
A remotely operated vehicle livestreaming the deep sea - rbanffy
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-robot-is-livestreaming-all-the-gnarly-stuff-its-seeing-in-the-deep-sea?utm_source=mbtwitter
======
hedgew
Direct link:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuvmV5O-qTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuvmV5O-qTA)

------
jpm_sd
Very happy to see the Global Explorer ROV still out there, hard at work. This
vehicle was Chris Nicholson's baby and it looks like the crew at Oceaneering
are keeping his legacy going.

Chris was one of the early inventors / developers of ROV technology and he was
famous in the ocean engineering world. He passed away suddenly in 2015.

Some background:

[http://www.rovexchange.com/nc_interviews.php](http://www.rovexchange.com/nc_interviews.php)

[http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/15biolum/backgrou...](http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/15biolum/background/global-
explorer/global-explorer.html)

[http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/16arctic/logs/jul...](http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/16arctic/logs/july6/july6.html)

[http://www.capenews.net/falmouth/obituaries/christopher-j-
ni...](http://www.capenews.net/falmouth/obituaries/christopher-j-
nicholson/article_0d7e6342-5532-5d07-a758-0151d3a8d3d2.html)

------
kstenerud
Wow... that Motherboard web page is packed with enough cruft to bring my brand
new Kaby Lake i5 to its knees.

~~~
10165
Assuming nothing listening on 127.0.0.1, this should fix the problem.

    
    
       cat << eof >> /etc/hosts
       127.0.0.1 vice-web-statics-cdn.vice.com
       127.0.0.1 fonts.googleapis.com
       127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
       127.0.0.1 d31qbv1cthcecs.cloudfront.net
       127.0.0.1 d5nxst8fruw4z.cloudfront.net
       127.0.0.1 b.scorecardresearch.com
       127.0.0.1 advice-ads-cdn.vice.com
       127.0.0.1 vice-publishers-cdn.vice.com
       127.0.0.1 vice-sundry-assets-cdn.vice.com
       eof
    

Alternatively, sed script below will give you just the article html, images,
and embedded youtube along with all the json data enclosed in <pre></pre>
tags.

    
    
       curl https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-robot-is-livestreaming-all-the-gnarly-stuff-its-seeing-in-the-deep-sea?utm_source=mbtwitter \
       |sed '
       /window.__PREFETCH_DATA/!d;
       s/window.__PREFETCH_DATA = //;
       s/\"[:,]\"/\
       /g;
       s/,\"/\
       /g;
       s/\":/\
       /g;
       s/.[}{]./\
       /g;
       s/[}{]./\
       /g;
       s/[][]//g;
       s/id/<pre>&/;
       s/body/&<\/pre>/;
       s/\\u003C/</g;
       s/\\u003E/>/g;
       s/\\u002F/\//g;
       s/\\"/\"/g;
       s/url/<pre>&/;
       s/embed_code/&<\/pre>/;
       s/autoplay/<pre>&/;
       s/;/<\/pre>/28;
       '

~~~
ge96
I'm not entirely sure I understand what is happening, I have some grasp of the
aim/purpose. Also have pulled pages using CURL before. I'm just curious, does
this mean you have to analyze their page (like console) and find the links
like the ones you posted above for cloudfront,etc... and then assemble it so
you can format it? Not my field but I use ublock/adblock plus and it's not
enough all the time, some videos have an overlay which I swear has a double-
click counter where you have to open 2 ads before you can actually push the
play button to play the video.

It is interesting to grab data and package it yourself through your own reader
but I wonder if it loses the site's design/feel... but you're probably just
after the information anyway.

~~~
10165
"... I use adblock plus and it's not enough all the time..."

Next time this happens it could be useful to make a submission to HN about it.

We might be able to identify and/or solve the problem.

I do not use an ad blocker nor do I use python or youtube-dl yet I never see
any ads and I download all videos before watching them. Indeed I access the
web for the information not the inconsistent design/feel.

What I posted above illustrates examples of two _alternative_ approaches:

1\. Block sources of undesired resources: ads, tracking, etc. The "links"
listed are domains used for undesired resources.

2\. Only make requests to sources of desired resources: the article and its
accompanying images and video. The script extracts only what we _want_ from
the html page.

I use approach #2 more than #1.

As far as I know ad blockers use blocking, #1, exclusively. They need to
maintain a list of domains to block.

~~~
ge96
I wasn't sure if you were serious about posting to HN about adblock haha, I
complain enough as it is about my pathetic life.

In the case of the videos, they're sourced from other domains, it's funny the
site's argument is "Google does this too technically so why are we different?"
But I think the embedded iFrame's that contain the video players have their
own ads. I don't know, it's hard to read JS code when it's minfied (un-minify
it).

You mentioned python?

Anyway thanks for the response.

