Usenet Audio

Carel writes "Everybody who has done some streaming knows the downside: as soon as you're getting popular the costs are getting sky-high. While there have been some efforts in the P2P area these didn't have the impact they need. Enter Usenet Audio, a project that uses the existing, distributed and proven Usenet as its medium. Check the site for details and for the beta-versions of the software (which is available for Linux, OS X and MS platforms)."

Congratulations

[frenetic3]

Usenet Audio joins an esteemed coterie of previous spectacular endeavors including Usenet Porn [alt.binaries.erotica], Usenet Warez [alt.binaries.warez], Usenet Fashion Magazines [binaries.f....magazines], and Usenet Moderated Nonviolent Underwater Images [underwater....moderated].

Re:Congratulations

[Mistlefoot]

it's April Fools day, but....... you never know.

If this is true it will be bad for one reason.

The Usenet has always been a place where those in the 'know' could go to grab or share stuff. Making this mainstream will make this a target as well. If this were to ever become the new 'napster' it would only be a matter of time before laws would start to pop up to deal with it.

Re:Congratulations

[ttldkns]

Dont April fools have to stop at 12:00 Midday?

i suppose it depends what time zone you're living in :)

Re:Congratulations

[debian4life]

Usenet should not even be used as an April Fool's joke. You can take my P2P and my WWW, but leave my Usenet alone. This is the last bastion of the original "Internet" yet to be totally whored out to commerce and regulation. Please keep it on the dl.

Re:Congratulations

[SillyNickName4me]

> yet to be totally whored out to commerce and regulation. Please keep it on the dl.

Hmm. regulations.. yeah.. guess its still mostly free from those.. but uh.. in quite a few groups the signal/noise ratio is even higher then with e-mail..

Re:Congratulations

[anothy]

what?!? usenet's been home to some of the best (most skillful and most tasteful) april fool's jokes on the net ever! check your history. google for kremvax, which made its debut 20 years ago today.

Actually.... it's been used before.

[oneiros27]

alt.binaries used to be a major source of music (not just porn and warez), before the advent of napster.

In the days when ripping a CD with your desktop might've taken the better part of a day, there were folks sending MP3s over usenet. Sure, you had to re-combine 20 articles to get a file, and they weren't recorded at all that high of a quality, but it was a start.

Of course, only a few new songs came by each day/week, and if you didn't grab them before your server purged them, they were gone. [which for

Re:Congratulations

[alanw]

and not forgetting Usenet hamster fetish [bestiality....duct-tape]

April Fools!

[mrklaw]

Download link "Not Found"

Re:April Fools!

[dealsites]

These April fools joke articles are killing me! Please put me out of my misery.

Might as well pull a joke on myself now, Slashdot my page! [dealsites.net]

Oh the shame... I will be the fool.

Re:April Fools!

[Trigun]

Better than last years dupes.

Re:April Fools!

[cluckshot]

Ughhhh! Am I going to have to endure a whole day without the borg guy popping in from M$ and sturring up something? Just imagine the SCO and M$ news that might really be hiding behind the Data, er Date?!

Re:April Fools!

[nofx_3]

Is this parent being modded up to 5-funny another April fools joke? I mean honestly, talk about selfless promotion. I think a nice April fools joke for this guy would be MyDoom.Y or whatever they are upto now, targeting his site for a DOS. He'd probably just think he was getting slashdotted till the site was unreachable for days. Talk about funny.

Re:April Fools!

[SillyNickName4me]

> Please try to keep posts on topic.

New users are cute at times.
Welcome to slashdot.

Available on MS platforms?

[paroneayea]

But nobody using Windows reads usenet.

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[paroneayea]

Oh, sorry, my bad.... I forgot that Microsoft also makes MS-DOS.

I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[turnstyle]

Sheesh, even though I make streaming software, I still fall for this (and every) April Fools Day gag. If you're interested in streaming, you might want to check out my app, Andromeda [turnstyle.com].

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[VivianC]

Is a new verison ever coming out? Not that the old one isn't working fine, I just feel the need to be bleeding edge.

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[turnstyle]

Hey Viv,

Most recently, I've actually been putting a lot of work into the docs on the Andromeda site -- it seems lots of people never knew about many of the features *already* available. ;)

I'm also trying to help highlight user sites, like bands that want their music shared.

PS, you're certainly free to contact me anytime via email.

