
Flights to Rome - anc84
https://flightstorome.moovellab.com/
======
madaxe_again
I’ve been collecting GPS tracks of all the commercial flights I’ve been on for
the past several years, using a little pocket receiver.

It’s been pretty interesting data, from seeing how ATC works differently from
country to country (China is _nuts_ \- a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong will
have hundreds of course changes to minimise overflight of populated areas), to
how airports stack traffic, to where GPS jammers are being operated - many
large airports seem to have a curtain of interference, presumably to stop
drone intrusions. It’s also interesting seeing things like routes dog-legging
around Ukraine, or ascending to a very high level to overfly Afghanistan -
apparently pot-shots by armed groups are of not insignificant concern.

So far it’s only a few hundred flights, but it’s still pretty neat.

~~~
micheljansen
Which device did you use? I always thought consumer devices were supposed to
disable themselves above certain altitudes and/or speeds to prevent them being
used in cruise missiles
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls))

~~~
selectodude
Airplanes broadcast their location using ADS-B. Using an SDR hooked up to a
raspberry pi, you can get in on the action.

www.flightradar24.com

~~~
sandos
I would recommend something like adsbexchange instead, which ignores any
filtering lists.... Information wants to be free?

------
defenestration
From the same makers the Roads to Rome is also interesting:
[http://roadstorome.moovellab.com/countries](http://roadstorome.moovellab.com/countries)

Try step 3. Explore. Search for your city with the magnifying glass, and see
where you can walk, bike or drive in 15 to 30 minutes from your house or
office.

~~~
Uberphallus
Wow, it's taking very long to compute (server side I imagine), easy on it
future clickers.

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callumprentice
This is utterly beautiful - thank you. I made a very primitive interactive
(WebGL) version a couple of years ago (not going to link here - always feels
rude to drop links in someone else's post) but this takes it to a whole new
level and then some.

I love all the analysis too as well as the gorgeous visuals. I'd definitely
purchase a print for my office wall if you ever decide to offer that.

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estsauver
I didn't see any link to anything of the sort, but I'd love to have a large
print of one of these maps.

~~~
pjmlp
The link to the 3D visualization is quite obvious.

~~~
estsauver
Yah, but I don't really want to steal their work without their permission...

~~~
anc84
It is not forbidden nor "stealing" to print out for personal use.

~~~
estsauver
* I want it for our office.

* Generally speaking, putting something onto the internet doesn't entitle you to make reproductions/copies/prints for your personal use, at least in US law and I believe in most European jurisdictions. You can usually see this with photographers who may sell you the rights to your photos in addition to/alongside any physical or digital prints they sell you.

IANAL, but hot damn is this community aggressive to people suggesting they
would pay for things.

~~~
freehunter
I don't think anyone here is being aggressive, generally people on HN are
positive towards paying for things. The argument here isn't "pay for it or
don't pay for it", it's "do you actually need to pay for it before printing it
for your own consumption".

Until you mentioned it was for your office, the answer was no [1]. You
printing something linked online would not violate the four factors
determining Fair Use (at least in US law).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_v._Arriba_Soft_Corp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_v._Arriba_Soft_Corp).

Displaying it publicly in a place of business may run afoul of fair use
though.

~~~
estsauver
That case references reproductions of thumbnail images for search engines and
lays out the criteria under which a fair use is judged, and people who are
casually reading your comment shouldn't take it as a definitive judgement
about legality.

For some extended commentary on what fair use is,
[https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-
fair-...](https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/) is
pretty good.

While you're unlikely to be sued for printing off something you don't have the
right to make a copy of, you definitely don't have the right to make prints of
whatever you find on the internet.

~~~
freehunter
>you definitely don't have the right to make prints of whatever you find on
the internet

If you have any references that say that, I'd love to see them. Specifically,
I'd like to see anything that says that printing a contents of a publicly
accessible website for personal use and not to distribute or sell is a
violation of copyright. I'm not a lawyer, but everything I read in the
Wikipedia article I linked to says otherwise.

The printed version would be transformative, the image is from a published
work, and printing it does not harm the market value of the image. That's why
I linked it, because it's substantially the same argument.

------
djohnston
there are a few UI issues with the website itself, but these maps are quite
beautiful.

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anjc
Oh man, those tilt-shift 3d visualisations...drool

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maym86
In the first image why are all the flights from Madagascar stopping at an
intermediate island between it and mainland Africa?

~~~
Grue3
Because the algorithm seems to be wrong. It prefers to make several small
"hops" over long direct flights. For example Phoenix - Albuquerque - Denver -
Winnipeg(?) - Iqualuit - somewhere in Greenland - Reykjavik - Glasgow seems
like a very popular route and the whole West US is using it to reach Rome.

------
klez
A bit off topic but why did you have to fill my browser history while I scroll
through a page?

I don't know if this is happening only to my browser (Firefox nightly on
Android) but it's very annoying.

~~~
BartBoch
Just a note to Chrome users, when you click and hold on the back button, you
can see a history - just click the site you want to get back to.

~~~
bobwaycott
Unless you play with a page long enough that it becomes your entire visible
backward history, requiring multiple hold-and-click rounds to get the hell
away from a single page.

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nickthemagicman
My Android back button and this page did not get along.

~~~
demygale
Came to this thread just to make sure complaints about navigation were the top
comments.

This is how I know I’ve found my people.

~~~
black_puppydog
#embraceYourBubble ;)

------
fareesh
This webpage breaks the back button on Android Chrome. Couldn't come back to
HN

~~~
ejoiii
So many of the top comments on HN posts are complaints about website
functionality rather than the content of the site. I'm all for not breaking
standards but sometimes it gets old when the top content is a negative content
about the use of javascript or ux. __Bracing for downvotes __

~~~
DanBC
You're right, and it's a long running problem. See what dang says here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739)

> A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often
> become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely.
> Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if
> it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It
> needs to become less of a thing.

> I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your
> second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.)
> The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn.

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snambi
Nice images. But the author has no idea what he is trying to say.

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Grue3
Somehow I doubt anyone is flying to Rome via Iceland. Even if there's no
direct flight, people would go through London, Paris, Madrid or another big
hub.

~~~
mrunkel
With the great circle route it's not that far out of the way (especially from
the west coast of the US) and Iceland Air has some great deals. If you spend a
night in Iceland, you can get some crazy cheap flights.

~~~
Grue3
Ok, but did you make a stop at Baffin Island like the map suggests? Also one
airline couldn't possibly carry all traffic from the Western US to Europe. And
Keflavik International Airport doesn't look like it can carry all this traffic
either.

