One of the problems with collecting files (say, video) via bittorrent is that it requires that other people be interested in the same file you want at the same time that you want it. If you missed last week's episode, and just got back to civilization, everybody's gonna be sharing this week's episode, and you'll be lucky to get 29 bits per second from someone who has 1/5 of the file. Yes, bittorrent's technology for binary file distribution is way better than NNTP, but Usenet News has, as has been amply explained, a lot of reasons it's still good technology. Yes, you should complain to Time Warner that they took away a service you used and didn't charge you any less. Yes, it would probably be smart to find another server, and preferably make a donation to help keep them running. Everest, btw, still has news servers, and I believe it costs less for the same bandwidth.
--- On Mon, 6/30/08, Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins@tarcanfel.org> wrote:
One of the problems with collecting files (say, video) via bittorrent is that it requires that other people be interested in the same file you want at the same time that you want it. If you missed last week's episode, and just got back to civilization, everybody's gonna be sharing this week's episode, and you'll be lucky to get 29 bits per second from someone who has 1/5 of the file.
Since if alt.binaries.* went away it would be no skin off my nose, I feel entirely safe in pointing out that low availability of files through bittorrent channels is no different from Usenet NEWS binary groups. If the interest isn't there then no one will upload through either transmission channel. Now, the advantage to Usenet NEWS is that usually the uploader would create, in addition to the actual uploaded file, a series of PAR2 files which would help rebuild a binary file which was missing Usenet NEWS postings. If parts went missing a request could be put in for just the PAR2 files to be re-uploaded, and they need only be uploaded once. Bittorrent suffers from the requirement that someone with 100% of the original file has to sit there for days uploading the file if someone else doesn't have all the bittorrent parts.
Yes, bittorrent's technology for binary file distribution is way better than NNTP, but Usenet News has, as has been amply explained, a lot of reasons it's still good technology.
Everest, btw, still has news servers, and I believe it costs less for the same bandwidth.
A friend of mine has converted over to Everest. He says the bandwidth is less for the same money (TWC was handing out 6-7Mbps for the same price that Everest charges for 5Mbps), the news server is quirky with a shorter "life" for news server messages, the new cable modem doesn't like his router at all, and he's not entirely sure there are any analog channels (usable without a cable box). OTOH, he does have a news server, and their phone service is actually regular phone service, as opposed to "bandwidth-sucking digital phone service that goes out when the power goes out".
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
doesn't like his router at all, and he's not entirely sure there are any analog channels (usable without a cable box).
You might let your friend know that federal law mandates that all analog broadcasting cease as of February 17, 2009 [1]. [1] http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html -- Chris
You might let your friend know that federal law mandates that all analog broadcasting cease as of February 17, 2009 [1].
Isn't that only analog over-the-air broadcasting? ;) Notice how all the commercials about it very specifically mention air signals, and how the change won't effect satellite and cable systems. The whole change is only to free up the big ol' chunk of radio spectrum currently being eaten up by a few TV staitons in a given market, so the govt can auction it off and reap in more money for license fees. Jon.
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Jon Pruente <jdpruente@gmail.com> wrote:
Isn't that only analog over-the-air broadcasting? ;) Notice how all the commercials about it very specifically mention air signals, and how the change won't effect satellite and cable systems. The whole change is only to free up the big ol' chunk of radio spectrum currently being eaten up by a few TV staitons in a given market, so the govt can auction it off and reap in more money for license fees.
Jon. _______________________________________________
Let me contribute some technical and social overview to de-FUD this a bit quicker. Then we might all have a bit more understanding of how the tech issues interlace with the social ones-or not. The goal for me is to have this situation at least understood as-is. Which is that if all goes according to plan- on scheduled date all previous century era TV will go off the air for good and the only OTA TV will be digital mode/s on frequencies starting at the present Ch 2 thru the present UHF Ch 51. With the obsoleted spectrum slated for several sorts of reuse. That is pretty much accepted as frozen by FCC et all. The financial aspects are like counting chicks from unlaid as yet eggs. We could go VERY wrong in presuming to know what reality intersecting with Fiat Law as such spectrum auctions operate under will produce! Let's just say Linux being inherently more flexible in frequency management for SDR will be poised for big wins if sanity prevails. Ok- on the points of NTSC Analog OTA being mandated to stop transmitting -that's a bit more complex than FUD or supposed possible motivations would cover. 1: The "Spectrum Density" of ATSC Vs NTSC alone seals the situation. 2: The placement IN the range of frequencies used was/is not optimal for utility overall. Taking those two points as bedrock we hang everything else on the "What's Next?" point/s of evaluation First my bland estimation of truth. Then the "Brasil" path to fear. The Truth is parts of this will go like Y2K- much gnash but little fireworks. Oh, there WILL be some learning curve and last minute flapping. The overall scene will be that grumble and few bangs.There might be some really entertaining scenes of the deranged TV addicts running amok in places. We may even have some Faux Legal posturing from the lunatic fringe over economic whingings. Other than the sideshows it sums up as being a non-notable event for 99% of our world till the after effects gaming begins. THEN it might well prove some things deprecated as FUD were tragic underestimations. Which will in one scenario go apparently unreported as centrally controlled media only reports what it's allowed to. Never forget that an ability to censor Vs an inability to censor has determined nation's fates. Thus I have reservations over the wisdom exhibited by FCC and Megacorps being trusted to act socially responsible. The part where the DTV concept frankly scares the obscenity deleted out of many folks who grasp the implications is called "Inherent disenfranchisement" Yep. DTV has an ugly underside where the "Bar" of market entry for independents is RAISED instead of lowered. Think of it as if Palladium the software concept becomes applied to TV the medium. Not only is there a hurdle of getting an RF signal to an audience, Their digital RF to Audio/Video hardware just might not be allowed to decode unapproved content! Let that sink in a second folks. No "digital Imprimatur's" stamp and you might not even know you were being censored. Of course such things never would happen in a free republic. "In a time of potential digital oppression - open software may be our only defense" -- Oren Beck 816.729.3645
--- On Sat, 7/5/08, Christofer C. Bell <christofer.c.bell@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
doesn't like his router at all, and he's not entirely sure there are any analog channels (usable without a cable box).
