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Imagine a Raspberry Pi secured onto a tree somewhere being powered by a solar panel and serving a website over 5G. Imagine that Pi is running a SaaS product th

by zelly 6y ago

Imagine a Raspberry Pi secured onto a tree somewhere being powered by a solar panel and serving a website over 5G. Imagine that Pi is running a SaaS product that generates revenue and pays for its own 5G subscription. Now imagine that Pi is earning Bitcoin, pays for its 5G in Bitcoin, and puts up job postings online to get people (paid in Bitcoin) to provision and set up more replica Pis on other random trees in town.

louwrentius 6y ago
I'm sorry, I was nodding along when I stumbled over the 'bitcoin' word. That's a big no from me and the reason is probably not hard to guess in light of this project.
- zelly 6y ago
  If you're concerned about energy usage, there are much bigger fish to fry than Bitcoin mining. But if you want, s/Bitcoin/Libra. A computer can't get a bank account, but it can get a crypto wallet.
  - louwrentius 6y ago
    I'm opposed to the whole concept of cryptocurrencies. Google 'cryptocurrencies louwrentius' to understand my position.
    - strombofulous 6y ago
      I agree with that but these are specifically RPIs running on solar power (which, btw, will be useless for mining btc), so they will be completly wasteless (the energy goes to waste otherwise). The only exception would be if you somehow rose the cost of mining for others, which would not happen since you're using pis to mine btc. Except I guess the environmental cost of producing these pis, but unless you buy tens of thousands your purchase would be a rounding error
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Retric 6y ago
        Every project is a global rounding error environmentally, that doesn’t mean they’re harmless. The real yardstick is simply a cost vs benefit equation as we can’t mitigate everything. On that scale a project trike this is extremely harmful as the benefit is nonexistent and the harm is real.
      - loktarogar 6y ago
        locally no impact, globally supporting a system that burns enormous amounts of power (of which much is co2 producing). would be a cool little project, and it falls to you to decide which side of the ethics of it you subscribe to. I would love to have a little cryptocurrency miner, completely self sufficient, just doing its own thing until it dies. but I would also love a cryptocurrency that didn't have the same kind of environmental impact that bitcoin has. maybe another application? selling computing power?
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      Are you also opposed to automobiles?
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        You inclined at all to explain where you see these two being comparable? I’m lost as to what it is you’re trying to say with this statement.
        GoatHerders2 6y ago
        Bizarre sentence structure you got there! 'You inlined at all' is very aggressive. It's a question, nothing is being stated, it's a question. Your hostility and ignorance lead me to believe you're just a troll. Automobiles and Bitcoin are both Objects. It's not right/normal to have feelings about them like they care.
        dvtrn 6y ago
        Sorry of my brevity caused you any frustration but I find it’s usually easier to ask questions and seek mutual understanding and clarity rather than make assumptions and accusations about intentions and torpedo the conversation before it’s even got going.
      - asveikau 6y ago
        I am, or at least I think they should be used sparingly. They destroy the planet. And on a personal scale, over-reliance upon them encourages lack of exercise and a needlessly stressful life spent in traffic. I reckon we could make a big dent in pollution and obesity rates by having most people reduce their car usage.
    - dng88 6y ago
      Against bitcoin ok use too much energy but general idea of cyber one. The paper one as m1 is always less then m3 the virtual one. Just want to trust 1 Gov?
    - shpongled 6y ago
      From your article: > Cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value. They are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. How is this any different from US dollars, gold, or anything besides food, medicine, and shelter? > Cryptocurrencies facilitate crime Once again, the same argument could be applied to US dollars
      - dhosek 6y ago
        US dollars are the only accepted means to pay taxes. This is the big thing that makes national currencies work. Having a government behind a currency may not be a sufficient guarantee of value but it is, at least so far, a necessary one. For bitcoin at least, it's an intrinsically deflationary currency. There's no incentive to spend a bitcoin today if it will be worth more tomorrow, so it ends up being primarily a currency of choice for transactions which are unfeasible in any other way, which ends up being primarily illegal transactions.
