It tells you when to go outside and look up to see the satellites as they pass over your house. It's a cool sight to see because there are up to 60 of them crossing the sky at the same time in a line.
That was unexpectedly splendid: my city isn't covered by StreetView, with the sole exception of the interior of the city museum in the old palace. So according to the simulated view tomorrow at 0612 I can look for a string of pearls gliding across the gilded baroque ceiling of my unaccustomedly spacious bedroom.
Most users will let the site use their device’s gps. Having the first step to be ”input your gps coordinates” would alienate a HUGE portion of the possible users.
The site's most important feature is Street View, and a postal code doesn't allow Street View to work. Neither does geoip.
I used to display only the 3D globe by default, with a gigantic bright green button to switch to street view. The majority of people never saw the Street View feature even though it was only one button press away. The button even had an animated effect to draw attention. If you also had to type in some text before seeing Street View, hardly anyone would bother.
I don’t have data backing this, but I can’t imagine the vast majority of people aren’t totally fine giving their location to a site like this if they’re interested.
Your way seems like it just adds a step and possible side effects like people thinking less of the site for not having their correct location or not seeing the improve location option after being turned off, etc.
It's the old browser, not anything to do with your privacy settings. Sorry, when you decide to use an old and uncommon browser version the price you pay is that sites aren't going to be testing compatibility with it.
I had the same issue the first time I loaded the page on iOS 13.3 safari. Reloading the page fixed it. Having things be too automatic causes failures to be catastrophic rather than mild.
Firefox 60 is from May 2018. It's 12 major versions behind. You may not like it, but it's a fact that web browsers change quickly these days. Mozilla may support ESR for a year but I don't. This is a side project and my test matrix is already too large; I don't have time to test uncommon versions of each browser.
I'm just a little surprised that Firefox would have changed enough since last May to break your site.
And there's also the other tweaks I've made. For example, I don't allow WebGL or WebRTC. And I spoof referrer to a site's root. Plus other stuff that I don't recall offhand.
But anyway, now I'm curious, so I'll test in some otherf VMs, with different browsers.
The site doesn't work at all on the iPad I'm reading HN with right now, but I'm not complaining about it because it's running iOS 10.0.1. I expect lots of sites to not work correctly -- and they often don't!
I wasn't really complaining. I just mentioned it. And that was unnecessary, and distracted from my real point. I only mentioned it to explain why I couldn't see behavior after answering the popup about location permission.
Yes this was my immediate thought. Especially if I want to check multiple locations for e.g. family. When I declined to share location I got an exception.
...suddenly I'm shy about listing my finger printable browser details online. I'll tell you I'm using brave.
I still can't use the app because the location denial is permanent, so I'll have to clear something in the browser...might be a bug worth addressing.
Edit 2: Jesus Christ man I had no idea I was giving you my fucking address. That's a little too granular for my taste, a warning would be nice. You could just use the zip code or prompt for the address, but seeing Google go straight to my address in streetview really rubs me the wrong way. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt but it looks like you're harvesting PII.
The address is used to show you a google street view pointing in the exact direction and part of the sky the satellites will cross. It's a super useful feature because it would otherwise be really hard to tell what angle or what part of the sky to watch. And accusing the guy of harvesting PII? Get a grip.
Look I can't edit the comment now but this isn't the kind of information that could be collected without the warning. Especially since an address with an IP can be deanonymizing.
I didn't click the "notify me" button but I imagine it's asking for either a phone number or an email.
If this is truly innocent I'm sorry for my reaction, but you should be asking people first, given the current state of advertisement and surveillance on the net. We both read HN.
> Edit 2: Jesus Christ man I had no idea I was giving you my fucking address. That's a little too granular for my taste
So the accuracy of the location being provided depends entirely on your device. From a website (or any other app) perspective, they simply request the client provide it's location.
Now if you happen to have a strong GPS lock on your device with 5m or less accuracy, that's not something the website (or app) knows ahead of time.
> If this is truly innocent I'm sorry for my reaction, but you should be asking people first, given the current state of advertisement and surveillance on the net. We both read HN.
Not trying to victim blame here, but if you're claiming more technical audience and concerns about privacy, are you genuinely unaware that this is how location services and permissions works? If so, I guess this is a painful learning experience for you. You're gonna have a bad time now as you think about how many different apps you've given location permissions too, because a lot of those apps will have a bunch of third party trackers involved that are connecting your IP, location, along with device identifier and any other information they can use to add to a much larger database to identify exactly who you are and everyone you know (think I'm exagerating on the last part? Have you ever shared your contacts list with an app like Whatsapp to find other contacts?)
The internet today sucks. I don't think this particular author is the person you want to be pooping hard on, they're highly unlikely to be part of the problem.
As a matter of fact I default to explicitly turning off all location permissions. I've gone to great pains to practice clean opsec. This is effectively a forced breach. I clicked on something cool expecting to be promoted for a zip code.
That's fine, but as GP said, the browser geolocation API asks for location data from the device, and this is what it gives you back. Every app and website that has a "use my location" button will provide your latitude and longitude as accurately as possible, which is usually high enough to know not only your address, but also that you are currently in your downstairs bathroom. I'm also a bit surprised that you are technically savvy enough to maintain strict opsec but you didn't know how geolocation services work on a smartphone. Regardless, the developer of the website does not deserve your ire for using a common browser API. The app could be improved by offering a UI for entering a zip code, but they didn't set out to steal your PII.
