11 ms·

How to Survive When Money Is Worthless [video]

149 points by wallflower 8y ago

jdpigeon 8y ago
I love these multi-media style articles. Didn't anyone else feel completely transported when they watched the yuca getting cooked and saw that woman's tears? Certainly it's not the right choice for every story, but I think it's often better than a typical narrated video piece. Here's another one that I think takes advantage of the format beautifully: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc-coast/article35043172/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder...
- jdietrich 8y ago
  >Didn't anyone else feel completely transported when they watched the yuca getting cooked and saw that woman's tears? I felt an intense pang of shame as my mouse hovered over the "next" button.
- preinheimer 8y ago
  I found the experience really confusing. I wasn't sure if the segment I was on had ended and I should continue, or if there was a pause in the narration. A single video would have been much easier to digest.
thomasfedb 8y ago
As much as I love media-rich reporting, sometimes I just want to scroll and read. Currently on crappy hotel WiFi and this article is to hard to read (watch?) on this connection.
mattlondon 8y ago
Is there a text version? The "multimedia" presentation is pretty annoying.
- drb91 8y ago
  Haven’t you heard everything needs picture stories now, if not video? Text is so outmoded.
  - trimbo 8y ago
    "Print is dead" -- Egon Spengler
  - SerjEpatoff 8y ago
    So do you believe everything you've heard about?
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I seem to have gotten through it. The amount of actual text content would fit on a single iPhone screen. I don’t think you missed much.
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  It's called PHOTOJOURNALISM.
  - jstewartmobile 8y ago
    photobarbarism
- ninkendo 8y ago
  Reader view in safari or firefox is what you want. I have it turned on for all websites and haven't looked back. I honestly don't know how chrome users can use the web nowadays with how bad things have gotten.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    Reader view doesn't seem very useful for this particular article, which is primarily visual.
post_break 8y ago
This was like all the negatives of a slide show mixed with video and some text. I struggled to make it through.
jbb67 8y ago
Got about 15 seconds into this before deciding life was too short
- catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
  Agreed. Closed it two seconds into the second loading screen
epistasis 8y ago
This presentation is a great experiment, but it's just that, an experiment in presentation. It should never have been released to the general public, just to UI or web dev forums in order for them to learn from. I think that human computer interaction has taken massive steps back from the 90s. That, or I'm getting old. Could be both too. Aside: some great content here though. so many beautiful shots of the country. And some brief text that gave a tiny bit of color.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  The biggest step back happened after we started describing the "human-computer interaction". I don't want an interaction. I'm talking to a machine, not a person. This isn't a two-way conversation. If I wanted to see transitions between slides and text fed to me piecemeal, I'd watch a TV report on the issue. This article is like watching that TV report but also having to click an arrow every ten seconds to prove I'm still paying attention. I got through maybe six slides before giving up.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    > I'm talking to a machine, not a person. This isn't a two-way conversation. I guess you operate your computer with no output devices?
    - sandworm101 8y ago
      I do, but I am the master in the computer-human or website-human relationship. If I want to read faster, I tell the machine to move faster and it does. When I machine tells me that I am moving too quickly or two slowly and demands that I alter my behavior ... the human does not take orders from the machine. They work for us.
- jonknee 8y ago
  The NYT has plenty of text content on Venezuela if you are so bothered by this... I for one love experimentation and pushing the envelope.
- 8y ago
the_watcher 8y ago
I wanted to read an article with this headline. Unfortunately, I only got to a slow loading video of someone making a latte before giving up.
- ManFromUranus 8y ago
  I can guarantee that's because the article is light on insight and heavy on emotionality and will almost certainly seek to tug on the heartstrings as it has no real commentary or insight into the situation. It just wants to show you crying babies, women and sad people.
QasimK 8y ago
For all the negative comments about the presentation, which I might normally agree with, I liked this format this time. It took a while to load (thank you multi-threading). I got through it because I treated it like an interactive video with subtitles, which is better than a video. I liked the sound - which, in my iPhone, was muted at the started as my phone was muted, so I didn't even realise there was audio. I liked that I could go forwards and backwards. I liked that I could just read. It fit well on my phone, I don’t know what it looks like on desktop. Now, getting to the content itself, I found it to be very sad, especially at how the spirit to protest was killed.
- WrathOfJay 8y ago
  I actually found this to be worth the time. I haven't paid much attention to the situation down there, and seeing it was enlightening. Onto the content... I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by? Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around? Surely with so much manpower available, there are way to make them productive on a large scale?
  - a3n 8y ago
    > I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by? If those people are alive (as they observably are), then logically they are getting food. When you're poor, you generally can only afford low quality food. Low quality food is bad for your health, resulting in many problems including obesity and diabetes. Low quality food is generally processed grain. It's cheap to make and cheap to keep "fresh," which is why we have so much of it in the US. Think high fructose corn syrup, and almost anything that comes in a box, and do the thought experiment across the food chain from the farm, through manufacturing and distribution, to consumption and the doctor's office. When you see a population of obese people, don't think that their food problem is solved; realize that the food they have practical access to is a problem. (And yes, many rich people in rich countries are obese and have a choice, but many of those obese people are poor and do not, and we're not talking about a rich country at the moment.)
arriu 8y ago
I feel like the authors should have picked either narrated video or text, not both. I couldn't get through this, too painful.
ManFromUranus 8y ago
This is what socialism does. This is the outcome. They just pin it all on Maduro like there has ever been any other socialist "utopia" that didn't also turn out like this. Cue the chorus of: But they had good intentions, this isn't real socialism... and on and on. At least the place hasn't gone all kmer rouge on it's people yet, hopefully it never does.