-Scott

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[VivianC]

Good to hear. I love the product. I'll have to check out the new docs.

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[Chmarr]

You should have called it 'Andromedia' :)

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[turnstyle]

"You should have called it 'Andromedia'"

Here's the story of the name. I was joking around with my S.O. Amy, and I told her that I had replaced her with a perfect android replica. She asked, "what's my android name" and I just said "Andromeda."

When it came time to give it a name, that's what I picked.

PS, some people call it Andromedia anyway... ;)

Re:I fall for every April Fools Day gag!

[turnstyle]

"The is Usenet-Audio streamer _IS_ running with LIVE-audio on-line."

Yeah, and I fall for that too... ;)

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[ackthpt]

But nobody using Windows reads usenet.

Not true! Some helpful groups:

comp.microsoft.bsod

microsoft.useless.posts.on.dotnet

alt.windows.0wn3d

alt.windows.no.you.stupid.piece.of.shit.just.do. it.damn.you

rec.windows.uninstall

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[Smoovious]

Ya know how sometimes you hear people say wrong things over and over and over and over and over and over until you just can't take it anymore and explode about it?

This is one of those times...

STOP CALLING THE NEWSGROUPS USENET! THE NEWSGROUPS __ARE__ __NOT__ USENET!!!

>>But nobody using Windows reads usenet.
>
>Not true! Some helpful groups:
>
>comp.microsoft.bsod
>rec.windows.un i nstall

^^ These 2 groups are UseNet groups. ^^

>alt.windows.0wn3d
>alt.windows.no.you.stupid.p iece.of.sh

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[JudgeFurious]

Windows users are very familiar with Usenet, the porn parts at least. I know this because I am also familiar with it and I've been seeing "Stop with this Yenc shit" and "How do you open Yenc files with Outlook Express" posts for what? Years now? If it isn't years then it sure feels like it.

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[STrinity]

FACT: A quarter of all posters to alt.os.linux.suse use Outlook [google.com].

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[paroneayea]

:p Did you read the stuff written AFTER all that info? fine... I'll bring it up for you:

A lot of people may be stuck at work with Outlook. Also, many of us have Outlook working in Linux with Crossover Office but I thought you had to use Outlook Express for News. It's very likely that they are using Windows in addition.

Re:Available on MS platforms?

[STrinity]

Those are nice caveats, but they hardly alter the fact that people posting to Usenet do use Windows, contrary to your prior assertion. And if it's over 25% on a Linux group, then it's going to be even higher in non-techy forums. Hell, in the groups I read, there are dozens of people using AOL accounts -- and these are Big 8 groups, not alt.* groups filled with newbies who don't know how to quote.

BS.

[grub]

whois usenet-audio.com
[snip]
created-date: 2004-03-31
updated-date: 2004-03-31
registration-expiration-date: 2005-03-31

Uh huh. A domain created yesterday for a minimum 1 year term.

Also, searching google for "El-Katabi Investment" or "Nim services BV" (mentioned in their press page) returns no results. Those plugins likely just say "April Fools" over your speakers (if the plugins really exist: one online mirror has none of the files and the other says the limit of 500 users has been reached.)

The goofy idea of streaming over usenet aside, this sounds like YAAFJ (Yet Another April Fools Joke) to me.

Re:BS.

[FortKnox]

umm... its no secret that EVERY april fools day has zero real articles on slashdot. Quit trying to ruin the fun.

Re:BS.

[baudilus]

You just ruined the fun of the people that didn't know about it. Like me.

Thanks. (Score: 5 Sarcasm)

Re:BS.

[realdpk]

Quit ruining the fun? Why let the editors be the only ones?

Re:BS.

[geekoid]

If you had any less of a life, you would be undead.

Godwin's Law

[ArmenTanzarian]

I assume this would apply to songs written by or mentioning Nazis?

Re:Godwin's Law

[node 3]

Like this [geocities.com] one?

Seriously, Michael...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so much coffee for you, old chap!

No, no, no

[Anonymous Coward]

The less usenet's capabilities are publicized, the better. Do we want the RIAA/MPAA/etc pressuring ISP's for people that download from specific groups? Or pressuring to have those groups removed entirely? Keep it quiet!

Re:No, no, no

[marktoml]

Less of an issue really since they (usenet carriers) are already identified as common carrier status (like a telco). Different rules apply to the carrier in this case.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the carriers won't just cave when requested.

