Spot the Drowning Child (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://spotthedrowningchild.com/# <comment><USER2> When I was 12, I went on a week long hike as a scout. We decided to swim across a lake, and 1/2 way through, I got tired, and tried swimming back, but couldn't.

I remember having the presence of mind to yell out help before blanking out. My closest friend in the troop luckily turned around, swam back to and drug me back to shore.

I was scared of the water after that, but some how ended up fighting my fear and earning the swimming merit badge, which for a weak swimmer, was no easy task.

For his heroism, and because I had overcome my near death experience, we were both recognized for embodying different aspects of scouting.

That incident in the lake inspired my friend to go on to become a life-guard.

Both my kids started swim lessons in infancy, and my oldest son gets compliments for his swimming skills while at the public pool. Though the pool we use has life guards, I never for a second take my eyes of my kids.

Maybe one day they'll go on to be life guards prior to college.

<comment><USER3> Something similar happened to me as a kid, I decided to swim from our boat to the shore of the lake, got exhausted 100 meters from the shore. Before going in full panic mode I remembered you can basically float indefinitely on your back with very minimal effort and did just that until I was calm and rested.

Turns out our mandatory swimming lessons from the age of 8 weren't as useless as I thought.

<comment><USER4> I think the skill of being able to flip onto your back and scuttle to wherever you need to go is more important than knowing how to swim (and I love to swim - I swam 2 kilometers just this morning). Unless you are in super cold or choppy water you should be just fine.

<comment><USER5> I have some very young nephews. As well as teaching them how to swim, we're teaching them how to flip over and float, just for this reason. If they can do that, and recognise when they're in trouble, then it might just save their lives one day.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget teaching them how to swim on their backs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like others who commented I worked as a life guard and water safety instructor when I was younger. (Everything I am saying pertains to the US only.)

I rescued quite a few children, it's hard to see in this video because the video quality is poor and the camera is at an angle that is worse than what the lifeguard in the video is seeing. Overall this victim is fairly active and should not have been very hard to spot in person for a well trained lifeguard. (And they did spot the child.)

This is a weird video because:

There are lifeguard(s) but yet the pool is full of non coast-guard approved tubes and floatation devices such. Most places with well trained lifeguards would not allow this. They don't work, can be more dangerous than no PFD, and they make it harder for the lifeguards to see. The worst drowning incident I witnessed involved a child in a tube who got flipped upside down and couldn't get out of the tube or flip back over. (I was not a lifeguard yet when I saw that.)

I think things from my perspective are in a terrible state in terms of water safety compared to 20 years ago.

Something must have changed with insurance liability, as most places just don't even have lifeguards. Resort pools I see these days are designed in a way where sight lines are so poor lifeguards/parents cannot even see children in the pools unless they are in the pool and stay within 10ft of the child. Very different than things used to be. Pool designers have reduced depth & eliminated diving boards resulting in a false sense of security. Meanwhile the pools are no longer even sufficient to be used for teaching up to a point where a person can be considered a swimmer. I just got back from vacation and the resort we stayed at had a pool which absolutely terrified me. I was 100% in lifeguard mode the entire time my child was in the pool, and the pool was so bad I couldn't sit in one spot and see him, I had to walk the edge of the pool to maintain sight lines. (The pool in the video is not like this FWIW)

Fewer young people are supposedly physically fit and able to get to advanced swimming levels and pass tough standards like Red Cross. There are fewer places that even have Red Cross accredited programs these days as a result. Red Cross level instructors command high pay, and most places teaching swimming lessons these days are money making businesses that pay instructors near minimum wage and try to make the franchise owner wealthy. This is a relatively large change from non-profit Red Cross programs back in the day.

Red Cross has always refused to act as insurance for pools/resorts/water parks, and alternate private organizations now certify lower quality lifeguards & swim instructors and we have new things like "Shallow Water lifeguards" that can be paid minimum wage. These alternate private certification orgs train to a lower level but do act as insurance so they're very attractive.

I have a 7 year old, he's been through 4 private orgs so far. None have had Red Cross accredited programs. All of them have been super expensive but they're the only choice available. 3 of them did not have deep enough water and their instructors were not trained at a level for teaching to a full "Swimmer" level. None of the programs seem to focus on water safety and have strange practices like trying to teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes without teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke, etc.. which are more useful in emergency water situations. Most of the instructors I've seen teaching my child show poor enough form they'd have not passed a Water Safety course 20 years ago.

The whole thing is a giant mess. I have been considering getting re-certified to take over finishing my child's swimming lessons, but the course is hard to take these days. Which also explains why not enough 16-20 year olds manage to take it. And there are almost no pools left to use that are not privately owned and have deep enough water.

Also at least by the old standards when someone who was a Red Cross WSI calls someone a swimmer we're talking about a pretty high level. Someone who can't swim for 30 minutes to safety in deep water is not necessarily a swimmer IMO. Maybe standards have reduced. But that was a requirement at one point. And this is not something that requires elite physical fitness or stamina when you are trained to swim well. Some of the strokes are barely more physically taxing than walking if you're proficient. Non swimmers get a false idea about this because they mostly see competitive swimming which uses the taxing/fast strokes.

<comment><USER8> > teaching 5 year olds the butterfly and other high energy/low safety strokes > without teaching elementary backstroke, breaststroke, sidestroke.

I am amazed at how few of my early millennial peers have never heard of the elementary backstroke.

<comment><USER9> I just googled "elementary backstroke" and yeah... I'm in my forties, pretty proficient swimmer, and nobody ever showed it to me.

I watch my kid's lessons and I'm sure I didn't see it being shown to them. They got into what I google as "backstroke" straight away, without the "elementary" phase.

<comment><USER10> I just looked it up and turns out that's my favourite stroke! I didn't know it had a name, I just called it the "Jellyfish" :)

I don't think I was ever taught it. I think I just discovered it playing around in the water one day.

<comment> mark-r That's one of my favorites too! I didn't know it had a name either.

When I want to play around, I try swimming backwards. On my back, with my feet straight ahead and motionless, I stroke backwards with my arms so I move in the direction my feet are pointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the important lessons I learnt from a lifeguard is that movies depict a very inaccurate representation of drowning. The movies would have you believe that drowning is a violent and noisy event when in reality it is an inconspicuous and silent event. The victim cannot shout or call for help when they are struggling to keep their nose above the water level.

Another important lesson I learnt that sometimes when someone is rescued from drowning, they are at the risk of secondary drowning which can occur during sleep after the accident. Especially, if a child looks very weak and tired after a drowning accident, it is important to keep the child under medical care for the next 24 hours. Never take the risk of the taking the child back home in such a case.

<comment><USER12> An important lesson to learn in general is that television and movies depict very inaccurate representations _of everything_.

<comment><USER13> Including _sounds_ , which are almost universally added to the footage in a separate processing stage, and have no relation to what has actually happened on the stage itself.

<comment><USER14> Hence why every bird of prey ever shown in any movie ever has the call of a red tailed hawk.

<comment><USER15> And every jungle is full of kookaburras

<comment><USER16> Hah, have you got an example of this one? It's a very distinctive sound so it would be hilarious to hear it over a shot of some obviously non-Australian jungle.

<comment><USER15> This is so common it's on TVTropes:

[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JunglesSoundLike...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JunglesSoundLikeKookaburras)

<comment><USER16> Wow, thanks. I'm not big on TV/movies but I'm surprised I missed this one completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In Toronto, children are tested for swimming ability at _each visit_ to a public pool. Children are given wrist-bands corresponding to their age upon arrival. If a child wishes to swim in the deep end, he or she may ask a guard to give them a swim test (swimming a fixed distance without touching floor or wall). Upon passing the test, the child is given _another_ wrist-band indicating that they may use the deep end. Parent:child ratios are also strictly enforced for younger children.

[https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming- spl...](https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming-splash- pads/drop-in-swimming/) (see "Important Information")

The presence of children with no swimming ability in the deep end of a crowded pool in this video seems like an obvious recipe for disaster.

edit: toys and floats _are_ allowed in Toronto public pools, the kids have quite a lot of fun with them.

<comment><USER18> Wow I think the only time I've ever had a pool give me a swim test was for Boy Scouts summer camp where it's 75 yards front stroke 25 yards backstroke and then float. Then you get a little tag you place on a board and you always have a swim partner with periodic checks where everyone gets out finds their partner and they count pairs to ensure no one's missing or without a partner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> All in all after watching several of their videos I feel like I do a good job of recognizing the drowning person, but I'm amazed at how quickly the lifeguards spot it and dive into action.

Even knowing that in this short clip there is absolutely someone drowning I still have doubt, but the lifeguard who doesn't have that context is already half way to the person by the time I'm sure.

<comment><USER20> The guards actually have a lot more context. They have been watching the people in the pool and have mentally sorted them by how much attention they need.

They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and their brain is ignoring all the visual noise that is distracting you. They also have the benefit of stereo vision and sound.

<comment><USER21> I agree with your general point but I think some of the assumptions you've made aren't quite accurate:

> _They have also been staring at the same pool for hours and their brain is > ignoring all the visual noise that is distracting you._

I'd suspect mental fatigue would counteract any benefits you'd get from increased filtering. Which, I assume, is why life guards are generally rotated regularly.

