Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays?
Last year we had an incredible response to a thread offering assistance to those in the HN community. You can read it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34122118
Last year we were able to provide nearly $20k worth of support to community members. I know things have only gotten more challenging since then for a number of us, so I wanted to make sure I provided more time this year for people to reach out.
As usual, this is not a request for donations. Last year and this year I am content to finance this operation myself (although a number of people did step up and offer additional support). All I ask is that you let us know your financial needs and their general purpose so that we can maximize the number of people we can help.
To be clear, while the original intent was to provide dinner expenses for the holidays, this need not be the only reason you ask for funds. Reasonable requests include:
- Holiday housing
- Toys/gifts for family members
- Food
- Travel assistance
- Medical expenses
- Entertainment for the family
I understand, as a formerly homeless person myself, that it can be tough to ask for help. The majority of those who request assistance do so over email and I assure you that I will keep your request and information private and between us.
I am happy to use this thread for any questions the community and potential beneficiaries may have.
Happy holidays!
- Alexander
215 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 250 ms ] threadThis might be a good place to inform people about the existence of the Sheltersuit Foundation [1] (I'm not affiliated in any way). They create decent sleeping bags for the homeless, and accept donations to provide them to those in need.
Last night a lot of Dutch people slept outside for one night to raise funds for the homeless. [2]
[1] https://sheltersuit.com/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSA9AoWfVwU
We are grateful for your country support at these heavy for us times!
I can share more information about my situation in a month.
So help me out. You won't regret it.
Payment Methods: https://switchupcb.com/donate
Thanks
If it doesn’t bother you, I would love to keep you in my prayers.
You’re in my thoughts and prayers.
Unfortunately, we still at war.
Must admit, now we are much better than year ago, Nov-Dec 2022, near from first day was constant blackouts due to rocket attacks. Your help was very warm light at all this.
Nov 2023 was boring waiting for fate, fortunately nothing special happen, but nobody could predict, how dangerous will be December 2023.
Thank you!
BTW I'm electric engineer and programmer, I ask to everybody who read this thread, please write, if you will got any ideas, how I could help others to feel warmer and safer.
For others, Medshare is running a fundraiser for Ukraine: https://www.medshare.org/zukraine/
They provide medical supplies and stuff like backup generators for medical facilities. They were running a match program and my company has a gift match. Last year google matched contributions to UNHCR. I can't pass up a 3x match to a good cause.
For more detailed explanation better if you read Goldratt's Theory of constraints and for beginners introduction good books "the goal" (1/2/3). Also good to read classics - Sun Tzu, the Art of war, it is very short but unfortunately written on old Chinese, which nobody knows, so different translations are significantly different, best if read all translations you could reach in parallel and compare.
Javelins are made with strict reporting, and considered to storage few years. American/European medicine working on evidence based principles and strict protocols.
But at war and emergency, strict protocols usually disabled (and planned operations shift right), because they are extremely slow and expensive, and most Western weapons and supplies are not stored significant time, they near immediately consumed.
And also important, bureaucracy is not good, but Ukrainian bureaucracy now is just disaster, fortunately Ukrainians smart and good in peer interaction, so always when possible, better to use lower level.
So exists few variants to help:
1. If you will help to medicine, via some large fund with their bureaucracy, well, I'm not very optimistic on effectiveness, but I'm grateful.
2. If you find some way to help buy weapons, like Bayraktar heavy drones, also via some big fund, this is better. I'm also grateful.
3. The best, if you hire me, or with your support I'll make my business, probably open source. In this case will be triple win: First, I'll make decent product, I feel very strong importance of tech for community; Second, I will have some predictable future, so I could plan my life and care about health, not wait for medical emergency, so 1st variant will be just not happen with me; Third, I will spend time to talk with Ukrainian military people, I think you understand, they could tell much more to me in private talk, than for people abroad, and I will try to make them best help for this time.
As example, what I could do, FPV drones, which are less effective then Javelin, but cheaper and cost effectiveness of drones is much better. Second example, all drones very depend on communications, I'm really good in communications hard/soft, so I could make things, to make Ukrainian drones communications more reliable, and to interfere enemy communications or intercept them. And others and others. We here at HN, are knowledge workers, all we talk about gather information, store information, and process information, and you might know, knowledge at war is literally life, because with modern weapons, people in many cases don't see enemy, just got info from intelligence that enemy in location X,Y, and who will make successful fire first - will survive.
To be strict, now Russians still have significant advantage in heavy and modern weapons, and strong intelligence, and for them typical to attack civilians, so anything what make more heavy/modern weapons for Ukrainians and less heavy/modern weapons for Russians, will made huge impact on volumes of work for medics.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231110021432/https://solar.low...
