to answer everyone's questions:
1. it is supposed to be a for fun sandbox, a 'toy' if you may
2. it can in no way become a credible source for any level of military intel
3. the altitude is at 100hPa
4. I really should add a disclaimer about how this is for fun purposes only
5. adding othe levels will give me even more data chunks, but it is certainly doable
6. I want to add (programmable) steering too! will do soon
I’m having an absolutely awful day. My Dad had to call 911 to get my stepmother the care she needed and everything just went downhill from there.
As rough as my day has been, I have spent a lot of time with your app today. It’s not perfect (of course) but I have had a lot of fun with it today. As dark as today has been, that really means a lot.
You have gotten some really solid feedback today and I can’t disagree with it. But speaking as a user, this product has made my day significantly better. Thanks for putting this out into the world.
A little bit of UX feedback: It would be great if the balloon were a draggable object, not just click once & then again, I tried to do this about 10 times before I realized: click once on the balloon and then again on the map! Or maybe edit the instructions (click balloon and then map).
Either way, I enjoyed this greatly! Thank you for building this.
I love the disclaimer "not a credible source for military intel". I know you are probably putting that to disclaim knowing where a particular balloon came from but it sounds a bit like "If you want to spy on another country, build your own simulator" - lol.
This was really fun to mess about with. Interesting how some balloons take very similar paths for a bit, but then go on an entirely separate second stage. UK and Norway can follow a very similar path to get to the US, but then Norway's loops around Canada for a bit while the UK's head south. It's fascinating.
If you're bored and want to run mass simulations with your data I'd love to know which country is the hardest to spy on via balloon.
I wonder if there is a way to simulate a balloon in reverse, i.e. given its destination figure out which sources it could come from. Maybe it would just be a matter of reversing the winds and time? Would be interesting if it were doable.
It has a feature where you specify a target point and the origin point and it plots the changes in altitude your ballon will need to make to reach the target (if possible). Was surprising to me that if launched far enough away, a balloon can end up nearly anywhere in the US it wants just by controlling altitude.
Without any context on the page, my first impression is this is presented as a tool for people to validate certain theories such as "could a balloon released from china at some recent time and date have actually blown into the US?"
As other comments have pointed out, the lack of ability to test with different altitudes makes the tool unfit for that purpose.
That leaves an open question of what the creator is hoping people will see in this. Is it a game or toy? Is it a technical experiment? Is it art? Does the maker not care what it is to us? (but, still, I'm curious what it is to the maker)
Certainly one can think of obvious improvements - which I generally think is a sign that a tool has a lot of potential. I would put it somewhere between art and educational tool: I hadn't really thought that much about how far a balloon could drift in a given time period and this did kind of make me realize that they move pretty "fast" - around the world in 80 days? How about 80 hours.
Sometimes you just have time to make a think that has the potential to provoke further discussion and interest - which seems like what happened here.
Also, they said the balloon had "limited steering capability" which I assume means it could nudge itself in a direction or at least adjust it's altitude.
Can’t give an answer but my thought here is that this thing probably would like to be swept up before the news cycle turns and balloons aren’t a thing anymore. Looks and feels like something put together in a bit of a hurry (which is perfectly fine)
It is what you believe it to be (most of the time politically). People use it prove the theory. Other people use it to disprove. I can only see the fun with technicality on using the real data to simulate this.
Q: How would we differentiate between a spy balloon and a weather balloon?
A: Well, it's not really possible - the NRO (the highly secretive US satellite agency) makes a lot of geospatial data available to scientists for use in studying everything from forest fires to fault geology to ocean ecosystem productivity and beyond.
This has to be one of the coolest things I have seen this year on HN; last year it was the "endless acid banger".
It's tempting to let feature-creep make this bigger, but other than a few UX tweaks, it's perfect the way it is.
Then again, is there is anything I could think of for version 2.0 it would be satellite imagery from the virtual balloon (depending if Google maps allows that in their API)
update: I have now added a disclaimer that this site is aimed at for fun usage only, in case we would scream at each other over the topic of fidelity and application
This is amazing; really puts in perspective how hard it would be to say you know someone sent a balloon exactly to you, or that they didn't mean to... its something you could plan for (like this shows) and something that probably is very fickle
Only fun thing I found to do with this is race two cities' balloons around the world and back to original longitude. DC comes from behind and beats NY (at least at precise locations I selected).
Floats all the way around the world before passing within a few hundred feet of the start point. I was quite surprised when the second launch I tried turned up an (almost) eigenfloater of the matrix.
This site can be used to demonstrate how small perturbations in initial conditions led to big differences over the long run, aka: butterfly effect. Try to place to balloons near each other and you'll see how their trajectory end up differing by a lot.
It's interesting because climate modeling/forecasting with a very powerful computer could tell you where and when to drop your balloon to pass certain targets.