> _They also have the benefit of stereo vision and sound._

Sound might not be of much help here because drowning is usually something that happens quietly (as the linked site also explains).

<comment><USER20> I meant "hours" cumulatively, so their brain is ignoring all the background stuff that is competing for our attention in these short clips because it's all novel stimulation to us.

Drownings in progress are often quiet, but that doesn't mean there aren't useful audio cues (splashing that stops, a kid who is no longer laughing or shouting, etc)

<comment><USER21> Two very fair points :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I never got to properly thank the 15-yo lifeguard who saved my 7-yo from certain drowning in a crowded artificial lake pool.

We turned away for what only seemed a minute and he was going under. He was slightly blue in the face when the life guard brought him out.

The weird thing is he didn't fight or flail. He just sort of faded away into the water, and it struck me as especially weird that he didn't seemed scared at all after.

It has haunted me ever since just how easy it can be for a child to drown. Many swim lessons for my child later, I still watch him like a hawk and insist on life jackets in any moving water conditions.

Bondi Rescue, a series on Netflix about a team of Australian lifeguards, is instructive and entertaining.

<comment><USER23> I am curious, hope this is OK to ask as I have a 7 yr old...

How would you rater you 7-yo swimming ability when this happened? For example could he swim 20 meters (~60 ft)?

Also I might watch that Netflix thanks. I don't go to Bondi much but Manly beach a few km away is interesting. They are always yelling at people who are swimming in the dangerous current area and it takes several whistles to get them out. I usually give 'em a gentle yell too if I am there on a surf board :-)

<comment><USER24> I almost drowned in one of these wave pools as a teenager and I had been swimming every summer in swim camps (so a decent swimmer).

In my case it was because there were so many people in the pool that I could barely move, after struggling to breathe a few moments I had to exert myself to climb up someone else's inner tube to gain my breath. But I do recall spending most of my time barely above water and struggling to breathe. Could have gone very bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you > get to them and find out why.

If you're a new parent and haven't heard this advice before, this is one of the key takeaways. It also applies any time young kids are playing out of sight. If your kid is in their room and it gets quiet longer than usual, it's a good idea to go peek in on them.

<comment><USER26> If my 3yo goes into the bathroom and gets quiet, 9/10 he is making toothpaste/shampoo/toilet paper art all over the floor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning [1] has gone round the internet a number of times over the last decade. Well worth reading if you spend time around water, and a good read in any case.

[1] [https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/](https://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/)

<comment><USER28> Thanks for this. I hadn't read it before, and it's quite interesting. In particular:

> One way to be sure? Ask them, "Are you alright?" If they can answer at all – > they probably are.

When I was a kid, I spent a few summers learning to sail. Part of our training included responding to falling overboard or capsizing our small boats with crews of two. Our instructors insisted that whenever this happened we first call out to each other, "Are you okay?" and confirm it before attempting to right the boat. I never understood why, but now I do.

<comment><USER29> I remember watching the Discovery channel series BUD/S 234 about SEAL training, it stuck out to me that during their swimming test where they're required to swim an entire lap of the pool underwater that the first thing they're required to do when they come up is yell "I FEEL FINE" as loud as they can.

Anyone who didn't do so was instantly hauled out of the pool and sent to the medic. Which was good, because some of the men were unconscious when they got there, though they still passed the test! The requirements were to swim down, touch the far wall, swim back, touch the near wall, all while remaining underwater. State of consciousness was never specified :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It seems like spotting drowning children could be a good use case for computer vision, at least as a backup. The heuristics for a drowning child are pretty marked, but they're hard to spot for humans distracted by lots of other stimuli.

<comment><USER31> But who would you sue if the computer vision didn't spot your child drowning?

<comment><USER32> I think the more likely scenario is who wouldn't you sue?

Even the camera manufacturer wouldn't be immune from defending themselves.

Welcome to America.

<comment><USER33> You wouldn't sue yourself as the parent/guardian of the child - you look around for someone, anyone to blame.

When I took a 5yo to a pool which had multiple lifeguards I put her in a lifejacket and stayed within arm's reach of her. Playing in a pool is great fun but it is very high stakes. No way I am going to leave a child in such a dangerous situation and hope it works out. Making sure your child survives a trip to a pool is your responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am impressed by these videos any time the pop up on hacker news. But one thing struck me: that they are using those large floatation rings. A lot of the incidents seem to be where a child looses contact to the ring and then cannot swim on itself. I am wondering, why they are allowed at all. In my personal experience, I have rarely seen such rings in public pools and that basically means, you are not getting far into the deep part of the pool without some basic swimming skills. Most people/children wouldn't even try as they don't feel comfortable with deep water without an aid.

<comment><USER35> Part of the reason for floatation devices is a transitionary measure to get them more used to and practiced in "preswimming" while participating and not simply wading or pool side clinging.

They are just often misused - you are supposed to be supervising them when they are in the pool period and they only need deep enough water to keep their feet off the ground.

<comment><USER36> Personal opinion, based off my own experience and teaching other children how to swim:

Flotation devices have no part to play in teaching how to swim. Parents (or teachers) holding their children and teaching them how to float is step 1. Only after the child can handle themselves in water (float, know when to breathe) should they be playing with flotation devices.

<comment><USER37> We should clarify that PFDs (life-jackets) are probably good for young children and new swimmers. It's the floating toys that might actually be harmful.

And one skill that swimmers need, but cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the water. I watched an adult friend learn to swim, and this was REALLY hard for him. Crazy enough - he was ex-Royal Navy submariner, so he had passed basic water survival - he could float on his back, just couldn't do anything beyond that.

<comment><USER33> > cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the > water.

We used kickboards for this exact purpose. So you can float face down with arms outstretched holding the board. You can transition to freestyle swimming taking one hand off the board at a time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE)

<comment><USER38> So it was practised for teaching swimming here in Poland at schools, but these are always in a very shallow pool and supervised too.

They lack the failure mode of floating face down in water, but instead are unsafe to others who can be hit with them. And kids will collide.

The newer foam ones are much softer and safer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> My kids wear type III PFD's until they pass their level 3 swim class. If I am swimming actively with them in close proximity they may go without. If I'm on the shore/side of the pool though, they have their PFD on. Armbands and toy flotation rings are not safety devices. Although me and my family love the water in all forms, going to the pool, lake or ocean is always a little stressful for me. I cannot have a thoughtful discussion with someone while my kids are swimming as my head is always on a swivel and my attention is 95% on the water. I will call my kids in periodically so I can take a break from the constant attention required. We do most of our swimming at lakes and ponds. At the pool, I will allow myself a little less focus since there are lifeguards. Fortunately I only have one left that needs to pass her level 3's.

<comment><USER40> Always on a swivel! It is so stressful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Rates of drowning in Europe[0][1] vary by more than an order of magnitude. I'd be curious about compulsory swimming lessons in schools, as is done here in Switzerland[2], and its correlation to the rate of drowning.

[0] [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat- news/-/D...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat- news/-/DDN-20190809-1)

[1] [http://22.214.171.124/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland- dro...](http://184.108.40.206/europe/info/switzerland/switzerland-drowning.pdf)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_lessons#Switzerland)

<comment><USER42> Netherlands reporting in: swimming lessons are spread over three competency group, and as far as I know, nearly all primary schools take time in the curriculum to do at least the first two competency levels before the pupils turn 7 or 8.

<comment><USER41> Thanks for your answer. I posted my question to the open data stack exchange site[0]. If there isn't an existing dataset, maybe we can create one country by country.

[0] [https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511](https://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/16182/1511)

<comment><USER42> Some data on the netherlands from 2014: [https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99...](https://www.scp.nl/dsresource?objectid=6185de0a-e909-4202-99d2-82bd64cdf2aa&type=org&&)

<comment><USER43> Interesting - that data does not quite match my experience; I was expecting a larger percentage to have B or C level diplomas. I wonder if that is due to region (more water and lakes on the west and north), (ethnic) background or something else.

<comment><USER42> Age and ethnic background, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> To all parents out there, it takes 10 seconds for a toddler to drown. Once in the water, if they go under, they tend to get disoriented and don't know where is up or down.

When you are with your kids near a swimming pool or the sea, keep your eyes glued on them.

My rule is "never break line of sight" (I borrowed the term from Assassin's Creed where if you break line of sights from the guards chasing you for a few seconds, their aggro switches off).

Line of sight. When near water opt in for a nice podcast/audio book and keep your eyes on your kids. A lifeguard is scanning the scene but on a 50 kids, you are most likely to spot something like this faster/sooner. Also while looking at your kids, you automatically scan/cover an area of 10-15sqm.

<comment><USER45> I can only strongly confirm this: last summer, my 2.5 years old boy fell in a (private) swimming pool while playing around it. Of the 4 adults that were around the pool (less than 3 meters away), only one saw him and could get him back safely. We could not hear a single noise, no cries, no water splashes...

Although he was wearing those kids armbands, they were useless as they were keeping his head underwater (he fell head first).

