[HN Gopher] Preparing for missions in difficult places
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Preparing for missions in difficult places
Author : _dain_
Score : 86 points
Date : 2023-12-16 12:20 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bitecode.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bitecode.dev)
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| _Small summary_
|
| Some devs are 10x. Some people are talented designers. I'm a
| regular dude.
|
| But I have one little flex few of my colleagues have: I got
| specialized in dev and training missions in hard-to-reach places.
|
| Those missions have different requirements that traditional ones.
| You can't assume you'll have anything at hand, so you need to
| pack all sorts of things, from a bar of soap to HDMI cables to
| protective gloves to a hunting knife.
|
| You'll pack 2 laptops, 2 IDs, and assume one will get lost,
| stolen or destroyed.
|
| And you'll set up a lot of software to be available to work
| offline.
| mynegation wrote:
| Ok, forget the packing lists, advice, and all this survivalist
| stuff. All I want to know is what _kind of jobs_ requires
| preparation like this. This is not covered in the article, I have
| an impression - deliberately so.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| " I perform dev and training gigs in hard-to-reach places. In
| the desert, in the snow, in a remote Asian village or a jungle
| town in Africa."
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Yes, deliberately indeed.
|
| But I as suspect you may believe, I didn't work for the
| military.
|
| I worked for NGOs, governments bodies, the UN and WHO, and of
| course the private sector.
|
| At home I have a fridge, hot water, heating, nobody is shooting
| guns except in the shows I can stream in HD thanks to fiber
| while eating an organic avocado.
|
| So it's easy to forget a huge part of the world is not
| comfortable. But those areas do have a lot of human activity,
| and some need computers.
|
| In the article I hint about a text message base system to
| control a cluster of computers. That was in 2000 something, and
| Uganda was trying to control a big tuberculosis epidemic. The
| goal was to synchronize all medical outposts. In this country,
| this meant dozens of very remote places, in the jungle, in the
| mud, etc.
|
| It could take up to 3 months to gather enough data about all
| the cultures of each new batch to prescribe the proper
| treatment. Often too late.
|
| One day the NGO Find decided to attempt to create a system that
| would link all them using GPRS. So they sent me there. Text
| messages was the only thing that would be semi-reliable, and
| locals would plug their nokias on the batteries on their
| Jakartas (a popular chinese bike that was everywhere) to have
| them always available, so we used that, and cheap laptops to
| host the software.
|
| Another time I got hired at the last minute to help with a
| training to promote Microsoft products in remote places in the
| hope that once they become a market, they would chose them.
| When I arrived, the African MS representative gave a speech, a
| few t-shirts, pocketed the money, and left immediately.
|
| Without the MS expert to take a lead, I didn't have much of a
| plan. So I trained the entire audience how to use Linux.
|
| Good times.
|
| Want to entertain a bunch of stranded scientists on an island?
| Give them a Python training, it's part of the budget anyway.
| Want to prove some legal issues? Lock the expert with an airgap
| system and let him figure it out.
|
| I get all sorts of offers. Some are questionable, of course.
|
| Once the parliament of Mali asked me to craft some very shady
| accounting system. I refused.
|
| But I can only tell you about it only because this particular
| governing body have little power over me today.
| mynegation wrote:
| OMG, thank you so much for this comment! As interesting as
| the original post was, it pales I comparison with this. I can
| understand this prep from someone with MSF or rescue team
| member, but I was specifically interested about software
| development/tech ops in this context. Stay safe and I hope
| one day you can write a book or two with this material, this
| would be epic. Please keep your memos and records. On paper
| if needs be. And do and verify your backups, lol, PSA for
| everyone reading this.
| anon7725 wrote:
| This was one of the most enjoyable HN comments I've ever read
| - you should write more about this on your blog.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I used to be an archeologist and had a checklist of similar
| preparations before I would head out to the field. However,
| unlike the article, I _couldn 't_ pack two of everything
| because I had to carry it myself alongside whatever gear,
| shovels, samples, sieves, survey equipment, etc I had.
|
| A few things I learned though:
|
| * FOSS software was consistently the most reliable stuff I
| used, as it wouldn't automatically lock itself if it couldn't
| see the Internet every 30 days.
|
| * You need to be much more thoughtful about the code you write.
| Think twice, write once.
|
| * Stick to a daily power budget, and cut it in half from what
| you can nominally afford.
|
| * Prioritize properly. In many cases, the electronics are not
| the most important thing to be handled. Don't babysit them, go
| do camp chores and sieve dirt if it needs doing.
| x86x87 wrote:
| This should be a TV show. Hire this person for a job in a remote
| place and after that hire another person to fuck him them and
| sabotage what they are trying to do. Film it -> Success
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It's not as exciting as it look: you spend a lot of time
| waiting. And then working in difficult conditions. Then
| waiting. Then something fail and you look for a hack. Then you
| work. And you wait. And you come back.
|
| I did get into serious trouble once or twice, but over two
| decades, the average netflix factor is pretty low.
|
| Corruption and nature owning you is surprising the first few
| times, but after the 50th occurrence, it's just the new normal.
|
| So you'd have to make some talented editing.
| ForkMeOnTinder wrote:
| That's normal for reality shows.
|
| Cooking shows? You spend a lot of time waiting, who wants to
| sit and watch a pie bake for an hour?
|
| Ever seen those "how it's made" shows? Editing can make
| anything interesting.
|
| I'd watch the heck out of a techie version of Survivor (early
| years).
