[DoreenMichele]

Yeah, my paranoid fears about being picked up by the police (as a consequence of my blog writing) were in part due to my prominence as the highest ranked woman on HN. I hit the leader board of HN (under my previous handle) about a month after I got back into housing.

If you're a big fat nobody, your online activities will fly under the radar and you don't need to worry too much. But being the most prominent woman on HN sometimes goes weird places and I have a very long history of attracting problematic attention for things that aren't a problem for other people.

[pc86]

I don't think the San Diego PD cares about how highly ranked someone is on Hacker News. What's more, I don't think 99.9% of the SDPD has ever heard of Hacker News.

[DoreenMichele]

I've had reporters and what not contact me due to my remarks on HN.

It's okay if you think I was being paranoid. I've already allowed as I was being paranoid. But I had my reasons.

[jshevek]

This doesn't change the fact that the risks of harrassment for a homeless person can increase (or also decrease, depending on details of the situation) if they become well known.

For example, a local business owner or homeowner could start their own private campaign of harrassment by making a series of reports to the police. This can even be done anonymously.

Edit: Also, people who live far away, and know her only as someone on HN, can find ways make her life difficult.

[mikorym]

Do you have advice for people who want to somehow be involved?

For example, I am from South Africa and one of the biggest problems here is the terrible quality of some government schools. However, I don't really know how to do anything about this, despite having an MSc in pure mathematics and being a somewhat capable programmer.

We do have some recycling programs that seem to be quite effective—the recyclers are quite prominent when you put out your trash and are strikingly serene people (for the most part).

[DoreenMichele]

There is a book called "Riches for the Poor: The Clemente Course in Humanities" that might interest you. Here is a related website:

https://clementecourse.org

You could get involved any number of ways in trying to offer educational options or improve the existing schools.

I run r/citizenplanners. You might want to check that out.

[mikorym]

Thanks for the links, and thank you for your work.

[burfog]

I found the story about sleeping under the bridge to be interesting. You had a tent, and you determined that the bridge made you sick, so why be under the bridge? It doesn't seem to offer any shelter advantage in the conditions. You lose the sunlight which disinfects and keeps you warmer. Looking back on that, was the bridge just a mistake?

[DoreenMichele]

No, it wasn't a mistake.

[burfog]

I'm still wondering why you picked the bridge when you had a tent and didn't like the bridge.

Did the tent have a huge leak? Was there baseball-sized hail? Were you on concrete or something else, and did that make the difference somehow?

[DoreenMichele]

My recollection is that there were bad storms with high winds. The tent was a cheap tent. It really wasn't going to be able to take that kind of battering.