GeoCities.us GeoCities.us » CollegePark » Library Get your FREE home page!
TRUSCOTT 927 DORMCAM
live from the ninth floor of Truscott Hall, Michigan State University. two guys, one camera, no privacy.
The DormCam: Joel at his desk under the loft with headphones on, writing in a notebook, and a messy bed piled with laundry on the left
new picture every 60 seconds, 24 hours a day. this page reloads itself.

what you're looking at: room 927, looking from the corner by the window toward the door. The bed on the left is mine (the laundry is also mine). The loft on the right is Joel's, with his desk and computer under it. My desk is right under the camera, so when I'm home you mostly get the top of my head. If it's Sunday afternoon, Joel is studying with his headphones on and I'm at the library. Yes, the actual library.

 the rules
  1. The camera gets turned to face the wall whenever anybody asks. Anybody. Joel came up with this the first week and it was a good idea. If you see a white cinder-block wall, that's what's going on, and no, you don't get to know why.
  2. No, I won't point it out the window. It's a parking lot.
  3. It runs all night. At night you get black, or the Christmas lights, or me.
  4. If the time in the bar is old, either the campus network is down, my computer crashed, or I rebooted it to play something. Usually that last one.
  5. Mom, I do sleep. Just not at the same time as other people.
 greatest hits
  • Final Four night · 3/27/99 · half the floor in one room, then Duke happened.
  • Move-in day · 8/28/99 · sophomore year, same room, Joel's dad and the loft.
  • 3:04 a.m. · 9/21/99 · me and a C++ assignment due at 8.
 updates

9.26.99  Put up greatest hits pages for the three best frames so far. Took out the old freshman-year hits except the Final Four one, which stays forever.

9.21.99  Turned in the C++ assignment at 7:51 a.m. Class is at 8. Some of you were watching at 3 in the morning, based on my e-mail, which I find a little worrying.

8.28.99  The DormCam is back. Same room as last year, same roommate. We asked for 927 again and got it. My computer was the first thing I set up, before my bed, before my parents had even left. My mom took this personally.

5.07.99  DormCam going dark for the summer. See you in August. Thanks to everybody who watched us not do anything interesting for three months.

3.28.99  We lost. The frame's in the greatest hits. I don't want to talk about it.

2.08.99  First picture. It's the ceiling. I'll fix it.

 the setup
  • camera: 3Com HomeConnect, from my parents for Christmas 1998. Top shelf of the hutch over my desk, up by the ceiling.
  • computer: Gateway Pentium II 300, 64 MB, Windows 98.
  • software: Webcam32. Grabs a frame every 60 seconds, puts the room number and the time on the bottom, and FTPs it here.
  • connection: the ethernet jack in the wall, which is honestly the best thing about living in a dorm. It's hundreds of times faster than the 28.8 at my parents' house in Grand Rapids. I don't know how I'm going to live at home next summer.
 who we are

Jesus Nimmo (me). 19, sophomore, computer science, from Grand Rapids. Left bed, desk under the camera. Writes code at bad hours. Will fix your computer for pizza.

Joel Hutson. 19, sophomore, mechanical engineering, from Troy. The loft. Actually studies. Came up with rule #1. We got put together randomly freshman year and it worked out so well we did it again on purpose.


people watching two guys do homework since 2/8/99:
014229

say hi, request rule #1, whatever: [email protected]

last updated 9/26/99