7 ms·

Call for Code – Developer competition that seeks solutions for natural disasters

83 points by hownottowrite 7y ago

Giorgi 7y ago
I bet there are already projects in the making that will immediately claim the cash prize.
- codingdave 7y ago
  From their FAQ: "Applications must be new and built for the 2019 competition between February 12 and July 29 2019, but they may use code that was open sourced and available to all other participants as of February 12, 2019. Other than that, almost anything goes, and you can use any coding languages or open-source libraries."
psychometry 7y ago
Stop subsidizing flood insurance for people who live in places that are constantly underwater. Where's my check?
cameronbrown 7y ago
This is very much buzzwords-first and not problems-first. > Blockchain Ironic that such a power-hungry technology be used in dealing with natural disasters. If anything, it's just contributing to global warming. Can we please stop pretending that everything on Earth needs a blockchain?
- roro159 7y ago
  Blockchain != PoW. There are plenty of blockchains without the problems you described (like IBM's Hyperledger).
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Also blockchain != distributed.
- dralley 7y ago
  Some of the supply chain applications are interesting because it's more corruption resistant. As a currency (and a lot of other hyped applications), I agree with you, almost totally useless.
wajdix 7y ago
It is just a stunt from IBM to promote their WATSON software. a 200k$ prize is a small price to pay to get dozens of smart people to team up and work/test/enhance your products for free...
- mv4 7y ago
  It's more than that. IBM is trying to win developer mind share, future tech decision makers are strategically important to them in their current situation.
  - marsRoverDev 7y ago
    I think they might need to accelerate their efforts, I think a lot of people here look at them in a very negative light.
    - wajdix 7y ago
      I agree with you. IBM is late to the show and far behind in terms of Data Scientists using their tools and technologies. I myself ( statistician and data scientist) used IBM products for a short period of time in the context of a PoC. my experience is that, using python/R is much better in the long run than using proprietary software that costs 100k $/year in licencee fees, without forgetting the training /setup cost that comes with any migration to IBM suite.
      - Bartweiss 7y ago
        > using python/R is much better in the long run than using proprietary software that costs 100k $/year in license fees It does seem like IBM has been caught out by freely available alternatives which are simply better at most scales. It reminds me of what happened to companies selling compilers or corporate VOIP solutions; they didn't just fail to keep up with the market, their entire market was supplanted by open-source solutions and single features in much larger offerings. IBM has made a fairly productive effort to avoid that, I think, via their consulting/outsourcing divisions and value-added things like cloud solutions. As a result, their data science products are still appealing in terms of ecosystem integration and strong support options for less-technical buyers. But that doesn't seem like a wonderful position to be in long term, since it puts them in competition with AWS/GCP on one end and free tools on the other.
ikeyany 7y ago
This piece of code has been run for thousands of years and I see no reason why it shouldn't work now: do pray(); while (badThing); I accept PayPal.
- jxub 7y ago
  I don't think that pseudocode would work, I'd be more inclined to use something moral and secure like Rust.
  - Isamu 7y ago
    Surely we can encode morality in blockchain
    - 8ytecoder 7y ago
      I feel like a trojan that hijacks all existing blockchains and kill them would do more good to climate change than any other idea we could possibly come up with. We are burning an awful amount of electricity on something that's not being used for any practical purpose but only by speculators and "investors".