- JackFr 8y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY 1-877-JOE 4 OIL
- CptFribble 8y ago
  Separating thousands of children from their families is what capitalism does. That's the outcome. They just pin it all on Trump like there has ever been any other capitalist "utopia" that didn't also turn out like this. Cue the chorus of: But they had good intentions, this isn't real capitalism...and on and on. At least the place hasn't gone all Pinkerton on it's people yet, hopefully it never does.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please do not use HN for ideological flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    Trump != capitalism Capitalism is: - freedom to own property - freedom to use or trade property you own - freedom to trade services for property or other services Of course that's not enough to create a viable society. Whatever else you add to the sauce is not capitalism, it's something else.
    - TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
      > Capitalism is The items listed have nothing to do with capitalism. More like "things you often find" or "things you wish were true", or more aptly, "things you are told are true, but are misleading". "freedom" to own things is not a freedom nor is it guaranteed in a capitalism economy nor is it true when faced with anything other than a nascent capitalist economy where other actors make the decision of who owns what, beyond your own agency. I'm not sure you know what capitalism is now.
wdn 8y ago
The title should replace "Money" with "Currency". It's the Venezuelan Bolivar is worthless. If you use gold or silver, I am sure they will be more than happy to accept it.
- delecti 8y ago
  That would make for a less catchy title. Though amusingly by the definition of "money", worthless currency doesn't qualify.
tw1010 8y ago
I loved this format so much. It feels like some of the people who are complaining are acting as if this is going to replace text somehow, which I hardly think will be the case. There is plenty of room for both formats. I thought this was the perfect middleground between a documentary and an article. Documentaries often feel biased or like they're trying to manipulate the audience or something. Articles, at least to me (though it's a function of how good your imagination is), can sometimes feel a bit too distant from reality. Language is too abstract, too manipulable, and some phrases are too loaded to not be distracting. Short videos with scenes from everyday life, coupled with a slight bit of interactivity (the "next" button) makes it much harder to zone out of (unlike a long-form movie), and to me at least made it much more somehow connected to reality. I definitely feel like I have a much closer and personal understanding of the situation, much more so than I would have gotten with a documentary or an article.
lisper 8y ago
This is not an article, it's a movie with subtitles. (It should have a [video] tag.) And it doesn't address how to survive when money is worthless, it just shows some vignettes from Venezuela that illustrate how hard it is to survive when money is worthless.
- libeclipse 8y ago
  It was pretty good to be honest, like a video that lets you choose your own pace. It was a bit light on the history though (doesn't seem like that was the point of the piece), so here's a decent production by Vox exploring the crisis in Venezuela in more depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA (Aug 2017)
- TheCowboy 8y ago
  It's a hybrid article. Mixed media. Interactive web page. The categorization of movie seems to imply some dismissiveness as well. The article isn't so much an instructional video on how to survive, and could be interpreted as ironic on some level. I don't think the title is beyond critique, but the content addresses how people are surviving by showing people who are surviving, even barely. If people think conditions in Venezuela are not that bad, and there are people who believe that, then this should give them pause.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > seems to imply some dismissiveness Well, yeah, I actually thought it was pretty devoid of content even on its own terms. It spends a significant amount of time showing a barrista making a panda face out of the foam in a latte. It was very pretty, and in a different context I might even have enjoyed watching the craftsmanship, but that was an awful lot of screen time to make the point that coffee gets expensive along with everything else when you have hyperinflation.
  - loeg 8y ago
    In what sense is it hybrid or mixed media? It's ordinary video, with subtitles.
adreamingsoul 8y ago
Ehh, I find this experience difficult to read and understand (as someone who embraces Aspbergers). I had to give up trying to read it because I have no idea where I am and if I missed something.
cgopalan 8y ago
Who else felt the irony of people complaining about the presentation format when there are human beings suffering from such a crisis? I was moved when I saw the clip of the kids being fed in a soup kitchen. Not saying you cannot criticize the format, but shouldn't the discussion be more about what actually caused this situation and how it can be remedied or prevented?
- cellularmitosis 8y ago
  Well, you could say it is about overall impact. If you turn a bunch of people off with your format, you just reduced your potential impact.
- russdpale 8y ago
  You have to be able to watch it to be able to comment on it. I couldn't watch it, even on a decent connection. It stutters, the sound goes out, video freezes..
- mrfredward 8y ago
  The situation is the result of a corrupt and incompetent government, and short of starting a war to overthrow said government I'm not sure what we can do. We shouldn't miss the humanitarian crisis, but given that the HN community has a lot more influence over UX than foreign governments, the focus on content format isn't irrational.
tigershark 8y ago
Inflation in Venezuela is over 25k%. People are jailed during demonstrations when they are not shot in cold blood. Children are dying of malnutrition. But for everyone on HN the biggest problem is the article format. Utterly and completely unbelievable...
- throwaway413 8y ago
  Thank you.
- ademup 8y ago
  A large number of people (most?) in the HN community are contributors/authors/creators to web sites such as that linked. I love HN people for their ability to respect content while simultaneously addressing how it is delivered. I believe that ~how~ the message is conveyed is extremely important. If the UI is such that people click 'next' and never get to the content, then all of the breathless exasperation in the world will be directed at the uniformed.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Exactly. The point is to attract attention, and to keep it as long as possible. The starving and exploited Venezuelans are just a tool for that, and in a way just being exploited just that little bit more by these sites, for their own gain. The discussion here is about the exploitation, not so much about the source of the initial spec of attention to be exploited. Besides just wait until someone points out which type of politics were at the source of this change. The same is true of this comment.
