The ‘checking email, browsing sites’ skill set
p2pnet view P2P:- If a particular phrase sums up the net, it might be — One thing leads to another. And that’s underscored by a Reader’s Write in a p2pnet post stressing the corporate entertainment industry Three Strikes effort has fallen flat on its ass in France. (Same in Sweden. But that’s another story.)
That led to a discussion on whether or not streamed content can be easily copied — like by anyone? — which in turn led to the comment post cited above. The writer quotes Dredd, who says:
“Most of those ( at least the ones I talked to, not sure about you, I’m guessing that no matter how many i’ve talked to, you’ve talked to more 
), are older, around my moms age or older … ”
“Most of the people I’ve talked to are older, but I’ve also talked to people in their 20’s who have no idea what they’re doing beyond checking email and browsing web sites”, says the comment poster, going on >>>
You mention things like downloading and unzipping a file and their eyes glaze over like you’re describing brain surgery.
I’ve also seen teenagers with computers that were so full of crap that they take 7-10 minutes to boot and 1-2 minutes to open most programs. This happens because although they’re confident enough to install new software, they have no idea how to do much beyond that. So every program adds itself to the startup. I watched one system load up about 4 different instant messengers, photo sharing software for their digital camera, an ad-driven dialup program similar to the old NetZero or Juno, about three different alerts for their wireless broadband, a bunch of alerts from Microsoft, a continuously re-appearing alert that they didn’t have anti-virus software installed (if they’re not going to install AV software, at least turn off the alerts!), and about a dozen other things whose icons appeared in the system tray. Every time you clicked the mouse there was minute-long drive access.
Before they moved away, there used to be a family across the street who would buy a new computer, use it for about a year until it got to be “too slow” from all the crap they allowed to accumulate on it, then they would give it away to some friend or family member and buy a new one. It got slow because the kids in the house (ages 8-20) installed all kinds of crap on it, but didn’t know enough to uninstall anything. The keyboard looked like it had spent a year at the bottom of a dumpster. I offered to help them clean it up (computer and keyboard), but at some point they just got rid of it and bought a new one, starting the cycle all over again.
I may not be an expert, but at least I know enough to uninstall stuff that you don’t use, and to edit the startup and remove all the crap that every single program you install, puts in there.
Out of all the people I know with computers, the only ones who don’t seem to be clueless are the ones who started with computers in the 80s, like the C64. Back then, people who bought a computer actually spent time learning how it worked. Everyone I’ve met who started with Windows, seems to fall into one of the categories above.
“Players need to buffer the content alright, whether it’s already on the harddrive or not. And, your RAM is not the buffer you think it is.”
Not only do I know this is wrong, I can prove it. I just ran Filemon, told it to log all writes and then opened a video file and let it play the first three minutes.
Excluding the copy of eMule I have running in the background, it logged writes to exactly three files during the time the video was playing. One was to the app data dir to create a temporary playlist (plain text), one was to the player’s INI file to update the list of recently opened files and the other was to the registry. At no time was any other file written to. The only thing I filtered out was eMule.
If you don’t believe me, I’ll happily post the entire log file from when I first double-clicked the video to when I stopped it at three minutes in. Unless you don’t trust Filemon (programmed by the SysInternals team) to be accurate.
“RAM is really there to save your processor a lot of work, and is mostly reserved for the operating system to deal with application functions and processes, and reference points.”
RAM is there because it’s impossible for the CPU to directly access files stored on a physical drive. It is literally hard-wired to the RAM in a system. It can’t execute a program unless that program is first loaded into RAM. It can’t access data unless that data is first loaded into RAM. Which is why the data in “swap” files needs to be “swapped” into memory for the CPU to use it. This process is handled by the OS, which is really nothing more than a giant program itself, running out of RAM.
“While memory does also help by transferring some data, video and other “rich” data needs a sequential flow that can’t be guaranteed by RAM.”
Which is a total perversion of the relationship between RAM and hard drives.
Compared to RAM, hard drives are slow. Conventional programming wisdom is that the less you need to use the drive, either by reading/writing temporary files, or by causing the OS to use the swap file, the faster your program will operate.
Why do you think computers used to use “RAM Disks” where a portion of memory was used as a virtual drive? Because it was faster than accessing a physical drive. Unfortunately, today’s bloated operating systems make using a RAM disk impractical. You’re usually lucky if the physical RAM is enough to run the OS itself.
“And, not everyone has the same type or amount of RAM, therefore the applications have to be written to work for everyone.”
Which is what “virtual” memory was created for.
“This flow is instead buffered through temporary harddrive writes and (occasionally) system pagefiles.”
Not a single write to the Windows swap file while playing the video. I don’t doubt that if I had let the entire 2 hour video play, Windows would have eventually used the swap file for something (it seems to love swapping out Firefox), but it wasn’t using it as a normal function of playing the video.
