The World's Oldest Active Torrent Turns 20 Years Old (torrentfreak.com) 33
Twenty years ago, a group of friends shot a Matrix fan film on a limited budget. Sharing their creation with the rest of the word initially appeared to be too expensive, but then they discovered a new technology called BitTorrent. Fast forward two decades and their "Fanimatrix" release is the oldest active torrent that's still widely shared today. Ernesto Van der Sar writes via TorreantFreak: The oldest surviving torrent we have seen is a copy of the Matrix fan film "The Fanimatrix." The torrent was created in September 2003 and will turn 20 years old in a few days. A truly remarkable achievement. The film was shot by a group of New Zealand friends. With a limited budget of just $800, nearly half of which was spent on a leather jacket, they managed to complete the project in nine days. While shooting the film was possible with these financial constraints, finding a distribution channel proved to be a major hurdle. Free video-sharing services didn't exist yet and server bandwidth was still very costly. Technically the team could host their own server, but that would cost thousands of dollars, which wasn't an option. Luckily, however, the group's IT guy, Sebastian Kai Frost, went looking for alternatives.
Frost had a bit part in the film and did some other work as well, but the true breakthrough came when he stumbled upon a new technology called BitTorrent. This appeared to be exactly what they were looking for. "It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution," Frost told us earlier. After convincing the crew that BitTorrent was the right choice, Frost created a torrent on September 28, 2003. He also compiled a tracker on his own Linux box and made sure everything was running correctly. Today, more than twenty years have passed and the torrent is still up and running with more than a hundred seeders. As far as we know, it's the oldest active torrent on the Internet, one that deserves to be in the history books. "I never expected to become the world's oldest torrent but now it's definitely become a thing I'd love to keep carrying on. So I'll be keeping this active as long as I physically can," Frost tells TorrentFreak. "It's really heartening seeing the community pull together around this torrent, despite its usually low transfer count, and work together to keep it alive and kicking. It warms my heart on the daily."
"We're super pumped that it's still going and that people still take an interest in it. Looking forward to the 25th and having something special to share with the world," Frost concludes.
Frost had a bit part in the film and did some other work as well, but the true breakthrough came when he stumbled upon a new technology called BitTorrent. This appeared to be exactly what they were looking for. "It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution," Frost told us earlier. After convincing the crew that BitTorrent was the right choice, Frost created a torrent on September 28, 2003. He also compiled a tracker on his own Linux box and made sure everything was running correctly. Today, more than twenty years have passed and the torrent is still up and running with more than a hundred seeders. As far as we know, it's the oldest active torrent on the Internet, one that deserves to be in the history books. "I never expected to become the world's oldest torrent but now it's definitely become a thing I'd love to keep carrying on. So I'll be keeping this active as long as I physically can," Frost tells TorrentFreak. "It's really heartening seeing the community pull together around this torrent, despite its usually low transfer count, and work together to keep it alive and kicking. It warms my heart on the daily."
"We're super pumped that it's still going and that people still take an interest in it. Looking forward to the 25th and having something special to share with the world," Frost concludes.
Don't say fanimatrix in Britain (Score:4, Funny)
Don't say fanimatrix in Britain. We know they're complicated little things but it doesn't do to bring it up in conversation. Just a hint for visitors.
Re:Don't say fanimatrix in Britain (Score:5, Funny)
According to professor Ian Duncan of Birmingham, the English use the word 'fanny' for all sorts of things, and can be directly quoted as saying, "in England, everything means 'vagina.' "
He may be a fictional character, a liar, pathetic, and a not-so-recovering alcoholic, but I'd bet he's correct. Even here in the colonies it's more or less a matter of intonation and context that turns any word into 'dick' or 'pussy'. And here we don't even worry if the original word is English. We'll use anything.
And I just did it in text, with italics. English-speakers are pretty dedicated to mentioning sex and genitalia as often as possible.
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Yeah, I'll never understand how the Town Musicians of Bremen [wikipedia.org] made it into a kids fairy tales book. I mean, it's a story about an ass, a bitch, a pussy and a cock.