Damnit

[Jonas the Bold]

Damnit Michael, just stop. They just aren't funn- oh wait, this isn't a April fool's article. Carry on :)

PS: The moderation you're looking for is "funny", and not "troll"

Re:Damnit

[MagikSlinger]

PS: The moderation you're looking for is "funny", and not "troll"

You forgot the hand gesture to go along with that.

(Makes sweeping hand gesture) You will mod this post 'funny'.

Future versions promise to add...

[Anonymous Coward]

...messaging functionality! Imagine that! USENET used for messaging! Who needs flying cars?

text to song based audio is brilliant

[planckscale]

It's just that all the songs seem to sound the same in that droning "Would you like to play a game?" voice that we heard in War Games.

"You light up my life, you give me hope, to carry on."

I'm pissed.

[syphax]

These stories are lame. Therefore, rather than spending time working productively, playing with the kids, or having meaningful dialogue with my spouse, I am going to spend my time closely monitoring /. today so that I can rapidly post whiny comments every time a new (lame) story is posted.

Did I mention the stories are lame?

Get a CLUE!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Man, you people who CAN'T FUCKING GET A JOKE are really starting to piss me.... Oh. Nevermind.

Re:Get a CLUE!

[nkh]

You're new here, aren't you?
or is it some kind of a joke inside a joke... Oh. Nevermind.

Re:Get a CLUE!

[Tokerat]

MAN I can't STAND you PEOPLE who can't GET A JOKE ABOUT GETTING JOKES ABOUT GETTING.....oh

I don't get it. :-(

Re:I'm pissed.

[iswm]

It could be worse; they could still be posting minute-by-minute updates of the whole SCO thing.

Re:I'm pissed.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

they could still be posting minute-by-minute updates of the whole SCO thing.

Now you've done it.

Re:I'm pissed.

[irokitt]

Marvin: "I'm not getting you down, an I"? Arthur: "No, not at all".

Interesting..

[iswm]

But I think a neat idea for streaming audio would be a BitTorrent type protocol, where if you listen to the stream a client will help distrubute it to other listeners using your bandwidth. There could be some issues with it I suppose, but I think it could be a reasonable idea.

Re:Interesting..

[electrichamster]

It's called Peercast and you can find it here [peercast.org].

I just wish more people would use it....

Re:Interesting..

[Saeger]

The concept behind PeerCast is great, but it won't get the Network Effect of lots of people using it until it "just works" better than conventional client-server streaming.

(Hey, is Howard Stern being streamed by fans on peercast? I'm just grabbing it off alt.binaries.howard-stern for now... those cocksucking ClearChannel bastards! :)

--

Re:Interesting..

[l1_wulf]

http://www.streamerp2p.com/

came across this by chance, I see Howard Stern 4-1-04 as the 2nd station down.

Re:Interesting..

[Saeger]

Thanks, but streamerp2p is windows-only.

--

Re:Interesting..

[dsanfte]

There are already several proprietary players that do this. A radio station in Vancouver BC uses one, but I forget the name of the station. That player pissed me off a lot, because it wouldn't play properly over my modem connection.

Re:Interesting..

[Keviniano]

It's already out there.

http://www.abacast.com/ [abacast.com]

Re:Interesting..

[Kallahar]

Well, any live streaming needs to have the packets delivered in a timely matter. BitTorrent works because anyone who has the file can deliver any piece of it to anyone else. I think there would be major problems with the stream, unless you had a mandatory 5 minute delay (or something) to allow the packets to be received out of order and still be rebroadcasted.

Re:Interesting..

[don.g]

Or, of course, ISPs could just multicast-enable their networks...

Loading them up might help. Fool sovles problem.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Or, of course, ISPs could just multicast-enable their networks.

Right now they have little incentive - because enabling multicast for anything but distribution of their own "content" is perceived by ISPs as an added cost that provides them with no new revenue. So ISPs have an incentive not to enable it (or not to enable it generally even if it's on for themselves) while independent net-casters are stuck buying fat pipes to separately transmit streams to each customer - limiting their potential audience to

Re:Interesting..

[dave420]

Like the fact bittorrent doesn't necessarily stream from the beginning of a file, for one... :-P

Would never happen

[pogle]

April Fools aside, there is no chance of this ever happening. Usenetters are obsessive about not wasting bandwidth, this protocol would never work because the creators would be flamed out of house and home in microseconds. Even worse, the website uses HTML, and thats just plain anathema in Usenet! For shame!