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      A permanent, distributed ledger of morals would at least be a nice gift to future historians. Now if only we could establish a correctness proof as well...
- derp_dee_derp 7y ago
  I know you're just being flip, but the benefits of "thoughts and prayers" isn't solely to ask some imaginary being for help. The benefit is that it directs the attention of the community at large towards the problem. This raises awareness with the hope that those with the means to help will do so. Its an anti-fragile method of asking the community for help without knowing the specifics of how they can help. actually, now that I think about it, "Thoughts and Prayers" is no different than a "Call for Code" except that it is generalized to all society instead of just software developers.
Gravityloss 7y ago
An idea: provide a service for house buyers and job seekers: see which cities and neighborhoods are in danger of being inundated in the future. Probably it could be integrated with some real estate platform - calculate a simple risk score for the listing using open elevation and traffic data. We need to start controlled abandonment of those areas already many decades early - starting from not investing more into building there. This is a very cheap way of massive scale disaster preparedness: not having people where the disaster happens.
- deelowe 7y ago
  Do insurance companies not already do this sort of thing?
  - Gravityloss 7y ago
    I don't know if they look so far ahead? Ie if insurance is just for a few years at a time at once? There's a paper that proposes long term property insurance, which makes it seem the one year contract is the standard? http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/J2010(JIR)_DJ,HK,EMK_LongTermProptyIns.pdf http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/J2010(JIR)_DJ,HK,...
    - deelowe 7y ago
      Ahh. That makes sense. So insurance is more interested in the potential for a claim within the current policy cycle and not the long term risk.
      - Bartweiss 7y ago
        That, and in some cases highly-correlated risks get dismissed altogether. If your neighborhood floods, that's a bunch of insurance claims, but if your city floods, that's potentially a bailout, bankruptcy, or contract exemption for the insurer. (In some cases, like sea level rise in Florida, there's already an understanding that the state is subsidizing insurance that wouldn't be available otherwise.) So I could definitely imagine some value for a buyer-focused service that carries information about all known risk, not just covered/unsubsidized risk.
wishrider 7y ago
I could build a disaster-response version of my wish page https://wishpage.tv/places https://wishpage.tv/places People could place a request (or a wish) on the map, that request is public and visible. People at the location can pick up a request (e.g. to make a video or to fly a drone over a volcano). Other people can up-vote requests and even attach money to them (rewards for fulfillment).
rdiddly 7y ago
Do people really think software is the element that's missing from current disaster prep & recovery efforts? I would've picked money or maybe leadership. Maybe I'm unimaginative.
- spraak 7y ago
  Exactly. Natural disasters aren't even real, so to speak. They are just weather events that have large scale economic and social impact, i.e. the problem isn't really the storm, but how humans are prepared or not to handle it. If a hurricane hits an island with no human influence or concern, is it still a natural disaster?
- Datenstrom 7y ago
  > I would've picked money or maybe leadership. I think autonomous systems and AI can greatly reduce the cost of disaster recovery. Search and rescue using drones for example, the NASA Autonomy Incubator was working on a system like that with MIT while I was there [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/2hRNx_0SWGw https://youtu.be/2hRNx_0SWGw
