Live data from Hacker News

Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

vice.com

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "proof of space" Chia cryptocurrency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27009843

I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes. I cannot wait for internet connections to become unusable after a currency introduces "proof of bandwidth".

> I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes.

In all seriousness, I'm expecting the former. With current trends, the Chia currency is going to be "farming" so much storage that reward per TB will drop below the breakeven point for computing more "plots" to farm, or for even keeping existing "plots" online and taking up storage. It's just a bit hard to predict where that point is since Chia itself is just getting started and has yet to be extensively traded.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#52
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes. I cannot wait for internet connections to become unusable after a currency introduces "proof of bandwidth".

Add them all together for the ultimate, proof of destruction: cryptocurrency backed by atmospheric pollution, fauna and flora extinction and natural resource exhaustion. Buy it now, it definitely won't last forever! :D Bu seriously, I still don't understand cryptocurrencies. So, your X discoin is worth Y million real money . But that's only while it's in cryptocurrency form. If people start cashing out, the value wil…

You spending time on social media or driving or eating does destroy the nature too, but you somehow justify it to yourself.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#53
> Library Genesis is powered by Sci-Hub

I thought sci-hub and library genesis were independent projects?

At any rate, I applaud those who are willing to stick their neck out somewhat to stand up for all of us students, scientists and engineers who need access to the material on Library Genesis.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#54
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes. I cannot wait for internet connections to become unusable after a currency introduces "proof of bandwidth".

Add them all together for the ultimate, proof of destruction: cryptocurrency backed by atmospheric pollution, fauna and flora extinction and natural resource exhaustion. Buy it now, it definitely won't last forever! :D Bu seriously, I still don't understand cryptocurrencies. So, your X discoin is worth Y million real money . But that's only while it's in cryptocurrency form. If people start cashing out, the value wil…

Your understanding is basically correct. The "market cap" of a cryptocurrency is a meaningless marketing number - there's very little actual dollars in the cryptocurrency system.

When the bubble pops, a lot of people are going to discover they were always broke.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#55
As a college student who have actively used LibGen for books and even for books for personal self development which I couldn’t afford at that time.

I have special place in my heart for these people as they are persevering knowledge and making sure everyone gets access to it

As they say knowledge is power

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#56
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add them all together for the ultimate, proof of destruction: cryptocurrency backed by atmospheric pollution, fauna and flora extinction and natural resource exhaustion. Buy it now, it definitely won't last forever! :D Bu seriously, I still don't understand cryptocurrencies. So, your X discoin is worth Y million real money . But that's only while it's in cryptocurrency form. If people start cashing out, the value wil…

You spending time on social media or driving or eating does destroy the nature too, but you somehow justify it to yourself.

Negligible in comparison to cryptos waste, and provides a real tangible benefit.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes. I cannot wait for internet connections to become unusable after a currency introduces "proof of bandwidth".

> I'm starting to wonder what'll occur first: the bubble popping or the whole hardware market coming to a standstill because of 16 different "proof of xyz" schemes. In all seriousness, I'm expecting the former. With current trends, the Chia currency is going to be "farming" so much storage that reward per TB will drop below the breakeven point for computing more "plots" to farm, or for even keeping existing "plots" o…

The problem is that it could be a self repairing system though right?

Prices go up => bubble pops => prices make next bubble viable.. etc.

You'd hope rational critical thought would stop the second cycle but even a charitable reading would say so far crypto has shown there are plenty of people not applying it. (and an uncharitable one would say it's the reason it exists at all... but lets skip that discussion for once).

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#58
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obvious copyright & TOS issues aside, how does this compare to the S3 bill?

Good question. It's about $0.023 per GB per month for a US East Coast instance, so some $1700/mo for 75TB. Plus you don't really control the data if it's on someone else's computer so there's a potential opportunity cost there as well.

Plus ~$7k to transfer it outside of AWS

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#59
post #11

I've seen estimates of the total sci-hub/libgen size at anywhere from 20TB to 75+TB. Probably there are lots of dupes in there, and a dedicated dedup effort could reduce that size by a bit. But taking the upper end: A WD Black 10 TB platter drive[0] costs $329, which means it would take only $2700 or so to have enough storage space to archive what's basically the sum total of human scientific knowledge. [0] - https:/…

I'm really sorry for you if you think that all human knowledge is in scientific papers

You're confusing it with Sci-Hub. LibGen is for books what Sci-Hub is for papers, though you can also find papers, comics, and magazines on there.

Re: Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down (2019)

#60
post #7
post #4

Man, I love libgen. Will be completely lost if it ever shuts down. Anyone else use it to download books onto your kindle??

I use it to download books I bought but can't be downloaded anymore because Barnes and Noble bought the publisher/online-retailer and forbid downloads from non-US citizens (yep, that is a thing).

This kind of shit is why I insist on downloading and removing the DRM from all the ebooks I buy...
Post reply on HN