
Without even knowing: the HN post I missed - mapmeld
http://majurojs.org/withoutevenknowing.html
======
parfe
" _I clicked the link, but Hacker News is often blocked in the Marshall
Islands, so I got a 404._ "

Is there reason for the blocking? Is it the government censoring content? Or
is it simply an island nation has to ration its bandwidth?

I ask because Marshall Islands are in a free association with the United
States (where the US provides services and protection). Preventing residents
from reaching US websites really rubs me the wrong way.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into the word block when he really means
unreachable. Marshall Islands are rated as Free under the Freedom of Press
Report, but are unclassified by the OpenNet Initiative.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_country>

edit: I am sorry for my tangent based on a single line in your write up. It
really jumped out at me and I hope you can expand on the situation.

You have a cool product and congratulations on the exposure. Good luck!

~~~
gojomo
I've occasionally been at public wifi spots in the USA where HN is blocked,
because on some 'safe internet' services, the site may be categorized as being
related to illegal or controversial activities.

The HN name and occasional subject matter -- about censorship controversies,
security breaches, and circumvention techniques -- contributes to this
impression. Some paranoid law-and-order nothing-that-risks-the-children types
will classify HN that way, and then choose to block all sites of that
classification on certain public/free wifi services.

(IIRC, my experience may have been at a Whole Foods market in the US, which
was subscribing to some classification lists via OpenDNS. This was years ago,
though, and I reported it as a misclassification at the time.)

~~~
jonnathanson
Yup. Sadly, we need to keep in mind that the word "hacker" still has negative
connotations with the public at large (especially as regards security
concerns). So it's a likely term to appear on very conservative blacklists.

------
Demiurge
What is the reason you started this, as oppose to contribute to
<http://ideditor.com/> or OpenStreetMaps?

If people actually spend time on your site, they would be wasting it, as your
data will not carry over to OSM based datasets, unless you spend more time
converting the data into usable format for OSM. In which case, they probably
should have been using <http://www.openstreetmap.org/> to draw to begin with.

~~~
mapmeld
I'm a contributor to OpenStreetMap, and last year I helped Code for America
import thousands of buildings.

OSM is rightfully skeptical of uploads. Even when cities give specific
permission to OSM, it's up to the community whether a large import is helpful
or risks drowning out local mappers. If anything, this site would be helpful
to download a subset of the city's buildings as KML and use JOSM to upload.

This site exists as a custom mapmaker. It's easier for a non-GIS user to get
data out and make custom maps compared to OSM APIs and tiles.

~~~
tmarthal
It's interesting that you mention custom mapmaking. Google provides a similar
service - creating a KML file hosted from a Google Spreadsheet. Here is the
newest version:
[http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/spreadsheet.h...](http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/spreadsheet.html)

I've recommended it to a non-technical family member (he's a realtor) and they
were able to create and host their own kml-based maps within an hour's time.
Note that it does not use polygon based building markers, but rather addresses
(and coordinates), which are simpler for non-GIS people to use.

------
dsumner
The story regarding the Japanese volunteer sounds interesting. I hope we get
to hear more about that.

~~~
pgrote
I was hoping to see the same thing.

------
JacksonGariety
Can anyone give some insight into why HN would be blocked in the Marshall
Islands?

~~~
benologist
Probably because someone has the power to block any website they feel like,
same as every other country. There is very little reason needed and there may
not even be one - I spent an hour the other week in Turkey trying to fix my
ssl certificates on heroku before realizing their api had been blocked.

~~~
JacksonGariety
But why would the person in charge of blocking websites even bother to block
HN?

~~~
benologist
Why does it matter what the reason is? There may not even be a reason and
there definitely won't be one acceptable to anyone who uses the less-censored
internet.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country>

------
rtpg
I've always had the impression that submissions on HN were done by the authors
99% of the time. It's funny to hear about it happening the other way around,
and him not even knowing about it.

~~~
kmfrk
That's far, far from the case. I've submitted multiple articles by others that
would end up on the frontpage.

I've also tweeted a few people to tell them "Oh hey, your project is going to
get hammered by traffic due to this submission". I think I did the latter,
when WordLens blew up on HN.

------
danso
Glad to see this project get more attention...the good thing about HN and
other submission sites is that you always have the opportunity to do an
explanatory/reflective post, as you've done here.

One suggestion I have is to SEO the title page a little bit...that is, put the
tagline ("Interactive maps with open buildings data") in the title tag so that
your site is associated correctly with what it offers, rather than just
"Majuro.js"

------
unreal37
Congrats on making the HN front page twice.

Very interesting being a developer when upload and download speeds are so
limited. Paying 10 cents per megabyte sounds like you have to be very
thoughtful about what you do.

I used 90GB from home last month, or a $9000 bill if I lived there. Ouch.

------
DanielBMarkham
Wow. Wouldn't it be great for us content providers if there was a service that
would tell us when our content appears on HN? (hint. hint)

~~~
jgroome
He was out of phone as well as Internet contact. Maybe HN should send homing
pigeons when a link gets popular?

~~~
mindcrime
_Maybe HN should send homing pigeons when a link gets popular?_

Finally! The perfect application for RFC-1149[1]. And people said it was just
an April Fool's Day joke!

[1]: <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt>

~~~
vidarh
RFC 1149 has been implemented: <http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/>

Ping times were rather atrocious.

~~~
daeken
Alternatively, the ping times were great considering that pigeons were the
transport.

