Yes, a Pigeon is Faster for Data Transfer than Gigabit Fiber Internet::A decade ago, a pigeon with a 4 GB memory stick outran an ISP’s ADSL service. A 2023 rematch features a bird with 3 TB of flash drives vs gigabit internet.

  • idunnololz
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    12 years ago

    I’m not the original author:

    Trebuchets are the most technologically advanced siege engines of all time, and are capable of hurling a 90kg stone over 300m using a counterweight.

    With this in mind, we can perform the following calculations:

    A 22TB WD Red Pro drive weighs 670g, with a maximum hurl weight of 90kg, trebuchet can hurl 134 drives at once, totalling 2,948 TB of data.

    The average speed of a trebuchet projectile is 54m/s and the average size of an American ‘block’ is 100m. Lets presume 3 blocks to get our full trebuchets use (fuck you catapults).

    It’ll take 5.5 seconds for the projectile to go from launch to dramatic landing, meaning a throughput of 536TB a second.

    Therefore, trebuchets are the best transfer method.

  • Cam
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    -12 years ago

    I knew this was clickbait.

    • @Robin@lemmy.world
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      122 years ago

      For price per TB, modern tapes might still be a valid choice actually. But maybe not great for read/write performance. I guess that depends on how many tape drives you have on each end.

  • Agamemnon
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    412 years ago

    Haha, in some parts of germany you can do that yourself. on foot. with a zipdisk.

      • @c10l@lemmy.world
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        132 years ago

        It’s not. Just drop the storage device in a manhole, or get mugged, or break it in some way. Also when you do so, pretty much all packets are lost and to retransmit you need to go back to the point of origin and make a new copy, assuming you still have the original.

  • @imgonnatrythis@lemm.ee
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    22 years ago

    I was lucky enough to have 2Gb fiber introduced to my area recently - I have to say I rarely notice meaningful differences over my lowest tier cable connection. I pull 1400Mbs on router based tests, but routine endpoint speed tests are 300-700 range. Was 30 on prior connection. Can run more stuff all at once, but still get occasional streaming delays, 5min of low resolution streams, routine downloads are about the same. Now that Mullvad has dropped port forwarding, this pigeon system is sounding pretty attractive.

      • @nxdefiant@startrek.website
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        12 years ago

        This is why you use TCP: Trusted Concurrent Pigeons.

        Trusted Pigeons so that a simple hash check can prove the veracity of your data AND provide a free dedupe / data integrity check for when multiple/single packets arrive.

        Concurrent Pigeons so that transmission issues don’t impact latency (throughput is essentially unlimited here, assuming sufficient pigeons)

        Downsides include needing to implement a pigeon cache and power (birdfood) requirement increases.

      • Jay
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        412 years ago

        oh, that’s what’s on my car.

    • @hansl@lemmy.ml
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      152 years ago

      Also having to manually bring the pigeon back to the launching site, because pigeons only work one way.

      • Trantarius
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        72 years ago

        What if you attached two one-way pigeons together to make a two-way pidgeon? It would probably take a piece of string, and a coconut…

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    72 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Popular TechTuber Jeff Geerling has delivered an updated take on the old chestnut about the relative merits of pigeon-based vs internet data transfers.

    Spoiler alert: the pigeon with its high-capacity microSD cards won Geerling’s data transfer race by a significant margin.

    Famously, in 2009, a South African company compared the transfer speed of a pigeon carrying a 4 GB memory stick vs local ISP Telkom’s ADSL service.

    So, he donned a pigeon mask and jumped on a plane to carry 3 TB of files from his home in the US to the Canadian data center, which the internet transfer also targeted.

    To conclude, Geerling says he could have easily done better as PiJeff, stuffing his luggage with very high capacity drives, but wanted to stick to the common 3 TB across all alternatives.

    Hopefully, another decade later, we will all have broadband measured in petabits, and pigeons won’t have to endure having flash NAND devices strapped to their legs for our amusement (research).


    The original article contains 432 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • @rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      IPoAC isn’t one-way, but it’s definitely less reliable. Unfortunately, packets can be lost due to encapsulation from birds of prey, and bad weather also increases dropped packets

  • @Bobert@sh.itjust.works
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    912 years ago

    “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes hurtling down the highway”

  • @pontata@lemmy.world
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    102 years ago

    Is the time of loading and downloading the files from the flash drives of the pigeon included?

    • The Barto
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      12 years ago

      The pigeon is the flash drive and has a much higher transfer rate than a commercial flash drive.

    • @nous@programming.dev
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      92 years ago

      Yes it was. Though he did use faster SSD drives rather then cheaper and slower flash drives. Which is something reasonable to do IMO. He also tested various network transfer methods to use the fastest one and transferred unique data to each drive rather then just uploading the same file over and over giving both sides a fair but also their best shot at working.