gushogg-blake

A post for projects that benefit society in some way, but either do not fit, or do not receive enough donations from, regular funding sources such as government grants or charity donations.

There are many reasons why a (potentially) highly beneficial project, such as a study, may be unable to attract funding - due to lack of awareness or that it goes against some vested interest, for example.

This is the place to post these projects, so that people who have the money and like to see such projects succeed can find out about them.

A post for projects that benefit society in some way, but either do not fit, or do not receive enough donations from, regular funding sources such as government grants or charity donations.

There are many reasons why a (potentially) highly beneficial project, such as a study, may be unable to attract funding - due to lack of awareness or that it goes against some vested interest, for example.

This is the place to post these projects, so that people who have the money and like to see such projects succeed can find out about them.

I may be blinded by the subjective importance of my own mission but I'm wondering if there would be any interest in a "Who's looking for funding" post in the same vein as looking for work/wants to collaborate.

Would it be tenable to moderate such a post to filter out not-significant-enough projects and scammers?

My thinking is to give wealthy benefactors a way to see what interesting projects are looking for funding. It would be mostly projects that don't fit, or aren't getting enough donations, from traditional funding sources such as being a charity or getting government grants.

Here's my project: jawhealth.org

It's a campaign to raise awareness of the so-called jaw epidemic, which is a global health issue that's been highlighted and thoroughly described by researchers at Stanford (among many others) but is currently being ignored by the mainstream for various reasons, and people are suffering as a result.

I'm working on a project to increase recognition of craniofacial dystrophy and the jaw epidemic.

I think this is a major under-addressed health problem and some researchers from Stanford agree: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2020/07/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health

As far as I know, I'm the only person working on setting up a sustained patient-led effort to raise awareness of this issue. Dr Mike Mew and the Jaw Epidemic authors are also active but I think something needs to come directly from the patients.

I'm currently living in a caravan and my costs, including server costs, are about £700 a month. I get some UK state benefits of up to £400/month. I've been borrowing from family but this is wearing thin.

Wondering if anyone in the hacker community would be interested in funding this effort, or could put me in touch with someone who might be?

The project is www.jawhealth.org.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDSqLg_7u2Q

Background: I'm in the UK, my orthodontist is in the US. I pay them $385/month which they take via debit card.

Three times now (2 in May and once yesterday) they have tried to take the $385 from my current (checking) account and it has failed.

Each time, I have seen a transaction going out to them for the exact balance of my account, down to the penny, leaving me with no money available.

For the ones in May, it took 10 days to resolve and remove the transactions from my account. I can't remember if they disappeared or another transaction credited the money back -- I think they just disappeared.

I've spoken to several support people at my bank about this at length and they've suggested the following explanations:

- coincidence (odds of one in 27 trillion if they were trying random amounts between 0 and £300)

- fraud (doesn't make any sense, I have a good relationship with them and they haven't benefitted anything from these transactions, and I haven't shared my balance with them or seen any suspicious OLB activity)

- a mystery

What's going on here? Assuming my orthodontist's system is requesting $385, how is this translating to a pending (authorised to go out but not accepted yet, I believe) transaction of whatever my current balance is?

None of the support agents I've spoken to has seen this before.

Something to do with currency conversion?