Private trackers have this bad habit still in 2026 of being super strict about ratio. You have a hard time uploading because as soon as someone uploads something, 20 seedboxes are already saturating the 3 other people downloading.
You're left with just paying for upload credits. Makes no sense.
I miss demonoid from the 2005 era something fierce. It was private but also super chill, the way it's supposed to be.
I'm a member of two fairly private trackers but haven't downloaded anything from them in a long time. It's not really worth the hassle. :( the only thing I would still say it's worth it if you find super niche private trackers with stuff nobody else has, like cinemageddon
On first reading I took it to mean exchanging BP for upload, a common site feature with no real money cost. Perhaps they meant that seeding is pay to win and you need a seedbox, though (not my experience, FWIW).
I think the seeding requirement is not bad, but bytes uploaded is a bad metric when there's just not that much traffic.
Since bittorrent prioritizes peers with better bandwidth and so many people use servers with 10G connections, you won't get much upload off your home network. On some trackers I've been seeding 24/7 since I joined and uploaded only a few gigabytes. Fortunately many of them are generous with other ways to get credit for uploading so I've never had a problem.
I make do on multiple trackers with a home connection and a spare computer. If you cannot, then either you're doing something wrong, or should move to a different, easier tracker.
A few PT are getting much more lenient towards ratio, seeding time and other requirements (some used to ask you to meet certain upload "goals" in a quarter), seeing the trend and what's coming for them -- there is just less overall activity, including fewer torrents and less seeding/downloading.
Yet a few stick with all the existing, stringent rules they have, as if they are irreplaceable. I haven't touched them for a while. Let them die.
Pay 10/mo for a seedbox, it derisks your life and is extremely handy. On most sites, you can download batch torrents freeleech and then get your ratio up by leaving those seeding for a while. I use this box for a bunch of stuff so I don't feel like I'm paying just for torrents
I pay for usenet and nzb crawling. I won't play that hand wrangling over ratio anymore, it's a relic of days gone by where fewer people had internet and slower speeds. Not nagging against you btw just in general you know
It takes a small effort up front to pick out some freeleech content and/or set up autobrr, then you pretty much never have to worry about ratio ever again.
There was always people trying to make $$ with piracy (I mean, didn't the tpb owner basically all became millionaire thanks to it ?), but I feel like in recent years it had become worse. It's likely because since the 2010' many countries (mostly “western” country tbf, but also Japan and now Korea) have become way more aggressive with hunting and prosecuting piracy services operator. So in a way, like with drugs, higher risk means that a lot of “in it for the love of the game” kind of people left the scene and only more, errrmmm "money focused" people stays.
I was floored the other day doing an Amazon return. It was a rented office space, with just a window where you drop off your item to a clerk. I peeked inside it was floor to ceiling packages and toys and items. And there was a line behind me.
The sheer logistics and human will that made that possible is crazy to me.
Extrapolate to multiple locations in Miami alone. Then Florida. Then East Coast. Then USA. Then Europe. Global locations.
Who is in charge of all this? How do they keep track of all this? How do they identify a tiny little podunk location is fucking up and how do they find someone they can trust to run it?
It's crazy! Think about it next time you return something to Amazon.
As I understand it they just stop there. They pallet stuff up and sell it in bulk to someone who then proceeds to part ways with it on eBay or something like that. I think most of the mass market companies do this. Costco is well known for this.
At the online retailers I've worked at (not Amazon) returned items get split into a small number of groups.
A person returns a $5000 RTX 5090? A manager will be paged, who will carry it over to the high value items cage, in full view of the CCTV.
A person who returns a $5 bike light? And that person has also spent $$$$ over the years with a 0.5% return rate? Straight on the pallet of mixed returns without even opening the package.
Medium-value returns and customers with an eyebrow-raising return rate get a medium amount of inspection.
If you own some floor space and want something to do with it then you can join the amazon SPN (service provider network) and offer international returns processor.
The returns processor either boxes up many individual items heading for the same destination into a Master Carton or arranges to dispose of the item somehow depending on how the seller wants their returns handled.
AAA is over anyways. It's magical that the swan song for AAA is GTA 6. The matrix is playing right in our face!
Now we will see a renaissance of creativity, beauty and fun games. Pre-AI games like this would have just stayed in the brain of this one guy forever. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeMWHApB5Fh/
Truly S-tier. It's sharp, creative, intuitive. Can't believe how much better it is than Opus 5, then they went ahead and made it cheaper and faster too.
I'm constantly blown away by it. I do think Astra is slightly more intelligent (although worse at this particular benchmark), but Opus 5.5 has become my default model for 99% of what I do. It's so good.
The usage limits on their basic $5 code plan to try things out are ludicrously low?
I blew through 14% weekly usage and I'll I asked:
1. what version of rpcs3 and pcsx2 do I have installed?
2. do any new versions exist?
3. check analytics for my blog (I have a skill for this)
Subscription · Muse Code Everyday Usage
Current 52% used · Resets at 6:58 PM
Weekly 17% used · Resets Oct 18 at 8:00 PM
OpenAI has Dots. I personally prefer the business model of subscription payments funding my AI assistant, instead of skimming a fee off the top whenever my AI assistant completes a purchase for me. The incentives are much more aligned with the user when the user is the customer. That said, based on the history of the web, Meta's approach will likely win out.
I feel a bit sad DHH did the elixir one so dirty. It's the only language with the rule to follow rails to the T and of course Elixir can fly and be incredibly powerful without redis and other bullshit. It feels deliberately hamstrung. Almost maliciously because heavy hitters like Jose Valim have told him about this and he just ignores it.
All that requires _effort_. A stunt where you AI-translate a library into multiple languages is clearly not a context where you'll see that kind of effort applied.
https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo
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