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Glittering Blue
- gus_massa 11y agoBe sure to read the (long) explanation and more details linked in the page: https://glittering.blue/about https://glittering.blue/about
- cpayne624 11y agoBeautiful + fascinating + mesmerizing.
- nas 11y agoThis makes me want to play KSP. ;-)
- HorizonXP 11y agoReading the about page really makes me hope that private efforts to launch mini/nano satellites actually works out. It would be supremely awesome to have easily accessible data & imagery of our planet, rather than have it locked up due to politics and bureaucracy.
- sangnoir 11y ago> Reading the about page really makes me hope that private efforts to launch mini/nano satellites actually works out That sounds like a good idea, but it gives me Kessler Syndrome anxiety. We already have a bit of space debris on our hands
- celoyd 11y agoI made this, and I’m happy to answer questions. (And to politely ignore contentious remarks about how I characterized GOES-R.)
- antidamage 11y agoHow come you pointed it at Australia and not NZ :( Also, it'd be nice to be able to pause it and really take in the colours.
- celoyd 11y agoAlso, it'd be nice to be able to pause it and really take in the colors. You can zoom in on the NICT browser: http://himawari8.nict.go.jp http://himawari8.nict.go.jp Their color mix is more cloud-oriented, so it’s darker, but at least the image quality is higher than the video’s.
- caf 11y agoIn Firefox at least the context menu includes "Pause".
- seanalltogether 11y agohttps://s3.amazonaws.com/hi8/v/2015-08-03.mp4 https://s3.amazonaws.com/hi8/v/2015-08-03.mp4 There's the raw video. Added bonus is that it actually fits in the full browser window when viewed directly.
- Tepix 11y agoThanks. It's a 2200x2200 24fps H.264 video (33MB).
- alainv 11y agoBeautiful, thanks for sharing.
- danielvf 11y agoThanks! This was increadable to watch over and over again. I'm so used to highly compressed video, that the detail in this was staggering. Is there a good public reasonably live feed of this data? I found the 800x800 8 bit pngs, and I found information on the restricted access full sized 103 gigabyte per day feed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- celoyd 11y agoIs there a good public reasonably live feed of this data? Right here: http://himawari8.nict.go.jp http://himawari8.nict.go.jp
- detaro 11y agoHow awesome would it be if we had that kind if quality available from all "sides"... (Ok, yes, one could mostly build displays of blue spheres. But fancy ones ;))
- danielvf 11y agoFantastic! Thank you! I've cropped several as desktop wall paper.
- pantalaimon 11y agoWhy not make a cron job that does that automatically every couple minutes ;)
- kevingadd 11y agoCool demo. On my machine though (high-dpi monitor, win10, firefox) the globe is enormous and way too big for the browser viewport. If I zoom out enough with ctrl-minus it is about the right size, so I think you're sizing the page elements incorrectly in some sort of dpi-unaware fashion. Can probably work around this with devicePixelRatio.
- celoyd 11y agoI know it’s odd, but I wanted it not to be visible all at once.
- benjamincburns 11y agoFWIW, I really appreciated this. I think it helped add to the feeling of enormity, and helped me to realize the resolution of the video.
- err4nt 11y agoFWIW I don't think ‘enormity’ means what you think it does! ‘Enormity’ refers to severe moral transgression, like you could say, “It wasn't until after the war had ended that the German people became aware of the enormity of Hitler's concentration camps…” That's closer to what the word means.
- ambicapter 11y agoI appreciate that choice, but maybe add a zoom out button to notify people that you can in fact zoom out, because I didn't even realize I could see the whole earth (Also, this made the 'what is that bright spot moving east to west' question very confusing).
- betenoire 11y ago<ctrl>- Repeat as necessary. Went too far? <ctrl>+ When done, <ctrl>0 (on chrome at least)
- skybrian 11y agoThis is great, but it would be nice if there were a way to slow it down a bit.
- chib 11y agodocument.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 0.1;
- Zaheer 11y agoThanks for the super informative FAQ in Credits/About - for others visiting the site, be sure not to miss it on top left!
- Tepix 11y agoI'd love to have something like this as an animated desktop wallpaper - but it should be moving much slower. Are you aware of a movie file that I could use for this?
- lolc 11y agoTry xplanet. Xplanet can render to the background and keep an updated view of earth. At some point I obsessed over having current cloud cover images overlaid and that looked really nice. It can even render sun reflections.
