Hacker News

Details of the Daring Airdrop at Tristan Da Cunha

96 points by kspacewalk2 5 hours ago | 16 comments

musikele 10 minutes ago

The only reason military should exist is to perform such life-saving, not life-ending, missions...

I think this is one of the few things as late that makes me feel genuinely proud to be British, because, beneath the hostility that feels so rife across our country recently, we’ve so many good people making things like this happen. Bravo.

walthamstow 13 minutes ago

The hostility is rife across social media. I don't see much of it day to day.

tomjen3 2 hours ago

It certainly involved a lot of skill and expense, but how many more lives could be saved if the same money had been spent on improved traffic safety or NHS in general?

argsnd 2 hours ago

Probably not that many. You underestimate how expensive either of those things are.

We have obligations to provide services like this to the people living in our overseas territories, and you won’t find many people who’ll oppose that.

shermantanktop 30 minutes ago

People respond to inspiring stories that show what is possible. Inevitably that means choices that might not match what a perfect allocation looks like.

Quiet, bland execution in government will get you voted out. Technocrats tend to come in after corruption, but they don’t usually last.

ninalanyon 26 minutes ago

You'd rather we ignored our overseas compatriots?

benj111 2 hours ago

True, but this is military expenditure. So would you rather they spend this on an exercise or on actually saving people?

fiftyacorn 13 minutes ago

Yeah and helps demonstrate thst Tristan is strategically important

cbsks 4 hours ago

Amazing! Tristan’s entire website is a treasure. It’s a throwback to when the web was great.

brendoelfrendo 3 hours ago

Agreed. The story is great, too. A really interesting logistical challenge that arose from unusual circumstances.

There's probably something to be said for the fact that TDC is a small, remote community, so it shouldn't be surprising that its website is reminiscent of a smaller, more communal web... but I'm not going to try to read too much into it and let the story stand on its own.

argsnd 2 hours ago

Until recently TDC had a very slow FCDO satellite link that required their website to be quite basic in order to actually be viewable on computers on the island.

They now have a fast Starlink connection, but I’m glad they’ve kept the website as it is.

qingcharles 2 hours ago

Literally one of the worst places to fall seriously ill due to the fact you are absolutely and totally stuck in the actual middle-of-nowhere.

dmos62 37 minutes ago

What a heartwarming article.

bananamogul 4 hours ago

[flagged]

ofrzeta 3 hours ago

You did? What did you make of the word "daring" and the name "Tristan da Cunha"?

qingcharles 2 hours ago

I think he was trying to make a joke about Airdrop, I guess.