Inside the World's Largest LAN Party 199
MrSeb writes "Last weekend, over 12,000 LAN party goers turned up at DreamHack Winter 2011 in Jonkoping, Sweden with a PC under the arm, on their back, or packed carefully in the trunk of their car. Every single attendee is squeezed into just three massive halls — the largest holding 5,000 computers — or four days, only taking brief breaks to sleep or check out one of the many stages (including some of the largest e-sport tournaments of the year). Being the largest LAN party in the world, DreamHack's infrastructure is suitably monumental: it takes days to lay the thousands of cables, and at the heart of the network is tower of Cisco routers that interface with a 120Gbps internet connection provided by Telia."
Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Funny)
Think of the smell.
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Funny)
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Immaculate Conception!
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Funny)
FWIW, I'm a long-time LANner, and yeah... the smell can sometimes be pretty pungent.
Often the main problem is trying to provide enough showers for 1,000 people or more. Most of these venues are set up to provide showers for just a few people (usually sports athletes or similar). Some LAN parties try to get around this by bringing in a hoard of portable showers (and toilets!), but it's still impossible for everyone to shower in the morning (or evening).
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FWIW, I'm a long-time LANner, and yeah... the smell can sometimes be pretty pungent.
Part of this seems to be that on no LAN party I've ever seen, have the age limits been enforced.
Younger = smellier.
Another logistical error is to have the parties during winter. People arrive dressed for cold, not realizing that with 1000 people and 1500 computers in one room, cold is not going to be a problem.
The earliest LAN parties I remember had a smell of tobacco and beer, not teen sweat.
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, the best way is to go for a shower in the middle of the day, or very late at night.
The main thing is that it's completely pot luck. The showers are usually quite far away from the hall/sleeping area. You can trudge all the way over there to find all of the showers occupied.
It needs a proper, web-based queuing system...
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The current system intentionally encourages exercise! Two or more round trips when you find them occupied.
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It still will not get the stink off you from the guy you are sitting next to that smells like he has not showered in 12 days and has a hint of cat piss.
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:4, Funny)
LAN - Laxatives And Nudity
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A lot play games, but some people just go to watch TV, movies, surf, or hang out with friends.
There's a fairly big social element to them, too -- it's one of the few places where you can go to a pub/bar and be surrounded by likeminded geeks, for example.
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Informative)
I never was present at any official, large LAN parties, but I have hosted/attended several back in my high school days for just with close circle of friends. Size was never more than 12 people and the length was about three days. It is actually very simple formula with nothing really interesting or sinister about it
Essentially the host orginised the event based on when his house will be free (ie. Parents out). He would make some space in the living room by moving a couch to the side and getting one or two large tables in with some chairs. Ideally he would also stock up the fridge with drinks and have a hub or a switch (With at least 12 ports).
Attendees must bring with them their computer, monitor, power strip and all the cabling that goes with it. On very rare ocation we would decide during organisation stage on what games would be installed, but in majority of cases everyone would just bring their entire collection of CDs and external hard drives with pirated games. Some extra cables also come in handy because as a rule at least someone will forget a power strip or a network cable.
First half of the day would consist of assembling everyone's machines and installing/copying whatever games we decide we will be playing. Normally everyone would have their drives fully shared, so after the software are installed everyone just browses each other's PCs and external drives for anything interesting to copy (Movies, games, music, porn, etc). Once everyone finishes installing the games/had their fill of copying the we start plaing games. Starcraft, Quake 2, Counter Strike, Total Annihilation were very popular choises.
In terms of food, we would either pool the money for pizzas or car pool to go the nearest shopping centre. In terms of sleeping arrengments everyone just finds a free couch/bed or in worst case on the floor in a sleeping bag. Othervise it is just gaming non-stop with nothing else in the between. That is where the smell comment comes from: By second day of just sitting around eating junk food and gaming everyone starts to smell earthly.
