11 ms·
Average color of the NYC sky every 5 minutes
- georgeplusplus 3y agoMy heart goes out to new yorkers. This cannot be healthy. If there are long-standing health repercussions I doubt there will be any recourse they can take.
- netfortius 3y agoHaven't the Americans looked for a reason to invade Canada, for like ... forever?
- okennedy 3y agoBecause that worked out so well for us the last time we tried... [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812
- bombcar 3y agoThat was invading Britain more like, it's time for a rematch. Of course, we may re"match" by lighting California on fire again when the prevailing winds are from the Southwest.
- ksherlock 3y agoThe US kicked the British out of Canada in 1867.
- amscanne 3y agoI presume this is a joke (though I don’t get it), because AFAIK the US had nothing at all to do with Canadian federation.
- ksherlock 3y agoPost civil war, there was concern that Canada would be manifest destinied. Britain was somewhat supportive of the CSA and Alaska was purchased in 1867 so there were reasons to think they were next.
- amscanne 3y agoWell, TIL. Interesting that I had so many hours of Canadian history yet this particular angle didn’t stick with me. I recall a framing of the constitution act as a quintessentially Canadian “we asked politely for independence, and Britain said okay”, but after some reading it does seem your “let’s get out of here, the neighbors are psycho” framing also holds water ;) I suppose both are true.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoAccording to that, the entire war cost ~$105 million dollars, which is about $2 billion dollars today. So 3 years of war equals around one day of the current US military budget. I realize your post was mostly silly, but it made me curious so I ran the numbers.
- bee_rider 3y agoNo, we’ve got a good thing going obviously. We have a nice big peaceful border, they send us celebrities and artists, and we will absolutely demolish any country that fucks with them. We generate plenty of wildfire smoke internally anyway.
- Wowfunhappy 3y agoIt's actually back in the healthy range as of this morning! I could immediately tell the difference when I woke up before sunrise, I went for a long walk outside and it felt great.
- isleyaardvark 3y agoIt’s not great, but for comparison many cities in Asia have a much worse AQI much more often.
- hgsgm 3y agoThat's not the equality I wanted.
- elif 3y agoOver a decade ago my wife was thru hiking and got caught in the smoke of a California wildfire. The ash scratched her corneas and her vision is still impacted to this day. It's definitely not something to take lightly, even if you wear a mask.
- nemo44x 3y agoPeople will be fine and no one is going to develop long term health issues from a couple days of smokey air. I feel bad for people with lung conditions as breathing was made more difficult for a bit but no one is dying from this. And what recourse? Who?
- chimeracoder 3y ago> People will be fine and no one is going to develop long term health issues from a couple days of smokey air. I feel bad for people with lung conditions as breathing was made more difficult for a bit but no one is dying from this. That's simply not true. People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute exposure to bad air (that's literally why the range is called "Hazardous" on the AQI). Not to mention that one in ten New Yorkers has asthma, which means that yes, people can literally die from acute exposure to air pollution.
- nemo44x 3y ago> People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute exposure to bad air Not for a day, no. At least not for what was going happening in the East Coast. It wasn't like ash and debris was flying through the air. It was like sitting around a campfire. People aren't that fragile. Now, hypochondriacs might think they are (and we have a growing population of those), but they simply aren't. Is it bad for someone with COPD? Yes, but the damage had already been done for years.
- dahart 3y ago> It wasn’t like ash and debris was flying through the air. Isn’t that exactly what smoke is? It’s worse than visibly large particles, the small particles are more likely to get inside your lungs and do damage. > Not for a day, no. You might want to familiarize yourself with the evidence-based WHO air quality guidelines which sets standards based on short-term 8 & 24 hour exposure periods, and separate long-term recommendations for annual exposure. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/what-are-the-who-air-quality-guidelines https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/what-ar... The recommended short-term 24 hour exposure levels are far below what NYC saw (as well as what many cities in the west have had for months at a time over the last ten years. These numbers are published based on the WHO’s ability to demonstrate that adverse health effects appear in the population when exposure exceeds these levels. The recommendations were lowered recently compared to their 2005 numbers because the studies and data and evidence have grown in the last 20 years and it shows that even mild levels of exposure result in more doctor’s visits, more lung conditions, more athsma, more damage and more risk.
- bee_rider 3y agoIt mostly seems to have moved down to Pennsylvania at this point. Smoke happens, it is bad, but I’m sure everybody in the country gets it a couple times in their life (unless you live on Martha’s Vineyard or something).