You might let your friend know that federal law mandates that all analog broadcasting cease as of February 17, 2009 [1].
Analog *cable* channels aren't the same as analog *broadcast* channels. For example, TWC currently has CNN, a cable channel which is not available from a broadcast TV station, as an analog channel. Even your link states that those folks with cable service may not need a cable box after February 17th, 2009 to view cable TV channels, meaning the *analog* cable TV channels. Analog cable channels can continue to be available after February 17th, 2009, because the cable wire is owned entirely by the cable company. Analog broadcasts can be made to cease because, strictly speaking, broadcast TV channels are "leasing" the broadcast frequencies from the government/people and do not own them.
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Bittorrent suffers from the requirement that someone with 100% of the original file has to sit there for days uploading the file if someone else doesn't have all the bittorrent parts.
Well, that's really not how it works. If there's 1 seed and 10 peers, all of those peers will eventually become seeds, so that situation really isn't that common. Also, those peers are sharing what _they have_ with other peers as well, so the seed doesn't really have to share all of what it has. In practice it works very well. Bittorrent works less like a "library" of stuff than USENET News can. People have to be interested in a torrent to keep it up, so torrents tend to be shorter lived and more topical. But anyway, USENET News was never designed to be a porn/warez/stolen media warehouse. The fact that it's been hijacked into one shows how far gone this tech is. :)
OTOH, he does have a news server, and their phone service is actually regular phone service, as opposed to "bandwidth-sucking digital phone service that goes out when the power goes out".
That's an interesting observation. I've had TWC before and after cable phone service, and I haven't seen my bandwidth go down at all. 800kB/s consistently. Perhaps it drops when someone's on the phone, but that rarely happens here for long. As far as the power going out, the phone box they provide has a built-in UPS. Does your regular phone have one? I doubt it. I haven't owned a regular phone that can handle a power outage since the 80s. I don't think they even sell phones nowadays that don't require wall power. Jeffrey. -- "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
--- On Sun, 7/6/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Bittorrent suffers from the requirement that someone with 100% of the original file has to sit there for days uploading the file if someone else doesn't have all the bittorrent parts.
Well, that's really not how it works. If there's 1 seed and 10 peers, all of those peers will eventually become seeds, so that situation really isn't that common.
Yes, if there's one seed and 10 peers, that one seed with 100% of the original file has to sit there for days uploading the file until someone else (i.e., the other 10 peers) become seeds (i.e., become someone else who has all the bittorrent parts). All you did was restate what I said, using slightly different wording, and then claimed it meant something else. The aforementioned situation is entirely too common prior to the *swarm* receiving 100% of the seeder's uploaded file(s), a situation which can take days to change into "all seeders".
Also, those peers are sharing what _they have_ with other peers as well, so the seed doesn't really have to share all of what it has.
The seed has to seed itself out to 100% before the *swarm* gets a complete set of parts, so the seeder really does need to spend days sharing out *all* of what it has. By definition all the peers start off at 0%, so the seeder has to seed out 100% to the swarm before 100% of the file is available to everyone in the swarm. You might as well argue that a person can create a new book that no one else has, then only give out 80% to everyone else, and yet everyone somehow manages to get 100% of the book they didn't have to begin with, using only 80% of the original book.
In practice it works very well.
In theory it works well. In practice it doesn't work very well, because everyone isn't using the basic Bittorrent client. For example, some bittorrent clients permit individual torrent upload bandwidth throttling. This allows a peer to download the entire file but share very little, putting more of an uploading burden on the original seeder. Also, bittorrent clients which permit encryption have the option of only allowing connections from other encrypted clients. If the seeder allows for both types of connections, the seeder is the sole seeder for a peer which refuses unencrypted connections. Bittorrent is completely reliant on polite sharing. If the peer, upon reaching 100%, performs a "hit-and-run" maneuver and disconnects from the swarm, the peer does not become a seeder and all of his or her parts vanish from the swarm. If this means that the only person left with 100% is the seeder, the seeder must continue seeding even longer. To contrast with Usenet NEWS binary groups, the uploader uploads once, to one location, with PAR2 files for additional security. Thereafter the parts are available for usually a week or longer and downloadable at much faster speeds than bittorrent.
On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 6:05 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Yes, if there's one seed and 10 peers, that one seed with 100% of the original file has to sit there for days uploading the file until someone else (i.e., the other 10 peers) become seeds (i.e., become someone else who has all the bittorrent parts).
No. As the seed sends out parts to the various peers, THEY will send out what they've partially downloaded to other peers. So the seed will work more, sure, but as soon as it starts sending out to more than 1 peer the other peer(s) will help. Bittorrent doesn't upload from beginning to end, it sends out chunks. Try using Bittorrent, and find a torrent with 1 seed but many peers. You'll notice you start uploading almost immediately.
All you did was restate what I said, using slightly different wording, and then claimed it meant something else. The aforementioned situation is entirely too common prior to the *swarm* receiving 100% of the seeder's uploaded file(s), a situation which can take days to change into "all seeders".
No, I was accurate, but obviously wrote too brief a response in order for you to understand what I said. I download stuff via Bittorrent all the time. Most people who do so are using a client that will seed for a fixed share ratio before automatically stopping, so seeds come and go. But if something is popular enough, the person seeding it really doesn't do a tremendous amount of heavy lifting. This is why Bittorrent works very well for handling large volumes, and is very popular as a technology. This is also why Bittorrent is better designed - the person doing the upload usually pays an ongoing price to keep it going, whereas Netnews is fire-and-forget, and every server must be a "seeder".
The seed has to seed itself out to 100% before the *swarm* gets a complete set of parts, so the seeder really does need to spend days sharing out *all* of what it has. By definition all the peers start off at 0%, so the seeder has to seed out 100% to the swarm before 100% of the file is available to everyone in the swarm.