[+] [-] deepfrdpancake|3 years ago|reply
to answer everyone's questions: 1. it is supposed to be a for fun sandbox, a 'toy' if you may 2. it can in no way become a credible source for any level of military intel 3. the altitude is at 100hPa 4. I really should add a disclaimer about how this is for fun purposes only 5. adding othe levels will give me even more data chunks, but it is certainly doable 6. I want to add (programmable) steering too! will do soon
[+] [-] hluska|3 years ago|reply
As rough as my day has been, I have spent a lot of time with your app today. It’s not perfect (of course) but I have had a lot of fun with it today. As dark as today has been, that really means a lot.
You have gotten some really solid feedback today and I can’t disagree with it. But speaking as a user, this product has made my day significantly better. Thanks for putting this out into the world.
[+] [-] RheingoldRiver|3 years ago|reply
Either way, I enjoyed this greatly! Thank you for building this.
[+] [-] wkat4242|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillysaurusx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rob74|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hennell|3 years ago|reply
If you're bored and want to run mass simulations with your data I'd love to know which country is the hardest to spy on via balloon.
[+] [-] renonce|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PM_me_your_math|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linhns|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varenc|3 years ago|reply
It has a feature where you specify a target point and the origin point and it plots the changes in altitude your ballon will need to make to reach the target (if possible). Was surprising to me that if launched far enough away, a balloon can end up nearly anywhere in the US it wants just by controlling altitude.
update: They also make it easy to share results! Here's one of my simulations: https://www.ready.noaa.gov/hypub-bin/trajresults.pl?jobidno=...
They also have a Windows desktop package that does the same thing: https://gml.noaa.gov/ozwv/wvap/sw.html
---
†NOAA = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a US government federal agency
[+] [-] tobyjsullivan|3 years ago|reply
As other comments have pointed out, the lack of ability to test with different altitudes makes the tool unfit for that purpose.
That leaves an open question of what the creator is hoping people will see in this. Is it a game or toy? Is it a technical experiment? Is it art? Does the maker not care what it is to us? (but, still, I'm curious what it is to the maker)
[+] [-] kilgnad|3 years ago|reply
People were killed.
https://www.damninteresting.com/curio/ww2-japans-balloon-bom...
The key is to use high altitude balloons to catch the Jetstream and a system of timed weights for release.
[+] [-] aeturnum|3 years ago|reply
Sometimes you just have time to make a think that has the potential to provoke further discussion and interest - which seems like what happened here.
[+] [-] itslennysfault|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zoklet-enjoyer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cratermoon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scyzoryk_xyz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sfcarrot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|3 years ago|reply
The question is the purpose
[+] [-] benryon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sacnoradhq|3 years ago|reply
Release from San Jose, CA arrive in London, do loop around France including a stop at the Eiffel.
Makes me think we should almost ban motorized flight for climate reasons and resort to long distance steampunk trips with the trade winds.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
A: Well, it's not really possible - the NRO (the highly secretive US satellite agency) makes a lot of geospatial data available to scientists for use in studying everything from forest fires to fault geology to ocean ecosystem productivity and beyond.
[+] [-] dszoboszlay|3 years ago|reply
Deploy time: 2022-11-10 03:00
Deploy point: 23.795° S , 133.047° E
Simulation length: 10 days
[+] [-] dszoboszlay|3 years ago|reply
Deploy time: 2022-11-10 06:00
Deploy point: 5.31° S , 18.138° W
Simulation length: 9 days
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|3 years ago|reply
What is that faint whiff I detected? Is it web-site-as-performance-art?
[+] [-] debesyla|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Whatarethese|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] megalottachoc|3 years ago|reply
It's tempting to let feature-creep make this bigger, but other than a few UX tweaks, it's perfect the way it is.
Then again, is there is anything I could think of for version 2.0 it would be satellite imagery from the virtual balloon (depending if Google maps allows that in their API)
[+] [-] deepfrdpancake|3 years ago|reply
thank y'all for your support
[+] [-] stanrivers|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Metacelsus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elicash|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|3 years ago|reply
Deploy point: 22.106° N , 110.918° E
Makes it all the way back.
[+] [-] moosedev|3 years ago|reply
Deploy time: 2022-11-17 17:00
Deploy point: 47.548° N , 121.537° W
Floats all the way around the world before passing within a few hundred feet of the start point. I was quite surprised when the second launch I tried turned up an (almost) eigenfloater of the matrix.
[+] [-] jaimex2|3 years ago|reply
Missile command mini game where one county launches a barrage of them at your country and you have to shoot them down over ocean.
[+] [-] deepfrdpancake|3 years ago|reply
I will see what I can do. Thank you!
[+] [-] alexmolas|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwbadubadu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cool_and_poor|3 years ago|reply
Anything you launch come back to you only traveling across the sea and some farms in New Zeland xD