If it were dual-licensed, I think it’d be hard to find anyone who’d object. GPL is scary to me, though, since I prefer to license my stuff under pretty unrestrictive licenses, and I don’t really want to deal with the virality.
347 karma · joined August 5, 2021
It was in that moment that I decided the risk was unacceptable and that I’d switch to my own domain for all emails. It’d just be so devastating losing access to my email.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone else offered an invite. I am sure a fair number of HN people have accounts, but since RED has a relatively easy official route, I would go with that option if it's something you can find the time for; it'd suck to potentially build up an active account somewhere just to end up banned because your inviter also happened to invite someone else who did someone silly, like sell their account, etc.
There are lots of little random smaller trackers that have open signups, which you can usually find on Reddit, as roboyoshi mentioned. They'll vary in quality a lot, though, but occasionally there is something interesting there.
Other than open signups and person-to-person invites, most trackers have some sort of official invitation route. Typically this is just having an account on --insert partnered site-- for X months, don't get banned, have a minimum amount of data downloaded/uploaded.
In addition, as far as useful trackers go that have regular pathways without knowing anyone or having any account on any site, the ones below are the only ones I am super aware of.
IRC invites:
- RED; general music
- MyAnonamouse; ebooks/audio books/sheet music
- BakaBT; anime
- AvistaZ/ExoticaZ/CinemaZ; AZ is great for people who like Asian movies, and they have a Discord where they announce open signups, which is usually a couple of times a month
- Jpopsuki; East Asian music
- M-Team; movies, tv, adult content <-- good pathway into the Chinese communities if you don't have Chinese friends
If any weebs out there end up on U2, jpopsuki, animebytes, etc., I have such an absurd amount of bonus points, so feel free to PM or емаil me and I'll send you a load of credits to get started without worrying about ratios - plznospam |AT| omarassadi.com
In those cases, anyone who wants an account is probably best off just having conversations and meeting new people on IRC/forums of some of these trackers. Both of those sites have a lot of active accounts, so with a bit of mingling, you'll befriend someone who can invite, plus you get to meet interesting characters along the way.
But yeah, I don't envy anyone actively trying to get an account on PTP/BTN. It takes a long time to build up the credits to invite someone, and more importantly, given things like tree bans when someone does some serious offense, you don't want to invite just any stranger.
I think that is the aspect I like the least about private trackers; as a whole, the scene can be a bit elitist and unwelcoming towards new users. I get that it is a difficult balance to maintain, though. On much less important forums, the ban evasion problems are already bad enough as it is, so I can't imagine moderating a place like PTP.
I get paranoia; I am the obsessive and compulsive person who literally feels physically gross and uncomfortable if I am not running FDE, etc. I feel that way because I don't like even the idea that someone could be snooping where I don't want them to be. In that sense, everyone has their own tolerance for risk, preferred levels of privacy, etc. I will never judge anyone for being cautious, but I still think a lot of it is still paranoia.
For the average person who doesn't want to receive another abuse report this month because they don't want their ISP to terminate their service, private trackers do tend to solve that part of the VPN equation, at least.
They have a ton of lossless audio, and you generally have choice in terms of which version of something you would like (e.g., an older release, if you don't like the remasters [1], or want specific deluxe/international editions -- Japanese CDs often come with bonus tracks). They also have very helpful curated collections of similar music and such.
Plus, having a RED account tends to help serve as a way to get to other trackers (of course, you should genuinely use the site rather than collecting accounts, etc.). RED is also unique compared to a lot of other decent trackers in that they don't require you to be invited by someone else or already have an account on another site; you can sign up by doing a short interview on their IRC [2]. Worth noting, though, that it'd be best to do it on a Friday night or something when you'd have time to waste; all of these sites are run by volunteers, so it can be a few hours of idling before you'd actually get a chance to sign-up.
For East Asian music, like K-pop, J-pop, J-rock, etc., Jpopsuki has the most extensive collection. SugoiMusic is another one, but I haven't checked it out very much.
And although it is primarily an eBook site, MyAnonamouse ("MAM") has a fair bit of sheet music, plus they also do IRC sign-ups.
Other than that, though, Orpheus ("OPS") is another decent music tracker. But realistically, RED tends to have much more available. However, I do think it's a cool site and I do respect how transparent they are, with even the site being open-source [3].
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[1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war> [2]: <https://interviewfor.red/en/index.html> [3]: <https://github.com/OPSnet>
I think it is worth looking into private trackers for anyone a bit more interested in media than the average person.
- There is almost no need to use any VPN service on these sites.
