Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#171

Post by lukewarm707 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:13 AM UTC

anonfunction wrote: post #61

elSidCampeador wrote: post #57

I believe NASA / EU provide daily satellite imagery for free (which is of relatively high quality too). I wonder if there's a way to take that data, and training some kind of image recognition model that figures out "movement" or something to the same end? Would be cool to see

Funnily enough, I did find a few satellite sources at the beginning for the map background and noticed that all the ships seemed to be scrubbed from the image. It's an interesting idea, thanks for the comment! The sources I used were: - ESRI World Imagery[1] — free satellite tiles, high-res, but ships are stripped out from the imagery - NASA GIBS - VIIRS[2] — near real-time daily satellite imagery from NASA, but reso…

modifying the data is crazy

doesn't this sort of thing invalidate any kind of experiment because the instrument is no longer trustworthy

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#172

Post by lukewarm707 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #121

anonfunction wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, I did find a few satellite sources at the beginning for the map background and noticed that all the ships seemed to be scrubbed from the image. It's an interesting idea, thanks for the comment! The sources I used were: - ESRI World Imagery[1] — free satellite tiles, high-res, but ships are stripped out from the imagery - NASA GIBS - VIIRS[2] — near real-time daily satellite imagery from NASA, but reso…

It turns out during a war having real time satellite imagery of shipping would be a poor choice.

but what about other experiments, just saying, it's subjective

you could, presumably, mess up other instruments than visual to interfere with enemy countries

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#173

Post by dogscatstrees » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

I don't understand why ships can't just run on Oman's side of the strait, isn't there a dash-line down the middle for territorial waters integrity?

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#174

Post by dewey » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:20 AM UTC

golem14 wrote: post #162

dewey wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transponders get turned off all the time, especially if you don't want to be targeted.

Are they though, in the straight ? I'm not sure it's such a great move, TBH: Given that the baddies clearly can locate ships and see that there's no transponder, and come to the conclusion they need. "Hmm, it turned off transponders and is now moving toward the straight. It's a tanker, and not one of ours, or Russia's or China's. Let's bomb it!" Also, pragmatically, you could look at the transponders suddenly not sho…

Transponders are a voluntary system, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_fleet

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#175

Post by incompatible » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

dogscatstrees wrote: post #173

I don't understand why ships can't just run on Oman's side of the strait, isn't there a dash-line down the middle for territorial waters integrity?

Because it's only a few extra kilometres, Iran could still hit them.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#176

Post by tomtomtom777 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:37 AM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #134

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I am not sure how to respond to this as you seem to have a completely different mindset. You mean to say it is "proven" not to be a solid strategy as in not maximizing profit? Surely, you acknowledge that funding something is a rather direct way of actively supporting it. It is your money and your choice of what you choose to invest it in, and thus how you choose to shape the future. If you buy OIL to make money…

> It is your money and your choice of what you choose to invest it in, and thus how you choose to shape the future. Absolutely, but I believe you are conflating investing vs donating. The literal definition of investing is: > Allocating money (or capital) with the expectation of generating a return or profit over time.

The fact that is used to make profit doesn't absolve us from any moral judgement. Buying stocks of a company improves its financial position allowing it to grow.

Would you buy stocks of ClusterBombsInc over CureForCancerInc because it has slightly better prospects?

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#177

Post by tomtomtom777 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:38 AM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #132

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I am not sure how to respond to this as you seem to have a completely different mindset. You mean to say it is "proven" not to be a solid strategy as in not maximizing profit? Surely, you acknowledge that funding something is a rather direct way of actively supporting it. It is your money and your choice of what you choose to invest it in, and thus how you choose to shape the future. If you buy OIL to make money…

The ticker is USO, not OIL, and it's abundantly clear that you have no idea how it works.

I am responding to someone that used OIL presumably because it is - although incorrect - more clear as an example for those that are not into trading.

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#178

Post by numpad0 » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 9:41 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #157

anonfunction wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, I put some text and tried to make it clear. My first intention was to find some live ship tracking API and see how many ships cross the strait, but they were all hundreds of dollars a month, and behind enterprise contact forms.

You need to send an analyst there with binoculars, a box of cigars and $15k in cash to get realtime trustworthy data

or just a cubesat on a polar orbit with a Nikon Z9 inside

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#179

Post by LarsKrimi » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #63

spaghetdefects wrote: post #47

It was mentioned in this thread and quickly flagged, but Israel broke the ceasefire today by attacking civilians in Lebanon so Iran closed the straight. It was open prior to the ceasefire violation. France's Macron actually just commented on this: https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2041990505760772551

> Israel broke the ceasefire Correct me if I'm wrong, but Israel didn't sign any ceasefire. The ceasefire was between Iran and US. Israel separately announced (not part of any deal) that it would stop attacking Iran. It honored that self-imposed limit. Israel attacked Lebanon (Iran's proxy).

It's impossible to know right now. Some are saying Pakistan messed up by not specifying properly to both sides what would constitute a cease fire. And US (Israel's proxy) is probably a bit unreliable in how their military command and political leadership separately interpreted the agreements as well

/S trying to highlight how stupid it sounds when you try to retrofit sense into this conflict

Re: Show HN: Is Hormuz open yet?

#180

Post by yetihehe » Thu, Apr 09, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

lukewarm707 wrote: post #172

colechristensen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out during a war having real time satellite imagery of shipping would be a poor choice.

but what about other experiments, just saying, it's subjective you could, presumably, mess up other instruments than visual to interfere with enemy countries

"Nice crop watering prediction model you have there, shame if someone modified source data and your crops would falter..."