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How the US Postal Service reads terrible handwriting

Tom Scott · 7M views · 2022-08-08 · 7:53

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 4 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2022–2026

Topics

Computer vision, speech & NLPManufacturing & industrial processesDocumentaries & storytelling
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uspstom scottocrmail sortinghandwriting

What people said

Caligatio · 2024-07 · Recommendation

And like almost all things that are interesting, here's a Ton Scott video about the same topic: [VIDEO]

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LordDragonfang · 2024-04 · Recommendation

Tom Scott did a great video showing the last one in operation. They use totally unique keyboards with what is essentially a stenography system: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
bombcar · 2023-03 · Recommendation

[VIDEO] might be of interest - it has some of what the machines are trying to read and what accuracy they need.

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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