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Comment by nyellin | Hacker News Reader

Please, don't just upvote! I'm looking for an organization or project that can use my help. I want to hear suggestions.

My skills:

* C (I haven't written a compiler, but I'm pretty experienced with the lesser-known intricacies of C)

* Web development, Python, and Django (I created Freeversation and have two more projects in the works)

However, I can help with anything else as well! I'm a well-rounded coder with some degree of experience in lisp, ruby, C#, Java, and Javascript. I can also help with marketing, writing, or design.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Let me know if I've done something wrong.

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The downvotes are because you a making it seem like your "4hrs" of time is worthy of some god like recognition. In reality, 4 hours is basically nothing for an established project and you will be lucky to even begin to understand the project functions or where the best place to contribute is.

You are not going to hand out food at a shelter or rake someone's lawn. Participating in a project is not something to be taken too lightly. I would suggest you read up on some of the projects you like and what their goals or TODO items are. Then pick one and start contributing. Don't make it about getting karma, but about contributing.

I understand now. Thank you for explaining.

I'm pledging four hours tomorrow night, but I would like to find a good cause I connect with that I can continue working on during the new year. I'm using my time off from school to kickstart that. Call it a motivational hack.

I can think one such organization: The EFF. Who else is out there? What other non-profits need help?

I do agree with your point that 4 hours is not much and that it should not be taken lightly. However I still admire him for even thinking about it and don't think he is longing for some god like recognition. View it as a first step for him and maybe, if he realizes how much he is enjoying doing something charitable he will want to do much more. Hopefully you find a project that allows you to understand what they do within the first day and then can commit some more time to it during 2012!

hey! my organization (concrete jungle: http://www.concrete-jungle.org) would love some help. we pick fruit growing on the side of the road and in people's yards all over the atlanta area and we donate it to local homeless shelters and food banks -- we donated over 3200 lbs / 1450 kg of fresh produce this year on basically zero budget and all volunteer efforts.

there's a lot of logistics in managing the various fruit trees and we use a google map for doing so (also have a public google map for showing folks things that are nearby).

off the top of my head, things we would love: * making the map faster (optimizing the code, showing fewer points at more zoomed-out levels, whatever).

* being able to directly edit/update our sqlite fruit tree database from our google map

* any sort of interesting features for our mobile app (or even making a native android app!)

* making charts of when we have picked certain fruits in the past to illustrate approximate ripeness schedules.

* any sort of way to improve our picking logistics -- doing weekly picks from many trees that all ripen at slightly different times without driving all over the city is hard.

* anything to clean up/secure/speed up our code -- i did it all and am not a coder by training or by trade.

What's your code written in?

PHP and Javascript

"we pick fruit growing on the side of the road and in people's yards all over the atlanta area and we donate it to local homeless shelters and food banks"

That seems questionable. Normally you aren't supposed to eat anything from near the side of the road because there is often still tons of lead and other contaminants there from the cars. This is especially true of food that comes from trees, because they accumulate these contaminants inside of them.

it is a complicated issue with such a wide variety of places that we pick from, and the uptake amount and destination within the plant varies by species and the pollutant in question. my understanding is that in general plants do not extensively uptake lead or arsenic, and that most cases of heavy metal ingestion from produce comes from poorly washing it, or not peeling roots/tubers (which we don't pick)

for what it's worth, we have made cider from our apples and had it tested for heavy metals, which it passed ("below threshold" -- not clear if that was the detection limit of the machine, or against a concentration standard)

the vast majority of things we pick are also actually from people's yards (with permission -- no one wants what they've got). while the assumption there is that it is safer soil than something that's literally next to the interstate, it is true though that we have not tested the soil of every single place we pick.

it also brings up the question of how safe "real" farmland is, as many of them are located near roadsides, or once used lead arsenate as an insecticide, or ...

I upvoted to get the thread noticed. Not even because I think 4 hours will make a difference but because I saw the comments on your site and there were a few other people who seemed interested in doing the same thing. If this thread getting upvoted spreads the idea around then I'll be happy.

The Khan Academy is probably a good option.

Thanks. I sent them an email offering to create interactive WebGL lessons. That would be a great match, as I can probably complete a whole lesson tomorrow night, and I have wanted to work more with WebGL for a while.

Hi, part-time Khan Academy employee here (I didn't get your email, just going off what you've written here).

Probably WebGL exercises are not quite what we're looking for because all of our exercises are supported on browsers down to IE8. That said, it's still possible to make fun, interactive exercises like these:

http://www.khanacademy.org/exercise/derivative_intuition

http://www.khanacademy.org/exercise/congruency_postulates

If you're looking to contribute using C and Python expertise, then KA exercises are probably not the best way to help out. (Although the backend for the website is open-source and written in Python; it's possible you could help out if you're looking for a long-term project.) If you're still interested in making exercises, then the best way to get in touch is in the chatroom here:

https://www.hipchat.com/g2m3UVDtY

(This weekend the room is a bit empty due to the holidays but there are often some people around at all hours.)

Yeah just go here and go nuts: https://github.com/khan/khan-exercises

I'm looking for a way to have machine learning algorithms on google app engine (GAE). Ideally, it would be Python 2.7 + Numpy with C or C++. Is there a hack to do it? Do I need to rewrite C code in Numpy code? GAE allows .pyc files - can I use inline C inside Python/Numpy and compile it to .pyc, then deploy the whole thing on GAE? What are my options (beside switching to Java, that is)?

This should be like ~4h project. Many people on HN are interested in data mining and web apps. I'm guessing it would be appreciated contribution here.

Avoid NGOs or that sort of professional charities; those are businesses, same rules apply.

If I really wanted to do good in 4 hours, I'd start with my neighbours.

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