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AMA with Barack Obama
- staunch 14y agoOne way to handle this kind of thing would be to setup a separate stack just for Obama. obama.reddit.com running on a separate web/db/etc. That way even if everyone else is slowed down he can keep going. Of course it entirely depends on where the problem was, but this kind of thing tends to work in a lot of cases.
- Codhisattva 14y agoSeems to have crashed reddit.com at the moment.
- irlackadaisical 14y agoI came here to say that too
- fumonko 14y agoWhy does reddit crash so often?
- Codhisattva 14y agoReading from database is hard.
- bgilroy26 14y agoIt's a tough site to run because hundreds of thousands of people have write access to the database and reddit attempts to provide the millions of people reading the comments pages with up-to-the-fraction-of-a-second updates. It's like running a tenth of a twitter with a 10k char limit, if twitter had 10 people on development/operations
- xxpor 14y ago>up-to-the-fraction-of-a-second updates. I don't think that's true. I believe the comment pages are cached for 1 min.
- _delirium 14y agoI've anecdotally noticed an increase in stale pages lately as well, which I would guess is from more aggressive caching. For example, new submissions used to show up instantly, but on popular subreddits may now take a few minutes to show up on the New tab.
- xxpor 14y agoIf someone really wants to figure it out: https://github.com/reddit/reddit https://github.com/reddit/reddit
- peterjmag 14y agoTo be fair, it seems to have improved dramatically in the last couple of months.
- morsegeek 14y agoI'm able to access through Alien Blue on iPhone but not through a desktop browser. Worth a try.
- mathieuh 14y agoSomeone ask Obama how many war crimes he's committed.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoRampart.
- cryptoz 14y agoThat's the nice thing about reddit - if you care about a topic, you can make a post! Edit: To clarify, I think it's an excellent question. It's just very lazy of you to ask someone else to do it.
- Keyframe 14y agoNot if it's down already.
- logjam 14y agoI don't understand how a question with an unsupported/uncited premise equivalent to "do you still beat your wife?" constitutes "an excellent question".
- mathieuh 14y agoHe literally has a button which kills people.
- waqf 14y agoAny button kills people if you throw it hard enough.
- anonymoushn 14y agoWould it be a better question if it specifically mentioned that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the disposal of his body violated the Geneva Convention?
- 14y ago
- porterhaney 14y agoI think it's particularly interesting to watch some internet event go "mainstream" and watch even large services like reddit strain under the load. Put some perspective around how many people true mainstream media services reach.
- Codhisattva 14y agoYes indeed. The scalability of Amazon.com is truly a work of engineering genius.
- RandallBrown 14y agoFrom what I've heard from Amazon employees, it's barely holding together and hardly genius. Of course, that same scalability (AWS) is what powers Reddit and dozens of other major websites.
- Codhisattva 14y agoIt's been a few years but when I saw Amazon's architecture overview presentation at OSCON it was brilliant work.
- jvanderwal 14y agoI would be very interested in seeing some traffic stats once this is over.
- sukuriant 14y agoI was just going to say that. While, Reddit's not "down" for me, every time I click the "show more comments" button, red text that says "loading" shows up and it ... never ... loads. Considering Reddit's usual traffic, this must be a truly unprecedented weight on the servers.
- mindcrime 14y agoWeird... I am guessing that if Obama was going to be on Reddit, they would have given the Reddit staff some early notice, in order to add some extra preparations for the load. Or maybe not, does anybody know if there's any sort of normal protocol around this sort of thing?
- presidentender 14y agoIt'll be down the entire time he's supposed to be answering questions.
- unreal37 14y agoLet the conspiracy theories start. Did the Republicans DDOS the server to stop the President from connecting with Redditors, or did the Democrats do it so that the President wouldn't have to really answer any tough questions but just say he did? Or is it the work of Terrorists? Or Kevin Rose's final revenge?
- lallysingh 14y agoI don't think Reddit crashing requires a conspiracy.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- aaronpk 14y agoI wonder how many new user accounts Reddit is going to get today given that Barack posted a link to that thread on his Twitter account.
- cjdrake 14y agoI was able to load a few pages, but I can't find any of PresidentObama's answers to any questions. What a gyp :).
- slouch 14y agoGo directly here to avoid the huge comment page: http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama If you need to read the question, click "context."