The whole thing took less than 5 seconds, but it was really frightening in retrospect.

Do not break line of sight.

<comment><USER46> Happened with me once and my kid was 8 or 9 already. 10 seconds not looking and he was already drowning on the deep part of the pool (where he was told not to go).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I could spot a few - but was faster than the lifeguard only once. (Well, before they came into view, considering the time it took before they came into view I was probably slower).

It'd be a lot harder in real life, when you don't know if there's going to be a drowning kid.. being prepared is half the game.

<comment><USER48> It's easier in real life because nobody just jumps in the deep end and starts drowning. When you're doing nothing but watching the pool you notice who is and isn't a strong swimmer and focus your attention on the kids who look like they're a higher risk. Also when you do it all day you get good. Most people who are struggling will know it and make it to the side of the pool with no issues so you get a lot of experience identifying what "not drowning but might soon" looks like.

<comment><USER49> you can drown even if youre a strong swimmer. a cramp in your feet/abdomen can cause you to drown.

<comment><USER33> I've had severe cramps in my legs/feet many times in deep ocean water with no- one around. If you drown from a foot cramp you are not a strong swimmer.

<comment><USER38> Or you're incorrectly trained. You should always be able to flip and float on your back if push comes to shove, and in that position you can swim just using your arms.

<comment><USER50> "incorrectly trained" is what people typically mean when they say "not a strong swimmer". anyone who has swum alongside 10 year olds on swim teams will understand that you can swim quite strongly even without being "strong" in the muscular sense.

<comment><USER33> Exactly it isn't physical strength. A strong swimmer is someone who removes "drowning" from the list of options as long as they remain _conscious_. This is a critical point when boating - friends have asked why I always wear a lifejacket when on a small boat; as a strong swimmer surely I have no need of one. In a boating accident the "conscious" part isn't guaranteed. Get hit by the boom and go overboard and you are going to need that lifejacket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Discussion from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185)

<comment><USER51> Related, from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170593)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978769)

2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667755)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9947237)

2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was talking to a friend, and mentioned it's probably a good idea not to have a swimming pool, because it's one of the top ways kids die accidentally.

However she said kids don't usually die in their pool, they die in their grandparents pool.

food for thought.

<comment><USER53> As someone who grew up with a pool, it made sure that everyone in my immediate family was well trained on how to swim. It's usually guests that visit who have the biggest risk of drowning in your pool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why are there so many people in the deep end of the pool who don't know how to swim properly? Looking at some of the videos, it seems like the majority can't do a breaststroke and drowns if they can't dog paddle to anything buoyant within a few seconds.

<comment><USER18> Because public pools can't administer a swimming competency test to every one who shows up to swim and people underestimate just how bad they are and how quickly they go from fine to fucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Things like this give me _so_ much respect for lifeguards, especially ocean lifeguards.

Being a lifeguard in a pool is clearly tough enough; being in charge of a stretch of sand with people moving in and out constantly has to be absolutely insane. Especially since a kid could run in, get smashed by a wave, and be underwater in the time you spent glancing down the beach the other way.

<comment><USER56> In beaches, I think often lifeguards rely upon being summoned and being able to get there quickly (beach vehicles). That's in case s/he has to cover kilometers of sand. Of course in such cases a lifeguard can't help with the Instictive Drowning Response: as the article points out, if you're affected by IDR you can hold out only 20-60 seconds.

<comment><USER7> Those are often places that aren't really fully staffed.

If the place is fully staffed and well managed the beach vehicles shouldn't be needed cause the lifeguards should be close enough to not need them. Most places I've seen ATVs in use the ATVs were being used by volunteers who were not lifeguards but watch the beach and call the coast guard/lifeguards on the phone if there is an emergency. The main beach I see this at is ultra dangerous with cold water, dangerous undertows, thousands of harbor seals in the water, and now has occasional great white sharks hunting the seals!

Making a beach safe enough requires a lot of well trained lifeguards. Not many beaches are ever staffed like that.

If it's dangerous enough some of the guards might need to be in the water on personal watercraft. Usually I've only seen this in super dangerous surfing locations though.

A full lifeguard training program also typically contains training on using a rescue board which is basically like a surfboard and can be super useful in ocean surf.

Baywatch was always super funny.. they carried Rescue Buoys which were near obsolete in favor of Rescue Tubes by the 90s. (The rescue tube is flexible and can be clipped into a circle once you reach the victim.) But the scenes on Baywatch would have realistically often have been done with both a rescue buoy + a rescue board.

Ocean surf is super dangerous, water temps can be dangerous at the ocean. Then in some places you've got sharks, jellyfish, coral reefs.

It's super intimidating compared to working a pool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I was able to consistently identify the drowning child faster than the lifeguard fairly easily, but it did require a significant amount of concentration (I'm sure it helped that I knew that I was supposed to look for someone in trouble). I'm not sure if I could pay that much attention for a long period of time…

</comment><comment><USER58> This is brilliant and one of those things that should be in all schools etc as it is an education in observation awareness that holds well in many walks of life.

I speak as somebody who trained to be a lifeguard in the UK - taking the bronze medallion #1 and whilst in intensive and in depth (having to know the four chambers of the heart as well as full CPR...) course with lots of practical exam parts, awareness that this gives you is something you can not learn from books and is hard to roleplay.

#1 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_(United_Kingd...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Medallion_\(United_Kingdom\))

</comment><comment><USER59> How come no one has commented on the fact that most of these videos include someone falling off an inflatable ring in the "deep end" of the pool while having virtually no swimming skills. It seems like a no-brainer to me that it's a bad idea to float out on a ring if you can't swim. Is that really common?

</comment><comment><USER60> While there are many machine learning-based drowning detection systems out there, I'm having a hard time finding solid information comparing their reaction time and accuracy rates to lifeguards. Does anyone have any solid research that they've found?

I don't want to replace lifeguards or increase their workload by spreading them thinner, but want to find out if we complement them together whether or not it would _increase_ detection rates and lives saved. However, if the current state of the art performs abysmally compared to lifeguards, then I have doubt whether or not they can be combined for improved outcomes.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine...](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=machine+learning+spot+drowning&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

<comment><USER61> There seems to be two broad categories of products: those for pools and those for beaches.

Here's a shortlist of systems for pools: Coral Manta, SwimEye, Mobotix, Axis, AngelEye, Argusmatik, Poseidon, Zwembadcamera, Optoswim, Dipsee A.I., and Lynxight Deep Vision.

For beaches there's: Milestone, Coastalcoms, etc., and two of the above companies also do beaches: Dipsee A. I., and Lynxight Deep Vision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Looks like it give you a different video each time.

Lifeguarded during high school. It's hard, even in a small pool.

</comment><comment><USER63> How are things related to swimming education in different countries? In the Netherlands swimming lessons are a pretty basic parental 'requirement'. Former decades had school swimming, but that fell out of grace due to costs and liability issues. I've been taking my sons for lessons for what feels like ages already (about 1.5 years weekly, now twice a week, with about max. a year to go). At that point they are pretty good swimmers, even fully clothed including jackets and it's my responsibility to keep practicing. How is that internationally? It feels quite irresponsible to take children without training to swimming pools, but that might my local customs focus. Swimming is a hard technique to master though.

</comment><comment><USER64> There's a youtube channel of these videos: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnERyC7dwJwTvEyzYz6uxHw)

For those not deeply familiar with U.S. structural issues regarding race, a random viewing of the video will show the unfortunately, the victim/rescued person is likely to be African-American. The reasons for this are complex and sad.

Anecdotally, as a child, my family wasn't well off (and at least once homeless), and for a while lived in a lower class urban neighborhood that just happened to have a nice public pool. However, I know that my swimming education started as a toddler with my mother taking me to the local recreation center for early swim classes. Later when I was maybe 6 or 7 my older brother, a champion high school swimmer, further reinforced this until I was very comfortable in the water and had no problems even at the bottom of the deepest parts of the pool. All through my early, middle and high school years I had countless opportunities to swim, and to learn new skills around water. When I was 17 I could easily complete a mile-long endurance swim, or pull a bucket of rocks 20 feet up off the bottom of a pitch black lake.

My African-American friends, starting way back at that housing complex, had no such similar experience. I remember long summer days with my friends teaching our black friends to swim so we could have more fun in the pool as a group. As children, it wasn't entirely unusual that one of us kids couldn't swim, as maybe their parents just hadn't gotten around to teaching them, so we took it upon ourselves -- never really noticing the pattern that _only_ our black friends hadn't learned to swim yet. What we didn't understand is that most of their parents would _never_ teach them, as many of them in fact couldn't swim either or discouraged it for various reasons -- creating a generational problem.

Now, older, I've come to see and understand the sadness of the situation and hope it continues to be addressed in a more systematic way.

Please, if you can't swim, learn to. Teach your children or have your children taught. Water sports are tons of fun, but your safety is mostly on your ability to swim.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjC2Ucpr__E)

[https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for- drowning](https://www.ymca.net/summer-buzz/highest-risk-for-drowning)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-11172054](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11172054)

<comment><USER7> This is a great response. When I was a Water Safety Instructor I spent part of my time teaching at a special inner city program that was designed to try and counteract the disadvantages you are discussing.

