybe 3 or 4 months before getting my brother the xbox, I would move out to college and take the server with me.
On the other hand, I have no idea why your dad did not see this as a viable compromise. Was there already too much tension on the subject by the time this compromise was offered? Asking your brother to wait for his xbox for 3 months is completely reasonable. If the boy cannot live without playing xbox 24/7, maybe a good parent should think about taking the xbox away for a while.
FWIW, I don't think Alcon hates his dad. He is just blowing off some steam. It is tough living with your parents when you are that age. I appreciated my parents a lot more after I moved away to college. Hang in there buddy. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I know, that was my point. He DID list this as a rant...and we have all been there, haven't we? Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Frankly, I'd unplug ya at least every other week just to let you get a life other than your unhealthy addiction.
Look at yourself: it's just a game, and it's a maximum of 4months of every-other-week interruption in play, and you're jonesing about worse than a heroin addict hearing his connection/supplier got busted.
Have you experienced having your dad walk into your room while you were trying to put on the moves on a certain winterball date? Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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If I had been working on something for two years, I would have factored in that it is on the only physical connection in the house.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Look at yourself: it's just a game, and it's a maximum of 4months of every-other-week interruption in play
aspectre, I think Alcon is concerned that if the server is shut down most of the time, many of the other players will find something else to do, and so the game will collapse. It would affect lots more people than just him.
Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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I got the same idea as you. I mean, this is something that Alcon created himself and made for other to enjoy and participate in. Why wouldn't he be upset that it wouldn't be able to work?
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:There's more lucky few than you think, Michelle, that grew up like you did. You aren't alone in it.
Alcon, you need a reality check. Yes, it sucks. From your perspective, it sucks major eggs.
But it isn't as bad as you think. It isn't as bad as it could be. Just put a little perspective on it.
Nothing is ever as bad as it could be. Hell, I could have been drafted and sent to Iraq. I could have been mobbed in the street. I could have been car bombed, my family killed. It goes on and on. But none of these things happened. And the fact that they COULD have happened, doesn't make what did happen any less bad. The fact that worse things have happened to other people doesn't make this, and list of frustrations that have been building up this year any less frustrating to me. Sure it could be worse. But that doesn't change the fact that I was frustrated as hell earlier today and angry enough to punch through a wall(well almost, I doubt I'm that strong ). And seemingly, I haven't gotten rid of it yet. I dunno what I need, but I seem to be living on a short fuse of late. And I don't seem to be able to lengthen it. But getting perspective isn't going to lengthen it.
quote:\\\\\\\Spoken like someone who thinks parents will be around forever.
It might be frustrating but parents that presumably haved loved you and cared for you don't deserve hate. Michelle --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spoken like someone who has been out from under their parents tyranny for long enough to forget what its like. Or maybe you were one of the lucky few who had parents who were good enough that you never felt their tyranny and control. /////
Not quite. I came from an upbringing of real abuse. What you describe is neither tyranny nor control. It's a nuisance, an annoyance - it's not a cause for hatred.
These are your parents! Life is too short! Someday when you visit your graves this will all seem like small potatoes.
I read your story and thought your dad was being a big old pain in the ass. Okay. I understand that. I also can tell you worked your ass off. Go on and be angry; I'm just saying hate is a strong word.
Take it for what it's worth, but a lot of people would kill to have had that be the worst thing our parents ever did to us.
Since you imply I'm so long in the tooth that I don't recall what it's like to be under my mother's roof - it involved her buying razor blades and telling me that when I did "it" not to get blood on the carpeting. It also involved me trying to hide the bruises in the shape of fingers along my throat.
Do your parents make it to big events like graduations, recitals, etc? My mother was too busy reading a romance novel to go to my high school graduation. She couldn't make my wedding either. She has also said less than a dozen words to me in the last decade.
I guess I'm not so far from my parent's tyranny to recall that. Or does that make me one of the lucky few?