+4 informative?

[pogle]

and I was aiming for a +5 funny. Darn.

Just a thought...

[merlin_jim]

How about contracting with an ISP that supports Multicast UDP? Multicast is not broadcast, though it offers similar bandwidth savings.

You send out one packet and pay for it once, the routers split it as appropriate as it spreads. Any router that doesn't support multicast gets one packet for each recipient that must be routed through that node; therefore all ISPs can save money on bandwidth by enabling multicast.

The only downside is that packet storms that bring down whole sections of the internet become available. But, since its UDP and therefore the application should be packet loss tolerant, a simple throttling mechanism can be used.

Re:Just a thought...

[DR SoB]

Dude, UDP is dead, get over it.

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what impresses me the most is that you guys actually go through the time to create the fake websites to link to for your fool's day postings!
Nicely done! (SCORE: +5, Detailed)

great, let's shoot down another source

[pimpin apollo]

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! this was the last domain that the plebian masses didn't know about. now they're goign to ruin hands down the best source out there.

napster was great and all but if your mom hadn't heard about it then we'd still be downloading from it.

Re:great, let's shoot down another source

[pimpin apollo]

yes i'm aware it's april fools btw, just to preempt any comments

Ahem, don't forget DOS.

[DR SoB]

(which is available for Linux, OS X and MS platforms)."

I _always_ surf usenet with my 286, 2400bps modem, and DOS. It is available for DOS as well.. Thanks /. editor for not doing your homework.

Great

[nizo]

Now I have to go find, install, and remember how to use 'trn', not to mention install a newserver, etc. etc.

On a more serious note, I remember working at "the U" back in the days (late 80s). I remember the news server disks had to be replaced on a regular basis, since they would wear out due to being constantly hammered. Considering how much crap floated around on newsgroups back then, I can only imagine how bad they are now.

Bit Torrent is better

[aminorex]

It's existing and proven. The implication that the peer space has not solved this problem seems unfair and inaccurate to me.

BT wins over NNTP on a large number of grounds, not least of which is the end-user responsiveness which is so desired by stream consumers.

There's no need for anything like this

[bigjnsa500]

We as a majority need to complain to your ISPs to enable Mulitcast on our broadband lines. Then we wouldn't HAVE to be worried about bandwidth issue when streaming.

This looks like a joke, but

[Hythlodaeus]

This looks like a joke, but I did this back in the day. I checked out a number of bands by getting .au files UU encoded in usenet over my 14.4 connection to AOL. It took about 12 hours to get a song. And yes, I did buy the album later.

I get most of ....

[Creepy Crawler]

My movies off of Usenet. I have SuperNews Account and get all the alt.binaries subcategory.

I've routinely seen 5 gig packages of mp3's and flacs floating around ;-) And I've mirored them on my hd for (cough) safekeping.

Re:I get most of ....

[Dimensio]

I'm surprised that /. is reporting this as "news" (joke or not), since music-from-USENET is older than music-from-p2p.

Re:I get most of ....

[Creepy Crawler]

Probably cause Micheal and them are youngins when it comes to "Teh Intarweb".

A legit idea

[dalutong]

Well... not the usenet part, but p2p streaming.

Wouldn't it be interesting to have a bittorrent type of streaming interface? You click "watch this video clip" and it connects to all the other people watching it so you don't have as much choppyness?

I think it would be a great extention to BT, personally.

Spleing?

[phozz bare]

"Automatic and immidiate distribution"?

"Current equipment on which the netwerks of most (A)DSL-providers are built"?

If you're serious about making an April Fool's joke, at least get it spelled right...

phozz

I Usenet for Audio

[Deraj DeZine]

Seriously, who wouldn't use the Net for audio?

Who isn't usin'it?

Usenet Giraffes

[ajutla]

Usenet giraffes. It's obviously the next logical step, isn't it? Once you've got text, audio, pr0n, and so on, the next thing to do is clearly to find a way to quickly and efficiently transfer giraffes via usenet. Once that technology's available, then we shall truly be in giraffe nirvana, and there shall be free giraffes available for everyone, and all shall be happy.

tartan paint

[Anonymous Coward]

come on - someone post an article about Walmart selling tartan paint.

Overheard at the Google offices...

[Xformer]

"Remember that 2nd terabyte server we were going to put in for the newsgroups archive search? HURRY!!!"

heheheheheh

[zogger]

another good 4-1 submission!

