Broadcast Machine: Publish RSS / Torrent Video Channels

I'm back from my trip, as of wednesday, but I'm still trying to catch up to work, and the events of the world.

Crystal is here until sunday.

The above ia another part of the Participatory Culture Foundation, it sounds very interesting.

Another thing to watch is the underlayer of the Azureus update I mentioned last week, which is the I2p network/protocol.

Azureus is a very very interesting project just now.

for those in the know, BitTorrent is the best way to get high traffic files served from places that may not neccesarily have the central bandwidth to do so.

BitTorrent is occasionally accused of just being for pirates. It's true that BitTorrent is a bigger player in piracy than Napster ever was, but besides that, it has many legit uses. VCRs have probably been used to 'pirate' more tv shows than every computer program put together, but have enough other uses to keep the corps from their door. I have similar hopes that BitTorrent will simply be too useful to ban.

Azureus is a java client for BitTorrent, a multi torrent manager. It has many good point from a management perspective, and is a good example of good use of Java.

Azureus has just upgraded to 2.3.0.0, and a bounty it is. Besides the plugins, the protocol upgrade, and other niceties, it introduces a feature strangely familiar to those following the demise of SuprNova.org.

(For those not following such minutia, SuprNova.org was a torrent tracker site, which served many many people. It was a nest of piracy and old game files, videos, and a lot more. After it was shut down by mysterious persons, a bold new initiative was announced, a way to use BitTorrent with NO trackers. Which would make such a network impossible to prosecute, save by going after each and every user. Exeem was announced with some fanfare, which dulled to dislike once it became clear it was stuffed with adware)

Azureus now supports decentralised torrents. And also continuing once hosted torrents, when they lose their tracker.

I have no idea how that will work, but I only hope they will work with other torrent clients and possibly update the original torrent spec to ensure standards and interopability. I wouldn't want it dependent on even so good an open-source client as azureus.

Of course, azureus continues to work with plain old torrents off of trackers, which I continue to use it for almost exclusively. I just got the latest version of Knoppix via torrent very quickly, considering it's near 700 mb size. Very spicy indeed.

you know, despite the various implementations, I'd never really looked at wikis before. That's some low cost authorship.

if anyone here hasn't noted all the great wikis out there, I heartily recommend a little browsing.

the canonical:
Wikipedia
The PersonalTelco Project

There are many tiny and strange wikis out there, as well as large and impersonal. Lately, wikis are popular enough to be more than just a genre, people are using wikis to accomplish many different things in many different ways.

I personally am interested in wikis for documenting and collating my extensive personal notes. Some time ago I did a lot of work for a document system, which all disappeared. But I've had many ideas since, and may resurrect the project, taking better advantage of other people's work, and probably doing it in python, rather than as a mozilla XUL app, which I was never very comfortable with anyway.

I also occasionally contribute and more often read the sl4 wiki.

So here's something from the rumor mill. I'm not allowed to cite my sources, but believe me, they are VERY reliable. This is for all of you who have been wondering what Bill Watterson is up to since his comic (you know, Calvin and Hobbes, the whole reason I decided to be a cartoonist when I was a wee child just barely old enough to read) ended a decade or so ago. APPARENTLY, and again, this is from a couple very reliable sources, he is spending his free time painting. And every weekend he burns his paintings so no one will see/use them.

You heard me right. Bill Watterson is apparently painting and subsequently burning his paintings.

I have to meet this man before I die."c

That's the most badass thing I think I've heard all day. What a totally insane person Bill Watterson is. I thought he was a crazy artist for turning down the literally millions that nearly ANY character merchandising would have earned him, but this... he must either be a true idealist, or have something very wrong with him in his brain.

Sometimes I'm in search of a break.

I tend to dwell on things a great deal. This is partly because I've never really accepted that things negative must be so, and partly because an unfortunate occasional coping mechanism I have for unpleasant duties is to postpone them, which of course, just continues their trouble to me.

So occasionally, given the way things kind of pile up, I go looking for a break. Sometimes it's a night out, or going to sleep early, or even a vacation to Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, these things don't always turn out to be breaks. Sometimes they contain drama of their own, and they rarely entirely insulate me from incumbent responsibility. So their therapeutic factor is questionable.

Being an introspective sort, I of course feel somewhat responsible for this. I am, in a weak sense, guilty when my recreating fails. I feel as though the value is low. "I should feel better, I took four days off!' after all.

Things aren't so simple sometimes. Marginal and indirect benefit.