Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

pilane.obviy.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–87 of 87 posts

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#81

Post by giantg2 »

nradov wrote: post #69
giantg2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it works against all drones. It is a valid option that has shown efficacy. In the context of this thread (one's home/property), it seems reasonably applicable, and in many locations, more likely to be legal than many alternatives.

Wrong. Shotguns haven't shown any real efficacy when used by soldiers (or homeowners) on the ground. In the USA it is a federal crime to shoot at aircraft, including drones.

I guess you can go tell the military they are wrong, along with all the homeowners that have been arrested for shooting drones down with shotguns. You might want to do some actual research before just spouting off whatever you think when the facts don't support it. They even make shot shells designed to take down drones.

Yes shooting down a drone is an offense in the US, unless you're in law enforcement or the military in specific situations.

https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2024/analysis...

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#82

Post by MuffinFlavored »

echoangle wrote: post #19
gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much accuracy can you possibly get from a 600x600 image?

From the regular images, probably not a lot. But if you see a plane crossing in front of the moon or the sun, you could determine a ground track of the shadow of the plane. If you get that with two different planes, you probably have a pretty accurate position (a few hundred meters). Combined with the image of the setup, showing a balcony, someone could probably find the exact location.

> If you get that with two different planes, you probably have a pretty accurate position (a few hundred meters).

What?! I've seen the viral guy on social media who can pinpoint places in the world by looking at a photo but... a few hundred meters based on the angle of the sun/moon? That's wild!

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#83

Post by echoangle »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #82
echoangle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the regular images, probably not a lot. But if you see a plane crossing in front of the moon or the sun, you could determine a ground track of the shadow of the plane. If you get that with two different planes, you probably have a pretty accurate position (a few hundred meters). Combined with the image of the setup, showing a balcony, someone could probably find the exact location.

> If you get that with two different planes, you probably have a pretty accurate position (a few hundred meters). What?! I've seen the viral guy on social media who can pinpoint places in the world by looking at a photo but... a few hundred meters based on the angle of the sun/moon? That's wild!

If you have time of the image accurate to the minute, and you know that the plane, sun and observer were on a line, the observer has to be on the ground track of the shadow of the plane during this minute. If you have that from two planes on different tracks, the observer has to be at the intersection of the ground tracks.

This method is not just from measuring the angle of moon/sun, but using the plane (which has a known position) as a marker. Just by using the angle of sun and moon, you need to be extremely precise. 1 degree error is 1/360 of the circumference of earth distance, that’s about 100km.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#85

Post by BrandoElFollito »

concerndc1tizen wrote: post #28
pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

Nice idea! Related: In Black Mirror, they pause the advertisement when you disable the sound. So maybe you'll eventually have to use a separate sound system whereby they cannot detect that you're muting it. Then, they'll track your eyes and require you to watch the screen :) At which point do you stop consuming?

In France the first TV program (TF1) now has unskippable ads. Until now you could just start later, get back to the beginning and fast forward the ads. I am not sure how this works if you recorded your program.

I do not watch TV but it was in the news.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#86

Post by kurikuri »

notjoemama wrote: post #47
concerndc1tizen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice idea! Related: In Black Mirror, they pause the advertisement when you disable the sound. So maybe you'll eventually have to use a separate sound system whereby they cannot detect that you're muting it. Then, they'll track your eyes and require you to watch the screen :) At which point do you stop consuming?

> Then, they'll track your eyes and require you to watch the screen :) Check out the recent controversy over Activision and Call of Duty. Evidently the game code requires access to your webcam and the company has patents on using your gameplay to train a bot that play like you do, then uses the idle time to make the bot play while you are away. This bulks up the pool of players ensuring you are matched with people re…

>”There’s also a patent for detecting emotional state”

What a tragic state of affairs! Computationally detecting human emotion is an open problem in human-computer interaction, and has been for a while now. I wish I had the hubris and audacity to file a process patent which claims to be able to do so.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#87

Post by naveen_k »

naveen_k wrote: post #70
pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

Perfect timing! I got annoyed by Ads in streaming services and decided to build something to mute the TV when an Ad comes on. Simple vision based system. I'll post a write up in a few days.

FYI, the project it posted here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42856980
Post reply on HN