- jessriedel 14y agoWhat slouch said. Also note that it was submitted 22 minutes ago and he has answered 2 questions, 1 and 3 minutes ago.
- darrenkopp 14y agoProbably because reddit is dying under the load right now.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- AceJohnny2 14y agoLike many, I've unsubscribed from all the default reddits for a more, eh, 'curated' experience. I was wondering why Reddit was having load trouble. This explains it.
- Jem 14y agoI love that Reddit humour is prevalent on even the most serious of AMAs. I can't log in though, which is slightly annoying. Would be interesting to see the traffic stats for this once it's done.
- MrMember 14y agoWhat does Reddit 'humour' consist of in this case? Tired pun threads? (He did Nazi that coming, Anne Frankly...) Reddit 'celebrities' posting inane comments with all of the child comments consisting of people fawning over them? A Shitty_Watercolor painting? Someone referencing Rampart like it hasn't already been done in every single IAmA since it happened?
- Dirlewanger 14y agoThis is pretty cool...if you like canned PR replies that haven't been repeated ad nausaem (sp?) elsewhere.
- pav3l 14y agoThis is supposed to be him live http://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240909486234161152/photo/1 http://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/240909486234161152/pho...
- Dirlewanger 14y agoYou really must not understand how PR works for public figures.
- pav3l 14y ago>supposed to be
- irollboozers 14y agoThe reddit team must be absolutely shitting themselves right now under strain. How the hell do you accurately predict the load when the President is using your site?
- dominicmauro 14y agoI don't know, but I hope they post a graph of the traffic spike.
- veb 14y agoI hope they frame it!
- irollboozers 14y ago'and this spike right here was our happiest DDOS in company history...'
- brown9-2 14y agoI imagine the emotions at Reddit HQ must be all over the place for employees right now: - This is so cool, the President of the United States is going to use our website to answer questions! - OMG, the site is down and the President wants to use our site, fix this now!
- waterlesscloud 14y agoI can't imagine this hasn't been negotiated by the White House ahead of time.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- moistgorilla 14y agoThere are already more than enough questions. What I'm wondering is how the president is going to answer anything if the website is down.
- corin_ 14y agoHe won't be F5ing the page himself, nor will he be typing in answers, so I'm sure answers will just appear as and when his staff are able to post them.
- X-Istence 14y agoI was just discussing this with colleagues, maybe he gets access to a special page where he can answer questions without going through the standard load balancer/database stack. At least, that's what I would do if I had some as high profile as the US president using a site that would get slammed HARD.
- untog 14y agoCan't wait for the top post to be another asinine "comment phrased as a question" about legalising marijuana! Joking aside, I predict disappointment. Reddit users will want hard-hitting answers, Obama will definitely not give them (already the internet freedom question has been fluffy-answered). In all honestly, no-one should expect anything else- the POTUS is not going to unveil new thoughts and strategies through Reddit. That said, it shows how far they've come from the "jailbait" scandal a few months ago, but I strongly suspect Republicans will refer back to it in good time. EDIT: Hey, at least PresidentObama bought Reddit Gold. Somehow I doubt it'll be enough to cover the bandwidth, though.
- mathieuh 14y ago> I strongly suspect Republicans will refer back to it in good time. It will then be followed by a scurry of liberals saying the Republicans did it just to discredit Obama.
- revorad 14y agoThe President of United States is doing a Reddit AMA and all you can do is predict disappointment? Really? Why bother? If you're wrong, your comment will seem too negative and cynical (which it is). If you're right, well, that'd be disappointing, right? Comments like yours make me want to rename this site Hater News.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoDo you think there will be actual answers in the spirit of an AMA? I don't see how anyone could truthfully expect that.
- untog 14y agoI'm trying to lay out what I think are the reasonable expectations from this AMA, and how they differ from what a lot of people will want. I'm sorry if this somehow offends you. In the future I'll try my best to be unrelentingly positive about everything, despite the evidence presented to me. Don't get me wrong, it's a bold and somewhat brave move by the Obama team to do this- there are myriad ways it can blow up in their faces (Rampart, anyone?). But as a consequence of that, they're going to be playing it very safe, I'm sure.