        _eht 6y ago
        >US dollars are the only accepted means to pay taxes. I agree with this, of course. But there is also a method that allows me to convert my AUS dollar in to US dollar. I just paid my taxes with $AUS? Does the logic follow: $BTC->$USD->USTAXES ?
        notahacker 6y ago
        Your ability to convert your Aussie dollar holdings into US dollars with ease is contingent on there being a relatively stable demand for Aussie dollars, which are the only legal means of paying taxes in Australia, and settling debts denominated in Aussie dollars. Cryptocurrencies are not a legal means of payment of taxes and are not created as debt so lack that guarantee that people will want to exchange significant quantities of USD for that coin [I guess in theory some cryptocurrency could have the property of being emitted as debt, but I'm not sure decentralisation and credit creation go well together].
        6y ago
- gwicks56 6y ago
  "Can you please show me the benefit to society of cryptocurrencies?" Sci-Hub? Wikileaks? Medical Marijuana?
vkou 6y ago
It the Pi is providing a useful service that people are paying dollars for, that it then uses to pay for its 5G subscription, why introduce intermediate steps of converting its money to bitcoin, gold boullion, or pirate treasure, in order to pay someone?
- zelly 6y ago
  I'm imagining that the Pi is an independent agent, not owned by a human, and therefore can't get a bank account. The Pi is paid in Bitcoin to begin with, so no conversion is necessary. The assumptions are that there is a 5G service that can be bought with Bitcoin and that the Pi can supply a lucrative enough service to get paid enough to reproduce itself.
rvz 6y ago
> pays for its 5G in Bitcoin, and puts up job postings online to get people (paid in Bitcoin) 'Cryptocurrencies' would have been a better mention that I would agree with rather than just only to use Bitcoin. In this day and age, It's a good time to be in the business of building and selling these shovels i.e Solar Panels to people who aren't able to do this themselves.
agumonkey 6y ago
Wanted to put solar powered sparse mesh networks in forest as emergency trackers..
- pmlnr 6y ago
  Lorawan. You want lorawan.
  - RcrdBrt 6y ago
    LoRa as a Data Link and thr RadioHead library on top of it is probably more flexible
bouncycastle 6y ago
Reality check time! - Raspberry Pi is way underpowered to run any SaaS on. - There are no 5g providers that would accept bitcoin as payment. Highly unlikely there ever will be any. - Bitcoin's network is too congested for it to be used for trivial payments such as subscriptions for SaaS. - A bitcoin node takes hundreds of GB of storage itself. Bandwidth costs will probably be significant too. This means the SaaS would probably have a hard time getting to break-even. - It may be more profitable to climb up the tree and steal the pi and then take its bitcoin private key (assuming there is a hot wallet). Competing SaaS may also look for rivals and take them down.
- czbond 6y ago
  Dream killer. Username doesn't check out. =]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- beering 6y ago
  > - Raspberry Pi is way underpowered to run any SaaS on. Probably sufficient if it's written in Go or another compiled language. Obviously depends on how much revenue you're making per hit, but certainly within the realm of possibility. > - Bitcoin's network is too congested for it to be used for trivial payments such as subscriptions for SaaS. There are alternative coins that would work quite well, if fees/txn is the concern. Current fees seem to be about $1.15/txn, which is quite high if you're only charging $5-10. > - A bitcoin node takes hundreds of GB of storage itself. Bandwidth costs will probably be significant too. This means the SaaS would probably have a hard time getting to break-even. Few people run a full bitcoin node, so I think it would be sufficient for this use-case to send txns to the network via a third-party service. > - It may be more profitable to climb up the tree and steal the pi and then take its bitcoin private key Honestly the human factor involved in the whole scheme is probably the hardest thing to make happen. There's maintenance, h/w failure, the difficulty of finding trustworthy contractors who don't need human guidance, etc.
  - 6y ago
flobosg 6y ago
Sounds like Universal Paperclips!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Proven 6y ago
It can't happen because using Bitcoin for payments will make it lose money. And with all that overhead of tree climbing and whatnot, I doubt it could ever provide competitively priced service compared to anything running in the cloud and getting data from mobile phones or low-cost sensors