- chimeracoder 3y ago> My heart goes out to new yorkers. This cannot be healthy. If there are long-standing health repercussions I doubt there will be any recourse they can take. It's not good, but it's far from the worst around. The peak AQI here in NYC was about 350, which is actually much lower than the average AQI in Delhi between November and January, for example. (Air pollution is highly seasonal). Effects of air pollution are cumulative, so the people who really suffer the most from it are the ones who experience this regularly, as opposed to historical anomalies like this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jgalt212 3y agoOr you can live in the Colorado with fresh air, but way more UV exposure. There are always trade-offs.
- zucked 3y agoWe've (Coloradoans)been dealing with wildfire smoke pretty much forever. On average our air quality is quite good, but fires in any of the PNW/SW states regularly impact our air quality during the spring, summer, and fall. We held the dubious title of worst air quality in the world for at least a day earlier this spring. It's been a little comical having this NYC air quality situation keep finding it's way into my news sources -- it's been a part of my life as long as I've been alive. I check the FireNow site as much as I check the weather during the warm month.
- googlryas 3y agoOn the Front Range, where most people live in Colorado (~Denver + north and south 60 miles), the air quality can actually get pretty bad due to inversion, and this has been noted since pre-statehood. We also are lucky enough to get a lot of wild fire smoke from California, Canada, the PNW, as well as our own home sourced wildfires. Maybe 2 years ago it felt like the whole summer was smoky, and we had stretches where the AQI was 500+ here in Boulder. https://denvergazette.com/outtherecolorado/news/the-brown-cloud-denver-air-quality-concerns-date-back-to-1800s/article_67d52fbf-cf8b-5e9d-8b71-f38fca214fb4.html https://denvergazette.com/outtherecolorado/news/the-brown-cl...
- alex_duf 3y agoSuch a simple idea, yet so well executed.
- falloutx 3y agoSuch a great little website. you can see it was more orange than Hackernews header just 2 days back.
- DirectorKrennic 3y agoWhat concentration of fine particulates would be necessary to produce a sky the exact color of HN's header?
- kesava 3y agowhat a funny/scary thought :)
- antonvs 3y agoYC116 aims to find out. Now hiring. Our mission: Making the world a better place by making the sky HN orange.
- SahAssar 3y agoWith occasional low hanging black clouds for when famous people die.
- code_runner 3y agoDo I have to relocate to nightvale in order to get a job?
- altairprime 3y agoThe Tubbs fire did a fine job of this, but it’s always dimmer than the luminosity of HN orange on a typical screen, so it depends on how you define “color”.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darkwizard42 3y agoNot being exact, but at least 150+ AQI seems to generate a significant impact on sunlight coming through creating that "smoky"/"faded" look. I can't comment on how to get the orange exactly as I think it also requires specific particulate matter to get that.
- rollinDyno 3y agoVery cute, although I'd like to see what the results are like when choosing the dominant rather than the average color.
- karles 3y agoIs this data not polluted by the skyline? Or does it somewhat take buildings/the skyline into account, and correct for the shades of these objects?
- mikepurvis 3y agoBased on the color selected out of the night shots, I'm assuming the average is of just the plain sky, with the water and buildings cropped out.
- andai 3y agoFrom some fiddling in an image editor, it looks like it's a fairly small rectangle (I'd guess top left corner?)
- ReptileMan 3y agoIs the urban legend that it started out of controlled burn at WTREX conference true? Couldn't verify, but there are also no outlets debunking it.
- WorkerBee28474 3y agoYes, but that was in Alberta. The smoke in New York is coming from fires in Ontario and Quebec, which were probably started by lightning strikes.
- DANmode 3y agoHot take: Canadians may need to learn controlled burns.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat fire did happen, but was extinguished about a month ago: https://www.albertaprimetimes.com/beyond-local/banffs-out-of-control-prescribed-fire-extinguished-6994121 https://www.albertaprimetimes.com/beyond-local/banffs-out-of... The 'urban legend' remains because it is constantly mentioned on right-wing 'news' sites as proof that DEI programs are dangerous to society.
- sokoloff 3y agoI read that article. What is the possible connection to DEI programs?
- rootusrootus 3y agoIt was a prescribed fire event called WTREX, which stands for Women-in-Fire [0] Prescribed Fire Training Exchange. Right wing sites haven't been shy about their viewpoint [1]. [0] https://womeninfire.org/ https://womeninfire.org/ [1] https://freebeacon.com/politics/burning-down-barriers/ https://freebeacon.com/politics/burning-down-barriers/
- ck2 3y agonational smoke map https://data.usatoday.com/fires/ https://data.usatoday.com/fires/
- burkaman 3y agoAlso https://fire.airnow.gov/ https://fire.airnow.gov/
- ck2 3y agoairnow is almost useless in some areas The only single sensor near my city is 50 miles away, it says air quality is fine, yet the smoke tracker map has several wildfires nearby We need a huge, reliable pm2.5 etc network, start with every single public school
- shagie 3y agoA significant number of the sensors show up as "LOW COST PM2.5 SENSOR (PurpleAir)" https://www.purpleair.com https://www.purpleair.com sells those sensors (you can see their coverage on their map). It would be something to assist/help fund and public schools would be an excellent place to have them be situated.
