6 ms·

Syria from Space

108 points by digdigdag 9y ago

samcheng 9y ago
Another interesting remote-sensing analysis would be to look at NDVI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalized_Difference_Vegetation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalized_Difference_Vegetati...) - there was already a terrible drought leading up to the conflict, but this war must have also taken a significant toll on the country's agricultural output.
thinkloop 9y ago
Excellently made article in terms of web tech. It's media-heavy but loads progressively and fast, the employed effects support and enhance the content, resizing the browser works well even in the middle of effects, it looks nice in general and is very readable - great work bbc team who made this.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  The 2011/2017 before/after images are striking, mostly because they use scrolling to show the before/after effect. I've never seen that before, and it gives a lot of control over the viewing experience compared to dragging a handlebar. I wish it were a bit easier to tell which parts of the image are showing bombed areas, since it's difficult to tell whether the diffs are due to explosions or natural changes over time.
- squid_ca 9y ago
  To the people who make stuff like this: how much time do you put into a page like this? I feel like (in my world) this would require an endless set of meetings, then design + revisions, then programming, and eventually someone would say "this is taking too much time / costing too much."
- flukus 9y ago
  > the employed effects support and enhance the content I thought the scrolling effects distracted from it if anything.
- marssaxman 9y ago
  I can appreciate the achievement, but I closed the article halfway through, because the unpredictable scrolling behavior made me feel a little dizzy. I'd have strongly preferred to grab some widget and swipe back and forth to see the before/after images, instead of having the same gesture, which feels like it ought to scroll the page, instead make some elements move some ways sometimes and different elements move a different way some other times.
Synaesthesia 9y ago
Civil wars are just so vicious. The medical effects of this conflict will linger on for decades, and most of the good doctors have left the country.
- skocznymroczny 9y ago
  Not only doctors, engineers as well.
1001101 9y ago
The view from space doesn't quite do the destruction on the ground justice. Also from the BBC [1]. I hope the perpetrators of this atrocity are identified and brought to swift justice. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38396747 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38396747
- theparanoid 9y ago
  If the government is overthrown the Alawites will probably vanish from the middle-east. There's a saying "Christians to Beirut, the Alawites to the grave" [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_and_minorities_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_and_minorities_...
- astrodust 9y ago
  This is a group effort with a lot of guilty parties. There's no singular entity responsible for all of the destruction, everything's way too complicated at this point.
joshfraser 9y ago
The United States dropped over 12,000 bombs in Syria last year. I'm ashamed for my country that profits from perpetuating killing and destruction.
- nojvek 9y ago
  Source?
  - joshfraser 9y ago
    https://airwars.org https://airwars.org
pavement 9y ago
When plenty of hereditary monarchies are given a hall pass, I cannot fathom why anyone thought cracking open this one might have been a good idea. I've tried to mull over whatever calculus might have been at play, when a room full of people drew up quiet plans to rip this country apart, and I don't see the motivation. A generation from now, nothing will be normal in these imploded countries, but kings and princes elsewhere will thrive with no elections at all, I'm sure.
- geowwy 9y ago
  > I cannot fathom why anyone thought cracking open this one might have been a good idea. Here's one theory: http://imgur.com/uYYaQ8N http://imgur.com/uYYaQ8N
  - astrodust 9y ago
    That's a motivator, but other factors like the simmering unrest in Iraq that was never adequately contained, the Kurdish separatists, lingering Ba'ath elements, and a prolonged draught are all part of the problem.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  > when a room full of people drew up quiet plans to rip this country apart, and I don't see the motivation. I'm not sure I follow. I'm sure you are aware that the Syrian Civil War started as a popular uprising against Assad, so I don't see where the "room full of people" comes in.
  - Synaesthesia 9y ago
    Firstly the West has been involved in Syria for centuries. Secondly every civil war, although starting as a local conflict, quickly draws in international players.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      What foreign players were involved in the US civil war? France in particular didn't seem as eager as they were in 1776 to pick sides.
Pual1089 9y ago
Well, the old good BBC, which Paul Craig Roberts always mentions as p-r-e-s-t-i-t-u-d-e media. Always at work, to disinform. Now, lets inform the sheeple that it was "civil" war and its effect through pretty animations and not the United States along with its vassal states (Britain, France etc) who wanted regime change in a secular country. Was it not the United states that financed the "moderate" rebels who decapitated thousands of people to bring Wahhabism to the illiterate Syrians? Perhaps, BBC should do the same - the pretty animation project - for Libya, where the British government "took action" and bomb into oblivion (along with other NATO snakes) everything and now only rebel clans run the country. BBC, do the same for Yemen where your Saudi military equipment customers are bombing every day. Currently, Yemen is experiencing famine because the war supported by the Saudis and the US. Why don't you do any animation to show the world what was Yemen before and after the US backed war started? And from the comments here, I understand that you most Americans still don't get it and you will never get it.
- dang 9y ago
  We ban accounts that break the site guidelines by posting ideological rants. We do this regardless of ideological flavor and regardless of how right or wrong the underlying points are. That's because HN is intended for thoughtful discussion, and the two are not compatible. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
teekert 9y ago
I still don't understand why the US won't fight IS together with Russia and Assad. I though it was well known by now that the FSA and IS are difficult to take apart, they are basically mercenaries fighting for whoever has money. When IS got oil wells (and the means to make money off of them by secretly selling to Erdogan) the FSA, at least partly, became IS. Assad has been saying since the beginning that the FSA are animals, and some of them were barbecuing heads at some point.
diroussel 9y ago
No mention of drought in the article. Would it make sense that the drought in the middle east is the single biggest contributor to the instability there?
nojvek 9y ago
People argue that US should help Syria? Why? Doesn't US have their own problems? Why spend more money on other countries problems if they aren't helping you back? I think all US should do is not interfere at all. That means no weapon exports to Syria as well. I'm with Trump on this. We are not the world's police. Last time Hillary and Co helped, more damage was done.
Veratyr 9y ago
I don't suppose anyone knows which particular NASA dataset the BBC is likely to have taken those images from? I'd love to find one that has high spatial and temporal resolution. I had a look at the linked article at the bottom (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-lights-maps-open-up-possible-real-time-applications https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-lights-m...) but looking at the linked layer in WorldView, it's nothing like as high resolution.