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  I certainly don't think missing software is the problem for disaster recovery, but there's something to be said for the idea that disaster recovery is missing from software instead. Two examples that come to mind: Facebook developing their "check in as safe" feature for disasters, and Uber adding one-sided surge pricing so that they can respond to post-disaster demand without raising prices. Uber's move was mostly about fixing a prior oversight, but Facebook's has provided some fairly novel benefit. Basic mobile internet is both more widely available and more disaster-proof than other communications, so it's a welcome improvement on "people flood the phone system trying to call loved ones". That said, the biggest opportunities here seem to be in disaster-awareness from developers of existing software. IBM's pitch of "come create novel software for disaster response" looks rather less convincing.
thaumaturgy 7y ago
Oof. I've got some training and experience in disaster management, including being a part of the overhead team for the Camp Fire last year through my county's search and rescue team. The things they're advertising here just aren't the things that disaster teams need. Nobody on a natural disaster has ever said, "you know what would make this so much easier? ...Blockchain." The only part of the Camp Fire that would satisfy a tech boner would've been Alameda County's drone team. It turns out that they've been fostering a pretty good drone team and they were able to do flyovers of large sections of the disaster area, capturing imagery down to 1cm resolution and piping it back to a mobile GIS center that looked straight out of an episode of CSI. Their work was good enough to satisfy the requirements for a lot of insurance adjusters who would ordinarily have had to physically visit the site. It could've sped up the entire search and recovery operation by several days if it weren't for CalFire's insistence on redoing all of it with pen and paper. The number one technological need for disaster work is communications, hands down. One of the first pieces of infrastructure that falls apart during a major disaster is communications, and it's also the most urgent tech problem to solve, every time, because you can't have teams out in a disaster area with bad comms. We really need some kind of reliable, fast-deploying, low-maintenance radio and cellular infrastructure, and nobody's figured that out yet. Probably the next big pain point is GIS or data management. Our current GIS software is good enough in the hands of skilled operators, but getting data into and out of it is labor intensive and its dataviz isn't exactly cutting edge. A mobile app that interfaced well with it and allowed search teams to bring up a search segment with a limited amount of data through a text message or QR code would be badass. On the data management side, every single event, item of interest, and squawk of radio traffic has to be logged. Every single one. For a big disaster, this turns into reams and reams of dense paperwork and hundreds of man-hours to compile it all. And when teams arrive at IC in the morning, they have to fill out information cards and receive printed packets every single time, because there's no state-level coordinated database of DSWs and no way to quickly organize them by skillsets. This slows down deployment by around 2 hours in the hands of a top-of-the-line management team, and by much more when the incident management team is less experienced. If you're seriously interested in pursuing any of this, feel free to contact me at the email address in my profile. We've already started inter-agency training events for this year's next wildland-urban-interface fire.
- 7y ago
sara7262 7y ago
They found world's biggest fish Even you can't believe how big fish is this That's unbelievable http://bit.ly/2FHl4pM http://bit.ly/2FHl4pM A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs See how a Turkey saved the life of his friends Even those birds also have love in their hearts http://bit.ly/2WhAiZS http://bit.ly/2WhAiZS Sometimes our feet smell are so bad even we feel ashamed due to our feet smell Now you can get rid from this just follow this simple method https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html Guy made world record He drive car on two wheels See his video how he is driving http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX

83 points by hownottowrite 7y ago

Giorgi 7y ago

I bet there are already projects in the making that will immediately claim the cash prize.

codingdave 7y ago
From their FAQ: "Applications must be new and built for the 2019 competition between February 12 and July 29 2019, but they may use code that was open sourced and available to all other participants as of February 12, 2019. Other than that, almost anything goes, and you can use any coding languages or open-source libraries."

psychometry 7y ago

Stop subsidizing flood insurance for people who live in places that are constantly underwater. Where's my check?

cameronbrown 7y ago

This is very much buzzwords-first and not problems-first. > Blockchain Ironic that such a power-hungry technology be used in dealing with natural disasters. If anything, it's just contributing to global warming. Can we please stop pretending that everything on Earth needs a blockchain?

roro159 7y ago
Blockchain != PoW. There are plenty of blockchains without the problems you described (like IBM's Hyperledger).
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  Also blockchain != distributed.
dralley 7y ago
Some of the supply chain applications are interesting because it's more corruption resistant. As a currency (and a lot of other hyped applications), I agree with you, almost totally useless.

wajdix 7y ago

It is just a stunt from IBM to promote their WATSON software. a 200k$ prize is a small price to pay to get dozens of smart people to team up and work/test/enhance your products for free...

mv4 7y ago
It's more than that. IBM is trying to win developer mind share, future tech decision makers are strategically important to them in their current situation.
- marsRoverDev 7y ago
  I think they might need to accelerate their efforts, I think a lot of people here look at them in a very negative light.
  - wajdix 7y ago
    I agree with you. IBM is late to the show and far behind in terms of Data Scientists using their tools and technologies. I myself ( statistician and data scientist) used IBM products for a short period of time in the context of a PoC. my experience is that, using python/R is much better in the long run than using proprietary software that costs 100k $/year in licencee fees, without forgetting the training /setup cost that comes with any migration to IBM suite.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      > using python/R is much better in the long run than using proprietary software that costs 100k $/year in license fees It does seem like IBM has been caught out by freely available alternatives which are simply better at most scales. It reminds me of what happened to companies selling compilers or corporate VOIP solutions; they didn't just fail to keep up with the market, their entire market was supplanted by open-source solutions and single features in much larger offerings. IBM has made a fairly productive effort to avoid that, I think, via their consulting/outsourcing divisions and value-added things like cloud solutions. As a result, their data science products are still appealing in terms of ecosystem integration and strong support options for less-technical buyers. But that doesn't seem like a wonderful position to be in long term, since it puts them in competition with AWS/GCP on one end and free tools on the other.

ikeyany 7y ago

This piece of code has been run for thousands of years and I see no reason why it shouldn't work now: do pray(); while (badThing); I accept PayPal.

jxub 7y ago
I don't think that pseudocode would work, I'd be more inclined to use something moral and secure like Rust.
- Isamu 7y ago
  Surely we can encode morality in blockchain
  - 8ytecoder 7y ago
    I feel like a trojan that hijacks all existing blockchains and kill them would do more good to climate change than any other idea we could possibly come up with. We are burning an awful amount of electricity on something that's not being used for any practical purpose but only by speculators and "investors".
  - Bartweiss 7y ago
    A permanent, distributed ledger of morals would at least be a nice gift to future historians. Now if only we could establish a correctness proof as well...
derp_dee_derp 7y ago
I know you're just being flip, but the benefits of "thoughts and prayers" isn't solely to ask some imaginary being for help. The benefit is that it directs the attention of the community at large towards the problem. This raises awareness with the hope that those with the means to help will do so. Its an anti-fragile method of asking the community for help without knowing the specifics of how they can help. actually, now that I think about it, "Thoughts and Prayers" is no different than a "Call for Code" except that it is generalized to all society instead of just software developers.

Gravityloss 7y ago

An idea: provide a service for house buyers and job seekers: see which cities and neighborhoods are in danger of being inundated in the future. Probably it could be integrated with some real estate platform - calculate a simple risk score for the listing using open elevation and traffic data. We need to start controlled abandonment of those areas already many decades early - starting from not investing more into building there. This is a very cheap way of massive scale disaster preparedness: not having people where the disaster happens.

deelowe 7y ago
Do insurance companies not already do this sort of thing?
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  I don't know if they look so far ahead? Ie if insurance is just for a few years at a time at once? There's a paper that proposes long term property insurance, which makes it seem the one year contract is the standard? http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/J2010(JIR)_DJ,HK,EMK_LongTermProptyIns.pdf http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/library/J2010(JIR)_DJ,HK,...
  - deelowe 7y ago
    Ahh. That makes sense. So insurance is more interested in the potential for a claim within the current policy cycle and not the long term risk.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      That, and in some cases highly-correlated risks get dismissed altogether. If your neighborhood floods, that's a bunch of insurance claims, but if your city floods, that's potentially a bailout, bankruptcy, or contract exemption for the insurer. (In some cases, like sea level rise in Florida, there's already an understanding that the state is subsidizing insurance that wouldn't be available otherwise.) So I could definitely imagine some value for a buyer-focused service that carries information about all known risk, not just covered/unsubsidized risk.

wishrider 7y ago

I could build a disaster-response version of my wish page https://wishpage.tv/places https://wishpage.tv/places People could place a request (or a wish) on the map, that request is public and visible. People at the location can pick up a request (e.g. to make a video or to fly a drone over a volcano). Other people can up-vote requests and even attach money to them (rewards for fulfillment).

rdiddly 7y ago

Do people really think software is the element that's missing from current disaster prep & recovery efforts? I would've picked money or maybe leadership. Maybe I'm unimaginative.

