March 2, 2002

11:07 AM

Witness the scalability of Gnutella in realtime.We've all read the technical papers and masters thesises (thesi?) about the theoretical growth of the Gnutella network and if/how it will work. Today with the release of Morpheus Preview Edition, now connected to the Gnutella network, you can witness its 345 trillion users put the Gnutella network to the test. In a little over a couple hours it has grown to roughly 3 times the size it was last week, and still going strong.. how much bigger can it get?
posted by afx114 (40 comments total)

345 trillion? Million, maybe.
posted by gramcracker at 11:22 AM on March 2, 2002

theses.
posted by jacknose at 11:23 AM on March 2, 2002

Oh yers, this is going to be an interesting test to say the least. Ho Ho! Word has it that the Morpheus crew were forced to do this because Kazaa locked them out of the FastTrack network. Hope it doesn't all end in tears.
posted by Duug at 11:24 AM on March 2, 2002

My guess is that it will continue to explode. Kids like the free stuff. So do adults.
posted by jacknose at 11:27 AM on March 2, 2002

My guess is that it will continue to explode. Kids like the free stuff. So do adults.

Well that's obvious. The question is whether or not the Gnutella network can handle the explosion of kids. And adults.
posted by afx114 at 11:31 AM on March 2, 2002

all this and i still can't find the song i want. which client/network has the most files available?
posted by mokey at 11:31 AM on March 2, 2002

i just downloaded the client and it has been attempting to connect for the last 15 minutes with no luck.
posted by Dom at 11:37 AM on March 2, 2002

There aren't even 345 trillion people in the world.
posted by tomorama at 11:38 AM on March 2, 2002

To be more illustrative, you would need about 57,270 of our worlds to get 345 trillion people.
posted by pardonyou? at 11:41 AM on March 2, 2002

Hmm.. maybe I should have said "godzillion" or "kagillion" or "bazillion" so that those of you with your heads up your own asses would have gotten the sarcasm.
posted by afx114 at 11:42 AM on March 2, 2002

There aren't even 345 trillion people in the world.

This has me in rolling on the floor right now...Thanks.
::sheds tear::
posted by BlueTrain at 11:44 AM on March 2, 2002

And please delete the word "in". Still laughing hysterically though.
posted by BlueTrain at 11:45 AM on March 2, 2002

Nice of them to inform the Gnucleus crowd before they skanked their code, wasn't it?
posted by dlewis at 11:51 AM on March 2, 2002

Hmm.. maybe I should have said "godzillion" or "kagillion" or "bazillion" so that those of you with your heads up your own asses would have gotten the sarcasm.

Calm down, cowboy.
posted by tomorama at 12:00 PM on March 2, 2002

mokey, you may be interested in CNET's side-by-side comparison of the most popular file-sharing systems.
posted by jjg at 12:08 PM on March 2, 2002

Man, I hate it when kids explode. Hella mess to clean up.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:20 PM on March 2, 2002

Anyone find spyware in this version? Yeah, I know they promise not to use any, but color me suspicious.
posted by skallas at 12:38 PM on March 2, 2002

jjg: thanks.
posted by mokey at 12:42 PM on March 2, 2002

Speaking of Gnucleus, is anyone else having problems connecting to the server? For whatever reason, i haven't been able to for a while.
Here at UGA, the University closed that ports for the Morpheus/Music City/Kazaa crowd, so we are relegated to the Gnutella-style stuff. Of course, 1000 students on a t3 line tends to get too friggin slow to download songs the way it is.
posted by jmd82 at 12:46 PM on March 2, 2002

the limewire hostcount hasn't updated in over 4 hours, which means that either 1) it takes 4 hours to count up all the hosts and it's got a huge backlog, or 2) the machine coutning all the hosts has crashed.
posted by afx114 at 1:25 PM on March 2, 2002

Hmm.. maybe I should have said "godzillion" or "kagillion" or "bazillion" so that those of you with your heads up your own asses would have gotten the sarcasm.

I like the way a typo or a simple mistake immediately becomes 'sarcasm.'
posted by wackybrit at 1:33 PM on March 2, 2002

metafilter: if there's a nit to pick, some nitwit will pick it
posted by mb01 at 1:37 PM on March 2, 2002

i just downloaded the client and it has been attempting to connect for the last 15 minutes with no luck.

Ditto here. Not sure I've grasped how the new Morpheus works from the old one yet either.
posted by bkdelong at 1:37 PM on March 2, 2002

if there's a nit to pick, some nitwit will pick it

What you talkin' 'bout Willis?
posted by tomorama at 1:47 PM on March 2, 2002

all this and i still can't find the song i want. which client/network has the most files available?

tower records?

uh. i actually use USENET for all my mp3 needs. Sure, you've got to pay approx US$2 for each gig you d/l, depending on your service (I recommend Giganews), but it's worth it, as typically the folks on USENET have great taste and u/l music that I've never heard, and usually greatly enjoy.