- Quality control is unmatched; many sites have strict rules on what can be uploaded and general standards of uploads. Often this means that each torrent has mandatory screenshots for video quality comparisons, consistent track orders for bilingual releases, MediaInfo/BDInfo to allow you to know the contents before downloading (e.g., codecs, languages, audio channels, bitrates, etc.), source information to know what version of a film or series you're watching, and full ripping logs in the case of CDs/vinyl, etc.
- There are also usually limited slots for torrents in a particular group (e.g., on some sites, a single film may have one or two 1080P encodes, one or two 720P encodes, one remux of the Blu-ray, and one untouched disc unless there are multiple significantly different masters available), meaning lower-quality releases will be trumped, removing the need to compare releases and pick. You can be confident you are downloading something decent on the first attempt.
- There is a tremendous amount of obscure, foreign, and rare content that cannot be found on public sources or streaming services. As an anecdote, take Ma vie en rose, a Belgian movie I wanted to watch. It wasn't on any streaming services with English subtitles, the American DVD was out of print, and the only HD release at the time was a Blu-ray for the Japanese market without English subs. While it was impossible to find on any public tracker or streaming service, I immediately found someone who took the effort and money to buy the DVDs for the subs, manually OCRed them to SRTs, purchased and ripped the Japanese Blu-ray, and remuxed it with the newly created English subs into a nice, single MKV for easy consumption.
- Almost everything is well-seeded. Private trackers usually incentivize long-term retention of downloads, so regardless of how old something is, you can usually still download a copy.
- The community. Many complain about opening up Netflix to a sea of overwhelming, infinite choices and being stuck just trying to pick anything. An advantage of the niche-specific private trackers compared to streaming services, public trackers, and Usenet, though, is that there are usually "collages" or lists of some sort where users will maintain what is essentially those IMDb lists or the random top-10 article-spam you'll find on Google, except it's all hand-picked content by people who are seriously, genuinely, and perhaps overly interested in the topic you're browsing. I rarely struggle to find something to watch/listen to because I can dial in a specific thing I am after, and someone will usually have already put in the effort of curating a list of the best content I have never heard of.
- And again, with regards to the community, the knowledge is cool. For anyone interested in the technical side of some of these topics, a lot of discussion and information is, unfortunately, locked up on member-only forums (not to mention the resources - e.g., for those interested in anime encoding & fansubbing, some of the Chinese trackers, in particular, are so valuable, be it for the untouched DVDs/Blu-ray sources or the guides and tools).
I am not that out of touch (I hope); I am just passionate ;-) Consume what you'd like, how you'd like, but I thought it might be worth proselytizing a little while I have the opportunity!
I had about 125 square meters in the center of the city, right across from the main university campus, 600/600Mbps unmetered symmetrical fiber with a static ipv4 address ($10 a month from domru), unlimited 4g (a little over $10 from megafon), ordered delivery for literally every meal, and used taxi apps for all my travel.
The bureaucracy and paperwork for existing is probably a fair bit more than what you’d be used to in the US - e.g., needing to register your residence every time you go to a hotel, go back to your apartment, etc. But, the process for actually getting stuff done, like getting an apartment or getting bank account, is actually pretty simple and something you can navigate easily on your own or with any Russian speaking friend.
Healthcare was good too. I had a good experience at the state run hospitals when I, unfortunately, needed surgery; patient staff, quality work, and I didn’t even carry my wallet in and walked out paying nothing. Similarly, ambulances were another painless experience, not even asking for my insurance.
FWIW: I think the typical “nomad” is often quite a bit more right-wing and concerned about taxes and money than I am (don't take offense, just an observation!). The city is fairly liberal for Russia, it’s young, has a nice academic scene, etc. I’m not sure I’d stay forever, but I don’t regret the years I spent there. It was a lot of fun, people were nice, the experiences were wild, and university was great.
Downsides:
- Access to foreign products, electronics, or even things as simple as English books can be lacking.
- There's nothing anywhere near as convenient as Amazon, so be prepared for visits to actual stores when you need a cable or something and have fun navigating aliexpress, avito, and similar.
- Racism is still a thing and even though actually getting my apartment was easy, finding a landlord willing to rent to an "Omar" was a lot harder ("for slavs only" is an unfortunately common thing in realty listings). Similarly, my Chinese friends experienced a fair bit of serious discrimination when the pandemic first began. If you're light-skinned and have a white-sounding name, I don't imagine you'll face any trouble, though.
- Although Tomsk is significantly more liberal than many other areas, and I don't think anything particularly terrible would happen, it's probably not got the most vibrant of LGBT atmospheres on the planet.
- Weather is just brutal. From the windchill of -51 I experienced to the 30+ summers.
- Get an apartment with a boiler. Most people use city-provided hot water for showers, but that means every summer, you'll lose your hot water for a week or so while they do they annual maintenance otherwise.