spraak 7y ago
Exactly. Natural disasters aren't even real, so to speak. They are just weather events that have large scale economic and social impact, i.e. the problem isn't really the storm, but how humans are prepared or not to handle it. If a hurricane hits an island with no human influence or concern, is it still a natural disaster?
Datenstrom 7y ago
> I would've picked money or maybe leadership. I think autonomous systems and AI can greatly reduce the cost of disaster recovery. Search and rescue using drones for example, the NASA Autonomy Incubator was working on a system like that with MIT while I was there [1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/2hRNx_0SWGw https://youtu.be/2hRNx_0SWGw
Bartweiss 7y ago
I certainly don't think missing software is the problem for disaster recovery, but there's something to be said for the idea that disaster recovery is missing from software instead. Two examples that come to mind: Facebook developing their "check in as safe" feature for disasters, and Uber adding one-sided surge pricing so that they can respond to post-disaster demand without raising prices. Uber's move was mostly about fixing a prior oversight, but Facebook's has provided some fairly novel benefit. Basic mobile internet is both more widely available and more disaster-proof than other communications, so it's a welcome improvement on "people flood the phone system trying to call loved ones". That said, the biggest opportunities here seem to be in disaster-awareness from developers of existing software. IBM's pitch of "come create novel software for disaster response" looks rather less convincing.

thaumaturgy 7y ago

Oof. I've got some training and experience in disaster management, including being a part of the overhead team for the Camp Fire last year through my county's search and rescue team. The things they're advertising here just aren't the things that disaster teams need. Nobody on a natural disaster has ever said, "you know what would make this so much easier? ...Blockchain." The only part of the Camp Fire that would satisfy a tech boner would've been Alameda County's drone team. It turns out that they've been fostering a pretty good drone team and they were able to do flyovers of large sections of the disaster area, capturing imagery down to 1cm resolution and piping it back to a mobile GIS center that looked straight out of an episode of CSI. Their work was good enough to satisfy the requirements for a lot of insurance adjusters who would ordinarily have had to physically visit the site. It could've sped up the entire search and recovery operation by several days if it weren't for CalFire's insistence on redoing all of it with pen and paper. The number one technological need for disaster work is communications, hands down. One of the first pieces of infrastructure that falls apart during a major disaster is communications, and it's also the most urgent tech problem to solve, every time, because you can't have teams out in a disaster area with bad comms. We really need some kind of reliable, fast-deploying, low-maintenance radio and cellular infrastructure, and nobody's figured that out yet. Probably the next big pain point is GIS or data management. Our current GIS software is good enough in the hands of skilled operators, but getting data into and out of it is labor intensive and its dataviz isn't exactly cutting edge. A mobile app that interfaced well with it and allowed search teams to bring up a search segment with a limited amount of data through a text message or QR code would be badass. On the data management side, every single event, item of interest, and squawk of radio traffic has to be logged. Every single one. For a big disaster, this turns into reams and reams of dense paperwork and hundreds of man-hours to compile it all. And when teams arrive at IC in the morning, they have to fill out information cards and receive printed packets every single time, because there's no state-level coordinated database of DSWs and no way to quickly organize them by skillsets. This slows down deployment by around 2 hours in the hands of a top-of-the-line management team, and by much more when the incident management team is less experienced. If you're seriously interested in pursuing any of this, feel free to contact me at the email address in my profile. We've already started inter-agency training events for this year's next wildland-urban-interface fire.

7y ago

sara7262 7y ago

They found world's biggest fish Even you can't believe how big fish is this That's unbelievable http://bit.ly/2FHl4pM http://bit.ly/2FHl4pM A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs See how a Turkey saved the life of his friends Even those birds also have love in their hearts http://bit.ly/2WhAiZS http://bit.ly/2WhAiZS Sometimes our feet smell are so bad even we feel ashamed due to our feet smell Now you can get rid from this just follow this simple method https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/04/Smelly-feet.html Guy made world record He drive car on two wheels See his video how he is driving http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX http://bit.ly/2ZOYaWX