I mean, we've got to do SOMETHING to prevent people from VOLUNTARILY giving up their privacy for things as frivolous as 15 minutes in the spotlight or $20 off their car insurance.
Don't they know that we know what's best for them?
Actually Home Depot here has self checkout lines. Works perfectly well except for bulk goods that have no barcode. I'm always paranoid that I'll accidently trip a sensor exiting the store cause the machine didn't de-active it, but I've not had that problem.
Yes, I've also used those Home Depot self-checkout things, and I've seen them in some grocery stores too. They are a step forward, but you still have to manually scan EACH ITEM, and sometimes there are still long lines for the self-checkout machines. There have also been more than a few times that I've spent an absolutely agonizing amount time scanning a particularly odd-shaped item -- and you can't just fallback and key-in the product code, like they would in a regular checkout line!
What I'd like to see is a NO-SCAN system, something like pushing your cart through a metal detector, and the RFID sensors just "see" everything that's in there. I realize that current technology might not provide this, but mark my words it is the way of the future!:)
Ok, let's take just a minute to hold off on our knee-jerk walmart bashing and think about and interesting RFID idea:
When I go to a store, what is the #1 thing I hate? Waiting in line. There is nothing worse than seeing only a few registers open with huge lines. My time is valuable. I would like to just be able to WALK OUT OF THE STORE WITH MY STUFF. Let the RFID detectors track all the merchandise, then all I have to do is show someone my credit card and ID and sign for it all.
This time savings alone would boost the economy and our standard of living -- think about how many wasted hours you've spent in lines, when you could have been spending time with your family or friends, working to get some more dough, etc.
And frankly I don't give a crap about the privacy concerns -- as long as stores still accept cash, it's the consumer's choice as to how much privacy they want. And, of course, no one is forcing anyone to go to stores whose policies they disagree with.
I do sidestep the CARP issue by requiring the DJ to take care of all that. If the DJ wants to broadcast original material, or do a talk show, then there are no copyright restrictions on that. If they want to broadcast copyrighted material, it's their responsibility to pay any associated fees.
The broadcasting software that DJs use tells them how many listeners they have, so if they need to use that to calculate what they owe, the can use it.
On the bandwidth side, a 24 or 32Kbps upstream signal is about all a 56k modem can do. I've tested it with PacBell dialup anyway, and it works OK.
Which brings me to another thought: I hope the RIAA realizes that these low-quality streams are not really worth prosecuting. They are listenable, but certainly won't infringe on album sales - the difference in quality is just too huge. Now if I were streaming at 128k, then you might have a different story.
Yes, to operate your own OPENdj station requires some knowledge of server-side stuff.
The intent is to make the life of the would-be broadcaster as easy as possible. There are a lot of non-technical people out there who would love to broadcast and know lots about music but not much about computers.
As a secondary goal, it should be easy to install your own OPENdj station. As you note, currently this is not the case.
Also bear in mind that OPENdj has a lot of features Streamer does not - automatic archiving, configurable rerun scheduler, listener counts, real-time chat with your listeners, etc.
Yeah, "pimping" would be one word for it. Too much coffee, no sleep, and getting a little too excited is what happened. I'm sorry if it came across as spam-ish, that's the last impression I want to give.
But anyway, you're right, I thnk of OPENdj as not really P2P but more like "public access" Internet radio. A soapbox that anyone can stand on and shout!
If someone wants to port the server, by all means, go for it.
And, IMHO, FreeNet is taking so long NOT because it's written in Java, but because their requirements are pretty insane. The protocol itself is fantastically complex. The OPENdj protocols are intentionally lightweight and simple.
Because server side networking code is REALLY easy in Java. Writing multithreaded code is REALLY easy in Java.
That said, OPENdj is really built on top of open wire-level protocols. The current client and server are in Java. I'm working on a C client right now. If someone wants to reimplement the server in C, go for it!
OPENdj works because the upstream connection from the broadcaster can be virtually anything (like a 56k modem), and the server relays the signal over a high-bandwidth connection to the listeners. In that sense, it's not the P2P that you refer to. But from the viewpoint that "anyone who can listen could also broadcast" (any client is also a potential server), it is P2P.
The difference between OPENdj and a simple relay is that opendj acts as a "controller" to the encoder port, and enforces the channels schedule by only allowing the correct broadcaster to connect and stream. OPENdj also handles the "hand-off" when one broadcaster finishes and other needs to start. Imagine one guy in brazil, the other in london, and the stream transitions is seamless to the listener.
There's a lot more material explaining how this all works (and other nifty features too) on the OPENdj project site.