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoNo flying cars or moon bases; just average people off the street able to talk directly to the "leader of the free world" on level ground. Not the future we were expecting, but I'll take it.
- learc83 14y agoWhile, cool, this is no different than town hall meetings we've had since the inception of the Republic.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoIt's potentially very different in that on Reddit questions are voted up, giving an indication of how many people attach value to it. In theory this would make ignoring difficult questions a lot harder. In practice, in this situation, he can breeze by them all and never return.
- pnathan 14y agoWell, it used to be you had to travel to D.C., or the president had to travel to your area.
- learc83 14y agoYou could always write a letter, you've probably got just about the same chance that he'll actually reply with a non-canned answer, and there have been telephone conference town hall meetings for decades.
- Lukeas14 14y agoIt's also very different since our population is now 300+ million as opposed to 3+ million at the inception. Any one of those 300 million could potentially have asked the president a question, not limited by geography or social/financial status.
- freehunter 14y ago
- 001sky 14y agoGlad too see the peanut gallery keeping it light _____________________________ demaney 69 points 28 minutes ago For proof, did he send you a picture of him holding a dated index card? Or did the Secret Service land a helicopter on your house? yishan 183 points 25 minutes ago He faxed a copy of his birth certificate.
- pilom 14y agoJust his responses. Clicking "context" gives you the previous message: http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama
- fpp 14y agoDoing an AMA on Reddit does more for global health than mobilizing the 6th fleet
- mparlane 14y ago"reddit is under heavy load right now, sorry. Try again in a few minutes." Oh dear..
- 001sky 14y agoAnd although their will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals [sic] THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS -[engineers everywhere] Edited: for relevance ;) Edit2: SIC WTF? - per comments below Edit3: Downvotes? Wow. POTUS commenting on IP Law, Privacy, Internet Freedom. etc. PLS Read the context. It was included. Tks. ________ [–]SharkGirl 812 points 32 minutes ago We know how Republicans feel about protecting Internet Freedom. Is Internet Freedom an issue you'd push to add to the Democratic Party's 2012 platform? [–]PresidentObama[S] 130 points 10 minutes ago Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too. We will fight hard to make sure that the internet remains the open forum for everybody - from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business. And although their will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won't stray from that principle - and it will be reflected in the platform. load more comments (25 replies) [–]davidjoho 104 points 29 minutes ago And when you say "Internet Freedom" do you mean the Republican version ("Freedom for the access provider monopoly") or the version in which the Internet is free to anyone with an idea or an expression?
- msilenus 14y ago> And although their will be occasional disagreements on the details of... One would think that the president of the united states would be able to use "their" and "there" correctly...
- X-Istence 14y agoJust shows that he is human...
- weaksauce 14y agoOr typing fast because he only has 30min to answer questions. or it's an intern.
- Kilimanjaro 14y agoInterns these days. I remember the old Clinton days. You couldn't type correctly with both hands busy and your mouth full. Aah, those were the days.
- hooande 14y agoDoes anyone know more about how reddit does booking for their iama? They have a schedule and consistently book notable people. Do they have a staff dedicated to it?
- ramidarigaz 14y agoAMAs are strictly user-run. The mods of the IAMA subreddit do a lot of work, although I think they do get a bit of support from the admins.
- Aldor 14y agoI think the mods for r/iama take care of it.
- danso 14y agoA couple colleagues from my company have done scheduled IAMA's...I believe our communications people reached out to the mods, who then put it on the sidebar schedule.
- creativityland 14y agoAnd Reddit becomes inaccessible for the remainder of the week...
- arrrg 14y agoVery strange that he would wade into this (racist/sexist/…) cesspool.
- astrolabos 14y agoobama killed reddit :p
- longbirthcert 14y agoHow do you suppose they will verify identity?
- pav3l 14y agohttp://twitter.com/BarackObama http://twitter.com/BarackObama
- longbirthcert 14y ago/wooshingsound
- Kilimanjaro 14y agoHeavy load? Is there a site in the internets that can handle a billion connections? Because sooner or later we will get there. Shame on all of us!
- deno 14y agoAkamai handles that billion connections. “All” Reddit has to do is handle the database transactions. They’re also serving all signed in users directly, from a secondary cache, but this is the kind of traffic they already handle on regular basis anyway.