giantrobot 6y ago
Check out LibraryBox/PirateBox. While not typically featuring a cellular connection they're at least an independent host for files/wiki/whatever and meant to be self-sufficient. http://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/ http://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/
samcodes 6y ago
Not to nitpick, but wouldn’t Etherium Be the right cryptocurrency? I try to ignore it, but I remember that that’s the “smart contracts” one, so it could make the job contracts in such a way that if they are completed, payment is automatic or something?
- zelly 6y ago
  How would the contract know that the job is completed? Ethereum contracts can only access events on the chain itself. There is no way to go out to the network and, say, ping the new Pi, because there is no way to cryptographically verify that this happened. So some off-chain server somewhere has to issue a command (with some private key) to the contract to say, "Yes, I checked that the work was done, you can disburse the funds". In which case you never needed the contract anyway and just could have sent the money directly.
pankajdoharey 6y ago
Yup that is what 'Joe Armstrong' @joeerl once suggested' https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1055808039369039872%3Fs=20&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1055808039369039872%3Fs=20...
pmlnr 6y ago
Imagine a similar device, embedded into tombstones and monuments, forever serving hotspots with content to remember to the dead, maybe even running their archived blog and content.
vbezhenar 6y ago
Also fix bugs, review commits, etc :)
louwrentius 6y ago
I'm sad to see that this crypto-comment is now the top comment on my build. The one topic I really don't care about. I just hope people will may be incentivised to build fun projects like these, copy my example and improve on it or create a variant. Stats for mobile users: https://louwrentius.com/solar/index.html https://louwrentius.com/solar/index.html Regarding the crypto stuff, please read this: https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...
- rjakobsson 6y ago
  I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to understand bitcoins intrinsic value proposition. Loved the solar powered blog though ! Im looking at setting up my own now, thanks to your post.
  - zippoxer 6y ago
    Ethereum's upcoming 2.0 release kinda solves the issues you raised there. 1. Energy waste: solved by staking instead of mining. See proof of stake [1]. 2. Centralized mining: staking in Ethereum 2.0 should be possible with a Raspberry Pi 4, therefore the viability of joining the network isn't closely tied to your geographic location as it is with mining (mining is only profitable with cheap electricity & hardware, which is why China is dominating Bitcoin mining right now). 3. Facilitates crime: well, that's still a problem, but it's also a problem with other things that give anonymity. Is Tor detrimental to society? Is cash detrimental to society? Should we force everyone to stop transacting with cash since most crimes are done with it, and like China to force them to transact digitally where it can all be tracked by the government, banks and corporations? 4. No intrinsic value: you should check out what's going on with DeFi (decentralized finance) right now in the Ethereum world. Over $2B is locked into smart contracts, people aren't just HODLing anymore, they're playing. Sure, it's not used to save the planet just yet, but I definitely believe it will develop to be enormously beneficial to society. Would love to elaborate if you want. 5. Stability: solved with stablecoins. Basically, you transact with a token that keeps it's value stable against a real world currency. DAI is a good example of a USD stablecoin. This defeats the "ponzi scheme" argument as well, since you can interact with many smart contracts with a stablecoin instead of a cryptocurrency. Your choice. If you acquired a cryptocurrency (which is somewhat like a stock) instead of a stablecoin and lost money, it's your fault. I really like your article, well said. The issues you've raised are still real and need to be discussed. Nevertheless, I argue that those issues can, and are, being solved... At least 4 of these issues had no solution 10 years ago, but just like innovations (proof of stake, stablecoins) fix them, further innovations will slowly fix other unsolved issues as well. [1] https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/proof-of-stake-faqs https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/proof-of-stake-faqs
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
You know there is this device thats much faster, powerefficient and has 5G - a phone or a tablet! You could write write an app for Surface X or similar. Anyway, i am just fighting the Pi-obsession, there are much more capable devices out there.

