Insurance companies, landlords and even Stanford Housing agree on a fundamental security measure for housing on campus: Strangers should not be allowed to enter. to realistically enforce this policy, the system that allows students to open their residence hall doors for visitors should be improved.

The DoorKing system is what currently lets students admit visitors into a building. the system conveniently allows residents to unlock their residence hall door when visitors call them by a phone located near the residence entrance.

However, only landline phone numbers can be programmed into DoorKing, and over 30 percent of students at Stanford lack landlines. this percentage is steadily increasing as cell phones, are becoming the norm for communication.

A frequent request from students is to enter their local cell phone number into DoorKing. when Residental Assistants had a conversation with Gene Awakuni, vice provost for Student Affairs, in the fall of 2003, they asked him if the DoorKing system could be changed to allow students to open their residence hall door without having to connect through the landline phone service.

In response, Awakuni said, “Student Housing staff has met with the Door King vendor about the capabilities for the upgraded software package that will be installed for fall 2004. new technology will allow for a certain number of local area codes to be programmed into the system so that visitors can call a resident’s cell phone (as long as it is within the designated area codes).”

However, this planned reform never materialized. one possible reason for this could be Residential Computing’s reluctance to create more incentive for students to forgo a subscription to a landline in their rooms.

In a Daily article published earlier this year (“Landlines losing out to cell phones,” Oct.1, 2004), Ethan Rikleen, Residential Computing Network and Systems administrator, mentioned that as fewer and fewer people get landline phone service from ITSS, it collects less and less money to cover the network infrastructure cost. As a result of fewer people subscribing to landlines, the costs for having a landline connection went up this year.

Rikleen said that 60 percent of the in-room fee goes to Networking Systems at ITSS, which manages the residential network in partnership with residential computing. if landlines ceased to exist on campus and cell phones became the norm, Networking Systems and ITSS would lose a great deal of revenue.

However, we hope Student Housing is not linking essential services to outdated technologies — in this case, the landline. Loss of revenue for Networking Systems and ITSS would not be a justifiable reason for a delay in the implementation of the upgraded DoorKing system that would allow cell phones to let in visitors.

Some students are even willing to pay for this expanded DoorKing functionality. In fact, a small fraction of students keep their landlines simply for access to DoorKing. if Networking Systems and ITSS charged students for linking their cell phones to the DoorKing system, they could probably generate more revenue than they are with the current system. this situation would be win-win for both students and the University, as students would have improved access to a valuable security service and the University could upgrade their outdated DoorKing system while making more money on a service students need.

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i am a 23 yr old male and i went to the doctor about 6 months ago and after a couple appointments he diagnosed me with prostatitis. now the symptoms i have are: tense feeling behind my testicles, the tip of my penis is uncomfortable…..almost like i have to pee, but only little dribbles come out, and also peeing like 10-15 times a day— what i am lookin for is another opinion……are these symptoms of prostatitis? what can i take to make this better? please help,… thank you

There is a book called "Headache in the Pelvic" by Dr Rodney Anderson, a urologist at Stanford. You absolutely have to read it. You might be able to get it from a library.

It's condition of the muscles in your pelvic floor. You can get the most relief from physical therapy if you can find a PT trained in it. You might try the International Pelvic Pain Society site. They give out names of members who treat it. Pelvic floor dysfunction happens a lot more to women after childbirth, but the treatment is similar.

There is a lot of research going on. it isn't an infection unless they did tests and found one. usually there is no sign of one and they give you antibiotics anyway as a placebo. it is in fact usually called abacterial prostatitis, an oxymoron. the irritation is from the nerves and muscles in the area. They refer pain all over the place and make it hard to diagnose.

It might just go away, but it can get a lot worse, so remember this stuff. it is often associated with stress and anxiety that tenses the muscles. it commonly hits young adult men. it is unlikely your prostate is really a problem at your age.

If you look for another urologist, ask him/her if he knows about the book. if he doesn't, keep looking. it is REALLY hard to find a urologist who understands this and can help you.

The best help I've found is from the guys over at the forums on chronicprostatitis.com. the home page has a lot of information after you skip over the ad for Farr Labs. it is actually not a commercial site at all. It's run by a guy who has mostly recovered from this.

Hi Nick

It sounds like prostatis.
Also you may have flu like symptoms with it.
You could go to the health store and get some saw palmetto for a healthy prostate.
If the pain continues then you need antibiotics as prostatitis is an infection of the prostate.
I wonder if your prostate is enlarged at the moment as you are only passing small amounts of urine?
Email for more information if you need to.
Regards
Andy

These are symptoms of prostatitis. I am a bit concerned that (1) it took a couple of visits to the Dr. for a final diagnosis, (2) he didn't explain the type of prostatitis you have (as there are several), (3) he didn't provide medication/symptom relieving advice and (4) the symptoms have endured for six (6) months.

My advice, go to another doctor who is going to properly diagnose the exact cause of your prostatitis and provide treatment for such.

In the mean time, try a hot sitz bath (a bath in which only the rectal and perianal areas are immersed in water or saline solution to decrease swelling, inflammation and pain) and get plenty of rest.

I hope this helps you and all the very best for the future….:-)

Registered Nurse

These are the symptoms alright.
Try to drink as much as possible.
And ,might sound weird:jerk off way more.
Sky

Sounds like prostatitis. Drink lots of water 70 ounces or more a day to make it more comfortable. You need to see the dr. anyway. It's unlikely to get better on its own.