I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy • Hacker News Board

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#131

Post by justin66 » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 12:36 PM UTC

krallja wrote: post #87

justin66 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish there was a non-military or less-military domestic version of this, I've considered joining the national guard for this reason but I'm don't trust that I wouldn't end up fighting and dying in a pointless war. If there was another volunteer force that was devoted to humanitarian issues and search and rescue I would be all for it. You're basically describing the Coast Guard. I believe they do hire reservists.

The Coast Guard is not the pacifist organization you seem to imagine it to be. They also combat smuggling, illegal migration, and terrorism. Also, they can be called to provide defense of the maritime borders of the United States. It is every bit of a military organization as the Army or Navy, even if not as well respected.

Your comment is full of misconceptions. I never claimed the Coast Guard was a "pacifist organization," and the person I was responding to was, when asking for a "not military or less military" option, wasn't asking for one. And I certainly respect them as much as any other branch of the armed forces. Right now, immediately after a natural disaster, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#132

Post by redog » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 12:36 PM UTC

nocha wrote: post #128

redog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTE is radio. and WTF is decentralized radio? I don't think you can run a transmitter on the blockchain.

And what happens when a hurricane takes down the cell tower? Or the power is out for days and the cell tower's backup batteries run dry? Decentralised radio is essentially ham radio. Individual units talking directly to each other, without relying on a single point of failure (the cell company). As others have said above, ham radio is a godsend in some situations. If you use the right bands, you can talk halfway arou…

> you can talk halfway around the world while running off batteries and using a wire thrown over a tree for an antenna.

And then what when everyone talks. Isn't it already regulated for this same reasoning? Seems to me a combination of open protocols and mesh networking would be better than government restricted ham.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#133

Post by zeckalpha » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 12:54 PM UTC

forkandwait wrote: post #64

I wish there were a disaster militia, with something like quarterly weekend trainings, with some FEMA sponsorship but still independent. It would be fun to practice ham communications and boat rescue anyway, and a little bit of practice could have a huge impact when the shit is truly hitting the fan.

It's funny you mention Ham communications. ARES is a Ham group that does what you describe: http://www.arrl.org/ares

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#134

Post by zeckalpha » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 12:57 PM UTC

redog wrote: post #132

nocha wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens when a hurricane takes down the cell tower? Or the power is out for days and the cell tower's backup batteries run dry? Decentralised radio is essentially ham radio. Individual units talking directly to each other, without relying on a single point of failure (the cell company). As others have said above, ham radio is a godsend in some situations. If you use the right bands, you can talk halfway arou…

> you can talk halfway around the world while running off batteries and using a wire thrown over a tree for an antenna. And then what when everyone talks. Isn't it already regulated for this same reasoning? Seems to me a combination of open protocols and mesh networking would be better than government restricted ham.

Much mesh networking innovation is happening in ham communities. Go check it out.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#135

Post by justin66 » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 1:54 PM UTC

wnissen wrote: post #78

justin66 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't we have people doing this dispatch professionally? Professionals train and plan to coordinate the work of other professionals. Volunteers from outside that process can supplement their work or serve in other roles entirely. Your questions imply that there is something wrong with more chaotically organized volunteers supplementing the work of those professionals without close supervision. You couldn't be m…

I'm donating my 38th pint / 17th liter of blood this Friday. I phone banked during the election, participate in two local community organizations, etc. So I'm going to have to ask that you take it on good faith that I believe strongly in both individual and organizational contributions. My question is, what would have happened if the author hadn't stepped up to do dispatch? You would have had people searching blindly…

> My question is, what would have happened if the author hadn't stepped up to do dispatch?

Some other solution would have emerged, or the volunteers would have proceeded with a lower level of coordination.

> You would have had people searching blindly street by street, not knowing where they were needed.

I expect you saw plenty of this in the last week, even with a relatively good communication network in place. It's not necessarily a big problem. It would be a mistake for rescuers on the ground to assume that their dispatchers are omnipotent and to only proceed based on what they're told via radio. You would miss everyone in need of help who was unable to communicate out.

> Why can't we make it a national goal to get 911 up and running in a disaster zone in our own country within a similar time period?

I feel your comments are grounded in an overestimation of the importance of universally available centralized realtime control in disaster response. That is something we've never had in a genuinely large disaster that takes out a lot of infrastructure.

The closest we have to universally available communications is actually Amateur Radio networks. I'm all for spreading that hobby among high school students and encouraging more people to volunteer.

