Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter • Hacker News Board

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#71

Post by tomcatfish » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

diacritical wrote: post #65

tomcatfish wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like it cannot be true? The words are 11, 5, 2, 12, 7, 7 letters long. It cannot be "stop throwing your gloves on the ground". The correct answer is XER?APUOBIA LEADS TO INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED CARROTS I do not know why you did not spot check the number of letters!

Another comments that's now dead gives us the most plausible answer: vabsbenz 34 minutes ago [dead] | parent | prev | next [–] In ASL the white gloves spell out "Germaphobia leads to individually wrapped carrots"

Ah, nice. Some of the gloves are very hard to read.

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#72

Post by bombcar » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #67

bombcar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or bring back public shaming - things like https://dontmesswithtexas.org

Yes well-executed public awareness programs can shift culture over several years (this campaign is over 40 years old wow!) but we also need to clean up what's there now and what will continue to accrue until that shift occurs. I would be more than happy to see my city or state tax dollars put towards a cleanup initiative. We have a particularly fragile ecosystem

Even just seeing people cleaning up is enough to begin to change perceptions, because it turns it from an impersonal action to a personal one - "I'm throwing this wrapper on the ground" vs "I'm throwing this wrapper on the ground for old Joe to pick up."

We can all be the change we want to see, even if it's just a minor effort.

Around here major cleanups are done by some of the local "community groups" but they also have a department of parks that does some additional to named trails.

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#73

Post by Hnrobert42 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:36 PM UTC

tomcatfish wrote: post #63

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't explain the censorship claim. The gloves spell out, "stop throwing your gloves on the ground," per Claude.

That seems like it cannot be true? The words are 11, 5, 2, 12, 7, 7 letters long. It cannot be "stop throwing your gloves on the ground". The correct answer is XER?APUOBIA LEADS TO INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED CARROTS I do not know why you did not spot check the number of letters!

You don't know why?

It was about 7 am when I responded. I thought I was being helpful. I didn't realize the horse dentist was going to inspect my gift. Lol

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#74

Post by autoexec » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

fusslo wrote: post #56

autoexec wrote: post #3

I'm starting to suspect I might be cynical. I was pretty impressed at the "1,000,000 cigarette butts that I removed from the environment" but I couldn't help but think "moved into what?" which brought this ( https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM ) to mind: [Interviewer:] Into another environment…. [Senator Collins:] No, no, no. it’s been towed beyond the environment, it’s not in the environment [Interviewer:] Yeah, but from o…

> Also, I couldn't help but wonder if he was removing trash at a faster rate than it was being added. I wonder if people are less likely to litter if they don't see any other litter already on the ground

I'm fairly certain that it helps. Obviously someone has to start, but when it looks like no one cares others are more likely to contribute to the problem or worse assume that leaving trash there is what's expected of them. The Cart Narc guy has observed a similar trend with shopping carts. If somebody puts one where it doesn't belong it can attract others. You'd think that if people were going to be lazy and leave their carts in the parking lot instead of returning them properly they'd just leave them near their own cars, but some people will go out of their way to put theirs next to other carts even when it's still clearly not where they belong.

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#75

Post by xorcist » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #73

tomcatfish wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like it cannot be true? The words are 11, 5, 2, 12, 7, 7 letters long. It cannot be "stop throwing your gloves on the ground". The correct answer is XER?APUOBIA LEADS TO INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED CARROTS I do not know why you did not spot check the number of letters!

You don't know why? It was about 7 am when I responded. I thought I was being helpful. I didn't realize the horse dentist was going to inspect my gift. Lol

In what way could injecting noise into a conversation be helpful?

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#76

Post by rmunn » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:48 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #38

odo1242 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been pressured to take a book by random (mostly religious) people on a college campus, I wouldn't put the blame entirely on the person taking it.

If you choose to accept a book because you are too uncomfortable to say the word "no" then you should accept that it is your responsibility to dispose of the book appropriately. Don't blame other people for your own bad behavior.

Best thing, if you accepted the book but realize within a few steps (maybe immediately) that you didn't actually want it, would be to walk back to the person handing it out and say "Changed my mind, don't actually want it, why don't you give it to someone else?" I know some people who hand out religious tracts or other such materials, and every one of them that I know personally would accept the item back with good grace. They'd rather give it to someone who will actually read it.

And if they're the kind of person who won't take it back with good grace? Place it on the ground right next to them, and walk away. Make it their responsibility to deal with it. (If you don't want to go out of your way to find a trash can: some public spaces make them easy to find, but others not so much).

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#77

Post by xnx » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 8:55 PM UTC

skyberrys wrote: post #2

Littered across this website are countless gems and gotchas to make you think about the consequences of your purchases and actions. In particular the treasures he has found are quite surprising, 100 phones?! Just from looking for trash? The author is 47 I think and he's been doing stuff for 17 years. I have some of my own cool found trash collections too. The trash you find revels the personality of the place.

> 100 phones?! Just from looking for trash?

One scenario: Someone sets phone on top of car and drives off.

Re: Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter

#78

Post by odo1242 » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 6:41 AM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #38

odo1242 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been pressured to take a book by random (mostly religious) people on a college campus, I wouldn't put the blame entirely on the person taking it.

If you choose to accept a book because you are too uncomfortable to say the word "no" then you should accept that it is your responsibility to dispose of the book appropriately. Don't blame other people for your own bad behavior.

I didn’t say that I chose to accept the book and then threw it away. I said that I said no and the other person proceeded to drag out the interaction in a way that made everyone there uncomfortable.