Another place I worked was in a very privileged town at a very large country club. They did a lot of corporate events where the pool was hired out by a company for their party. We would never get through corporate events without multiple rescues if the company had a lot of employees who lived in the city without access to pools & swim lessons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I almost drowned when I was pretty young (I wanna say 6 years old) might be older though but not by much, when we went on a pool trip when I was in day care or something, can't really remember what grade you're in at age six. I went to a deeper end and wasn't able to grab the edge to pull myself up.

A girl a few years older than I was was able to swim across and push me up. I remember there were two "chaperones" who were just a few feet away from the edge of the pool but they were both facing away.

Terrifying experience, still remember it vividly. Parents kind of laughed it off but I definitely could have died. Definitely teach your kids to swim properly before letting them go to a pool unsupervised is all I'll say.

</comment><comment><USER66> Something in the embed code prevents the "allow full screen" from working properly, so the video is tiny and scrunched up into the upper left hand corner. When I watched this on YouTube, with full screen enabled, I spotted the poor little fellow within about 5 seconds. This is using the latest chrome (v80.0.3987.132)

This worked, though:

      <iframe id="player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" title="YouTube video player" width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T5mDQeDkca0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

<comment><USER19> In Safari on mobile you have the opposite problem - it's too large for the display and there's no way to make it smaller (or full screen).

I kind of assumed that was intentional, since the lifeguard can't make it full screen or zoom in either. :)

<comment><USER67> ... for them it is already full screen and way better resolution

</comment></comment></comment><comment> w-m The first one I got was #26 ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuAfTA2wf7o)) and I find it quite hard to detect. Just next to the drowning child, there are a few others splashing around, which looks nearly identical. Could a machine make the distinction reliably?

Also interesting to note that there are many people really close by who do not notice the drowning, but spring into action to help once the lifeguard jumped.

<comment><USER57> The things that gave it away for me are the head being really close to the waterline and desperate-looking, rapid flapping by the arms to try to stay above the water. Disclaimer: not a lifeguard, this might not actually be valid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Oh, I thought they were going to use me as a mechanical turk to train an AI...seems like a good idea...could have camera-based lifeguards that dispatch lil' float rescue drones.

</comment><comment><USER69> Jesus, looking at this and reading a few of the comments has me well scared of the dangers of water again. Good reminder, but always chilling.

<comment><USER33> A healthy respect for pools is an excellent idea. There are few activities a child might reasonably engage in where it could go so wrong it might end up in their death. Swimming is one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> This seems like the perfect exercise for computer vision and machine learning/AI to rapidly alert the lifeguard to the drowning child or deploy some sort of scuba robot flotation device that can get to the drowning person before a lifeguard to shave off precious second that can cause brain damage from deoxygenation.

<comment> mark-r A flotation device isn't enough, often a drowning person doesn't have enough awareness or body control to grab it. You need someone who can grab the victim and pull them out of the water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Wow.

OK, what the hell is a kid doing in the deep end who cannot f __*ing swim? A large flotation ring is NOT a life preservation device!

</comment><comment><USER72> I believe this is where tech can be used as a tool to alert the lifeguards. I am seriously exploring building a real time video monitoring tool to alert potential drowning risks. I have the tech chops (video processing + image detection) and would be happy to collaborate if someone wants to join.

</comment><comment><USER73> Very good podcast about drowning: [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff- you-should-know-269...](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should- know-26940277/episode/how-drowning-works-29467262/)

</comment><comment><USER74> I once told a Life Guard at a public water park that his job is hard, that I can't even keep track of my own kids let alone all of them. He laughed at me. I still think its a lot of responsibility and hard to track everyone.

</comment><comment><USER75> After a couple of videos I quickly trained my eye to notice specific splash patterns peripherally and was able to spot it immediately in the rest of the videos.

Seems like it would make an interesting CV/ML project

</comment><comment><USER76> Any thoughts/experience with systems like the Coral Manta 3000? [https://coraldrowningdetection.com/](https://coraldrowningdetection.com/)

<comment><USER77> In the videos from the "article", the pool guard jumped in while the person is still trying to get above the water. They never lose consciousness and get away with a scare.

This system is "trained to detect people under-water" and in the demo it only starts beeping after about 6 seconds of no movement while the person is on the bottom of the pool. So the person first has to get exhausted, sink, stop moving, and then the system catches on that something is wrong. I guess if you get oxygen into the person fast enough, they can make a full recovery, but in the context of a pool this should _not_ replace lifeguards. At home, this is better than nothing, though I wonder if actual (near-)drownings would go up or down because of the sense of security.

Edit: the About page confirms it:

> Without air in your lungs, your body sinks [...] For children, irreversible > damage to the brain tissues typically starts to occur after about 4-5 > minutes without oxygen, (for adults it is after about 3-4 minutes). $product > detects when a person sinks, meaning seconds after she or he stopped > breathing

Detecting people that have gotten lungs full of water and are unconscious at the bottom of a pool is better than not detecting that, but it doesn't sound like pool guard or proper parenting can be replaced just yet, even if it might be a helpful last-resort aid.

<comment><USER76> Thanks. Yes, I was thinking of the Coral as a backup in the residential use case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> So tragic. In college a group of friends were at the beach when one of them started drowning. Everyone thought he was fooling around, but by the time they realized the truth it was too late.

</comment><comment><USER79> I'm a ML researcher: if you have video data/footage for this "spot the drowning child", I'd be interested in helping build a ML system for detecting this.

</comment><comment><USER80> This was really really informative. I realized my eyes were totally looking for the wrong thing, and also spent too much time looking at swimmers who were swimming under water..

</comment><comment><USER81> If you haven't seen this, read it. Really. [http://drownproofing.com/](http://drownproofing.com/)

Every kid should be taught this.

</comment><comment><USER82> In the Netherlands, children learn early to swim _in their clothes and shoes_ because of the risk of falling in a canal.

<comment><USER83> Yep. For anyone curious: "Diploma A" can be started at age 4. The requirements to finish the exam are:

      - Swimming with clothes on after an unexpected fall into the water, able to orient themselves above water and leave the water independently.
      - Enter the water in different ways, can orient themselves and proceed to swim through something.
      - Can use one or more of the 4 basic strokes (breaststroke, single backstroke, front crawl, back crawl) to swim a base distance
      - Can float on his back and stomach. Feels confident in the water.
      - Can do water steps(?) with arms and legs, can turn and orient themselves.

The clothing required are:

      - Bath clothes
      - Shirt/Crew neck with long sleeves
      - Long pants, dress or skirt (reaches the ankle)
      - Shoes (plastic/leather/sports)

Source: [https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/](https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/diploma-a/)

Diploma A is the first of the three diplomas (ABC). If you have all of those you meet the national swimming safety standard.

More reading: [https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale- zwemdiplomas/zwem-...](https://www.allesoverzwemles.nl/nationale- zwemdiplomas/zwem-abc/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Is there active AI research ongoing to identify such at risk individuals in crowded pool from real time Video monitoring

</comment><comment><USER85> Very interesting!

In addition to what I saw in the videos, it could be interesting to learn how to spot the drowning person because it went unconscious or because of a cramp, etc.

</comment><comment><USER86> God Damnit, now I really want that domain.

</comment><comment><USER87> using 2x rings is unstable and can also cause drowning; flipping upside down while on a ring can also do it.

</comment><comment><USER88> Can computer vision be applied to this?

</comment><comment><USER89> the kid drowned under my watch, but i'm not a trained life guard so that's expected.

</comment><comment><USER90> Can we please update the title with "2015" ?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9962185)

<comment><USER91> Why? Typically you age an article to contextualize it (sometimes REALLY important). In this case it is an interactive educational tool, the age hasn't changed its purpose, value, or usage.

<comment><USER92> Because someone seeing the title might want to know if it's something new or the same thing they saw three years ago.

(Sometimes, new things pop up under a title that has been seen before)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Can we do that with coronavirus?

</comment><comment><USER94> Why is there no progress bar? Do you really expect me to sit through several minutes of video of nothing happening just to prove a point?

Finally I saw the child go down, so I wanted to rewind a few seconds to see what happened there. Nope, not allowed!

<comment><USER33> The videos are on Youtube, you can click the Youtube logo in the bottom right and gain full control.

The site has an overlay where you can click on the drowning person and find out if you were correct. Hence the other controls are hidden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> What's the point of this? Should I be surprised that I do a poor job at watching a camera footage compared to a person being present there with all sensory inputs, context, trained to spot drowning people?

<comment><USER18> It shows what actually drowning looks like which is quiet and very predictable movements that don't match how most people expect it to look from movies/tv.

<comment><USER95> Then I think this page does a poor job and overly dramatic. It took me 4 attempts to see the popover text box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> So many of them don't have arm bands? It's borderline criminal to allow untrained kids in a pool without wearing those.