- radres 3y agoSo simple yet beautiful!
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago#000 I didn't think it'd be that dark even at local midnight
- Wowfunhappy 3y agoIt's going to depend on the camera and processing, since the dynamic range of human vision extends well beyond the RGB color range.
- orangepurple 3y agoI agree and if you want to refer to a color in an absolutely correct, objective, device-independent manner you need to define it in terms of L*a*b* The CIELAB coordinate space represents the entire gamut of human photopic (daylight) vision and far exceeds the gamut for sRGB or CMYK. You might initially think that the three axes of what is "RGB" defines a perfect color cube which accurately describes all perceptible colors but this is not true. The typical RGB we encounter when encoded with an sRGB gamut (almost always on smartphones, TVs, and PCs as of 2023) forms a bizzare polyhedron in the objective L*a*b* color space instead of filling the whole thing with itself because it is just a small subset of what we can actually see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SRGB_gamut_within_CIELAB_color_space_mesh.webm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SRGB_gamut_within_CIELAB_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIELAB_color_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIELAB_color_space
- googlryas 3y ago1WTC and all the other buildings are pretty bright at night. I assume if they were physically masked out, the camera would have better chance to pick up some light reflected off the atmosphere
- yonatan8070 3y agoHas the developer of this posted any blog or documentation of how it works? What hardware/software is used for it?
- gnarbarian 3y agoprobably a webcam
- 83 3y agoThe first two night photos have logos for EarthCam, Live, and some location data. Seems they found a way to remove those in later images.
- william- 3y agoIt appears that the camera provider was switched around 1 day ago [0]. [0] https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666541169273372672 https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666541169273372672
- imadj 3y agoThe author is a designer who do many creative coding projects, he mentioned in an interview[1] back in 2011 that: > I wrote this program that hooks up to a webcam. It takes a photo out the window every five minutes, and it will upload that to a server. The server then reads the sky portion of the photo, and it goes pixel by pixel. What it does is it takes all those values, the RGB values, and it averages them. So what you are seeing is not the dominant color in the sky it’s actually just the average color. Mike Bodge's personal website:https://bod.ge/ https://bod.ge/ Recent tweet by author: https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666507978663690240 https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666507978663690240 Here's also a submission from a decade ago (2011): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685621 Shameless plug: Assisted by my HNRelevant browser extension [1] https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/06/23/mike-bodge-nskyc-creator-talks-new-york-city-weather-food-and-crushes/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/06/23/mike-bodge-nskyc-cre...
- notRobot 3y agoScroll down to the end of the page to 2 days ago! It's insane!
- js2 3y agoManhattan 2 days ago vs Night of the Comet: https://imgur.com/a/MYpreX5 https://imgur.com/a/MYpreX5 EarthCam view: https://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/worldtradecenter/?cam=skyline_g https://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/worldtradecenter/?cam=s... No idea if this link remains permanent: https://static.earthcam.com//hof/newyork/skyline/1686200442449_12.jpg https://static.earthcam.com//hof/newyork/skyline/16862004424...
- avelis 3y agoIt's unfortunate you can't bookmark dates but really cool none the less.
- xnx 3y agoDoes this go back further than 2 days?
- iso1631 3y agoNice, however "a day ago" isn't particularly helpful. For this local EDT time would be fine, but I'd like to know it it's 8am or 11am
- samstave 3y agoZooming out is kinda neat... But I would like to be able to see the background image for some of the shots bythemselves - as there are some cool pics of that view. https://i.imgur.com/S9I3arV.png https://i.imgur.com/S9I3arV.png
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- foxandmouse 3y agoI find it fascinating how Toronto is no where near as bad as New York. The fight to protect the environment has to be a global one
- bobthepanda 3y agoAt the latitudes of the US and Canada, the prevailing winds blow from west to east.
- foxandmouse 3y agoAhh, my geography was completely off, I was picturing NY where Buffalo currently is.. I can't believe I forgot it's on the Atlantic.
- post-it 3y agohttps://firesmoke.ca https://firesmoke.ca is an excellent resource for seeing the current smoke levels across the continent.
