[HN Gopher] Spy Balloon Simulator
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Spy Balloon Simulator
Author : benryon
Score : 89 points
Date : 2023-02-21 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spyballoonsim.hornetsnestguild.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spyballoonsim.hornetsnestguild.com)
| benryon wrote:
| Found on Reddit. For more context:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/118d18...
| rentpeek wrote:
| interesting - what is the confidence interval on this? if you
| start a balloon in the same spot at the same time does it always
| end up in the same place? or is there a wide range of where it
| could be
| l33t233372 wrote:
| My (uninformed!) suspicion is that the confidence interval has
| to be very wide.
|
| I'm worried about things like: the size and weight of the
| balloon, the altitude of the balloon, and very difficult to
| predict future changes in wind speed and direction during the
| course of the balloon's flight.
| [deleted]
| deepfrdpancake wrote:
| Hi I am the creator of the site
|
| 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
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Thank you for making my Antarctica balloon simulator dream a
| reality.
| deepfrdpancake wrote:
| haha antarctica is a fun region to simulate
|
| at around 60 deg south there is no land at all, causing the
| wind and sea current to be exteremly strong, meaning the
| balloon can 'circumnavigate' the globe in time as little as 5
| days, it is also known as the screaming sixties
| chatbotsarewack wrote:
| [flagged]
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| 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)
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| 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)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| definately modern art.
|
| The question is the purpose
| sfcarrot wrote:
| 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.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Never ask a geek, "why?", just nod your head and back away
| slowly.
| daveslash wrote:
| " _Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they
| could, they didn 't stop to consider if they _should__ ~ Dr.
| Ian Malcom, 1993.
| aeturnum wrote:
| 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.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| 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.
| shagie wrote:
| Look at https://www.aviationweather.gov/windtemp with the
| levels on the side for different altitude.
|
| It is possible for the balloon to change its altitude and
| then pick up different wind directions and velocities.
|
| https://x.company/projects/loon/
|
| > To identify helpful wind patterns, Loon used advanced
| predictive models to create interactive maps of the skies.
| These maps allowed the team to determine the wind speed and
| direction at specific altitudes, times, and locations. The
| team then developed smart algorithms to help determine the
| most effective flight paths through the varying wind layers.
| With the aid of these algorithms, the balloons could
| accurately sail the winds over thousands of kilometers to
| reach a desired location and remain clustered around those
| destinations in order to deliver consistent connectivity
| below.
|
| And https://x.company/blog/posts/drifting-efficiently-
| through-th... gets into it more.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > It is possible for the balloon to change its altitude and
| then pick up different wind directions and velocities.
|
| I've tried multiple different levels from 090 to 520, and
| it seems the deviation within level is extremely minimal.
|
| i.e. maybe a difference between 70deg and 75deg, but if
| it's going in the general direction of east, there's not an
| altitude to turn around or even sidetrack.
| shagie wrote:
| That's today with today's weather patterns, and you're
| only up to 52,000 feet. The spy balloon was working in
| the altitudes of 60,000 to 120,000.
|
| Look at +6 hours at GPI (Glacier Park in Montana). At
| 34,000 its easterly at 24,000 its westerly.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Yeah, there's no way to adjust altitude with this simulation.
| It apparently assumes that it reaches some (unspecified )
| altitude and just stays there?
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| It's fun and stimulates the imagination
| kilgnad wrote:
| You don't need a simulation. This has been done successfully
| from Japan with bombs hitched to it.
|
| 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.
| rickyallan wrote:
| Nice
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Ha ha, everything I launched from the U.S. passed over China.
|
| What is that faint whiff I detected? Is it web-site-as-
| performance-art?
| debesyla wrote:
| Your balloons flew west..?
| Avicebron wrote:
| [flagged]
| elicash wrote:
| 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).
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Darn, I was hoping this would actually be one of those "XYZ
| Simulator" games on, say, the Steam games store.
| mlyle wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| If you know more than others, that's great, but then please
| either (1) share some of what you know, so the rest of us can
| learn; or (2) don't post. Supercilious putdowns only make
| things worse.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
| deepsun wrote:
| But it's not a shallow dismissal. It gives feedback a
| particular shortcoming that makes the whole idea very
| misleading -- imagine a journalist making a conclusion that
| there's no way a baloon could fly over US territory based on
| such or similar simulation.
|
| It can be possible to fix that shortcoming and make the idea
| useful.
| phpnode wrote:
| Would adding the ability to control altitude make it _useful_?
| beambot wrote:
| Definitely. Programs such as Google's Project Loon used
| altitude to access different wind profiles so that they could
| plan & control the balloons' paths. You see this a lot with
| hot air balloons: The wind at one altitude can be going the
| opposite direction than the wind a few hundred feet below.
|
| https://x.company/projects/loon/
| shagie wrote:
| It would provide a better representation of the ability to
| steer the balloon.
|
| As it is now, it suggests "you launch it and it goes
| somewhere randomly." But if you were able to demonstrate that
| it is able to steer by changing its altitude it becomes more
| clear that overflying an area can be a deliberate act.
|
| Additionally, the data of "here is the current vector map for
| the winds at some altitude" doesn't handle the forecast of
| what they will be at a different location in 6 hours.
|
| Having this as a game with "overfly these cities and score
| points" combined with using one month's worth of wind data
| and forecast information for 6h and 12h from now (rather than
| a point in time) would be more accurate for what it can do.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| yes. winds change at altitudes, so you might find it
| faster/slower depending on your altitude. or even going in
| the opposite direction
| Trufa wrote:
| Way to leave positive feedback, sheesh, people seem to forget
| there's actual people behind this doing it for fun and for
| free.
| shagie wrote:
| Additionally, wind data for altitudes at or above 60,000 feet
| isn't commonly available. The spy balloon was in the 60,000 to
| 120,000 range.
|
| The variability of wind direction at different altitudes can be
| seen at https://www.aviationweather.gov/windtemp and
| https://www.aviationweather.gov/windtemp/data?region=slc
| buildsjets wrote:
| A more useful observation would be that without the ability to
| control altitude, it misleads the unknowledgeable to make
| erroneous conclusions about the capability of high altitude
| balloons to follow predetermined flight paths.
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(page generated 2023-02-21 23:00 UTC)