No, please see above. Peers can start uploading almost immediately.
You might as well argue that a person can create a new book that no one else has, then only give out 80% to everyone else, and yet everyone somehow manages to get 100% of the book they didn't have to begin with, using only 80% of the original book.
The people with 80% can share out that 80% to others, so that the seeder only has to worry about the remaining 20%. This is obviously oversimplified but I hope you get the idea. The more you share it out, the less of the uploading the seeder needs to do. Yes, at first the majority is done by the seeder, but that changes quickly with more and more peers.
For example, some bittorrent clients permit individual torrent upload bandwidth throttling. This allows a peer to download the entire file but share very little, putting more of an uploading burden on the original seeder.
I think most do, including the "basic" Bittorrent client. But many people don't work that way, and most trackers that are worth a damn have share requirements. Also, Average Joe downloader doesn't know anything about this stuff, and he just clicks "okay" in his Bittorrent client and doesn't limit his uploads. Also, I'm not really sure what your point is. Netnews allows someone to post crap and every server is required to pass a copy of it along, regardless of popularity. This puts a heavy burden on all Netnews servers. Bittorrent has it be that someone that wants to share something has to BEAR THE BURDEN OF DOING SO. What's your point? Netnews is easily abused, and in practice, IT IS, OFTEN. Bittorrent does not have that problem, if the uploader doesn't like the amount of bandwidth used he can throttle it, or he CAN JUST NOT SEED. If the people downloading aren't being good netizens and sharing at least somewhat, the tracker can boot them. Bittorrent is a much better Internet neighbor, and is fairly self-regulating. This of course isn't addressing the issue of piracy, but that's an equal problem for both.
Also, bittorrent clients which permit encryption have the option of only allowing connections from other encrypted clients. If the seeder allows for both types of connections, the seeder is the sole seeder for a peer which refuses unencrypted connections.
So perhaps the seeder ought to not allow for both? Again, what's the problem here? If the seeder isn't happy with the usage, he can NOT SEED, or throttle his uploads. Or he can require one or the other. I don't see what the big deal is here.
Bittorrent is completely reliant on polite sharing. If the peer, upon reaching 100%, performs a "hit-and-run" maneuver and disconnects from the swarm, the peer does not become a seeder and all of his or her parts vanish from the swarm. If this means that the only person left with 100% is the seeder, the seeder must continue seeding even longer.
No, most good trackers have a share-enforcement strategy. Again, in practice it's not that big a deal. You make it seem like Bittorrent is shitty technology that nobody uses. This is clearly not the case, it is enormously popular, far more popular than Netnews. What are you arguing, exactly?
To contrast with Usenet NEWS binary groups, the uploader uploads once, to one location, with PAR2 files for additional security. Thereafter the parts are available for usually a week or longer and downloadable at much faster speeds than bittorrent.
So let me get this straight. You go apoplectic on the list, yelling at everyone because Netnews may disappear and you'd lose access to valuable discussion groups, which you need because you're nearly blind and they are the only thing that apparently will work. You state that just because Netnews has been hijacked by porn, warez, and pirated media that the major ISPs ought not to turn off their servers. You argue that Netnews ought to be saved, despite the binaries groups. Okay, here's what I have to ask you then. Why are you defending _the use of Netnews as a way to download binaries_? What's your deal, man? I honestly don't think you know what you're arguing about any more. You're angry because you like News and you're afraid that it's being taken away from you, despite the fact that you already told me that there are free public servers out there, that won't be affected by this decision. You're mad that the good discussion groups will get thrown out with the bad binaries groups, but then you _defend the use of Netnews for downloading binaries_. I don't get you man. I don't think you understand yourself, either. I recommend that you get some cogent arguments together before posting again, because I've become convinced that you don't really think before you speak. Sadly, this isn't intended as a flame. Jeffrey. -- "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
--- On Mon, 7/7/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 6:05 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
The seed has to seed itself out to 100% before the *swarm* gets a complete set of parts, so the seeder really does need to spend days sharing out *all* of what it has. By definition all the peers start off at 0%, so the seeder has to seed out 100% to the swarm before 100% of the file is available to everyone in the swarm.
No, please see above.
So the original uploader doesn't have to upload *all* (the commonly accepted synonym of "100%") of his parts before he can stop seeding? The uploader has a set of encyclopedias. He slowly photocopies and mails out A through M. The folks he sends these copies to can then make more photocopies with the "original" photocopies and send A through M to other people without him having to do any work. Regardless, he must still spend the effort sending out photocopies of A through *Z* to a range of someones (commonly known in bittorrent as a "swarm"), meaning he must sit there for days mailing out photocopies of A through Z until the swarm, collectively, possesses photocopies of A through Z. Which means I am quite correct in what I have said.
Peers can start uploading almost immediately.
Once they have downloaded some parts from the original seeder, who must spend days waiting until he has uploaded all his original parts. Until the seeder has sent out 100% of his torrent, he cannot stop seeding if he intends for the swarm to receive, collectively, 100% of his file. While peers can become 0.01% "seeders" almost immediately, the original seeder will remain the ONLY 100% seeder until he has spent days uploading all (100%) of his file to the swarm.
You might as well argue that a person can create a new book that no one else has, then only give out 80% to everyone else, and yet everyone somehow manages to get 100% of the book they didn't have to begin with, using only 80% of the original book.
The people with 80% can share out that 80% to others, so that the seeder only has to worry about the remaining 20%.
So in other words, the seeder has to sit there for days uploading his file until he has seeded out 100% of the file (to various people who are, as you say, sharing with others in the swarm). Thanks to bittorrent being adopted by the porn/warez/piracy crowd (in addition to their prolific NetNews uploads), there are additional wrinkles caused by the anti-piracy crowd. Should a file upload be considered to be "infringement", it has been documented that the MPAA and RIAA have written "enhancements" to clients they run on their own, which start seeding bad parts to peers in an effort to poison the swarm's copy of the file. This type of interference can force the original seeder to become the exclusive seeder of the good parts for quite some time.