For the metaphorical warmer, something that could help people that you could probably help with as a programmer is a language learning platform: If people need to leave the country, knowing how helpful spaced repetition can be might save them a lot of strife.
If networking in your region becomes unreliable, it could be useful and helpful to know about mesh networking, but for that to be effective, cooperation needs to happen between multiple parties in different locations, and that can be difficult.
For about language learning and spaced repetition, things are running.
Just cup of days ago, Ukrainian government decided to make English a must for officials, and made changes to education regulations, so now English will study from first year in all Ukrainian schools.
Spaced repetition, from my own experience, is very depend on how well organized person, and war making huge interference in organization. Imagine, how hard to organize if you every day hear siren of air defense, and nobody could predict, how long war will last, and every day possible some extreme news.
To be honest, I envy to Yugoslavians, as they war last just few months, NATO aviation very fast finished Soviets offense. In Ukraine case, I literally seen few tides and ebbs, when things slowly become more extreme, and then again, slowly return some stability and feeling of safeness.
And the last what I must say, Ukrainians are good in peer interactions, unfortunately at the moment, we have not good reliable results in large scale peer interactions, I think we must study this part of democracy.
I think, my other answer also could say something additional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38503774
Thank you again, please share your thoughts and knowledge if possible.
Coffee? Batteries? Radios? Car parts?
What I think we have enough, is coffee, for other things, we need them, but exist nuances.
Most important, I'm veteran of Ukraine Maidan, but this war exhausted us economically.
I must admit, this time I just cannot spend enough money to talk with people offline, I think you know how this is important.
I know, Ukrainian defense need all these things, but not everything. I mean, we have technically powerful enemy, with developed radio intelligence, and environment changing constantly, for example, analog radios are not interest at all now.
And if we talk about radios, car parts, I must do even more - I must regularly talk with officials, and visit field tests, to check how they work on more or less real environment; for cars, I must calculate, which are more economy effective, so I'll not give military forces finance Black Holes.
Sorry, this time I need to take a pause and gather info. Will answer more later.
I think, my other answer also could say something additional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38503774
Thank you again, please share your thoughts and knowledge if possible.
In the meantime, I'm noting a few things from your comments. Can you confirm my impressions are correct?
1. Field communications are difficult, presumably due to Russian signals intelligence.
2. Russians have a weaponry advantage. Presumably this is mainly driven by artillery? Last I heard, airspace is still contested. Is that still the case?
Taken together, I'm under the impression field mobility and coordination is a challenge. Indeed, this is why my mind jumped to car parts, batteries and radio. Do you find yourselves needing to do things on foot? If so, I'm sure I could figure out a way to send things like socks, footwear and rain gear.
Also, please let me know if there are any supplies that could help with morale. I've also spent some time in a fox hole, so I know how much little things like coffee and chocolate can mean to someone after several days of rain or snow.
If you would prefer to speak about this somewhere else, I have a Matrix account I'm happy to share with you.
Exists three big problems.
First, they intercept signals and if possible use intercepted info to target their artillery or aviation, and they have superiority in both. In artillery they have about two times superiority (on begin of war was 10-20); in aviation, 5-10 times.
For about air defense, looks like they have more number of long range systems, like S-300, but we now have grown number of short range systems, like Gepard.
Second, they have developed electromagnetic warfare, and interfere our communications, and for example, in many cases could disable our drones just by EW equipment. They invested really huge resources on this, so even Western precision-guided munition suffered limited accuracy.
Third, they have their own spy satellites, and have experienced people working with tech intelligence for years, and we in Ukraine are mostly agrarian people, experienced only with light guns. Also, Russians actively involve academy resources (yes, literally universities) to conduct war research and to teach operators of new tech, like drone (uav) operators.
As example of war research, our hackers intercept documents, that in Russian civilian universities conducted researches of best routes for Russian drones to hit Ukrainian infrastructure objects.
Also, Russians heavily use civilian building equipment to build fortifications. And Russians constantly hit Ukrainian civilians, but Ukrainians, avoid to target civilians at all costs.
This sometimes remember me colonization of America history, where on one side was tribes with bows and arrows, and on other side colonizers with rifles and guns.
Partially, we in Ukraine working on peer level, to research and to teach people, but I near have not hear about government programs of doing this, and our bureaucracy is constantly late on this.
Fortunately, Ukrainians much better in peer working than Russians, but I'm not sure this will be long superiority.
And I don't know, when we fix our weak bureaucracy.
And yes, Western equipment is far better than Russian, but we have it in too little quantities, to achieve superiority. For example, Russians usually have to spent ~50 artillery shells to hit target; with Western guns, Ukrainians in many cases need only 10, but Russians have these 50 shells and Ukrainians have not these 10.