“A true player will buffer pieces of the file, but it still hangs on to the entire work file, in order to correct buffer transfer errors on the fly, and enable scanning, fast forward, and other needed functions.”
Try playing a video on Hulu and then finding the file on your drive. If it were possible to do so, there wouldn’t be so many discussions on the net about how to save files from Hulu.
“While processes themselves can be totally cached by RAM, virtually no data goes uncached by the harddrive in any active computer function that needs to process that data in some way to yield a result. To believe otherwise is the myth I speak of.”
In order for incoming data from a net connection to be written to disk, it first has to be cached in RAM. Then the OS writes it to disk.
I’m having a hard time seeing how it’s more efficient to take data that’s already in memory, write it to a temporary file on the hard drive, then read the data from that file back into memory to be passed to the player. You’re just performing the same function twice; Put it in memory, take it out of memory, put it in memory. The only difference is where the data originates from. It makes sense if the player is going to buffer the entire video, but for files that aren’t fully buffered, like Hulu, or any of the full-length movies on YouTube, you’re only dealing with a relatively small amount of data at a time.
“That’s like Tom putting items one at a time on a shelf, while Joe takes each one off the shelf, puts it into a box, then takes it out of the box and puts it back on the shelf”, RW adds.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – File sharing rises in France: 3 strikes epic fail, March 31, 2010
another story – P2P file sharing on the rise, April 1, 2010
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April 4th, 2010 at 12:04 am
“Most of the people I’ve talked to are older, but I’ve also talked to people in their 20’s who have no idea what they’re doing beyond checking email and browsing web sites”,
I know programmers, engineers. IT professionals all in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s (with the people in their 40’s admitting to having to take refresher courses). I would argue the younger generation knows more about computers than the older generation. I’d like to point out to the RW that computer science and engineering were not easily accessible courses over 20 years ago. When personal computers became affordable every home had to have one and that is when the educational opportunities expanded. I took computer science and engineering through high-school and I agree many students didn’t have a care in the world for how computers functioned. The number of people taking compsci was dropping when I left; my hope is that wasn’t part of a larger trend.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
“I know programmers, engineers. IT professionals all in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s (with the people in their 40’s admitting to having to take refresher courses).”
One my friends, who is a little younger than me (but not by much) has a career in the IT field. He started with a C128 in the 80’s, learned ML, went on to the Amiga, then Windows. He’s also dabbled in *nix. Another friend also staretd with the C128, then Amiga, then Windows. He never got into programming, but the last time I talked to him, he was building custom systems for people.
“I would argue the younger generation knows more about computers than the older generation.”
I agree, up to a point. The younger generation is more comfortable around computers since they grew up with them. That comfort doesn’t always translate into knowledge though. Twice now, I’ve had to download anti-virus programs for a friend’s son, who is in his early 20’s, because his computer got infected and he didn’t know how to find & download free anti-virus software.
“I’d like to point out to the RW that computer science and engineering were not easily accessible courses over 20 years ago. When personal computers became affordable every home had to have one and that is when the educational opportunities expanded.”
When I was in high school, computers were just becoming affordable to the average person, with Apple, Atari and Commodore being the dominate brands. My school had a Vic-20 in the Library, but no disk drive, no cartridges, etc. I guess they figured just having access to the computer itself would inspire kids. I used to create dirty little animations using the built-in character graphics. The school offered one computer course, but before you could take it, you had to have passed advanced algebra, geometry, etc.
“I took computer science and engineering through high-school and I agree many students didn’t have a care in the world for how computers functioned.”
I never took any computer courses. I learned BASIC on the C64 by reading the manual and typing in magazine programs. I learned enough ML to write simple programs, but never became truly good at either. On the Amiga and Windows, writing scripts is as far as I’ve gotten, programming-wise. However I do made it a point to become familiar with things like basic file operations, editing INI files, editing the registry (if I have a reference for what to change), viewing the raw contents of files to see what’s in them, etc.
I like to know not only how things work, but why they work like they do. I like to know what I can change, and what my system is doing that isn’t normally visible to the user.
“The number of people taking compsci was dropping when I left; my hope is that wasn’t part of a larger trend.”
My opinion, based on my own personal observations is that while young people today are comfortable with computers, they aren’t really insterested in how they work.
I used to have to babysit my mother’s friend’s son while they went out shopping. He liked playing games on the computer, but wasn’t interested in learning much else about them. He’s an adult now and although he’s learned a little more about computers, he’s still not really interested in the nitty-gritty stuff, he just wants his software to work.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Right wrong or indifferent, this is simply deflecting away from the point I was trying to make in the other
thread.
In the other thread, it seemed to be suggested that by increasing the availability of ’streaming’, the media
corps would make a dent in file sharing because copying streams is too difficult for the average joe.