<comment><USER97> Despite their popularity, swimming experts advise against using inflatable armbands. Although they can help a child to float, they can slip off and lead to drowning. Inflatable armbands do not prevent drowning, nor are they a life- saving device. Mistaking them for one can create a dangerous false sense of security. Additionally, inflatable armbands teach children to float in a vertical position, which is incorrect because swimming is usually done in a prone position. Children who wear armbands can become dependent on them, as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_armbands)

<comment><USER98> They're a temporary measure; they make sure that a child that goes under, quickly comes up again. But a parent still needs to be nearby and paying attention. Never let a child without swimming diploma swim without nearby supervision. (This should be blindingly obvious.)

Of course once they start swimming lessons, they practice without armbands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> This is choreographed - I don't think the comments on reactions vs lifeguard reactions mean much.

<comment><USER57> They don't look very choreographed…

<comment><USER99> They do.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Announces 2010 Results and Management Changes  - <AUTHOR> http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.html

<comment><USER2> 35 billion in the bank, adding 2.5 billion to that every quarter? Did I read that right?

<comment><USER3> Not a bad position to be in.

<comment><USER4> not so great either.

(unless you think keeping your money in the bank while the economy is reinflating is such a good idea, like some of you downvoters do)

<comment><USER5> There's a limit to how effective companies can be at spending large amounts of cash. Uncontrolled growth can have negative impact. You can't simply make more acquisitions and hire more staff because you have extra money. You have to be as smart about spending $10Million when you have $30 billion as when you had $50 million.

It probably doesn't help that both MS and Apple are sitting on huge (larger than Google's) war chests. This kind of reserve provides a strategic advantage - being the kid on the block that doesn't could be disaster.

<comment><USER6> +1

Also, billions are harder to spend than millions, because purchases that big change the environment.

For example: a small, unprofitable company makes purple widgets, even though no one else thinks it's worth it to make purple widgets. Owning these guys would give you a competitive advantage because their widget-making technology coordinates well with your sprocket-making pipeline, so you acquire them for $1B. Suddenly a flock of other companies will jump up to make purple widgets; they will get acquired by your competitors, who can learn from your widget- making mistakes. This all cuts down on the competitive advantage that made you buy the company in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I misread that as April 1st initially and discounted it. Wow indeed. My immediate reaction as a Google user is positive; my possibly uninformed sense is that Eric has a greater capacity for evil than Larry or Sergei.

<comment><USER8> I agree, I think the restructuring decision will be beneficial - ever since Larry and Sergey gave up their majority control (they now control less than 50% of the company, I think) Eric and the board have been taking Google down a slightly different road. With this change, it should give more control back to the founders while still keeping the excellent business decisions Schmidt has made in the loop.

<comment><USER9> What's happening is pretty self evident, esp with the knowledge that Schmidt is selling as much stock as he possibly can. He's cashing out big time.

He obviously has strong disagreements with the founders, and believes that their direction for the company is fraught with risk of some sort of cataclysmic failure.

If you're a shareholder and care about profits, you probably want the guy who can be 'a bit more evil'. The world is a crappy place, and nice guys don't often finish first. My money's with Eric on this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow wouldn't have seen this coming. Any ideas on what caused this change? Seems like they are trying to move Schmidt to more of an operational role.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ummm, profit?</comment>


40-Pound Calculators, the Birth of Ethernet, and a $100B Mistake - <AUTHOR> http://a16z.com/article/Bill-Krause-CEO-sidekick/

<comment><AUTHOR> The story that wasn't told until now is the role that Steve Jobs had in the success of the ethernet.

I wonder how many untold stories of Jobs being crucial to the success of a company are still out there waiting to be revealed?

</comment><comment><USER2> _We went public having raised $6 million total, at a valuation of $72 million, which was was four times revenue. Before the lockup period ended, we were valued at $150 million. People did very well on their investments, but the point being that we started a major company on $6 million....Let's fast- forward 30 years, and calculating for the rate of inflation, that $6 million equates to about $24 million. How many companies get started today from founding to the point of liquidity for $24 million? Not many._</comment>


Giant brain-training dataset attracts scientists - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/global-neuro-lab People who drink once a day and get 7 hours of sleep outperform averages according to luminosity data. <comment><USER2> How is this title related to the article?

<comment><USER3> [http://xkcd.com/323/](http://xkcd.com/323/)

<comment><USER3> Downvoter(s): This comment was made before the title was changed, it previously referenced Ballmer Peak.</comment></comment></comment>


Moderating a public scholarship site on Reddit: A case study of r/AskHistorians [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/25576/CSCW_Paper_Final_Final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y <comment><USER2> AskHistorians is the internet I like.

<comment><USER3> It can be, but I also like the alternative. From a content perspective the sub is decent, but as with all heavy handed approaches to moderation, the perspective you get will get narrower as time progresses. Most information is really good, but I dislike the community character it gets. I have seen it enough times and it will very likely affect it negatively. It is inevitable if it gets too personal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That paper calls opposition of immigration "discrimination" and free speech "lawnessness". I don't agree with that.

<comment><USER5> The paper says "Reddit's lassez faire approach to sanctioning demonstrates an ethos of lawlessness; when lawlessness is framed as 'free speech,' moderation is seen as censorship".

You may not agree with this sentence, but it is definitely not calling free speech "lawlessness".</comment></comment>


Automating complex custom server builds - <AUTHOR> http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2011/08/automate-all-the-things/

<comment><USER2> You may have heard of Anchor because of GitHub: [http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2009/09/github-designing- succe...](http://www.anchor.com.au/blog/2009/09/github-designing-success/)</comment>


Docker was down - <AUTHOR> https://status.docker.com/

<comment><USER2> This is unfortunate, but not unexpected. I hope folks who depend on a Docker registry for production have created a local registry for their dependencies. And if not, this may be a good time to start.

[http://blog.docker.com/2013/07/how-to-use-your-own- registry/](http://blog.docker.com/2013/07/how-to-use-your-own-registry/)</comment>


Android Developer Website Returning Error 400 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.android.com/ <comment><USER2> Huh ! BTW right now Oracle vs. Google court is going on.</comment>


Lamar Smith lays out political strategy at climate doubters' conference - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/lamar-smith-unbound-lays-out-political-strategy-climate-doubters-conference <comment><USER2> > _"Next week we're going to have a hearing on our favorite subject of climate > change and also on the scientific method, which has been repeatedly ignored > by the so-called self-professed climate scientists"_

Those darned 'self-professed' climate scientists with their PhDs in climate science from leading accredited research institutions -- says the lawyer with absolutely no science training.

</comment><comment><USER3> I live in Lamar Smith's district in Texas. He's disgusting. We can't kick him out of office because the district is so gerrymandered[1]. I email him pretty frequently and get bogus form emails back about whatever topic I write about.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas's_21st_congressional_dis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas's_21st_congressional_district#/media/File:Texas_US_Congressional_District_21_\(since_2013\).tif)</comment>


Reddit's unpaid "internship" offer is apparently against labor laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/

<comment><USER2> This is confusing... looking at it from the "if I was the target audience" perspective:

General idea: unpaid work is a strange idea, but I didn't have anything else planned - why not?

Looking at the blog: 20h/week - that's cool, they're not expecting any actual work done. "Manage relationships with merchandise providers" - wait what? "help negotiate new licensing agreements" - phone monkey? "manage workflow of merchandise production from end to end" - doing actual work? with _responsibilities_??

I'm confused about who they're looking for. It looks like they need unpaid salespeople / junior account managers. But if someone can do the sales / manager position with ~1-month training and be useful for the other 2 months... I'm sure s/he can find a better position which actually pays commission.

<comment><USER3> They're looking for people who are competent, but who are either naive, terrible at selling themselves to an employer, or vastly underestimating their ability to find a good paid position.

<comment><USER2> Exactly, but that might work for example for a programmer (or some other not customer-facing position). How can someone negotiate a good deal if they're naive, underestimating, or terrible at selling themselves? Serious companies would try to hire exactly the other kind of people...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Direct link to the comment.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qq2iz?context=3)

According to the admins, Conde Naste's legal department cleared them, but I'm not sure. It looks like this could get ugly. The reddit community has a nasty habit of lashing out hard when they don't like something, but it usually blows over after a week or two. However, I've never seen it in the case where there could be legal action.

<comment><AUTHOR> with lawyers it's usually not a case of whether something is legal or not...it's a case of whether or not there is a risk of something being enforced.

I'm sure the admins attitude of "If you think it is illegal, don't apply." isn't going to help them either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why the hell isn't Conde Nast simply paying interns?

Guess: because they're actually really not OK with having interns (go! having an HR department!) and so the only way for the Reddit team to synthesize headcount was in this under-the-table fashion.

<comment><USER6> There's a comment saying Conde has hundreds of interns. They don't pay them because nobody in publishing pays any of their interns.

<comment><USER7> This has been a common practice at media companies for many years.

<comment><USER8> And hopefully will be fixed with definitive enforcement, turning these internships into jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see why anyone would share care about the details of internship contract, unless they personally involved. I see no problem with unpaid internships -- i never did one, nor would I offer one. Unless of course I was losing money on the deal and I was doing it to just be nice.

How is an unpaid internship different than becoming involved in an open source project?

How is an unpaid internship different than helping a professor with their research?

