Ask HN: Best ways to volunteer? - <AUTHOR> What are some of the best ways to volunteer as someone working in tech? Many of us have valuable skills that we can put to use such as software engineering, data analysis, product management, project management, etc.
What are some of the best ways to use those skills to help out those in need?
Ideas that come to mind:
* Contributing to civic tech projects * Contributing to open source projects * Helping out non-profits * Donating money made by using the aforementioned skills
Which methods of volunteering or giving back do you think are most effective? <comment> 52-6F-62 I've worked with the United Nations Online Volunteer program before.

They basically have a "job" board for different categories of tasks that can be done remotely online including design, web site building, other tasks, etc.

It's not the easiest†, as many orgs might be overseas so working asynchronously is almost a given. Budgets for them are often next-to-none, but their service demands are usually relatively low.

I highly recommend giving them a look. There are a lot of great, small, un[der]funded organizations trying to help people in despair, impoverished children get a leg up, children in troubled homes meet new potential—all kinds—and they need the help because they can rarely afford to pay for it, but the ability to manage something like a website and blog that gives them increased exposure and ease of contact is a huge boon.

They also need online English teachers, researchers, project managers, writers, the list goes on.

[https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en](https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en)

Tech options: [https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities?f[0]=fie...](https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/opportunities?f\[0\]=field_task_id:5)

† _edit: To clarify, many of the technical needs are relatively simple—though there seem to be some more challenging options appearing as well. The harder part may be effective communication and understanding—though the people I 've worked with have always been great and understanding and just want to deliver the most because they're doing what they do precisely because they care. They're not getting rich._

</comment><comment><USER2> Just started a coding bootcamp at a public library to teach ppl how to code: [https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3](https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3)

Librarians love it when tech people come in to help. They don't have technical skills and most techies don't seem to think about volunteering at the library.

My goal: To help local libraries provide a free coding bootcamp to anybody who wants to learn.

Libraries are a beautiful place. They don't discriminate against anyone regardless of social status, race, gender, etc.

<comment><USER3> They're one of the only public places remaining where you aren't expected to spend money.

Thanks for the great idea

<comment><USER4> See if Repl will offer you a deep discount or free use of their Classrooms product (since you're not making money from this, but without the hassle of forming a 501c3 or other formal non-profit entity).

[https://repl.it/site/classrooms](https://repl.it/site/classrooms)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On the contrary, I use volunteer work as a time to take a break from tech. In the past I've volunteered as elementary school classroom help, tutored students of various ages, and coached line for a local high school football team.

Yes, as tech workers, we have the ability to use our valuable skills pro bono. But I think it can also be beneficial to step out of the tech bubble and integrate with the rest of non-tech society on non-tech terms. Most of my volunteer work has been with students--when the topic comes up, I get to tell them all about why they should consider pursuing programming as a career.

Most of my volunteer work has been obtained just by walking up to the people involved and asking if they need a volunteer. I don't think you need to look for a formal volunteer program.

<comment><USER6> I also agree. One-on-one mentoring is fulfilling in a different way than project oriented volunteering. I recommend doing a longer term commitment as well. Most are 2-4 hours a week, ideally for at least a year. I was at a large near-IPO startup, and it was super supportive of me hopping out for 3 hours every Wednesday for a year to volunteer at underresourced schools. I brought my classes in to meet people at my company and many kids became more interested in design & programming careers as a result.

I worked with build.org in NYC - it's entrepreneurship oriented programs. The students are wonderful. BUILD is large and has a strong presence in SF, DC & Boston as well.

In SF, I worked with Reach & Rise through the YMCA, which is similar to the Boys & Girls Club Big Brother/Big Sister program. I'd highly recommend that as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> it may seem counterintuitive since you're aiming "to help", but i've had success choosing volunteer opportunities based on things i wanted to learn outside my expertise. this strategy also helps keep your own ego in check (for those of us prone to expert syndrome).

so for example, when i wanted to learn how to do home improvements, i volunteered at habitat for humanity to help build houses for other people. for my 5 townhome build, i helped with everything from the framing to the cabinetry (also gratifying was meeting and working with the eventual homeowners).

when my cat passed away and i wanted to rescue another cat, i volunteered at a kitten nursery. i mostly cleaned kennels and fed kittens, but i also got to socialize them and (eventually) pick the one i wanted to adopt.

<comment><USER8> That's a GREAT idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have dedicated untold hours of my life to the FIRST Robotics Competition [0]. I participated in high school and have been volunteering for the past 15 years after I graduated. I can't count how many high school aged students I've interacted with, but I do know that my time makes a difference. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, email in profile.

[0]: [https://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to- help/volunteer](https://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to-help/volunteer)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for doing this! Fond memories of participating in FIRST 20+ years ago.

<comment><USER9> If you haven't seen the advances made to the program in the last 20 years, I'd highly recommend looking up some youtube/twitch videos of gameplay from the 2019 season. A lot has changed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As the founder of a tech-driven charity and with some volunteering experience, I want to suggest another approach.

The skills that let you deploy your technical abilities are often sorely needed in this sector, particularly when an organization depends on volunteer labour.

As an example, my father is an experienced civil engineer who leads the development and refurbishment of major hydro generation facilities in his day work.

One of his primary volunteer activities, however, is hustling casseroles for a significant homeless shelter and kitchen in a large city. He is frighteningly effective because of all the skills that also make him good at his job — organization, process, people, etc. There's often a deficit of this in volunteer efforts.

On the flip side, if you do want to use your technical chops, consider how you can do so in a sustainable way so you don't create dependencies that put important processes at risk. I found it better to fundraise and pay professionals for important functions.

</comment><comment><USER12> Donating money is almost always more valuable than donating time, especially if you're not going to donate a lot of time. The time may feel better (or it may not -- I've had volunteer gigs where I didn't feel I could accomplish much, and that sucks), but the money is more useful.

<comment><USER13> The economic consideration comes down to the real value of the labor, and that depends heavily on the economic benefits of specialization.

A day of you doling out soup to people or picking up trash won't be worth any more than what someone who does it for a living is paid. And it will probably be substantially less because you're not practiced at it.

A day of you building houses (assuming you have no training) could very well be _negative_ if someone has to come along and fix your work later.

A day of a non-profit employee's work should be worth at least what their salary suggests. (They're chronically underpaid because of the conventional wisdom that high wages are a red flag. This is patently insane and unfair.)

A day of you working closely to your profession is probably worth something similarly close to your salary.

Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.

But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating, so consider donating money.

That raises the question: why do so many non-profits have all these worthless volunteer activities?

First, they do tend to focus on young people whose labor isn't worth much to begin with, so they're not losing as much.

And many volunteer efforts simply need a lot of warm bodies. There's no way to canvass for votes, for instance, without having a horde of people knocking on doors.

And I suspect many volunteer activities are also a great way to raise publicity and connect with donors.

<comment><USER14> >But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating,

Is it?

 _[We] seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people 's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people_ David Foster Wallace

<comment><USER13> I didn't want to get into what your motivations may be, but I alluded to this: _Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up._

The idea was that you might be doing it yourself because, in that case, your surroundings being clean and beautiful is something you desire.

> ... we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and > frightened and lonely and self-centered people

Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.

A better approach is one founded in gratitude, wherein charity is merely one form of expression of gratitude.

<comment><USER14> > Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, > the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is > frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.

Out of context i guess i could see that reading being something you could conclude. It's not well supported overall, though.

> ... gratitude

Sure; but the notion that "do it because it's the right thing to do, and it's a good way to say thank you" is not at all at odds with "... and by way of 'you're welcome', you'll be less of a lonely prick!"

It's kind of an open philosophical question whether or not a purely altruistic act is even possible (where i do X to you, X is good, and I don't get anything in return that is also good) — why mince words about it? (cf kierkegaard, among many others). There's no particular shame in acknowledging that charity rewards both parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you are a Ruby or Javascript developer I'd recommend checking out Ruby for Good. We build projects for non-profits who really need folks with our skill sets but would never be able to afford us -- places like diaper banks, women's shelters, animal rescues, and other great meaningful organizations. Our projects are on github at [https://github.com/rubyforgood](https://github.com/rubyforgood) and you can join our slack to get more information here [https://rubyforgood.herokuapp.com/](https://rubyforgood.herokuapp.com/). The important thing to note is that these projects get used! Our diaper project is being used by about 100 diaper banks around the country and is helping over a million children per year! While we do work on our projects all year round, we do have events! Our next event is in the SF area in April that everyone should definitely come out to because they are a TON of fun! They are all inclusive (lodging and food are covered,) they are absolutely _NOT_ hackathons (which are toxic events that burn folks out!) We have a hard stop everyday at dinner time so we can spend our evenings socializing, playing board games, singing karaoke, and having lots of fun! The website for the April event is here: [https://rubybythebay.org](https://rubybythebay.org)

</comment><comment><USER16> I started Pathi, a volunteer-run app/hotline for people who really need someone to talk to. Right now we have 12 volunteer listeners taking about that many calls every day.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pathi/id1466338610](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pathi/id1466338610)

We need volunteer listeners, someone to help us bring the app to android, and some design assistance.

