How to Help Nepal

[xoxoxoBruce]

From GiveWell

GiveWell aims to find giving opportunities that allow donors to do as much good as possible with their donations, and our research efforts focus on that goal. We have not researched giving opportunities related to the relief effort for the Nepal earthquake, specifically. Below, we share our 6 tips on disaster relief giving.

1. Give cash, not clothes (or other goods).
2. Support an organization that will help or get out of the way.
3. Give proactively, not reactively.
4. Allow your funds to be used where most needed – even if not used during this disaster.
5. Give to organizations that are transparent and accountable.
•Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has distinguished itself with well-above-average transparency in both of the cases listed above. In the case of the 2011 Japan tsunami, it straightforwardly disclosed that it was not seeking more funding for use in the relief effort, and was one of the only organizations to do so. We believe it’s worth rewarding MSF for its unusual transparency, and if it doesn’t use your money on this disaster, it will likely use it to address a less-publicized crisis.
•The local Red Cross. The Red Cross generally takes a leading role in a relief effort and (it seems to us) is assigned credit/blame for how the overall effort goes, to a greater degree than other nonprofits. The American Red Cross will often redirect donations to the local Red Cross, minus a sometimes-substantial fee.
6. Think about less-publicized suffering.

There are further clarifications for the six at the link.

[glatt]

4 people rescued from burial alive in rubble in Nepal by relatively new technology developed by NASA and given to rescuers as a hand held device that can actually detect the location of heartbeats under a couple meters of rubble.

I think that's really cool.

Washington, D.C. - Four men trapped under as much as 10 feet of bricks, mud and other debris have been rescued in Nepal thanks to a new search-and-rescue technology developed in partnership by the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The device called FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response) uses microwave-radar technology to detect heartbeats of victims trapped in wreckage. Following the April 25 earthquake in Nepal, two prototype FINDER devices were deployed to support search and rescue teams in the stricken areas.

"The true test of any technology is how well it works in a real-life operational setting," said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers. "Of course, no one wants disasters to occur, but tools like this are designed to help when our worst nightmares do happen. I am proud that we were able to provide the tools to help rescue these four men."

[Lamplighter]

That is really cool.

And if I were a sniper in the military, a ghillie suit wouldn't cut it any more,
so I'd be looking to change my career options.

[glatt]

Yeah. There are a lot of applications where Big Brother would want to find beating hearts so it can stop them from beating.

I wonder about the capabilities of this technology now and in the future. This is handheld and only works in close proximity. But I wonder if it can someday be adapted to be aircraft mounted and if it will be able to see every beating heart for miles around, even under meters of cover. A targeting system's wet dream. It was developed by NASA for tracking spacecraft after all, so it works over great distances of empty space.

[Clodfobble]

I wonder how hard it would be to make decoy hearts.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Not too hard but would let them know someone is trying to hide something.

[Griff]

Unless you're not.

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, you mean just to fuck with them?
Pulling the Dragon's tail for sport has always had a downside.

[Griff]