- iblaine 14y agoReddit.com is down. Pretty poor capacity planning. Having spent the better part of this month trying to accomodate spikes in traffic up to 100k concurrent users then receiving just a fraction of that, I am jealous of Reddit's lazy effort.
- allforJesse 14y agoThe President appears to have crashed his AMA.
- brittohalloran 14y agoWhen Obama refreshes and gets the "You broke reddit" error 500 page it's actually true
- waterlesscloud 14y agoI would be very much in favor of political leaders doing AMAs on a regular basis. Monthly, or heck, weekly like PMQTs. Connect with the people more often and more directly. Eventually those politicians who made genuine connections would perform better on AMAs than those that simply regurgitated the usual talking points. That kind of thing could make a real difference. I think the odds are against it since it would remove some of the buffer that the current style of message-controlled, divide-and-conquer, us-v-them politics absolutely depends on. But we can dream.
- nchuhoai 14y agofor redditors having trouble reading the page: log out your profile and you will get served the cache for the 99%, at least thats why theory why it works for me
- skystorm 14y agoIt's too late now (I presume the AMA is over), but private browsing or incognito mode has the same effect.
- ashray 14y agoIt looks like the Obama AMA has really caused some serious fires in reddit's backend infrastructure. The site's been down for the last 10 minutes. I would've thought that they'd have brought in some additional computing power for such an event, should've been easy for them considering they have a cloud deployment. Maybe this gives them greater reason to hire more engineers. I found it impressive that they served billions of impressions with just 2 engineers a short while ago.. Also, it says a lot about the "Come Cloud with us, we'll help you scale" marketing bandwagon. We've seen time and again issues with EC2s infrastructure and if EC2 doesn't have issues right now (http://status.aws.amazon.com/ http://status.aws.amazon.com/) then it's just sad that they can't order a gazillion instances for this event and have it scale easily. Definitely makes me think that we still have a long way to go to compute in a truly 'elastic' way. reddit definitely does have some crazy infrastructure in place but this would've been one of the most important moments in reddit history (so far..) and I'm sad to see that their engineers are probably going to get blamed for this.. EDIT: Okay, they're back in read only mode.. I wonder how they'll hack in some write access for the AMA while keeping everything else read only. Time for some app server redeployments! Funsies! EDIT2: And they're gone again sigh
- untog 14y agoI'd be more interested in seeing how a site using a service like Google App Engine responds. In theory their Cloud Storage should just keep on scaling and scaling, rather than forcing the admin to spin up more instances, set up database replication, etc, etc.
- MetricMike 14y agoHuffington Post is aggregating questions and answers here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/barack-obama-reddit-ama_n_1840908.html?utm_hp_ref=tw http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/barack-obama-reddit...
- ScottWhigham 14y agoI've read, I don 't know, hundreds of AMAs through the years on reddit and, in each and every case, I hate the UI experience. I wish there was a way I could say "Only show me questions that have been answered by OP". Right now, doing a find for [S] is about as good as it gets. When you get large AMAs though, they get buried due to the sheer number of comments. Ugh.
- MichaelJW 14y agoCheck out http://reddit.com/r/tabled http://reddit.com/r/tabled. Only useful after the AMA is over, admittedly.
- simonbrown 14y agoLook at AnyAsq: http://anyasq.com/ http://anyasq.com/
- Macha 14y agoRES has had an IAmA sort mode for the last couple of versions which does that.
- wilschroter 14y agoGiven direct access to the most powerful person in the world, people on Reddit still act no differently. Yay consistency.
- huntaub 14y agoThe amazing thing about this is that he was literally (like at 3:30) doing a rally in Charlottesville! Busy man!
- itisfritz 14y agohttp://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/z1g3a/i_started_an_overflow_thread_for_the_obama_ama_ama/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/z1g3a/i_started_an_over...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- swalsh 14y agoReddit Admins, When you get a chance to read this. Please write a blog post on the traffic story from today... I'm sure I'm not the only one who's interested to see statistics on "new users" and hits. I'd also be interested to see the long tail effect as well.