The DJ Agreement for OPENdj specifically places all responsibility for copyright/licensing/royalties/CARP issues on the DJ. Sucks that it has to be that way, but it's the only way I can afford to operate OPENdj without getting into big trouble.
I may have to pull the archive facility, but there is nothing illegal about the OPENdj technology in and of itself. People could use this to stream their original music, or just do talk radio, neither of which infringes on anyone else's rights.
I'm really interested in getting as much feedback on OPENdj as I can. Towards that end, if you have any questions, comments, concerns that you'd like to direct towards me, please let me know.
Open source the project. Then, with sufficiently quick and easy installer (not there yet), and easy-to-use broadcasting software (getting there), massive proliferation could result.
Then you're off to the law of large numbers. If it is really this easy for anyone to broadcast, there should be thousands of these small "community" radio stations.
There would be many to prosecute all of them, and it wouldn't be worthwhile because the number of listeners these stations have is so small. It would become a bit like speeding, technicially 5mph over the speed limit is illegal, but generally you won't get pulled over unless you up the numbers...
I encourage you to check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Very interesting. To keep accounting of per-song streaming would require some work, and would be difficult for live analog sources.
About a year ago I had some spare time, so I built OPENdj: an open source Java/Linux distributed streamer. OPENdj could be extended to do a lot of the things you describe (which, by the way, are some very interesing ideas). A fully-functional version 1.0.0 was released last May.
Check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
- jonathan.
Re:Hm - this idea IS FREE, it's called OPENdj
on
P2P Streaming Radio
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Hello folks,
Since it seems other folks are getting lots of attention, and this "P2P streaming" stuff is exactly what my OPENdj project is all about, I feel I've got to pitch OPENdj to you...
OPENdj is a distributed streamer, allowing DJs to schedule time on streams through a web based interface. It's pretty full-featured, with automatic archiving of all broadcasts, meta-tagging on broadcasts, searching on those metatags, listener counts, chat room features, etc.
OPENdj is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
It is not an indefensible position. This is just a piece of software. The fact that it may be used to stream copyrighted content does not mean that it is illegal. Certainly many forms of talk radio do not infringe on anyone's copyrights.
For the record, OPENdj has been doing this "P2P streaming" stuff for over a year.... and is open source software
It is my vision of this guys idea - but I have had opendj running from over a year ago. It has had listener counting features (both for broadcasters and listeners) since its inception.
An icecast server instrumented with expect scripts provides this service. Privacy is maintained in the sense that only the count of listeners is monitored, nothing is recorded such as IP address, length of connection, etc.
OPENdj's license is mostly Apache-ish, with some subprojects GPL'd due to GPL dependencies.
There are a number of online resources to help you set up your own online radio station. A simple google search will provide lots of help.
But there are many reasons NOT to do it:
It's a bandwidth hog. Unless you have T1 speed internet access, or machines at a colo facility, you won't be able to support very many listeners.
It's expensive. Even in the absence of the RIAA, T1's and colo's are expensive. Fast servers that can stream to many people are expensive.
You don't have the time. There are 168 hours in a week. Are you going to be on the air for all of those? Not likely.
Fortunately, there is a solution to ALL these problems: OPENdj.
OK, it's kind of a shameless plug, but here it is: OPENdj is the world's first public-access Internet radio station. Anyone can sign up for a show, and using nothing more than a 56k modem, you can broadcast to the world, from anywhere in the world.
And for the truly insane, if you don't like streaming through someone elses radio station, and you really want to run your own station, you can: The software that powers OPENdj.com is open source software - check out OPENdj.org for info on that.
Drop me a line if any of this has piqued your interest - I'm always interested in getting feedback on how to improve things.
Finally, a shameless developer plug: OPENdj is very much in active development. There are a lot of great features in place already (automatic archiving of all broadcasts, etc) and there are a lot of great features yet to be built, so if you're looking for an itch to scratch, this could be it.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, we've got to do SOMETHING to prevent people from VOLUNTARILY giving up their privacy for things as frivolous as 15 minutes in the spotlight or $20 off their car insurance.
Don't they know that we know what's best for them?
- jonathan.
Actually Home Depot here has self checkout lines. Works perfectly well except for bulk goods that have no barcode. I'm always paranoid that I'll accidently trip a sensor exiting the store cause the machine didn't de-active it, but I've not had that problem.