| x86x87 wrote:
| yeah. not worried about the waiting part. that can be edited
| out. also, the adversarial element would make for some good
| drama.
|
| failing and looking like a hack is what would make the show
| insanely popular. the only challenge I see is that people
| might think it's scripted and/or would not have the depth of
| knowledge to understand why something is happening. both of
| them can be addressed (so what if people think it's scripted
| - remember man vs wild? + you could introduce a few "expert"
| commentators that dumb it down and explain things to the
| peasants while the action is going on)
| airstrike wrote:
| > talented editing
|
| that's what all these shows excel at
| tekla wrote:
| The only part difficult about this is the computers due to power
| and maybe network conditions (increasingly irrelevant due to
| Starlink). Everything else is pretty basic shit.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Getting to the north pole is a series of a lot of pretty basic
| shits, I'm afraid.
|
| Life is mostly mundane, after all. And there is a limit to what
| you can prepare for.
|
| One day my taxi, or should I say death trap, went fast and
| furious on a pedestrian in the middle of Bamako. The procedure
| for the locals at the time was to stone the culprit to death
| before the police arrive, as anybody with money will pay their
| way out.
|
| Not much you can pack to help you with that.
|
| And not programming related anyway.
| anon7725 wrote:
| There's a big difference between doing basic shit in your
| pajamas from the home office and doing it in a remote location
| while contending with all of the accompanying complications.
| tuukkah wrote:
| If someone wants to do something like this, I hear the Red Cross
| has pools of technical experts for emergency response situations.
| Does anyone have experience about that?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It's the case for many NGO. Just know that:
|
| - NGOs won't pay nearly as much as the private sector,
| obviously.
|
| - It's very hard to get in, at least for deployed missions. So
| do not hesitate to try again and again for a long time.
|
| - Once you are in, it ripples, and you easily get access to
| many other missions, provided you did a good job. It can be
| useful to accept something completely out of your main thing,
| just to get the foot in the door.
|
| - A lot of NGO work is actually not helping anybody. Be
| prepared to be disappointed. Some is good, but the amount of
| PR, virtue signaling and scams is staggering. Although many
| people are under the delusion they save the world. Do it for
| the experience, and maybe you'll get lucky and you'll do more
| good that bad, on average. Some days, I'm still unsure I did.
| But emergency responses are where the most unambiguous good is
| done.
|
| - If you do it for long enough, you will get hurt. That's just
| how it is. Sick, wounded, bankrupt... Something. That's one of
| the prices to pay. E.G: in West Africa, our first Malaria was
| kinda a rite of passage. We'd joke about it. You can't take
| pills with side effects for ever.
|
| - You'll need to be pretty autonomous. Nobody is going to take
| you by the hand. But the cool part of this is that you'll get
| responsibilities and freedom of action you'll have nowhere
| else. It can be a curse as much as a blessing, but I loved it.
| maCDzP wrote:
| I did training for the Red Cross to join the rooster. Never
| been deployed so I don't have any field experience. I have
| friends whose whole career revolves around different
| deployments in hardship areas.
|
| From hearing people that have been in the field it sounds like
| a total shit show. But also very boring since you get to wait a
| lot.
|
| You also se a lot of traumatized people which I believe takes a
| toll on your mental health.
|
| I was surprised by the partying, alcohol seems like the
| preferred way to cope with the environment.
|
| All in all, the people I have met don't seem at peace with
| themselves.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Alcohol, sex and a generous stock of dark humor.
| s5300 wrote:
| Though he did not explicitly state to not forget to bring a
| towel, he has implied that he does not count on a hotel to supply
| him with a towel.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| It's like trying to do work in any one of many corporate networks
| that glue plastic tabs over their employees USB ports.
|
| Been there, done similar without the capricious Senegalese
| baggage handlers.
| jrexilius wrote:
| It sounds like we overlapped in a few locations and missions ;-)
| One thing I would add to your list is extra USB drives with lotsa
| storage (>256GB), and at least one with a hardware write-protect
| switch (like the Kanguru ones). Collecting and sharing data is
| like collecting and sharing beer.. great way to make friends and
| build network effects. The Kanguru ones are nice when you need to
| share with a risky machine (cyber cafe, hotels, etc.).
| resolutebat wrote:
| Interesting read. As a former 100% travel road warrior in semi-
| exotic places (data centers in developing countries), I'm very
| surprised he's checking in bags though, that's just asking for
| trouble. I presume it's the big hunting knife that makes this
| unavoidable, but is this _really_ that necessary?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| The knife is probably to deter someone messing with you
| thinking you're an easy target.
| wisemang wrote:
| Some other interesting writing along these lines can be found on
| Jan Chipchase's website[0]
|
| [0] https://janchipchase.com/
| Luc wrote:
| Fun article! If the author is still reading the comments, I
| wouldn't mind learning more about why the Neti Pot (allergies?
| dust?) and the LARGE hunting knife are essential equipment.
| palemoonale wrote:
| What's with all this 'mission' talk? You are coders, stop that
| BS.
|
| (worked in places like Libya and Uganda, never felt it was my
| mission! Had to follow requests made to my employer,thats it)
| jrexilius wrote:
| The "mission" terminology is common in the NGO world and not
| everyone is hired as a "coder". Quite frequently these are
| projects to effect outcomes rather than support billets to be
| filled by coders. There is a wide spectrum out there, your
| experiences may vary..
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