If you're interested in helping, please reach out! (email in profile)

</comment><comment><USER17> Run for office and swell the (paltry) ranks of technically literate legislators.

<comment><USER14> My advisor (PhD EE MIT etc etc) was a town selectman for 30 years.

He didn't exactly enjoy it; he merely saw his skills as bringing an obligation to service along with them, and acted accordingly.

Never forgot that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not sure where you live, but I was able to volunteer two years with the Code Nation organization, helping underserved students learn the basics of web development. [https://codenation.org/](https://codenation.org/)

Some of the students were first-generation children of immigrants or came from neighborhoods with chronic poverty who never owned a computer and are now earning scholarships and pursuing CS degrees, so I felt we were making an direct impact.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've heard great things about Ovio [https://ovio.org/](https://ovio.org/) \- they help coordinate open-source project development for social-impact organizations using volunteers like yourself

<comment><USER19> Here's the direct link to their projects page [https://explore.ovio.org/](https://explore.ovio.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems unlikely to me that you will make use of much of your skillset this way. Doesn't it make more sense then to use as much of it for your day job and then using that money to contribute to charities? They can hire somebody that can focus on the task full-time so the value received for your time spent should be higher that way (if you are a skilled coder) than contributing time directly.

<comment><USER21>
      >It seems unlikely to me that you will make use of much of your skillset this way.

I really don't see why that would generally hold. Particularly small charities often don't have anything like the budget to hire full time for things like this, even if they knew what to look for (and many don't). Many may not even have a good idea of what is possible.

I guess if you're only focused on the "we need a website update" sort of problems, that's less true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I volunteer as a tutor for an organization that provides academic help to students experiencing homelessness. It's not restricted to people working in tech but my anecdotal impression is that there are relatively few tutors who have strong technical backgrounds and a genuine love for math/science-type subjects

If you have such a background and enjoy working with kids you can be quite helpful by (1.) helping students keep from falling so far behind in school that they're unable to pass their classes (2.) providing an example of what it looks like for an adult to be passionate about math and science topics (I think many of these students don't have many such examples).

I'm not sure it's the highest-impact thing I could be doing (i.e. maybe I could have a greater positive impact by donating the hourly value of my time to some charity) but if you're interested in boots-on-the-ground volunteer work that involves in-person work I'd highly recommend it.

<comment><USER23> What org?

<comment><USER22> [https://schoolonwheels.org/](https://schoolonwheels.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Consider "backdoor volunteering." I find that specialized/technical work isn't really available on a volunteer basis. Staff have an expectation of working with other pros and may feel threatened by undercutting. So I take some weekend work at nominal wage and donate it back anonymously. It's not tax efficient, but it works for both of us.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can't personally vouch for this org but they were active in nyc recently and seem interesting:

[https://www.catchafire.org](https://www.catchafire.org)

</comment><comment><USER26> Work as hard as you can at your current job to maximize your income, then donate the money to GiveDirectly.

</comment><comment><USER27> Depends on what your goals are. In terms of charities, the one I see most recommended by effective altruist communities is the Against Malaria Foundation[0,1].

[0]: [https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf](https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf) [1]: [https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charity/against-malaria- foun...](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charity/against-malaria-foundation/)

</comment><comment><USER28> This might come in handy, I've found it perspective-changing: [https://80000hours.org/](https://80000hours.org/)

</comment><comment><USER29> coincidentally I just saw this tweet by Katie Moussouris. It fits your requirement of _someone working in tech_ :

 _> This organization @OSPASafeEscape helps victims of domestic abuse & they are looking for volunteers like @hexplates to help this important mission._

[https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1205519304046739456](https://twitter.com/k8em0/status/1205519304046739456)

</comment><comment><USER30> I imagine a good place to start would be to directly contact some organizations whose missions you feel strongly about. Likely they have a good idea of what would be useful to them. From there you could branch into applying your skills to things they didn't realize were shortcomings.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are two things I've tried -

\- Choosing a place that is looking for my skills, and incidentally seems like a good cause, vs.

\- Choosing a place with a cause I care about, that might or might not particularly need my skills.

I find the second one works better, although it might be possible to have a bad enough fit to try something else. If you have a pre-existing connection to an organization, possibly have made donations, and you show up and ask what you can do, and then you prove that you don't mind doing simple tasks, you will likely graduate into technical stuff if that's what you want.

My impression is a lot of non-profits have a great need for technical help that their usual interns, volunteers and employees can't provide, but if you don't connect with them in the right way, it won't work out.

</comment><comment><USER32> My personal opinion is that you'll find it most rewarding to locate a non- profit near you that supports a cause that you support and to volunteer to help them with various tech/data projects as a way to improve their service delivery. They don't have to be working with a local beneficiary community -- perhaps they support something overseas. Instead of skipping off of the top of a lot of different projects, it will give you the opportunity to dig deep into the needs of one organization and potentially have very significant impact on the way they conduct their work. Just keep in mind that they're the SMEs with regards to the beneficiaries and that you're there to support their needs, perceived or real.

</comment><comment><USER33> To my mental health what contributed most is to volunteer at a NON-TECH position. YMMV

I was on a SE-Asia trip when I fell in love with a small town here; my organize trip was so bad I decided to abandon it. Found out there is a half- pruvate English school for kids.

I notified my friends, rebooked my flights and stayed for a month to teach school children English (around 100 of them in 5 classes every weekday).

This was probably the most rewarding experience in my life, although it didn't really help my professional career. However, I learned a hlot about

* cultural differences

* language differences of Asian vs Western languages

* the English language itself

* kids

* ways of living a life

* myself

Effectiveness? Questionable. I saw many of the teenagers to improve their pronounciation drastically during this month. Also helped the local management to rethink methods of teaching etc.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why have another job that's the same as your current job ? I volunteer at my local botanical garden. I pull weeds, collect seed and botanise. Volunteering can and perhaps should be a world-expanding experience.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've spent a few years teaching Scratch ([http://scratch.mit.edu](http://scratch.mit.edu)) to kids. I've volunteered via the Microsoft's TEALS program ([https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/teals](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/teals)) and at the video game museum ([https://themade.org/](https://themade.org/)). You can also be an open source contributor to code.org.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't know where you live, but where I am, housing is expensive. As someone who is paid pretty well, I didn't want to make things worse for those who don't earn as much, so I helped set up a YIMBY group. We've had some modest successes.

TBH, donating is pretty good too, as it lets people who are a bit more specialized in doing the work get on with it, rather than training up someone who 'wants to help'. Depends a lot on the organization though, I think.

</comment><comment><USER37> FIRST Robotics! Most fun volunteering you'll ever do plus the time to reward is pretty short as you watch the students grow and get excited by engineering and business.

</comment><comment><USER38> Check to see if your town/region has something like GiveCamp ([https://givecamp.org/](https://givecamp.org/))!

I help organize my city's spinoff of GiveCamp, called Code for Good ([https://codeforgoodwm.org/](https://codeforgoodwm.org/)), and we bring together hundreds of volunteers every year, and help dozens of nonprofits.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why not join the [https://coderdojo.com/](https://coderdojo.com/) community and help out in getting young kids interested in coding? It's a great way to 'give back' and introduce the future generations in the opportunities that software can give them. CoderDojo is an international organization and they might already be active in your neighbourhood.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'd probably give [https://www.justserve.org/](https://www.justserve.org/) a look. See what is near you that's listed, if any of the specific organizations interest you hit their websites and look for someone to reach out to locally or at a higher level (if applicable) to see if your specific skills might be used in a volunteer capacity.

<comment><USER41> Additionally at that site, organizations can sign up to then recruit volunteers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Mercy Ships is always looking for technical people. The job list is at [https://apply.mercyships.org/CurrentOpportunities.aspx](https://apply.mercyships.org/CurrentOpportunities.aspx)

Mercy Ships do free operations for people in Africa. The ship's crewed entirely by volunteers. If you're willing to give a chunk of time, it's both fun and rewarding.

</comment><comment><USER8> I spent about 10 years as a key member at AS220's fab lab. Since I'm an engineer by training I figured I could help enable art by helping Artists on the tech side at the lab. I taught classes, developed curriculum, designed projects, helped with machine maintenance. It was fun and I ended up "making my own art". Now I make Wordclocks in my basement based on some of the projects I developed for them.

</comment><comment><USER43> I've found the best way to volunteer is at something complementary to what one does in one's day-to-day, something I'm also interested in but don't get paid for. At the moment, that looks like teaching a free English class to new immigrants. I think working on interests outside of one's professional sphere helps keep the work interesting, and the volunteer engaged.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm 35 and work with a church group which visits/helps the poor around our neighboorhood, and my colleagues there are between 55 and 80 year old.

