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Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#101

droneseed inaturalist Cornell ornithology lab eesa Caltech JPL USFWS MBARI blue point conservation science NOAA Sitka technology group conservation x labs sail drone uw escience institute greenridge sciences Oregon carbon m science (marine research) Tortuga agtech conservation metrics

Thank you for listing these. It's a great starting point.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#103
I wouldn't say I "write software" but I have a computing job in the field of animal/landscape ecology research with a pure CS background. I guess I'd say it's part scripting ETL type jobs, some parallel processing stuff, and ... I guess I'll call it DevOps to keep it short.

Make friends with people in national-level government organizations (whatever would be most like USGS wherever you live) or university "geomatics" type people. A good start would be those involved with remote sensing (satellite [radar or optical]/drone/other sensors). These are the people that know of or are sitting in these types of jobs.

If you want a web dev type job find a way to get experience with scripting for ArcGIS Portal.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#104
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But governments usually err on the over-interventionist side. When you look at the world you can’t help but notice this pattern, it is really that obvious. There can be 3 classes of errors with interventions; 1) intervening when it is not warranted (over-intervention), 2) not-intervening when required (under-intervening) and 3) intervening in a way that ends up not working out (intervention-outcome mismatch). I thi…

> I think most of the errors are type 3, which are most liable to mis-identified as "over-intervention", but they are not. The thing is, there is no reliable way to prevent these errors, which means in general it is better to not interfere. If we had a way to ensure good decisions, we wouldn’t need some of the institutions that we have in our modern states. One especially egregious example: California Assembly Bill 5…

> The thing is, there is no reliable way to prevent these errors, which means in general it is better to not interfere.

That is not a forgone conclusion. It is only better not to intervene if the expected cost of intervention is higher than the expected cost of not intervening.

> One especially egregious example...

These are relatively minor regulations that you argue gone bad. What do you think would be the realized costs of these misapplications? Would they be in the same order of magnitude with for example the costs of not breaking up monopolies? I highly doubt it.

I get it, in countries like the US the government apparatus has a difficulty representing the welfare of the entirety of the nation, which tends to affect the interventions negatively, but that is not an argument against government intervention but an argument against the government itself, which is culpable of under-regulation just as much as over-regulation. (90's deregulatory Clinton laws on banks and telecommunications come to mind, which led to huge market consolidations and therefore market inefficiencies which we still suffer from.)

As we agree, markets sometimes need serious babysitting, so we ought to pick better babysitters.

> Citation needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorman:_The_Legend_of_Ron_B...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#105
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am interested to know details but I am in Pakistan. I work (Ed) on multiple technologies but mostly python these days for ETL and automation. Learning Go too. Check out http://adnansiddiqi.me

Hi Adnan. Unfortunately I'm only familiar with the situation in the U.S. Pakistan may have different agricultural practices and a different funding landscape. Here are a few links about the motivation and current state of the art if you want to read more. [0]: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/818 [1]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pce.12107 [2]: https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/6…

Sorry for the late response. What I meant that I wanted to know about remote working possibilities. If you could guide or help then let me know.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#106

droneseed inaturalist Cornell ornithology lab eesa Caltech JPL USFWS MBARI blue point conservation science NOAA Sitka technology group conservation x labs sail drone uw escience institute greenridge sciences Oregon carbon m science (marine research) Tortuga agtech conservation metrics

Thank you for listing these. It's a great starting point.

I always find it easier to find companies once I have a list to work from, even if they're not in the geographic area that I'm looking for
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