- glandium 11y agoI wrote a script that downloads the live (well, every 10 minutes, with 30 minutes delay) tiles from the himawari-8 website and update my background with it. Gnome is nice enough that it refreshes the background when the configured image changes. I'm waiting for the solar eclipse in March, it should be (indirectly) visible. http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2016-march-9 http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2016-march-9
- rajacombinator 11y agoBeautiful! Well done.
- thepiwo 11y agoThanks for making it! I tried a little with your scripts and got to these results: (original files available if you ask) 1 Day in 4400x4400: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_orOM8zOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4_orOM8zOg 1 Month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwN2KJcQfoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwN2KJcQfoQ 11000x11000 Sunset: https://i.imgur.com/wMIXQvC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/wMIXQvC.jpg 11000x11000 Daylight: http://i.imgur.com/y1zTyU2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/y1zTyU2.jpg
- truebosko 11y agoThe Earth looks so .. crisp and clean from afar. Mesmerizing.
- matthuggins 11y agoBlack screen except for "Loading 0%" in the corner on Android.
- machrider 11y agoBlack screen here, too (although the loading text went from 0 to 100%) on Firefox 44 on Windows 7.
- ch4s3 11y agoI had the same problem on FF44 and Win7, but it worked fine on Chrome on Windows and OSX, worth firing up Chrome to check out, IMHO.
- celoyd 11y agoSorry. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this project, it’s that video support is hard. I’m happy to take advice (preferably in the form of ffmpeg flags).
- nsm 11y agoWorked fine for me on FF44 on Mac.
- mucker 11y agoNice stuff...except for the about page. "but our federal science budget is controlled by climate denialists who dishonestly impede Earth observation because environmental science embarrasses them." Uh no. The House voted not to spend money on a Vice Presidents dream of a beautiful 38 million dollar picture. Now you can argue that it has merit, but even the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/01/science/politics-keeps-a-satellite-earthbound.html http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/01/science/politics-keeps-a-s...) leaves that question, quite rightfully, hanging. And to say you won't discuss contentious remarks after being pointedly contentious is really, pathetically bad form. If you dish it out, be prepared to take it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- celoyd 11y agoCasual readers may not get your reference – the idea for DSCOVR literally came to Al Gore in a dream. I still think this is hilarious. One can indeed argue that DSCOVR has merit, and people including climate scientists do. (Though arguably it’s really too early to judge either way until there’s time for publications to come out of its data.) Earth’s radiation budget is surprisingly underdetermined, considering its importance. But it’s certainly a fair criticism of DSCOVR as launched that it’s not state-of-the-art. That’s because it was delayed for reasons of politics, only loosely disguised as reasons of science. The only places I’d push back on your remarks are: 1. The “Uh no”, which is unsubstantiated (perhaps just facetious, but I’m sensitive because I supported my point relatively laboriously, with the links); and 2. the idea that the NYT should refrain from pointing out political interference in science funding.
- thebooktocome 11y ago38 million was loose change, even in 1998. We spent far more teaching abstinence (with little to no effect) to school children that year.
- mucker 11y agoWhich is why I linked directly to a NY Times peace that gives a fairly balanced discussion of the same. And it is not fair to claim that it was, "only loosely disguised as reasons of science." The reasons given, in both the Inspector General's report and in the article that I linked to are political reasons of _budget_. It is not unsubstantiated as I substantiate it via link. I'm also a person that opposed the launch. As others point out, it wasn't _fabulously_ expensive in comparative scale, but in a very stretched NASA budget I would prefer all the pennies thrown at a mars exploration, a permanent moon base, a better space station, or a new shuttle program over a really cool camcorder inspired by a VP's (very literal) dream. That isn't science so much as something bordering on dictatorial whim. Nor, _anywhere_ do I claim the NYT should somehow not report on science funding. I link directly to it to refute _your_ comments. The NYT article does not support your claim, instead it gives a much more reasonable account of the funding issue. It mentions the dream, the funding, and doesn't resort to slurs.
- outworlder 11y ago> The moon does appear occasionally, dimly – it’s made of rock about as dark as asphalt. That's what I've always found fascinating in discussions about what's the true color of the moon. I know the fact, and I still have trouble picturing an asphalt moon. No-one I told that believed me.
- reedlaw 11y agoSo is it freshly-poured asphalt black or well-worn asphalt grey? How can its color be compared to something on earth? Doesn't the (lack of) atmosphere have some effect?