The party ends at the agreed time (Normally at least half a day before parents of the host come back) and that really is it. Large ones are probably vastly different since with more people further organisation will be needed. Entire thing can be held in a net cafe, but then you need to pay and just lacked certain charm. Certanly there won't be any swapping of pirated materials and porn :-)
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, then I guess I have indeed been to a LAN party, but just didn't know that's what it was called. I was Resident Faculty at a dorm for a while when I first started teaching. It was before I was married so it was just me and the dog. This was at a small Catholic liberal arts college in the bluffs of Minnesota along the Mississippi, so in the winter there was nothing at all to do outside at night. We'd drag out our computers and play Starcraft or Total Annihilation for hours and hours. Drink Leinenkugel that we bought on the Wisconsin side and eat pizza if we could get a pizzeria from the small nearby town to deliver in the heavy snow.
When we got wasted enough, we'd take cafeteria trays and use them to slide down the side of a rather steep bluff. Then we'd take someone to the hospital. In the wee hours we'd stand on the roof and look at the Northern Lights.
The son of the mayor of a medium-sized city lived in the dorm and always had great weed. The dorm was in a building that was once a monastery. One wing was said to be haunted and a lot of weird stuff did happen over there, but predictably, it usually happened when we were buzzed. I know I was supposed to look out for these kids but really it was all much harmless fun and nobody got hurt. I was a newly-minted academic, just a few years older than my charges. I did occasionally give a little advice and a sympathetic ear, but mostly just made sure nobody went overboard.
OK, so now I know. Those were "LAN parties".
Thanks.
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It's "offline" multiplayer gaming. Basically instead of everyone sitting at home playing online, they gather up their stuff (PC (usually a desktop), monitor, keyboard, mouse, headphones) and drive to a mutually agreed location.
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Nowadays, the parties are mostly about gaming, but the nordic lan parties, as a nod to their ancestry from the old demo parties, still have non-gaming competitions, such as photo contests, video contests etc etc.
Though I'm a bit mixed about the removal of some competitions, such as speed drinking of soda, printer/disk/monitor throwing etc...
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If they are are true gamers their rigs will provide enough venting.
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You mean that haze floating over the crowd in the photo?
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That's probably from the smoke machines for the laser show. God, I hate those things.
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It should be pretty easy to end the sweat immediately during a swedish winter... open the door.
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Check out picture 2, and compare to picture 3.
The air in My Mom's basement never looks that bad.
Re:Oh my! All those sweaty geeks in one place. (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is picture 3 is the aftermath of the smoke generator you can see is running in picture 1.
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Recipe For Disaster (Score:4, Interesting)
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..duplicate name detected, IP address conflict. How many of them forget to switch from static IP addressing to dynamic?
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I assume managed switches and such would prevent that from damaging other clients.
Re:Recipe For Disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
The power requirements alone must be enormous. Most buildings are simply not wired to handle an inrush of 12000 monitors, and the computers they are hooked to.
It must have required totally separate power structures and a totally separate power feed separate from the building mains. This wasn't held at a typical office building, but rather in an empty-shell type of auditorium.
Check out the air quality in picture 2 vs picture 3.
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Check out the air quality in picture 2 vs picture 3.
Yeah.... in retrospect, having Taco Bell provide the catering was a bad idea.
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I almost can't believe there wasn't a fire...
Re:Recipe For Disaster (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, monster rigs are discouraged, and in fact, many just bring laptops and a standalone monitor.
In fact, power consumption is rationed at the event:
ÃÂÃ 5.3 Each Table Seat may use an average of 275W. Please observe that the effect your power supply can handle is not the same as what it uses! More information on this can be read under the [Information: Electricity and net info] section on DreamHackâ(TM)s website.
That average covers not just the computer+screen, but also if you charge your cellphone or camera. You're not allowed to bring hot plates, microwave ovens etc.
Then there's the fire hazard rules....
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There probably is quite some power available. At the walls somewhere, where you can plug in some heavy duty cables or so. No idea how they do it exactly, but this is not the only type of event that needs a lot of power: concerts, but also trade shows with their well-lit booths, or even sports events that need enough light for the TV cameras. OK the latter's power supply will be relatively small but still it's a lot.
Now this are 12,000 participants, say 1,000 W available for each, that's 12 MW. About 10,000
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That is only monitors or laptops. Think of the gaming rigs in towers with 3xGPU boards. I can discern a handful of towers in each photo and judging from the demograhpic on those events you are talking about serious gamers so I wouldn't be surprised if most of the towers (say a 20% of total computers) were high end 1.2kW gaming rigs. so 1200*2400 + 150*9600 ~= 4.3mW ouch....