by zelly 6y ago

louwrentius 6y ago

I'm sorry, I was nodding along when I stumbled over the 'bitcoin' word. That's a big no from me and the reason is probably not hard to guess in light of this project.

zelly 6y ago
If you're concerned about energy usage, there are much bigger fish to fry than Bitcoin mining. But if you want, s/Bitcoin/Libra. A computer can't get a bank account, but it can get a crypto wallet.
- louwrentius 6y ago
  I'm opposed to the whole concept of cryptocurrencies. Google 'cryptocurrencies louwrentius' to understand my position.
  - strombofulous 6y ago
    I agree with that but these are specifically RPIs running on solar power (which, btw, will be useless for mining btc), so they will be completly wasteless (the energy goes to waste otherwise). The only exception would be if you somehow rose the cost of mining for others, which would not happen since you're using pis to mine btc. Except I guess the environmental cost of producing these pis, but unless you buy tens of thousands your purchase would be a rounding error
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 6y ago
      Every project is a global rounding error environmentally, that doesn’t mean they’re harmless. The real yardstick is simply a cost vs benefit equation as we can’t mitigate everything. On that scale a project trike this is extremely harmful as the benefit is nonexistent and the harm is real.
    - loktarogar 6y ago
      locally no impact, globally supporting a system that burns enormous amounts of power (of which much is co2 producing). would be a cool little project, and it falls to you to decide which side of the ethics of it you subscribe to. I would love to have a little cryptocurrency miner, completely self sufficient, just doing its own thing until it dies. but I would also love a cryptocurrency that didn't have the same kind of environmental impact that bitcoin has. maybe another application? selling computing power?
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    Are you also opposed to automobiles?
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      You inclined at all to explain where you see these two being comparable? I’m lost as to what it is you’re trying to say with this statement.
      - GoatHerders2 6y ago
        Bizarre sentence structure you got there! 'You inlined at all' is very aggressive. It's a question, nothing is being stated, it's a question. Your hostility and ignorance lead me to believe you're just a troll. Automobiles and Bitcoin are both Objects. It's not right/normal to have feelings about them like they care.
        dvtrn 6y ago
        Sorry of my brevity caused you any frustration but I find it’s usually easier to ask questions and seek mutual understanding and clarity rather than make assumptions and accusations about intentions and torpedo the conversation before it’s even got going.
    - asveikau 6y ago
      I am, or at least I think they should be used sparingly. They destroy the planet. And on a personal scale, over-reliance upon them encourages lack of exercise and a needlessly stressful life spent in traffic. I reckon we could make a big dent in pollution and obesity rates by having most people reduce their car usage.
  - dng88 6y ago
    Against bitcoin ok use too much energy but general idea of cyber one. The paper one as m1 is always less then m3 the virtual one. Just want to trust 1 Gov?
  - shpongled 6y ago
    From your article: > Cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value. They are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. How is this any different from US dollars, gold, or anything besides food, medicine, and shelter? > Cryptocurrencies facilitate crime Once again, the same argument could be applied to US dollars
    - dhosek 6y ago
      US dollars are the only accepted means to pay taxes. This is the big thing that makes national currencies work. Having a government behind a currency may not be a sufficient guarantee of value but it is, at least so far, a necessary one. For bitcoin at least, it's an intrinsically deflationary currency. There's no incentive to spend a bitcoin today if it will be worth more tomorrow, so it ends up being primarily a currency of choice for transactions which are unfeasible in any other way, which ends up being primarily illegal transactions.
      - _eht 6y ago
        >US dollars are the only accepted means to pay taxes. I agree with this, of course. But there is also a method that allows me to convert my AUS dollar in to US dollar. I just paid my taxes with $AUS? Does the logic follow: $BTC->$USD->USTAXES ?
        notahacker 6y ago
        Your ability to convert your Aussie dollar holdings into US dollars with ease is contingent on there being a relatively stable demand for Aussie dollars, which are the only legal means of paying taxes in Australia, and settling debts denominated in Aussie dollars. Cryptocurrencies are not a legal means of payment of taxes and are not created as debt so lack that guarantee that people will want to exchange significant quantities of USD for that coin [I guess in theory some cryptocurrency could have the property of being emitted as debt, but I'm not sure decentralisation and credit creation go well together].
        6y ago
gwicks56 6y ago
"Can you please show me the benefit to society of cryptocurrencies?" Sci-Hub? Wikileaks? Medical Marijuana?