- cypherpunks01 3y ago#50a7f1 from this morning is an incredibly beautiful blue https://storage.googleapis.com/nskyc-3727d.appspot.com/nyc/1686302100760.jpg https://storage.googleapis.com/nskyc-3727d.appspot.com/nyc/1... Makes me miss NYC.
- UberFly 3y agoThis is such a cool idea. Some people are so cleaver.
- throwaway290 3y agoIt would be interesting if he specified how he came up with RGB values for sky color, like what is his neutral grey point etc.
- crazygringo 3y agoYeah you can't just do this with a consumer webcam out of the box because they're constantly trying to auto-adjust the white point. I mean not if you want anything "accurate". (Some webcams allow you to lock the white point in software though.) But indeed, it is very non-obvious what you'd select for the constant exposure and white point (or combined as a gray point). You might also want to apply a strong curve to the brightness so nighttime skies are quite visible.
- blululu 3y agoI stiched the last two days of this into a quick Timelapse - very cool to watch. https://youtu.be/KTv6tqyr8YU https://youtu.be/KTv6tqyr8YU
- paweladamczuk 3y agoI wonder how the camera was calibrated in terms of white balance (if at all). I have this idea to implement in my house: a sensor that would measure temperature of the light outside and set the lights inside to the same temperature. Getting this measurement right seems to be non-trivial. Though maybe it wouldn't have to be exact in terms of physical units, a pair of sensors calibrated together (one for outside, one for inside) might achieve the desired result too.
- djkoolaide 3y agoCould be mistaken but I think my Mac already does this -- it has "true tone" and when I open the lid, my main external monitor changes color temperature. I wonder if there's a way to scrape that data and then send it to Home Assistant for light control.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoIf only color calibration were that easy. People should really get comfortable with the idea that color is relative, so choose whatever looks nice to you and stick with it. True Tone certainly isn’t scientific. In this scenario, all that matters is that the instrument doesn’t try to change its white balance. You can actually calculate the spectral energy of the sky based on these color changes alone, and it doesn’t matter if you start at a white balance of fluorescent or incandescent.
- hunter2_ 3y agoI think it must have a fixed white balance, or the average hue captured would hardly change over time at all. Adjusting the inside lights until the inside sensor is satisfied, rather than based on specifying in absolute units, would also have the benefit of taking into account any influence on indoor overall color contributed by your walls, window coverings, and anything else. Might need to average multiple sensors for best results, unless a single sensor does that through a wide angle diffuser. This is a bit like how automatic audio equalizers (I think Sonos offers this, for example) don't work just by ensuring that the speaker delivers the desired frequency response curve (or lack thereof), but by actually using a measurement mic, since your experience will be influenced by the combination of speaker+room. The difference is that you only need to have the mic around when making changes to the room/furniture (which is rare) whereas you'd be making changes to the indoor light bulbs continuously (based on outdoor light), so you need your indoor sensor running continuously.
- rcthompson 3y agoThe vague timestamps like "an hour ago" are an odd choice, since they're very non-unique.
- sgt101 3y agoThis is going to sound brutal - but citizens of New York... if there is anyone in the world to blame for this, it is you... Sorry. I know that's horrid. But it's also true.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoCan you explain that?
- whimsicalism 3y agoMy guess is they are referring to NYC as center of capital markets.
- sgt101 3y agoNo - personal carbon consumption. New Yorkers have lived an unsustainable life style for the last 100 years, for the last 50 years you've all known about it - but you've done nothing about it. Yes - the capital markets are also huge enablers.
- whimsicalism 3y agoAnd where do you live? the carbon footprint of the typical NYC resident is going to be lower than that of the Canadians more proximate to the fire as well as residents of much of the rest of North America, for that matter.
- sgt101 3y agoSure, I will explain. New York is one of the epicenters of consumption that has driven climate change and precipitated the wild fires in Canada. The USA has been one of the most sustained producers of carbon in the world for the last century and has exported this tendency world wide. Boys and girls - you did this. The sky is orange because of things you did. Face it, front up and deal with it.
- jpk 3y ago
- CWCorrea 3y agoWith some kind of API to retrieve the colors the site would be really useful.
- scrame 3y agogreat domain name!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fragmede 3y agoFor SF, there's https://isitfoggy.com/daylight2.html https://isitfoggy.com/daylight2.html
- schappim 3y agoThings start to get interesting if you zoom out: https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-Image-2023-06-10-08-58-59-sHVdmt.png https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-Image-2023-06-10-08-5...
- lom 3y agoRelated: https://www.nyctimescape.com/ https://www.nyctimescape.com/
- davidblue 3y agogosh darn I love this.