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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

> Identify location of text in an image ...for... $75

This is what my doctor charges for a flu vaccination.

I guess I've chosen the wrong profession.

You don't pay your doctor $75 for sticking a needle in your arm, you pay him for his knowledge not to stick the needle in the wrong place.

Looks like we've got full circle considering this same logic was applied to devs for ages.

Except that for doctors the circle somehow doesn't close upon itself.

Youtube is full of videos showing how to inject oneself.

Writing a text-detection script can be done perhaps with some help from Google/Stackoverflow, but requires still some intellectual effort depending on requirements.

And when you screw up and stick it in the wrong place?

Just have them put "LolToad69 Said It Would Work" on your tombstone.

No way man.

If you solved that problem you would be rich.

This analogy is driving me crazy, heh, but I can't resist:

Flu shots are generally intramuscular, you literally just jab it into your bicep. A layperson can do it with high probabilities of success just by reading the instructions on the box.

Indeed, pharmacists administer these all over the US.

Please don't jab a needle into your bicep. That sounds painful and unnecessary.

Tricep is the way to go here.

> We have hundreds of images uploaded to our app each day. The issue is some of these images have text that we want cropped out.

So... they want to chop out watermarks?

1. You should just start getting them at a pharmacy then, they're usually more like $20.

2. This is why flu vaccine is not inexpensive: First, the CDC and WHO need to identify possible strains of flu that will be prevalent during the next flu season. Then flu vaccine has to be created by incubation (in an egg I believe), then killed, then transferred to a sterile container in suspension, this must be done for each strain of flu you are vaccinated against. The container must be transferred within certain temperature and time boundaries. This container must then be moved into a sterile syringe, which is inserted under your skin, preferably by someone who knows what they're doing.

The only reason that the vaccine is so inexpensive is that the CDC and WHO receive outside funding, and the process takes place on a massive scale.

75$ is too expensive for something that costs 0$.

Also most developers in SV are paid more than physicians (internists/family-medicine) who prescribe flu-shots.

That's $75/mo. Gotta think like a SaaS ;)

It really depends on the text and the images.

It is likely a lot more difficult than they are making it out to be. If it were that easy, why wouldn't they do it themselves? If they just don't have any technical employees able to do it, then they probably don't know enough to outline what they really want with a technical person, anyway.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1425/ Relevant comic: http://johngushue.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451f25369e20120a5138...

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