I don't know their protocol either, but it kind of makes sense. Probably the first thing a client does when it starts is connect to a supernode and download updated directory information. The client probably doesn't need much from the supernode after that.
From the blog post:
"The failure of 25–30% of supernodes in the P2P network resulted in an increased load on the remaining supernodes. While we expect this kind of increase in the instance of a failure, a significant proportion of users were also restarting crashed Windows clients at this time. This massively increased the load as they reconnected to the peer-to-peer cloud. The initial crashes happened just before our usual daily peak-hour (1000 PST/1800 GMT), and very shortly after the initial crash, which resulted in traffic to the supernodes that was about 100 times what would normally be expected at that time of day."
You are ignoring the fact that at one point in time, the latest version of the software was the buggy version. It might actually make sense to have some heterogeneity in the supernodes.
And on your second point, I think you're ignoring the fact that the running supernodes received up to 100 times the expected traffic, so a 100-150% increase would probably not have helped much.
Good points. I would add that I am a techy person, but I might be interested in a very low-cost, light weight, instant-on laptop to take on vacations, where I will be mostly checking email and surfing the web. And if it gets broken or lost, I will not shed a tear. I already use Google Apps, so something like that might make sense for me.
Google may indeed kill ChromeOS and merge it with Android, but they, as a company, are very invested in moving people to the cloud. So they have good reasons to want ChromeOS to succeed. Seems a little early for an autopsy to me.
Agreed. I would like to see internet connectivity treated as a utility, just like my electricity and gas. If the price reflects that actual costs incurred by the ISP, it would be fair for everyone involved. That's a big "if" though.
Exactly. Since when did this start being considered "underhanded"? If this is underhanded, then it is also underhanded to track any of the activity of any logged-in user on a website. Legitimate businesses use that tracking information to better serve their customers. Let's not get confused. Spam is wrong, but it's not necessarily wrong to use a method that is also used by spammers.
There are going to be cases where you wish you had a phone book, just like there are going to be cases where you wish there was a phone booth on the corner. Most of the time it's not needed, so it goes the way of the dodo. As it should, really.
I guess your definition of "a large portion of the population" is different from mine. I'll let you know when my mom, my niece and the local bakery are all using Second Life.
A little more perspective:
In the heyday of AOL, the web was just starting out, and the AOL user base was very small compared to Facebook today. AOL was an ISP for which people had to pay, and there was no penalty for moving to a different ISP as they became available.
I'm not saying Facebook will never be replaced, but as the web matures the bigger players become truly huge and harder to dislodge. And change starts to slow down.
I think the question of whether and when Facebook will be supplanted by the Next Hot Social Think (tm) is interesting.
A LOT of people use Facebook A LOT. They depend on it. Businesses increasingly use it too -- a Facebook page is seen as an essential part of marketing and customer management now. In other words, it's not just a hot social thing; it's an integral part of online life for a large portion of the population. Someone could create a new hot social thing right now that is 10 times better than Facebook, and it would still probably take a long time for it to replace Facebook, because most people are perfectly happy with Facebook, and because you can't change your social network as easily as you can change your search engine. Maybe that's what's really bugging Google.
in a browser that further entrenches the same overblown social media sites that I'm sick of hearing about.
Okay, yes, I'm one of those people that get all of these mixed up. Time to remedy that:
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/britain.html
I'm not sure where the line is exactly, but when employees joke about their company motto being "Do Evil", they've probably crossed it.
Old programmers never die, they just become managers.