It kinda kills me but they work very well with their systems - paper agendas and folders - so I don't think I'll ever suggest turning their workflows into something digital, or even an Excel file...

The way I help them is by carrying heavy packages...

</comment><comment><USER45> If you believe in a higher power, look for a thriving local church.

The opportunities to volunteer will be frequent and diverse. You might try digging wells one month, then feeding the hungry the next. You can be part of "A Night to Shine" or help clean up dirty ditches. All sorts of stuff, offered frequently and vetted for quality of projects.

</comment><comment><USER46> There's an organization where volunteers teach coding to refugees: [https://www.hackyourfuture.net/](https://www.hackyourfuture.net/) It started in Amsterdam and has spread to Copenhagen and Toronto now - you could get involved and help open up a chapter in your city too.

</comment><comment><USER47> There's a Facebook group for Effective Altruism Volunteering which has some ideas: [https://www.facebook.com/groups/1392613437498240/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1392613437498240/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Lots of so-called "non-profits" do not increase social welfare in any meaningful way. Even many IRS-approved "charities" are complete scams.

So just remember to look before you leap.

</comment><comment><USER49> So many elderly people who have trouble with basic tasks, including but not limited to tech.

I'd like to see a hotline where people can call to ask about virus pop ups, calls from potential scammers.

</comment><comment><USER50> If you're located in Chicago, I enjoyed volunteering for CodePlatoon as a TA. It's not a huge commitment and it's a lot of fun.

</comment><comment><USER51> Consistently. My grandma does a lot of volunteer work, and one of her gripes is with students who show up to fulfill a requirement, learn just enough to start being useful, then quit.

One place I work did a volunteer day at a local community center for underprivileged kids. It was fine going and helping kids out, but I felt like shit for the kids who never get to build any sort of relationship with anyone from the rotating cast of techies who show up to assuage their guilt. These kids have enough instability in their lives.

</comment><comment><USER52> Teach prisoners how to code [https://thelastmile.org/](https://thelastmile.org/)

</comment><comment><USER53> Develop high-quality software and release it under AGPL3+ so that companies cannot make any profit off of it.

<comment><USER54> They can still profit, but they'd have to open up their own code, which most are afraid of doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> See if there is a onebrick.org chapter in your area.

</comment><comment><USER56> Earning to give (to the top charities) is likely orders of magnitude more effective than most other volunteering options.

Research effective altruism and see GiveWell's most effective charities list (updated a week ago).

Recommended listening: Sam Harris interviews the founder of effective altruism. [https://samharris.org/podcasts/being-good-and-doing- good/](https://samharris.org/podcasts/being-good-and-doing-good/)

Recommended reading: Doing Good Better by Will Macaskill.

</comment><comment><USER57> FOSS.

</comment><comment><USER58> Mentor

</comment><comment><USER54> > product management, project management

No, thank you. FOSS developers are usually skilled and self-motivated engineers, so corporate-style control is unnecessary or harmful.

Money, quality code, bug fixes, documentation, publicity (there are so many great but little-known FOSS projects), or a simple display of appreciation for the authors' work are all welcome.

<comment><USER59> Why all the idiotic downvotes?

<comment><USER54> Thanks! For the record: I added the sentence after "No, thank you" after I got a few downvotes. And please don't call them idiotic. It might be they truly believe in the necessity of someone "managing" FOSS projects and their authors.</comment></comment></comment>


Assange Casts Himself as Persecuted Whistle-Blower - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/world/europe/assange-casts-himself-as-persecuted-whistle-blower.html?hp&gwh=E2363C239F3213F98307AD4DADF09654 <comment><USER2> Is he not a persecuted whistle-blower?

Ah, the hypocrisy of the NY Times is enraging. Didn't they publish the leaked documents as well?! What cowards.

<comment><USER3> Look back - I think you will find that the NY Times did indeed publish some of the leaked documents...

<comment><USER4> And if you look more carefully, you'll find why the NYT comes up with these hilariously slanted headlines and salt misleading tidbits into various articles (like Assange and Domscheit's cat): the Ombudsman wrote about their interactions with Assange, and they clearly disliked his demands and treatment of them.

One does not engage in lèse majesté with the Grey Lady.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious: was there anything that damning in the info that was released through wikileaks? I didn't really follow the story there with the diplomatic cables.

<comment><USER6> A lot of the information in the leaked diplomatic cables seemed to be simply embarrassing/socially-awkward, of the "The local population thinks President X is a doodyhead, and he throws huge tantrums when event Y is mentioned; be aware" sort.

That sort of stuff caused diplomatic friction, for no obvious gain. One of the dodgier things about wikileaks (and claims that what they were doing was akin to journalism) was that they released so much of it, if their goal was somehow revealing corruption or something.

[It certainly fit private Bradley Manning's goals, as he _did_ just want to cause embarrassment. But wikileaks itself was supposed to be doing something more noble.]</comment></comment>


Compilation and Hyperthreading - <AUTHOR> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1416 <comment><USER2> > Also, I had been worried that simply enabling HT would be detrimental since > Linux would sometimes schedule two threads on the same real core when a > different core was idle.

Isn't the Linux scheduler aware of hyperthreading?</comment>


Ask HN: How to Systematically Turn Bitmaps into Beautiful Vector Graphics? - <AUTHOR>

I've done plenty of work with web graphics, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., but I have a problem that's trickier than anything I've dealt with before.  Not only do I now know who to solve it, I don't know who to ask how to solve it.
Here's the issue...
I work for a theater nonprofit. I have a bunch of bitmap images of Broadway theater seating charts.  I want to turn these seating charts into beautiful vector graphics to make interactive seating charts for our website.  I could go image-by-image and try to recreate each one in Illustrator by hand, but that would take forever.  I'd like to build a systematic way to take a bitmap seating chart and convert it into a vector graphic that captures the shapes of each seating section.
What's the best way to go about doing this?  I realize the solution is complex and probably can't be answered on a HN post, but I'd just like to know what resources I can turn to.  What folks would know about this sort of thing? <comment><USER2> Have you tried using the Live Trace feature in Illustrator? That will do it's best to convert your graphics to vector. You can tweak the threshold to optimize the quality. Quality will depend a lot on the resolution of your graphics, and you'll still probably have to go in and clean up a lot of the shapes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't used it for your type of application, but I've used Potrace to convert some scanned hand-drawn graphics to SVG. The results were quite satisfactory.

<http://potrace.sourceforge.net/>

As I recall, I ended up using it via the front end Rasterbater 1.0 (linked on the above page; and as for the name, I know... but it's legit; have a look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiled_printing> ) because it was the best/quickest compromise at the time. I also recall reading that people have used Potrace with Inkscape (a very good cross-platform SVG editor) in order to convert color images to SVG; I recall that workflow as something like using Inkscape (well, that doesn't quite make sense? I dont' remember, I guess) to produce color separations and then running Potrace against each separation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depending on how many you have, it seems like Live Trace in Illustrator is your best bet.</comment>


Greece's New Finance Minister Worked for Valve - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/333328/greeces-new-finance-minister-learned-about-tearing-down-capitalism-from-working-at-a-video-game-company/

<comment><USER2> Varoufakis is a great economist and his placement as the Finance Minister is a smart move from the new government. At this point I would like to suggest reading _To Future And Back_ by I. Pitsouli[1]. Somewhere in it, there is suggested (or prophecized if you wish) that in years to come scientists will replace politicians in governments. Well, that has already started happening and is right IMO because science is closely related to philoshopy which in turn by definition deals with problems related to reality, existence, values, etc. ie. the everyday problems most politicians seem to ignore nowadays.

ps. Varoufakis definitely needs to revisit Bitcoin though[2]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Future-Back--More-than-Prophecies- eboo...](http://www.amazon.com/Future-Back--More-than-Prophecies- ebook/dp/B004C44G5K/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422303976&sr=1-3&keywords=pitsouli)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7841186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7841186)</comment>


Apple Names Deirdre O'Brien Senior Vice President of Retail and People - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/02/apple-names-deirdre-obrien-senior-vice-president-of-retail-and-people/ <comment><USER2> This is likely a firing as Apple Retail has been practically treading water since Angela came on board. She failed to address the major issues with Apple's retail offering including:

\- Failure to be a growth engine for the company. Originally Apple stores helped to drive growth of Apple and introduce new customers as the stores were rolled out across the US and then worldwide. Apple retail should have been the spearhead for greater China dominance and a strong foothold in India. Both have not occurred.

\- Cultural issues. Apple retail has changed from being a pleasant experience where staff were encouraged to help customers with issues (not matter what) to merely parroting a company line about why they cannot do anything with your issue because that's the company policy. Angela also kept trotting out the 'town square' community BS as well which rubs non-US citizens completely the wrong way; a US corporation trying to co-opt foreign public space for their sales offering.