((((Michelle)))) I'm sorry. I didn't know that. However, telling me that doesn't help me at all. No, they don't deserve my hate for that one thing, and they don't have my hate(for that one thing). Least one of them doesn't. I did label this as a rant as I believe Kwea pointed out, which means I was trying to vent anger (to no avail apparently).
I could tell the whole story here, starting about this time last year. But it would accomplish nothing apparently. It would seem like nothing to you I would bet, but to me, it feels like the weight of the world has been plonked down on my shoulders. Telling me to get perspective and showing me how it could be worse doesn't lift that weight. Only makes me feel worse actually, both embarrassed becuase that weight is so heavy to me but so light to everyone else, and angry for the same reason.
So I'm sorry Michelle for the overly harsh response, but next time you see someones rant, please heed the 'rant' marker in the title or in the post and do not be so judgemental.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:So I'm sorry Michelle for the overly harsh response, but next time you see someones rant, please heed the 'rant' marker in the title or in the post and do not be so judgemental.
And when you rant in a public forum, heed the fact that it opens you up for comments from others, who may not share your exact same perspective on what you're saying, and have opinions they are more than free to express. By ranting in a forum, you are opening yourself up to those comments.
And I'll add my own - I agree with aspectre - were I your parent I would never have allowed this to get to this point. Also, I would consider the fact that your brother lives there too, and certainly something like phone lines are shared by the family - your father probably views this as a situation where you've had unlimited access to something, and he sees it as more than reasonable that your brother have that access.
Unless you pay all the mortgage and all the bills in the house, your father has the right to decide how the resources he pays for are allotted. Certainly him deciding how to allot those resources among the family is far from tyranny. Heck, I don't think he deserves to be called a tyrant even if he were demanding that you never use the server again - but he's not doing that at all. He's asking that you share resources with your brother - which is perfectly reasonable.
Edit: too early for me, I can't type before 8 am
[ March 07, 2005, 08:21 AM: Message edited by: Belle ]
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Speaking from my own perspective, Raia, I will repeat what Michelle said : you say they are pain in the a**, and next thing you know you're crying on their graves. I'm not saying that you should forgive anything to your parents because one day they'll die. Just that sometimes you're glad that someone tells you to put things on perspective before it's too late.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Anna, I love my parents dearly. And I realize that. But their concern for your well-being has a nasty habit of getting in the way of letting you live your own life.
Trust me... I tried to go 5000 miles to get away from it. That was doomed from the start when they decided to follow me.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Must depend on the parents, then. Or not. Now that I think about it, I guess I really hated some rules my parents had for me, like not going to a party if they didn't know very well the parents that hosted it and knew they would be there all along, or not making auto-stop, things like that. It made my life harder socially, but I haven't been raped or abused in any way - and since they both had worked in child protection, they knew what they talked about. Now that Mom is dead, I remember all the things she did that annoyed me, of course (and now that I'm grown I know some of them really protected me) but also the good things - and too often I wish she is there so I can ask her this or that... But that doesn't mean anything about your relation with your parents. I mean, I know you had issues with them from the hug thread, but not exactly what happenned, so don't think I judge you or them or anyone. I'm just sharing what this discussion makes me think, nothing more.
[ March 07, 2005, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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"If I had been working on something for two years, I would have factored in that it is on the only physical connection in the house."
Which is why I still don't get why Alcon didn't just buy a router and open up all the relevant ports on it.
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Alcon, I'd like to explain myself better in the light of day. Well, maybe not better - but with a little more attention to detail.
I think your dad is, if not wrong, not playing fair. It can be frustrating to have to have the wisdom of Solomon when it comes to your kids, yet it's in the job description to try.
Did you tell him as you were working on this your goals? Did you tell him how thrilled you were that it was building an audience of other gamers? I don't mean, did you just tell him - I mean did you tell him all along what the game meant to you? If not, it might have made a difference. (To have made it clear that this was part of your dream and that you were including him in the dream.)
