3 ms·

Ok, forget the packing lists, advice, and all this survivalist stuff. All I want to know is what _kind of jobs_ requires preparation like this. This is not cove

Ok, forget the packing lists, advice, and all this survivalist stuff. All I want to know is what _kind of jobs_ requires preparation like this. This is not covered in the article, I have an impression - deliberately so.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
“ I perform dev and training gigs in hard-to-reach places. In the desert, in the snow, in a remote Asian village or a jungle town in Africa.”
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Yes, deliberately indeed. But I as suspect you may believe, I didn't work for the military. I worked for NGOs, governments bodies, the UN and WHO, and of course the private sector. At home I have a fridge, hot water, heating, nobody is shooting guns except in the shows I can stream in HD thanks to fiber while eating an organic avocado. So it's easy to forget a huge part of the world is not comfortable. But those areas do have a lot of human activity, and some need computers. In the article I hint about a text message base system to control a cluster of computers. That was in 2000 something, and Uganda was trying to control a big tuberculosis epidemic. The goal was to synchronize all medical outposts. In this country, this meant dozens of very remote places, in the jungle, in the mud, etc. It could take up to 3 months to gather enough data about all the cultures of each new batch to prescribe the proper treatment. Often too late. One day the NGO Find decided to attempt to create a system that would link all them using GPRS. So they sent me there. Text messages was the only thing that would be semi-reliable, and locals would plug their nokias on the batteries on their Jakartas (a popular chinese bike that was everywhere) to have them always available, so we used that, and cheap laptops to host the software. Another time I got hired at the last minute to help with a training to promote Microsoft products in remote places in the hope that once they become a market, they would chose them. When I arrived, the African MS representative gave a speech, a few t-shirts, pocketed the money, and left immediately. Without the MS expert to take a lead, I didn't have much of a plan. So I trained the entire audience how to use Linux. Good times. Want to entertain a bunch of stranded scientists on an island? Give them a Python training, it's part of the budget anyway. Want to prove some legal issues? Lock the expert with an airgap system and let him figure it out. I get all sorts of offers. Some are questionable, of course. Once the parliament of Mali asked me to craft some very shady accounting system. I refused. But I can only tell you about it only because this particular governing body have little power over me today.
- mynegation 3y ago
  OMG, thank you so much for this comment! As interesting as the original post was, it pales I comparison with this. I can understand this prep from someone with MSF or rescue team member, but I was specifically interested about software development/tech ops in this context. Stay safe and I hope one day you can write a book or two with this material, this would be epic. Please keep your memos and records. On paper if needs be. And do and verify your backups, lol, PSA for everyone reading this.
- anon7725 3y ago
  This was one of the most enjoyable HN comments I’ve ever read - you should write more about this on your blog.
- neilv 3y ago
  I was concerned when I read about trying to infect areas of presumably developing nations with MS. But it was poetic justice that there was corruption all the way down. The Linux that they got was almost certainly in their actual interests.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
AlotOfReading 3y ago
I used to be an archeologist and had a checklist of similar preparations before I would head out to the field. However, unlike the article, I couldn't pack two of everything because I had to carry it myself alongside whatever gear, shovels, samples, sieves, survey equipment, etc I had. A few things I learned though: * FOSS software was consistently the most reliable stuff I used, as it wouldn't automatically lock itself if it couldn't see the Internet every 30 days. * You need to be much more thoughtful about the code you write. Think twice, write once. * Stick to a daily power budget, and cut it in half from what you can nominally afford. * Prioritize properly. In many cases, the electronics are not the most important thing to be handled. Don't babysit them, go do camp chores and sieve dirt if it needs doing.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
defrost 3y ago
Geophysical exploration surveying for one - I've written well over a million+ SLOC and traveled through and over more than two thirds of the 190+ countries on the planet. Flying million line km grids 80m above ground at 70 m/s, driving, logging drill hole samples, positioning base stations, ground truthing the "new" WGS84 GPS datum against hundred of older paper maps and many many old ellisoids and datums, etc. It's good to be unfazed by vehicle failures, supply chain breakdowns, political upheavals, coup d'état, unexpected bad weather, wild fires, and so forth. Suprise nuclear testing was one interesting day on the job.
throwaway738585 3y ago
Drone pilot. Especially in war zones

lazyasciiart 3y ago

“ I perform dev and training gigs in hard-to-reach places. In the desert, in the snow, in a remote Asian village or a jungle town in Africa.”