:)
Yes, I've also used those Home Depot self-checkout things, and I've seen them in some grocery stores too. They are a step forward, but you still have to manually scan EACH ITEM, and sometimes there are still long lines for the self-checkout machines. There have also been more than a few times that I've spent an absolutely agonizing amount time scanning a particularly odd-shaped item -- and you can't just fallback and key-in the product code, like they would in a regular checkout line!
What I'd like to see is a NO-SCAN system, something like pushing your cart through a metal detector, and the RFID sensors just "see" everything that's in there. I realize that current technology might not provide this, but mark my words it is the way of the future!
- jonathan.
Ok, let's take just a minute to hold off on our knee-jerk walmart bashing and think about and interesting RFID idea:
When I go to a store, what is the #1 thing I hate? Waiting in line. There is nothing worse than seeing only a few registers open with huge lines. My time is valuable. I would like to just be able to WALK OUT OF THE STORE WITH MY STUFF. Let the RFID detectors track all the merchandise, then all I have to do is show someone my credit card and ID and sign for it all.
This time savings alone would boost the economy and our standard of living -- think about how many wasted hours you've spent in lines, when you could have been spending time with your family or friends, working to get some more dough, etc.
And frankly I don't give a crap about the privacy concerns -- as long as stores still accept cash, it's the consumer's choice as to how much privacy they want. And, of course, no one is forcing anyone to go to stores whose policies they disagree with.
- jonathan.
I do sidestep the CARP issue by requiring the DJ to take care of all that. If the DJ wants to broadcast original material, or do a talk show, then there are no copyright restrictions on that. If they want to broadcast copyrighted material, it's their responsibility to pay any associated fees.
The broadcasting software that DJs use tells them how many listeners they have, so if they need to use that to calculate what they owe, the can use it.
On the bandwidth side, a 24 or 32Kbps upstream signal is about all a 56k modem can do. I've tested it with PacBell dialup anyway, and it works OK.
Which brings me to another thought: I hope the RIAA realizes that these low-quality streams are not really worth prosecuting. They are listenable, but certainly won't infringe on album sales - the difference in quality is just too huge. Now if I were streaming at 128k, then you might have a different story.
- jonathan.
No, you are right, it was a little too "eager" posting on my part. No ill intentions, and I'm sorry for any annoyance.
- jonathan.
Yes, to operate your own OPENdj station requires some knowledge of server-side stuff.
The intent is to make the life of the would-be broadcaster as easy as possible. There are a lot of non-technical people out there who would love to broadcast and know lots about music but not much about computers.
As a secondary goal, it should be easy to install your own OPENdj station. As you note, currently this is not the case.
Also bear in mind that OPENdj has a lot of features Streamer does not - automatic archiving, configurable rerun scheduler, listener counts, real-time chat with your listeners, etc.
- jonathan.
Yeah, "pimping" would be one word for it. Too much coffee, no sleep, and getting a little too excited is what happened. I'm sorry if it came across as spam-ish, that's the last impression I want to give.
But anyway, you're right, I thnk of OPENdj as not really P2P but more like "public access" Internet radio. A soapbox that anyone can stand on and shout!
- jonathan.
Porting to C for the client has already begun.
If someone wants to port the server, by all means, go for it.
And, IMHO, FreeNet is taking so long NOT because it's written in Java, but because their requirements are pretty insane. The protocol itself is fantastically complex. The OPENdj protocols are intentionally lightweight and simple.
See my other post on why I chose to go with Java.
- jonathan.
Why Java?
Because server side networking code is REALLY easy in Java. Writing multithreaded code is REALLY easy in Java.
That said, OPENdj is really built on top of open wire-level protocols. The current client and server are in Java. I'm working on a C client right now. If someone wants to reimplement the server in C, go for it!
- jonathan.
Wow. That's a really interesting idea.
OPENdj works because the upstream connection from the broadcaster can be virtually anything (like a 56k modem), and the server relays the signal over a high-bandwidth connection to the listeners. In that sense, it's not the P2P that you refer to. But from the viewpoint that "anyone who can listen could also broadcast" (any client is also a potential server), it is P2P.
The difference between OPENdj and a simple relay is that opendj acts as a "controller" to the encoder port, and enforces the channels schedule by only allowing the correct broadcaster to connect and stream. OPENdj also handles the "hand-off" when one broadcaster finishes and other needs to start. Imagine one guy in brazil, the other in london, and the stream transitions is seamless to the listener.
There's a lot more material explaining how this all works (and other nifty features too) on the OPENdj project site.
- jonathan.
The DJ Agreement for OPENdj specifically places all responsibility for copyright/licensing/royalties/CARP issues on the DJ. Sucks that it has to be that way, but it's the only way I can afford to operate OPENdj without getting into big trouble.
