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RSS And BitTorrent, Together At Last
eoyount writes "Wired has an interesting story about a really simple idea I wish I had thought of. Transferring large files across the Internet isn't easy for your average joe, but a combination of RSS and BitTorrent technology might just make it easier - Slashdot ran a previous story on the theoretical blending last year." (LegalTorrents is run by the strangely familiar simoniker, who wrote a short piece on the O'Reilly Network about how it was set up, and offers observations on how well the combination fares.) Update: 03/17 21:45 GMT by T : Ernest Miller submits two related postings he's written on RSS+BitTorrent, a combination he calls "broadcatching."
Many ISPs and college campuses block P2P ports, BitTorrent included. I'm not sure that 'news' is a compelling enough reason to have many (or any) of them change their policies.
Trolling is a art,
This sounds like a wonderful melding of two current technologies...
However, remember when cable gained enough steam to warrant not one but many 24hr cable news networks? We are now blessed with an overabundance of crappy sensationalist "reporting". I do NOT want cnn/msnbc/fuxnews/etc. landing on my HD.
If an individual set up a feed for say, a favorite game or movie alone, I would subscribe. But most webpages I read, I gloss over quickly then am done with.
If I, and everyone else had subscribtions to all of the media content of their favorite websites delivered autonomously, the majority of it getting thrown out quickly...
think of the bandwith, the poor helpless bandwith, won't somebody please think of the child., er bandwidth!?
...but in that case, you're no worse off than before. And realistically, if there's some huge download I'll usually just start it before I head to bed. Of course, if you're sitting there counting down the seconds until it's done, that's different...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, because if someone downloading a 100MB patch uploads even 10 MB during their BT session and closes it right after it's downloaded, that's still 10 MB the main servers don't have to send. Take Blizzard for example. Right now, their company's servers have to send 100% of the patch files. With BT, if they can cut that to 50% or even 80%, that's a huge benefit.
When you don't think of it in terms of people uploading movie files, and think in terms of companies using the technology to ease load on their web servers, now you're looking at BT the way the author intended!
You seem to believe that 'corporations' should pay whatever it takes to upgrade their servers and bandwidth in order to give you decent download times for free. Heh. If BT lets me get fast download times at the cost of using some of my mostly idle upload bandwidth, I think its a great idea.
As for ISPs metering bandwidth, guess what, you have to pay for what you use anyway, otherwise the ISP doesn't stay in business. It doesn't matter whether its metered or a fixed $30 or $60 / month. It has to cover their costs. If you're complaining that your cost would go up with metering, its because you think that you use a lot more bandwidth then everyone else. So you're just trying to shift the costs to the people that don't use as much. Pot, meet kettle.
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Large amounts?
Can someone is can make subtitles near to or exceeding professional quality ones for free? Translating, editing, timing, and typesetting? They can and they do. That is why fansubs exist. Do they bother with sound? No, because dubs are very difficult to get even close to comparable with the original language, if at all, but subs are easy and require only a little quality control. In fact, the original producers would be wise to cultivate and sponsor these international volunteers to do the the translations and editing for them (because timing and typesetting are the most technical parts but can be applied to all the translations). Plus, unlike sound subtitles require a negligible amount of bytes compared to the video.
Can someone distribute content for essentially no cost to the producer? Perhaps you ought to read the article again. Obviously the answer is yes. This is why digital fansubs are far more widespread and popular than the old VHS variety ever was. This is why the parent of this thread was referring to articles that describe how indy bands and movies can make themselves known and spread their work.
Are international menus hard/expensive to make? No, unless you make it difficult for yourself in the first place. Frankly, I'm really only interested in watching the show, and a lot of the overly flashy and slow menus out there only make things annoying. Do you even need menus for online distribution? No, since generally it's just a single movie/song/album/file. How about packaging? No.
What about when electronic distribution is not available, i.e. poor countries? Well, those guys on the blankets on the sidewalks seem to be able to manage. Certainly I've seen a few bootlegs from Hong Kong in my time with laugably bad english but probably decent chinese, and they manage. In both cases they seem to be catering to people who are priced completely out of the legitimate market rather than simply unable to access it due to a lack of translation. Which is where black markets have always taken over.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
If I take a knife and I cut someone up with it. Does that mean that somehow you are now going to be unable to go use the knife for something you want/need to?
Honestly, if the only thing on this planet that anyone used bittorrent for was "warez", *GASP* you could still set up torrents for legal files and have all your buddies download them.
If BT becomes illegal at some point, then we all are going to have a lot more to worry about then the fact that we can't get ahold of our warez.
./revolution