- hodder 14y agoFor those who can't get access to the site, here are his answers so far. I hope you can deduce the questions, jeopardy style: I am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 4 points5 points6 points 2 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 4 points5 points6 points 2 minutes ago It's hard - truthfully the main thing other than work is just making sure that I'm spending enough time with michelle and the girls. The big advantage I have is that I live above the store - so I have no commute! So we make sure that when I'm in DC I never miss dinner with them at 6:30 pm - even if I have to go back down to the Oval for work later in the evening. I do work out every morning as well, and try to get a basketball or golf game in on the weekends just to get out of the bubble. Speaking of balance, though, I need to get going so I'm back in DC in time for dinner. But I want to thank everybody at reddit for participating - this is an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run. AND REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER - if you need to know how to register, go to Gottaregister.com. By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD! permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 21 points22 points23 points 10 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 21 points22 points23 points 10 minutes ago I understand how tough it is out there for recent grads. You're right - your long term prospects are great, but that doesn't help in the short term. Obviously some of the steps we have taken already help young people at the start of their careers. Because of the health care bill, you can stay on your parent's plan until you're twenty six. Because of our student loan bill, we are lowering the debt burdens that young people have to carry. But the key for your future, and all our futures, is an economy that is growing and creating solid middle class jobs - and that's why the choice in this election is so important. The other party has two ideas for growth - more taxs cuts for the wealthy (paid for by raising tax burdens on the middle class and gutting investments like education) and getting rid of regulations we've put in place to control the excesses on wall street and help consumers. These ideas have been tried, they didnt work, and will make the economy worse. I want to keep promoting advanced manufacturing that will bring jobs back to America, promote all-American energy sources (including wind and solar), keep investing in education and make college more affordable, rebuild our infrastructure, invest in science, and reduce our deficit in a balanced way with prudent spending cuts and higher taxes on folks making more than $250,000/year. I don't promise that this will solve all our immediate economic challenges, but my plans will lay the foundation for long term growth for your generation, and for generations to follow. So don't be discouraged - we didn't get into this fix overnight, and we won't get out overnight, but we are making progress and with your help will make more. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 631 points632 points633 points 24 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 631 points632 points633 points 24 minutes ago It will be out soon! I can tell from first hand experience, it is tasty. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 242 points243 points244 points 25 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 242 points243 points244 points 25 minutes ago Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress - to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 557 points558 points559 points 31 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 557 points558 points559 points 31 minutes ago The decision to surge our forces in afghanistan. Any time you send our brave men and women into battle, you know that not everyone will come home safely, and that necessarily weighs heavily on you. The decision did help us blunt the taliban's momentum, and is allowing us to transition to afghan lead - so we will have recovered that surge at the end of this month, and will end the war at the end of 2014. But knowing of the heroes that have fallen is something you never forget. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 809 points810 points811 points 35 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 809 points810 points811 points 35 minutes ago Win or lose, I'll be thanking everybody who is working so hard - especially all the volunteers in field offices all across the country, and the amazing young people in our campaign offices. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 199 points200 points201 points 36 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 199 points200 points201 points 36 minutes ago We've really focused on this since I came into office - 18 tax cuts for small business, easier funding from the SBA. Going forward, I want to keep taxes low for the 98 percent of small businesses that have $250,000 or less in income, make it easier for small business to access financing, and expand their opportunities to export. And we will be implementing the Jobs Act bill that I signed that will make it easier for startups to access crowd-funding and reduce their tax burden at the start-up stage. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 765 points766 points767 points 39 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 765 points766 points767 points 39 minutes ago Jordan - I'm a Bulls guy. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 1527 points1528 points1529 points 40 minutes ago* (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 1527 points1528 points1529 points 40 minutes ago* Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too. We will fight hard to make sure that the internet remains the open forum for everybody - from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business. And although there will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won't stray from that principle - and it will be reflected in the platform. permalinkcontextfull commentsI am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA by PresidentObamain IAmA [+]PresidentObama[S] 1810 points1811 points1812 points 43 minutes ago (0 children) [–]PresidentObama[S] 1810 points1811 points1812 points 43 minutes ago Making sure we stay at the forefront of space exploration is a big priority for my administration. The passing of Neil Armstrong this week is a reminder of the inspiration and wonder that our space program has provided in the past; the curiosity probe on mars is a reminder of what remains to be discovered. The key is to make sure that we invest in cutting edge research that can take us to the next level - so even as we continue work with the international space station, we are focused on a potential mission to a asteroid as a prelude to a manned Mars flight.
