One of the problems I see with this gnutella method is the broadcasting of the searches.
Example: If you get the results of this kind of broadcast search back from a bad search ("sex nude pictures jpg"), you'll trash your own internet connection and probably that of others (or the search-interface's if you use a web-interface).
Imagine a network of a million hosts (a small subset of all webservers). Each of these is running a gnutella-based search-engine. On one of the servers is an interface to search the network for some information. The query is forwarded onto the overlay network, to say 10 nodes at each node, assuming some mechanism is in place to avoid loops. if the network is well interconnected, it will take about 5-6 hops to reach an edge of the cloud (probably a couple of times more to reach all the nodes). As soon as the first nodes get the search-request, they send back results, say limited to the first 5-10 most significant hits. Each reply has a number of tuples consisting of (URLs, a description and an indication of how close the match is and a timestamp and probably some more), maybe 1-2 kB per reply. Say 10% of servers have a match, then 100000 hosts will at some point send back results.
I calculate, roughly a 100 MB of results will be arriving at the searching node within a few minutes, if it can process the dataflow
This is only one search, both the searching nodes and the servers will have to deal with a lot of searches if you look at other search-engines as a comparison.
Centralised search-engines are a good way to limit the bandwidth-usage, but they are slow to get changes on the web.
idea: It would be good to have a webserver keep track of an index for it's own document-space and when that changes, push that change to a central search-engine where it can be searched. Distributing the searches is a waste of resources, IMHO you should distribute the indexing mechanism and centralise the searching.
And considering that for this thing to work you need an index-engine on each server anyway, it's a small step to do it like this, isn't it?
Re:At least two counterexamples.
on
Too Old To Code?
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· Score: 1
I have another counter-example!
last week I was at an internal workshop and there was this guy who was at least 3 times my age (I'm 27), hearing aide and all! he was working on writing a client for SIP in Linux. And he was quite capable and knowledgeable, at least for his age;-)
So don't worry, but also don't forget that people change their goals as they grow older!
is to have microsoft give the sources to an independent (new) organisation, including all the rights and make it GPL.
If they don't do this, open source is just a PR stunt and means nothing, because they can always change parts (and not publish the changes) so it doesn't work in the same way as the open source version.
In theory I agree with you, however there are some good reasons to worry if you look ahead further than what you'll be doing tomorrow.
The trouble is that while you're having fun with your head in the sand, some of the most ignorant and bullishly arrogant people (some call them politicians;-) are being pressed and pursuaded by companies with lots of money to install rules to make what you call "fun" so illegal you can go to prison for 6 times your lifetime for "borrowing" a few sound files.
As long as people with the right kind of common sense about what is reasonable and what is out of proportion (wrt punnishment and crime) in the new Internet world are driving public opinion and, more importantly, the opinion of politicians, there is a chance things will not be so bad when the next generation will grow up.
Of course, I may be wrong in my observations of the US political system, but then again I'm Dutch...
So my advice is: get your head out of the sand and start pursuading people. But do keep having fun while you can!
You can pay for experiencing a live concert, but not the music played there.
You can pay for a paper book, but not for a digital copy
You can pay for attending a course, but not for the ideas presented
You can pay for the packaging and organising of a Linux distro, but not for a per user license (Open Source software)
You can't file patents anymore
On a side-note, this makes a good case for memes being a new species of procreating life (of a kind), because this particular meme would (if spread/accepted widely enough cause a more productive replication of other memes, since they're not protected anymore by patents or financial restrictions.
It's an interesting concept, but where do you draw the line?
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Example: If you get the results of this kind of broadcast search back from a bad search ("sex nude pictures jpg"), you'll trash your own internet connection and probably that of others (or the search-interface's if you use a web-interface).
Imagine a network of a million hosts (a small subset of all webservers). Each of these is running a gnutella-based search-engine. On one of the servers is an interface to search the network for some information. The query is forwarded onto the overlay network, to say 10 nodes at each node, assuming some mechanism is in place to avoid loops. if the network is well interconnected, it will take about 5-6 hops to reach an edge of the cloud (probably a couple of times more to reach all the nodes). As soon as the first nodes get the search-request, they send back results, say limited to the first 5-10 most significant hits. Each reply has a number of tuples consisting of (URLs, a description and an indication of how close the match is and a timestamp and probably some more), maybe 1-2 kB per reply. Say 10% of servers have a match, then 100000 hosts will at some point send back results.
I calculate, roughly a 100 MB of results will be arriving at the searching node within a few minutes, if it can process the dataflow
This is only one search, both the searching nodes and the servers will have to deal with a lot of searches if you look at other search-engines as a comparison.
Centralised search-engines are a good way to limit the bandwidth-usage, but they are slow to get changes on the web.
idea: It would be good to have a webserver keep track of an index for it's own document-space and when that changes, push that change to a central search-engine where it can be searched. Distributing the searches is a waste of resources, IMHO you should distribute the indexing mechanism and centralise the searching.
And considering that for this thing to work you need an index-engine on each server anyway, it's a small step to do it like this, isn't it?
last week I was at an internal workshop and there was this guy who was at least 3 times my age (I'm 27), hearing aide and all! ;-)
he was working on writing a client for SIP in Linux. And he was quite capable and knowledgeable, at least for his age
So don't worry, but also don't forget that people change their goals as they grow older!
is to have microsoft give the sources to an independent (new) organisation, including all the rights and make it GPL.
If they don't do this, open source is just a PR stunt and means nothing, because they can always change parts (and not publish the changes) so it doesn't work in the same way as the open source version.
In theory I agree with you, however there are some good reasons to worry if you look ahead further than what you'll be doing tomorrow.
The trouble is that while you're having fun with your head in the sand, some of the most ignorant and bullishly arrogant people (some call them politicians ;-) are being pressed and pursuaded by companies with lots of money to install rules to make what you call "fun" so illegal you can go to prison for 6 times your lifetime for "borrowing" a few sound files.
As long as people with the right kind of common sense about what is reasonable and what is out of proportion (wrt punnishment and crime) in the new Internet world are driving public opinion and, more importantly, the opinion of politicians, there is a chance things will not be so bad when the next generation will grow up.
Of course, I may be wrong in my observations of the US political system, but then again I'm Dutch...
So my advice is: get your head out of the sand and start pursuading people. But do keep having fun while you can!
Some ideas for what is right and what is wrong:
On a side-note, this makes a good case for memes being a new species of procreating life (of a kind), because this particular meme would (if spread/accepted widely enough cause a more productive replication of other memes, since they're not protected anymore by patents or financial restrictions.
It's an interesting concept, but where do you draw the line?
I've seen a lot of good books I know and even more (possibly) good ones I'm going to have to find for myself.
A few I've not seen (explicitly) mentioned would seem quite appropriate for a 13 year old (I think):
Glory Season - David Brin
Eon - Greg Bear
Eternity - Greg Bear (sequel to Eon)
Songs of Earth and Power - Greg Bear (fantasy)
The soprano sorceress - L.E. Modesitt jr.