I may have to pull the archive facility, but there is nothing illegal about the OPENdj technology in and of itself. People could use this to stream their original music, or just do talk radio, neither of which infringes on anyone else's rights.
- jonathan.
Yes, I am getting slashdotted. Seems to be performing OK for now, we'll see what happens when 100 people try to listen at once...
- jonathan.
Hello slashdot folk.
I'm really interested in getting as much feedback on OPENdj as I can. Towards that end, if you have any questions, comments, concerns that you'd like to direct towards me, please let me know.
Thanks,
- jonathan.
yo - sorry I got a little excited. This is kind of like my baby project, and it's 6am, no sleep, lots of coffee.
your point is taken, i apologize for going overboard.
- jonathan.
Here's a hypothetical strategy:
Open source the project. Then, with sufficiently quick and easy installer (not there yet), and easy-to-use broadcasting software (getting there), massive proliferation could result.
Then you're off to the law of large numbers. If it is really this easy for anyone to broadcast, there should be thousands of these small "community" radio stations.
There would be many to prosecute all of them, and it wouldn't be worthwhile because the number of listeners these stations have is so small. It would become a bit like speeding, technicially 5mph over the speed limit is illegal, but generally you won't get pulled over unless you up the numbers...
I encourage you to check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
- jonathan.
Very interesting. To keep accounting of per-song streaming would require some work, and would be difficult for live analog sources.
About a year ago I had some spare time, so I built OPENdj: an open source Java/Linux distributed streamer. OPENdj could be extended to do a lot of the things you describe (which, by the way, are some very interesing ideas). A fully-functional version 1.0.0 was released last May.
Check it out, let me know what you think.
- jonathan.
Check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
- jonathan.
Check out OPENdj, my rendition of an open source, UNIX-based distributed streamer. It is very full featured and has been operating on http://opendj.com/ for over a year.
It is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
- jonathan.
Hello folks, Since it seems other folks are getting lots of attention, and this "P2P streaming" stuff is exactly what my OPENdj project is all about, I feel I've got to pitch OPENdj to you...
OPENdj is a distributed streamer, allowing DJs to schedule time on streams through a web based interface. It's pretty full-featured, with automatic archiving of all broadcasts, meta-tagging on broadcasts, searching on those metatags, listener counts, chat room features, etc.
OPENdj is open source software, available for anyone to download, play with, and use.
Check it out, let me know what you think.
- jonathan.
It is not an indefensible position. This is just a piece of software. The fact that it may be used to stream copyrighted content does not mean that it is illegal. Certainly many forms of talk radio do not infringe on anyone's copyrights.
For the record, OPENdj has been doing this "P2P streaming" stuff for over a year.... and is open source software
- jonathan.
Check out OPENdj.
It is my vision of this guys idea - but I have had opendj running from over a year ago. It has had listener counting features (both for broadcasters and listeners) since its inception.
An icecast server instrumented with expect scripts provides this service. Privacy is maintained in the sense that only the count of listeners is monitored, nothing is recorded such as IP address, length of connection, etc.
OPENdj's license is mostly Apache-ish, with some subprojects GPL'd due to GPL dependencies.
Check it out and tell me what you think.
- jonathan.
Check out OPENdj.
It is my vision of this guys idea - but I have had opendj running from over a year ago.
OPENdj's license is mostly Apache-ish, with some subprojects GPL'd due to GPL dependencies.
- jonathan.
The biggest sellout of them all wins top prize!
Does anyone still had any doubts about the relevance of these bullshit awards?
Stop Watching eMpTV
- jonathan.
But there are many reasons NOT to do it:
Fortunately, there is a solution to ALL these problems: OPENdj.
OK, it's kind of a shameless plug, but here it is: OPENdj is the world's first public-access Internet radio station. Anyone can sign up for a show, and using nothing more than a 56k modem, you can broadcast to the world, from anywhere in the world.
And for the truly insane, if you don't like streaming through someone elses radio station, and you really want to run your own station, you can: The software that powers OPENdj.com is open source software - check out OPENdj.org for info on that.
Drop me a line if any of this has piqued your interest - I'm always interested in getting feedback on how to improve things.
Finally, a shameless developer plug: OPENdj is very much in active development. There are a lot of great features in place already (automatic archiving of all broadcasts, etc) and there are a lot of great features yet to be built, so if you're looking for an itch to scratch, this could be it.
- jonathan.
The good ole Filthy Critic's reviews always seems to be right on the money - his current review of Blackhawk Down kept me laughing....
- jonathan.