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How the US Postal Service reads terrible handwriting

Tom Scott · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Computer vision, speech & NLPManufacturing & industrial processesDocumentaries & storytelling

What it is

Tom Scott visits the USPS Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City, where keyers decipher mail images machines cannot read. It shows the lengths taken to decode bad handwriting.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended in address and OCR threads as a look at the last human mail-coding operation.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2022, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “might be of interest - it has some of what the machines are trying to read and what accuracy they need.”

    Shows what machines read and the accuracy required.

    bombcar, 2023-03 · Recommendation · in “What Is the Most Minimal UK Address Possible?”

  2. “This Tom Scott video shows some of the surprising (to me) lengths to which the USPS does go to figure out the right address”

    Surprising lengths USPS goes to decode bad handwriting addresses.

    simmonmt, 2023-03 · Recommendation · in “What Is the Most Minimal UK Address Possible?”

  3. “Tom Scott did a great video showing the last one in operation.”

    Shows the last remaining manual mail coding operation with stenography-like keyboards.

    LordDragonfang, 2024-04 · Recommendation · in “Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores”

  4. “here's a Ton Scott video about the same topic”

    Interesting Tom Scott video on the same topic.

    Caligatio, 2024-07 · Recommendation · in “Postzegelcode”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: usps, tom scott, ocr, mail sorting, handwriting

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