7 ms·

I thought it was going to be the website whose hosting location is at the highest altitude. I wonder what that one would be now.

by oboes 4y ago

bricemo 4y ago
Right, I think this is world’s tallest website, not world’s highest
- sshine 4y ago
  I just tilted my screen. Now it's the world's widest website!
petercooper 4y ago
If you discount random experiments hosted on someone's laptop or something, there's probably something in La Paz, Bolivia which would get us to around 4000m elevation. Chile has a data center at 5000m elevation but it's for a supercomputer. Some Googling indicates China thought they were on to something with a data centre in Lhasa at around 3600m elevation: https://www.passionateinmarketing.com/china-to-build-the-worlds-highest-altitude-data-center/ https://www.passionateinmarketing.com/china-to-build-the-wor...
- MarioMan 4y ago
  Surely we could do better by hosting something in orbit. I found an interesting case: the USS (Unix-Space-Server) Langley, launched in 2015: https://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/uss-langley/ https://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/uss-langley/
  - petercooper 4y ago
    Perhaps an interesting way to further qualify "highest web site" might be to demand it's available directly from the broader Internet. While even a permanent TCP/IP based device in space would be pretty cool (and, I imagine, actually exists) the cost of the connection is probably onerous to make it open to public use(?) So perhaps if someone could rig up a microwave link to a solar powered Raspberry Pi Zero hanging off of a weather balloon or something.. we could have a truly publicly accessible Web server at above jet-liner height? :-D This feels like something Tom Scott might try..
  - rendall 4y ago
    We could definitely do better, but could something in orbit truly be considered "highest in the world"? I'd probably not credit a website as highest in the world unless it were actually on the world, say, on a mountain, or maybe arguably inside the atmosphere.
    - chrisshroba 4y ago
      The ISS has to periodically correct for atmospheric drag, so it is technically in the atmosphere ;)
- josephwegner 4y ago
  I had an interesting discussion with my 8yo recently about the highest mountain. It had never occurred to me, but "highest" does not have an agreed upon definition. There are actually a few competing definitions[1]: There's Muana Kea, which is the _tallest_, meaning the furthest distance from the mountain's base to its peak. There's Mount Everest (which I had assumed was the agreed upon "highest"), which has its peak at the highest altitude. Chimborazo has the most unexpected definition of "highest", which is a peak that is furthest from the center of the Earth! We don't live on a perfect sphere, so some mountains can be "shorter" but still further from the core! Would be interesting to see if the "highest websites" differ for each of these definitions! [1]: https://geology.com/records/highest-mountain-in-the-world.shtml https://geology.com/records/highest-mountain-in-the-world.sh...
  - petercooper 4y ago
    I share a propensity for getting interested in things like this more than I perhaps should(!) In most cases, Everest doesn't really look particularly impressive given its low prominence in relation to its neighbors, although Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_peaks_by_prominence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_peaks_by_prom... ! Chimborazo is a fun one and I would accept a strident enough argument for it to be #1. It truly looks like a magnificent mountain too, indeed perhaps the archetypal 'mountain', if we can take aesthetics into account ;-)
    - CrazyStat 4y ago
      > Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 This is due to the definition of prominence, which is roughly "how far down do you have to go from the summit before you can go up to a higher point." This is undefined for the highest mountain, since there is no higher mountain to go up to, so height above sea level is used instead.
    - hervature 4y ago
      You make it seem that something funny is going on with Everest's prominence. That's just the definition of prominence: > prominence measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it By definition, this means that the highest mountain's height is its prominence.
- stavros 4y ago
  I can put my phone in my plane later today and host a website from 6 km if it'll work, though mobile antennas don't really aim high so they don't work well at altitude.
sAbakumoff 4y ago
I thought that it would be a hosting location in a room where someone regularly smokes weed.
elif 4y ago
Certainly a satellite in geosync
- ben_w 4y ago
  No longer "in the world" ;) (If it was, would a website hosted on Olympus Mons (Mars) be higher or lower than one hosted on Everest? Closer to its plant's core, further from the sun, not sure about total relative gravitational potential…)
  - elif 4y ago
    At best you could extend that argument to the karman line. Surely the atmosphere is considered part of earth (assuming the narrow definition of world to be planet) Surely I am not departing the world by taking a flight to orlando. Otherwise, only subterranean servers would count.
aaron695 4y ago
HWR_14 4y ago
I believe the ISS intermittently hosts a website. I would certainly imagine there is some space-based website with long ping times.
- MarcelOlsz 4y ago
  How funny would it be if someone 0day'd the ISS because of some XSS bug on a 1995-tier homepage?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    I'm sure the ISS's public facing comms (I believe they host a public HAM repeater as well) are isolated. Also, there's no reason that something added well after Twitter (the first ISS direct communication was a tweet - before that tweets were related through a ground station) would be done in an obsolete way. But lastly, unless they're hosting a forum, XSS is kinda irrelevant and 1995 predates XSS issues (and for most of the year JS)
    - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
      Daily self-reminder to never post jokes on HN.
- TylerE 4y ago
  Ping time to ISS would not be bad at all. Worse case it would be like talking to a server in Australia plus a bit
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    I mean, talking to a server in Australia as the ground station, and having it launch a signal to and from the ISS (the "a bit") works. But it's connecting via some listening post like in Alice Springs, not a data center in Sydney, so you have to wonder about Australias internal internet service.
  - Handytinge 4y ago
    I doubt that. Talking to servers in Australia takes me 1-40ms. Of course, I am in Australia.
kazinator 4y ago
The word they are looking for is "tallest".