How is an unpaid internship different than volunteering at a soup kitchen or some other nonprofit?

<comment><USER8> >I don't see why anyone would share care about the details of internship contract, unless they personally involved.

Depresses pay. Tilts the workforce towards those who come from wealthy parents. Raises barriers to entry to career switching which decrease economic flexibility

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just pay them minimum wage if that is all you can afford. This trend of kids being forced to take an unpaid internship for college credit is really hurting kids who pay their own way through school or just need to have a paying job in the summer for one reason or another. Really, in the grand scheme of things it can't cost much to pay minimum wage and I think better work will get done.

</comment><comment><USER11> Regardless of the letter of the law, I don't see why anybody should be upset about this. Laws intended to keep people from taking unfair advantage of others who willingly agree to the arrangement are often horribly broken in that they treat a variety of situations where all parties receive benefits which are satisfactory to them as exploitative.

<comment><USER8> It also discriminates towards people of means. If I had rich parents, I could afford to work there for nothing. As a person who paid for myself, I'd be unable to have done that at the start of my career

<comment><USER12> So? Children of rich parents have all sorts of opportunities which aren't open to children of poor parents. Tutors, private schools, painless grad school.

Interning at reddit is hardly at the top of the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They don't have any money to pay the interns ([http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qqfoe)) , but have money for 2 offices and money to hire a lawyer to check if their internships are legal.

</comment><comment><USER14> If they're going to be doing anything of value, pay them. What's the big deal?

</comment><comment><USER15> I believe the commenter on reddit is mistaken. If you're doing an internship for class credit (as is indicated in reddit's blog post), it can be unpaid.

Note: I'm not a tax lawyer, so don't quote me on this.

<comment><USER16> It has to not seem like a sham class, though, at least if anyone actually investigates it. Just the fact that you get course credit isn't really enough; it also has to be mainly educational, not just a job relabeled as a class. Here's the federal government's six-part test for it: <http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The idea of an unpaid internship is abominable. Most interns in these positions need money desperately to pay their student loans (or maybe their living expenses???).

While it may not be illegal, it still generates a foul stench that reflects poorly on the founders of the company.

I'd be more than happy to stand with a group of interns to help them protest this madness. Give me a sign and I'll stand on the street corner with you demanding justice.

Bottom line, the "haves" are not willing to give (even a little) to the "have- nots".

</comment><comment><USER18> Unpaid internships are very common. As I understand it if you get course credit they don't have to pay you, hence the "we're legally required to ask you for a Letter of Credit".

<comment><AUTHOR> apparently they are all breaking the law

lots of info in this comment:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qq6jd)

<comment><USER18> If they are then the laws aren't being enforced very often.

Here's Reddit's response to these accusations: [http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qqfoe)

<comment><USER19> I found this response relevant: [http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qr367)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Yeah, that's actually a labor violation in both California and New York. Many upvotes to the Redditor that turns the admins in."

Man, those guys are dicks.

</comment><comment><USER21> Under this definition, my internship at the Massachusetts Statehouse was illegal unpaid labor.

This opportunity looks like a bad deal to me, I wouldn't do it personally, but trying to criminalize voluntary exchanges is no good in my opinion. Someone proactive about learning and making connections could benefit A LOT from this sort of thing and gain a lot more than $7/hour in value. Not my cup of tea, but I can see how it'd make sense for someone and I don't like seeing two people forbidden from a voluntary exchange they both think would work well for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> by that logic, minimum wage and child labor laws should be illegal. If a child wants to work...who are you to stop them?

<comment><USER21> > by that logic, minimum wage

Minimum wage laws hurt people sometimes. They're not just benevolent laws that increase pay. It means that some low margin businesses won't be operated, and some low skilled people who aren't capable of doing work worth the minimum wage won't be able to find jobs.

> and child labor laws should be illegal. If a child wants to work...who are > you to stop them?

What's a "child"? Is someone 14 years old and mature, disciplined, and learned a child? Should they be allowed to work if they want to? How about an extremely bright 12 year old? No dice, no matter what?

I think people with a level of maturity and understanding should be allowed to make voluntary transactions, yes. I won't stop them. In fact, I think anyone who would stop two consenting adults from making a voluntary transaction, no matter how well intentioned, is doing a bad thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> minimum wage laws mean you are making enough to live.

If you are making the minimum wage, and work 40 hours a week, that's $1,160 a month/$2,320 if they work 80 hours a week.

Can someone really survive if they are being paid even less than that? Let's say you pay someone $5 an hour because someone is desperate they'll take any job...and they work 80 hours a week, that's only $1,600 a month. Can you survive on that?

Yes some law margin businesses won't be operated, but that just means people won't have to work like slaves just to pay rent.

So you would be fine with a 12 year old working in the coal mines? By law, anyone under 18 is not considered an adult.

I guess by your logic, you'd have no problem with pedophilia, after all big bad law is stopping a 30 year old from banging a 12 year old.

<comment><USER21> $13,900 per year ($1,160 per month) puts you in the top 15% of earners worldwide. You can absolutely live on that anywhere, including any city in the United States, including Tokyo, including Hong Kong, and so on. You'll be able to get a bed, a shared bathroom, and enough healthy food at that money. And of course, as soon as there's an opportunity to make more, you move on and do so.

If you want to talk about high cost of living in the USA, I agree with you. Prices are artificially high in the USA for a number of reasons. If you removed just a few laws that aren't doing much good, a solid meal would probably cost around $1 to $2 - last time I was there, you could get a decent $2 meal in Taipei and a 2 euro meal in Berlin for instance. Prices in America are higher than they should be due to some corruption and stupidity, but even with the artificially high prices $14k is a heck of a lot of money by almost standard at almost any time in history.

As for the rest of your comment, I don't think the practice of running immediately to extreme edge cases is the best way to have a discussion. I started with the point that a 20 year old should be able to intern at a company if they want to, and you want to move the discussion to coal mines and pedophilia?

Edge cases are useful to discuss, but probably secondary in importance to general principles. If you agree that in general stopping mature, capable humans of doing voluntary transactions is a bad thing, then we can look at the edge cases and try to figure out some lines. But to answer your main point, absolutely $13,900 per year is a fantastically large amount of money that can be lived fairly well on. No Starbucks, no $12 movie tickets, but food, housing, and other necessities? Absolutely possible, that's a huge amount of money. I've lived on much less comfortably, and most of the world would kill to live on that $13,900 per year.

<comment><AUTHOR> sure you can live on $13,900 a year in some third world hell hole, but in that third world hell hole, your $13,900 would actually be $2,900/yr.

Sure a solid meal would cost only $1 to $2...all we need to remove is the part that doesn't allow companies to sell you contaminated beef, or the part that states that a company needs to state nutritional information on the back of the package.

You can't compare a salary, without taking cost of living into the equation.

Ok let's take that $1,160 a month..and cut off a 1/3 for taxes, unemlpoyment insurance, social security etc. You are stuck with $765 a month.

Please tell me how you'd live on $765 a month. And remember to live, you need to pay rent, pay for utilities, pay for food, pay for gas/bus tickets.

Sure you lived on less than that...but I bet at the time, you stayed with your mommy and daddy...or you lived on campus where your loans or once again mommy and daddy paid for rent.

Yes most of the world would kill to live on $13,900 a year....but most of the world, doesn't have the same high cost of living as we do in US.

<comment><USER21> I'll answer this comment, but before I do, can I ask a question? - What's your goal behind this discussion? Are you trying to learn, debate, convince me, convince other people, just pass the time? I posted originally to share my perspective with people, and then I try to respond to comments and inquiries to get a good discussion going. Because I can answer your comment seriously if you're open-minded and think there's a chance your views will evolve. Likewise, I'm open to my views evolving if I see something good. Otherwise, if it's for third parties or just entertainment, I'll probably break from this comment thread since I've said the basics of what I think and probably not so many people are following it any more. Anyways...

> Ok let's take that $1,160 a month..and cut off a 1/3 for taxes, unemlpoyment > insurance, social security etc. You are stuck with $765 a month.

Well, three points. First, you pay a bit less than that in taxes at the low end. Second, I already said I'm not in favor of this kind of forced law and I'm not in favor of an income tax, uninsurance, or social security at all. Third, if you are paying taxes that high, you're probably funding benefits that you can get. So you're either living on $765 after taxes but then you get government benefits, or most of $1160 with lower taxes. But let's say that's roughly a wash and your real pay in cash and/or benefits is $1000 per month.

I did a quick search in the Chicago Craigslist just to pick a random big city. There's quite a few roommates/shared bedrooms in the $400 to $500 per month range. If you look, I'm sure you can find cheaper. I was in Hong Kong two months ago. You can pay $15/night for very small private room/shared bathroom in a cheap place on Kowloon. An all you can ride train pass is between $70 and $120 in most large cities. So we're at $500 now for rent and transport in a city. You can eat oatmeal and rice and beans as your staples, then mix in a little tuna fish, chicken, and fruit and vegetables. Oatmeal and rice beans are so cheap they're basically free, you're looking at $20 to $30 the entire month total for 60 meals. Go crazy and say $5 worth of protein, fruits, and vegetables per day and your food budget is $170. You drink tap water which is almost free, instant coffee will run you $10 to $20 for the month. So that's under $200. If you cook with people, you can eat better food for the same prices. Buy whatever's on sale for meal, fruit, and vegetables, in Los Angeles last year I was sometimes able to get a medium sized pack of Strawberries for $2 at Ralph's when they'd shipped too many.