For example, some bittorrent clients permit individual torrent upload bandwidth throttling. This allows a peer to download the entire file but share very little, putting more of an uploading burden on the original seeder.
I think most do, including the "basic" Bittorrent client. But many people don't work that way, and most trackers that are worth a damn have share requirements.
The private ones, you mean. Public trackers have no share requirements and move most of the bittorrent traffic.
Also, Average Joe downloader doesn't know anything about this stuff, and he just clicks "okay" in his Bittorrent client and doesn't limit his uploads.
Average Joe clicks "ok" on his NetNews binary downloader and he gets the files. Average Joe clicks "ok" in his bittorrent client, but there's a twist: if he's a good netizen and shares, but most others don't, and the uploader quits in despair because of the bad netizens, Average Joe doesn't get his file no matter how polite he was being. NetNews allows good netizens not to be penalized for the actions of bad netizens. Bittorrent punishes the good along with the bad. Average Joe may not know much about bittorrent clients when he first installs one, but "bad netizen" information (or announcements that it exists on the other end of a Google search) is on every private tracker's forum section. Average Joe can easily become a member of the Beard Universe.
Also, I'm not really sure what your point is. Netnews allows someone to post crap and every server is required to pass a copy of it along, regardless of popularity. This puts a heavy burden on all Netnews servers. Bittorrent has it be that someone that wants to share something has to BEAR THE BURDEN OF DOING SO.
Average Joe doesn't have to bear the burden of bad netizens in Binary NetNews, like he has to in Bittorrent. Bittorrent is like the welfare system: some people can get free "money" from Average Joe if they work their numbers right. Binary NetNews won't deny you the sweat of your brow. Binary NetNews is the ultimate free market, where the weak cannot drag down the strong. (yes I've read some Ayn Rand, does it show?)
What's your point? Netnews is easily abused, and in practice, IT IS, OFTEN. Bittorrent does not have that problem, if the uploader doesn't like the amount of bandwidth used he can throttle it, or he CAN JUST NOT SEED.
The point, I believe, is that if someone uploads to NetNews, the file remains even if every single person just downloads the file. With Bittorrent, if everyone downloads and doesn't upload, and the seeder gets fed up, the file essentially vanishes (i.e., will never reach 100%). Or in other words, NetNews doesn't care about the behavior of the netizens, it just transmits the files. The NetNews abuse is only of the server, not the end user. This is not the case with bittorrent.
If the people downloading aren't being good netizens and sharing at least somewhat, the tracker can boot them.
Except for the public trackers, of course. Not all torrents are on private trackers, and I suspect most of them are on public trackers. New accounts are easily obtained, rendering the "punishment" of booting a slap on the wrist.
Bittorrent is a much better Internet neighbor, and is fairly self-regulating.
Provided you aren't changing any settings to favor yourself over others, acting in an impolite selfish manner, and haven't recoded your client to permit fake transfer data to be sent to the private trackers.
Also, bittorrent clients which permit encryption have the option of only allowing connections from other encrypted clients. If the seeder allows for both types of connections, the seeder is the sole seeder for a peer which refuses unencrypted connections.
Again, what's the problem here? If the seeder isn't happy with the usage, he can NOT SEED, or throttle his uploads. Or he can require one or the other. I don't see what the big deal is here.
I suppose the point is that NetNews uploaders don't have to care about this sort of thing at all. They just upload once and disappear.
Bittorrent is completely reliant on polite sharing. If the peer, upon reaching 100%, performs a "hit-and-run" maneuver and disconnects from the swarm, the peer does not become a seeder and all of his or her parts vanish from the swarm. If this means that the only person left with 100% is the seeder, the seeder must continue seeding even longer.
No, most good trackers have a share-enforcement strategy.
The public ones don't, and clients can be recoded to send fake transfer information to the private ones. New accounts can be created when old ones are banned due to bad netizenry. Again, Bittorrent applies the blame equally to the bad and the good netizens by making seeders quit in disgust.
You make it seem like Bittorrent is shitty technology that nobody uses.
No, I'm pointing out that its not the Holy Grail you seem to think it is.
This is clearly not the case, it is enormously popular, far more popular than Netnews.
Since you know perfectly well that when there's no public record of downloads from NetNews servers, and bittorrent traffic is equally unverifiable, you can make that statement knowing full well that it is *unverifiable*. Besides which, its an apples-to-oranges comparison: bittorrent has to go on constantly because of the method used to share files being somewhat slow. NetNews is a one-time fast transmission, either up to the server from the uploader or away from the server to the downloader. One is chronic, the other acute. However, NetNews currently has about 11,000,000 posts a day, of which 99.97% are binary uploads. Clearly it is still very popular for sharing the same sorts of things which are on BitTorrent.
A recent topic got be to thinking... what ever happened to multicasting? Am I mistaken or what, but it seems to have gone by the wayside as most services tout "on demand". Or is it just waiting for IPv6 as no one implemented it on the IPv4 networks? Even though bandwidth is still cheap, It seems that ISP's, broadcasters, and businesses would still want to pursue it. After all the huge pipes seem to be filling up with all the media out there (see below*. Everyone still is told they need a broadcast server, or a big pipe, however, if the net supported multicasting directly you would need no more than a dsl or 128k connection. Businesses are always complaining about the superboal, March Madness, and the olympics crashing there networks. (they don't mind lost productivity since the employees would be distracted either way). Businesses are paying for broadcast servers to serve there meetings, Podcasts, etc. DJ's are going to advertising heavy services only for users to block ads, and *ISP's are starting to limit or charge for large bandwidth users. Why not push multicasting? Is it being used and we don't know? Where do Proxy servers come in on this? Heck should (is) the high bandwidth user be charged if most of his traffic is within the same ISP (gaming, filesharing/Bittorrent, etc.) thus saving outside link bandwith. Ok granted it may slow a neighborhood down, but its got multiple fibers to each neighborhood so it saves a costly interconnection with another ISP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbone http://www.savetz.com/mbone/ Patrick M. BLA/LMT-- Communications & Media Consult -- Massage Therapist Answerette/PnM Resources -- Follow me #: 800-901-1089
one of the popular sound streaming clients does some kind of local relay thing, but I'm not sure which one. I agree, multicasting is a great idea and its a shame it has not been supported as well as it could have by backbone providers.