- celoyd 11y agoWell-worn gray: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo It’s a loose comparison, since both asphalt and the moon’s surface vary. Plus, there are tricky things like specular reflection and the opposition effect. How can its color be compared to something on earth? Doesn't the (lack of) atmosphere have some effect? You can hold a moon rock up against something on Earth. Or you can look at Earth and the moon from a distance with the same sensor, which is what Himawari-8 is doing. The atmosphere does affect things: A huge plain of moon rocks on Earth’s surface would look bluer (hazier) than the moon would in the same picture from Himawari-8 (or an Apollo Hasselblad, etc.). And a moon rock in sunlight on Earth will look slightly yellower than one in the same light on the moon. But your eyes are constantly adapting to the surrounding illumination. Color perception is really complicated.
- hueving 11y agoAvoid the about page, it's unnecessarily loaded with flame bait political commentary.
- tim333 11y agoI thought the about page was rather good and the political points interesting. tl;dr he argues we can get this data from a Japanese satellite rather than US ones because the climate denial folk have blocked funding. In linked material: >[the House of Representatives, led by Republicans] slashed Earth science funding by $260 million and added extra money for planetary science that the agency did not ask for. For example, nasa requested $30 million for a robotic mission to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, but the House gave it $140 million.
- wylee 11y agoI initially only glanced at the about page without reading it, but after I saw your comment, I went back and read the whole thing. Most of it is just (interesting IMO) info about the site and the technology behind it.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoI think mucker's excellent comment deserves to be listed under yours: > to say you won't discuss contentious remarks after being pointedly contentious is really, pathetically bad form. If you dish it out, be prepared to take it.
- celoyd 11y agoI think they’re just responding to my joke with a joke ;)
- mucker 11y agoI didn't find it a joke and the votes indicate others took it seriously (down votes are serious).
- dang 11y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10977731 and marked it off-topic.
- ghettoimp 11y agoNice work, sir.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ramgorur 11y agoon the about page: "My friend believes Earth is flat and people never landed on the moon. How do I use this video to convince them otherwise?" unfortunately, the answer is 100% true.
- mucker 11y agoNo, its him being a smart ass. He has never received that email but it allows him to straw man any opponents. Because @!#!$$!@ love science!
- VintageCool 11y agoOH! It's summer in the Northern Hemisphere on that picture. That's why the day seems so damn short if you're watching Australia.
- tilt_error 11y ago...and why there is no night at the north pole. This cannot be mid summer though, because a larger area to the north should be continuously illuminated then -- the part above the arctic circle. Living north of the arctic circle makes nice summers, reading in bed without any lamp, but sucks at winter.
- tilt_error 11y agoOh! So the sun IS really rotating around the Earth. The church was right all along then...
- elcct 11y agoI wonder how has he hacked God's webcam.
- singularity2001 11y agohttps://www.shodan.io/ https://www.shodan.io/
- rodionos 11y agoHimawari 8 is some 35K kilometers away from Earth (moon is 380K km). It doesn't appear that far away just by looking at the satellite pictures.
- aedron 11y agoFrom the FAQ: What’s the light-colored border in the water around some continents? Several things. The turquoise in the tropics ... is shallow water – we’re seeing bright sand under a relatively thin layer of ocean. Around China, it’s air pollution from coal power ...
- oliv__ 11y agoThis is why I love the internet. Thank you for making this!
- amelius 11y agoVery cool. But, you forgot to model the lightning :) Especially visible at night.
- an_ko 11y agoAnd you forgot to read the "about" page. :) It's not a rendering, it's pictures of the planet.
- jarmitage 11y agoI made a script that sets the latest image from Himawari-8 as your desktop background - new picture of Earth every 10 mins! https://gist.github.com/jarmitage/5042bfe20aa54b3d8dc8 https://gist.github.com/jarmitage/5042bfe20aa54b3d8dc8
- Voltage 11y agoI also get a loading 0%. OSX Chrome. From the page src: // [Not like piano music.](http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11082002 http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11082002) I'm intrigued but don't understand the comic.
- kelvin0 11y agoOn firefox, all I see is a part of a sphere (earth?) that gets somewhat illuminated. Laoding stops at 10% .... nothing else happens. What is is supposed to do?
- MagerValp 11y agoIt's supposed to load to 100% (zing!) Seriously though, works fine in FF here, and shows a beautifully rendered loop of the earth.