- russdpale 8y ago
  Well I mean honestly I couldn't even watch it. It kept repeating and freezing. Classic case of pushing a browser where it shouldn't go. I don't even see an option for text only.
- turc1656 8y ago
  First world problems, indeed. That being said, I can't criticize anyone who commented on the article format or method of delivery because as soon as I saw it, I immediately shut the page.
jefe_ 8y ago
For more of a guide to surviving collapses, this essay about the 2001 Argentine Financial crisis is pure gold. I have printed several copies and read it about once a year: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-survival-2005.html http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-surviva...
- glockenspielen 8y ago
  Thanks for this. I read it years ago and was unable to find it since.
- probably_wrong 8y ago
  Sorry to be the negative one but, as someone who lived through the 2001 economic crisis, I have no idea what this guy is talking about. He seems to write a lot of survivalist tips, so I would keep that in mind - from a survivalist perspective, all society is at the point of collapse.
  - harias 8y ago
    Do you mean to say it was better than he depicts it to be? or is it something else?
    - probably_wrong 8y ago
      Yes, I think he's cherry-picking some specific situations to make it seem much more tragic that it was. For instance, > Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. Sure, some did. They even showed up on the news due to how weird even the idea of eating birds was. But that's the 0.001% - the average citizen reduced their expenses, moved back with their parents, asked their relatives for help, and/or started using the food banks. > in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days. Buenos Aires was one big dark grave. That's straight up BS - there were widespread power outages, but they lasted typically hours, not days. And even though specific neighborhoods had days without power, to call it "a big dark grave" is too much. > There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day There are no kids playing nowadays either, but that's because they are at school (the average school day is longer than it used to be), playing with their cellphones, or (at the time) playing Counter Strike in cyber-cafes with dedicated LANs. And so on. It also doesn't help that he paints the entire country based on Buenos Aires, a city that has a very strong cultural division to the rest of the country.
excalibur 8y ago
> Last year millions took to the streets last year to protest the mismanaged economy and silencing of the opposition. If you're going to have a multimedia presentation with polished production and very small amounts of text, you should be aware that it makes proofreading failures seem like a much bigger problem than they would be otherwise.
narvind 8y ago
Both form and content are superb. Very moving story. The crisis is real. We have to act now. What are the best ideas proposed so far that might help them?
- olivermarks 8y ago
  Should have been a video, not a slow to load click through light weight social media snapshots format. This is a very serious humanitarian and economic problem and the glossy reportage format is too glib and simplistic IMO. More importantly, what will help is an end to the western siege on their economy because they are a socialist country https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/socialism-blame-venezuelas-crisis-180530095418091.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/socialism-blame-ve...
pascalxus 8y ago
I think it's great that this is being publicized and getting attention. It took many economic mis-steps to bring such a country to it knees (printing money, restricting prices with price ceilings, import taxes, etc), I kinda wish they would focus on all the economic errors they've made, so the rest of the world can learn from those mistakes.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  The main error was to be the economy on heavily exporting oil, only for the oil price to tank (Thanks, Saudis). While being able to heavily export oil, they could heavily import stuff that could help the poorest of the population. But when the oil price dropped, they were loath to cut back on the support systems. Thus a massive trade deficit developed, and the exchange rate tanked. While the reasons are different, it is the same "death spiral" as one could witness in Germany between the wars, or in Zimbabwe.
AnsisMalins 8y ago
I fucking hate the modern web.
erikb 8y ago
I wonder, if you go there can you still buy stuff for USD? E.g. how does the reporter survive there? I can't imagine a journalist would drop to that quality of life he describes just for his job.
- ada1981 8y ago
  Many journalists put themselves in difficult situations to get a story. Some people have found work that is more than “just a job”.
- probably_wrong 8y ago
  If you have access to USD, you can usually exchange them quite easily - not officially, of course, but you'll find buyers: importers that will get a nice return on them, individuals who want to keep their remaining savings from disappearing, and so on.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
detcader 8y ago
"U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move" - June 2002 - https://fair.org/extra/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pro-democracy-move/ https://fair.org/extra/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pr...
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Not as insane as it sounds. When the government in power is dismantling democracy, removing the government in power can in fact be a pro-democracy move. (A coup is a somewhat unusual way to do it, however...)
- wazoox 8y ago
  My thought exactly. This really sounds like a propaganda piece; "it's all Maduro's fault". really, I don't know. I'm not so sure.
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    As a Venezuelan, I'm curious to know what about this article makes you think it's a "propaganda piece".
    - wazoox 8y ago
      The fact that it's extremely one-sided, about a country well-known for repeated US meddling. For instance see the example of the Kellogg's factory. They present several questionable facts as given: why did Kellogg's leave the country? it's unclear. May it be in part because of US government pressure? not unlikely. Why do they present the takeover of the abandoned factory as something wrong? The owners are gone. In fact, takeover of the factory to provide work to its employees and products to its customers look like the obvious right thing to do. Maduro and his clique did many things wrong, no doubt. They failed badly at reforming the economy and making it more sustainable. They're corrupt. They probably mismanaged the country. However international sanctions are the direct cause of most of the problems that make the news daily (lack of medicine, food, etc).
StavrosK 8y ago
Are people there still using the Bolivar? Why haven't they switched to some alternative currency? Wouldn't that solve many of the current problems?