From an economic perspective, unicast allows backbone providers to sell more bandwidth, and that's where they make their slice, so implementing multicast is not compatible with their business objectives.
One possibility would be for the government to define "base internet service" and have that include standards-based multicast routing, that is what it would take to counter the business objective incompatibility problem. Another possibility is shadow full mesh VPN networks, but that's not really practical on a how-do-you-get-there-from-here level either.
--- On Mon, 7/7/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 6:05 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
To contrast with Usenet NEWS binary groups, the uploader uploads once, to one location, with PAR2 files for additional security. Thereafter the parts are available for usually a week or longer and downloadable at much faster speeds than bittorrent.
So let me get this straight. You go apoplectic on the list, yelling at everyone
No, just at you. ;-)
because Netnews may disappear and you'd lose access to valuable discussion groups, which you need because you're nearly blind and they are the only thing that apparently will work.
Will work better than so-called alternatives.
You state that just because Netnews has been hijacked by porn, warez, and pirated media that the major ISPs ought not to turn off their servers. You argue that Netnews ought to be saved, despite the binaries groups.
Well yes. I even stated that I could care less if binaries groups vanished tomorrow. Or today for that matter.
Okay, here's what I have to ask you then. Why are you defending _the use of Netnews as a way to download binaries_?
I'm just pointing out that it is a better way for Joe Average to download binaries than bittorrent, for lots of reasons all beneficial to Joe Average, be he the uploader or the downloader. There's a difference between supporting something and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files. Amiga technology made really great computers, but IBM PC technology ended up working better for me. I can admire Amiga without desiring that it return and replace something I really do want. [incoherent ranting snipped]
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:24 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm just pointing out that it is a better way for Joe Average to download binaries than bittorrent, for lots of reasons all beneficial to Joe Average, be he the uploader or the downloader.
And I'm pointing out that it's wasteful, and poorly designed for today's modern 24/7 Internet. I don't care if it's more useful for you, it's not good for the ISPs. You seem to forget that this stuff costs money, and a service has to be good for both the servers as well as the clients. Netnews is not, and that's why it's slowly going away. This is a good thing. Instead of spending so much energy bitching about it, you ought to be working on a replacement, if, as you say, the alternatives are so deficient.
There's a difference between supporting something and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files.
You've obviously never run a production INN server. There is NOTHING admirable about how it works. It doesn't work well and it's a total bitch to manage. Perhaps someone completely rewrote it since I last managed one (doubt it), but it was a hoary beast back then, very hackish and unable to support many common situations well (like multiple volumes). You only see the client side. I've run the server. Your client may be pretty and you may like the side you see, but the server side is ugly, wasteful, and stupid. It's bad technology now. It needs taken out back and shot.
Amiga technology made really great computers, but IBM PC technology ended up working better for me. I can admire Amiga without desiring that it return and replace something I really do want.
Okay, let's use your analogy. What you're asking for is like asking Time Warner Cable to _support Amigas_. Netnews and Amigas were super cool in their day, but now they're just items for the computer museums. Let them retire. Regardless, I'm going to call "Hitler" on this one. It's pretty clear this won't go anywhere, and I doubt everyone else wants to listen to it much more. Feel free to get the last word. J. -- "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:24 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
There's a difference between supporting something and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files.
You've obviously never run a production INN server. There is NOTHING admirable about how it works. It doesn't work well and it's a total bitch to manage. Perhaps someone completely rewrote it since I last managed one (doubt it), but it was a hoary beast back then, very hackish and unable to support many common situations well (like multiple volumes).
The best thing I can say about INN is, "At least it's not B-News or C-News." 8-) Adrian
--- On Tue, 7/8/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 7:24 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm just pointing out that it is a better way for Joe Average to download binaries than bittorrent, for lots of reasons all beneficial to Joe Average, be he the uploader or the downloader.
And I'm pointing out that it's wasteful, and poorly designed for today's modern 24/7 Internet.
Only from the perspective of ISPs. From the end user perspective it frequently works a lot better than the alternatives (such as bittorrent).
I don't care if it's more useful for you, it's not good for the ISPs.
Depending on the definition of "not good". If you lose clients because you don't have a news server, then having one is good.
You seem to forget that this stuff costs money, and a service has to be good for both the servers as well as the clients. Netnews is not,
Not good for the ISPs, great for the clients.
and that's why it's slowly going away. This is a good thing.
Only if the ISPs don't hemorrhage users away to ISPs with news servers.
There's a difference between supporting something and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files.
You've obviously never run a production INN server. There is NOTHING admirable about how it works.
There's plenty admirable from the end user side of things, regardless of what you've seen on the server end.
Amiga technology made really great computers, but IBM PC technology ended up working better for me. I can admire Amiga without desiring that it return and replace something I really do want.
Okay, let's use your analogy. What you're asking for is like asking Time Warner Cable to _support Amigas_.
Considering, to extend your analogy, that TWC had been "supporting Amigas" right up until a few days ago, this analogy is somewhat silly given what you were trying to say with it.
Regardless, I'm going to call "Hitler" on this one. It's pretty clear this won't go anywhere, and I doubt everyone else wants to listen to it much more.
Godwin's Law doesn't state when a discussion ends, or even who wins. Its just the percentage chance that "Hitler" will get mentioned in a discussion, directly proportional to the length of the discussion. People always assume it means something it never meant.
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Godwin's Law doesn't state when a discussion ends, or even who wins. Its just the percentage chance that "Hitler" will get mentioned in a discussion, directly proportional to the length of the discussion. People always assume it means something it never meant.
Trust me, I know what Godwin said. I was making the point that this conversation has gotten tedious, in a humorous way. Are you going to argue Godwin semantics with me, too? Jeffrey. -- "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- On Tue, 7/8/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
And I'm pointing out that it's wasteful, and poorly designed for today's modern 24/7 Internet.
Only from the perspective of ISPs. From the end user perspective it frequently works a lot better than the alternatives (such as bittorrent).
And the ISP is the one providing the service, so they get to decide. Cope.
I don't care if it's more useful for you, it's not good for the ISPs.
Depending on the definition of "not good". If you lose clients because you don't have a news server, then having one is good.
They would lose whom? You and your couple of buddies? I don't think they'll care.
You seem to forget that this stuff costs money, and a service has to be good for both the servers as well as the clients. Netnews is not,
Not good for the ISPs, great for the clients.
ISPs are the ones providing the service. They get to decide. Cope.
and that's why it's slowly going away. This is a good thing.
Only if the ISPs don't hemorrhage users away to ISPs with news servers
Who? You and your couple of buddies? I don't think they'll care. Again, cope.
There's a difference between supporting something and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files.
You've obviously never run a production INN server. There is NOTHING admirable about how it works.
There's plenty admirable from the end user side of things, regardless of what you've seen on the server end.
No one cares but you. Just shut the fuck up already. -- Chris
--- On Sat, 7/12/08, Christofer C. Bell <christofer.c.bell@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- On Tue, 7/8/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't care if it's more useful for you, it's not good for the ISPs.
Depending on the definition of "not good". If you lose clients because you don't have a news server, then having one is good.
They would lose whom? You and your couple of buddies? I don't think they'll care.
11,000,000 messages a DAY in *current* NetNews traffic is not "me and a couple of buddies". The "three of us" aren't generating that much daily traffic all on our own. Clearly there are a lot more than three NetNews users, and I was under the impression that companies ignored huge markets at their peril. (http://www.newsadmin.com/usenet.asp)
--- On Mon, 7/14/08, David Nicol <davidnicol@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
11,000,000 messages a DAY in *current* NetNews traffic
most of which have a subject line of "MAKE MONEY FAST"
While that doesn't detract from the main point, that people are still finding NetNews to be useful for their individual pursuits :-), thats actually not quite as accurate a comment as you might think. Most of the posts are binary posts, and of the text-only groups with the largest posting activity, most of those are moderated in some way (preventing "MAKE MONEY FAST" messages from being in the statistical numbers). General-audience text-only newsgroups on NetNews responded to spam by making it harder to post spam messages on those groups. Binary and adult groups aren't moderated so they get all the spam. Which means that if you want to talk about science fiction, Terry Pratchett, and/or cats, chances are you'll see much less spam than if you are wanting to talk about bare bottoms and view naked breasts.
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 05:55:47PM -0500, Christofer C. Bell wrote:
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- On Tue, 7/8/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
and just admiring its technological advantages to the end user. I support NetNews' text-only groups, but I merely admire the system of binary distribution through NetNews. I'd still want text-only NetNews to stick around, and if the price is binary NetNews vanishing, then so be it, despite its technological advantages to end users in the sharing of binary files.
You've obviously never run a production INN server. There is NOTHING admirable about how it works.
There's plenty admirable from the end user side of things, regardless of what you've seen on the server end.
No one cares but you. Just shut the fuck up already.
I can state with absolute certainty that you are incorrect. I will however defer to your desire above, as I have done for the most of the last year or more.
-- Chris
Thanks, -- Hal
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Amiga technology made really great computers, but IBM PC technology ended up working better for me. I can admire Amiga without desiring that it return and replace something I really do want.
Okay, let's use your analogy. What you're asking for is like asking Time Warner Cable to _support Amigas_.
Considering, to extend your analogy, that TWC had been "supporting Amigas" right up until a few days ago, this analogy is somewhat silly given what you were trying to say with it.
I should point out that Amigas had TCP/IP stacks even back in the mid-90's when I first got started on the Internet. They still work with TWC, they just don't want to tell anyone they support them. TWC doesn't have to give explicit support for a system for it to work just fine. ;) Jon.
--- On Mon, 7/14/08, Jon Pruente <jdpruente@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 6:37 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Amiga technology made really great computers, but IBM PC technology ended up working better for me. I can admire Amiga without desiring that it return and replace something I really do want.
Okay, let's use your analogy. What you're asking for is like asking Time Warner Cable to _support Amigas_.
Considering, to extend your analogy, that TWC had been "supporting Amigas" right up until a few days ago, this analogy is somewhat silly given what you were trying to say with it.
I should point out that Amigas had TCP/IP stacks even back in the mid-90's when I first got started on the Internet. They still work with TWC, they just don't want to tell anyone they support them. TWC doesn't have to give explicit support for a system for it to work just fine. ;)
Yes, Linux works fine with TWC even though they tend to say things like "we don't support Linux" when you mention it to tech support. Well, I did once get a tech guy who told me that TWC doesn't officially support Linux with their Internet service, but he'd be happy to help me out anyway...
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well, I did once get a tech guy who told me that TWC doesn't officially support Linux with their Internet service, but he'd be happy to help me out anyway...
I remember taking a call at GW2K from a guy who couldn't get SCO to work with Gateway hardware. I couldn't help him.
It seems that over the weekend, AT&T decided that no one needs to access any alt.binary.* newsgroup since they are all potentially full of kiddy porn. I have now stressed to as many people as I could get to that this is a ludicrous action and the only thing it does is make me look for someone else. I asked them to at least re-instate alt.binaries.pictures.tall-ships (old sailing vessels usually) and they (of course) declined as it is 'unmoderated and could contain child pronography'. I love living in a republic! Michael Haworth -----Original Message----- ---snip---
On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 8:34 PM, Michael Haworth <rddesign@darkroad.com> wrote:
It seems that over the weekend, AT&T decided that no one needs to access any alt.binary.* newsgroup since they are all potentially full of kiddy porn. I have now stressed to as many people as I could get to that this is a ludicrous action and the only thing it does is make me look for someone else. I asked them to at least re-instate alt.binaries.pictures.tall-ships (old sailing vessels usually) and they (of course) declined as it is 'unmoderated and could contain child pronography'. I love living in a republic!
Michael Haworth
-----Original Message----- ---snip---
_______________________________________________ Linux and a subscription to a pay server might be an option after all.
The query of deepest import is a semantic gap in usage of the term "Access" Are they merely abandoning their own Usenet server/s? OR are they actively using intentional means to deny any transport of NNTP in toto? And either way ask WHY! Actually- I am beginning to suspect "Teh :PrOn" is less a concern than the combination of $erver co$tS and the "uncensored anything" aspect. I can see both being greedy and cutting costs to explain abandonment. I can also see but disagree with the allegations of Pr0n. That "see" is accepting that - there is an abundance of scary crap in binaries groups that many of us could live quite comfortably with it's having never been made. I am *NOT* either a porn "consumer" of note nor am I a censormonkey. The first amendent means what it says and says what it means. Yet we risk confusing protecting ability with approving acts or portrayals of.And it's NOT off topic as one scenario could hold Linux as somehow censorship worthy for it's NOT being DRM et all locked down! Which brings us back to the Usenet debacles. It's to me time to forge new consensus. Perhaps a RFC on "adult" content segmentation? Thus the "rights" of the Pr0n side are "Air Gapped" against infringements. Either FROM or INTO the Non-Pr0n side. Consider how YOU would write a RFC draft to sever adult from non-adult content ! As opposed to torching ALL of Usenet for whatever % of it's volume the crap is? I call them out on grounds of duplicity. Were their motives pure many other changes would have been dome long ago. Look at the end game's possible motives. The one thing we can be certain of is Deceit as an an end in itself. And from that we then might derive potentially at least - an understanding of why free from censorship media scares liars by it's mere existence. The truth makes honest men free and the dishonest tremble as it should. Linux offers some instruments of transparency as almost integral by design. Closed Source by concept is opaque. Usenet was the arena for a meritocracy by consensus of sorts.The open nature that allows Crap to proliferate in hard to "clean up" fashions? That same bug is a feature, one which provides some semi-inherent degrees of censorship resistance. Thus I consider NNTP too valuable for lightly conceding it. While by no means utopian, Usenet and it's attendant conceptual orbits still offer a robust truth dissemination toolset. -- Oren Beck 816.729.3645
On Wednesday 16 July 2008, Oren Beck wrote:
Consider how YOU would write a RFC draft to sever adult from non-adult content !
1. Please don't refer to immoral images as "adult"; there are still some decent adults left, no matter how many damn themselves with this crud. 2. Standards on how to say "I am porn!" never work because the porn industry does not want filters blocking access to them. Not only do they *want* children and others to get addicted, they certainly aren't going to participate in something any ISP blocks off entirely without user consent.
so the movement away from open internet and towards gated VPN communities in underway, and as usual in technology, so-called "adult entertainment" will lead the way. Good morning! -- "I am porn!" -- Luke -Jr
--- On Thu, 7/17/08, David Nicol <davidnicol@gmail.com> wrote:
so the movement away from open internet and towards gated VPN communities in underway, and as usual in technology, so-called "adult entertainment" will lead the way.
Good morning!
Absolutely. [Gutenberg's Printing Press:] Writers: wouldn't publish anything other than safe religious books for decades. Pornographic Industry: adopted the new technology and published the first common man best-sellers in the world (including both written and picture books), creating the international writers' market. Also created all the elements of the "novel". The first conventional novel, "Pamela", is practically unknown to history, but the first pornographic novel (and itself the second novel), "Fanny Hill", can still be found in modern bookstores. [VCR:] Hollywood: tried to ban it. Pornographic industry: adopted it and created a market of thousands of VCR owners for Hollywood to eventually, grudgingly, exploit. [DVD:] Hollywood: wouldn't touch it right away. Pornographic industry: adopted it and created a market of thousands of DVD player owners for Hollywood to eventually, grudgingly, exploit. [World Wide Web:] Business Community In General: wouldn't touch it. Pornographic industry: adopted it and was the strongest backer of systems allowing safe, secure credit card payments online, the part which made the Web attractive to the Business Community In General. Technology owes a lot to the pornographic industry. We probably wouldn't even have this mailing list, into which we are typing these messages, if it weren't for the porn industry.
"I am porn!" -- Luke-Jr
--- On Wed, 7/16/08, Michael Haworth <rddesign@darkroad.com> wrote:
It seems that over the weekend, AT&T decided that no one needs to access any alt.binary.* newsgroup since they are all potentially full of kiddy porn. I have now stressed to as many people as I could get to that this is a ludicrous action and the only thing it does is make me look for someone else. I asked them to at least re-instate alt.binaries.pictures.tall-ships (old sailing vessels usually) and they (of course) declined as it is 'unmoderated and could contain child pronography'.
Sad but true. Right now its a "jump on the bandwagon" thing about NetNews, kiddy porn, and getting rid of both of them by getting rid of the "unmoderated" NetNews. If thine eye displeaseth thee, cut off thy head.
I love living in a republic!
Actually the more relevant phrase is a capitalist market. Government said "lets do something" but did so without any new bill passed before a legislative body. It is the corporations who over-reacted. I'm not sure if a direct democracy would have been any better. It could have turned out that 99% of Americans really did use alt.binaries.* and new laws would have been passed imposing hefty fines against any ISP which got rid of NetNews. Of course, it could also have turned out that 51% of Americans had never heard of NetNews and had believed every word said about it, resulting in new laws which retroactively imposed the death penalty on anyone who had ever downloaded anything from an alt.binaries.* newsgroup (the blind ignorant assumption would have been that *everything* on an alt.binaries.* newsgroup was "kiddy porn"). Republics slow down the reactions of the people, and if you've ever been misunderstood by a girlfriend/boyfriend, spouse, or parent, you believe in the value of slowing down the reactions of people.