I thought it was going to be the website whose hosting location is at the highest altitude. I wonder what that one would be now.

by oboes 4y ago

I thought it was going to be the website whose hosting location is at the highest altitude. I wonder what that one would be now.

bricemo 4y ago

Right, I think this is world’s tallest website, not world’s highest

sshine 4y ago
I just tilted my screen. Now it's the world's widest website!

petercooper 4y ago

If you discount random experiments hosted on someone's laptop or something, there's probably something in La Paz, Bolivia which would get us to around 4000m elevation. Chile has a data center at 5000m elevation but it's for a supercomputer. Some Googling indicates China thought they were on to something with a data centre in Lhasa at around 3600m elevation: https://www.passionateinmarketing.com/china-to-build-the-worlds-highest-altitude-data-center/ https://www.passionateinmarketing.com/china-to-build-the-wor...

MarioMan 4y ago
Surely we could do better by hosting something in orbit. I found an interesting case: the USS (Unix-Space-Server) Langley, launched in 2015: https://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/uss-langley/ https://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/uss-langley/
- petercooper 4y ago
  Perhaps an interesting way to further qualify "highest web site" might be to demand it's available directly from the broader Internet. While even a permanent TCP/IP based device in space would be pretty cool (and, I imagine, actually exists) the cost of the connection is probably onerous to make it open to public use(?) So perhaps if someone could rig up a microwave link to a solar powered Raspberry Pi Zero hanging off of a weather balloon or something.. we could have a truly publicly accessible Web server at above jet-liner height? :-D This feels like something Tom Scott might try..
- rendall 4y ago
  We could definitely do better, but could something in orbit truly be considered "highest in the world"? I'd probably not credit a website as highest in the world unless it were actually on the world, say, on a mountain, or maybe arguably inside the atmosphere.
  - chrisshroba 4y ago
    The ISS has to periodically correct for atmospheric drag, so it is technically in the atmosphere ;)
josephwegner 4y ago
I had an interesting discussion with my 8yo recently about the highest mountain. It had never occurred to me, but "highest" does not have an agreed upon definition. There are actually a few competing definitions[1]: There's Muana Kea, which is the _tallest_, meaning the furthest distance from the mountain's base to its peak. There's Mount Everest (which I had assumed was the agreed upon "highest"), which has its peak at the highest altitude. Chimborazo has the most unexpected definition of "highest", which is a peak that is furthest from the center of the Earth! We don't live on a perfect sphere, so some mountains can be "shorter" but still further from the core! Would be interesting to see if the "highest websites" differ for each of these definitions! [1]: https://geology.com/records/highest-mountain-in-the-world.shtml https://geology.com/records/highest-mountain-in-the-world.sh...
- petercooper 4y ago
  I share a propensity for getting interested in things like this more than I perhaps should(!) In most cases, Everest doesn't really look particularly impressive given its low prominence in relation to its neighbors, although Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_peaks_by_prominence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_peaks_by_prom... ! Chimborazo is a fun one and I would accept a strident enough argument for it to be #1. It truly looks like a magnificent mountain too, indeed perhaps the archetypal 'mountain', if we can take aesthetics into account ;-)
  - CrazyStat 4y ago
    > Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 This is due to the definition of prominence, which is roughly "how far down do you have to go from the summit before you can go up to a higher point." This is undefined for the highest mountain, since there is no higher mountain to go up to, so height above sea level is used instead.
  - hervature 4y ago
    You make it seem that something funny is going on with Everest's prominence. That's just the definition of prominence: > prominence measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it By definition, this means that the highest mountain's height is its prominence.
stavros 4y ago
I can put my phone in my plane later today and host a website from 6 km if it'll work, though mobile antennas don't really aim high so they don't work well at altitude.

sAbakumoff 4y ago

I thought that it would be a hosting location in a room where someone regularly smokes weed.

elif 4y ago

Certainly a satellite in geosync

ben_w 4y ago
No longer "in the world" ;) (If it was, would a website hosted on Olympus Mons (Mars) be higher or lower than one hosted on Everest? Closer to its plant's core, further from the sun, not sure about total relative gravitational potential…)
- elif 4y ago
  At best you could extend that argument to the karman line. Surely the atmosphere is considered part of earth (assuming the narrow definition of world to be planet) Surely I am not departing the world by taking a flight to orlando. Otherwise, only subterranean servers would count.

aaron695 4y ago

HWR_14 4y ago

I believe the ISS intermittently hosts a website. I would certainly imagine there is some space-based website with long ping times.

MarcelOlsz 4y ago
How funny would it be if someone 0day'd the ISS because of some XSS bug on a 1995-tier homepage?
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I'm sure the ISS's public facing comms (I believe they host a public HAM repeater as well) are isolated. Also, there's no reason that something added well after Twitter (the first ISS direct communication was a tweet - before that tweets were related through a ground station) would be done in an obsolete way. But lastly, unless they're hosting a forum, XSS is kinda irrelevant and 1995 predates XSS issues (and for most of the year JS)
  - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
    Daily self-reminder to never post jokes on HN.
TylerE 4y ago
Ping time to ISS would not be bad at all. Worse case it would be like talking to a server in Australia plus a bit
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I mean, talking to a server in Australia as the ground station, and having it launch a signal to and from the ISS (the "a bit") works. But it's connecting via some listening post like in Alice Springs, not a data center in Sydney, so you have to wonder about Australias internal internet service.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  I doubt that. Talking to servers in Australia takes me 1-40ms. Of course, I am in Australia.

kazinator 4y ago

The word they are looking for is "tallest".