In the most stunning failure of digital infrastructure since the cyber attack which was not all that long ago, Stevens has announced that the load of simultaneous gaming, classwork, entertainment (for kids and adults), and Chegg overwhelmed the new WiFi and resulted in a total severing of the university’s internet connection. The issue is expected to last at least until the end of the semester as Stevens figures out exactly what an IP address is and why the patent office cares so much.
Off The Press was able to corner the head of IT in a stairwell for the story. “We didn’t know video games require bandwidth,” he told us. “It seemed like a self-contained system between the screen and controller — we could SEE the wire!” It was at this point we realized that next-gen WiFi meant that it only worked for the next generation of data compression where entire video games take up less space than an average notepad to-do list.
A few professors have expressed elation at the stoppage of the internet, as they realized students would no longer be copying their homeworks from Chegg. This elation quickly turned to disappointment as none of their students were able to continue completing their homework without Chegg. At this point we would like to remind our readers that Off The Press has never used an automatic essay generator, and that all of our quotes are paraphrased to avoid plagiarism of the original source.
University administration scrambled to come up with a solution, eventually settling on bringing out the old typewriters from the basement of the Library. Students will have to reserve time days in advance, or weeks if they want typewriters with spell-check capabilities. We got to try out one of the spell-check typewriters which was able to mechanically check a list of all English words and prevent keys from being pressed down if there were no words where the given letter was next in the sequence. Many fingers were broken in the process of testing this, but we have to give it to the 1915 mechanical engineering department on this one.
Off The Press was able to get a sneak peek of the replacement for Canvas coming out next week, which will just be one giant canvas set up on the front wall of the Library. There, students can pin all their assignments to their assigned location, and staircases on wheels will be available for professors who need to retrieve the assignments. Due to OSHA regulations, TAs and grad students will not be allowed to be on the stairs, which led to some concerns that elderly professors could get injured. One such instance nearly occurred, but our chief medical correspondent and part-time EMT was there to catch the 97 year old professor as he fell while reaching for a very obviously incomplete calculus problem set. Interested students can get a sneak peek at the canvas for themselves simply by looking behind the giant curtain on the side of the library.
If anyone has information about which gamer exactly was playing GTA when the outage started, we are interested in recognizing them for their service in revealing issues with and contributing to the improvement of Stevens’ digital infrastructure.
Off The Press is a satirical Opinion column written and organized by Off Center, often used to joke about current Stevens issues and campus news. It is currently organized by Off Center President, Matthew Brantl.
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