Re:Recipe For Disaster (Score:4, Funny)
so 1200*2400 + 150*9600 ~= 4.3mW ouch....
4.3mW? That's nothing. My MP3-player alone requires more power than that.
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Not many rigs at Dreamhack are like that. Those are mostly in the expo area.
From the rules:
ÃÂÃ 5.3 Each Table Seat may use an average of 275W. Please observe that the effect your power supply can handle is not the same as what it uses! More information on this can be read under the [Information: Electricity and net info] section on DreamHackâ(TM)s website.
Yeah, pictures are nice. (Score:3)
But I'd rather have seen pictures (and diagrams and configs) of how they laid out the power and switches. And what problems they ran into and how they plan to solve them for the next time they run this.
No matter how much thought and planning you put into the infrastructure, the users will always surprise you with some new problem.
But that setup must have rocked for torrents.
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But that setup must have rocked for torrents.
How so? They still have to pull them from the outside. Granted - once inside the LAN, the torrent would run wild.
Re:Yeah, pictures are nice. (Score:4, Interesting)
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You do realize that's shared between thousands of people? Your slice would probably be 10mbps or so which isn't really all that impressive, especially in countries like Sweden.
Re:Yeah, pictures are nice. (Score:4, Interesting)
what about stoping Theft? (Score:2)
with that many people and with stuff that is easy to take and sneak out as well people failing a sleep at the systems is't bond to happen or at least have people try to do it.
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You can also buy expansion blanks with the crenellations already in, but you've probably got a load laying about anyway....
Doh, spotted a typo in my own submission... (Score:5, Informative)
'or' should be 'for', before 'four days'
120 gbps (Score:5, Interesting)
where can i get that kind of connection speed, and how much does it cost
Re:120 gbps (Score:5, Informative)
comcast has fiber runs to it's head ends (Score:2)
they use that to feed in channels and to link to the VOD super hubs.
Re:120 gbps (Score:5, Informative)
You can get that kind of Internet connection in the US, and it's done every year for the ACM/IEEE SC trade show.
http://sc11.supercomputing.org/?pg=scinet.html [supercomputing.org]
Re:120 gbps (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Sweden is approximately the size of California but with only 9.5 million people, so that brings it to spot 195 in the world when it comes to population density...
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Look at the areas that are actually populated. While Sweden as a whole averages 20.6 people per square kilometer, the more populous provinces go much higher - Uppland has 111.8/km^2, Sodermanland 146.1/km^2, and so on. That's a population density significantly higher than much of the US - roughly on par with New England.
Another important figure is percentage of population living in an urban area. The US is 82% urban, Sweden 85%. They're essentially similar to the US as far a population density works - they
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I'm sorry to tell you that you're very misinformed. The Swedish parliament is made up of 8 parties, and none of them is the Pirate Party. They received 0.65% of the votes in 2006 and 0.63% in 2010, and 4% is required to get a seat in the parliament, making them very far away from that. (check this: http://www.val.se/ [www.val.se])
They did however do much better in the 2009 elections for the EU parliament, where they received over 7% of the Swedish v
Re:120 gbps (Score:5, Informative)
Quoth Wikipedia:
In terms of membership, it passed the Green Party in December 2008, the Left Party in February 2009, the Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats in April 2009,[4][5] and the Centre Party in May 2009, making it, for the time being, the third largest political party in Sweden by membership.
Re:120 gbps (Score:4, Informative)
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As someone from Sweden question some of your claims. Sure, we're a relatively small area compared to some other countries, but our population is only 9 million so the population density isn't all that high. You have cities with more than 9 million in them. I'd also question your claim that we have a lot of money. We're not too bad off but not that different most other western countries. Or maybe you meant that the government has a lot of money due to the high taxes.
You are right however in that the governme
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About 60k a month if you do not mind cogent. Do not expect to find that much free bandwidth at any single place.