vkou 6y ago

It the Pi is providing a useful service that people are paying dollars for, that it then uses to pay for its 5G subscription, why introduce intermediate steps of converting its money to bitcoin, gold boullion, or pirate treasure, in order to pay someone?

zelly 6y ago
I'm imagining that the Pi is an independent agent, not owned by a human, and therefore can't get a bank account. The Pi is paid in Bitcoin to begin with, so no conversion is necessary. The assumptions are that there is a 5G service that can be bought with Bitcoin and that the Pi can supply a lucrative enough service to get paid enough to reproduce itself.

rvz 6y ago

> pays for its 5G in Bitcoin, and puts up job postings online to get people (paid in Bitcoin) 'Cryptocurrencies' would have been a better mention that I would agree with rather than just only to use Bitcoin. In this day and age, It's a good time to be in the business of building and selling these shovels i.e Solar Panels to people who aren't able to do this themselves.

agumonkey 6y ago

Wanted to put solar powered sparse mesh networks in forest as emergency trackers..

pmlnr 6y ago
Lorawan. You want lorawan.
- RcrdBrt 6y ago
  LoRa as a Data Link and thr RadioHead library on top of it is probably more flexible

bouncycastle 6y ago

Reality check time! - Raspberry Pi is way underpowered to run any SaaS on. - There are no 5g providers that would accept bitcoin as payment. Highly unlikely there ever will be any. - Bitcoin's network is too congested for it to be used for trivial payments such as subscriptions for SaaS. - A bitcoin node takes hundreds of GB of storage itself. Bandwidth costs will probably be significant too. This means the SaaS would probably have a hard time getting to break-even. - It may be more profitable to climb up the tree and steal the pi and then take its bitcoin private key (assuming there is a hot wallet). Competing SaaS may also look for rivals and take them down.

czbond 6y ago
Dream killer. Username doesn't check out. =]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
beering 6y ago
> - Raspberry Pi is way underpowered to run any SaaS on. Probably sufficient if it's written in Go or another compiled language. Obviously depends on how much revenue you're making per hit, but certainly within the realm of possibility. > - Bitcoin's network is too congested for it to be used for trivial payments such as subscriptions for SaaS. There are alternative coins that would work quite well, if fees/txn is the concern. Current fees seem to be about $1.15/txn, which is quite high if you're only charging $5-10. > - A bitcoin node takes hundreds of GB of storage itself. Bandwidth costs will probably be significant too. This means the SaaS would probably have a hard time getting to break-even. Few people run a full bitcoin node, so I think it would be sufficient for this use-case to send txns to the network via a third-party service. > - It may be more profitable to climb up the tree and steal the pi and then take its bitcoin private key Honestly the human factor involved in the whole scheme is probably the hardest thing to make happen. There's maintenance, h/w failure, the difficulty of finding trustworthy contractors who don't need human guidance, etc.
- 6y ago

flobosg 6y ago

Sounds like Universal Paperclips!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Proven 6y ago