\- Lack of support integration. Apple has had a number of high profile support issues and failures including battery gate and the MacBook keyboard issues. Instead of becoming a proactive support channel to help customers with these issues, Apple Retail worked as the company's PR firewall... exacerbating a bad situation for customers who experienced these problems. Support times at Apple Stores have increased and the experience has worsened.

\- No innovation. Apple retail hasn't significantly changed or improved since Angela came on-board. 'Today at Apple' is a re-brand of the many sessions that Apple Stores have always had. The interior design changes and architectural changes are more Jony's doing than Angela's. In 5 years most of the change has been superficial with the core changes that have evolved actually degrading customers experience.

Glad to see the exec change. Took 5 years and should have happened earlier, but better late than never.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure where your perceptions come from (such as if you've ever worked at an Apple Retail store) so I'm going to give you my perspective and only on a couple of your points because I can't speak to all of them.

I worked in Apple Retail under Ron Johnson and John Browett.

From what I recall, the original intent of these stores was to have them be "gathering places" for people -- similar to a town square. This concept's as old as the first of the stores.

During the ten months John Browett was in charge, the store I worked at saw significant attrition due to cut hours, an increased emphasis on offering more support than we had the resources for, and a very obvious push to attach multiple accessories onto each sale.

Those "Today at Apple" rebranding you're talking about? They were essentially gutted to quick, useless Q&A sessions when Browett worked there.

I really don't think Angela was a problem. If anything her hire was a breath of fresh air for them.

<comment><USER4> Whatever the original intentions, I can say honestly that an Apple Store in its current form is never a "gathering place" or a "town square".

The experience from beginning to end is always - line up at the front, talk to an Apple employee, depending on whether you have an appointment or not, get shepparded to a lineup (whether at the genius bar, the teach and learn table, or the repair pickup table, etc) and wait in line until your turn.

If you are just browsing / window shopping, the experience is jam yourself into a packed tiny space packed with human smells of sweat and farts, get a stern looking up and down by the security people, and try to get a computer/phone/idevice to look at. If you take too long, other people will either try to edge you out, or eventually you get an apple employee asking whether you want to buy it or if they can show you anything.

This is NOT a gathering place/town square. Of course. Being a commercially oriented sales space it can't be because that violates the purpose of the space. I'm not saying that you can't build a space like this, but the way Apple has structured the retail stores makes it extremely sales oriented.

Taking the Starbucks example quoted below. When you go to starbucks, get a latte, and sit down to browse your computer, you don't have Starbucks employees coming to you asking if you want a pumpkin spice latte or if you want some training on how to be a coffee barista in your own home too. You just want to take a seat and do whatever - none of the business of the store employees. It's just a place to sit. Of course, you should / need to buy something to sit there, but once you are there, you usually are left alone to do whatever, meet friends, have a date, etc. That's a good "gathering space" concept.

<comment><USER5> Your recounting of your experience is really far from mine. My local Apple Store (WTC in NYC) is very accessible and friendly. If anything, I find it mildly annoying to have to chit-chat with staff when I know what I want. With an appointment, support wait times are minimal and so far always helpful and friendly. I walk my dogs through the store sometimes, and even they love it!

<comment><USER6> My experiences at the Portland, Oregon Pioneer Place store are similar to GP. Come in the door, talk to an employee (sometimes there is a line, sometimes not), get shepherded over to another line and wait for a lot longer to see another employee, and then either wait a long time to get what you came for, if it's that easy, or they sit you down somewhere to wait until someone can really deal with you.

I don't go unless I have at least an hour of spare time and whatever I need can only reasonably be accomplished at the Apple Store. The place is a zoo, even if you're just browsing it's elbow to elbow.

The employees are nice, but I am aghast every time I go at how poor of an experience it is compared to what I think Apple should be capable of. Luckily when they _do_ finally get to me, I've always had the issue solved (usually a new device) but up until that final encounter I just feel like a number. The fact that I have to stand on a concrete floor the entire time makes me double grumpy because my old-man feet do not like it one bit.

<comment><USER7> Similar experience in Perth, Australia. Apple is vastly more popular in 2019 than they were in 2009, so the magical Apple experience of seeing someone immediately & getting a while-you-wait repair is gone [1]. Even the appointment system is just choosing a time when you're allowed to come into the store to wait for half an hour until someone is available. They really need more stores & more staff, but that would eat into Apple's profits.

The one difference I've had is that I'm not even getting my issues resolved anymore. (Full sob story is in my comment history.) I'm typing this on a Thinkpad X1 and gave up on Apple after 15 years.

[1] Does anyone else remember when Apple would give you a coffee voucher for a local cafe while you were waiting, and send you a txt message to come back to the store once your MacBook Pro was fixed or replaced? They used to be magical, and they could afford to do all that because the machines were built for life & repairs were rare. That's all gone now.

<comment><USER8> There are now 900M iPhone users and 100M Mac users and 200M iPad users, while some may be overlap, there is give or take 1 Billion users Apple potentially serve. And yet they still only have 500 Stores, with more than half of them in US. So in terms of users and Store distribution US has a much better Ratio, and hence the favourable experience in the two previous reply, coming from US.

A long time ago ( I think it was 2015 ) I had expected Apple to reach 1000 Apple Store Worldwide by 2020. But just like every part of their infrastructure, ( CDN, Datacentre, Solar Energy, Recycling etc ) their "Asset- Light" strategy, being extremely conservative with any Asset has hold them back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just last week on January 28th Vogue Business ran a huge feature on Angela Ahrendts with an exclusive interview and photo shoot, and now this? Seems like weird timing with how "work in progress" Vogue characterized her work at Apple with the tone of the piece. [https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/angela- ahrendts-appl...](https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/angela-ahrendts- apple-retail-strategy)

"After turning round the fortunes of Burberry, Angela Ahrendts is five years into reimagining Apple's bricks-and-mortar presence. Vogue Business meets the tech behemoth's senior vice president of retail on the steps of its soon-to- be-unveiled Washington, DC, flagship"

<comment><USER10> Depends on whether Apple PR organized that profile of her or whether she did herself. If she was planning on leaving she'd want to go out with her accomplishments highlighted.

<comment><USER11> I don't think there's any way a magazine would profile a senior Apple exec without Apple PR being deeply involved.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure there is, but they'd be asked to leave Apple shortly after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It probably has more to do with Apple getting bigger than anything else. But been increasingly disappointed with the general level of product knowledge amongst Apple employees over the past ~2-3 years.

Undeniably must be difficult as you grow and have so many stores, etc. But on my last Apple store trip, I had interactions with 2 employees. One incorrectly told me that there was no Smart Battery case in stock for the XR (it was available on the Apple Store app?). And another made a mistake about the length of power cable that shipped with the new MacBook Air. Kinda a bummer.

<comment><USER14> I think there's been a shift in focus in the retail segment to hiring employees who are better at interacting with customers rather than actual "geniuses".

<comment><USER15> This has not been a shift, or at least recently. I started working there in 2012 and the focus was always on hiring people that can actually interact with humans, rather than nerds that know everything.

Its much easier to teach product knowledge than team interaction skills.

<comment><USER14> Yes, this has always been a focus obviously, but now I feel you're getting fewer of the people who can tell you exactly what's wrong with your Mac/iPhone and instead getting people who tell customers that they should close all their iOS apps when they're done with them to "clear the RAM" (this was the Genius helping the person next to me last time I went there). I'm not a retail employee, but from my conversations with them there's less technical training.

<comment><USER10> If Apple wanted to staff their stores with early 2000s Apple Store Geniuses, they'd have like 100 stores worldwide.

Apple has way more customers, way more stores, and way more products for that to be realistic.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, this seems to be the unfortunate reality of the situation :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The subtitle is the real story: "Angela Ahrendts Plans April Departure After Five Successful Years"

<comment><USER17> A more interesting subtitle would note that Angela Ahrendts got about 75 million to join, and that's all vested, so bye bye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ahrendt's tenure coincided with a sever degradation in the quality of service levels at the Genius Bar, and no amount of bling Hermès Apple Watch straps can make up for that.

<comment><USER19> Since we're in anecdote territory, I learned that screen de-lamination issues that occurred on some ~2015 MacBook Pros were being covered under an extended warranty. Took mine in (which had some screen issues). The Genius Bar guy took one look at it. Said yep "Haven't seen quite that interesting a pattern." Asked me if I had things backed up. Apologized for the fact they have to replace the whole display including my stickers on the back. And took care of everything at no charge.

I'm sure it was all within policy but how many companies would try to put up at least a half-hearted fight?

<comment><USER20> Had a 2011 MBP with an open recall for an AMD graphics card issue. Took mine in, opened it up, and the genius said yup it's a graphics card issue. Just need to run this test to get your refund.