Re: Don't say fanimatrix in Britain (Score:5, Funny)
Professor Ian Duncan of Birmingham is a cunt.
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Professor Ian Duncan of Birmingham is a cunt.
Also a twat.
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Oddly, I read that in his voice.
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Matrix, of course, is another Latin word for uterus. And no, that isn't a joke.
Re: Don't say fanimatrix in Britain (Score:2)
Fanny was also a pretty good American band from the 70s.
https://fannyrocks.com/ [fannyrocks.com]
Take a moment to listen to them or view a video or two.
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Don't say fanimatrix in Britain. We know they're complicated little things but it doesn't do to bring it up in conversation. Just a hint for visitors.
A tip for those speaking English (Simplified), the average UK English enjoyer can tell the difference between fanny and fanimatrix. The two words share only one syllable. I understand that multisyllabic words can cause issues over the other side of the pond but I can assure you we're able to handle them over here. Toodles.
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A tip for those called mjwx. The average mjwx won't notice a wordplay or joke that involves two elements, for example fani and fanny, and matrix and complexity. See y'all.
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A tip for those speaking English (Simplified), the average UK English enjoyer can tell the difference between fanny and fanimatrix.
He said "fanny matrix".
That's a mental image I can get behind.
Re: Don't say fanimatrix in Britain (Score:2)
The Fannymattix is the porn version.
Across the Tasman (Score:2)
Some places you may even recognize from the actual move, since it's also shot in Sydney.
And Slashdot was there back then too (Score:5, Informative)
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
I guess the original release date was Sept 27th.
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I was such a junkie for pre-social-media b-boards, I wish the internet at large could go back to that format more.
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What?! You don't like the Red & Blue Slashdot of 2023?
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With a very similar frist psot, to boot:
The Fanimatrix? Almost sounds like Fannymatrix.. or the next porno spoof of a big motion picture :)
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Got to love this comment "How can someone not include a QT format? "
Link (Score:4, Informative)
For anyone curious, you can watch it on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/754262 [vimeo.com]
Filmed well, not great sound, OK acting, fair fight choreography, close to zero plot.
Re:Link (Score:5, Funny)
Filmed well, not great sound, OK acting, fair fight choreography, close to zero plot.
Sounds like an A-List Major Hollywood Release!
Best BT Client? (Score:2)
Curious what client people are using these days?
I've been running an old version of uTorrent, but oddly Windows has started 'warning' me about it as of a couple weeks ago..
Anything newer that's light and does the trick?
Re:Best BT Client? (Score:5, Informative)
qBittorrent on Windows and Linux.
I like the way it is easy to bind the app to a networking interface, so I can keep it on the VPN only.
The best Bittorrent client is BiglyBT (Score:2)
https://biglybt.com/ [biglybt.com] - Fork off Vuze by the original devs. FOSS, no ads or bundled shit. Way more options than any other client. Includes TOR and I2P support, TOR for getting around network blocking problems for tracker communications, and I2P for automatically bridging both the upload and download between I2P and the bittorrent network. Also you can choose to only use I2P. Great headless. Good Android client too. RSS support for magnet links. Totally distributed chat. Excellent online Help channel built in
slashdot partially double posted my response (Score:2)
slashdot partially double posted my response even after Preview showed correctly! Weird ...
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Curious what client people are using these days?
I've been running an old version of uTorrent, but oddly Windows has started 'warning' me about it as of a couple weeks ago..
Anything newer that's light and does the trick?
So, I'm not really sure about the value of Windows Smartscreen at this stage. I've seen it in use for nearly five years, across hundreds of systems, and it has a one hundred percent false positive rate in my personal, significant-but-anecdotal experience. If you're getting Windows nags on uTorrent 2.2.1, i wouldn't worry about it at all.
I don't do torrents, but I keep an eye out on the landscape. qBittorrent seems to be one of the more popular replacements for uTorrent, given uTorrent's propensity toward bu
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