5 ms·
Donate to help a MySQler
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- Tichy 18y agoWish they wouldn't use Paypal.
- eznet 18y agoThere are cons, but a lot of people have a PayPal account - a lot of people who otherwise would not enter their credit card info to donate.
- mileszs 18y agoI will admit to having added incentive _because_ they were using PayPal. I know there are drawbacks, but I had funds readily available in PayPal.
- PieSquared 18y agoHuh. That site repeatedly made my Firefox (V3) crash. 5 times in a row. Weird...
- fish 18y agoConfirmed (as weird), it works fine for me.
- azharcs 18y agoI will tweet and maybe blog about this. I really can't help him much with the money part, but the least i can do is show it to people who have money.
- eisokant 18y agoI am doing the same, sent out a series of Tweets. A blog post will follow tomorrow
- matthewking 18y agoAs a leading brand in England says.. "every little helps", I'm sure they'll reach their target if everyone chips in one way or another.
- 45454564654 18y agoHow about $5? Price of a beer, or a thing in a cup from Starbucks.
- mileszs 18y agoI'm not sure why you are getting down-voted. I think some people find the idea of being poor inconceivable. Perhaps some people think that if you can post on the Internet, you should be giving money away. In any case, I know from whence you are coming. I'm sure the family would appreciate your efforts regardless. Advertising for the cause is absolutely helpful, as most Hacker News posters should know.
- azharcs 18y agoI really don't know why i am getting voted down. I am curious actually. I told a logical thing, I didn't have any money in my paypal because i had withdrawn almost all of it. But i also wanted to help him, so said will tweet and blog about it. Doesn't mean when i get funds in my paypal in a day or two, i wouldn't give him.
- petercooper 18y agoSince you're curious.. I didn't vote you down (the post is too old now) but if I were to have, it'd have been because your post didn't say anything; it just stated the obvious.
- sarehu 18y agoHe should be downvoted; there's no need for him to grand stand about how hard he's trying.
- yan 18y agoHmm donated via paypal but get this after reaching mysql's site: Checkout Cannot checkout because you have no items in your cart
- matthewking 18y agoI got the same, probably just because they've hooked it up using their default paypal options.. Got the receipt for the donation though so it goes through fine.
- paulgb 18y agoSame happened to me. Got the message but still got the receipt.
- nickb 18y agoGot the same message. Looks like something's going wrong on PayPal's backend... the link from the site looks pretty standard to me.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- giardini 18y agoThe price quoted sounds high even for the USA. http://ezinearticles.com/?Bone-Marrow-Transplant-Costs---For-Around-$30,000-and-World-Class-Surgery&id=167381 http://ezinearticles.com/?Bone-Marrow-Transplant-Costs---For... says it can be done much cheaper in India. This is not leading-edge medicine today (it was perhaps 10 years ago). But medical centers still try to charge leading-edge prices. Yet another reason we need a national health care in the USA - to get doctors out of their Mercedes, off the golf courses and back into medicine for medicine's sake.
- visava 18y agoI donated $100. But still think he should go to India for treatment. Mumbai/Delhi/Bangalore are good places
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoIt's not the doctors. It's the "benefits plan administrators" and other suchlikes.
- newt0311 18y ago"medicine for medicine's sake." Point 1: What do you think doctors are? Saints? They are human like the rest of us and would rather work for cash. They would probably also do better work if they were doing so for their own good. Case in point: Who had more food during the 1950-1980s. The US or the USSR? Point 2: What makes you think that national health care will make doctors magnanimous? Just switching the payer from individuals to the govt. (which gets its cash from individuals anyway) doesn't magically change people. If we get national health care, doctors will probably start doing exactly what government unions have done: invest in lobbyists. PS. The patient is in Ukraine. How will changing the US health care system help him?
