Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued • Hacker News Board

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#441

Post by kadenshep » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

Gabriel_Martin wrote: post #435

kadenshep wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the guy actually in charge of the entire thing is somehow wrong, but Elon personally emailed exactly 1 person in charge of 1 team who said "keep working on it", which definitely justifies the entire surrounding PR bonanza and Musk personally showing up to the dive site to do... what exactly? It'd odd that Musk's attempts to discredit the guy in charge of the entire of the operation is somehow not worth pointing ou…

What is the inverse of a fanboy? An anti-fanboy? Compulsive detractor? Super-carper? There seems to be a large outspoken group of people who go out of their way to talk about Musk despite their apparent dislike of him, rather than just saying nothing and ignoring him, seemingly they feel justified by the fanboys? I think that deserves a title, carper? Detractor? Hard to imagine commenting on this post to just complai…

>There seems to be a large outspoken group of people who go out of their way to talk about Musk despite their apparent dislike of him

I'm sorry what? Musk constantly gets tons of PR over nothing from news outlets, to reddit, to HN. It's really strange that a reasonable response to constant bombardment of Musk's half-baked ideas and PR stunts is somehow attributable to people's dislike of Musk personally. How is directly providing concrete and factual events to counter a corporate narrative and to dismantle a cult of personality "going out of [their] way" or even evidence of some kind of odd personal hate towards Musk?

The entire response is a really cheap, nonconstructive appeal to motive and is quite frankly full of vague personal attacks.

I would maybe give you the benefit of the doubt here by saying you probably just don't participate in the same media channels I do, but you're blatantly aware of the situation given your hostile apology to the current perspective on all things Musk. This is so strangely reminiscent of when Steve Jobs was around.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#442

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #241

typon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is the best website for following: 1. Current events. 2. Sports tournaments. The information entropy level is quite high, with basically no ads, extremely good formatting (relevant tables, charts etc.), and relatively unbiased. This doesn't even mention the benefit of getting simple background information on the subjects with just a simple click (or even a hover these days) It's really a treasure.

I strongly disagree about current events. The Merrick Garland wikipedia page was a mess immediately after he was nominated, and I've just checked and the word "unprecedented" appears 7 times, in spite of the fact that it is by-no-means unprecedented for the senate to not consider a nomination [1]. There are a lot of partisan editors that wish to astroturf for their own political convictions, and because Wikipedia art…

Politics is amongst the most contested areas. At least the disputes are visible, rather than hidden from view as with most media.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#443

Post by foldr » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #423

foldr wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazi camps pertaining to the Holocaust are correctly called extermination camps, not concentration camps. Although e.g. Auschwitz is commonly referred to as a concentration camp, this is a euphemism, and the term is not considered correct by anyone writing seriously about the Holocaust.

That may be so, but you're referring to pedants and historians, not common usage. It is not a euphimism; everyone knows that it refers to starvation and horrific murder and aren't using that word for the sake of masking this.

The term is a euphemism because "concentration camp" just means a camp with a high density of people. The fact that people know what they're really referring to doesn't mean that the term isn't a euphemism. After all, the whole point of a euphemism is that people know what is really meant.

It's quite well known that "concentration camp" is not the correct term for the Nazi extermination camps.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#444

Post by jefe_ » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

This story has been a captivating lesson in the power of constraints. We have powerful drills and pumps, but adding the constraints of portability and time, we find fewer options. We have great mapping and tracking capabilities, but put them underground and everything changes. We have talented cave divers, but they aren't doctors or vice versa. When you start looking at all of the resources and all of the requirements, and then the thin slice of compatibility that was actually effective in locating, sustaining, and rescuing the team, it really was incredible.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#445

Post by herewulf » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #203

jonathanpoulter wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find learning mathematical concepts from Wikipedia very difficult

I also agree, and would further that any relatively technically involved concept tends to contain the most complicated form of that topic, for example the wikipedia page on lift goes into some pretty intense detail. This is the natural result for a website written by users (those with lots of knowledge write it for others who have lots of knowledge). Even simple wikipedia is not immune to this, due to explaining the…

On the other hand, articles written by experts with full detail is much more useful to those already well versed in a given field. To use myself as an example: I would look elsewhere for computing or linguistics information if the articles were all written for beginners.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#446

Post by jakhead » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #89

jonhendry18 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His efforts turned out to be a bit of a damp squib but that's because the rescue effort was launched earlier than expected due to coming heavy rains. There was talk about having the kids wait in there until as late as November, or maybe a long process of drilling an escape hole. If the rescue had begun a week or two later, perhaps Musk's gadget would have been used. As it is, the divers already had a plan that, by th…

perhaps Musk's gadget would have been used The cave was too narrow in sections for a diver to pass through still wearing his cylinders. How exactly was a sub supposed to get in?