We could also do the 911 whatever technological thing you have in mind, but we should proceed with the understanding that we will encounter disasters big enough to knock it over.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#136

Post by michaelcampbell » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #125

michelb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have no roof access from the attic, and the water level rises, you are stuck.

Rip away the roofing felt, shove the tiles, then you have a hole. Climb out.

My attic at least has several layers of plywood between the airspace and the felt. Probably why you see footage of rescue teams trying to get to the attic from the outside... with axes.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#137

Post by justin66 » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 2:52 PM UTC

doodlebugging wrote: post #62

sverige wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage of a trained ham radio operator is that false reports such as you've described are sifted much more thoroughly before being broadcast. Limiting access to the communication channels by requiring licensing is a great way to improve signal to noise ratio.

I agree that trained operators improve the system's ability to handle false input. I'm not sure that requiring licensing for situations like natural disasters is the answer. There will always be people on the ground locally with some of the skills needed to coordinate with dedicated first responders and all of the first-hand knowledge about the status of local infrastructure. Having open, public communication channel…

Where there isn't amateur radio available, there's always citizens band. That has a truly terrible (metaphorical) signal-to-noise ratio but it's probably monitored by local police during disasters, not to mention a lot of regular people.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#138

Post by driverdan » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 3:03 PM UTC

nocha wrote: post #128

redog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTE is radio. and WTF is decentralized radio? I don't think you can run a transmitter on the blockchain.

And what happens when a hurricane takes down the cell tower? Or the power is out for days and the cell tower's backup batteries run dry? Decentralised radio is essentially ham radio. Individual units talking directly to each other, without relying on a single point of failure (the cell company). As others have said above, ham radio is a godsend in some situations. If you use the right bands, you can talk halfway arou…

Most mobile radio operators rely on repeaters which is a form of centralization. You can communicate without them but need to be closer or have the right equipment ahead of time.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#139

Post by hamthrowaway » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

subway wrote: post #3

It's really depressing that we've largely abandoned the art of decentralized radio communication. I think Amateur radio has seen a minor resurgence in recent years, but it seems like more and more traffic that traditionally would have been passed by decentralized amateur operators now relies on centralized networks. Obviously Zello and its ilk bring significant benefits with them, but I worry about the impact they ha…

I tried getting into Amateur Radio. I'm mid-30s, and I really liked the idea of ham radio, ever since I was a child.

So I went ahead and spent 8 months on it. I got my Extra license (the highest level), learned all about Ares, got into nets.. all of it. I bought an Icom 7300 (really great radio). I even started learning Morse.

Why did I quit?

I couldn't deal with some of the hmm,"interesting" people on ham radio! I have a slight accent, enough to mark me out as a non-native born American (I'm a citizen now though), and I kept meeting people who were downright nasty to me.

I tried focusing on the positive, but after a few months and one particularly unpleasant contact, my wife asked me why I was wasting my time trying to talk to people who clearly didn't want me around.

She was right, and I quit. Yes, I met plenty of really nice hams, but every week that I was on the air, I would be bound to find someone calling me names.

Sure, you can just "spin the dial", but for those who don't know, ham radio is not anonymous. FCC regulations state that you have to give your call sign every 10 minutes, and you can look up anyone's name and home address from that call sign. That unpleasant contact consisted of a fine citizen telling me that he was going to come over and "kick my ass". Just because he thought I was illegal or something like that.

I'm sure he was just bloviating, but hey, I have a wife and kids.. I'm not risking it.

I'm still an Extra, but I sold my radios and don't want to get into it anymore.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#140

Post by hectorr1 » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

lsiebert wrote: post #106

I notice people talking about untrained ad hoc groups VS professional and paraprofessionals. There is no competition here, there is only lives saved. Untrained ad hoc groups had smaller boats, had more boats, and were able to help people who would have died otherwise. I do think it is worthwhile to talk about problems that occurred. Get a list of them, prioritize them, find solutions. Though they have to be solutions…

A decent plan executed fast beats the perfect solution next week every time when lives are on the line. That said, now we have some time to think and plan. So let's make an app.

What training videos or info graphics does an ad-hoc flood rescue group need? How about urban earthquake? Terrorism response? Wildfire? How do you do effective dispatch? Triage? How do you best integrate with the professionals when they show up?

The knowledge gap between an amateur and a paraprofessional has never been substantial, and now we have the ability to provide training on-demand. We just need to build the capability to rapidly scale baseline knowledge and plug into a coordinated network. When disaster hits, you download the app and see what you can do.