108 points by digdigdag 9y ago

Another interesting remote-sensing analysis would be to look at NDVI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalized_Difference_Vegetation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalized_Difference_Vegetati...) - there was already a terrible drought leading up to the conflict, but this war must have also taken a significant toll on the country's agricultural output.

thinkloop 9y ago

Excellently made article in terms of web tech. It's media-heavy but loads progressively and fast, the employed effects support and enhance the content, resizing the browser works well even in the middle of effects, it looks nice in general and is very readable - great work bbc team who made this.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
The 2011/2017 before/after images are striking, mostly because they use scrolling to show the before/after effect. I've never seen that before, and it gives a lot of control over the viewing experience compared to dragging a handlebar. I wish it were a bit easier to tell which parts of the image are showing bombed areas, since it's difficult to tell whether the diffs are due to explosions or natural changes over time.
squid_ca 9y ago
To the people who make stuff like this: how much time do you put into a page like this? I feel like (in my world) this would require an endless set of meetings, then design + revisions, then programming, and eventually someone would say "this is taking too much time / costing too much."
flukus 9y ago
> the employed effects support and enhance the content I thought the scrolling effects distracted from it if anything.
marssaxman 9y ago
I can appreciate the achievement, but I closed the article halfway through, because the unpredictable scrolling behavior made me feel a little dizzy. I'd have strongly preferred to grab some widget and swipe back and forth to see the before/after images, instead of having the same gesture, which feels like it ought to scroll the page, instead make some elements move some ways sometimes and different elements move a different way some other times.

Synaesthesia 9y ago

Civil wars are just so vicious. The medical effects of this conflict will linger on for decades, and most of the good doctors have left the country.

skocznymroczny 9y ago
Not only doctors, engineers as well.