5 tries and an hour later the computer crashed during each test. Came back 3 separate days talked to everyone I could and the computer couldn't complete the test. Sorry you can't get recall if the test isn't run rule are rules.

Haven't bought a MBP since because the new prices are insane. I'm not risking a $2.5k-3k laptop dying in a few years, or having keyboard issues, or the display-gate issue. Everything is glued in nowadays you can't even replace simple parts.

<comment><USER21> That's very strange to me, in that my experience was literally the reverse of that. I thought it was an Nvidia GPU issue, but perhaps it was a separate recall. In any case, the Genius took my MBP to the back of the store and came back a few minutes later to say that he tried to run the test twice and the MBP kernel panicked each time, so he was calling that a confirmation of the bad GPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This sounds like an abrupt and possibly unexpected departure of Angela Ahrendts (whether voluntary or forced), since Apple is assigning one additional division to Deirdre O'Brien. It's not that she (Deirdre O'Brien) would be incapable of leading both people and retail, but Apple looks like a company that needs more focused attention on products, services and retail.

Could it be that Apple is searching for someone to head retail and that this is just an interim appointment?

</comment><comment><USER23> I recently visited an Apple Store in University Village (Seattle) and I was impressed with how large the space was. I kept walking around the entire store looking for their laptop displays thinking maybe they had removed it.

Alas, I found the MacBooks at the far back corner of the store with no one around it, and they only had one table dedicated to the MacBook with only 1 laptop per model.

<comment><USER24> Heh, I was recently in that same Apple Store for a repair and was left with a contradictory impression of it being empty yet crowded at the same time. It's certainly a big space but, at least when I went, it was pretty crowded anywhere there was seating. It was strange and not particularly pleasant.

<comment><USER25> And there's huge open spaces too! Why not, I dunno, put out another table of computers? There is exactly one Mac mini on display in that entire store. God help you if some kid's too busy screwing around on YouTube to let you actually shop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I saw some speculation a few years ago that Ahrendts might be groomed to take over as CEO someday. I suppose that's rather less likely now.

<comment><USER27> Jeff Williams is the most likely candidate for the CEO job after Tim Cook IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't see what the issues is, specifically. I've been to the store for service a few times, it was very professional.

Everything seems generally well run.

What's the fuss?

Apple Retail needs to be executed well, and it's a strategic pillar, but really in the end the stores in and of themselves are not going to be the story.

I wonder what the real issues are.

I wonder how involved she was in pricing/promotional aspects, because her strategic imperative on pricing may be a source of the problem.

Apple is getting a little expensive for it's britches and they have a great brand, but this is not Burberry, it's tech, so utility factors in strongly. If she was behind the expensive mac story ... then maybe. But somehow I doubt it.

I wonder what the real story is ...

</comment><comment><USER29> My personal experience at an apple store in the pseudo tech hub that is the Domain Austin left a poor taste in my mouth. I went there to pickup a laptop expecting a relatively painless and transparent experience and was left wishing I had gone anywhere else but there. A long hour long wait with no actually apology or contact after the initial checkin left me feeling rather annoyed at the whole apple experience for the first time in my life.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't even know what's going on with Apple Retail here in Japan. Rather than expanding, they've actually closed Apple Stores in two cities, leaving you with the absolutely terrible Authorized Repair Partners. Getting a MacBook Pro repaired here is a trial in patience, it's a really poor experience - if it wasn't for macOS I would have no reason to buy Apple in 2019.

<comment><USER8> The Stores were way too small, the new Apple Retail Strategy is to have bigger Stores rather than small ones. The problem is they are closing them faster than then could plan and open one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Maybe the Apple Store will be redesigned so it's actually responsive and works on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER14> As an aside, I find it amusing the share icons on the images don't render correctly in Safari (there's just a black bar at the button) but do in Chrome.

<comment><USER17> they render fine in Safari : maybe transient CDN glitch?

<comment><USER14> Huh, strange, they're showing up now. You might be right about the CDN glitch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The new iPhones are not that good, too expensive and lot of software issues. Can't really blame retail for that for selling $1000 device.

<comment><USER33> They've managed selling $1000 devices that many found of questionable value for a lot longer than Ahrendts' reign, so this argument doesn't quite hold. Meanwhile, the competition manages the exact same feat, so your comment feels like more of a swipe at Apple's products rather than a discussion of the actual intrigue of O'Brien's sudden appointment.</comment></comment>


Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers - Google Mobile Ads Blog - <AUTHOR> http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2012/09/mobile-friendly-sites-turn-visitors.html <comment><AUTHOR> And yet so many sites are still not mobile friendly and even some of the ones that are do it all wrong.

\- Please don't ask me to install your _every_ time I visit your site on mobile (Yelp's experience on this is actually much better than average).

\- Please _do not_ automatically redirect me to the App Store.

\- Please _do_ provide all the content available on the desktop version otherwise I'm just going to have to go there anyway.

\- When I click a Goole result for a page, I expect to land on that page or a mobile version of _that page_. Please do not send me to a mobile landing page where I can't get the info I originally wanted.</comment>


Bitcoin: The Cryptoanarchists' Answer to Cash - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/bitcoin-the-cryptoanarchists-answer-to-cash/ <comment><USER2> Single page: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/bitcoin-the- cryp...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/bitcoin-the- cryptoanarchists-answer-to-cash/0)

</comment><comment> excuse-me " The Cryptoanarchists' Answer to Cash " is a bit loaded.

Are we going to call the Euro "the complete and utter morons answer to cash"? What about the Greek Drachma2 ?

There is more to a non-government currency than - OMG drugs and terrrrrrorists on the internet what about the children.

<comment><USER3> Cryptoanarchist is a term much more likely to be used as a self-description than a political slur. I'd actually be surprised if anyone can find an instance of it being used as a slur.

Even the simple "anarchist" has lost popularity in the name-calling game, after the Seattle and the Iraq War protests.

<comment><USER4> > Cryptoanarchist is a term much more likely to be used as a self-description > than a political slur.

Indeed.

I not only call myself that, I'm in the process of writing an entire science fiction novel from that political perspective. <http://morlockpublishing.com/>

<comment> excuse-me I think coming from an organisation like the IEEE it wasn't meant as a hip and trendy self-referential term

<comment><USER5> I think the term's a bit too old to be considered hip and trendy.

Did you have any specific criticisms about the way cypherpunks were represented in the article itself, or is this just a superficial complaint about the headline? As an editor at IEEE Spectrum I would say that it wasn't intended as a pejorative.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crew: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod12.pdf <comment><USER2> It's interesting how it expects librarians to be arbiters of morals and ethics - they should recognize when ideas in books are good or bad (or in this case more accurately current and "outdated"). That includes explicitly mentioned "outdated" philosophies on ethics and moral values (are Aristotelian ethics outdated?) and "hot button" topics like euthanasia, genetic engineering, and sexuality. It suggest to "Be aware of changes in political rhetoric and discard books with outdated ideas." Also "Weed books that reflect outdated ideas about gender roles in childrearing."

And atop of being arbiter of wrongthink it expects librarian to keep abreast of scientific knowledge and review books on organic gardening "for accuracy and currency of information after five years".

<comment><USER3> > It's interesting how it expects librarians to be arbiters of morals and > ethics

The author isn't trying to shovel that onto librarians. The author simply understands and is acknowledging that that is an inherent, inescapable part of the librarian's job. This would come as no surprise to the manual's intended audience, the people who brought you Banned Book Week. They know their business.

And, yes, discarding books with outdated ideas is a smart, practical move. These are often books that people are going to be less interested in checking out, because people would rather check out books that reflect contemporary ideas. For example, I'm not at all interested in checking out an etiquette book that reflects mid 20th century ideas about gender roles. I would be much happier to take advice from an etiquette book that isn't actively offensive to me, and I'm not alone in that, so it makes sense for the librarian to get rid of the old etiquette book in order to make room for one that people would actually check out.

There is obviously also some value in keeping old books that people don't want to read anymore. Where you strike the balance there is going to have a lot to do with the library's purpose. Research libraries and public lending libraries have different goals and responsibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would have been nice to have an executive summary. Sorry the work is too long to read in its entirety.

The problem with most of the libraries that I have visited in the last thirty years is that they seem to have forgotten about the educational aspect. I can't speak for other fields than those in which I have some expertise but I suspect that most technical subjects are less well served now than their equivalents were a hundred years ago.

Specifically topics such as computer science, practical computing at a higher level than Such and such for Dummies, electronics, physics, are all pretty much useless in most libraries except university and major reference libraries. Partly the problem is that they simply do not have enough books in those categories but another is that they are frequently well out of date.

I'd like to believe that the reason is simply because the librarians don't have any expertise in those subjects and therefore are not able to see how useless the collections are but I suspect that it probably has more to do with a kind of market orientation so that libraries are filled with books that are popular rather than books that are useful.

