Squealing Rat: The Word

The internet is huge. And it’s really volatile. Millions of people visit millions of websites each day. Digg, Reddit and more create a world in which a small site can get slammed into errors and unable to serve users. And it’s growing.

Take Twitter, one of the most successful web social products on the internet. Twitter goes down often. It’s not because they have one server. I’m sure they have several dozen in different locations (they wouldn’t comment on the statistics).

Digg constantly takes down sites. So do other ‘article discovery’ sites. It has become a normal occurance to use rorrim or Google Cache in lieu of a site going down. This is common.

But the thing is, it’s not completely horrible. People come back. Word spreads. And the next thing you know, people are writing blog posts about your blog going down. It’s a compliment. “Oh, my site just got crushed by Reddit,” “Awesome, dude!”

So if it’s not such a bad thing, why am I writing about it? Well, we need a solution. This issue is just going to get bigger and bigger, because more and more people are going online for more than to check their email. Because I want to be able to check out someone’s Twitter account when I want to. Because there are solutions.

I could say that more people need to use Squarespace. After all, Squarespace is an amazing site and blog creator that’s designed to keep your site up no matter what. With virtual server space, the guys at Squarespace automatically give you more bandwidth when you need it.

But that’s an utopian idea. And, not everyone wants to fork over $8 a month to keep their website up. I could also say that more people should be using Blogger, and WordPress.com to host their blogs. But even that can be volatile.

No, the solution does not lie in which server or service you choose. It actually lies with the regular computer user. Yes, the change needs to happen in the browser. Opera has gotten close with its browser that hosts your website for you. But it’s simpler than that. Not one server or computer should host a website. Not one service should be relied on as a backup for the internet. It should be every computer.

What I’m proposing is a torrent-like system of extra website hosting. Built into browsers should be the capacity to visit a site, download the webpage you just visited into a secure location on your computer and be able to push the webpage to other computers with the same browser capacity installed.

This would be demanding. It would also have to be set up in the most secure fashion. And it might not even be able to work with some sites, especially ones that use log ins and massive secure databases. But can you imagine it? I can:

Twitter goes down, again. But when you visit the site, a small pop up notifies you that you are grabbing @joeschmoe’s tweets from another computer, which downloaded the page 5 minutes ago when Twitter was up. Nice.

All of a sudden, the world’s internet infrastructure takes a huge load off of individual servers and lets computer users help each other out. Similar to Folding@Home, or The Pirate Bay, this would give the power to computers around the world.

This is a radical idea, and one I hope to see in the future. I hope that it can be built well enough so that a stable internet is not far away. Because technology is amazing. We owe it to ourselves to enable the ability to spread it.

Andres Max Salmeron is the writer behind Squealing Rat, Lone Iguana, Empty Quotes and more. Find him on Twitter. You can also support him by donating to The Jimmy Fund Walk or just clicking one of the affiliate links here to give him some more storage space.

I’m also looking for collaborators to work with me on other, less intensive web projects, so contact me for information if you’re interested!

Due to an odd error on this blog, we’ve had to wipe squealingrat.org/word. Sorry about that. Fortunately, some of the good stuff has been restored, and we’re on track to restore even more soon. In the meantime, stay tuned! Thanks.

TED is one of the best knowledge resources on the web. It includes wonderful, educational talks that provide insight and charisma to you day. The only issue- there are way too many to watch. Below is a list I have made of the best TED talks. Watch a few at a time. Enjoy!

Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation
Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?
Sarah Jones as a one-woman global village
How to live to be 100+
Really achieving your childhood dreams
Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce
15 ways to avert a climate crisis
When it comes to tech, simplicity sells
Seth Godin on standing out
Shai Agassi’s bold plan for electric cars
Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia
Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things for kids
The vision behind One Laptop Per Child
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Joshua Klein on the intelligence of crows
Jeff Bezos on the next web innovation
How to feel like the Incredible Hulk
Mary Roach: 10 things you didn’t know about orgasm
Kamal Meattle on how to grow fresh air
Ed Ulbrich: How Benjamin Button got his face
Keith Barry does brain magic
John Hodgman: Aliens, love — where are they?
Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice
Rives on 4 a.m.
Dan Gilbert’s synthesized happiness
Steven Levitt analyzes crack economics
Peter Donnelly shows how stats fool juries
Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man
Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?
Al Seckel says our brains are mis-wired
Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes
Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system
Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds
Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps
Raghava KK: Five lives of an artist
Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us
Joachim de Posada says, Don’t eat the marshmallow yet
Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide
Gary Lauder’s new traffic sign: Take Turns
Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish
Clifford Stoll on … everything
Daniel Goleman on compassion

New:

More:

Free Technology for Teachers: 15 TED Talks for Teachers to Watch Before 2010
TEDTalks as of 10.26.09 – Google Docs
10 TED Talks for Entrepreneurs

Wow. I just spent 10 minutes listening to and transcribing this. If you don’t have a life, just watch the part below to sing along.

“There was a man who shot the man who was the man who shot man, Cal Johnson, Cal Johnson

He wore a hat, his favorite hat, he loved that hat, he hated hats, Cal Johnson, Cal Johnson

He was a dad to zero kids, and yet he fathered five

He got shot dead a year ago and yet he’s still alive

He’s rich beyond his wildest dreams yet never had a dime

A lawman to the very end he led a life of crime

In all of his years of life on earth he never fired a gun, yet when it came to Chinese men he shot down every one

He had a horse named Bandit, and the horse’s name was Clyde

Cal Johnson was born the day he died”

Extra points if you realized that “Cal Johnson” was the actor that played David Putty in Seinfeld and Top of the Line Mac in the Apple commercial. Now, please excuse me while I go read something educational.