
Ask HN: What would you bring on a hard drive for Cubans who don't have internet? - slydo
After reading this story https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20150208082806&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hosted.ap.org&#x2F;dynamic&#x2F;stories&#x2F;C&#x2F;CB_CUBA_SECRET_NETWORK?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT i&#x27;m left with the question: what would be the most valuable data to get into Cuba to help the local population. Books? Audio? Video? Software? what would you bring?
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toomuchtodo
Wikipedia Offline: [http://xowa.org/](http://xowa.org/)

OpenStreetMap:
[http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data)

Project Gutenberg Offline:
[https://github.com/kiwix/gutenberg](https://github.com/kiwix/gutenberg)

Scihub (google "scihub torrents") (caution: 50TB corpus)

Gitlab (or packaged as a VM to run locally): [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-
org/gitlab-ce](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce)

Khan Academy: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/how-to-run-
khan-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/how-to-run-khan-academy-
offline)

StackExchange:
[https://archive.org/details/stackexchange](https://archive.org/details/stackexchange)

~~~
seren
Regarding openstreetmap, it might be a good idea in general but I suspect that
OpenStreetmap details would be really poor in Cuba because of the lack of
contributors. So I am not sure it would be that useful to Cubans (who still
have restrictions to travel IIRC).

Just checked, I was wrong : it is actually not that bad:
[https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5252057#map=17/23.104...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5252057#map=17/23.10480/-82.35750)

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astrodust
Could this question get more Hacker News?

The service called _El Packete_ is what you'd expect, and it carries every-day
stuff:
[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a1...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a16030/cubas-
usb-drive-internet/)

If people want Stack Overflow they'll ask for it. They're not without internet
access, it's just that their ping times are really, really high.

------
dragonbonheur
The free scientific comic books linked from this page. Just scroll down for
English or Spanish versions. [https://www.savoir-sans-
frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/f...](https://www.savoir-sans-
frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/free_downloads.htm)

And try to get ebooks and documents about biogas production, permaculture,
survival skills, handicrafts, how various things work, free computer
programming books, compiler construction (Jack Crenshaw's work, not SICP),
sewing patterns, cake recipe books, cocktail books (tourism is about to
increase). No political propaganda.

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slydo
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150208082806/http://hosted.ap....](https://web.archive.org/web/20150208082806/http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_CUBA_SECRET_NETWORK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8948525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8948525)

------
MalcolmDiggs
All 33 chapters of R Kelly's rap opera: "Trapped in the Closet".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet)

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qwertyuiop924
I'd bring gutenburg, wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Scihub, KhanAcademy, etc. as
already mentioned by others. I'd also bring DOOM. And if they had LAN, I'd
bring Quake. Because no matter how grim a situation gets, a good game is fun.

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cyphar
If I had enough storage I'd give them a repository of all reasonably large
free software projects. I'd also give them SciHub and everything in arXiv.

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tylercubell
Wikipedia dump, textbooks on a wide variety of subjects, any practical
information that can be useful considering the limited resources on the
island.

------
bbcbasic
This is desert island disks (as opposed to discs).

------
mud_dauber
My kickass music library.