- giardini 18y agoLet's talk about the US only for argument's sake. Point 1: Today's doctors are for the most part motivated by $. This was not so even as early as 50 years ago. We need more doctors and need to pay them less. Part of the solution: increased specialization, reduced time in medical school and a different form of health care system. This is a complex problem. The best short summary I have found is available at http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/07110?gko=56480&tid=230&pg=all http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/07110?gko=564... Scroll down and read especially "Redefining Competition" about Porter and Teisberg's ideas. Point 2: By reducing the income of doctors, we'll rid the system of the greedheads currently running the HMOs, the medical centers and the cancer institutes. People who enter medicine will be people more interested in medicine and less in accumulating a fortune. The financial motivation to get into medical school is simply too tempting currently in the US. Pre-med students are the only group in whom I have seen intentional sabotage of other (pre-med) students' work. Even worse, most pre-meds expect such behavior as normal. And consider Senator Bill Frist, M.D. repeatedly strangling kittens he obtained from the local Adopt-A-Pet in the bathroom sink to get an edge in medical school. Is this normal behavior? For today's pre-med or medical student it apparently is. Once MDs are knocked down a notch (both in pay scale and consequently in social status), PhDs will once again be able to dominate laboratory research, where they are far, far better than are MDs (who unfortunately currently dominate). We may finally get decent medical research for our government dollars. Doctors are bad researchers: their training is as scholars (i.e., they read and memorize books, books and more books) and they are good at spitting back what they've read. Training as a doctor usually destroys the ability to think independently and do good research. PS: The original article says treatment could be in the US. I took the opportunity to make a statement about the US health care system and how expensive it is. But FWIW certain changes to the US health care system would make it cheaper for anyone who could use that system.
- isaacewing 18y agoIf I had money I would donate, I don't like PayPal and don't like using them unless I have to, they should setup alternate payment methods so people have a choice on which one they prefer to use.
- rw 18y agoIncreases in guaranteed human rights must keep pace with technological and moral development.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agowhy?
- trekker7 18y agowhy not? i think the OP wasn't stating a fact, but rather making an emphatic plea to the community.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoSomebody has to provide what is being consumed! Suddenly just because some humans have the ability and capacity to provide something that others want, they are now entitled to it? That is a pretty bold claim that I think needs justification. I'm not saying I disagree, just that when you are suggesting that someone must do something, you provide your reasoning.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ckinnan 18y agoGuaranteed human rights reduce the speed of technological and moral development.
- run4yourlives 18y agoMoral Development isn't moral if it infringes on human rights. Therefore you are incorrect.
- jrockway 18y agoYeah, let's kill off everyone we don't like. They're just in the way! </sarcasm>
- sophist 18y agoWow, that picture is really manipulative.
- dgabriel 18y agoThe child we are being asked to help is on immuno-suppressants, and is, of course, required to be shielded from germs as much as possible. You're just not going to get a stock photo of baby hugging a goat.
- sophist 18y agoSo you're saying they didn't intentionally compose this picture in such a way as to increase the likelihood that people will donate? This is not hacker news. There are lots of kids out there who are in just as much need of help. This one just happens to have a father who works on an open source product.
- aditya 18y agoThis is someone whose work most hackers have directly or indirectly benefited from. This child is going to die if some people don't help - and you're worried the news item is polluting your sacrosanct daily news feed? If you can't help, don't, atleast don't NOT help? Hope this gives you some perspective.
- azharcs 18y agoWith these theory of yours, we might go around helping no one, because you can always find people more needy or helpless than the one we are helping. Nobody said this was the last time, they are doing charity. It is one step at a time. I am sure nobody is helping this child because, his father works on an open source product. If you replace the father with a fisherman or farmer, I am sure people would sympathize the same way and donate the same amount they might be doing now. A Cynic is one who knows the price of everything and value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde
- dmoney 18y ago> So you're saying they didn't intentionally compose this picture in such a way as to increase the likelihood that people will donate? If it was your kid, wouldn't you?