- MartinodF 14y agoIt seems the President lives up to its meme: "if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!" http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obama_president_of_the_united_states/c60nmtc http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obam...
- jtokoph 14y agoResponses so far: [–]SharkGirl 1504 points 51 minutes ago We know how Republicans feel about protecting Internet Freedom. Is Internet Freedom an issue you'd push to add to the Democratic Party's 2012 platform? [–]PresidentObama[S] 1185 points 29 minutes ago* Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too. We will fight hard to make sure that the internet remains the open forum for everybody - from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business. And although there will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won't stray from that principle - and it will be reflected in the platform. ------ [–]ormirian 2350 points 51 minutes ago* Are you considering increasing funds to the space program? [–]PresidentObama[S] 1471 points 31 minutes ago Making sure we stay at the forefront of space exploration is a big priority for my administration. The passing of Neil Armstrong this week is a reminder of the inspiration and wonder that our space program has provided in the past; the curiosity probe on mars is a reminder of what remains to be discovered. The key is to make sure that we invest in cutting edge research that can take us to the next level - so even as we continue work with the international space station, we are focused on a potential mission to a asteroid as a prelude to a manned Mars flight. ------ [–]FifthSurprise 762 points 50 minutes ago What was the most difficult decision that you had to make during this term? [–]PresidentObama[S] 158 points 20 minutes ago The decision to surge our forces in afghanistan. Any time you send our brave men and women into battle, you know that not everyone will come home safely, and that necessarily weighs heavily on you. The decision did help us blunt the taliban's momentum, and is allowing us to transition to afghan lead - so we will have recovered that surge at the end of this month, and will end the war at the end of 2014. But knowing of the heroes that have fallen is something you never forget. ------ [–]daveforamerica 319 points 51 minutes ago What is the first thing you'll do on November 7th, win or lose? [–]PresidentObama[S] 482 points 24 minutes ago Win or lose, I'll be thanking everybody who is working so hard - especially all the volunteers in field offices all across the country, and the amazing young people in our campaign offices. ------ [–]silent1mezzo 415 points 47 minutes ago What's the recipe for the White House's beer? [–]PresidentObama[S] 158 points 13 minutes ago It will be out soon! I can tell from first hand experience, it is tasty. ------ [–]karlfranks 93 points 51 minutes ago Who's your favourite Basketball player? [–]PresidentObama[S] 433 points 28 minutes ago Jordan - I'm a Bulls guy. ------ [–]suzmerk 321 points 55 minutes ago What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term? [–]PresidentObama[S] 106 points 21 minutes ago Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs; they fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens. We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress - to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who. We should also pass legislation prohibiting the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it). Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.
- conradfr 14y agoSo the site seems to work a bit now and all the great question seem unanswered :)
- gfodor 14y agoGotta admit, found this hilarious: "By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!"
- pav3l 14y agoWhich further confirms that this whole AMA is a carefully crafted PR stunt.
- jcitme 14y agoAre we seriously considering otherwise? Obviously the PR department managed it. Obama seems pretty lighthearted, so he has a bit of leeway in responding wittily, but much of it has to be planned.
- mkopinsky 14y agoEvery high-profile AMA is a carefully crafted PR stunt.
- smokinjoe 14y agoWell, this wasn't going to be a forum to influence future policy. I think it's pretty cool that this happened - even now my Mom might know what the "AMA" stands for. And great timing to do it during the RNC and steal some buzz away.
- brown9-2 14y agoAren't they all?
- arrrg 14y agoAnd? I’m really not sure what you expect. The President has a busy schedule, plus (as the guy running for office) enough money to hire people to do stuff for him. We all nearly always plan what we say and do. The stakes might not be quite so high for us most of the time – but the principle behind it is the same. The only difference is that the President can afford people whom he can delegate some of that planning to. It’s very simply not possible to do this any other way.
- rburhum 14y agoNo patent questions?!? Come on, this was the time to upvote that
- MiguelHudnandez 14y agoThis just in: President Obama shuts down social news site "Reddit" ...by making one thread very, very popular.
- ljd 14y agoI'm looking at the sort rank of questions on reddit and they don't exactly feel right. I can't pin point it except to say that a question with 59 upvotes posted 58 minutes ago is ranking higher than a question with 620 upvotes posted 60 minutes ago. Do reddit moderators step in during these situations to supervote questions?
