Tell HN: I'll donate 4 hrs tomorrow to a charitable project, continue in 2012
natanyellin.com
natanyellin.com
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.
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'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?
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.)
If I really wanted to do good in 4 hours, I'd start with my neighbours.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
We use software to connect all of the volunteers with the food runs. We started in April and have over 100 volunteers plugged in to date and are growing quickly. We started in Fairfield County, CT to validate the concept and are so happy with the response we've gotten from the community. We're going to add a few more cities at the beginning of 2012.
On the dev side, it's built in PHP on the Kohana framework, with jQuery mobile, and it's tough for me to keep up on my own with my day job and would love some help although it will take a few hours to get your footing so it's probably not worth someone's time unless you can commit 20 hours or so.
If you or anyone else is interested or has any questions let me know.
Thanks.
They work with Python and Django, and they are trying to make the government more transparent. Their code is on github: https://github.com/ofri/Open-Knesset
Can you write documentation, or clean up documentation?