Really, anyone who doesn't think $1000/month is livable in the USA has been incredibly blessed. Plenty of immigrants and people working their way up live on much less. You share space with multiple people, maybe you only get 1/4th of a large bedroom with three other roommates and share one bathroom and a small kitchen. You cook most of your meals and don't eat out much. You take public transit, walk, or a bicycle. It's not glamorous, it's not awesome, it's not fun, but it's doable. And again, the goal isn't to stay in a low wage job forever, we're doing all this math with a 40 hour work week, which is plenty of time to look for other opportunities, train yourself, etc.

As for me when I lived poor - I dropped out of high school and left home at 16, and never took a dime in cash from my parents since leaving home. Not a single dime. So the mommy and daddy comment isn't quite accurate. Ah, I was about to share a story about what life was like back then, but it'd take a while to type. It's not awesome, but you survive, grow, do what you can to improve, and you make it.

But I'll ask if you don't mind answering: what's your objective here? Are you open to changing your mind on this if I give reasonable, well thought answers to your questions? I don't mind spending the time on this if something positive could come of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> just having a discussion.

Technically you pay less in taxes on the low end, but those taxes get taken out every two weeks, you just get a refund at the end of the year.

It doesn't really matter what you are in favor of, the taxes will still be taken out of your paycheck. Of course you get things in exchange for your taxes. It's nice to say "well in the perfect world you could live on X", but we don't live in a perfect world. That's why I'm no longer a liberterian.

Fine let's say you have $1,000 per month in cash.

And fine, let's say you find a roommate deal at $450 a month.(btw once again, don't bring up hong kong or other countries, we are talking about you wanting to eliminate American minimum wage). Oh and let's not forget the $450 deals are fairly rare, so if millions of people start getting paid below minimum wage, those few good deals will be snagged up quickly.

Anyways that leaves $550.

Minus your $70 for the train pass, $480.

The food issue is a good one. The $200 you spend, gets you just enough not to starve to death. Do you think 40 hours of labor shouldn't be enough to avoid not starving?

So we are down to $280 a month.

But have you forgotten something? The water bill? The gas bill? The electricity bill? The phone bill? What about all those other expenses? Like health insurance, replacement clothing, etc?

And of course the goal is to get a better paying job. But by not having a minimum wage, you have wage depression. When you can pay entry level slaves $3 an hour, you can pay the guy with 6 years experience $5 an hour. And what kind of mobility do you think someone working at MickeyDs have?

The goal here, is for you to realize, that there needs to be a living wage. Where working 40 hours a week, should be enough to make ends meet.

How about the ideal of the 50s? Where you could work 40 hours a week in an entry level job, and could afford a house with white picket fence, a car, and basic luxuries and could support your family?

Your whole argument is based around a young, single, healthy guy, going through a rough patch. Not the situation, that the minimum wage laws were created for.

What's with this idea that the people should be ground down into the dirt? We already have 39.1 million people in poverty in United States, why do you think we need to increase that number?

The difference between $7 an hour and $3 an hour for Mickey Ds, is measured in them selling 1 extra big mac.

For every person who crawls out of poverty like you did, there are thousands who stay there indefinitely. We live in America, not a 3rd world hellhole, and our cost of living reflects that.

I doubt there is anything you can say, that'll make me agree that someone living in New York City, should be allowed to be paid $3 an hour</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cryptomarkets Are Gentrifying the Drug Trade - <AUTHOR> https://news.vice.com/article/cryptomarkets-are-gentrifying-the-drug-trade-and-thats-probably-a-good-thing

<comment><USER3> "assurances to please liberal or socially-conscious users, such as knowing that their opium is "fair-trade" and their cocaine "conflict-free"" -

As gleeful as I am that there might be a way out of - or at least around - <USER2> drug war, I find these assurances incredibly dubious with no actual regulatory or independent oversight making sure that the substances in question are actually fair trade or conflict free (and obviously there won't be any until the war on drugs ends and addiction is more sensibly treated as a health problem rather than a criminal problem.)

There is also absolutely no way - by design - to tell that the person selling you these substances is telling you the truth.

This is where a purely libertarian position tends to run into trouble. In a system where there are serious negative externalities involved (is the production of this drug causing environmental damage? is it causing innocent children to die? is it grown without pesticides? will it kill me?) you have absolutely no recourse to protect yourself or others especially if something goes wrong.

<comment><USER4> I think the libertarian position is:

1\. in a free market,

2\. with seller reputation,

3\. where the seller is the direct producer/grower/manufacturer, rather than the producer retailing through many false, reputationless identities,

4\. "fair-trade" and "conflict-free" drugs will simply _outcompete_ the other kinds.

Which is to say, if the consumer is willing to pay $X, then any money $N used to pay for guards and guns and drug mules (the "conflict" part) is $N less available for actual chemists and equipment and materials.

The guards and guns and drug mules _are_ a sound investment for A. putting down rival operations to ensure a monopoly, or B. avoiding state action at scale, but if A is made impossible (by Tor) and B avoided by technological advances (running headless drug-manufacturing cells rather than a centralized organization), they cease to be rational investments.

Without these considerations, "conflict" drugs would have either a higher markup (decreasing marketshare), or a higher ratio of fake/cut product--a lower quality--meaning a worse reputation for the seller (decreasing marketshare). The conflict-free drugs would naturally rise to the top of an efficient marketplace.

The simplest comparison is another marketplace commodity which could, for all you know, be cut and low-quality all the time, but which very likely isn't: gasoline. Gas stations which sell at a higher markup go out of business. Gas stations which sell inferior product get a bad reputation, and go out of business. The market takes care of itself, without a regulator having to intercede at any point. (Commodities markets like this are in fact the shining example of where free markets are optimal for consumers, because they get very close to having the "complete information and distributed intelligence" that the Efficient Market Hypothesis assumes. The less commoditized the goods in a market are, the further from efficient it will be.)

<comment><USER5> gas stations are actually

* subject to several different types of fraud against which consumers have little way of protecting themselves. Can you tell if the pump is dispensing the octane rating you actually selected or a slightly lesser-quality fuel? Or if the meter on the pump is tampered by just a small percent?

* have relatively little reputation to worry about if you're near any road with any kind out-of-town traffic, such as a highway.

* very regulated for both fraud and environmental reasons

<comment><USER6> > Can you tell if the pump is dispensing the octane rating you actually > selected or a slightly lesser-quality fuel?

Isn't that true for any conceivable gas station, from the most laissez-faire to the most centrally regulated? Unless you can physically perform the experiments required to test the octane rating yourself, the only thing you can do is trust. You either trust the reputation of a gas station or gas station chain which you frequently purchase from (and have had no previous issues with their gas), or the reputation of some third-party consumer review organization in a laissez-faire economy, or the reputation of the government regulatory agency in charge of gas stations.

In all three cases, the organization you are trusting has some incentives to lie/cheat, and some incentives to be honest. Deciding which system has the best incentives on net, and thus is the most trustworthy, depends on the details of how each system works, and is a nontrivial economics problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Did they seriously spoil the ending of breaking bad in the first sentence?

<comment><USER8> In five years I'm sure it will be like "spoiling" the plot-twist in Empire Strikes Back: no one will ding you for spoilers because the plot will be common knowledge.

<comment><USER9> Right -- in five years. Just like nobody will ding you for telling them what happens to Romeo and Juliet, or that thing about Darth Vader, because by now it's assumed that anyone who cares to experience that thing un-spoiled has already finished.

The last episodes of Breaking Bad have only been on Netflix for about 6 months. It's completely plausible that people who decided to start watching after the series reached its critically-acclaimed ending might still be a couple seasons shy of the ending. Hold your spoilers for another 3-6 months to be safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Couldn't law enforcement flood the market with (fake) sellers, using lots of sockpuppets, and thereby entrap buyers, who have to give their real addresses? This would be enough to severely reduce confidence in the market.

I guess that somehow reputation protects against this, but also it's possible to have a circle of buyers and sellers giving each other false reputation.

<comment><USER11> This is a known potential problem. The solution is long term reputation and also a relatively high initial bond to the site to make an account.

In terms of circles of buyers and sellers they can use all the algorithms that people like ebay have been perfecting for years. Not a new problem.

Obviously not water tight, but it seems to be working well enough for these sites to function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> >> Had Walter White sold his blue meth on Silk Road rather than through drug kingpins and criminal gangs, there wouldn't have been much to Breaking Bad

I'm not so sure about that. There were plenty parts that would still have happened.

1\. They would have still had to find a location to make meth

2\. They still would have had to find the supplies to make it with

3\. They still would have had to find large quantities the supplies to make the stuff

4\. Distribution is still an issue. You can't just take 10lbs of methamphetamine to the UPS Store in 50 different boxes every week.

