Internet Communications While At Sea? 504
ubergamer1337 writes "Next semester I will be participating in a college study abroad program known as Semester at Sea. The gist of it is that over four months 600ish students sail around the world on a converted cruise ship, visiting diverse port cities while taking classes when we are between ports. Debates about its educational merit aside, my internet options while I will be at sea will be severely limited. We get just 100 minutes of internet access for the entire voyage, and once thats gone the only internet access we have is a university email address, which is limited to messages under a megabyte with no attachments. I have been pondering different ways to staying in contact with friends and family back at home without running to an internet cafe in every port, and I have already decided that I want to set up a blog that can be updated by email, but I wanted to ask the collective wisdom of Slashdot if anyone knows of any other ways to transmit more then just your standard message through email. Some things I would be particularity interested in being able to figure out would be a way to send photos (encode them as text?), and a way to get Wikipedia pages etc. emailed to me."
Missing the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the point of something like "Semester at Sea" to immerse yourself in the program, and become involved deeply in the studies and the people you're traveling with?
What you're wanting to do is like ordering escargot in a French restaurant and smothering them in ketchup.
Cut the cord (Score:5, Insightful)
Temporarily cutting off contact will be the best thing you ever do for yourself.
Supposedly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Supposedly Stallman doesn't surf the web - he sends an email with a URL and the email is returned with the page...
You can also look into maximizing your 100 minutes - cache a lot, don't get images, don't get ads, etc. Maybe team up wtih a few other people, so common interests/needs can be cached instead of downloaded once for each of you.
What about wireless access via PCMCIA card or cell phone? May work when closer to the coast, would certainly work in-port (depending on where you are in port of course). May even be able to make some $ off other students by setting up your own network, etc.
And of course you could always social engineer someone elses time away from them for non-identifying use such as fark, slashdot, etc. Save your minutes for your educational needs :)
Limitations are in place for a reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you consider that the limitations on Internet usage are in place for a reason? It may not be the bandwidth, it may be to force participants in this program to get away from their computers and interact with each other. The limits they place sound pretty reasonable to me.
With that said, I'd say satellite is an option while at sea. Otherwise depending on where you go perhaps a tethered cell phone would do the trick. Expensive either way!
Unplug, get away (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw your email.
Sounds like heaven.
Re:Does nobody know about RFC1149? (Score:3, Insightful)
These kids have no idea what an RFC is...
+1 Informative from my imaginary mod point collection.
Re:Limitations are in place for a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be their intent, but this is Slashdot. He poses to us an intriguing and difficult problem and we solve it through various obtuse and technical solutions.
I'd check the fine print. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cut the cord (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that is the point of the 100 minutes of internet. Enough for some emergency communication, not for blogging and letting people know what you are doing every second.
Drop the blog, no one cares anyway about the blog. And save it for a cram research of data, that emergency patch that you need on your laptop. Getting those baby pictures that come while you are out.
There is life outside the internet.
UUCP for images (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically: you say "messages under a megabyte with no attachments" and ask for "a way to send photos (encode them as text?)". That's UUCP. Setting up a mail/web server that receives a mail with text followed by uuencoded images and posts that to a blog if and only if there's a password in the header or subject sounds like a 50-line perl script.
However, you don't say that you get to take your own computer along; if you can't do that a lot of your options are shot.
Socially? My advice: live with it. Make a website later. Make the most of the cruise, spend time on your homework^Wcabinwork. OK I'm extrapolating, I know Internet access at sea is extremely expensive and that that's probably the reason for the restrictions, but it probably isn't a good idea to spend time circumventing your Internet restrictions to update your blog while the guys who devised said restrictions to get you weaned off your Internet addiction are wondering why you're not socializing ;-)
You're Missing the Point (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Message queuing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's supposed to be for ed-you-ma-cay-shun. Being online is pretty much a requirement for education these days. I'm sure he'll have a whale of a time, but unless this boat has a huge library, I don't reckon there's much benefit in being at sea while studying.
Please tell me you're not serious. Handy? Yes. Useful? Yes. Required? No. It's only my opinion, but the more I work with students the less critical thinking I run into. Perhaps being unplugged for more than two minutes might be useful.
Flame away.
The Greatest Lesson You'll Learn (Score:3, Insightful)
There is life without the Internet.
Learn how the human race lived during the last century - get a short-wave radio and some good books and discover for yourself how a simple life can be a deeply satisfying life.
Use the opportunity properly (Score:5, Insightful)
Use the opportunity wisely. Soak up the new experiences. DOn't be one of those fools that travel halfway around the world to sit in a McDonalds or an internet cafe.
Forget about the internet, email, wikipedia etc.They'll all still be there when you're done.
Cut & Paste (Score:2, Insightful)
Just include the uuencoded text in the body then.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
How about you forget about obsessively blogging every minute of the day and just, you know, enjoy the cruise. Maybe even socialize a bit.
You never know, you might even end up talking to members of the opposite sex.
Re:money-making opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cut the cord (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess someone doesn't have a happy family life....
You may not need constant contact but whats wrong with wanting it? Believe or not some people are close to the mother/father/brother/sister and want to share experiences with them.
Meatspace (Score:3, Insightful)
I advise (since you asked) that you spend a lot less time thinking about the technological challenges of life at sea, and a lot more time thinking about the social challenge of getting into the pants of your schoolmates (or instructors, if the mood strikes). You're only going to be young once. There will be lots of time for techie fussing later.
Live, damn you... LIVE!!! That's the true educational value of a semester at sea.
Re:You're Missing the Point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Message queuing (Score:1, Insightful)
Net connectivity is not to blame for the lessened critical thinking amongst your students. Their bad teacher, however, is.