- jdbeast00 18y agoits a good thing that doctors accept payment in tweets
- bootload 18y ago"... Donations are requested to help Andrii Nikitin, a MySQL support engineer in Ukraine, provide for his son Ivan who requires a bone marrow transplant operation. The cost of this operation is expected to be between €150,000 - €250,000 ($235,000 - $400,000). Please help us provide Ivan a chance to live ..." I know this could be seen as a heartless gesture but has anyone verified with MySql that Andrii Nikitin is who the page claims? I know this is shown off the mysql site but that's just a webpage. Does anyone personally/professionally know Andrii? Does anyone know Andrii at MySql? It would help greatly Anreii's cause if MySql "officially" set up an MySql postal account allowing non paypal money orders, cheques etc to be passed on if they use MySql by name.
- aneesh 18y agoHis name is on some MySQL bug reports.(http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=32930 http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=32930) There's also an address for postal mail, and info for wire transfers (http://www.theopenforce.com/2008/07/andrii-nikitin.html http://www.theopenforce.com/2008/07/andrii-nikitin.html) I agree, they should perhaps add this information to the main MySQL site.
- wheels 18y agoDoes anyone else find it a little disheartening that despite being hosted on a MySQL / SUN site, and despite this meaning that they're obviously not providing his family with health insurance, that they're not even offering to do any contribution matching? I'd hope for a little more from a small-ish company that just got bought for a billion dollars.
- tx 18y agoWhy do you assume that every country is a little copy of US? Ukraine uses old soviet-era state-sponsored medical system free for all citizens, i.e. you don't need an insurance. Even if he's got some kind of supplementary private insurance for private clinics, it obviously won't cover procedures in other countries, just like most American insurance companies.
- Tichy 18y agoYes, I admit I had the same thought. I would imagine if I was the CEO, I would maybe just pay the bill. But who knows what other things there are, maybe that kind of approach is not feasible.
- run4yourlives 18y agoThe biggest issue with that is that if you pay this bill, when someone else wife gets cancer, do you pay that bill too? I do agree though that they should be doing something other than asking everyone else to fork over cash.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoOnce again HN proves that its community is not only made of smart individuals, but caring and thoughtful individuals. I am glad I am here.
- tx 18y agoI submitted this to Reddit. Vote up: http://www.reddit.com/info/6sclv/comments http://www.reddit.com/info/6sclv/comments
- anewaccountname 18y agoSerious question: why should I donate for this cause when I can donate for vaccines or famine relief and literally save orders of magnitude more people?
- mlinsey 18y agoSerious counter-question: Do you donate to those causes? If you do, are you donating as much as you possibly can? In any case, it's natural to look out first for those in your own community (although admittedly you have to have an extremely broad definition of "community" for that to apply here). Yeah, we could get into philosophical debates about how it would actually be better to save more people by looking outside of your community, but this discussion is strictly academic if we aren't already donating as much as we feasibly can. We shouldn't critique steps in the right direction (helping others more) just because they are imperfect.
- wheels 18y agoDonate where you feel inspired to donate; applaud those donating to good causes that don't inspire you. It's not an optimization problem.
- rms 18y agoYou could help a lot if you just called or emailed Sun and told them. There are a lot of email addresses and phone numbers for Sun PR people here, I'm sure they would like to know about this story. http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/contacts/index.jsp http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/contacts/index.jsp
- petercooper 18y agoThey'd like to know about a story from their own company?
- Kaizyn 18y agoDollar for dollar, such donations do more good for more people than a donation to help save the one life. However, it's easier for people to relate to individual tragedies than it is to the faceless masses who collectively are in greater need.
- codeLullaby 18y agoIts possible to do bone marrow transplantation for approx. $10000 here in Kerala(South India). The service is world class. Can someone close to MySQL/SUN pass this information? Here is a press report : http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/04/stories/2005080411550300.htm http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/04/stories/2005080411550300.htm The hospital: http://lakeshorehospital.com http://lakeshorehospital.com