This of course becomes a vicious circle because the few technical works are read so rarely on account of being useless that the library concludes that the genre is even less popular than it really is and hence doesn't buy any more up to date books.

Perhaps a librarian could chip in with some actual knowledge instead of my observation and speculation.

<comment><USER5> Pretty much any public library selector or cataloger will be the first to tell you to just go buy your highly specialized technical manual on Amazon and keep it in your personal collection. If you have access to a large research library you could also try that. A mid-sized city library has shelving for maybe 100,000 books with 10x that many books published each year. It's all about serving the entire community and making decisions on what will circulate. No public library has the budget or room to keep esoteric volumes that might appeal to a couple of people per year. Sometimes it has to do with lack of expertise, but generally librarians are expected to stay reasonably well-read in their selection area and just have to make tough decisions. It's more a tension between what will get used vs. budget vs. space rather than ignoring an educational mission.

<comment><USER6> > If you have access to a large research library you could also try that.

It would be great if public research libraries were more common - to be honest, I don't even know if such places exist.

I know that research libraries exist at most universities and certain other organizations (generally focused on what that organization is for) - but they either require you to be an active student to access them, or are private.

As an individual who isn't a student, but still wanting to do research, my only options are to purchase such research (in the form of books, magazines, or journals/articles), or find it on the internet in some form. Even then, I know that I am not getting everything - and likely missing out on a lot of information.

But what other choice do I have?

<comment><USER7> Most state university libraries are open to the public (some are actually required to be if they're repositories of government documents). You're free to browse when make use of their collections onsite.

If you need borrowing privileges, these can in many cases be purchased from the institutions for between $1-300 per year. They generally don't include offsite electronic resource access, but every university library I've worked for have computers with guest access to all of these materials.

It's a little pricey, but if you're a regular consumer of academic or specialty literature, not at all a bad deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A thread from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12002419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12002419)

</comment><comment><USER9> The local county library, which is quite a large system, doesn't have 3 of 16 books from the NY Times December 5, 1999 non-fiction bestseller list: HAVE A NICE DAY! by Mick Foley, THE NEW NEW THING, by Michael Lewis, and THE CENTURY, by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster.

All 15 of the fiction bestsellers from 20 years ago are available.

<comment><USER10> You should not have much problem requesting any of those via inter library loan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related, see [http://awfullibrarybooks.net/](http://awfullibrarybooks.net/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I worked in an academic library for several years, from the IT side of things. For the last five, I was heavily involved in "weeding" in a few ways.

I think I could go on at length about this manual from a critical aspect, but suffice to say I think it is wildly optimistic, to the point of being pollyannaish.

The faculty: the manual ignores the agonizing battles one will have with the faculty over discarding a book that has not circulated in twenty years (note that this circulation number might be incorrect because the faculty member has instructed some hapless grad student to locate the book and then squirrel it away in a locked faculty carrel or perhaps in the ceiling tiles); the faculty will then wish to have each and every book to be removed to be up for debate by each and every member of the faculty. You can imagine how efficient this might be, with each volume treated as if one were callously pitchforking puppies and kittens into some kind of Moloch-furnace. My favorite offender was a duplicate of an index to some _other_ library's special collections that was out of date by a few decades.

I say without a trace of exaggeration that faculty will also debate the language used in the process by comparing it to the verbiage of the Holocaust.

I may have missed it in my skimming, but I do not see anything about automated tools for comparing the catalog against the union catalog of the libraries in one's own local ILL system. I can find nothing on the long-term strategic outlook. While other libraries are trying to shovel books out the back door and out of sight, others are trying to win Hearts from the other angle by keeping what others would throw away, thereby becoming centers for inter- library loan.

Of course, the best code is the code you did not write; similarly, the easiest book to get rid of is the one you did not buy. Acquisitions should be rather tight and yet many libraries blindly pull great palettes of junk from a pre- determined approval list, typically formulated from best-sellers and the like, which results in your science fiction section being inundated with various Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and WH40k issues, starving out the rest. These circulate early and then not at all. Acquisitions are filled with these trivial mistakes which accumulate in the calculus of time.

I could go on and on about this, but the manual could use a more cynical approach to better effect.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why not send these books to Google to convert before burning them?</comment>


Turing's Red Flag - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.09033 <comment><USER2> Oh great, then the only AIs we have to worry about are the ones that have both achieved sentience _and_ learned how to lie to humans.</comment>


Email Self-Defense – a guide to fighting surveillance with GnuPG encryption - <AUTHOR> https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/infographic.html <comment><USER2> Well intentioned, but this is a step backward.

Making a guide that takes 30 minutes to get through (their estimate) will not make any kind of a dent in anything.

Instead it will pile more data points on top of the stack of evidence that says "people don't want to bother with encryption."

A better use of FSF's time would be, step 1, to lobby browser makers, email providers, and email clients to include better hooks for GnuPG by default, so that no extension installation is required. And then, step 2, lobby OS vendors to include GnuPG by default. When step 1 is accomplished, this kind of thing can be somewhat easier. Step 2 is harder and by no means assured of success, but step 1 will help in any case.</comment>


Facebook news feeds beset with malware - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11827856

<comment><USER2> > Security firm BitDefender said it had detected infections contained in the > news feeds of around 20% of Facebook users

I've seen a lot of malware posts, but 1 in 5 users? I'm skeptical based on my biased sample.

> BitDefender arrived at its figures by analysing data from 14,000 Facebook > users that had installed a security app, called safego, it makes for the > social network site.

Well there you have it, their sample is clearly more biased. A large number of people don't install apps at all. Some people install apps indiscriminately... including both malware and "safego".

<comment><USER3> We monitor many public pages (not necessarily pages of people using Defensio) and I can confirm that their numbers are in the ballpark of what we're seeing as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I founded Defensio a few years ago and we fight exactly that problem. The amount of malware and spam we're seeing on high profile business and celebrity pages is astonishing.</comment>


Reddit CEO tells user, "we are not the thought police," then suspends that user - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/reddit-ceo-tells-user-we-are-not-the-thought-police-then-suspends-that-user/ <comment><USER2> This article doesn't make any implications about why the user was banned, but the title sure does.

While the benefits of avoiding the emotional assault that is hate speech may be attractive, banning it seems about as possible as banning affectionate speech.</comment>


FF3 Downloads Per Country/Per Capita (almost real-time) - <AUTHOR> http://mikenz.geek.nz/ff3percapita/

<comment><AUTHOR> Notice the difference between Iran - 39th place at the moment, just beside France, and Iraq - 160.

Among other interesting facts is the US not being in top 10, which I think is because the US is under the pressure of its own corporations and is generally not interested in the open browser that much.</comment>


Show HN: Invertris (made by a friend of mine) - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=au.com.twosquared

<comment><USER2> This is extremely clever. Well done!

Your friend needs to explain what the goal of this game is up front! As soon as I saw the video I got the mechanic immediately--but had no idea what sort of scoring system was involved. Normal tetris scoring doesn't seem to apply, because you can't clear lines. It looks to me like this is a co-op game, which was not immediately clear. If I'm correct, you want to last as many bricks/as long a time as possible.

You need to state very clearly that it's co-op and the goal is to stay alive for as many blocks as possible.

<comment><USER3> >You need to state very clearly that it's co-op and the goal is to stay alive for as many blocks as possible.

I'm pretty sure its non-cooperative. If you look at 1:00, you see an instance where one player is told 'you lose' and the other 'you win'; so it seems to be zero sum.

The object seems to be that the player controlling the white blocks must prevent the white blocks reaching their side of the screen; and vicea-versa.

I find it hard to think through the strategic implications, without an android handset to play on, but it seems pretty elegant - you'd want to fill in enemy space where it is least likely to help your enemy.

So, if your enemy had almost reached the top of their screen, with one 'tower', you'd put blocks anywhere but into that tower. But that 'tower' is a large volume of empty space for you, crying out for you to put your tetrominoes into.

Game looks like its got some pretty interesting tensions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow ... that's the best way I've seen of making Tetris truly multi-player. It's not just competing against each other but actually requires changing strategies. Bonus points for the fact that the board is almost Escher-esque (<http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/switz-bmp/LW306.jpg>)

</comment><comment><USER5> You should tell your friend to remove any mention of tetris from the game description. The Tetris Holding Company is very aggressive with this kind of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER6> Brilliant! You should do an iOS version and sell it.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a really clever concept... and simple too. Though, it's hard to figure out what the goal is, if it's coop or battle or other? It's really interesting to see what people are doing with it. Congrats anyway, impressive concept, love it. Buy me an Android phone, and I'll buy the game.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's really cool. A unique twist on the concept, kind of like a battle. Anything similar for iOS?