But here's a *real* project, StreamerP2P, [streamerp2p.com] that could use some coders to help out porting to linux and making packages that work.

hint fedora hint

What a ridiculous idea

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

Usenet is a text-based medium; music is binary. To attempt to move music, or any binary data via Usenet would be a hack on top of a kludge. Usenet is 7-bit, music is 8, so it would have to go through some kind of awkward encoding/decoding process to even survive the delivery. Furthermore Usenet is notoriously unreliable, so get ready for lots of missing data. Usenet also blindly sends posts all over the world. This is fine for small text messages, but to send large binary files to a server where nobody may want them would be a huge waste of bandwidth.

There are far, far better ways to move music around. Streaming audio, P2P, even FTP would be far better choices. These guys must be mad to even consider this.

bring em on

[geekoid]

I love the april fools story, keep dishing them out

Unison by Panic?

[Psychic Burrito]

Unison by Panic [panic.com] has live mp3 streaming, directly from your favorite newsgroups. Just click and listen - all the boring jobs of connecting messages together are taken care of, so it's compatible with thousands of songs already published out there.

Well maybe this project is about something entirely else, but does anybody ever read the articles around here? Yeah, I thought so :-)

Just use Peercast

[enosys]

Peercast [peercast.org] is a pretty good solution. The only problem is that it has very few stations [peercast.org]. I've uninstalled it and I only listen to shoutcast [shoutcast.com] now.

Please don't forget P2P-Radio

[infofreako]

When discussing P2P Broadcast solutions, most people talk either about open sources solutions like PeerCast or Streamer or proprietary solutions like Abacast or Chaincast. Unfortunately, a multiplatform Java-based solution often overlooked by both broadcasts and listeners is P2P-Radio. With a bit of support from both side, could be a really strong canidate to change the way we listen to online streams (both audio & video);
http://p2p-radio.sourceforge.net/

-pjc

Hell of a lot of work for not-particularly-funny

[Kazoo the Clown]

Someone's got too much time on their hands... On the other hand, the idea of kiting streaming media through the usenet servers is some food for thought... 1 second MP3s? That's probably the biggest clue that it's a joke...

Say goodbye

[scudco]

Say goodbye to Usenet now. IRC is soon to follow.

Something similar exists; not a joke.

[Myself]

There's streaming support in Freenet now, and the network has been behaving nicely enough lately that it almost ought to work. More nodes = better performance, so go play with it.

The trouble with usenet and Freenet is that they're both very high latency. Great for your everyday muzak feed, but not ideal if you want to run a breaking-news station.

Meshcast Live Peer 2 peer audio

[John Sokol]

I had comeup with a way to do live streaming audio over a P2P network (without file sharing) and tried to raise funding, but P2P had such a bad name at the time I was forced to drop it,
those iterested can see more at www.livecamserver.com and www.ecip.com

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Enough, k?

[Jason R]

What if you're using lynx?

Re:Enough, k?

[eclectro]

and we gotta endure a whole 24 hours of these posts over and over?
Ugh, shoot me now...

You're new here, aren't you?

Just to add to the chaos

[shadowbearer]

A lot of you have probably seen this, but I'll chip it in - since the point of today is fun, yes?

Got this in my inbox this morning:

1) Go to http://www.google.com/

2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return)

3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search"

Enjoy...

SB

Re:Purple-haired moonbabes run LINUX!

[DR SoB]

Some trolls have wayyyyy to much time on their hands.

Re:slashdot crying wolf?

[sik0fewl]

what happens when real news is posted?

Hahahahaha!! Sorry.. that's the funniest thing I've seen all day.

Re:I hate April First... the jokes are lame.

[bonch]

The sad part is a lot of people submit incredibly clever stories, but they get rejected in favor of stupid things like "Usenet Audio." Look, it's not funny to slap two things together and call it a joke. Just like someone else posted here, it'd be like "HP Sells Toilet Paper," like it's automatically funny because it's HP, and they're selling toilet paper.

At least when Taco is at the helm on April Fool's, better stories get posted. I remember some of the really clever April Fool's days of Slashdot's past, where the fun part was guessing which was real and which was fake. It was always hard to tell.

Re:I hate April First... the jokes are lame.

[Frennzy]

The best 4-1 'article' I've seen today, courtesy of The Register can be found here. [theregister.co.uk]