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	Q&A Network Midterm Project Proposal March 10, 2003

Abstract: This network is designed as a non-electronic way to get an answer to a particular question. The question is written on a self-addressed, stamped 4" x 6" card and then passed to a friend. If the answer is known, it is written on the card with the answerer's name and dropped in a mailbox. Otherwise, the recipient writes "don't know" on the card and passes it to another friend who is more likely to know the answer. If there is no room to write "don't know", the recipient drops the unanswered card in a mailbox. CHARACTERISTICS Each person who is passed a card serves as a node, as is the USPS (mailbox). The three rules of the network -- answer and drop in the mailbox, write "don't know" and pass to someone else, or drop in a mailbox if there is no room to write -- are the network's protocols. The exchange or mailing of cards are the network's connections. The cards themselves are the network's packages. The questions and answers are the network's contents. Each card's address is defined either by the node or (if mailed) by the card itself. STACK Application layer: Nodes handle content by deciding if a question is answerable or not and passing or mailing the question card accordingly. Transmission layer: Each question travels through the network until it is answered or is deemed to be unanswerable by the network (too many "don't know"s) Physical layer: The network relies on existing social and postal networks. Network schematic PREDICTIONS I think that the rate in which questions are answered would depend on the difficulty of the question. That is, more difficult (esoteric) questions should require more hops and thus more time. Also, more hops could mean a greater chance that packets would be lost. To test that hypothesis, I will ask five different questions, each sent on different cards, and rank each in order of difficulty in the lower left corner of the card. The questions I will ask, from least difficult to most difficult, are: How late is Radio Shack open? What is the most romantic restaurant in San Francisco? What is Red Burns' real name? What is putu? Who is Tali Mejicovsky? My predictions are that, of the ten cards: Five will return answered. One of those will have the wrong answer. Two will return with no answer. Two will be lost forever.