The problem I've had with Gnutella/Morpheus/Kazaa, is that you have to search for the music you want -- usually I want to hear artists that I've never heard before, and *always* I want to get full albums -- not the paltry one or two hits that you can usually find on P2P networks. Hotline used to be pretty damn good for this, but then everyone either got greedy or pissed that no-one contributed. This searching interface problem tends to lead to another -- the only music that gets spread is stuff people know; the obscure things tend to disappear over time, because no-one knows to search for them. This is generally the way things like FreeNet, etc, are designed to work -- the supposed cream rises to the top. Problem is, you can't listen to all 5 billion files, and most people end up downloading the crap they're fed by the music industry, so this system is, i feel, inherently flawed. The one redeeming feature of morpheus is that you can look at *all* the files a user has, but usually they're poorly organized, not always at a great sample rate (the USENET community typically demands 192 or variable bit rate for posting.) or incomplete.

The folks on USENET seem to be mostly music lovers who are commited to spreading the word about their favorite pet band. Other benefits: Consistent bandwidth (I get approx 32 kbs, which ain't great, but certainly fast enough), no queues, no-one kicking you or logging off the network. I recommend alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.dance, which gets a lot of IDM and experimental stuff, and alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.indie. the hip-hop newsgroup is pretty good too.
posted by fishfucker at 2:03 PM on March 2, 2002

What you talkin' 'bout Willis?
I didn't say anything...
posted by owillis at 2:20 PM on March 2, 2002

tower records?

heh. well i already have this tune on casette i just wanted an mp3. haven't got the cables to hook the casette player to the computer.
posted by mokey at 2:23 PM on March 2, 2002

on a side note, has anyone ever stored computer software on vinyl lps? that would be pretty cool.
posted by mokey at 2:26 PM on March 2, 2002

Hotline is STILL the best for full albums and 160+ bitrates. You actually have to participate in the community, but there's still a ton of good stuff out there...
posted by ph00dz at 2:37 PM on March 2, 2002

hmm... 6,618.52 MB from Audiogalaxy in the past month. I think it suits me.
posted by techgnollogic at 2:50 PM on March 2, 2002

mokey: Not sure about waxware, but I do remember downloading computer programs off the radio when I was a kid. The BBC used to broadcast a weekly tech program, the climax of which was a earsplitting 3 minutes of white noise. Recording this sonic masterpiece onto a regular audio tape and then loading it into your top of the range PC (at the time this happened to be a BBC Model B microcomputer) allowed you to play a game, see some graphics or hear a creative rendition of greensleeves. All state of the art, at the time :)
posted by dlewis at 2:51 PM on March 2, 2002

fishfucker - shhhhhh! Don't bring the hordes to usenet, I have this great fear they'll kill it the same way they did when they discovered Hotline (click my 7 porn site windows and count the third letter of the 4th paragraph on this nasty page I'll send you to, yech!!!). It's a secret better left unshared imo.

Nothing to see here folks, move right along ;-)

and yeah, giganews rocks
posted by Tempus67 at 3:34 PM on March 2, 2002

In a tangential note, Tower records narrowly avoided being forced into Chap 11 last november when it lined up last minute financing. The capital infusion was expected to hold Tower records over until April 2002.
posted by BentPenguin at 7:53 PM on March 2, 2002

I can't think Mathowie cares for have all these people -- on this non-anonymous, highly traceable and subpoenable site -- admit to their massive filesharing use. Perhaps to speak of one's friends' enthusiastic use of such systems, no?
posted by MattD at 8:28 PM on March 2, 2002

mokey: good on you for supporting the artists. I've not heard of computer software on vinyl, but surely you've heard of VinylVideo?

dlewis: that's incredibly cool. A lot better than typing in screen upon screen of copied from the back pages of "COMPUTE!"; which I spent a good portion of my youth doing.

Tempus67: I think most of the kiddie threat is dissuaded by the financial and techical barriers. (Agent is kinda a pokey little program, and it seems to be the best out there). failing that, well, there's my killfile.
posted by fishfucker at 8:35 PM on March 2, 2002

if the riaa could track me down, osama bin laden would be in jail in kentucky and we'd know how many licks it takes to get to the center of damn near anything.
posted by techgnollogic at 11:34 PM on March 2, 2002

I still find AudioGalaxy's database of anything ever seen by their servers is a great searchtool, also their "other users liked..."-feature resulted in lots of nice finds. As long as you don't insist on having continuous albums or consistently higher bitrates; they're there, but collecting them is too much like work. Otherwise: great heaps of wonderful weirdness to be found there...!
posted by disso at 3:13 AM on March 3, 2002

Nice of them to inform the Gnucleus crowd before they skanked their code, wasn't it?

This is just silly, there is nothing wrong with their use of the GPL. They provide a link to the source code and in this case that's all that is required (in actuality, that's more than is required, all they really have to do is make the code available when requested). The installer also encloses a text file of liscensing information. The Gnucleus home page states, "As long as they post their source code and credit us in the program I don't have a problem with this, give the GPL the props it deserves," both of which they do.

What I find even more interesting is the open-source communities response to a percieved misinterpretation of the GPL... on a piece of software primarily intended to facilitate copyright violation.
posted by cedar at 8:26 AM on March 3, 2002

skallas: don't like spyware, go for Clean Limewire. It's open-source, and some other folks have helpfully compiled it without any third-party software included.
posted by dhartung at 12:46 PM on March 3, 2002

How to install Grokster without the spyware.
posted by gd779 at 2:06 PM on March 4, 2002