yar, new here

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:04 pm Post subject: yar, new here

hi.

This place is great. It's like my dream internet community come to life.

I'm a musician/inventor/hack living up in the rocky mountains. I run a record label/collective on the net at http://noiseusse.org

My interests lean towards the bizarre, loud, abrasive, creepy and experimental. I'm also very interested in custom or modified hardware.

and when I'm not in recluse-mode, I like playing shows.

thanks for having me.

mosc · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:17 pm Post subject:

Welcome, noiseusse. By the look of your web site, you have come to the right place. I used to do hardware myself. I really got into it when I was a younger person. Now, the eyes are shot, and I don't even make my own cables any more. I still like hacking code though. Nice to have you here. How'd you find us?

I'm listening to some of your CD sample tracks now. I like this kind of stuff. Which is your's, or are all those artists alter-egos?

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:29 pm Post subject:

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 3:40 pm Post subject:

Welcome,noiseusse!
Very Happy

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 4:30 pm Post subject:

and now for some polka?

I am enjoying this one right now:
http://www.noiseusse.org/artists/play/pork/the_dark_lite_polka.mp3

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 5:14 pm Post subject:

yeah. that one's usually a favorite. just enough tongue-and-cheek to take the edge off the abrasive noises.

mosc · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 5:59 pm Post subject:

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:25 pm Post subject:

not necessarily.

dod.net does collective hosting for musicians and activists. You can get about 2 Gigiabytes of server space for $90 a year. That's $7.50 a month. Split that between 20 people and it's starting to look free ::)

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:27 pm Post subject:

bandwidth? pretty good?

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:55 pm Post subject:

http://hosting.dod.net/

that's got a all the specs. I'm not sure what kind of line they're on but they host a lot of sites and they seem pretty fast to me. Bandwidth usage is flexible. Al ot of sites don't use their allotted bandwidth so it's free for other sites to use.

I keep meaning to transfer my domain to their servers. They seem like cool people to me. dod is a 501(c)3

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 8:58 pm Post subject:

I hear that.

One of my friends here started a net radio station http://www.radiovalve.com

It's maintained by about three or four people for a relatively low cost. I'll ask him about what it took to set up.

What I've found with my own projects is that I cannot count on other people wanting to do them as much as I do. I just decide what it is I want to do and make it happen. If other people want to help I always welcome it but never put expectations on them. It takes a lot of dedication to turn a vision into reality and I think the hardest part is deciding which thing to throw yourself at. There's an infinitude of fun, interesting and worthy ideas but hours and minutes are limited.

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

play · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject:

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

A group project may have as much potential as the sum of its constituents, perhaps more, but is always bottlenecked by its weakest constituent.

Cyx

egw · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:30 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 10:12 am Post subject:

That is right , Greg. But I imagine Cyx thinks about how some hosting companies instead are telling their customers that visitors to their site can download ( outgoing packets ) like 20-30 gigs a month. This is better termed "termed" traffic, but hosting companies are confusing the terms very often. ( We have seen for years how hosting companies will close busy websites and / or evict the customer if the outgoing packet stream is to big over a certain period of time.)
Greg is correct here, because traffic is not bandwidth. On the other hand will mp3 streaming generate traffic, often huge traffic.

Downloading a media file, and using a playback client which allows playback of a partially downloaded file is very different from true packet streaming.The first is best to use when the server bandwidth may vary a lot. This means the playback will stop/pause if the file download speed is too low, but the download as such does not break.

True packet streaming is not expensive in the server end. A decent server which can push insane amounts of packets can be put together for less than 15 000 USD. Bandwidth and traffic will be the expensive nuts and bolts here. One thing is renting a fast line.. like 3-8 aggregated SDSL lines. An other matter altogether is affording a connection which really has a GREAT connection into the backbone. The way high bandwidth/high traffic sites are put together is not kindergarten stuff. the Apple iTunes Musicshop setup is pretty immense and far from inexpensive. And the old mp3.com setup was probably not cheap either..

Shocked

The big problem is scaling. A popular site generates a lot of traffic and demands bandwidth. A little fringe streaming operation does not have to be expensive, but it does not scale well.

This is probably the reason why download based "streaming" is the most popular. In such a scenario you would need just some "decent" bandwidth and a cool deal on the actual traffic.

True packet streaming at a low cost can be done too, but in order to conserve the actual bandwidth you would need a service based bandwidth management in the server and often also in the closest firewall/router, and of course also a restricted number of available streams.

mosc · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 10:52 am Post subject:

Well said, Electro80. I think for our purposes, we don't need a full streaming server with tons of bandwidth. I'm experimenting as we speak.

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 11:14 am Post subject:

Howard, tell me how this works out.

I just got an email .. asking why I am negative to streaming. I am not. I just attempted to explain some issues without being too technical. There is no free lunch, that is why I tried to clarify some issues here.

Cyxeris · Joined: Oct 30, 2003 Posts: 1125 Location: Louisville, KY

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 12:51 pm Post subject:

Yes, well... thoughput, traffic.. whatever.. but this is not bandwidth as such... but these companies are messing up the terms. f you ever used the iDisk service from Apple you will know that they have an incredible bandwidth there, but are restricting the traffic from each site... in the sense that if you are too popular they will kick you Smile

And Apple is doing what others have been doing for years...

mosc · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 1:43 pm Post subject:

Throughput and bandwidth: How fast can data go into and out of the server. Whatever the name, it's measured in kilobits or megabits per second. This determines how fast the downloads will be, or how many streams you can run at the same time.

Network data limit, capacity or allocation: How much data you can send and receive over a period of time. This is usually measured in megabytes per month. After you tick past your allocation, either the service stops, or your bill is automatically increased.

Then there is the disk storage alloacation, usually measured in megabytes or gigabytes. There is a quota on the disk file system. Try to upload more than the quota and you get an error message, or you bill goes up automatically.

You need to know all three to understand the service.

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 3:24 pm Post subject:

Howard, you are correct.

Problem is that hosting companies are messing all this up. They actually ARE measuring downloads ( even for html and gifs ) in megabytes and gigabytes. One reason for this might be that hosting companies are not that that much interested in actually promising customers bandwidth/throughput numbers that make any sense. Like.. one of the big ISPs here in Norway have started to talk about bandwidth retsrictions in the sense that if you "downloiad" mo0re than a gig each month ( by surfing the net using ADSL) they will bill you extra.. orreduce the line speed to 56 k until you pay. Of course this is not bandwidth... but they are calling their "download" meter bandwidth instead. silly dudes.