5 ms·

Is this really hacker news worthy?

by Sarkie 13y ago

DigitalSea 13y ago
A plane full of people vanished with no sign of wreckage nor anything to go on with tens of thousands of kilometres of possible search area. I'd say this is definitely "Hacker News worthy".
- javajosh 13y ago
  Actually, it's not even newsworthy. This is very similar to the live coverage of car chases that have no real news value - it is sensationalist journalism at it's worst. There are much bigger problems in the world. Heck, car accidents killed far more people in the US alone since this story began than were on that plane (30k/year means 82/day). And this is ignoring new revelations about technology companies being complicit in NSA spying - which is very Hacker News worthy. The Crimean crisis is a good example of a news-worthy story that is absolutely not Hacker News-worthy.
  - mr_spothawk 13y ago
    Yeah... and dropping bombs from robot airplanes is still a thing. I'm sorry for a lot of people who are missing their traveling loved ones, but this missing plane thing seems like a crazy distraction.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    It's interesting. 99% of the things on hacker news are insignificant and have little impact on the world. No one is saying that this plane is significant.
  - caf 13y ago
    There's a very real chance that over 200 people were murdered in a single event - if that's not newsworthy anymore then that's a pretty fucking sad indictment of the state of the world.
  - Sarkie 13y ago
    Well I've been downvoted but this is what I'm talking about. I am interested in this, I'm interesting in the technology, crowdsourcing and stuff to find the plane. All I got was a jpg link to a person's dropbox, with no information about today's finding / sighting as opposed to yesterday's. Just a picture of a blob.
tsarzen 13y ago
Hacker News seems to be a community of people who are good at solving problems. This is a big problem that needs solving. Over 200 people missing, all with families who are going through a terrible time. I think the HN response to this is a very positive thing.
- weego 13y ago
  Let's not groupthink our way into believing we are anything more than drivers who have slowed down in the opposite lane to rubberneck at a car crash at this point.
  - marshray 13y ago
    Saaay... is there an app for that yet? (I don't know if I'm kidding)
  - shirro 13y ago
    Sure there is an element of that. But there are huge numbers of tech people who are into aviation, radio, satellites, image processing and solving puzzles. I don't want to forget that this is a tragedy for the families involved. But I think it is more technically interesting story than a javascript text editor or the latest crypto currency news.
  - omegant 13y ago
    I´m finishing a blog post on how to use the satellite ping chain (with the consecutive position arcs) and the known cruise speed of the B777 to create a probable route tree over the maps. Maybe it´s not going to give much information (pings are one hour a part and have an error of about 100NM or more), but If it serves to dismiss some parts of the actual ping position band, that would save time to the search teams.
    - tom_morrow 13y ago
      has the ping data been published? to my knowledge, we've seen one arc (from the last ping) that has been split into two parts based on assumptions of maximum and minimum ranges of straight flight at even speed. that's a lot of assumptions.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Even if you're not interested in planes or the souls on them, the technology deployed to find this needle in a large haystack is quite Hacker News-worthy.

Is this really hacker news worthy?

by Sarkie 13y ago

Is this really hacker news worthy?

A plane full of people vanished with no sign of wreckage nor anything to go on with tens of thousands of kilometres of possible search area. I'd say this is definitely "Hacker News worthy".

javajosh 13y ago
Actually, it's not even newsworthy. This is very similar to the live coverage of car chases that have no real news value - it is sensationalist journalism at it's worst. There are much bigger problems in the world. Heck, car accidents killed far more people in the US alone since this story began than were on that plane (30k/year means 82/day). And this is ignoring new revelations about technology companies being complicit in NSA spying - which is very Hacker News worthy. The Crimean crisis is a good example of a news-worthy story that is absolutely not Hacker News-worthy.
- mr_spothawk 13y ago
  Yeah... and dropping bombs from robot airplanes is still a thing. I'm sorry for a lot of people who are missing their traveling loved ones, but this missing plane thing seems like a crazy distraction.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  It's interesting. 99% of the things on hacker news are insignificant and have little impact on the world. No one is saying that this plane is significant.
- caf 13y ago
  There's a very real chance that over 200 people were murdered in a single event - if that's not newsworthy anymore then that's a pretty fucking sad indictment of the state of the world.
- Sarkie 13y ago
  Well I've been downvoted but this is what I'm talking about. I am interested in this, I'm interesting in the technology, crowdsourcing and stuff to find the plane. All I got was a jpg link to a person's dropbox, with no information about today's finding / sighting as opposed to yesterday's. Just a picture of a blob.

tsarzen 13y ago

Hacker News seems to be a community of people who are good at solving problems. This is a big problem that needs solving. Over 200 people missing, all with families who are going through a terrible time. I think the HN response to this is a very positive thing.

weego 13y ago
Let's not groupthink our way into believing we are anything more than drivers who have slowed down in the opposite lane to rubberneck at a car crash at this point.
- marshray 13y ago
  Saaay... is there an app for that yet? (I don't know if I'm kidding)
- shirro 13y ago
  Sure there is an element of that. But there are huge numbers of tech people who are into aviation, radio, satellites, image processing and solving puzzles. I don't want to forget that this is a tragedy for the families involved. But I think it is more technically interesting story than a javascript text editor or the latest crypto currency news.
- omegant 13y ago
  I´m finishing a blog post on how to use the satellite ping chain (with the consecutive position arcs) and the known cruise speed of the B777 to create a probable route tree over the maps. Maybe it´s not going to give much information (pings are one hour a part and have an error of about 100NM or more), but If it serves to dismiss some parts of the actual ping position band, that would save time to the search teams.
  - tom_morrow 13y ago
    has the ping data been published? to my knowledge, we've seen one arc (from the last ping) that has been split into two parts based on assumptions of maximum and minimum ranges of straight flight at even speed. that's a lot of assumptions.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Even if you're not interested in planes or the souls on them, the technology deployed to find this needle in a large haystack is quite Hacker News-worthy.