Torrent of Heavy Metal Comics!

[handle]

While I normally don't have much to share, today happens to be an exception:

Someone has seeded a collection comprising several years worth of Heavy Metal Comics in .cbr format (which is essentially the RAR format given a new extension and serving as a compressed archive for comic books)

http://www.demonoid.com/torrents/details/247573/

I found this collection @ http://www.demonoid.com (Registration required, sporadically open for easier admin). While I'd love to grab the entire torrent's contents and shovel it into someone's FTP server, there's a major hitch:

Even with compression, we're talking about 4.5 Gb worth of content. (When I said this was a torrent, I wasn't kidding)

I can only suggest taking a look at the torrent yourself and registering while the server allows it (currently open at this time of writing), then paying up $5 and keeping your BT client open for weeks - I can't easily imagine that you'd be able to keep seeding the file to any ratio remotely reaching 1.0... and this site unfortunately has a nasty habit of dumping people who don't share and don't donate

I understand Heavy Metal has had a history of occasionally having stories with gynoid content in it of varying styles, so I thought I'd share this with you.

[foo]

I found this collection @ http://www.demonoid.com (Registration required, sporadically open for easier admin).

Thanks for the find. Unfortunately, I can't even read the info page.

Demonoid is an example of one of the few things I find truly disgusting. Trackers that require you to register and then dump people for having poor ratios. You'd swear you were back in 1990 in the bad old days of ratio FTP sites - when you're demanding something in return, that's not sharing, it's trading.

[handle]

That is the mindset of a selfish Bittorrent leecher, foo. Bittorrent relies very heavily on people cooperating in helping to seed files for at least several hours after completion in order to function properly.

The average torrent is published by people who cannot afford to put up more than a handful of seeds, and have published to BT on the understanding that others interested in the content will help contribute to the reduction of bandwidth costs (This is especially important when upload is included on the meter as in some less friendly ISPs) .

You cannot simply compare ratio-ed BT trackers and ratio FTPs. The main problem with ratio FTPs is that to upload content, you need to have content that the server admin desires, which can be problematic if you can't find it. With ratio-ed BT, all you have to do is keep your client to seed for several hours after the torrent is completed. The fact that you're also uploading (to a lesser extent) while the torrent is being fetched also helps.

FTP ratios are detestable. BT ratios are just an intrinsic way of how the protocol works.

The only two things I hate about BT sometimes in its current incarnation is the way some people insist on cramming several thou megabytes of content into one torrent stream, and then doing it with fewer but larger pieces. While I appreciate that the latter is controlled by BT protocol to create optimal sharing, the former is something that could be controlled. What happened to splitting up files? As it is, I can't open an archive in a multi-archive torrent for days even though it's only a small fraction because of the way Bittorrent pseudorandomly downloads pieces.

[foo]

That is the mindset of a selfish Bittorrent leecher, foo.

I resent that accusation, and ask that you withdraw it.

Bittorrent relies very heavily on people cooperating in helping to seed files for at least several hours after completion in order to function properly.

I do seed for hours, occasionally days (on one occasion, this became almost a month), after completion, thank you. While this is generally true, the idea that every user has to reach 100% is a fabrication and enforcing 100% ratios does nobody any good other than the tracker owner's own feeling of superiority. Thanks to a principle called the long tail, the more people you have on a torrent, the less each individual needs to contribute. The magic ratio beyond which the torrent dies is 100% for one seed, and reduces the more people are on there. I could prove this for you if you like.

I seed to a "safe" point. If I see several hundred seeds and a few dozen seeding copies among the peers, I'll let it run for a while and drop out so it doesn't take up valuable bandwidth needed for other purposes. If on the other hand the torrent is seeing a handful of peers repeatedly trying to download with an intermittent seed, or one seed with no seeding copies among the other peers, I'll keep it going until there's either a decent number of seeds or copies, or nobody tried to get any data from me for a while.

FTP ratios are detestable. BT ratios are just an intrinsic way of how the protocol works.

If you believe that, you really have no idea how the protocol actually works.

What happened to splitting up files? As it is, I can't open an archive in a multi-archive torrent for days even though it's only a small fraction because of the way Bittorrent pseudorandomly downloads pieces.

You need a client that lets you check on the progress of individual files. ABC and Azureus will do this. They will also (seeds permitting) let you pick files to grab first - useful for grabbing things like .nfo files when they're included. A friend of mine uses this feature to grab the sample clip when it's included on the torrent for a movie (I don't generally download movies, since for a flat-rate subscription I get into my local cinema for free)

[blkwdo]

I think Handle was speaking to you, not making an accusation. Just my take, of course.

ie: This is how torrent works, Foo.

Widow

[noidguy]

There's a pun here, but I'm not gonna say it.

[foo]

ie: This is how torrent works, Foo

Either way, the simple fact of the matter is that's not how it works

BitTorrent works on availability, not ratio. The only way to have more availability is to have more people, kicking people that don't meet a ratio gives you less availability. Let's not even open the can of worms that is your average user getting things from more than one tracker.

[dementedLuke]

I understand the problem with Bit-torrent. Being rejected simply because you can`t meet 100% ratios is just ridiculous. Meeting a 100% ratio on a 4GB DVD rip on a standard 1Mbit/256Kbit ADSL connection which is quite common here would take you 1 and a half day under optimum performance and that just doesn`t happen;p. But i understand it`s annoying having a few seeds and hundreds of people all wanting to download as much as they can and upload little since it craps out their connectivity. That`s why you have programs such as Netlimiter to limit upload so that your connection is usable when uploading ( I understand that all BT clients have built in feature to limit uploads now, i only use Azureus ). That`s why BT really only works well with high bandwidth seeds.

I guess it`s just part of the file sharing culture. We just have to deal with it.

EDIT: Oh and thanks for the torrent ill download it right away:)

[handle]

The tracker I linked to was offering to keep recorded share ratio up to a safe 1.0 for a dollar every month at least (enabling email notification of new stuff was also a bit more expensive). Unless you've got a T-line lying idle half the time, that seems to be a cheap way of keeping the tracker alive.

As it is, tracker bandwidth use is a very insidious thing. It only LOOKS like it needs little bandwidth till you realise that a flood of people are making those requests, even if said demand is staggered as much as possible.

[rabiator]

Four months later...
...the torrent still exists, but download rates are somewhere between abysmal and zero. Read, I get rates between nothing and 1 KB/s.

At least, it will be easy to upload as much as I download that way .
Let's see if it picks up a bit more speed eventually...

[Doctor Robo]

There's a pun here, but I'm not gonna say it.

Would it have something to do with Handle fighting Foo?

[noidguy]

There's a pun here, but I'm not gonna say it.

Would it have something to do with Handle fighting Foo?

You got it.

[Fembot-Fem]

Is there any way you can get the comics to the gallery under a .zip or possibly putting them on the FTP server? Or is it going to add selfish media protection to the list?

[handle]

It'd have to be on an FTP. The main problem is that Heavy Metal is generally adult (but not necessarily pornographic) comics on a lot of other realities, not just robots. If I uploaded the stuff from the torrent as is, most of it would be noise in the context of ASFR. If you're looking for a good read, grabbing all of it would work but...

\Likes Heavy Metal for leisure
\\Hates reading through heavy metal purely for weedwork.

[Yosuke]

Maybe you wanna forward your port. That'll increase the kbs.

[handle]

Try checking with the Wiki for Azureus. They have a small partial black/graylist of ISPs who choose not to play nice with the BT protocol in some form or other.