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From another article the whole equipment setup cost 45 MSEK or about 6.65 million dollars, but that includes the infrastructure to supply 20.000 users. Note that this would be $330/person if they were to actually make this a permanent solution. Bandwidth charges on top of that, since this is pretty much a show-off and experiment, I doubt they pay much. Nor are they normally able to saturate that pipe. Here in Norway at The Gathering we had 100Gbps for 5000 users, the most the users managed to hit was 13 Gbi
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Actually, 100/100 Mb/s is pretty nice to have in a fairly normal Swedish family nowadays, many ordinary people put it to practical use(something all the beautiful snowflake geeks wish to pretend they don't, just to justify their torrent leeching), what with people uploading to Youtube, uploading photos in high-res, doing their own streaming, as well as them all watching vids etc.
As for Gigabit, assymetrical is available in some places for residential use here in Sweden. Here in Stockholm it's available in s
Worlds largest sneakernet (Score:3)
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I think SMB or FTP would choke, both in terms of bandwidth and in terms of concurrent user limitations if your server became even remotely popular in that situation. Also it's hard to play games while your server is being thrashed.
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SMB/CIFS is often blocked at events like this.
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Quakecon (BYOC population 3000 or so, vs 5000 for this lan party) lived and breathed DC++. I'm pretty sure there's a video of the Mister Sinus show getting the entire drunken and rowdy crowd to should "Dee-Cee PLUS PLUS!" over and over. I've never used DC++ outside of Quakecon, but it's use was so prolific that they outright banned it by name in 2011. Bandwidth was never an issue. Many people would set their max upload speed to 0.001kbps for fear of degrading their ping during gaming.
People would bu
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Your estimate of the Dreamhack "BYOC" population is on the low side. You can be sure that up above 10k of the 13k+ computers connected to the public LAN at this DHW were strictly BYOC.
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Whoops, did not read the summary all the way. Three halls, one holding 5000. I read that as a total population of 5000 in the byoc
Wow. some truly happy people there. (Score:5, Insightful)
check out the eyes of the guys laughing. thats a real laugh, and their eyes are shining with real happiness. been a while since i saw such people in media images.
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Power and Heat? (Score:2)
Those aren't your sub-100W corporate boxes. Rough calculations for gaming PSUs on 230V would be tens of thousands of amps. And good thing it's winter in Sweden!
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I know that quakecon (about 3000 pcs + displays) brings in multiple generators on semi trucks. All the computers are run from diesel generators that are brought in from offsite, and the only grid power being used is for the air conditioning and the lighting of the building. The odd thing is that a modern 24" display draws about 1.5 amps, roughly what your computer draws. Even a "phat gaming rig" with dual video cards only pulls about 550 watts/1.2 amps while running the water cooler pump and spinning forty
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The electrical setup shuldn't be that different from one major venue such as stadio concert or music festival - industrial size diesel generators, usually available at up to 1000kW or more, and somewhat easy to rent. 1000kW is almost
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I measured the electrical load of every computer in our office. That's a lot of computers. I have the spreadsheets to back it up :)
Power draw for a standard 17" 4:3 dell LCD display is 0.7 amps, computers are almost universally 1.2-1.3 amps regardless of era. A dell 30" display draws nearly 1.8 amps. 22-24" displays draw 1.5 amps. Again, not theoretical, this is actually metered. We used both a kill-a-watt and clamp meters to independently verify the results.
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A Dell LCD that draws 0.7A at 230V would be consuming 161W - That's more than a 19" CRT.
161W could actually power quite a big CRT. I have measured about 70W for both a 17" computer monitor and a 28" widescreen TV.
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You misunderstand how switching power supplies work.
They have a sticker number '1000W' - this is (ideally) the maximum amount of power they supply.
They will also have an efficiency curve, which may vary from - say - 50% at 10W to 90% at 700W, and 80% at 1000W.
The important thing is the efficiency at the amount the load draws.
If the efficiency is 90%, the load draws 600W, then the amount drawn from the line is 660W.
If the load draws 600W, with a 600W power supply that's 80% efficient, it's 750W.
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The PS will draw 1200W from the wall to supply 1000W to the load
the efficiency is of the PS
Cisco 2950T-48 Switches (Score:5, Informative)
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You are right about that. The power requirements when you get to those scales end up being in many cases more difficult than the networking portion.
