6 ms·

Safecast Open Radiation and Air Quality Map

48 points by jhoho 3y ago

mike_d 3y ago
It wasn't at all clear where the data comes from, but after a little digging it looks like volunteers are driving around with homemade devices collecting data. https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/store-2/ https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/store-2/ Looks like they might have had apps too, but they have been pulled from the App Store and Play Store?
rozzie 3y ago
https://safecast.org/devices/ https://safecast.org/devices/ https://safecast.org/history-of-safecast/ https://safecast.org/history-of-safecast/ https://safecast.org/about/ https://safecast.org/about/ It’s quite a wonderful set of globally-distributed volunteers brought together by varying passions - from hardware hacking to citizen science. Whether from fixed or mobile sensors, whether from radiation or air quality sensors, all data is CC0-licensed at birth and is freely available for download.
- defrost 3y ago
  If you scroll to Australia you can see the data coverage is largely occassional driving about on a few roads. It's interesting they don't include, as a baseline reference, the near complete Australian coverage by 256 channel radiometric data (available for free download): https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysics/radiometrics https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi... Such datasets are relatively common across the globe and none that I'm aware of appear to be included. Their devices appear to be all total count gieger types which don't seperate out energy bands or have much accuracy - ie. "good enough" for coarse results, not that great for identifying radon Vs ??? as a source.
BodyCulture 3y ago
Can the sensors that provide the data be trusted? Or could anyone in control of the network inject fake sensor data?
cheschire 3y ago
Interesting that Three Mile Island is not any higher than background levels. I would have expected even a minor bump. I suppose 45 years is a long time.
- dmd 3y ago
  Especially given the half life of what was released there is 8 days.
- nativeit 3y ago
  You’re looking at the wrong poisonous transmissions, check the map that shows concentrations of misleading reporting and needless panic.
ACV001 3y ago
what a misleading notation on the map. Also not clear when blue is radiation or bad air quality. Also, yellow is higher than red..
unsupp0rted 3y ago
If somebody assigned you to design a map that's extremely difficult to interpret, you probably wouldn't be clever enough to come up with this. https://ibb.co/TLDxBZF https://ibb.co/TLDxBZF
- btbuildem 3y ago
  Not just these icons -- the entire site is both jam-packed with information and nearly unreadable. I think this might be an example of when an engineer or a developer design the user-facing portions of a system. A deeply technical perspective, at a complete loss in how to relate to an average outsider. It really looks like an exercise in obfuscation.
- anileated 3y ago
  I don’t see the information overload issue in this Safecast map. If anything, it lacks info (a good air quality map should at least come with wind indicators, like earth.nullschool). However, it seems to have limited coverage, which makes it useless for many.

48 points by jhoho 3y ago

It wasn't at all clear where the data comes from, but after a little digging it looks like volunteers are driving around with homemade devices collecting data. https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/store-2/ https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/store-2/ Looks like they might have had apps too, but they have been pulled from the App Store and Play Store?

rozzie 3y ago

https://safecast.org/devices/ https://safecast.org/devices/ https://safecast.org/history-of-safecast/ https://safecast.org/history-of-safecast/ https://safecast.org/about/ https://safecast.org/about/ It’s quite a wonderful set of globally-distributed volunteers brought together by varying passions - from hardware hacking to citizen science. Whether from fixed or mobile sensors, whether from radiation or air quality sensors, all data is CC0-licensed at birth and is freely available for download.

defrost 3y ago
If you scroll to Australia you can see the data coverage is largely occassional driving about on a few roads. It's interesting they don't include, as a baseline reference, the near complete Australian coverage by 256 channel radiometric data (available for free download): https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysics/radiometrics https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi... Such datasets are relatively common across the globe and none that I'm aware of appear to be included. Their devices appear to be all total count gieger types which don't seperate out energy bands or have much accuracy - ie. "good enough" for coarse results, not that great for identifying radon Vs ??? as a source.

BodyCulture 3y ago

Can the sensors that provide the data be trusted? Or could anyone in control of the network inject fake sensor data?

cheschire 3y ago

Interesting that Three Mile Island is not any higher than background levels. I would have expected even a minor bump. I suppose 45 years is a long time.

dmd 3y ago
Especially given the half life of what was released there is 8 days.
nativeit 3y ago
You’re looking at the wrong poisonous transmissions, check the map that shows concentrations of misleading reporting and needless panic.

ACV001 3y ago

what a misleading notation on the map. Also not clear when blue is radiation or bad air quality. Also, yellow is higher than red..

unsupp0rted 3y ago

If somebody assigned you to design a map that's extremely difficult to interpret, you probably wouldn't be clever enough to come up with this. https://ibb.co/TLDxBZF https://ibb.co/TLDxBZF

btbuildem 3y ago
Not just these icons -- the entire site is both jam-packed with information and nearly unreadable. I think this might be an example of when an engineer or a developer design the user-facing portions of a system. A deeply technical perspective, at a complete loss in how to relate to an average outsider. It really looks like an exercise in obfuscation.
anileated 3y ago
I don’t see the information overload issue in this Safecast map. If anything, it lacks info (a good air quality map should at least come with wind indicators, like earth.nullschool). However, it seems to have limited coverage, which makes it useless for many.