And sorry to repeat. This is really big war, in which things changed constantly. And changes are so huge, even NATO analysts sometimes said, they was not imagine this could happen. For example, people said, at NATO they trained that mine field will be square 200x200 meters, but in reality seen many kilometers strip about kilometer deep. And when Ukrainians use anti-mine system, make pass and go there, immediately, Russians fire from artillery and use systems for remote placing land mines.
Please shoot me an email if you have any specific requests I can help with and I will do whatever I can to help!
I'm contemplating getting a diesel generator, to share amongst them and their neighbours, but it's less than ideal as the generator has to be outside (for ventilation) and their apartment block doesn't have balconies.
For heat pumps (fridges, conditioners), boiler automation, microwave, modern high frequency furnaces, things are more complicated and this will not work directly, but for them usually written MAX power input, but in reality they consume max power only few seconds to start, and all other time, typical 1/4 of max power or even less. So, you need to check peak power output of your powerstation, many have constant power for example 1000W, but peak 2000W.
In some cases, may be good solution automobile booster, as they designed to have insane high peak power.
I could not recommend this, but in many cases, in modern tech, only digital part is much depend on voltage and consume very little power, and use closed loop control and sensors, but heaters are just old Ohm heaters, and they connected with digital by relays, so it is possible to power digital part from external power supply, like mobile charger (international variants usually work 100-240V), and heaters directly with lower voltage (120V instead of 220V).
From their side, they are saving the hassle of breaking down and disposing boxes. So for best results, ask them the preferred pick up time and stick to it. (there's a fine line between "less work disposing of boxes" and "tripping over stuff taking up space all day". If people feel appreciated, they can be remarkably kind.)
Oftentimes, deliveries come on specific days- for any store you ask, plan ahead slightly to work with their schedule. Not every store has the room or space to help, but some will try if they can. (Trader Joe's, for example, tends not to waste space on frivolities like storage. Or parking.)
Moving to a new place is a lot! I hope you find good friends and neighbors when you get there. Taking time to build roots before the new job gets hectic can make a big difference to quality of life later.
check the 'who is hiring' and freelancer submissions for job offers, and make a post in the freelancer or 'who wants to be hired' one.
Good luck!
Anyway, I'd love to hear your story, and thank you for what you are doing.
The rest of the expenses though. Oof. (For americans reading: I paid over $700 just in visa and immigration processing-related fees)
Some questions: Have you asked after waivers (even at the schools that say they don't offer them) and if so, what sort of responses are you getting? And have you had any luck finding a school that might spot you a TOEFL voucher? What would the cost of the TOEFL be for you?
If you're affected by tech winter and looking for someone to have a technical discussion to "upskill", feel free to reach out: https://tidycal.com/wiradikusuma/hn-30-min
I'm writing a "wide spectrum" technical book, but this is not a solicitation for the book. I'm mentioning this just to say I know a thing or two.
What advice would you give for a stay at home dad (5years) looking to return to tech.
How do I portray that on my resume and on linked in? How big of a deal is it?
It's not easy, but if you share what you've tried, people might have suggestions. If you share where you are (I completely understand if not) then you might find neighbors.
I should probably get back into music, I’m just worried it’ll lead towards drug use since that’s my past. That and the music I like isn’t very popular.
Agree, but they get you in practice making casual conversation, which is how you make friends — casual conversation with people you frequently share physical space with. Honestly, shared interests are only a bonus; if you share physical space with enough people on a regular enough basis, and repeatedly make casual conversation with them, some of them will magically become friends.
Also, making friends isn't chit-chat or magic. Just listen and have compassion. Actually be interested in the other person as themself, in their own universe, not as an object in your passion play of need. Do that with everyone.
Some won't want to engage - accepting that is part of being interested in them as separate beings; that's where they are at the moment. Read the situation a bit - how they look, what they're doing, etc., and respect them, have compassion for their difficult day. Some will engage more, people will fit with you more or less, some will become friends to varying degrees. Accept however it works out and you'll have a variety of relationships.
Some will objectify you as an object in their passion play of need - those are relationships to avoid. You aren't really a participant; they only see you as what they need (or as a failure to be what they need). Learn about objectification - important for understanding oneself and others.
Have you read any interesting books? Tell me about them!
Have you had any interesting adventures, trips, or things that you have done? Tell me about them!
Have you written any poems or stories? Tell me about them!
Can I call you?
Also for ransom pen pals I use an app called slowly to connect to people around the world. I don't think I've reached out to anyone not super interesting.
