Program my PodBot
So, I have this idea….and I’m looking for a programmer (or programmers, or programmers and an engineer) to make it a reality.
I’m looking for someone who could figure out a way to archive massive amounts of data on the Internet, forever. Something like bittorent, but sort of somehow like BBS systems. I’m not sure….but someway to make sure my stuff is available long after my death by somehow distributing the data, and the database controlling it, over many servers, I think.
If I could explain what I’m really envisioning, and someone could make it, it really would change the world.
I told this to $30 Film School grad, and all-around smart guy, Christian Holmes. He said, “I unfortunately would have to say I am not really the man for the job. Not enough of a codemonkey. What I would say is that you could entrust your website and the management of it to someone you trust and ask them to pass it down similarly, then make all the links lead to an internal (on your same server) database that chooses a random “mirror” of your file (say you store it on 10 different public repositories of data) and if it does not find it there (the server went down, the company went out of business, etc) it moves on to the next server and flags it as a file needing to be moved to a new public repository to sustain redundancy (you follow?).
“Thus, if automated correctly (and once again, I’m not the one to do it) it would be a self-sustaining application, constantly maintaining redundancy.”
I told him, “I like it. And it kinda sounds like a chain letter, with computers!”
ANYWAY, if anyone on here can help make this happen, or knows someone who can, hit me up on e-mail.
–Michael W. Dean
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P/s, the term “podbot” that I’m using for this idea comes from here:
“When the universe collapses on itself and is sucked into a black hole, I imagine Michael Dean’s words will still be transmitting from an autopiloted pod-bot until millions of years later when the next cycle of life on the planet begins….” –Skip Lunch
September 19th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Sounds almost like a redundant array of Internet Archives (almost). And it’s way beyond my abilities.
Though, some commercially available storage systems (such as Drobo) already do this on a small-scale basis.
September 19th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
You’re missing the obvious option. Start a religion.
I mean, people still read the really lousy SciFi (and I use the term deliberately) that L Ron Hubbard wrote, because he started a SciFi religion, based on a religion he created for a novel that was just too lousy to actually get published.
And now people in that religion read his stuff like Amway salepeople listen to self-help tapes. The content still sucks, but hey, I suppose it’s a sacrement or something.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Well, yeah. Starting a religion is an option. I have many fans and a few of them border on being obsessed minions, but none of them have any money, so they’re not really worth taking advantage of. Lol……
I am working on starting The Dean Foundation, which will take care of some of my postmortem archive issues, but yeah, a religion sounds good. THE PODCAST IS WITH YOU, THE PODCAST IS WITH YOU, WE’RE RIGHT HERE IN YOUR POCKET, TO COMFORT YOU AND GUIDE YOU!!!!
- Michael W. Dean
October 9th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
[...] UPS just delivered got my new Western Digital 500 gig external FireWire drive. I can backup MOST of everything I’ve ever done on here. Let’s call this thing PodBot 1.0. [...]
October 16th, 2007 at 3:40 am
[...] Carry on the art of Michael W. Dean (which may or may not include the PodBot) 2. Help people who rescue, care for and spay/neuter cats. 3. Help young, starving artists by [...]