Slashdot Mirror
Finally Real P2P With Brains
dfelznic writes: "The mp3 archives of CodeCon are now availble, which is news in itself. But what makes this real interesting is that they are being distributed by BitTorrent. BitTorrent allows users to download a file from multiple different people. Instead of everyone nailing one server, users get the file from other users. Furthurnet uses a similar technology to distribute legal bootlegs of concerts. The archive is available at the BitTorrent demo downloads page. As soon as I started downloading (cable modem) at around 300k I got a request for the file and began uploading at 40k. This could be the answer to the slashdot effect;) Now, who is going to be the first to complain about the use of mp3s instead of oggs?"
w00t! Frosty piss!
HADOUKEN!
prevented me from the glorious frosty post. so anyways: ejaculation?
Me and Silent Bob love the Ogg Vorbis format. We are strong supporters of the open source. Except this tubby bitch never says anything! But when he doies release information it's usually important shit, not useless stuff.... So I guess tubby here is more of the closed source type, but I am 100% open source. I don't leave nothing unsaid. Bong.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
instead of MP3s.
:)
(Well, he did ask, right?)
I want to be the first to complain about the use of mp3s instead of oggs...not sure what that means, but I want to be the first.
It seems that back in the late 1800's in America (I mention this for those /.ers who don't happen to live in the U.S.) there was this saloon in the
West that was kind of a run-down, ramshackle joint that was frequented by
a few loyal patrons and not too many others. I think it was California, but
it could have been Oregon or someplace similar -- well, the location isn't
really relevant to the story but if you're really interested you might
be able to dig a bit on Google to find out. Basically, while the saloon
didn't go out of its way to publicize itself to out-of-towners (not much
point given that it was in a fairly remote area) it managed to do a fairly
steady trade despite the occasional brawl that caused property damage and
the persistent requests from a particular fellow for free drinks.
More nights than not, the proprietor of the saloon would watch this drunk come wandering in through the doors, sit down, and lay a line on him about how he's trying to pull things together and how he'd just make enough to keep himself in beans and couldn't the bartender just pour him a shot or two to fuzz the edges and whatnot. And again, more nights than not, the bartender would take pity on the poor guy and pull out the whiskey.
Now, this went on for some time, and while the bartender was an easy mark even he had his limit. So one night, after the bartender already gave the fellow three shots on the house, he decides to cut the guy off.
"Look," he says, "while I'm really sorry to hear that things still aren't working out for you I don't think that I can keep giving you free drinks. I've got to make ends meet too, you know."
So the drunk says, "I don't suppose you've got anything I can do to get another drink tonight?"
The proprietor, not particularly wanting the fellow to hang around all night and certainly not expecting him to take him up on his proposition, says "Well, you see that spittoon over there? If you take a swig out of that I suppose I could give you a drink to wash it down."
No sooner did he finish his last sentence than the drunk walked over to the spittoon and hefted it off of the floor. Before the bartender could stop him, the fellow put the rim to his lips, tipped the bottom of the metal container up into the air, and began to swallow. To the bartender's dismayal, the guy continued to slowly chug the thick contents of the spittoon. When he had finally gulped the final remnants of the container, he threw it to the ground, wiped off his lips with his shirt cuff, and gagged, "So, do I get the drink?"
"You can have the bottle!" exclaimed the bartender, immediately pouring the first shot. "But tell me, why did you swallow the whole damn thing? You only needed to swig it to earn the drink."
The drunk replies: "It was all one long string."
Ok people, I know we all have this dream of distributed web serving, but as a web developer I feel I must explain why this will not work now:
1) Response Time
To make this work you need more than a fancy P2P network. Remember site like slashdot are database backed and update very quickly. Sure slashdot caches pages, but many things like user preferences and comments are updated way to quickly for a P2P network too distribute it.
2) Security
Yes you can encypt, but who other than a hobbist is going to put the content that represents them on several machine at once and expose themselves to someone breaking it. If someone was successful they could do things like change the slashdot homepage for those they are distributing to. You cannot be a credible source and distribute yourself like that.
3) Slashcode (yeah I know, slashdot specific)
Have any of you actually read slashcode? I'll tell you what, it is damn complicated. There is no way a simple patch is going to make a site like this distributable. The entire thing would need redesigned, which is no small job. I'd say that this would be the case for any database backed site as well.
4) Databases
Since I mentioned a few times already, I think I'll point out the flaw here. Name one database system that is able to handle and organic network of servers (ie constantly going up and down), keep all the data available, keep all the data available on a resonable connection (not behind 56k lines), give the response time you need, doesn't take up huge amounts of systems resources, and can easily be set up on one of the P2P nodes by even a reasonably competent user. Oh that's right none, and you have to have that in order to have a dynamic site on a P2P network, which is a huge portion of the web at this point.
Well, that's all I can think off right now on this, but I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons why this isn't feasible in the near future.
Cheers
man I been trying to remember that URL for ages... time to shock some friends with Goatse. Thanks for reminding me!
man how can you forget a marvelous website like that ? I visit it regularly twice a day to masturbate....
eh? stupid mods.
ditto: stupid mods.
where can i get this 'further' software? google has obvious problems locating it.
http://furthurnet.com
im an underrated troll
fucking moderators (not the one who modded me underratted, thanks to you)
It is furthUr, not further, linked in the parent article: www.furthernet.com
Argghh - I meant www.furthurnet.com
Pics from the con are also available on the club's website.
LOL!
power of suggestion? or just bad drugs?
you decide.