5\. Walt still has to launder the money

6\. Walt has to hide how he's making millions of dollar from Skyler and everyone else

7\. Walt is still going to feel like rich powerful person and have to deal with that

8\. Rival druglords would still be involved. They'd employ high-tech help to track down Heisenberg</comment>


Shadow Internet That's 100 Times Faster Than Google Fiber - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/06/esnet

<comment><USER2> This article has no value. Use of "Shadow Internet" term solely to increase the buzz. They are talking about ESNet (Energy Science Network), consisting of a very few end-points connected together. Comparing it to Tier 3 network is nonsense, that is like saying Tier 1 blows Tier 3 network out of the water.

The monitoring tool provided by ESNet [1] displays around 25 users, and the topping users are not even exceeding the 10 gbit mark, theoretically they would have same experience with Google Fibre as well.

[1] - [http://stats1.es.net/top.html](http://stats1.es.net/top.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Shadow Internet" is misleading. ESnet, along with many others, is simply a "private network" that differs from the long-haul wide area networks most of us are accustomed to (as it makes use of "dedicated" fibers instead of riding on top of existing networks).

There are several other networks like ESnet, such as the National Lambda Rail, FutureGrid, GENI, and Internet2. The Global Research NOC at Indiana University manages many of these networks and several (if not the majority) make use of existing unused dark fiber that Level3 has in the ground.

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this fundamentally similar (as an idea an purpose, not an implementation) to the Internet 2 effort, which started in the mid-nineties if I recall correctly?

</comment><comment><USER5> 91 gigabits per second? How do you handle that rate at the receiving party? You'd need a handful of RAM laying around so to not bottleneck the connection

<comment><USER6> It's a backbone network, not something you use to terminate in a single server.</comment></comment>


Rate our startup: Challenge.gov - <AUTHOR> http://challenge.gov

<comment><USER2> Interesting to see two (imo) extreme reactions - on one hand, the top-comment says _"In what way is this a "startup"? It looks more like thinly veiled advertising for the government than anything else."_. Another comment says _"Wow! Very ambitious and bold startup. People are solving more society problems than the Govt itself."_

I'm in the middle. I do think that it is a startup (assuming that they're leveraging a common platform to build these sites) I also think that civic- oriented sites are a good idea and contribute to society (Of course, I'm biased because I build civic-software apps, though not for the government :)

OTH I think it is an exaggeration to use this site as an example to say that _"People are solving more society problems than the Govt itself"_.

 _[edit] Just saw the reply that the site was built for free. Apologies for saying that I assumed that the govt outsourced this website to the contractor and that govt contracting is generally lucrative

I think building the site for free is great for both sides. For your startup, it is great PR and will help win future clients. For the govt, it helps saves money for other work. Congratulations on building the site._

<comment><USER3> We responded to a request for information and built it for free.

( original rfi: [https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id...](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=bf7019eb2287a3516f1d16bb5e6328d2&tab=core&_cview=1) )

<comment><USER4> I'd love to hear more about how you navigated this process. I had just assumed it was "impossible" unless you are Boeing or Halliburton.

<comment><USER5> RFIs are completely different than RFPs. RFIs have much less stringent requirements, and are usually (gasp) awarded to whomever can convince the government that their bid is the most capable or complete.

RFPs are the scary ones, in which to even enter means you're competing with the likes of Boeing, Grumman, Halliburton, et al. Those are nigh impossible to win without serious inroads pre-existing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In what way is this a "startup"? It looks more like thinly veiled advertising for the government than anything else.

Some "challenges": "How Has Social Security Made a Difference in Your Life?" "Write about how you've used government information in your life and have your story posted on GovGab"

Ignoring the most blatant propaganda, the rest are just feel-good projects of no consequence. On the front page, the only project that even pretends to be significant is "Connecting Kids To Coverage Challenge". Apparently there are 5 million children who have de facto health insurance, but are counted by the census as "uninsured". Your challenge is to change their census characterization by encouraging their parents to fill out some paperwork.

It's obvious that our enlightened bureaucrats are unwilling to risk losing their jobs if a crowdsourced solution actually works better than they do (witness the backlash against, for instance, charter schools and vouchers). Why should we care that, as a purely propaganda move, the government is crowdsourcing the problem of teaching children how to become president?

<comment><USER7> So, if we set aside all of the ideology about how if anything involves the word government, then we all need to jump on some kind of bandwagon..

If we set all of that aside, this looks like a decent idea, no? More engagement is what we need in this country. Ask not what your country can do for you and all of that.

<comment><USER6> I won't get into a debate over the merits of JFK's catch phrase, "Ask not how the state can serve you, ask how you can serve the state." If having the population serve the state is the goal, why not actually help them serve the state in some significant way?

All I was pointing out is that the vast majority of what you find on this site is irrelevant. It's nothing innovative, it's just advertisement for various departmental outreach projects. A poster contest on carbon monoxide safety? "Help Fight Environmental Crime Art Contest"? "A video contest promoting a healthy weight..."?

If you actually want to crowdsource public problems, do it. I seriously doubt that will happen, since disruptive innovation might put some government workers out of work, but if you can do it, great. This site just isn't it, and isn't even in the ballpark.

(I'll grant that a couple of good prizes are advertised there, as pointed out by poet. I clicked around a bit more, but didn't see any significant contests besides the green car/green plane contest he pointed out.)

<comment><USER7> You got JFK's quote wrong.

If you're deliberately going to mischaracterize anyone to the left of Newt Gingrich, why even pretend to debate?

<comment><USER6> Oops, my mistake, I substituted one synonym ("state") for another ("country"). But how did I mischaracterize the quote? In what way is the meaning different.

Regardless, you are ducking the main point to nitpick a small quotation error.

<comment><USER7> There's a world of difference, and you know that, otherwise you wouldn't have rephrased it in order to try and provoke an emotional reaction.

The main point was, what, that not every single project on this list is world changing? Good. Little changes add up and are easier to achieve. There were some big projects on the list as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unless you need to legitimately initiate violence against others, it's not clear to me what "the government" brings to problem solving. A perpetual game of political whack-a-mole isn't my idea of progress.

</comment><comment><USER9> Government startup? What a rare phrase

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice. So ChallengePost, Inc. was founded January '08 [1], has Steve Wozniak as an advisor [2], already has a PageRank of 6/10 [3], and now has successfully launched a government site [OP]. At what point do you guys start considering yourselves a successful/promising company, no longer a "startup"?

[1] [http://appext9.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/CORPSEARCH.ENTITY...](http://appext9.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/CORPSEARCH.ENTITY_INFORMATION?p_nameid=3617486&p_corpid=3616575&p_entity_name=challengepost&p_name_type=A&p_search_type=BEGINS&p_srch_results_page=0)

[2] <http://mixergy.com/challengepost-brandon-kessler/>

[3] <http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php> (you'll have to enter it yourself)

EDIT: btw I'm no trying to detract from this aaccomplishment. This is pretty cool. Just a little confused as to what stage you guys are in.

<comment><USER11> Hi, founded the corp in '08, closed tiny funding round in Nov '08 (when the global financial sky had fallen), launched live June 29 '09, got the federal gov 10 months later, had 2 employees until 2010, now have 5. True startup indeed...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This webpage has a redirect loop.

The webpage at <http://challenge.gov/> has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site or allowing third-party cookies may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer.

<comment><USER13> Also comes up when you block cookies, which is what I do by default (convince me that your site is worth having cookies on, and I unblock them.)

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll fix this, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where should we report security vulnerabilities in the site?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, found a few myself.

<comment><USER14> How about a challenge.gov Challenge to help secure the site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow! Very ambitious and bold startup. People are solving more society problems than the Govt itself. Website like yours will help gather international teams to look at community problems. This is like taking Open Source Movement to the "hard" world.

Wish you all the very best!

</comment><comment><USER17> How did you get a .gov domain?

</comment><comment><USER18> "This webpage has a redirect loop.

The webpage at <http://challenge.gov/> has resulted in too many redirects. Clearing your cookies for this site or allowing third-party cookies may fix the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a problem with your computer."

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. We'll get this fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just heard a story about this on the PBS NewsHour podcast. It's a nice overview of the project!

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/09/gov20-kundra- cho...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/09/gov20-kundra-chopra- challenge-dot-gov.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice site, but now the government has _yet another_ entry point for grants.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the site doesn't cover grants... just focused on challenges / contests for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Interesting. Do you have to be american to participate?

<comment><USER3> You probably have to be an American to win - but not participate on the site. Each country has it's own laws governing contests, and there's no way (for a large organization) to open a contest to "everyone in the world" without getting lawyers from each country in the world to make amendments to the language.

It's a shame.

I ran a contest a few years ago and just ignored getting lawyers, so it was open to anyone. Had I known then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have run the contest. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> so how exactly does one go about procuring a .gov domain?

<comment><USER3> Build a website for the government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Where is the source code?

</comment><comment><USER24> why are you trying to save db on my disk?

<comment><USER3> all your db are belong to us?

but seriously, what?

<comment><USER24> <http://i.imgur.com/b1oLx.png> is what I see when I visit the site</comment></comment></comment>