Cooling is another story...I'd imagine at that latitude it's pretty cold outside. Pretty easy to fan in super cold air from the outside. Or maybe they did not need to? The computers provided heat for the building and excess was just faned out instead of in.
Skilled Organizers (Score:2)
The LAN parties in Norway that I know of actually own most of the equipment involved. :)
Companies like Cisco have been known to offer some discounts and/or sponsor the event with equipment. However it's mostly financed by the members and participants themselves.
Here in Norway I believe they even operate a small company, KANDU, that rents this equipment out where needed [to other LAN parties]. As of 2011 they own 170 48-port gigabit switches, backbone switches, frame relays and much more. The people involved
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Indeed. Dreamhack is a corporate entity nowadays, and the events are run with a small core of employed people, and a large heap of volunteers(Around 450 people at DHW)
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Since I forgot to add this in the previous post *Sigh*
Volunteering for Dreamhack Crew can actually be a pretty good career move for young network techs/admins, to get some solid high intensity practical work to put on their resume, though it's not the only thing volunteers are required for, volunteers also cover sales, ticket checks, security(together with local police and a security company), fire hazard patrols etc.
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I go to Euskal Encounter every year (a LAN party in the Bilbao Exhibition Centre in Bilbao, Spain. I go there to help put on one of the stands, I'm a member of RetroacciÃn, a retrocomputing group, and we put on RetroEuskal which is a zone where you can go to do some classic gaming. That's not to say I don't also get in a few games of Starcraft 2) which has 4096 LAN ports, and this is exactly what they do. 48 port switch at the end of each table, cables laid out to each one.
Euskal Encounter is quite int
Do Want! (Score:2)
with a 120Gbps internet connection
How do I get one of these run into my apartment?
Lan Parties are Dead (Score:5, Informative)
Back when I was younger, I used to go to LAN parties all the time. Typically with friends, at their place, but twice I went to a big LAN party. In each of the big LAN parties, the drama was almost more overwhelming than the BO. It was like being in a room full of three-days-unbathed tween drama queen girls that were obese and all used to being the center of their own worlds. Tempers flared easily when no one was around to bring everyone snacks and drinks and take away their piss jugs.
And the thievery. God Jesus did shit ever get stolen. Dozens of people got their shit stolen at both of the big LAN parties I went to. Apparently some shady people would show up with shitty computers, set up a place, and then go around looting. No one would ever think to stop them from walking out with a computer or hardware, because people were doing it all the time. Oh, and the poopsockers. You couldn't play a strategy game without being cheesed to death immediately at the beginning of the game. People with superior skills would send a worker unit over to harass and maybe kill your guys before you could get a soldier out, and then thirty seconds later be in your base with late game units. Oh, and the cheating. People wouldn't admit that their 100% headshot rate and 100:0 kill/death ratio was fake. When they did, cue drama and usually violence.
In short, fuck big LAN parties. They have none of the charm of the small group gaming sessions, and all of the downsides of playing with a bunch of socially inept nerds with strange senses of humor.
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Caught one guy with pants round ankles watching porn at Assembly. If you're just there to play games and not do anything creative, then yeah, you're a nerd.
Different LANs, Different [social] Protocols? (Score:2)
I'm not sure what part of the world you live in, but what you are saying does not apply in Scandinavia [and this article].
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Where were these LAN parties?
I go to Euskal Encounter every year (in Bilbao, Spain), it's one of the biggest in Europe with over 4000 attendees, and there's never any trouble - the whole thing is always really good natured and fun. Of course the organization is very good, and being held in the BEC there's the usual exhibition centre security staff there (you don't ever want to mess with the Matafrikis, she can kill a man at 50 paces with one lash of her tongue).