For this to be a forced breach, the website must be intentionally exploiting a security issue on the device to expose exact location coordinates. If so, I’d suggest perusing the source code, as there might be bug bounty money there. Or patching your device. EDIT: to be clear, this would also be a dick move by the website author and they should be publicly shamed more than this.
Alternatively, they may be accidentally triggering a vulnerability (more bug bounty money or reasons to patch)
Alternatively, you accidentally gave the permission for location services when prompted.
Alternatively, your IP has a GeoIP location that is at / very close to your home address. If this is the case, GeoIP databases are like telephone directories of yore. Except not only are they globally public, you also cant opt out.
And I suspect that you're using a VPN service, given the comment about deanonymization.
But really, this is exactly why it's kinda sorta pointless to use VPNs and Tor browser on smartphones. All it takes is one slipup, and your anonymity is toast.
hmmm, I'm in Firefox with NoScript. I received no warning about trying to use my location. According to the the street view, it placed my location at city hall in downtown. I actually live about 10 miles from there.
I'm confused about the reports of showing street view without entering a location. If you deny the location permission, it won't show street view unless you explicitly type in an address. Are you sure you didn't do that? Or maybe you visited the site sometime in the past and already granted location permission?
leolabs.space - does something similar for tracking low Earth orbit satellites. The great thing with this tool is that you can modify the velocity and filter the data.
Your site is exceptional, thanks for creating it. I used it a few weeks ago to see a Starlink pass over my area. I like how you added the simulated view in Streetview, I think that will help a lot of people understand what to look for that aren't necessarily astronomy types.
I saw the L2 group go over my house tonight! It was fantastic.
All my previous experience has been viewing the ISS, and watching the Starlink satellites go over was a much different experience. Each was only visible for a handful of seconds, but they kept coming one after the other in a perfect line, each equidistant from the next.
I didn't stay out to watch them all go by but it was a fantastic experience that I'd recommend to anyone.
I'd just like to say thank you so much for posting this link! Because of you, I went to a beach bonfire in New Zealand tonight, and had a beautiful view of Starlink at 10:02 pm. I was so excited when I saw it that I disturbed many other conversations, but other people were equally amazed!
I'm working to implement alerts via calendar events right now actually. I already have alerts based on web push, but frankly the web push notifications API sucks. You only get the notifications on one device, they are delayed by random amounts of time (hours in some cases), the UI for enabling them is spammy and lame, and Safari doesn't support them.
Calendar events suck too because there's no standard way to add an event to a system calendar across platforms. Even the same browser on different platforms acts differently.
Times are always displayed in your local time zone according to your OS/web browser settings. Now that you mention it, I should put an "add to calendar" link in there.
I finished the "add to calendar" feature, and also I started converting and displaying time zones (if you choose a location that's outside your local time zone).
Oh that's great. Now I can better aim my Elon-Sattelite-fryer device.
I already collected 25 old microwave ovens which I plan to operate as phased array to produce a collimated beam of microwaves directed at the satellites to fry their electronics. I might have a better chance If know the exact frequency their receivers are tuned to. Does anybody know more?
The reckless littering of our precious LEO must end here!
I work remotely and would love to live in a rural area but I'm largely tethered to suburbia for the internet speeds. I can't express how excited I am at the possibilities coming from satellite internet.
fwiw, I appreciated it. I just wrote this in a separate forum:
> don't miss out on this chance to see Elon Musk's secret plans for world domination before he goes full megalomaniacal evil Iron Man, when we can still naively look up in the sky and pretend it's nice
While I'm sure this is mostly not-that-likely, I totally agree that a discussion about the vulnerability of such systems would be intriguing. What kind of cyberpunk future are we developing as a check against the inevitability of some billionaire's less-than-wholesome private interstellar armament? I'm sure such a discussion may provide a modicum of comfort to Johnny Depp's ex-wives, at least.
It tells you when to go outside and look up to see the satellites as they pass over your house
This must be made up. I have been assured repeatedly on HN that Starlink is a visual non-factor, and that nobody would notice them in the sky, they won't get in the way of astronomy, stargazing, or just enjoying the night sky like humans have done for thousands of years.
The satellites are much more visible when they were just launched, when they are in a “low drag” configuration. It takes some time for them to reach operational altitude, at which point they shift to a “low brightness” configuration.
And I don’t think anyone ever (credibly) said they don’t affect astronomy. They do. Fortunately SpaceX is working with the astronomy community to minimize the effect.
If I do look up in the nights sky and see many faint little points, it’s still something to marvel at. But I think once at operational altitude they will be difficult to see with the naked eye.
I saw the first Starlink set a couple of weeks ago, looking up from a city street. It is amazing sight, a line of moving stars, not very bright, stretching horizon to horizon. When all the satellites are in orbit, it will drastically change the night sky, especially in the early evening when they reflect the most light from the Sun.
It tells you when to go outside and look up to see the satellites as they pass over your house. It's a cool sight to see because there are up to 60 of them crossing the sky at the same time in a line.