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I made a Twitter bot @lowflyingrocks, that tweets whenever something passes close enough to note. If you find Twitter doesn’t offer you enough existential dread

I made a Twitter bot @lowflyingrocks, that tweets whenever something passes close enough to note. If you find Twitter doesn’t offer you enough existential dread already you might like it. It scrapes the JPL data hourly, and it’s satisfying when it picks up these close passes discovered at short notice: https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks/status/1154200085808525314 https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks/status/115420008580852531...

fabiandesimone 7y ago
This is fantastic, thank you!
codeulike 7y ago
what does '2019 OK' mean, is that the rock name? It would be good if your bot attached some sort of 'oh shit' scale, based on size and closest approach
- Rexxar 7y ago
  It seems to be a naming convention for provisional names (https://www.quora.com/How-are-asteroids-named https://www.quora.com/How-are-asteroids-named) 2019 OK : - "2019" => discovered in 2019 - O => discovered in 2nd half of july - K => 10th object discovered in this period
  - yummybear 7y ago
    Why isn’t I in the second table?
    - brokencube 7y ago
      Probably to prevent confusion with "1"
      - _0ffh 7y ago
        Commonly it's to prevent confusion with "J". A confusion with a number when only letters are expected in that place is unlikely.
        sova 7y ago
        Il10ojJIi
- radisb 7y ago
  '2019' = present year, 'OK' = we didn't get wiped out
number6 7y ago
Ok little pet peeve of mine: Every other time I hit some arbitrary Twitter limits of a post and 5 minutes later I can access it. At this point I believe it is to bully me into an account or using the app or something. I have a bunch of profanities in reply to this.
- hansjorg 7y ago
  Are you using Firefox on Android? Using that I almost always get the rate limit error. Never seen it otherwise.
  - indalo 7y ago
    woah, for real? I thought I must've done something real shady in the past but now that you mention it , I have the same exact issue. what gives?
    - majewsky 7y ago
      Just a dark pattern to force people into using the app instead.
  - gpderetta 7y ago
    I get the limit in Android with both Chrome and Firefox. All the time.
  - JetSpiegel 7y ago
    You can bypass this by using the 'Request Desktop Site' checkbox. Ironically, requesting the desktop site uses more bandwidth, defeating the purpose of a rate limit.
    - kekebo 7y ago
      Resubmitting the url without the 'mobile' subdomain also works for me every time for some reason. Same setup setup with Firefox on Android. It's infuriating.
- 7y ago
esquire_900 7y ago
That is awesome, thank you!
fyfy18 7y ago
Does it handle the case when something doesn't miss?
- lostlogin 7y ago
  How would it bypass the fail whale?
- scraplab 7y ago
  No, but it's open source, so maybe future surviving generations can pick up that issue? https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks
flancian 7y ago
This is great, thanks! Unsolicited advice: perhaps consider making the bot pin the tweet about the most interesting encounter of the last N days, for some definition. Likely something like the nearest miss.
- Asmod4n 7y ago
  There is no API for pins.

fabiandesimone 7y ago

This is fantastic, thank you!

codeulike 7y ago

what does '2019 OK' mean, is that the rock name? It would be good if your bot attached some sort of 'oh shit' scale, based on size and closest approach

Rexxar 7y ago
It seems to be a naming convention for provisional names (https://www.quora.com/How-are-asteroids-named https://www.quora.com/How-are-asteroids-named) 2019 OK : - "2019" => discovered in 2019 - O => discovered in 2nd half of july - K => 10th object discovered in this period
- yummybear 7y ago
  Why isn’t I in the second table?
  - brokencube 7y ago
    Probably to prevent confusion with "1"
    - _0ffh 7y ago
      Commonly it's to prevent confusion with "J". A confusion with a number when only letters are expected in that place is unlikely.
      - sova 7y ago
        Il10ojJIi
radisb 7y ago
'2019' = present year, 'OK' = we didn't get wiped out

number6 7y ago

Ok little pet peeve of mine: Every other time I hit some arbitrary Twitter limits of a post and 5 minutes later I can access it. At this point I believe it is to bully me into an account or using the app or something. I have a bunch of profanities in reply to this.

hansjorg 7y ago
Are you using Firefox on Android? Using that I almost always get the rate limit error. Never seen it otherwise.
- indalo 7y ago
  woah, for real? I thought I must've done something real shady in the past but now that you mention it , I have the same exact issue. what gives?
  - majewsky 7y ago
    Just a dark pattern to force people into using the app instead.
- gpderetta 7y ago
  I get the limit in Android with both Chrome and Firefox. All the time.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  You can bypass this by using the 'Request Desktop Site' checkbox. Ironically, requesting the desktop site uses more bandwidth, defeating the purpose of a rate limit.
  - kekebo 7y ago
    Resubmitting the url without the 'mobile' subdomain also works for me every time for some reason. Same setup setup with Firefox on Android. It's infuriating.
7y ago

esquire_900 7y ago

That is awesome, thank you!

fyfy18 7y ago

Does it handle the case when something doesn't miss?

lostlogin 7y ago
How would it bypass the fail whale?
scraplab 7y ago
No, but it's open source, so maybe future surviving generations can pick up that issue? https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks

flancian 7y ago

This is great, thanks! Unsolicited advice: perhaps consider making the bot pin the tweet about the most interesting encounter of the last N days, for some definition. Likely something like the nearest miss.

Asmod4n 7y ago
There is no API for pins.