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Which don't have the charm of demoparties, which Dreamhack once was. Gamers pretty much took over The Gathering, which had a great history of being a 'scene event. Once they'd become disinterested enough to get alcohol banned and refuse to kill audio/lights when what few demos there were got shown (TG even moved the demo stuff into a separate room so they could keep counterstrike crap on the main screen), it was
Euskal Encounter (Score:2)
And I thought Euskal Encounter was pretty monumental (big LAN party in the Bilbao Exhibition Centre in Spain every year, which I go to). Here's a couple of pics from the 2010 event (I've been too lazy to upload 2011's pics):
http://photo.alioth.net/RE10/pabellon.jpg [alioth.net] - the main hall, it's about the size of a football pitch
http://photo.alioth.net/RE10/tentcity.jpg [alioth.net] - Where many people sleep, another BEC hall full of tents!
http://photo.alioth.net/RE10/bushnell1.jpg [alioth.net] Nolan Bushnell, Atari's founder visited us.
http [alioth.net]
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You haven't heard about Dreamhack before? It's been pretty much the biggest since they took the crown from The Gathering back in the early 2000's sometime. They went into Guiness book of world records as the biggest lan party in 2004, and have grown immensely since then.
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I hadn't heard of Dreamhack until I started watching the SC2 tournament held there a week or so ago, no. (And the final game between LiquidHero and EG's Puma was one of the best pro SC2 games I've seen)
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Plenty. There's still LAN bandwidth too, don't forget (I assume it's 1Gbps locally, but could be 100Mbps... but either way...)
Plus, I'm sure a network bod will chime in and discuss the chances of all 12,000 people using their 10Mbps internet bandwidth allowance at one time...
Re:Connectivity (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.dreamhack.se/dhw11/2011/11/22/120-gigabit-at-dhw11/ [dreamhack.se]
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Everyone with a table seat got 100Mb/s except those seated at Telia's VIP tables, who got 1000Mb/s.
The traffic from the LAN to the WAN on the router, as was seen on the public dashboard, was pretty low in RELATIVE terms... often it was below 1Gb/s :p
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Yes. Gaming requirements are measured in kilobits per second, not megabits. Gaming usually needs low latency more than it needs high bandwidth. Considering many games won't even go out of the LAN they probably get that.
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I was going to try to prove Scandinavian fitness with event pictures, b
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They are doers. Not in the sense that they blow the shit out of anybody they don't like, because they are not greedy grabby dreamers supporting a Ponzi-esque economy built around the war machine and monetary voodoo as Americans are. And that, with all of Scandinavia's evil socialism and dou
The Truth About Scandinavia (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another ignorant liar that knows nothing about Scandinavia.
The average tax rate is 32% on taxable income, after deductions and a flat rate discount. The tax rate is proportional, with exceptions for the lowest incomes. The highest income groups pay an additional extra tax on income above a certain threshold. This tax gives you an automatic government paid pension. I can only speak for my own Scandinavian country, but it's mostly the same.
You may deduct interest payments on mortgages, travel expenses if you have to commute a long distance (minimum limits apply), expenses due to your health (special needs equipment) and so on. Too much to list here.
In addition you receive a monthly cash subsidy for each child below the age of 18, kindergartens and after-school parks are subsidied, schools are free, college is free, healthcare is free, hospitals are free, prenatal clinics offer free, extensive pre/post-birth support, maternity/paternity leave is paid for by the government (1 year at 80% pay). Students are eligble for a student loan from the State Educational Loan Fund, no interest paid while studying, and you only pay when you actually have a job. If you end up sick or disabled you will receive welfare and additional support including housing, caretakers and so on. That's just what I can think of at the moment, there's a lot more.
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The average tax rate is 32% on taxable income, after deductions and a flat rate discount.
28% here in Norway but for every 100 NOK my employer pays me, he must pay 7,8% in social security tax and 14,1% (mostly) in employment tax. Also of most things I buy there's 25% VAT, there are some exceptions and lower rates but also many goods that have other taxes on top like alcohol, gas and such.
So in reality if my employer has 100 NOK, he'll pay 18 NOK to the government and 82 NOK to me. Of that I will pay 23 NOK in taxes, so 59 NOK paid out. If I buy at 25% VAT, 12 NOK will go to the government so the
Re:Again scandinavia. (Score:4, Informative)
The taxation in Sweden is significant, but you have to earn a lot of money to cross 50% taxation in Sweden, and it's capped at ~56% on income if you exclude employers extra costs.
Immigration to Sweden from the EU is extremely simple. From the US it's a bit more work, but should be quite doable. Swedish is from the same language tree as English so written language is doable. The spoken language is one of the few with a song-song intonation and can be quite hard to get right.
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