- icebraining 8y ago
  There are probably heavy controls on the import of foreign currencies.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    That makes sense... Cryptocurrencies might have helped there, but with how hard they are to use and with how impossible it would be to actually exchange them to and from fiat, they'd practically be no help at all.
- hamstercat 8y ago
  I don't know if that's still the case, but last year the government set his own rate for bolivar to USD conversion inside the country. Rates which are of course only realistic in fantasy land. The only alternative was the black market, with all it entails.
aspyct 8y ago
So... the country needs help. How do we help?
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I don't think we can. Any attempt to do so will be resisted by the government as the meddling of the imperialists, to be opposed at all costs. We either have to invade to remove the government by force (and kill a bunch of the army), or we can do very little. One thing that we might, in other circumstances, do, is to tell Columbia, for example, that any refugees that come over the border we will take, so that they don't need to try to keep them out. But under current political circumstances in the US, even that seems out of reach...
- txsh 8y ago
  It’s a self-inflicted wound. You can’t help. They’ll just keep killing themselves.
throw1249awy 8y ago
Opened page. Scrolled down and nothing happened. Please don't submit broken web pages in the future. Please, let's not encourage this sort of web design by linking to it. It's user hostile.
djschnei 8y ago
"Revolutionary Cornflakes"... these people are pure evil.
CNJ7654 8y ago
Lol, I spent way too much time fucking around with noscript before realizing that this page wasn't a text article
andyidsinga 8y ago
I found this maddening to watch from a technical perspective - it was beautifully produced, subtitles, video and audio - but it didn't work right in my browser! (latest chrome on win10) - the audio and subtitles didn't sync - if I touched the scroll wheel on my mouse it would rapidly generate events that caused the 'next' action - if I click on next after the audio was complete on one page there was no audio on the next page - just the subtitles. ..so I struggled through it and wondered how this was tested before they pushed it out. finally, getting to the end - I didn't see anything that actually discussed how people are actually surviving!? I lived in the USSR in the early 90s while crazy inflation was starting to happen; here are a few strategies people used in those days (in fact I and my family used too). Note that inflation got even crazier after I left - and I'm not sure what other things people did to handle that; but I suspect friends/family/connections continue to be extremely important. - they kept dollars or other western currency and traded for rubles as close to purchases as possible - everyone would use private connections with others get access to goods that we're not readily available. didn't seem to be at lot of bartering here - but taking very good care of those connections and reciprocating whenever possible. - people would grow food at their datcha - and share with their friends and sometimes sell it at local open market / bazaar. - finally, you take on any work - and I mean any work - to get a bit of extra cash - especially in foreign currency. You're not like "I'm a doctor, I've above doing ______" if someone will pay you to do ______; and you can do it - you probably will.
- amenod 8y ago
  For what is worth, it worked flawlessly for me (FF on Linux).
  - andyidsinga 8y ago
    yeah - I'm sure it must work for most - but it was goofey for me and I didn't have the patience to open up inspector and start digging.
- baybal2 8y ago
  >here are a few strategies people used in those days (in fact I and my family used too). Note that inflation got even crazier after I left - and I'm not sure what other things people did to handle that; but I suspect friends/family/connections continue to be extremely important. In case of my dad things were following 1. Arm yourself 2. Hire other armed people 3. Run as fast as you can to the Far East 4. Be at good terms with all the local seamen, from military ship crews, to Korean fishing cooperative members 5. Laugh at yesterday kings bringing you stacks of Swiss Franks, and golden bricks just to get a bag of flour. My father still has a brick of pure scandium, and one of indium in his cabinet from the time some military bureaucrat gave them to him for few crates of instant noodles What played a bad joke at communists was a fact that they were buying loyalty of their military officers with lavish lifestyle and gigantic expense accounts. A two star general could've afforded a lifestyle close to that of a person making 6 digits in USA. The moment commies were unable to pay for it, and the subjective prestige value of state perks vent below that of owning a foreign made car, the ironclad loyalty vaned in just few months. There were fun times in Vladivostok
csomar 8y ago
The format is not bad. I think what made the experience a bit bad for me is the slow Internet connection. It would help if the presentation force you to wait until everything is loaded. Now back to complaining about the content: It is very light on details. I'm very interested in the Venezuela crisis but this gives practically no numbers and thus no idea about how bad the situation is.
lentil_soup 8y ago
Given the presentation doesn't actually provide how people survive, these are some "insights" into it: - Paper money is useless (as seen in the video) so everything is done via bank transfer. This has led to a very fast adoption of internet banking. You want to pay someone, you make them a transfer and show them the transaction. - There are places where paper money is needed, parking lots. You have to pay 100.000 bolivares in bills of 500. ATMs don't give you enough money to cover that, so you need to ... buy packets of money, for a premium. - Credit cards can't keep up their limits with the inflation. All the credit cards in a middle class family amount to a few dollars. - Unusual for a country like Venezuela, some weird sense of trust is now needed. You might go to get a haircut and then make a money transfer from your PC when you get home. No one wants your paper currency. - Bitcoin has become a common way of sending money from abroad to family in Venezuela. There's people that will buy it in exchange for Bolivares (Venezuelan currency) at a premium. Again, you have to trust them to hold their side of the bargain. - All of the issues above work while internet and electricity are working, which very often, doesn't. Banking infrastructure is pushed to its limits . - There's start ups trying to work around these trust and centralized systems using blockchain technology. (https://www.citywallet.net/ https://www.citywallet.net/ - in spanish)
baybal2 8y ago
An excellent read on economics of "dead economies," and why would one give a gold bar for a piece of bread is "Necroeconomics" by V. Papava https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03068290210444421 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/0306829021044...