It can't happen because using Bitcoin for payments will make it lose money. And with all that overhead of tree climbing and whatnot, I doubt it could ever provide competitively priced service compared to anything running in the cloud and getting data from mobile phones or low-cost sensors

giantrobot 6y ago

Check out LibraryBox/PirateBox. While not typically featuring a cellular connection they're at least an independent host for files/wiki/whatever and meant to be self-sufficient. http://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/ http://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/

samcodes 6y ago

Not to nitpick, but wouldn’t Etherium Be the right cryptocurrency? I try to ignore it, but I remember that that’s the “smart contracts” one, so it could make the job contracts in such a way that if they are completed, payment is automatic or something?

zelly 6y ago
How would the contract know that the job is completed? Ethereum contracts can only access events on the chain itself. There is no way to go out to the network and, say, ping the new Pi, because there is no way to cryptographically verify that this happened. So some off-chain server somewhere has to issue a command (with some private key) to the contract to say, "Yes, I checked that the work was done, you can disburse the funds". In which case you never needed the contract anyway and just could have sent the money directly.

pankajdoharey 6y ago

Yup that is what 'Joe Armstrong' @joeerl once suggested' https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1055808039369039872%3Fs=20&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1055808039369039872%3Fs=20...

pmlnr 6y ago

Imagine a similar device, embedded into tombstones and monuments, forever serving hotspots with content to remember to the dead, maybe even running their archived blog and content.

vbezhenar 6y ago

Also fix bugs, review commits, etc :)

louwrentius 6y ago

I'm sad to see that this crypto-comment is now the top comment on my build. The one topic I really don't care about. I just hope people will may be incentivised to build fun projects like these, copy my example and improve on it or create a variant. Stats for mobile users: https://louwrentius.com/solar/index.html https://louwrentius.com/solar/index.html Regarding the crypto stuff, please read this: https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-society.html https://louwrentius.com/cryptocurrencies-are-detrimental-to-...

rjakobsson 6y ago
I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to understand bitcoins intrinsic value proposition. Loved the solar powered blog though ! Im looking at setting up my own now, thanks to your post.
- zippoxer 6y ago
  Ethereum's upcoming 2.0 release kinda solves the issues you raised there. 1. Energy waste: solved by staking instead of mining. See proof of stake [1]. 2. Centralized mining: staking in Ethereum 2.0 should be possible with a Raspberry Pi 4, therefore the viability of joining the network isn't closely tied to your geographic location as it is with mining (mining is only profitable with cheap electricity & hardware, which is why China is dominating Bitcoin mining right now). 3. Facilitates crime: well, that's still a problem, but it's also a problem with other things that give anonymity. Is Tor detrimental to society? Is cash detrimental to society? Should we force everyone to stop transacting with cash since most crimes are done with it, and like China to force them to transact digitally where it can all be tracked by the government, banks and corporations? 4. No intrinsic value: you should check out what's going on with DeFi (decentralized finance) right now in the Ethereum world. Over $2B is locked into smart contracts, people aren't just HODLing anymore, they're playing. Sure, it's not used to save the planet just yet, but I definitely believe it will develop to be enormously beneficial to society. Would love to elaborate if you want. 5. Stability: solved with stablecoins. Basically, you transact with a token that keeps it's value stable against a real world currency. DAI is a good example of a USD stablecoin. This defeats the "ponzi scheme" argument as well, since you can interact with many smart contracts with a stablecoin instead of a cryptocurrency. Your choice. If you acquired a cryptocurrency (which is somewhat like a stock) instead of a stablecoin and lost money, it's your fault. I really like your article, well said. The issues you've raised are still real and need to be discussed. Nevertheless, I argue that those issues can, and are, being solved... At least 4 of these issues had no solution 10 years ago, but just like innovations (proof of stake, stablecoins) fix them, further innovations will slowly fix other unsolved issues as well. [1] https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/proof-of-stake-faqs https://eth.wiki/en/concepts/proof-of-stake-faqs

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

You know there is this device thats much faster, powerefficient and has 5G - a phone or a tablet! You could write write an app for Surface X or similar. Anyway, i am just fighting the Pi-obsession, there are much more capable devices out there.