It's a really cool idea you have there and I wish you the best
I don't need anything though, I am (now) a man of extremely humble means. I wake up every morning alive and I have access to the Internet. What more does a nerd need? :D
p.s. I do accept any coupons for free SaaS subscriptions anyone has spare. Literally any tiny bit of money I get goes on subs and a Hetzner three euro/month ARM server rental!
https://bailproject.org/
qingcharles: there are a number of resources available to help you with “re-entry”, and after ten years that seems important. Generally the best help comes from private nonprofits, but there are a lot of official options too (https://nationalreentryresourcecenter.org/). If you’d like any help connecting to groups in your area, feel free to ask, I can probably find some.
I just checked out that National Re-entry web site. Oh lord, as a web designer I just died a little inside. I tried searching for information and it just gave me pages of PDF internal reports about jail management etc. Literally nothing that would get me food or say, some winter boots.
The problem I've got is that my immigration status was screwed by the incarceration and my SSN is currently invalid. I can't get any ID and I can't access any government services until it is restored. I'm supposed to be in immigration jail until my green card is reinstated, but I talked to an ICE agent and they say I am super low priority as long as I stay out of trouble they won't come after me.
I would think a libertarian-orientated place like HN would be in full support. This model should be copied across the country so people aren't unconstitutionally jailed before being convicted. Unfortunately, the discussion has been focused on politics as a Democratic legislature and Governor passed the law.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion...
I am recovering too. Soon, I got to war.
But yeah I understand. Once you're dealing with multiple countries every financial/legal situation becomes much much harder.
Me, they put for a month into solitary confinement under 24/7 video surveillance when I demanded to speak to the US embassy, since they did not believe me that I am a US citizen.
There were people I was with doing months in jail because they couldn't come up with $50. I had a homeless cellmate with a $200 bond. I told him I'd get my wife to pay the damned thing, but in the end he managed to get all his homeless buddies to come down to the jail and give $10 or $20 each over three days until he had enough to get out. I won that case for him, he was only jailed because the local police chief was a piece of shit and put a false warrant out for him even though he had committed no crime.
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/presumed-innocent-but-detained-for-mon...
I've known several people who managed over 11 years in the Cook County Jail.
I did 8 years and 1 month in jail, then 11 months on house arrest, then another 5 months in jail for Tweeting about police misconduct. Then another 4 months in prison because they didn't want to phone my release site.
Anyone else rocking the "Free Kevin" bumper sticker back in the day?
This and civil forfeiture stuff always has pissed me off immensely.
https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/
It looked like I was going to be able to pull it off on my own originally, but it was going to take a year and every waking moment of every day was going to suck in the meantime. I was right about it sucking, but I was wrong about pulling it off. I had finally breathed a sigh of relief the weekend before Christmas Eve in 2019 since it looked like I was actually going to make it and it was only a matter of another month or two. I hadn't allowed myself to attach hopes to anything less than concrete at that point. COVID really screwed that up, and I got reset to zero.
I've been barely holding it together since then. Five years of working sh jobs for even worse people who know they have you and delight in it--even more than they value their own bottom line. Now I don't even have a job; it's been a month since my last paycheck and no more are coming. I look young and inexperienced and give the impression that I'm healthy enough financially/circumstantially to be able to absorb whatever shocks I might incur from others shifting onto me the things that they'd prefer for someone else to bear instead of them. But none of those things are true. People in Austin almost seem disappointed when they peg you for a slacker but it turns out you're not one, like you're doing something wrong.
I'll spend whole days looking for jobs from whomever might take me, including bad ones, with nothing to show for it. Once I write down my professional experience or we talk, anyone with a brain can tell I'm at the wrong place--I should be working somewhere that's a good job. Good jobs take 6 weeks to 6 months, but I don't have that, and I don't have the environmental stability to make it through the process, anyway, as far as take home assignments and clear, distraction-free thinking go. I can't even start to work out how I'm going to wash the last 5 years off my resume.
"Once I write down my professional experience or we talk, anyone with a brain can tell I'm at the wrong place--I should be working somewhere that's a good job."
The idea being that this sentiment is either stated explicitly by the other person during the interview, or it comes across in tone. I'm not saying or thinking anything like this. I don't feel like I'm owed a "good job". (I do feel entitled to dignity, on the other hand.)
I have been told outright to dumb down my resume and that I'm obviously overqualified. Anyone paying attention can pick up on the clues that I "shouldn't" be there, that it's only a temporary accident that I'm even available, and they're understandably hesitant to say "yes" if they feel they're just going to be back in the same situation looking for another worker shortly down the road, once I get back on my feet. They'd rather take a chance on a so-so worker who's not exactly reliable and is somewhat irresponsible if it means there's a chance that person will be around for an expected 2 or 3 years, rather than me, the wildcard. That leaves the people who aren't able to put things together. Accordingly, working for these people is generally miserable either by accident or takes a turn to being exploitative or abusive by intent (because "the cruelty is the point").
No matter what, I like seeing things like this in various online communities, it brings the human out in us.