149 points by wallflower 8y ago

I love these multi-media style articles. Didn't anyone else feel completely transported when they watched the yuca getting cooked and saw that woman's tears? Certainly it's not the right choice for every story, but I think it's often better than a typical narrated video piece. Here's another one that I think takes advantage of the format beautifully: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-bc-coast/article35043172/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/kinder...

jdietrich 8y ago
>Didn't anyone else feel completely transported when they watched the yuca getting cooked and saw that woman's tears? I felt an intense pang of shame as my mouse hovered over the "next" button.
preinheimer 8y ago
I found the experience really confusing. I wasn't sure if the segment I was on had ended and I should continue, or if there was a pause in the narration. A single video would have been much easier to digest.

thomasfedb 8y ago

As much as I love media-rich reporting, sometimes I just want to scroll and read. Currently on crappy hotel WiFi and this article is to hard to read (watch?) on this connection.

mattlondon 8y ago

Is there a text version? The "multimedia" presentation is pretty annoying.

drb91 8y ago
Haven’t you heard everything needs picture stories now, if not video? Text is so outmoded.
- trimbo 8y ago
  "Print is dead" -- Egon Spengler
- SerjEpatoff 8y ago
  So do you believe everything you've heard about?
ryandrake 8y ago
I seem to have gotten through it. The amount of actual text content would fit on a single iPhone screen. I don’t think you missed much.
crispyambulance 8y ago
It's called PHOTOJOURNALISM.
- jstewartmobile 8y ago
  photobarbarism
ninkendo 8y ago
Reader view in safari or firefox is what you want. I have it turned on for all websites and haven't looked back. I honestly don't know how chrome users can use the web nowadays with how bad things have gotten.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  Reader view doesn't seem very useful for this particular article, which is primarily visual.

post_break 8y ago

This was like all the negatives of a slide show mixed with video and some text. I struggled to make it through.

jbb67 8y ago

Got about 15 seconds into this before deciding life was too short

catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
Agreed. Closed it two seconds into the second loading screen

epistasis 8y ago

This presentation is a great experiment, but it's just that, an experiment in presentation. It should never have been released to the general public, just to UI or web dev forums in order for them to learn from. I think that human computer interaction has taken massive steps back from the 90s. That, or I'm getting old. Could be both too. Aside: some great content here though. so many beautiful shots of the country. And some brief text that gave a tiny bit of color.

sandworm101 8y ago
The biggest step back happened after we started describing the "human-computer interaction". I don't want an interaction. I'm talking to a machine, not a person. This isn't a two-way conversation. If I wanted to see transitions between slides and text fed to me piecemeal, I'd watch a TV report on the issue. This article is like watching that TV report but also having to click an arrow every ten seconds to prove I'm still paying attention. I got through maybe six slides before giving up.
- danharaj 8y ago
  > I'm talking to a machine, not a person. This isn't a two-way conversation. I guess you operate your computer with no output devices?
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    I do, but I am the master in the computer-human or website-human relationship. If I want to read faster, I tell the machine to move faster and it does. When I machine tells me that I am moving too quickly or two slowly and demands that I alter my behavior ... the human does not take orders from the machine. They work for us.
jonknee 8y ago
The NYT has plenty of text content on Venezuela if you are so bothered by this... I for one love experimentation and pushing the envelope.
8y ago

the_watcher 8y ago

I wanted to read an article with this headline. Unfortunately, I only got to a slow loading video of someone making a latte before giving up.

ManFromUranus 8y ago
I can guarantee that's because the article is light on insight and heavy on emotionality and will almost certainly seek to tug on the heartstrings as it has no real commentary or insight into the situation. It just wants to show you crying babies, women and sad people.

QasimK 8y ago

For all the negative comments about the presentation, which I might normally agree with, I liked this format this time. It took a while to load (thank you multi-threading). I got through it because I treated it like an interactive video with subtitles, which is better than a video. I liked the sound - which, in my iPhone, was muted at the started as my phone was muted, so I didn't even realise there was audio. I liked that I could go forwards and backwards. I liked that I could just read. It fit well on my phone, I don’t know what it looks like on desktop. Now, getting to the content itself, I found it to be very sad, especially at how the spirit to protest was killed.

WrathOfJay 8y ago
I actually found this to be worth the time. I haven't paid much attention to the situation down there, and seeing it was enlightening. Onto the content... I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by? Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around? Surely with so much manpower available, there are way to make them productive on a large scale?
- a3n 8y ago
  > I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by? If those people are alive (as they observably are), then logically they are getting food. When you're poor, you generally can only afford low quality food. Low quality food is bad for your health, resulting in many problems including obesity and diabetes. Low quality food is generally processed grain. It's cheap to make and cheap to keep "fresh," which is why we have so much of it in the US. Think high fructose corn syrup, and almost anything that comes in a box, and do the thought experiment across the food chain from the farm, through manufacturing and distribution, to consumption and the doctor's office. When you see a population of obese people, don't think that their food problem is solved; realize that the food they have practical access to is a problem. (And yes, many rich people in rich countries are obese and have a choice, but many of those obese people are poor and do not, and we're not talking about a rich country at the moment.)

arriu 8y ago

I feel like the authors should have picked either narrated video or text, not both. I couldn't get through this, too painful.

ManFromUranus 8y ago

This is what socialism does. This is the outcome. They just pin it all on Maduro like there has ever been any other socialist "utopia" that didn't also turn out like this. Cue the chorus of: But they had good intentions, this isn't real socialism... and on and on. At least the place hasn't gone all kmer rouge on it's people yet, hopefully it never does.