This is a false assumption.
I still have one of the first MP3 players ( a diamond RIO with an 8mb SMART CARD of all things ) tucked away
for posterity in a drawer. These were NOT the model of ease of use and were initially dismissed as tekky toys, too
difficult for the average joe. Look at where personal MP3 players are now. My mom can use one without my help,
( by the way, that’s one of my litmus tests for ease of use .. the ‘Mom Test’ ). There was a demand for MP3 players,
and a NEED for them to be easier to use, and someone filled that need/demand.
My point,
Even if by some miracle the Cartels are successful in getting rid of/outlawing any and all p2p software and rely
on ’streaming’ to end their imagined revenue loss, the only thing they will really succeed in doing is create a
need/demand for easy to understand methods of copying streams. It will simply drive innovation of ‘joe’ friendly
methods. Even if stream copying ,right now, is not intuitive to everyone, programmers WILL fill the education
gap in this trend just as they did with MP3 players, and every other new technology. That was my original
hypothesis. The debate over what many people know or don’t know about current tech was never the point.
A vacuum demands to be filled, and it always is.
Always.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Thanks.
April 5th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Any reason i’m being moderated jon ?
Just curious.
April 5th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
@ Dredd:
You’re not being moderated. You’re being Akismeted. Haven’t you clued into that by now?
Cheers!
April 6th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
“Even if by some miracle the Cartels are successful in getting rid of/outlawing any and all p2p software and rely
on ’streaming’ to end their imagined revenue loss, the only thing they will really succeed in doing is create a
need/demand for easy to understand methods of copying streams. It will simply drive innovation of ‘joe’ friendly
methods. Even if stream copying ,right now, is not intuitive to everyone, programmers WILL fill the education
gap in this trend just as they did with MP3 players, and every other new technology.”
As soon as they make programs to download streaming videos easy enough to pass the “mom test”, the companies making them will get sued for DRM circumvention. All the various Firefox add-ons and such have been left alone because they don’t really bypass anything, they just save files that are already being sent to your browser. To download from Hulu, the program has to be able to handle RTMP streams and pretend to be Flashplayer, so that it can send the authorization key from the web site. Any company that makes doing so a simple one-step process is going to attract the attention of the media corporations’ legal departments.
April 6th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
F****** wordpress eats another perfectly innocent comment…
April 6th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
” As soon as they make programs to download streaming videos easy enough to pass the “mom test”, the companies making them will get sued for DRM circumvention. ”
Like AnyDVD ?
We can go back and forth about this all day. I know you REALLY REALLY want to be right about this and you have my sympathies. It’s
just that historically the tekkies have always and will always win. One site closes, another opens. One app is killed, three more are born.
Code goes open source into the wild and can never be killed.
They tried really hard to kill the RIO too.
The tried to kill VHS, Cassette tapes, recordable CD’s DVD’s the radio .. are you starting to see a pattern yet ?
They have tried to kill EVERY SINGLE MEDIA ITEM WE CURRENTLY ENJOY TO DAY. Every one of them. It has
never worked. It never WILL work. But keep hoping. I will still be here when copying streams becomes ubiquitous.
Will you be here to acknowledge that you were wrong ?
April 6th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“Like AnyDVD ?”
AnyDVD doesn’t really pass the “mom test”. Sure, most people can use it to get around the region coding on discs, but then only a small percentage of people ever even run into region coding. I know a guy with hundreds of DVDs and he’d never heard of region codes until he bought a used movie at a pawn shop. It can also be used for “ripping” DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, but what do you do with it afterward? Encoding to an AVI/MKV isn’t something most moms are likely to do and finding and playing the ripped files off the hard drive is one of those overly complex tasks that requires them to deal with directories and such. I find that most “moms” have trouble even understanding the concept that the contents of a DVD can be transferred to the hard drive.
“I will still be here when copying streams becomes ubiquitous.
Will you be here to acknowledge that you were wrong ?”
If I am.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
” AnyDVD doesn’t really pass the “mom test”.
Sure it does.
It’s on my mom’s machine for copying DVD’s.
She can use any software she knows well ( Nero ) to copy her DVD’s without any intervention from me.
It even updates itself.
That’s a ‘Pass’ in my book.
Is this going to be a ‘Yes it is’ ‘No ‘it isn’t’ sort of thing ?
And you will be wrong.
just as wrong as they were about Blank Cd’s, and DVD’s being the end of the world.
I doubt you’ll be here though.
April 7th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
“I doubt you’ll be here though.”
With my various health issues, you may be right about that. I’ll be using computers until I die though. They’ll probably find me slumped over my keyboard one day…
April 8th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Odd,
As much as we disagree on this particular issue, it would seem that we are in
a similar boat. String theory, anyone ?