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AMA with Barack Obama

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Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#211

Post by arrrg »

pav3l wrote: post #140
gfodor wrote: post #132

Gotta admit, found this hilarious: "By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!"

Which further confirms that this whole AMA is a carefully crafted PR stunt.

And?

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.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#212

Post by wamatt »

panacea wrote: post #205
wamatt wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's mostly sanitized, but I'm still impressed though at his overall level of savvyness, deciding to do a Reddit AMA at all. Come on what did we expect? A heart to heart with a unicorn , err... I mean honest politician? :p He seems to be getting credit and generating overall positive impact, regardless of the depth of his answers.

Pretty naive to think the President is the savvy one deciding to do a reddit AMA, and not one of the many, many people in his reelection campaign PR team. Anyway, it reminded me that the news of his first election was the highest voted submission in reddit's history at the time.

> Pretty naive to think the President is the savvy one deciding to do a reddit AMA

Isn't that a tad bit presumptuous?

WRT his decision, I suspect it bubbled upwards through his campaign staff, and at some point he said something like, "Cool".

Don't think that takes away from his decision, regardless of nature of the chain. He could have said "Nah, not wasting my time with that" when presented the option, but instead he decided to do it.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#213

Post by emidln »

natrius wrote: post #174
ashray wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's probably due to the massive number of reads/writes pumping through their system. I'm pretty sure that their database isn't able to handle what's going on at the moment. Also, if you were to use Varnish as a cache, that wouldn't help you much with write access because every time there is a write (a new post..) you'd have to invalidate the cache. In a high volume scenario such as this (tons of posts coming in.…

Varnish can only really help Reddit with users who aren't logged in since every page is customized. It'd still help in high volume scenarios since Varnish solves the thundering herd problem: only one request (at most) will hit the database for each invalidation.

Vanish can cache snippets of content. They refer to this as Edge Side Includes.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#214

Post by Alex3917 »

untog wrote: post #195
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually get really sick of people like you more than the people that would like our President to stop avoiding that question. Give me a break. This comment was one step away from "fucking stoners". It's insulting and inappropriate regardless. This is a typical HN troll post on reddit anyway. If you think the "jailbait" scandal defined reddit at any point, you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about…

This comment was one step away from "fucking stoners" No it wasn't, in any way, shape or form. I support legalisation, I'm just tired of it being treated like it's the most important thing you could possibly ask the President about. If you think the "jailbait" scandal defined reddit at any point Defined for who? It was on national television. I assure you that a lot of non-tech savvy people will have had their first…

"I'm just tired of it being treated like it's the most important thing you could possibly ask the President about."

If you're too jaded to care about millions of Americans dying for no reason, the destruction of the black community, the spread of AIDS and hepatitis, and our crumbling infrastructure, all direct consequences of prohibition, then that says a lot more about you than it does about those who would challenge Obama on the issue.

The reason people treat it like the most important issue facing society is because basically it is.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#215

Post by timsally »

boredguy8 wrote: post #206

I 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 remo…

Yup. 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).

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#216

Post by spyder »

porterhaney wrote: post #8

I 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.

The difference is that the "true mainstream media" is one-directional, so they are just broadcasting the show. If there would be a show with Obama answering telephone calls on live TV or radio, then very few calls could be heard live. If Reddit would do only broadcasting then it would be an easier problem because reads can be cached easier then reads + writes.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#217

Post by jbooth »

boredguy8 wrote: post #206

I 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 remo…

It's debatable how much the loan thing contributes to the overall price or rate of attendance. 7% sucks for a loan, it's not like they're supply-siding it. I'd put it more on students aren't the best decision makers when the choice is between "attend school or get a job". Not to mention that a large percentage of attendees at the ivies have parents who can pay the bill.

Also, it's worth noting that maybe not for this student, but for last year's class, starting law school in Sep 2008 looked like a great idea and graduating in 2011 looks terrible.

That said, I'm generally on board with the whole 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea sentiment. If this is a market correction, good.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#218

Post by jberryman »

drcube wrote: post #165
FlukeATX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to chime in, it looks like Obama is heading out[1] after answering only ten questions. I think it's fair to call that disappointing when the thread had more than 12,000 comments. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z1c9z/i_am_barack_obam...

That's 3 minutes per question, given the half hour he allotted. I don't think that's too disappointing. Did you really expect him to answer 12,000 questions?

For perspective: I read a bit in the most recent New Yorker describing a fund-raiser dinner with the president; it was $50,000 a plate and the president had one hour which equated to 1 minute per person. His staff knew he wouldn't have time to eat so he was prepared a meal he ate quickly in the kitchen beforehand. A staffer with a watch would tap him on the shoulder every 5 minutes when he needed to move onto the next table.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#219

Post by Macha »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #91

I'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.

RES has had an IAmA sort mode for the last couple of versions which does that.

Re: AMA with Barack Obama

#220

Post by Wingman4l7 »

brown9-2 wrote: post #192
JohnsonB wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty weak, typical round-about answers that you'd expect from any politician. Not what AMA has come to expect, and what's the proof that it's actually Obama writing the answers and not some intern or campaign staffer?

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/photo-obama-answ... Of course, there is no proof that what he is typing on the laptop is answers to questions on Reddit, but then again, no picture is really proof that the person writing the answer is the person they claim to be.

The mouse is on the left side of the laptop -- and according to the almighty Wikipedia[1], Obama is left-handed -- so +1 for authenticity.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness_of_Presidents_of_the...

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