Bittorrent CDN Part 2

So work has been majorly busy recently and I haven't had much time to do more thinking about anything really. One thing I did find in relation to the "Bittorrent CDN" idea was fsniper.

It's a pretty cool app by the looks of it. Basically it runs a script based on a file appearing in a directory. Once I get my linux install back up and running (planning to evaluate Linux Mint on an old laptop of mine) I'll be testing it out.

I'm thinking some dedicated servers on the likes of OVH could be an option to start testing out the "CDN." Also recently the idea of a Darknet has come up. So maybe a Darknet CDN running over Bittorrent may feature as part of the idea soon...

Building a CDN using Bittorrent?

I've been mulling something over for a little while, based on something from work... I'm thinking of a CDN which uses Bittorrent to replicate the files thereby reducing the need for major bandwidth infrastructure? It's just an idea, a mental exercise to keep my brain idling.

So far here are my thoughts:
- A pickup directory which is monitored by some form of service
- Once a file is placed in the pickup directory a torrent file is created and replicated to all of the edge sites (custom private tracker?)
- The torrent then seeds as usual until all sites on the network have a full copy
- Clients can then get a local copy of their data.

I'll work on this as a thought exercise a bit more over the coming weeks. I'm sure this is full of holes as it stands and maybe I've got the CDN part completely arseways when I say no need for major bandwidth!

I'm aiming for a cross-platform sort of idea. Possibly something web-based? I dunno. Might be interesting, we'll see where it goes.

Shaner

The New Economy

Just heard that great phrase yesterday - "The New Economy"

What a cracking phrase. It really brings a positive outlook to the doom and gloom of the past months. It got me thinking, which recently has been something I've tried to avoid. It's not that we are all doomed (where there are ups there will surely follow downward trends) but it's just we need to adjust to the current situation and come up with new ways to enjoy ourselves and to use creativity to spur on innovation and conjure up new ideas for earning a living.

I'll definitely be using this phrase but hopefully not for long!

The New Pirate Bay: False Economy?

Physorg: New Pirate Bay to be based on give-and-take models.

I've been reading news that The Pirate Bay is to harness it's technology to pay both content providers and users for their content and upload respectively. It's an interesting concept of legalisation. A site once known for its open taunting of legal threats is to be purchased by Global Gaming Factory X and turned legitimate.

It hardly surprises me the owners (who have been found guilty of Copyright Infringement and fined) have considered selling their site. It makes sense. Sell to someone legitimate in order to pay off the fines. This would suggest any earnings of the venture so far are either tied up somehow or spent. Another alternative is that if the owners were found to have made significant sums from the site that they would be taken to court again by the aggrieved parties to recoup their "losses."

What I fail to see is how soon this legal give-and-take model can be up and running. By the time such technologies are put in place I would imagine that the vast majority of the userbase will have moved on to using different torrent sites or other means of sharing illicit files.

Then comes the question of ISPs. Already some have throttled bittorrent packets across their networks. I think that the minute this service is launched those same ISPs are going to start making noise. Why should users make gains by running data across their networks, they'll say!

The micropayment platform with which to pay users will be equally difficult. Sure, you could link the give-and-take platform into a service such as PayPal, but if I were a company like that I'd want to pay out as little as possible. That means I'd want users to sign up, spend a certain amount and only be able to make a predefined amount of money back (say, the price of a movie download). In essence, what you would really want to do is have a method of "paying" users a balance that they would in turn spend on more downloads. Does the long tail apply here? Would a company trying this sort of venture end up coming up against the law of diminishing returns? What then?

It will be interesting to find out what does happen with this. I'll be keeping watch on how The Pirate Bay fares in future. Somehow I doubt I'll get an account with them but if it's all it's cracked up to be I may end up eating my words. Hmm, food for thought indeed...

Fitzpatricks Hotels "Joy of Summer" Competition

First off, full disclosure, although I work in the Travel trade I am in no way associated with Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel. To be honest, after seeing their latest marketing ploy make its way to my inbox I wouldn't want to be either.



The above image was attached to the following email:

"Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel has great news for you...

To celebrate the launch of its wonderful Summer Break Packages, we would like to treat you to a wonderful weekend of luxury.

You and a friend will enjoy :

- a 2 night stay in a Luxurious Suite

- wine & chocolates on arrival

- a sumptuous dinner in one of Fitzpatricks Award-Winning restaurants

And

- a wonderful relaxtion treatment of choice in our Treatment Rooms

To indulge yourself in this weekend away, all you have to do is:

Simply send this email to 8 friends and cc competition@fitzpatricks.com by Monday, June 15th for your chance to enjoy a relaxing weekend away.

Please see our Summer Break Packagesn Attached to forward to your 8 friends"

Essentially what they've done is ask 1 person to give up 9 email addresses in order to win a competition. So what do they do with the email addresses after that? I can guess, I'm sure you can too.

I suppose this just gives them more publicity though, doesn't it... *sigh*

Sons of Anarchy

I saw the ad for Sons of Anarchy while watching TV there a few weeks ago. Ron Perlman, bikes... it looked good to me. Not in an assless leather chaps sense but in a biker gang sort of way. MCs have always interested me. Usually the only exposure regular people would get to them is seeing them pass on the road or maybe the odd Discovery Channel documentary about them.

From reading a few biker forums I'm a member of I had heard good things. One comment even compared the first season to season's 1 - 4 of Lost. I'm a big Lost fan so I expected good things!

I'll say this... Having watched the pilot I was in no way disappointed! It had it all: Ron Perlman, bikes, guns, gratutious violence, an interesting sub-plot and best/worst of all (I can't decide whether it's a good or bad thing...) unanswered questions to get you to tune in next week.

Definitely looking forward to watching the full season. Hopefully it's not another Prison Break. That show should have ended after the first season.

How I started listening to Dillenger Escape Plan

I woke up on Saturday morning with Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy going through my head. Sung it in the shower too!

It reminded me of college, some of the people I used to know and ultimately one of them who during a drunken conversation mentioned a cover version of Come to Daddy he had heard by "some metal band".

Through the wonder of Google and YouTube I came upon Dillenger Escape Plan. After listening to their cover a few times (read repeatedly clicking 'Replay' when the tune finished) I started to listen to some of their other stuff. Have to say, I haven't looked back since then. I've got three of their albums, even when they cost 22 euro in the "sales" (how come nothing you ever really *want* is on sale).

The whole concept of mathcore is pretty interesting to me also. A topic for another day perhaps...