JackFr 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY 1-877-JOE 4 OIL
CptFribble 8y ago
Separating thousands of children from their families is what capitalism does. That's the outcome. They just pin it all on Trump like there has ever been any other capitalist "utopia" that didn't also turn out like this. Cue the chorus of: But they had good intentions, this isn't real capitalism...and on and on. At least the place hasn't gone all Pinkerton on it's people yet, hopefully it never does.
- dang 8y ago
  Please do not use HN for ideological flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  Trump != capitalism Capitalism is: - freedom to own property - freedom to use or trade property you own - freedom to trade services for property or other services Of course that's not enough to create a viable society. Whatever else you add to the sauce is not capitalism, it's something else.
  - TooBrokeToBeg 8y ago
    > Capitalism is The items listed have nothing to do with capitalism. More like "things you often find" or "things you wish were true", or more aptly, "things you are told are true, but are misleading". "freedom" to own things is not a freedom nor is it guaranteed in a capitalism economy nor is it true when faced with anything other than a nascent capitalist economy where other actors make the decision of who owns what, beyond your own agency. I'm not sure you know what capitalism is now.

wdn 8y ago

The title should replace "Money" with "Currency". It's the Venezuelan Bolivar is worthless. If you use gold or silver, I am sure they will be more than happy to accept it.

delecti 8y ago
That would make for a less catchy title. Though amusingly by the definition of "money", worthless currency doesn't qualify.

tw1010 8y ago

I loved this format so much. It feels like some of the people who are complaining are acting as if this is going to replace text somehow, which I hardly think will be the case. There is plenty of room for both formats. I thought this was the perfect middleground between a documentary and an article. Documentaries often feel biased or like they're trying to manipulate the audience or something. Articles, at least to me (though it's a function of how good your imagination is), can sometimes feel a bit too distant from reality. Language is too abstract, too manipulable, and some phrases are too loaded to not be distracting. Short videos with scenes from everyday life, coupled with a slight bit of interactivity (the "next" button) makes it much harder to zone out of (unlike a long-form movie), and to me at least made it much more somehow connected to reality. I definitely feel like I have a much closer and personal understanding of the situation, much more so than I would have gotten with a documentary or an article.

lisper 8y ago

This is not an article, it's a movie with subtitles. (It should have a [video] tag.) And it doesn't address how to survive when money is worthless, it just shows some vignettes from Venezuela that illustrate how hard it is to survive when money is worthless.

libeclipse 8y ago
It was pretty good to be honest, like a video that lets you choose your own pace. It was a bit light on the history though (doesn't seem like that was the point of the piece), so here's a decent production by Vox exploring the crisis in Venezuela in more depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA (Aug 2017)
TheCowboy 8y ago
It's a hybrid article. Mixed media. Interactive web page. The categorization of movie seems to imply some dismissiveness as well. The article isn't so much an instructional video on how to survive, and could be interpreted as ironic on some level. I don't think the title is beyond critique, but the content addresses how people are surviving by showing people who are surviving, even barely. If people think conditions in Venezuela are not that bad, and there are people who believe that, then this should give them pause.
- lisper 8y ago
  > seems to imply some dismissiveness Well, yeah, I actually thought it was pretty devoid of content even on its own terms. It spends a significant amount of time showing a barrista making a panda face out of the foam in a latte. It was very pretty, and in a different context I might even have enjoyed watching the craftsmanship, but that was an awful lot of screen time to make the point that coffee gets expensive along with everything else when you have hyperinflation.
- loeg 8y ago
  In what sense is it hybrid or mixed media? It's ordinary video, with subtitles.

adreamingsoul 8y ago

Ehh, I find this experience difficult to read and understand (as someone who embraces Aspbergers). I had to give up trying to read it because I have no idea where I am and if I missed something.

cgopalan 8y ago

Who else felt the irony of people complaining about the presentation format when there are human beings suffering from such a crisis? I was moved when I saw the clip of the kids being fed in a soup kitchen. Not saying you cannot criticize the format, but shouldn't the discussion be more about what actually caused this situation and how it can be remedied or prevented?

cellularmitosis 8y ago
Well, you could say it is about overall impact. If you turn a bunch of people off with your format, you just reduced your potential impact.
russdpale 8y ago
You have to be able to watch it to be able to comment on it. I couldn't watch it, even on a decent connection. It stutters, the sound goes out, video freezes..
mrfredward 8y ago
The situation is the result of a corrupt and incompetent government, and short of starting a war to overthrow said government I'm not sure what we can do. We shouldn't miss the humanitarian crisis, but given that the HN community has a lot more influence over UX than foreign governments, the focus on content format isn't irrational.

tigershark 8y ago

Inflation in Venezuela is over 25k%. People are jailed during demonstrations when they are not shot in cold blood. Children are dying of malnutrition. But for everyone on HN the biggest problem is the article format. Utterly and completely unbelievable...

throwaway413 8y ago
Thank you.
ademup 8y ago
A large number of people (most?) in the HN community are contributors/authors/creators to web sites such as that linked. I love HN people for their ability to respect content while simultaneously addressing how it is delivered. I believe that ~how~ the message is conveyed is extremely important. If the UI is such that people click 'next' and never get to the content, then all of the breathless exasperation in the world will be directed at the uniformed.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Exactly. The point is to attract attention, and to keep it as long as possible. The starving and exploited Venezuelans are just a tool for that, and in a way just being exploited just that little bit more by these sites, for their own gain. The discussion here is about the exploitation, not so much about the source of the initial spec of attention to be exploited. Besides just wait until someone points out which type of politics were at the source of this change. The same is true of this comment.
russdpale 8y ago
Well I mean honestly I couldn't even watch it. It kept repeating and freezing. Classic case of pushing a browser where it shouldn't go. I don't even see an option for text only.
turc1656 8y ago
First world problems, indeed. That being said, I can't criticize anyone who commented on the article format or method of delivery because as soon as I saw it, I immediately shut the page.