</comment><comment><USER9> This looks incredibly cool. I love these "new take on an old concept" games that actually introduce a new gameplay dynamic, rather than simply reskinning. Pass on my congratulations to your friend.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is brilliant. I guess it would be almost impossible to complete an entire row. It would be cool if you got points for going "deeper" into the other side's area.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a really cool concept! Seems frustrating though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very nice. Good idea. Good luck, try to sell it.

</comment><comment><USER13> What is the object of the game?</comment>


LoFive – Tiny RISC-V Microcontroller Board - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.io/project/26909-lofive <comment><USER2> The Pocketbone project by the same guy is also worth checking out. It's a small Beaglebone based on the Octavo 3358, which is a huge SoC that integrates all of the hard parts of a minimal Beaglebone-like system. That project (also in KiCAD) can serve as a jumping off point for any embedded project where you need a tiny Linux system with hard real time performance and easy integration with high speed peripherals (thanks to the weird and wonderful PRUs in the AM3358 Sitara processor). These sorts of projects are really valuable in the embedded world because they demo a minimal implementation and in doing so reduce the magic that bogs down newcomers who just want to do something cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to see something 3358-based with the Ethernet connected to a male RJ-45 - Just plug it into the switch and have an instant cluster.

Extra credit if you can have it with power over Ethernet. Double extra credit if the Ethernet, power and one USB are available on an edge connector so a backplane with a simple switch like the Microchip KSZ8997 could easily be built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Brilliant!

Can't wait for KiCAD to become more mainstream. Projects like this will definitely help.

Great work guys, fantastic.

<comment><USER4> Kicad is only viable if your time is worth less than money - basically only if you're doing the simplest kinds of boards.

If Kicad were as good as GCC, we'd have a revolution.

<comment><USER5> So what do you recommend instead? I think KiCad is still not a bad choice for hobbyist use.

<comment><USER6> There really aren't any good ecad packages for low prices (at least not that I ever heard of it). All cheap packages are just glorified 2D drawing programs (e.g. eagle, target).

<comment><USER7> Even some of the expensive EDA packages can be rather user unfriendly. I've just started a new job where we use Cadence Orcad so I'm having to learn that. It's not exactly intuitive.

<comment><USER6> I found all I used (eagle, kicad, target, protel) not intuitive to use and not very user friendly (which is said about almost every CAD package), but within even that group there are _massive_ differences in capability.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Made the SR-71 Blackbird Such a Badass Plane (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a14491/story-of-sr-71-blackbird/ <comment><USER2> My favorite story about the SR-71 being badass: [http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite- sr-71-story-107912704...](http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite- sr-71-story-1079127041)

<comment><USER3> A good one (although some may dislike it):

On the way back from a mission to the middle east, they ended up flying over France, even though France had refused them clearance. They were flying low and slow (relative terms obviously), and the pilot looked to his left and saw a French Mirage just off his left wing.

The Mirage pilot called over and requested their diplomatic clearance code. The SR-71 pilot told the Mirage to hold on. The reconnaissance systems officer (RCO, the other guy in the plane) then informed the pilot that the code had been transmitted and they went back up to full speed and left the Mirage quickly behind.

The code that the RCO transmitted? The middle finger.

<comment><USER4> America, f\ _\_ k yeah!

...

Sarcasm aside, wouldn't this be a severe case of violation of sovereignity? I find it hard to believe such a stupid act could have been performed without making news or retaliations.

(By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)

<comment><USER5> I have never served in the military, but I like to believe I live in a world in which military commanders are often stuck in a position of having to manage a load of testosterone-fueled lads out doing crazy shit that has the potential to be a "diplomatic incident" and are thus, sympathetic to the commanders in _other_ countries that are often stuck dealing with the same type of lads.

So when a French commander calls up an American commander about some crap their lads pulled flying by in an SR-71 the other day, they're able to sort it out like adults, maybe the American commander relays that he will give his lads whatever the military equivalent of a stern talking to is and they'll both have a laugh, maybe make arrangements for a beer and it doesn't escalate into anything for the masses to waste their limited attention bandwidth on.

Now it's entirely possible I don't live in such a world, but to believe otherwise would simply leave me scared shitless in a corner.

<comment><USER6> i heard a story were a group of rookies in a jeep lost their bearings in the fog, and plowed through a barb wire barricade and got their jeep stuck in some sort of ravine on the wrong side of Germany.

the other side, instead of shooting or arresting them, they helped them get the jeep out. they laughed at them and made fun of them, but they still helped

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone who's interested in this stuff, I highly recommend the book "Skunk Works" – about Lockheed's famous operation that designed the SR-71, U-2, F-117 (stealth fighter), etc.

<comment><USER8> Yes. it's also interesting that it's from the point of view of a guy who worked on something like 17 planes over the course of their career. I think that's very rare now.

<comment><USER9> It's possible with job hopping, or program hopping within the same company. You just won't be working on that aircraft start to finish. I worked on 7 aircraft from 2005-2015.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the most amazing fact I'd learned was that invisibility to radars was not mostly due to the absorbing material but rather a specific geometry of the plane! The materials certainly enhanced it but it was still like 25% or so contribution. Even more amazing fact was that this possibility was first discussed in a Russian research paper but that was never followed through because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work. The folks at Stunkworks got hold of the paper, hired a mathematician and used computers to do the computation to actually find the shape that would have invisibility property to radars. No one in army at the time believed that some special shape can just become invisible to radar. They did the demo to army to prove it and landed their contract. Considering all these was in 1960s, its just amazing.

<comment><USER11> >because it was too complex to compute such shape and no one believed it would actually work

I don't want to put down your enthusiasm, but this is not very exact info. Stealth design never makes the plane invisible, it just increases the detection distance or the power requirement of the radar.

You get relatively long way by simply avoiding corner reflectors. There are rumors that Avro Vulcan used to disappear from friendly radars accidentally just because of that.

One of the features that increases stealth is the radar. Because radars tend to show on radar. SR-71 had "side looking radar" which might have been optimized not to show the array towards any hostile ground stations.

<comment><USER12> Those side looking radars were primarily used for gathering imagery through synthetic aperture radar mapping.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I enjoy science-fiction, but I'm not an aircraft aficionado. What makes the SR-71 so awesome _to me_ is that it looks like about the coolest spacecraft I could have imagined when I was 10 years old. And it still looks that way to me.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, child hood memories with GI Joe come to mind [1]

[1] [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/8c/a7/0a8ca767c485d88869af...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/8c/a7/0a8ca767c485d88869af7e6974d33b77.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> " The U-2 can still fly higher than the Global Hawk, carry a greater payload, and its sensors have more of a slant range. The Global Hawk also lacks de- icing equipment and countermeasures against Russian SAMs. We may be entering the age of drones, but old-fashioned piloted planes can still do a thing or two."

Why not just copy the U2 and make an improved, unmanned version?

<comment><USER14> If you are interested in how the Pentagon, Air Force and Navy decides to fund and build aircraft, I highly recommend reading this book [1]. It's about the father of the A-10, F15 (sort of), F-16 and FA-18. Fascinating read about how the armed forces will completely ignore data on flight characteristics due to politics. (it's about the life of John Boyd, not just how aircraft a chosen but its covered quite a bit in the book)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who- Changed/dp/031...](https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who- Changed/dp/0316796883)

<comment><USER16> Also, note the Vanguard rocket. We lost the space race due to politics. We had the people who knew how to build it--who later built the Saturn V--and after they did, were promptly kicked out.

The Soviets had childish, despicable politics of their own going on, with important rocket engineers like Korolev being accused by his colleague Glushko of treason, sending Korolev to the gulag for Glushko's professional advantage.[1]

Korolev went on to help design to Tupolev tu-2, a formidable bomber in WWII, _from prison._ Later he was Chief Designer of the Soviet's rocket program before dying of cancer (had he not, his plan to go to the Moon may have been realized).

Maybe the reason we see no signs of life in the universe is that all life evolves to conquer itself.

1 -[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev#Imprisonment)

<comment><USER17> The way I read it, there was some question that orbiting spacecraft would violate airspace, and with itchy fingers on the launch button, Eisenhower was unwilling to provoke the Soviet Union. He delayed the space program until the Soviets launched Sputnik, which settled the issue. If that's true, it was a good, pragmatic decision.

<comment><USER16> I have heard that as well, but to the best of my knowledge I don't believe it is accurate. Here is Wikipedia, from the Space Race page.

>The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> i highly recommend reading this guy's hunt for the wrecked A-12 (the CIA's early variant of the SR-71):

[http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other- strange...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange- places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/)

<comment><USER19> He has a number of great pieces on his site.

I'd also recommend "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans"

[http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the- hun...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the- death-valley-germans/)

<comment><USER20> ++ I recall this being a great read triggered by previous discussion[1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The thing that really amazes me is that these badass planes were designed with slide rules, drafting tables, and wind tunnels. No fluid-flow simulations; these things predate the CDC6600. The engineering was as badass as the product.