- MichaelJW 14y agohttp://blog.reddit.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sorting-system.html http://blog.reddit.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sorting-s...
- hyh1048576 14y agoRead only mode, WTF... I was wondering why reddit was so sloooow today.
- RandallBrown 14y agoDoes this seem like it could be fake to anyone else? Could someone have simply hacked his twitter? He only posted it on the @BarackObama twitter. Not any of the other ones related to his campaing. Reddit didn't advertise this AT ALL. Most big celebrity AMAs are known for days. The photo of him is just him sitting in front of a laptop. There's no proof at all that he's doing an AMA. Reddit is going down HARD. I doubt the Obama campaign spontaneously decided to do this. Anyone savvy enough to suggest an AMA should know that it would likely take down the site and they'd probably talk to Reddit first. His answers seem like answers the president would give though (but he did reference his NOT BAD meme, which seems too cool to be true). If you were impersonating the president, it would seem like you would try to wreak some havoc. Anyone else feel like this?
- cf0ed2aa-bdf5 14y agoThere is also his campaign site "Redditors for Obama" https://barackobama.com/reddit https://barackobama.com/reddit Not definite proof but if someone hacked the POTUS's Twitter Account and posted a fake IAMA to reddit it would probably have been shut down by now.
- RandallBrown 14y agoThe Redditors for Obama wasn't there the first time I had the page load. That definitely helps the legitimacy.
- awolf 14y agoThe multiple "aha! I corrected the President's grammar. hahah" posts are sickening.
- alex_h 14y agoGrammar-naziism is a part of reddit culture, and one of the reasons they still have relatively erudite discourse given the size of their userbase. I think it's a net positive, and only natural that it would come out in this AMA.
- f1nch3r 14y agoThis should be moved to /r/circlejerk.
- DigitalSea 14y agoLooks Barack Obama has proven that cloud infrastructure just isn't quite there yet, ha. I'm really curious as to what others have asked especially in relation to 911, Wall Street and the birth certificate fiasco. This aside and I'm not starting an argument here, but this very AMA bringing down Reddit pretty badly goes to show that even EC2 isn't the answer to life's scaling problems nor are other cloud services like Heorku.
- volandovengo 14y agoIt's over from what I can tell: He said he needs to get back to DC.
- 001sky 14y agoCLIFF NOTES: 10x ______________________ REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER - if you need to know how to register, go to Gottaregister.com. It's hard - truthfully the main thing other than work is just making sure that I'm spending enough time with michelle and the girls. ... I understand how tough it is out there for recent grads.... Money has always been a factor in politics.... The decision to surge our forces in afghanistan. Any time you send our brave men and women into battle, you know that not everyone will come home safely, and that necessarily weighs heavily on you. ... Win or lose, I'll be thanking everybody who is working so hard - especially all the volunteers in field offices all across the country, and the amazing young people in our campaign offices. We've really focused on this since I came into office - 18 tax cuts for small business, easier funding from the SBA. Going forward, I want to keep taxes low for the 98 percent of small businesses that have $250,000 ...... Jordan - I'm a Bulls guy. Internet freedom is something I know you all care passionately about; I do too. We will fight hard to make sure that the internet remains the open forum for everybody - from those who are expressing an idea to those to want to start a business. And although there will be occasional disagreements on the details of various legislative proposals, I won't stray from that principle - and it will be reflected in the platform. Making sure we stay at the forefront of space exploration is a big priority for my administration. ...... __________________________
- denniedarko 14y agoAaaaaand the top post is a shitty watercolour as I look at the page right now, http://i.imgur.com/Ju94o.png http://i.imgur.com/Ju94o.png Never change Reddit, never change.
- conradfr 14y agoI love reddit but I still don't get the appeal of his posts.
- denniedarko 14y agoThey were pretty shitty back when he first started but they've improved steadily, and he really does churn them out. And Redditors do love their novelty accounts.
- enraged_camel 14y agoI didn't expect any real, solid answers from Obama. The reason is simple: he's not stupid. He knows that the Internet remembers everything, forever.