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

Yes, deliberately indeed. But I as suspect you may believe, I didn't work for the military. I worked for NGOs, governments bodies, the UN and WHO, and of course the private sector. At home I have a fridge, hot water, heating, nobody is shooting guns except in the shows I can stream in HD thanks to fiber while eating an organic avocado. So it's easy to forget a huge part of the world is not comfortable. But those areas do have a lot of human activity, and some need computers. In the article I hint about a text message base system to control a cluster of computers. That was in 2000 something, and Uganda was trying to control a big tuberculosis epidemic. The goal was to synchronize all medical outposts. In this country, this meant dozens of very remote places, in the jungle, in the mud, etc. It could take up to 3 months to gather enough data about all the cultures of each new batch to prescribe the proper treatment. Often too late. One day the NGO Find decided to attempt to create a system that would link all them using GPRS. So they sent me there. Text messages was the only thing that would be semi-reliable, and locals would plug their nokias on the batteries on their Jakartas (a popular chinese bike that was everywhere) to have them always available, so we used that, and cheap laptops to host the software. Another time I got hired at the last minute to help with a training to promote Microsoft products in remote places in the hope that once they become a market, they would chose them. When I arrived, the African MS representative gave a speech, a few t-shirts, pocketed the money, and left immediately. Without the MS expert to take a lead, I didn't have much of a plan. So I trained the entire audience how to use Linux. Good times. Want to entertain a bunch of stranded scientists on an island? Give them a Python training, it's part of the budget anyway. Want to prove some legal issues? Lock the expert with an airgap system and let him figure it out. I get all sorts of offers. Some are questionable, of course. Once the parliament of Mali asked me to craft some very shady accounting system. I refused. But I can only tell you about it only because this particular governing body have little power over me today.

mynegation 3y ago
OMG, thank you so much for this comment! As interesting as the original post was, it pales I comparison with this. I can understand this prep from someone with MSF or rescue team member, but I was specifically interested about software development/tech ops in this context. Stay safe and I hope one day you can write a book or two with this material, this would be epic. Please keep your memos and records. On paper if needs be. And do and verify your backups, lol, PSA for everyone reading this.
anon7725 3y ago
This was one of the most enjoyable HN comments I’ve ever read - you should write more about this on your blog.
neilv 3y ago
I was concerned when I read about trying to infect areas of presumably developing nations with MS. But it was poetic justice that there was corruption all the way down. The Linux that they got was almost certainly in their actual interests.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

AlotOfReading 3y ago

I used to be an archeologist and had a checklist of similar preparations before I would head out to the field. However, unlike the article, I couldn't pack two of everything because I had to carry it myself alongside whatever gear, shovels, samples, sieves, survey equipment, etc I had. A few things I learned though: * FOSS software was consistently the most reliable stuff I used, as it wouldn't automatically lock itself if it couldn't see the Internet every 30 days. * You need to be much more thoughtful about the code you write. Think twice, write once. * Stick to a daily power budget, and cut it in half from what you can nominally afford. * Prioritize properly. In many cases, the electronics are not the most important thing to be handled. Don't babysit them, go do camp chores and sieve dirt if it needs doing.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

defrost 3y ago

Geophysical exploration surveying for one - I've written well over a million+ SLOC and traveled through and over more than two thirds of the 190+ countries on the planet. Flying million line km grids 80m above ground at 70 m/s, driving, logging drill hole samples, positioning base stations, ground truthing the "new" WGS84 GPS datum against hundred of older paper maps and many many old ellisoids and datums, etc. It's good to be unfazed by vehicle failures, supply chain breakdowns, political upheavals, coup d'état, unexpected bad weather, wild fires, and so forth. Suprise nuclear testing was one interesting day on the job.

throwaway738585 3y ago

Drone pilot. Especially in war zones