<comment><USER22> And no wind tunnel can produce Mach 3 flows. Test pilots had to slowly expand the flight envelope of prototype aircraft.

<comment><USER23> Check this out [https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/facilities/htf/](https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/facilities/htf/) Back in the day they could test up to Mach 7. Not it is a test bed for hybrid electric planes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you like the SR-71, and are interested in other Skunk Works projects like the U-2 and F-117, the book Skunk Works is a great read (and also a great audio book).

[https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/...](https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir- Lockheed/dp/0316743003)

<comment><USER24> Also if you're in the DC area, it's really worth going to the National Air & Space Museum, as well as their 'oversize' Udvar Hazy centre. The out of town place is special and hardly gets any tourists, even though they have an SR-71 _and_ the Shuttle, Discovery. Other things include an X-15, the Enola Gay (feels weird if you've visited Hiroshima too), an exhibit on the Keyhole satellite program, a U2 and tons more. I don't think they have an F117, sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I met a gentleman around 20-25 years ago that told me the story of the "$500 hammer". Years ago the press went crazy that the government was overpaying for tools for military projects. This guy gave me "the rest of the story". The cost for tooling is what it should be for a limited run of "special metal" tools. I'm guessing the tool manufacturer had to shutdown their normal operations to supply Skunkworks with all new tools. It would have cost a fortune. Not to mention the secrecy surrounding why some company wanted titanium tools. I don't recall if he mentioned the tools were make of titanium, but he did mention that the chrome bake on normal tools had caused problems on the SR-71 project. I'm glad to see that this little tidbit of information was covered in the article.

<comment><USER26> The backstory is related in _Skunk Works_ by Ben Rich [1]; cadmium-plated tools caused embrittlement in titanium skin panels; it took them a while to track down the cause but eventually they purged the Burbank factory of everything that was cadmium plated to solve the production problem.

[1] Ben Rich and Leo Janos. _Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed_. Boston: Back Bay Books, 1996. ISBN 0-316-74300-3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Q: what counter measures did the blackbird have against surface-to-air missiles?

A: it would simply fly faster than them.

What ana amazing piece of engineering.

</comment><comment><USER28> You can talk about the unobtainium skin, the Pratt-Whitney engines, the radar- bouncing fuselage angles but what really made it such a bad ass plane was Kelly Johnson and his team.

</comment><comment><USER29> I read the Ben Rich book "Skunk Works" about 15 years ago. I've never forgotten the ending.

Towards the end of his life Kelly Johnson suffered from dementia.

They wheeled him out on a runway and there was a fly-past of SR-71s.

Ben asks Kelly "Did you see that? They were saluting you!" I was bawling when I read first that and I am tearing up now. Talk about Epic Men.

</comment><comment><USER30> The hunt for the A-12[0], "its sneaky black older brother", is a fun read.

[0] [http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other- strange...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange- places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/)

<comment><USER31> Oh no! That site is such a fun magnificent time suck. I lost the link, guess it's time to take another dive back in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Consider that not much more than a decade before the SR-71 project started the state of the art in plane design was canvas over a wooden frame with a V12 engine that went at 300mph.

How much technology did they have to invent from first principles to build a plane which flew at Mach 3 at the edge of space? Using slide rules and chalk boards?

</comment><comment><USER32> I had a coworker once who claimed that he got a ride on one before it was declassified. Apparently he was waiting at an air station to go home on leave and was constantly being bumped from flights by higher ranks. A "special" fight came in that he could get on, though, after signing some paperwork to keep quiet about it.

<comment><USER33> That sounds extremely unlikely. My understanding is that both crew members were essential, so you couldn't just put a warm body in the back seat and let the pilot do all the work. The back seat had all the navigation equipment, for one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The first I remember reading about the "Blackbird" was in the _The Uncanny X-Men_, during the Claremont & Byrne run in the early 80's. Their jet was modeled on the SR-71, although I don't recall if they explicitly mentioned that model number.

</comment><comment><USER35> > the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend.

Does nobody proofread these articles anymore? A missing word in the first sentence. This sort of sloppy publishing really doesn't leave a good first impression with the reader.

<comment><USER36> Oh good, I'm not the only one who gets really bothered by this! I hate seeing these kinds of errors. It happens to everyone, I understand that. But when you're an internationally read journal, you should really be holding yourself to a higher standard than, say, the twice-a-week village newspaper or your aunt's emails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> A nice video tour of the SR-71 cockpit (front and rear) by a former pilot. A must watch for any Blackbird enthusiast. - [https://youtu.be/tj9UwKQKE3A](https://youtu.be/tj9UwKQKE3A)

</comment><comment><USER38> i can remember watching these take off/land at Kadena air base in Okinawa while i was stationed in Camp Hansen (USMC).

We assume they were flying recon missions over North Korea. They would take off then quickly bank almost 180 degrees

we referred to them as "Habu" because that's how the locals called them, which is the name of the large black (and extremely poisonous) snake indigenous to the island.

i recall reading that the SR-71 was originally designed as a strategic interceptor, rather than a long-range recon bird.

</comment><comment><USER39> Guys, I thought NASA is not supposed to disclose it's military affiliations publicly?

"As reported in PM, NASA is currently the revisiting the supersonic spy plane concept. It recently awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Skunk to test the feasibility of the SR-2, a supersonic drone that would fly almost twice the speed of the Blackbird. The idea is that speed would play the role that stealth once did in beating enemy air defense network. "

</comment><comment><USER40> What the OP forgets to mention is that the 71 was not intended initially as a surveillance aircraft. It was meant as an interceptor. The phoenix missile system, of f14 fame, was initially meant for an SR71/Oxcart-type airframe. This thing was mean to shoot down valkyrie-class bombers. That image of mach3/4 aircraft chasing each other down never really happened.

<comment><USER33> Sort of. The A-12 came first. That was more or less a single-seat SR-71, built for the CIA as a spy plane. The Air Force wanted a high-speed interceptor, Lockheed proposed a variant of the A-12, and the YF-12 was born, but never got beyond three prototypes because it ended up being unnecessary. The SR-71 was the Air Force spy plane version of the A-12, enlarged to carry more fuel and two crew.

The interceptor variant is definitely interesting, but it's a side branch of the spy plane lineage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Cool post, I didn't know the part where the plane was retired shortly after the Soviets managed to put together an aircraft and missile combo, along with well-organized operations, that could plausibly shoot down the SR-71.

</comment><comment><USER42> The M-21 was the most bad-ass of the bad-asses.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21)

</comment><comment><USER43> I think I learned about this plane through the abridged version of Hellsing Ultimate... and then sucking up every detail about it I could... Quite an amazing piece of engineering indeed.

"Do you even _read_ my christmas list?"

</comment><comment><USER44> I always preferred the SR-77 Blackbird, myself.

<comment><USER37> "Blackbird" was the moniker for the SR-71. I've never heard of the SR-77. Either you have information on a super secret skunk works project, or else I suspect you might be taking the mickey out of the editors of the article for their SR-1 typo?

<comment><USER45> I've read (unsure if factual, can't find a source right now) that the plane's original designation was to be RS-71 (because reconnaissance).

At some point, in a speech or introduction, some high ranking official misread that as SR-71, and after that all documentation was updated to show this new designation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I didn't make it past the first lovely sentence. "With a sleek needle nose and a swept double-delta wing with two prominent nacelles, the supersonic SR-1 Blackbird spy plane is the stuff aviation legend."

SR-1? "Stuff aviation legend"? I'd expect a little better editing from Popular Mechanics.

<comment><USER7> You stopped reading the entire article because they dropped an "of"?

<comment><USER37> I must admit that I picked up on the "SR-1" typo. If this was my local daily rag article, I could forgive, but for a technical publication that is supposed to give us accurate, meaningful data, that immediately sows some distrust that the rest of the information in the article may be suspect. Grammatical errors I can forgive to a certain extent, but getting the designation of the aircraft wrong that is the _feature_ of the article? That is sloppy editing.

<comment><USER7> I actually didn't even notice that until you put it in quotes just now.

<comment><USER47> Then there are outright broken sentences like this:

>The 1980s saw an increase in threats capable to countering the SR-71, including improved enemy air defenses and the introduction of the MiG-31, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile could intercept the Blackbird.

This just breaks my mental parsing, since there are so many ways to fix this:

1\. ..MiG, which, being armed with the R-33 missile, could intercept the Blackbird;

2\. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 missile, and could intercept the Blackbird;

3\. ..MiG, which was armed with the R-33 air-to-air missile, and therefore could intercept the Blackbird.

(and so on)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tcd.vim: Tab-specific directories in Vim - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oinksoft/tcd.vim

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something I extracted from a plugin I wrote years ago, proj.vim. It is sometimes quite useful to be able to set a different working directory in a tab on the fly, particularly if you use tools that default to the working directory, such as NERD_Tree.vim.

Please report issues on Github.</comment>