
Smell PGH lets you report weird smells in Pittsburgh - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/smellpgh-lets-you-report-weird-smells-in-pittsburgh
======
throwanem
Admittedly it's been a while since I was in Pittsburgh, but to the best of my
recollection, it'd have been easier to report places where the air _didn 't_
smell bad...

~~~
cdolan
The city has changed a lot over the last decade. You'd be surprised.

There are very few dirty areas around the greater Pittsburgh region. Is it
perfect? No, but its hands-down cleaner than a lot of major US metro areas.

~~~
DonHopkins
Not for long...

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/03/why-
tr...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/03/why-trump-pit-
pittsburgh-against-paris-is-absurd)

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pm90
Huh this is interesting. For those who might know... do we have odor sensors?
Is that even possible to have? I guess it would need to be a chemical sensor
that detects the chemicals in the odor right?

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aapjesverkoper
I guess that would be a system like this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography%E2%80%93mas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography%E2%80%93mass_spectrometry)
?

~~~
pm90
Right, I guess I should have made my question more concise...are there
electronic odor sensors? i.e. stuff small enough that can be e.g. put inside
my cellphone.

~~~
sp332
Pretty small, but not cell-phone sized. [https://www.amazon.com/MicrOptix-
VSA-100-Analyzing-Spectroph...](https://www.amazon.com/MicrOptix-
VSA-100-Analyzing-Spectrophotometer-Wavelength/dp/B00440CZ00)

Ones that detect particular contaminants can be a lot smaller, especially if
they are single-use.

~~~
isoprophlex
That's a spectrophotometer, not a GC/MS... Can you detect smelly airborne
chemicals with this as well?

~~~
sp332
Reading the description, it might be for liquids instead. Anyway it won't give
as much information about the molecular components as a mass spectrometer, but
you can still get a good idea if there are contaminants.

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fixermark
Why the hell does the header image show people sniffing their mobile phones?

TechCrunch may not know how "Using a smartphone to send a message over the
Internet" works. Surprising for a tech-journalism-focused organization, I
know. ;)

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flurie
> Considering Pittsburgh once had awful air quality thanks to coal and steel
> industry, it’s no wonder folks are still worried about stinky air.

This implies that it no longer has awful air quality, but that's not true.
It's still quite bad.

[http://www.stateoftheair.org/2015/msas/pittsburgh-new-
castle...](http://www.stateoftheair.org/2015/msas/pittsburgh-new-castle-
weirton-pa-oh-wv.html#pm24)

~~~
Hydraulix989
SF has much worse air quality than Pittsburgh though, actually

[https://qz.com/963089/california-is-home-to-eight-of-
the-10-...](https://qz.com/963089/california-is-home-to-eight-of-
the-10-cities-in-america-where-air-pollution-is-worst/)

Preemptive plea: Please don't shoot the messenger by downvoting me for sharing
this demonstrably factual information with you (I know it's coming, I know how
this site works now).

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ouid
You're being downvoted for at least two reasons. One, you are off topic, and
trying very hard to be inflammatory, and two, because whining about downvotes
is, itself, pollution.

~~~
Hydraulix989
I _am_ on topic, we are discussing air pollution, and most people I talk to
around here are mistakenly under the impression that SF is this paragon of air
quality, so mine is a pretty high entropy post sharing an interesting and not
commonly known fact that often surprises people.

Meanwhile, you're attaching unfounded emotion to my post through projection
(I've been sitting here the whole time with a perfectly chillaxed and even
slightly amused attitude); my post has had a non-negative score its entire
lifetime -- only one person downvoted it (you?), so I'm more inclined to
believe that somebody else that is not me is the problem here.

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pavel_lishin
I'd love to see a heatmap of this in New York.

~~~
tomschlick
All of Manhattan would just be labeled "Garbage water smell" for the summer
months.

~~~
mentalpiracy
All part of the carefully crafted ambiance, my friend

