Hacker News Reader

Comment by codeulike | Hacker News Reader

This StackOverflow question from Aaron about using rsync to download and copy lots of files is like a piece of history frozen in time.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48491/keep-rsync-from-re...

View on HN

And the required context, for those coming across this: Aaron was under investigation for downloading an archive of academic articles from within MIT (because they'd otherwise cost a lot), presumably to make them available outside free of large, much like Sci-Hub does nowadays.

He committed suicide during the investigation, and it's supposedly not unlikely to be related to the pressure the investigation and trumped-up charges brought him. And then there's those that surmise he was murdered, of course.

See also this documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy

Knowing that context (besides the suicide) makes the question so hilarious to read!

tragic

And this got my attention:

> Last seen Jan 4 '13 at 19:23

The names of his machines "speed" and "mass". Very cute.

The feature request to protect questions like his has been promptly downvoted on StackOverflow Meta:

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/361809/questions-fr...

Please remember that Stack Overflow does not welcome any kind of meta commentary about a question's author in that question's comments or answers.

Stack Overflow does not welcome much of anything these days

[marked as duplicate]

Just good quality content, like always...

Yep, in threads closed and marked "off topic".

[thread closed as primarily opinion-based]

And of course someone added a revision just now, for some minor style tweaks.

Also, the editor is a SO moderator

The SO moderator was rolling back an edit made by another user.

Yep, you're right, I didn't read the revision comment

Wonder what his solution was. I'd be tempted to rebuild rsync with some download completion checks patched in.

Say your downloader times out after 3 min.

1. Use find to compile a list of files that have not changed: find /path/to -type f -mmin +3 > mylist.txt

2. Tell rsync only to sync files on the list: rsync -a --files-from=mylist.txt /path/to remote:/backup

3. Homework: make sure it does not barf on strange filename.

You should post that answer on the question - it may be useful to someone else some time.

I still use his `html2text` python library on occasion.

Is it not time for an annual "Upvote Aaron day"?

Nope, if only because you can upvote a question only once and he only had five questions asked.

It'll serve as a reminder, and if it gets traction it might be the most upvoted question on StackOverflow. I think that is a very fitting celebration of Aaron. Once every year, it'll reach a few more people.

Kind of close to tears, knowing the sacrifice this man made in the name of open access and freedom. May his name never be unwritten from history.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com