- pp19dd 11y agoA legitimate firefox bug? Firefox did this for me too, so I started investigating the glitch. Chrome worked just fine. Overall, this sort of thing would happen to me occasionally (and my colleagues) with h.264 <video> elements: it's some kind of a freaky and infuriating bug. I can't explain it, but I suspected the actual problem was with the original network transmission and a client-side caching mechanism, possibly aggravated by server-side caching mechanisms. Reason why I thought that is below, but now I'm not so sure: I copied that Earth video to a private server and it froze at the same exact spot, albeit it got less frames parsed/decoded/presented/painted than I put below during the S3 render. Last project I was working on had MP4 files (h.264 encoded) hosted on an iron server, with varnish-cache configured for streaming (streaming config was an attempt to troubleshoot the glitch.) During the development I must have previewed the work-in-progress hundreds of times so I initially chalked the behavior up to caching freaking out. After resetting cache manually or pulling up the file and shift-refreshing, things would work fine for awhile. Attempting to reset cache doesn't fix the stalled Earth video. The video files I was previously working with were 2-4 mb in size, nearly as 'small' as some larger higher quality images, so I don't think filesize triggered the issue. The ultimate fix for my project was to superstitiously switch from directly-hosting MP4 files to move them to akamai's CDN because that had worked in the past without an observed glitch. I can't explain why this eliminated the problem, but it did (or I just stopped looking at the project): I imagine akamai has a whole bag of tricks up their sleeves, and at that point I was so done with the problem that I didn't care. That is, I didn't care until I saw this glitch again just hours ago and realized it wasn't just me and my shoddy work that made it happen. So, I pulled up the direct MP4 video of this earth loop (hosted on S3), and pulled up stats for it (right click on video menu). The video was supposed to be 12 seconds long, but it only loaded about 2, letting me see same thing you did before the playback froze. The video stats read the following: Media: 2015-08-03.mp4 Size: 2200x2200 scaled to 1085x1085 Activity: Ended Volume: 100% readyState: HAVE_CURRENT_DATA networkState: NETWORK_IDLE Frames parsed: 2030 Frames decoded: 1696 Frames presented: 189 Frames painted: 168 Despite this info dump, firebug revealed (or claimed) that around 32 MB of the file was transmitted. I hit play and the video stopped at 2 seconds. ffprobe claims that nb_frames is 278 (24 * 11.583333), rounded up. So where the heck are the other 89 frames, firefox?? When copying this video to my slower private server, even fewer frames were presented/painted. Any firefox devs around?
- Garvey 11y agoNot a massive issue, but in Chrome if you scroll so that the credits/about link is over the Earth, you can no longer click it. Adding a z-index property set to 1 in the CSS fixes it for me in Chrome.
- celoyd 11y agoDone. Thank you!
- hyperknot 11y agoIf you have any problem with loading the page, here is the direct link to the MP4: https://s3.amazonaws.com/hi8/v/2015-08-03.mp4 https://s3.amazonaws.com/hi8/v/2015-08-03.mp4
- martgnz 11y agoThe New York Times published an interactive about this new satellite in July: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/10/science/An-Image-of-Earth-Every-Ten-Minutes.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/10/science/An-Ima...
- patrickk 11y agoFrom the about page: > "Europe’s weather authorities are extremely stingy with their nearest equivalent data – their attitude is that the observations are for science or for money, not for silly websites." What a terrible attitude we have here. We don't even have the climate change excuse because that attitude doesn't exist here. I did a bit of Googling, it seems that Eumetsat is the agency responsible: http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/AboutUs/index.html http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/AboutUs/index.html If anyone is interested in drafting a letter with me, asking why our taxpayers' money is being used and the benefits not shared openly, please get in touch. Email in my profile.
- acomjean 11y agoIn the US we have NOAA for weather. I found about about them when they were being sued by some private forecasters (accuweather I think) for giving away forecast data on the web. (We used to have a weather band radio which would just broadcast the forecast). The government site [1] is ad free and is very accurate and free from local hype. To the local media snow = ratings. (I bike a lot so I'm a weather watcher). My main complaint is their use of ALL CAPS in the detailed weather discussion[2] Getting a stream of data from NOAA wasn't so easy for global locations, hourly so when my company needed it we paid weather underground which has a lat/long -> json weather condition api.[3] its was free for developers and small sites and its fun to play around with. [0]http://graphical.weather.gov/xml/rest.php http://graphical.weather.gov/xml/rest.php [1]http://www.weather.gov http://www.weather.gov [2]http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BOX&issuedby=BOX&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1&highlight=off http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=BOX&issuedby=BO... [3]http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/ http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/
- Veratyr 11y agoYou can get limited data from NOAA (METAR) through ADDS: https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver Here's an example for Moscow: https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver_current/httpparam?dataSource=metars&requestType=retrieve&format=xml&stationString=UUEE&hoursBeforeNow=2 https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver_current/httppara... If you need forecasts, NDFD appears to have both SOAP and REST services that are updated hourly: http://graphical.weather.gov/xml/rest.php http://graphical.weather.gov/xml/rest.php
- cphoover 11y agothe hurricanes are really cool looking