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Terra Bella

terrabella.google.com

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Re: Terra Bella

#101

Post by phantom_oracle »

This is something equivalent to what geo-mapping companies have been doing around large industrial areas using low-flying aeroplanes taking high-res photography for analysis.

It's basically "adding satellite" to geo-mapping technology to "address real-time demand and analysis".

It's all good if they keep this shit near the mining/farming/ports, etc.

However, this being Google (Big Brother), you can expect that they'd try using this for "traffic analysis" (cause Waze is not enough) and then slowly encroach into your neighbourhood, so that when they finally launch their blimps, you can look at the sky and you will see the ads that your browser blocked.

Granted though, if Google isn't/wasn't going to do this, somebody else probably will (or already is).

Re: Terra Bella

#102

Post by vram22 »

JBReefer wrote: post #92
everfree wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way is by using JS to change the address bar location using window.location or history.pushState(), instead of using history.relpaceState() which doesn't create an extra history entry each time.

I would vote for a president that ran a campaign _only_ based on quirky punishments for those who use history.pushState() They should have to open a door repeatedly, only to have someone push them back when they try to walk through for a few weeks, for example!

Great idea. I would vote for that too. Like Sisyphus ...

Edit: spelling.

Re: Terra Bella

#103

Post by vram22 »

everfree wrote: post #66
vram22 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The worst part was trying to Back. Just scrolling actually adds a bunch of URLs to your back queue How does that happen?

One way is by using JS to change the address bar location using window.location or history.pushState(), instead of using history.relpaceState() which doesn't create an extra history entry each time.

Got it, thanks. I think I've been experiencing similar stuff on some sites for the last few days, but my attention was more on the page topic, also may have thought that it was an issue with my mouse (that I had to click a few times to go to previous page). So it's good to know.

Re: Terra Bella

#104

Post by Confusion »

manaskarekar wrote: post #4

This post makes me wonder about space pollution/saturation. Are there any resources that talk about what is a safe number of satellites for different altitudes and the effects of space pollution? I have heard of the Kessler Syndrome, any suggestions that discuss this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

You may be interested in this[1] post by Charles Stross. I think there are a few very insightful comments on there.

[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/09/the-skys...

Re: Terra Bella

#106

Post by kilovoltaire »

anotherhacker wrote: post #82
anotherhacker wrote: post #81

Can someone either summarize what this is, or point to a another reference? My questions: How does it make my life better. What can I do with this service, that I couldn't do before. As others mentioned, the website is difficult to understand (for me at least)

Ok I found this, but it's just as nebulas. "As proud as we are to have played a leading role in developing satellite technologies, we have realized that our vision extends far beyond boxes in the sky. As Google revolutionized search for the online world, we have set our eyes on pioneering the search for patterns of change in the physical world. In order to focus firmly on the future, we’re pursuing that vision under…

Thanks for the quote. And just fyi it's "nebulous" :)

Re: Terra Bella

#108

Post by vram22 »

trymas wrote: post #60

Readable version: [view-source: https://terrabella.google.com/?s=about-us&c=about-history ] (paste whole text in between brackets, seems like HN does not support markdown links) Great content, though original presentation is unusable. My whole computer started to lag, not only the web browser (chrome). Probably Google's web developers use very powerful workstations..

>Great content, though original presentation is unusable. My whole computer started to lag, not only the web browser (chrome). Probably Google's web developers use very powerful workstations..

Yes, this is one thing I've noticed; I think your guess is right. It is a peeve of mine about some Google products. Some of their other products seem to have the same or similar issues - and not just performance; truncated or somewhat unusable UI is another area, due to monitor size, for one.

When Wave first came out, I tried, it was so slow as to be unusable.

You'd think that they would test their products on lower-specced hardware, knowing that not everyone has the same h/w as them.

Re: Terra Bella

#109

Post by gardano »

cpeterso wrote: post #80
dbcurtis wrote: post #43

Is there a readable version of the web site that doesn't have obnoxious scrolling? Someone needs to tell their designers about the Principle of Least Surprise. I'll look at this after they fix this so it doesn't give me a headache.

How does an unusable page like this even pass preliminary design review? Perhaps the page works well on the 16-core desktop computers with giant monitors common in the ivory tower.

7 year old iMac with a dodgy GPU, and I crashed and burned. Can only run in safe mode now.

While this is a not-uncommon occurrence for me, it's really freaking annoying.

Re: Terra Bella

#110

Post by sbuttgereit »

dbcurtis wrote: post #43

Is there a readable version of the web site that doesn't have obnoxious scrolling? Someone needs to tell their designers about the Principle of Least Surprise. I'll look at this after they fix this so it doesn't give me a headache.

At least you got that far... using Google's Chrome to see Google's Terra Bella first time resulted in an "Aw, Snap" crash in Chrome before I got to the scrolling. Now I get there, but not without Chrome's "Rats! WebGL Hit a snag!" error.

From the sounds of it, it would have been more painful if everything worked.

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