The squeeze is 70 cm. The "sub" was designed to fit.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#447

Post by los_angeles » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #438

los_angeles wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a big claim. It's probably the biggest, most important claim of the millennium. And it is really, really good for hundreds of millions (maybe billions). These two are pretty good start points. [1] [2] In short, globalization converted hundreds of millions of would-be Chinese farmers into middle class urbanites in about one generation. It is the most massive improvement of quality of life in world history. It is…

Children as young as 4 years old are mining cobalt (used in lithium batteries) by hand in the DRC.[1][2] "More than half the world’s supply of cobalt comes from the DRC, with 20% of cobalt exported coming from artisanal mines in the southern part of the country. In 2012, Unicef estimated that there were 40,000 children working in all the mines across the south, many involved in mining cobalt." "Adult miners dig up to…

No one is celebrating child labor. But the question is how that compares to what these kids would be doing otherwise (ie, starving, dying of preventable disease, etc).

If the overall trend is to bring prosperity and increased standards of living to an area (which it generally appears to be), then globalization is a net win.

That doesn't mean it's a win for everyone all the time.

But over time, these sorts of humanitarian concerns melt away as countries grow richer and start behaving more humanely because they can afford to.

Rich nations tend not to have child labor. It's not because they're more moral, per se. It's just that they can afford a reasonable standard of living without child labor.

GDP per capita in DRC is $500 per year, so, yeah, parents are going to do what they have to to survive.

Africa also has lots of special problems like corruption that don't result from globalization and capitalism.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#448

Post by throwawayqdhd » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #442

nickysielicki wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree about current events. The Merrick Garland wikipedia page was a mess immediately after he was nominated, and I've just checked and the word "unprecedented" appears 7 times, in spite of the fact that it is by-no-means unprecedented for the senate to not consider a nomination [1]. There are a lot of partisan editors that wish to astroturf for their own political convictions, and because Wikipedia art…

Politics is amongst the most contested areas. At least the disputes are visible, rather than hidden from view as with most media.

True. When I was starting out, I was tasked with editing the Wikipedia page of one of our clients to add more information. Wasn't anything sinister; the company just wanted to ensure the page had up to date information.

When I ventured to the 'Talk' page, I was surprised to see so many edits and comments from editors.

This was for a little known company in a niche field with little traffic or chance to profit. Yet the editors were as diligent as ever.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#449

Post by throwawayqdhd » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

sparkie wrote: post #235

throwawayqdhd wrote: post #110

You really have to love Wikipedia. It's barely a week old and you already have a page with so many references and detailed information. Thank you, all the anonymous contributors.

The downside is that in a few years, most of those references will be 404.

The upside is that we can still edit them all anytime :)

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#450

Post by metiscus » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

NeutronStar wrote: post #400

metiscus wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did so at tremendous human cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921%E2%80%9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%93...

You're talking like they didn't get invaded by the germans and lost 20M comrades vs the "atrocious war crimes against the jews" that totalled 6M... Russia took a beating and basically stop the german progress for the WEST to be able to regroup and refight way later.

Please understand that I'm not trying to be argumentative; I believe this is a widely misunderstood era of Soviet history. The Holodomor and the 1921 famine predate the Barbarossa invasion significantly. The Holodomor was a product of the dekulakization efforts undertaken as part of the forced farm collectivization. The farm collectivization was driven in part by Stalin's ideology (he disliked the NEP for various reasons) and partly by the need to maintain hard currency levels to purchase machine tools etc from foreign states to maintain its industrialization push. The main exports of the USSR were grain and therefore the quotas were enforced by the NKVD at the expense of the lives of a large number of people. In certain areas, Stalin was persuaded to lower the quotas but in the geographical confines of the Holodomor (largely Ukraine SSR) the quotas were largely maintained. Historians still debate whether the Holodomor was an intentional act of genocide (because Stalin wanted to crush any independence movement within Ukraine SSR) or simply depraved indifference. Conservative estimates of the cost of the Holodomor vary from 3.3-6+ million dead.

You implicitly posed an interesting moral question. Can history justify the deaths of 3.3-6+ million (Holodomor), 4+million (dekulakization), 5 million (1921 famine, admittedly coincident with the civil war) when compared to the planned atrocities of the Nazis if we credit those deaths with greatly contributing towards the defeat of the Hitler and the NSDAP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan