10 ms·

We are barely halfway done

487 points by pmorici 11y ago

tmuir 11y ago
I've noticed that a lot of headlines on HN are intentionally vague, to pique reader's interest. I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. What is it that is barely halfway done?
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  > I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. This isn't an article, though. It's someone's personal blog and the continuation of something else; the assumption is that you've read the other ones. He's talking about the process of saving a huge amount (25k?) of paper manuals from someone who was going to throw them out.
  - azinman2 11y ago
    Which is no longer a useful assumption when pages can be independently displayed and linked, and then disseminated. I had to look at these comments to even understand that my guess was somewhat true.
- Maxious 11y ago
  Well also to comply with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    And this is a perfect example of a time when using the original title is stupid. There's absolutely no good reason to insist on original titles for their own sake, when the original title is meaningless, lacks context, or is otherwise inadequate - none of which are necessarily the same thing as "misleading or linkbait".
    - bosdev 11y ago
      The logic is to prevent sensational titles. By forcing the title to be the page's heading, it limits posters ability to target the hn audience with a snappy, BuzzFeed-like, heading.
      - mindcrime 11y ago
        The logic is to prevent sensational titles. I think we all understand that. I think we also all understand that there are times when blind adherence to that rule is bloody stupid.
      - scintill76 11y ago
        So instead, authors of the article can target any audience with snappy, BuzzFeed-like headings, and the HN poster can either copy it or rewrite it, and they'll get complaints either way...
      - moe 11y ago
        It also eliminates the posters ability to provide the hn audience with a useful title. I very much prefer a "snappy, BuzzFeed-like" heading that tells me what the article is about over a meaningless phrase without context.
    - wtbob 11y ago
      It'd be kinda cool to hack the (fairly stupid) rule with titles like '…' or 'An interesting result.'
      - peterburkimsher 11y ago
        Or Title'); DROP TABLE Articles;--
    - dang 11y ago
      The stupidity we want to avoid on HN is subsecond internet reflexiveness, which is what you get when putting pre-processed information directly into the reader like a mother bird dropping pre-chewed worms into baby birds' mouths. Here we want reflective reactions, not reflexive ones. For that, it's good if the reader has to work a little. We're not talking about anything hard—anybody willing to work the tiniest amount, such as clicking two links instead of one, or one instead of zero, could, for instance, trivially figure out the OP. It's good for the front page to have a mild timing-attack effect on the brain. The slight pause that induces is an opening for more reflective thought to enter. Maybe it won't, but if the door snaps shut in a second, it certainly won't. The anger that flares up when an internet thing doesn't immediately present itself for a sugar hit is, in my opinion, the reaction of an addict. We all have this. It's necessary to catch it and inhibit it in order for the subtler reactions, like curiosity, to emerge. If you don't want to do that, plenty of other places on the internet will oblige.
  - Too 11y ago
    Isn't this title misleading? I thought it would be about real time operating systems.
    - dang 11y ago
      Ok, we'll take "In Realtime" out of the title here.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lnanek2 11y ago
  Unfortunately, HN only allows the original title, which results in crappy titles that weren't designed for the context of a social news site so often leaves readers clueless.
  - dang 11y ago
    > HN only allows the original title Read the HN guidelines and you'll see that that's not true.
- bane 11y ago
  The extra context comes from two places - the domain, textfiles.org is an incredibly well known domain, so things from there are likely to be interesting and not linkbait - clicking the link and reading the article, this is guaranteed to answer your question
  - rconti 11y ago
    - the domain, textfiles.org, is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com. - clicking the link and reading the article did not help, so I went to the comments for context. I got lucky on this one. I've never heard of textfiles, so I was going to question whether or not it's really "well-known", and I got a good laugh when I went to the site you recommended and found a domain for sale :)
Axsuul 11y ago
Some context: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683
clone1018 11y ago
Jason Scott is really one of the heros of our time. His dedication to preserving history is seriously amazing. I really hope to meet him one day.
bootload 11y ago
you can get a view of what's going on by looking through the images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/sets/72157657277241785 https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/sets/721576572772417... there's also microfiche.
nitrogen 11y ago
If this weren't happening so far away, I'd be there to help. Historical preservation, especially of niche documents like electronics manuals, will become increasingly important over time as historical equipment needs to be maintained, patents need to be refuted with prior art, etc.
peterwwillis 11y ago
Oh wow, I thought this was in SF, and then I realized one of the guys in the picture is Maze, a guy who helps run a hackerspace here in Baltimore. I had no idea this was happening! And not only do I have to work, I injured my neck and back, so I can't lift anything. And no car. Crap. I hope more local people find out about this, though!
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  If you know people in the area, can't you make a few calls to see if anyone else can help?
- akuchling 11y ago
  FYI: if you can get there, you might be able to help by assembling the bankers' boxes, which doesn't require too much lifting or bending. (I was there yesterday for a few hours: some people assemble the boxes, others take the boxes and fill them, and then we stack them.)
McKayDavis 11y ago
It's sad to see a company go out of business, but I applaud the owners of Manuals Plus [1] for making such a large donation to the Internet Archive. To provide some more context about what the actual contents of the archive includes, a description is on their about page [2]: "Manuals Plus buys and sells Electronic Test & Measurement Equipment Manuals. We stock over 400,000 manuals at our Westminster, Maryland location. Our inventory consists of Operator, Service, Calibration, and Programming manuals." [1] http://www.manualsplus.com/ http://www.manualsplus.com/ [2] http://www.manualsplus.com/About.php http://www.manualsplus.com/About.php
- pmorici 11y ago
  The way I understand it, the company behind the manualsplus.com service (Ridge Equipment Company, Inc.) isn't going out of business. The issue is they needed to move to a new location and it didn't make economic sense for them to continue with the manuals part of their business when considering the cost of outfitting the new facility for their storage and moving the material.
  - xur17 11y ago
    If that's the case, they should be getting a nice tax deduction for the donation, right?
    - stingraycharles 11y ago
      .. which might be more than they would have gotten for them in an auction. Clever.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        Likely not, the ones they are throwing in the dumpster are making a statement about the estimated value of the rest of them.
- ersii 11y ago
  The fate of the manuals are not known to be heading to the Internet Archive just yet. It's quite likely they'll end up there though. At least for digitalizing and scanning them in. I however join you in applauding Manuals Plus in letting these go. It must be hard for them.
Animats 11y ago
He's getting great service from Uline, the packaging material supplier. 4-hour delivery on pallet loads of boxes.
- erode 11y ago
  Well that's because he paid $4,000 for it.
  - textfiles 11y ago
    I paid $560 for the courier service Uline provided. The rest was the cost of the 1,200 boxes, regardless of shipping method (Roughly $3,400)
ak217 11y ago
Jason Scott is doing an incredible public service here. Presuming this gets scanned and released to the public, it will over time result in many pieces of recycled electronics, inspired engineers, and derivative art.
- leni536 11y ago
  > Presuming this gets scanned and released to the public What is the copyright status of these manuals? I hope they don't bump into any legal problem though and they can release scans.
  - userbinator 11y ago
    Some of the oldest ones are probably in the public domain, but I guess the others are still copyrighted; nevertheless, I trust the Internet Archive will have that figured out as they have collected plenty of other copyrighted material before this.
    - SolarNet 11y ago
      Archives have some pretty broad exceptions to copyright infringement laws. [0] http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108
  - 300bps 11y ago
    The Internet Archive hosts all of the MAME ROMs, many of which are still copyrighted: https://archive.org/details/MAME_0_161_ROMs https://archive.org/details/MAME_0_161_ROMs
fluffyllemon 11y ago
For context: This is the third post in a series. The author (Jason Scott) is trying to save ~25,000 manuals, instruction booklets, and engineering notes (largely electronics related, created over the last 80 years). This is a large project, the company which owns the manuals currently is going out of business, and all the manuals will be thrown away very soon (re: tomorrow). First post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4711 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4711 Second post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683
- lectrick 11y ago
  It is infeasible (IMHO) to deal with all physical manuals ever in this way, unless you are literally a Manuals Library that is supported by the county or whatever. I think the only way to go forward is to digitize the shit out of everything.
jayzalowitz 11y ago
Jason, You continue to make me feel awesome about humanity. Say hello to socks for me.
kriro 11y ago
What an amazing effort. In case someone local wants to join in: The warehouse is located in Finksburg, MD, about 30 miles northwest of Baltimore. [taken from the original post of the issue: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683]
- madmaze 11y ago
  I and many others spent basically all day there yesterday. It's fun to look through all of these manuals. It takes a lot of concentration picking out the unique copies and leaving the many copies behind. Especially HP.. arg so, so many revisions of the same manual.
  - niklasni1 11y ago
    Thank you for your effort.
yitchelle 11y ago
Thinking outside the box here, would it not be more effective contacting some of the companies still operating (eg, HP, Intel, Philips etc) to see if they have some of the operating manuals already scanned, and available publicly?
- WalterBright 11y ago
  You're right that it is not worth bothering with the manuals already online and available. But clearly they are so short of time they cannot spare the time to do such searches, and can only just grab them all.
- jwarren 11y ago
  Those are not the original physical artefacts though. Digitisation is immensely important for access of content, but it's not preservation.
WalterBright 11y ago
I wish I could be there to help. But I can't, so I made another donation. Jason and the other volunteers, my thanks! You guys are heroes.
WalterBright 11y ago
I've never heard of this company before now. I've needed a manual for my Leader LBO-514A oscilloscope, and it turns out they have one. I guess Jason has it now!
- bitJericho 11y ago
  I needed a manual for a piece of consumer electronics but they didn't have the manual. The manufacturer did though when I contacted them. I thought about giving the copy to this company but I felt no desire to help some business out like that, but for the IA, heck yeah, I might have to send it off to them.
ProntoJr 11y ago
wow, just wow. huge work indeed
alex95 11y ago
Why does it need to be a clickbait title? Really?
Navarr 11y ago
Wait Columbus? That's not drastically far..
eddyb 11y ago
Let the future remember the past clearer than we ever could.
ommunist 11y ago
I think, we all should tip to buy a vacuum book scanner for Mr Scott, if he shall decide to digitize manuals. You won't believe how useful this library will be for the folks in the field.
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  It would probably be better to donate such a thing to the Internet Archive and get to use it for this project. This guy is renting storage space for the manuals out of his own pocket, it's unlikely he has space for industrial scanning equipment at home.
  - enf 11y ago
    Jason Scott works for the Internet Archive, as well as doing his own archiving and documentary work.
    - throwaway7767 11y ago
      > Jason Scott works for the Internet Archive, as well as doing his own archiving and documentary work. Yes, I know. The GP comment suggested giving an expensive, large industrial scanner to "Mr. Scott", which I interpreted as giving it to him personally. My point was simply that it would be more appropriate to give it to the Internet Archive.
      - ommunist 11y ago
        I just thought that this particular mission was initiative of Mr Scott himself, not the Internet Archive as business entity.
- teraflop 11y ago
  From a previous post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4695 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4695 > Hey, go ask Google. I think people don’t understand what Google is and how much it particularly cares about doing “The Right Thing” (not much), and the next person to mention the Linear Book Scanner (a prototype that destroys books), well, they’re going to get a hug and my distracting words of love.

487 points by pmorici 11y ago

tmuir 11y ago

I've noticed that a lot of headlines on HN are intentionally vague, to pique reader's interest. I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. What is it that is barely halfway done?

sdrothrock 11y ago
> I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. This isn't an article, though. It's someone's personal blog and the continuation of something else; the assumption is that you've read the other ones. He's talking about the process of saving a huge amount (25k?) of paper manuals from someone who was going to throw them out.
- azinman2 11y ago
  Which is no longer a useful assumption when pages can be independently displayed and linked, and then disseminated. I had to look at these comments to even understand that my guess was somewhat true.
Maxious 11y ago
Well also to comply with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  And this is a perfect example of a time when using the original title is stupid. There's absolutely no good reason to insist on original titles for their own sake, when the original title is meaningless, lacks context, or is otherwise inadequate - none of which are necessarily the same thing as "misleading or linkbait".
  - bosdev 11y ago
    The logic is to prevent sensational titles. By forcing the title to be the page's heading, it limits posters ability to target the hn audience with a snappy, BuzzFeed-like, heading.
    - mindcrime 11y ago
      The logic is to prevent sensational titles. I think we all understand that. I think we also all understand that there are times when blind adherence to that rule is bloody stupid.
    - scintill76 11y ago
      So instead, authors of the article can target any audience with snappy, BuzzFeed-like headings, and the HN poster can either copy it or rewrite it, and they'll get complaints either way...
    - moe 11y ago
      It also eliminates the posters ability to provide the hn audience with a useful title. I very much prefer a "snappy, BuzzFeed-like" heading that tells me what the article is about over a meaningless phrase without context.
  - wtbob 11y ago
    It'd be kinda cool to hack the (fairly stupid) rule with titles like '…' or 'An interesting result.'
    - peterburkimsher 11y ago
      Or Title'); DROP TABLE Articles;--
  - dang 11y ago
    The stupidity we want to avoid on HN is subsecond internet reflexiveness, which is what you get when putting pre-processed information directly into the reader like a mother bird dropping pre-chewed worms into baby birds' mouths. Here we want reflective reactions, not reflexive ones. For that, it's good if the reader has to work a little. We're not talking about anything hard—anybody willing to work the tiniest amount, such as clicking two links instead of one, or one instead of zero, could, for instance, trivially figure out the OP. It's good for the front page to have a mild timing-attack effect on the brain. The slight pause that induces is an opening for more reflective thought to enter. Maybe it won't, but if the door snaps shut in a second, it certainly won't. The anger that flares up when an internet thing doesn't immediately present itself for a sugar hit is, in my opinion, the reaction of an addict. We all have this. It's necessary to catch it and inhibit it in order for the subtler reactions, like curiosity, to emerge. If you don't want to do that, plenty of other places on the internet will oblige.
- Too 11y ago
  Isn't this title misleading? I thought it would be about real time operating systems.
  - dang 11y ago
    Ok, we'll take "In Realtime" out of the title here.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lnanek2 11y ago
Unfortunately, HN only allows the original title, which results in crappy titles that weren't designed for the context of a social news site so often leaves readers clueless.
- dang 11y ago
  > HN only allows the original title Read the HN guidelines and you'll see that that's not true.
bane 11y ago
The extra context comes from two places - the domain, textfiles.org is an incredibly well known domain, so things from there are likely to be interesting and not linkbait - clicking the link and reading the article, this is guaranteed to answer your question
- rconti 11y ago
  - the domain, textfiles.org, is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com. - clicking the link and reading the article did not help, so I went to the comments for context. I got lucky on this one. I've never heard of textfiles, so I was going to question whether or not it's really "well-known", and I got a good laugh when I went to the site you recommended and found a domain for sale :)

Axsuul 11y ago

Some context: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683

clone1018 11y ago

Jason Scott is really one of the heros of our time. His dedication to preserving history is seriously amazing. I really hope to meet him one day.

bootload 11y ago

you can get a view of what's going on by looking through the images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/sets/72157657277241785 https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/sets/721576572772417... there's also microfiche.

nitrogen 11y ago

If this weren't happening so far away, I'd be there to help. Historical preservation, especially of niche documents like electronics manuals, will become increasingly important over time as historical equipment needs to be maintained, patents need to be refuted with prior art, etc.

peterwwillis 11y ago

Oh wow, I thought this was in SF, and then I realized one of the guys in the picture is Maze, a guy who helps run a hackerspace here in Baltimore. I had no idea this was happening! And not only do I have to work, I injured my neck and back, so I can't lift anything. And no car. Crap. I hope more local people find out about this, though!

voltagex_ 11y ago
If you know people in the area, can't you make a few calls to see if anyone else can help?
akuchling 11y ago
FYI: if you can get there, you might be able to help by assembling the bankers' boxes, which doesn't require too much lifting or bending. (I was there yesterday for a few hours: some people assemble the boxes, others take the boxes and fill them, and then we stack them.)

McKayDavis 11y ago

It's sad to see a company go out of business, but I applaud the owners of Manuals Plus [1] for making such a large donation to the Internet Archive. To provide some more context about what the actual contents of the archive includes, a description is on their about page [2]: "Manuals Plus buys and sells Electronic Test & Measurement Equipment Manuals. We stock over 400,000 manuals at our Westminster, Maryland location. Our inventory consists of Operator, Service, Calibration, and Programming manuals." [1] http://www.manualsplus.com/ http://www.manualsplus.com/ [2] http://www.manualsplus.com/About.php http://www.manualsplus.com/About.php

pmorici 11y ago
The way I understand it, the company behind the manualsplus.com service (Ridge Equipment Company, Inc.) isn't going out of business. The issue is they needed to move to a new location and it didn't make economic sense for them to continue with the manuals part of their business when considering the cost of outfitting the new facility for their storage and moving the material.
- xur17 11y ago
  If that's the case, they should be getting a nice tax deduction for the donation, right?
  - stingraycharles 11y ago
    .. which might be more than they would have gotten for them in an auction. Clever.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      Likely not, the ones they are throwing in the dumpster are making a statement about the estimated value of the rest of them.
ersii 11y ago
The fate of the manuals are not known to be heading to the Internet Archive just yet. It's quite likely they'll end up there though. At least for digitalizing and scanning them in. I however join you in applauding Manuals Plus in letting these go. It must be hard for them.

Animats 11y ago

He's getting great service from Uline, the packaging material supplier. 4-hour delivery on pallet loads of boxes.

erode 11y ago
Well that's because he paid $4,000 for it.
- textfiles 11y ago
  I paid $560 for the courier service Uline provided. The rest was the cost of the 1,200 boxes, regardless of shipping method (Roughly $3,400)

ak217 11y ago

Jason Scott is doing an incredible public service here. Presuming this gets scanned and released to the public, it will over time result in many pieces of recycled electronics, inspired engineers, and derivative art.

leni536 11y ago
> Presuming this gets scanned and released to the public What is the copyright status of these manuals? I hope they don't bump into any legal problem though and they can release scans.
- userbinator 11y ago
  Some of the oldest ones are probably in the public domain, but I guess the others are still copyrighted; nevertheless, I trust the Internet Archive will have that figured out as they have collected plenty of other copyrighted material before this.
  - SolarNet 11y ago
    Archives have some pretty broad exceptions to copyright infringement laws. [0] http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108
- 300bps 11y ago
  The Internet Archive hosts all of the MAME ROMs, many of which are still copyrighted: https://archive.org/details/MAME_0_161_ROMs https://archive.org/details/MAME_0_161_ROMs

fluffyllemon 11y ago

For context: This is the third post in a series. The author (Jason Scott) is trying to save ~25,000 manuals, instruction booklets, and engineering notes (largely electronics related, created over the last 80 years). This is a large project, the company which owns the manuals currently is going out of business, and all the manuals will be thrown away very soon (re: tomorrow). First post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4711 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4711 Second post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683

lectrick 11y ago
It is infeasible (IMHO) to deal with all physical manuals ever in this way, unless you are literally a Manuals Library that is supported by the county or whatever. I think the only way to go forward is to digitize the shit out of everything.

jayzalowitz 11y ago

Jason, You continue to make me feel awesome about humanity. Say hello to socks for me.

kriro 11y ago

What an amazing effort. In case someone local wants to join in: The warehouse is located in Finksburg, MD, about 30 miles northwest of Baltimore. [taken from the original post of the issue: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683]

madmaze 11y ago
I and many others spent basically all day there yesterday. It's fun to look through all of these manuals. It takes a lot of concentration picking out the unique copies and leaving the many copies behind. Especially HP.. arg so, so many revisions of the same manual.
- niklasni1 11y ago
  Thank you for your effort.

yitchelle 11y ago

Thinking outside the box here, would it not be more effective contacting some of the companies still operating (eg, HP, Intel, Philips etc) to see if they have some of the operating manuals already scanned, and available publicly?

WalterBright 11y ago
You're right that it is not worth bothering with the manuals already online and available. But clearly they are so short of time they cannot spare the time to do such searches, and can only just grab them all.
jwarren 11y ago
Those are not the original physical artefacts though. Digitisation is immensely important for access of content, but it's not preservation.

WalterBright 11y ago

I wish I could be there to help. But I can't, so I made another donation. Jason and the other volunteers, my thanks! You guys are heroes.

WalterBright 11y ago

I've never heard of this company before now. I've needed a manual for my Leader LBO-514A oscilloscope, and it turns out they have one. I guess Jason has it now!

bitJericho 11y ago
I needed a manual for a piece of consumer electronics but they didn't have the manual. The manufacturer did though when I contacted them. I thought about giving the copy to this company but I felt no desire to help some business out like that, but for the IA, heck yeah, I might have to send it off to them.

ProntoJr 11y ago

wow, just wow. huge work indeed

alex95 11y ago

Why does it need to be a clickbait title? Really?

Navarr 11y ago

Wait Columbus? That's not drastically far..

eddyb 11y ago

Let the future remember the past clearer than we ever could.

ommunist 11y ago

I think, we all should tip to buy a vacuum book scanner for Mr Scott, if he shall decide to digitize manuals. You won't believe how useful this library will be for the folks in the field.

throwaway7767 11y ago
It would probably be better to donate such a thing to the Internet Archive and get to use it for this project. This guy is renting storage space for the manuals out of his own pocket, it's unlikely he has space for industrial scanning equipment at home.
- enf 11y ago
  Jason Scott works for the Internet Archive, as well as doing his own archiving and documentary work.
  - throwaway7767 11y ago
    > Jason Scott works for the Internet Archive, as well as doing his own archiving and documentary work. Yes, I know. The GP comment suggested giving an expensive, large industrial scanner to "Mr. Scott", which I interpreted as giving it to him personally. My point was simply that it would be more appropriate to give it to the Internet Archive.
    - ommunist 11y ago
      I just thought that this particular mission was initiative of Mr Scott himself, not the Internet Archive as business entity.
teraflop 11y ago
From a previous post: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4695 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4695 > Hey, go ask Google. I think people don’t understand what Google is and how much it particularly cares about doing “The Right Thing” (not much), and the next person to mention the Linear Book Scanner (a prototype that destroys books), well, they’re going to get a hug and my distracting words of love.