1001101 9y ago

The view from space doesn't quite do the destruction on the ground justice. Also from the BBC [1]. I hope the perpetrators of this atrocity are identified and brought to swift justice. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38396747 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38396747

theparanoid 9y ago
If the government is overthrown the Alawites will probably vanish from the middle-east. There's a saying "Christians to Beirut, the Alawites to the grave" [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_and_minorities_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism_and_minorities_...
astrodust 9y ago
This is a group effort with a lot of guilty parties. There's no singular entity responsible for all of the destruction, everything's way too complicated at this point.

joshfraser 9y ago

The United States dropped over 12,000 bombs in Syria last year. I'm ashamed for my country that profits from perpetuating killing and destruction.

nojvek 9y ago
Source?
- joshfraser 9y ago
  https://airwars.org https://airwars.org

pavement 9y ago

When plenty of hereditary monarchies are given a hall pass, I cannot fathom why anyone thought cracking open this one might have been a good idea. I've tried to mull over whatever calculus might have been at play, when a room full of people drew up quiet plans to rip this country apart, and I don't see the motivation. A generation from now, nothing will be normal in these imploded countries, but kings and princes elsewhere will thrive with no elections at all, I'm sure.

geowwy 9y ago
> I cannot fathom why anyone thought cracking open this one might have been a good idea. Here's one theory: http://imgur.com/uYYaQ8N http://imgur.com/uYYaQ8N
- astrodust 9y ago
  That's a motivator, but other factors like the simmering unrest in Iraq that was never adequately contained, the Kurdish separatists, lingering Ba'ath elements, and a prolonged draught are all part of the problem.
Cyph0n 9y ago
> when a room full of people drew up quiet plans to rip this country apart, and I don't see the motivation. I'm not sure I follow. I'm sure you are aware that the Syrian Civil War started as a popular uprising against Assad, so I don't see where the "room full of people" comes in.
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  Firstly the West has been involved in Syria for centuries. Secondly every civil war, although starting as a local conflict, quickly draws in international players.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    What foreign players were involved in the US civil war? France in particular didn't seem as eager as they were in 1776 to pick sides.

Pual1089 9y ago

Well, the old good BBC, which Paul Craig Roberts always mentions as p-r-e-s-t-i-t-u-d-e media. Always at work, to disinform. Now, lets inform the sheeple that it was "civil" war and its effect through pretty animations and not the United States along with its vassal states (Britain, France etc) who wanted regime change in a secular country. Was it not the United states that financed the "moderate" rebels who decapitated thousands of people to bring Wahhabism to the illiterate Syrians? Perhaps, BBC should do the same - the pretty animation project - for Libya, where the British government "took action" and bomb into oblivion (along with other NATO snakes) everything and now only rebel clans run the country. BBC, do the same for Yemen where your Saudi military equipment customers are bombing every day. Currently, Yemen is experiencing famine because the war supported by the Saudis and the US. Why don't you do any animation to show the world what was Yemen before and after the US backed war started? And from the comments here, I understand that you most Americans still don't get it and you will never get it.

dang 9y ago
We ban accounts that break the site guidelines by posting ideological rants. We do this regardless of ideological flavor and regardless of how right or wrong the underlying points are. That's because HN is intended for thoughtful discussion, and the two are not compatible. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

teekert 9y ago

I still don't understand why the US won't fight IS together with Russia and Assad. I though it was well known by now that the FSA and IS are difficult to take apart, they are basically mercenaries fighting for whoever has money. When IS got oil wells (and the means to make money off of them by secretly selling to Erdogan) the FSA, at least partly, became IS. Assad has been saying since the beginning that the FSA are animals, and some of them were barbecuing heads at some point.

diroussel 9y ago

No mention of drought in the article. Would it make sense that the drought in the middle east is the single biggest contributor to the instability there?

nojvek 9y ago

People argue that US should help Syria? Why? Doesn't US have their own problems? Why spend more money on other countries problems if they aren't helping you back? I think all US should do is not interfere at all. That means no weapon exports to Syria as well. I'm with Trump on this. We are not the world's police. Last time Hillary and Co helped, more damage was done.

Veratyr 9y ago

I don't suppose anyone knows which particular NASA dataset the BBC is likely to have taken those images from? I'd love to find one that has high spatial and temporal resolution. I had a look at the linked article at the bottom (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-lights-maps-open-up-possible-real-time-applications https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/new-night-lights-m...) but looking at the linked layer in WorldView, it's nothing like as high resolution.