My post was not to say that unless your parents were trying to off you that you had no reason to complain. I was just saying that, even with the bumps in the road, if your parents love you and are in your corner, you are waaaay ahead of the game.
My mother is alive but quite ill. I'm not a part of her life anymore. I know when she dies there will not only be the grief of losing a parent - there will be the grief of the lack of resolution. After all the cruel things she did I will remember at that point that she gave me my love of animals, books, and one sarcastic sense of humor. Those are not small gifts.
I don't hate my mother - I hate some of the things she did out of her own pain. There is a saying about the punishment fitting the crime ... does it in this case? Does what your father did justify hatred?
In the continuing saga of Tales From Michelle's Childhood, I will mention that I never met my dad. I don't know his name, where he lives, or if he lives. I look at little girls with their dads and, while I'm not crying in my beer, know that is something that I never had. As screwed up as your dad might be this time, he is still a presence in your life.
Anyhow, I know you were ranting but your words go out to a lot of people with their own histories. You should expect disagreement. I have always said that people should say whatever they like, but they them own those words and need to except rhe responses those words cause.
You are on the verge of making your own choices and coming to a point where you get to make your own rules. In your place I would go to your dad and explain your issues (calmly), explain what this meant to you, and then figure out a plan to rebuild better than ever. Oh, and play some xbox with your brother! Michelle
Posts: 152 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I have a really hard time believing that there's no way to split the connection with a router. Does your ISP allow you to share connections? If so, their support line may help walk you through it. If not, there must be someone online with the same service/modem who has a blog entry or message board post on how to do it.
There must be a better way! Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I love the way the female part of Hatrack tries to resolve the emotional issues while the male part tries to resolve the technical ones. Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I know you're male, Dag. If that can help. And actually I didn't check every SN before I spoke (I knew about Kwea and BtL), which should teach me to think before I open my mouth. Bad Anna !
[ March 07, 2005, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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They annoy me! And I'm technically in junior-high (not in my semi-private school, but in national standards).
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Even though I'm male, I tend to take the middle road, resolving neither the technical nor the emotional issues. It takes a major effort on my part to not dismiss other peoples problems out of hand, as they would be rather petty compared to the problems that I've had. Not to say that my life is nothing but problems. "It could be worse" has become my own personal mantra, but it also makes you take stock of the good things in your life. So anyways, I tend to listen more, respond little, and wait for people to come to the conclusion that they should have arrived at originally. How this applies to this post...well, yes it sucks, but the situation is not as bad as it seemed at first. It could be worse. Be thankful you have a server, internet connectivity, and all of the other things that make your life possible.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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"I tend to take the middle road, resolving neither the technical nor the emotional issues."
Hm. See, some people would say the middle road would entail solving both. I guess you're a "glass half-empty" kind of guy.
Speaking as a "solve the technical issues first" guy, though, it sounds to me like solving the technical issue would make the emotional issue completely moot.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom, by middle of the road I meant that most problems solve themselves. A lot of times, people talk out their issues and never need more than someone to sit and nod in the appropriate places.
quote: Hm. See, some people would say the middle road would entail solving both. I guess you're a "glass half-empty" kind of guy.
I'd say I'm more of a "The glass has holes in it and it's leaking everywhere, so it's defintely half-empty now, but we can fill it up again once we get those holes patched", kind of guy. Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Just different perceptions of time. Some topics go hot and heavy and then just stop, never to be seen again.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:I love the way the female part of Hatrack tries to resolve the emotional issues while the male part tries to resolve the technical ones.
I consider myself more of a problem-solver in general. If I thought the root of this problem were emotional, I'd go for that first, but since I think there should be a simple technical solution, I see the emotional part as somewhat irrelevant.
quote: it sounds to me like solving the technical issue would make the emotional issue completely moot.
Well, that can de true, and that can be false. I mean, maybe Alcon was upset only because that particular event, or maybe it was the event that made it too much but the feeling was already there.
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