- grecy 14y agoWow, he only answered 10 questions, and it;s over. http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama
- TomGullen 14y ago1 every 3 minutes, not bad.
- brianwillis 14y agoIf I was Steve Huffman or Alexis Ohanian I'd be feeling pretty good about myself today. You know Reddit's become a fairly important piece of infrastructure when sitting presidents are conducting interviews using it.
- akulbe 14y agoYAWN Seriously. He won't answer anything in a _meanful_ way.... and only safe questions will get answered. Next?
- boredguy8 14y agoI was really hoping he'd respond to the law school student along these lines: "Well, where in your class did you graduate, and why did you think you'd have job prospects as a lawyer? Unless you're in the top 1/3 of your class at a good law school or top 5% of your class at an OK school, getting a job is hard in today's market. Part of the reason law school (and school in general) is so expensive is because we've removed a lot of the risk from the loan side of the equation. We give you 7% money, guaranteed against default, and the schools jack up the prices. That combines with faulty transparency in which some law schools hide employment rates. My guess is that a lot more people are going to law school than should be, and we need to fix the incentives to keep all parties honest about their prospects."
- timsally 14y agoYup. I don't have much sympathy for him, considering he took out $160,000 in debt with only a 50/50 shot to pay it back (that's your chance to get a high enough salary coming out of a top law school to service that debt, outside of Harvard and Yale). His poor decision is further compounded by the fact that he decided to go to law school after the legal market crashed in 2008 and people started to realize how ridiculous first year associate compensation was getting. I'm not really sure why my tax dollars should be bailing out a guy with a college degree who took a six figure gamble (though I suppose we've already set the standard by bailing out those who took gambles much larger than that).
- elliottcarlson 14y agoI don't disagree with a single thing you said - but I do find some irony in the fact that this community for the most part is centered around startups - some taking huge risks with either bootstrapped money, or angel money - and the failure rate is often estimated between 30% to 40%.
- SilasX 14y agoSure, and the "woe is me" rate is estimated between 0% and "why don't you fire up that bong again" -- much lower than that of the (formerly) wealthy students that gambled on an expensive education.
- dumb123 14y agoIt makes me wonder what some US politicians wouldn't do for a vote. I'm not in the US at the moment, so I don't know the full extent of what his appearances. But I can only imagine. I know he was recently on Entertainment Tonight. That seemed a little peculiar. Now he's on Reddit. What next? I'd like to see him do Fear Factor. If you want my vote Barack, you have to go on Fear Factor. Those are my terms. Non-negotiable.
- ck2 14y agoI'm not sure if I am more impressed the President did that, or how people seem to be on their best behavior in there. Either that or every moderator on all of Reddit was called to the thread. Is it true the load took down Reddit for a little while?
- heyadayo 14y ago1. Check out the up and down votes on reddit! 158,753 up votes 152,631 down votes with a net difference of 6k or so positive. That's crazy! Are those partisan lines or something? Why wouldn't everyone on reddit be excited to see the president? 2. Why has this had such low rank on HN given the number of votes? It had 200+ in the first hour and never seemed to get in the top 3.
- Two9A 14y agoFor 1, Reddit has a fuzzing algorithm on large vote counts, so voting bots don't know how much influence they're having. Refresh the page and you'd probably see a different number of up and down, but the same "net".
- freehunter 14y ago1. Reddit doesn't show the real numbers, like mentioned. If a post is getting a lot of upvotes, it will register a handful of downvotes as well. If you look through the highest ranking posts of all time, you'll notice most of them are quite old. Some time ago, they implemented an algorithm to keep votes from getting out of control; as the number of upvotes gets higher, the number of downvotes does as well. This is to normalize it at a certain level of votes. There's a ceiling that the votes practically cannot get above. 2. HN doesn't allow downvotes but it does allow you to flag a post. I don't know the algorithm for this, but it's possible people were flagging this post.
- silent1mezzo 14y agoI should have asked a better question. Still happy he answered mine.
- caublestone 14y agoThis is by far the coolest fucking thing to happen in politics since Kennedy told everyone that we are putting a man on the moon.
- bierko 14y agoI'm 18 years old. I'd consider myself politically indifferent, in part because I did research at an organization investigating lobbying and money. No matter how much of a publicity stunt this was, though, I registered to vote today. Obama was pretty persuasive.