jefe_ 8y ago

For more of a guide to surviving collapses, this essay about the 2001 Argentine Financial crisis is pure gold. I have printed several copies and read it about once a year: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-survival-2005.html http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-surviva...

glockenspielen 8y ago
Thanks for this. I read it years ago and was unable to find it since.
probably_wrong 8y ago
Sorry to be the negative one but, as someone who lived through the 2001 economic crisis, I have no idea what this guy is talking about. He seems to write a lot of survivalist tips, so I would keep that in mind - from a survivalist perspective, all society is at the point of collapse.
- harias 8y ago
  Do you mean to say it was better than he depicts it to be? or is it something else?
  - probably_wrong 8y ago
    Yes, I think he's cherry-picking some specific situations to make it seem much more tragic that it was. For instance, > Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. Sure, some did. They even showed up on the news due to how weird even the idea of eating birds was. But that's the 0.001% - the average citizen reduced their expenses, moved back with their parents, asked their relatives for help, and/or started using the food banks. > in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days. Buenos Aires was one big dark grave. That's straight up BS - there were widespread power outages, but they lasted typically hours, not days. And even though specific neighborhoods had days without power, to call it "a big dark grave" is too much. > There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day There are no kids playing nowadays either, but that's because they are at school (the average school day is longer than it used to be), playing with their cellphones, or (at the time) playing Counter Strike in cyber-cafes with dedicated LANs. And so on. It also doesn't help that he paints the entire country based on Buenos Aires, a city that has a very strong cultural division to the rest of the country.

excalibur 8y ago

> Last year millions took to the streets last year to protest the mismanaged economy and silencing of the opposition. If you're going to have a multimedia presentation with polished production and very small amounts of text, you should be aware that it makes proofreading failures seem like a much bigger problem than they would be otherwise.

narvind 8y ago

Both form and content are superb. Very moving story. The crisis is real. We have to act now. What are the best ideas proposed so far that might help them?

olivermarks 8y ago
Should have been a video, not a slow to load click through light weight social media snapshots format. This is a very serious humanitarian and economic problem and the glossy reportage format is too glib and simplistic IMO. More importantly, what will help is an end to the western siege on their economy because they are a socialist country https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/socialism-blame-venezuelas-crisis-180530095418091.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/socialism-blame-ve...

pascalxus 8y ago

I think it's great that this is being publicized and getting attention. It took many economic mis-steps to bring such a country to it knees (printing money, restricting prices with price ceilings, import taxes, etc), I kinda wish they would focus on all the economic errors they've made, so the rest of the world can learn from those mistakes.

digi_owl 8y ago
The main error was to be the economy on heavily exporting oil, only for the oil price to tank (Thanks, Saudis). While being able to heavily export oil, they could heavily import stuff that could help the poorest of the population. But when the oil price dropped, they were loath to cut back on the support systems. Thus a massive trade deficit developed, and the exchange rate tanked. While the reasons are different, it is the same "death spiral" as one could witness in Germany between the wars, or in Zimbabwe.

AnsisMalins 8y ago

I fucking hate the modern web.

erikb 8y ago

I wonder, if you go there can you still buy stuff for USD? E.g. how does the reporter survive there? I can't imagine a journalist would drop to that quality of life he describes just for his job.

ada1981 8y ago
Many journalists put themselves in difficult situations to get a story. Some people have found work that is more than “just a job”.
probably_wrong 8y ago
If you have access to USD, you can usually exchange them quite easily - not officially, of course, but you'll find buyers: importers that will get a nice return on them, individuals who want to keep their remaining savings from disappearing, and so on.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

detcader 8y ago

"U.S. Papers Hail Venezuelan Coup as Pro-Democracy Move" - June 2002 - https://fair.org/extra/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pro-democracy-move/ https://fair.org/extra/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pr...

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Not as insane as it sounds. When the government in power is dismantling democracy, removing the government in power can in fact be a pro-democracy move. (A coup is a somewhat unusual way to do it, however...)
wazoox 8y ago
My thought exactly. This really sounds like a propaganda piece; "it's all Maduro's fault". really, I don't know. I'm not so sure.
- throwaway37585 8y ago
  As a Venezuelan, I'm curious to know what about this article makes you think it's a "propaganda piece".
  - wazoox 8y ago
    The fact that it's extremely one-sided, about a country well-known for repeated US meddling. For instance see the example of the Kellogg's factory. They present several questionable facts as given: why did Kellogg's leave the country? it's unclear. May it be in part because of US government pressure? not unlikely. Why do they present the takeover of the abandoned factory as something wrong? The owners are gone. In fact, takeover of the factory to provide work to its employees and products to its customers look like the obvious right thing to do. Maduro and his clique did many things wrong, no doubt. They failed badly at reforming the economy and making it more sustainable. They're corrupt. They probably mismanaged the country. However international sanctions are the direct cause of most of the problems that make the news daily (lack of medicine, food, etc).