--- On Sun, 7/6/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
But anyway, USENET News was never designed to be a porn/warez/stolen media warehouse.
Neither was E-mail, Bittorrent, the World Wide Web, etc.
The fact that it's been hijacked into one shows how far gone this tech is. :)
And if being "hijacked" by porn/warez/stolen media distributors was a good enough reason to discard a technology, then we should discard E-mail, Bittorrent, the World Wide Web, etc. Pornography is the reason we have such wide acceptance of most media technology, because "fringe" businesses often adopt new technology long before the mainstream, and the markets these fringe businesses create are then exploited by mainstream businesses. Hollywood initially freaked about VCRs and even tried to pass laws banning their use. VHS wouldn't be popular without the porn industry creating a market of video stores and VCR owners, ready-made for the cautious Hollywood to exploit without having to risk anything. The same happened with the DVD format, with the pornographic industry pioneering a market of DVD stores and DVD players in private homes, which was then commandeered by Hollywood as well. Usenet News and E-Mail became public knowledge when porn started getting distributed through them, and the World Wide Web would not be the modern business arena it is today without the pioneering efforts of the porn industry to implement methods of credit card payments online. Ironically the presence of pornography in Usenet NEWS is more of an indicator of how well it is doing, not "how far gone it is". If people weren't using it then there would be no porn. Historical Trivia: Gutenberg's Printing Press was originally used almost exclusively for religious tracts and Bibles, which had a very limited but safe market. The first best-sellers printed on Gutenberg presses for the common man? Pornographic books of erotic drawings and erotic sonnets, complete with the Pope slapping the early equivalent of "warning labels" (i.e., "sales boosters") on all of them. Literary historians credit the early pornographic printed literature industry with developing the conventions used in the book format known as the "novel", and of course while "Pamela" was the first novel, the best-known "first" novel was the second novel, "Fanny Hill." Further reading (NY Times Archive): "Porn, the Low-Slung Engine of Progress" By JOHN TIERNEY; Published: January 9, 1994 http://tinyurl.com/2doopz
--- On Sun, 7/6/08, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 4:41 AM, Leo Mauler <webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
OTOH, he does have a news server, and their phone service is actually regular phone service, as opposed to "bandwidth-sucking digital phone service that goes out when the power goes out".
That's an interesting observation. I've had TWC before and after cable phone service, and I haven't seen my bandwidth go down at all. 800kB/s consistently. Perhaps it drops when someone's on the phone, but that rarely happens here for long.
Of course you won't see downstream bandwidth drop, because its usually a big pipe, but your more limited upstream bandwidth drops when someone is using digital phone service because the cable companies do not add any additional upstream Internet service to compensate for the phone's digital VoIP packets. ZDNet: How We Test Voice Over IP : File-transfer tests (http://tinyurl.com/6anndn) "Most residential and small-business broadband connections don't have enough upstream throughput to support both voice and data packets simultaneously. The end result is that under those circumstances when you are sending large amounts of data from your PC (such as uploading photographs to an online photo-finishing service) while using the VoIP service, the audio quality of your call will probably be adversely affected. Since most broadband connections have a high enough downstream throughput, you'll likely hear the person on the other end just fine, but the person you're talking to will have great difficulty hearing you intelligibly: whole words and sentences will drop out." "Typically, the slower you see your data throughput drop during VoIP calls--especially the upstream data throughput--the better the TA and the VoIP service are at prioritizing the voice packets and the less likely you are to experience any degradation of audio quality. Because of the limited upstream bandwidth of most residential and small-business broadband connections, this is a necessary compromise. Unfortunately, most TAs and VoIP services are not yet sophisticated enough to find the right balance, with the most common result being a significant degradation of audio quality during data uploads."
As far as the power going out, the phone box they provide has a built-in UPS. Does your regular phone have one? I doubt it. I haven't owned a regular phone that can handle a power outage since the 80s. I don't think they even sell phones nowadays that don't require wall power.
You should get out more often. Out here in the Big Blue Room you can still buy a corded phone which does not require wall power (other than that provided from the phone jack itself). Wal-Mart still carries "no power outlet required" phones, as does Radio Shack, Best Buy, Sears, Target, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Walgreens, CVS, Disney Stores, etc. Even if you can't get out to the physical stores, the websites of the above-mentioned stores offer online shopping opportunities to order "no power" landline phones. The "no power" landline phones are made by AT&T, GE, Panasonic, and also in various other brands including generics. They're generally cheaper phones, sold for people who can't afford to drop older technology just because there's something newer and more expensive. They still have features like speakerphone, number memory, and lighted keys, and some can even do two phone lines. Having had a neighbor with digital phone service frequently ask to use my phone during a three day ice storm power outage, where the phone lines stayed on, I can say that I'm quite happy with landline service that isn't dependent on a UPS with only SIX HOURS of battery life (TWC's *theoretical* maximum UPS battery life on its digital phones). Phone lines always seem to be the last connection to go down in my neighborhood, with cable usually being the first to go down.
On Sunday 06 July 2008 03:06:48 am Jeffrey Watts wrote:
Also, those peers are sharing what _they have_ with other peers as well, so the seed doesn't really have to share all of what it has. In practice it works very well.
The _original_ node must still send 100% of the file, though some of the receiving nodes may receive parts through various different peers.
The _original_ node must still send 100% of the file, though some of the receiving nodes may receive parts through various different peers.
and it is possible to dream up (and then implement) restrictions, such as the whole file won't be sent to a lone peer, peer reputation is tracked by the tracker, etc, to enfore polite torrent client behavior.
participants (12)
-
Adrian Griffis -
Christofer C. Bell -
David Nicol -
Hal Duston -
heartofamerica1982-lug＠yahoo.com -
Jeffrey Watts -
Jon Pruente -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Leo Mauler -
Luke -Jr -
Michael Haworth -
Oren Beck