StavrosK 8y ago

Are people there still using the Bolivar? Why haven't they switched to some alternative currency? Wouldn't that solve many of the current problems?

icebraining 8y ago
There are probably heavy controls on the import of foreign currencies.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  That makes sense... Cryptocurrencies might have helped there, but with how hard they are to use and with how impossible it would be to actually exchange them to and from fiat, they'd practically be no help at all.
hamstercat 8y ago
I don't know if that's still the case, but last year the government set his own rate for bolivar to USD conversion inside the country. Rates which are of course only realistic in fantasy land. The only alternative was the black market, with all it entails.

aspyct 8y ago

So... the country needs help. How do we help?

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I don't think we can. Any attempt to do so will be resisted by the government as the meddling of the imperialists, to be opposed at all costs. We either have to invade to remove the government by force (and kill a bunch of the army), or we can do very little. One thing that we might, in other circumstances, do, is to tell Columbia, for example, that any refugees that come over the border we will take, so that they don't need to try to keep them out. But under current political circumstances in the US, even that seems out of reach...
txsh 8y ago
It’s a self-inflicted wound. You can’t help. They’ll just keep killing themselves.

throw1249awy 8y ago

Opened page. Scrolled down and nothing happened. Please don't submit broken web pages in the future. Please, let's not encourage this sort of web design by linking to it. It's user hostile.

djschnei 8y ago

"Revolutionary Cornflakes"... these people are pure evil.

CNJ7654 8y ago

Lol, I spent way too much time fucking around with noscript before realizing that this page wasn't a text article

andyidsinga 8y ago

I found this maddening to watch from a technical perspective - it was beautifully produced, subtitles, video and audio - but it didn't work right in my browser! (latest chrome on win10) - the audio and subtitles didn't sync - if I touched the scroll wheel on my mouse it would rapidly generate events that caused the 'next' action - if I click on next after the audio was complete on one page there was no audio on the next page - just the subtitles. ..so I struggled through it and wondered how this was tested before they pushed it out. finally, getting to the end - I didn't see anything that actually discussed how people are actually surviving!? I lived in the USSR in the early 90s while crazy inflation was starting to happen; here are a few strategies people used in those days (in fact I and my family used too). Note that inflation got even crazier after I left - and I'm not sure what other things people did to handle that; but I suspect friends/family/connections continue to be extremely important. - they kept dollars or other western currency and traded for rubles as close to purchases as possible - everyone would use private connections with others get access to goods that we're not readily available. didn't seem to be at lot of bartering here - but taking very good care of those connections and reciprocating whenever possible. - people would grow food at their datcha - and share with their friends and sometimes sell it at local open market / bazaar. - finally, you take on any work - and I mean any work - to get a bit of extra cash - especially in foreign currency. You're not like "I'm a doctor, I've above doing ______" if someone will pay you to do ______; and you can do it - you probably will.

amenod 8y ago
For what is worth, it worked flawlessly for me (FF on Linux).
- andyidsinga 8y ago
  yeah - I'm sure it must work for most - but it was goofey for me and I didn't have the patience to open up inspector and start digging.
baybal2 8y ago
>here are a few strategies people used in those days (in fact I and my family used too). Note that inflation got even crazier after I left - and I'm not sure what other things people did to handle that; but I suspect friends/family/connections continue to be extremely important. In case of my dad things were following 1. Arm yourself 2. Hire other armed people 3. Run as fast as you can to the Far East 4. Be at good terms with all the local seamen, from military ship crews, to Korean fishing cooperative members 5. Laugh at yesterday kings bringing you stacks of Swiss Franks, and golden bricks just to get a bag of flour. My father still has a brick of pure scandium, and one of indium in his cabinet from the time some military bureaucrat gave them to him for few crates of instant noodles What played a bad joke at communists was a fact that they were buying loyalty of their military officers with lavish lifestyle and gigantic expense accounts. A two star general could've afforded a lifestyle close to that of a person making 6 digits in USA. The moment commies were unable to pay for it, and the subjective prestige value of state perks vent below that of owning a foreign made car, the ironclad loyalty vaned in just few months. There were fun times in Vladivostok

csomar 8y ago

The format is not bad. I think what made the experience a bit bad for me is the slow Internet connection. It would help if the presentation force you to wait until everything is loaded. Now back to complaining about the content: It is very light on details. I'm very interested in the Venezuela crisis but this gives practically no numbers and thus no idea about how bad the situation is.

lentil_soup 8y ago

Given the presentation doesn't actually provide how people survive, these are some "insights" into it: - Paper money is useless (as seen in the video) so everything is done via bank transfer. This has led to a very fast adoption of internet banking. You want to pay someone, you make them a transfer and show them the transaction. - There are places where paper money is needed, parking lots. You have to pay 100.000 bolivares in bills of 500. ATMs don't give you enough money to cover that, so you need to ... buy packets of money, for a premium. - Credit cards can't keep up their limits with the inflation. All the credit cards in a middle class family amount to a few dollars. - Unusual for a country like Venezuela, some weird sense of trust is now needed. You might go to get a haircut and then make a money transfer from your PC when you get home. No one wants your paper currency. - Bitcoin has become a common way of sending money from abroad to family in Venezuela. There's people that will buy it in exchange for Bolivares (Venezuelan currency) at a premium. Again, you have to trust them to hold their side of the bargain. - All of the issues above work while internet and electricity are working, which very often, doesn't. Banking infrastructure is pushed to its limits . - There's start ups trying to work around these trust and centralized systems using blockchain technology. (https://www.citywallet.net/ https://www.citywallet.net/ - in spanish)

baybal2 8y ago

An excellent read on economics of "dead economies," and why would one give a gold bar for a piece of bread is "Necroeconomics" by V. Papava https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03068290210444421 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/0306829021044...