161–170 of 205 posts
Recreation.gov has been around for years and it doesn't seem to have been updated substantially recently. It's a great resource and I hope people use it to visit US wildlife areas, but I am curious why it has been submitted.
has the site not been updated at all?
Looks very different from a few years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm getting incredibly frustrated with it as well. I block tracking on the web, so I'm constantly doing multiple pages of free identification for Google. If I were building a bot for a site that uses captchas, I'd just use one of the many paid services that solve captchas. Last I checked, it was ~$0.003 per solve, hardly a blocker. To be honest, I wish I could easily use one of these solvers in my normal web br…
As someone who actually needs/wants to visit about 50% of the recaptcha-using sites: Do the audio challenge. Type something close, the audio challenge barely cares what you type, it has fewer repetitions than the image challenge and is just generally easier.
I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.
is there? whats the source.
Former SRE for the ground up rebuild of Recreation.gov - I gave a talk at Datastax's Accelerate conference this summer about how we built this site, and briefly covered how we combated bots for a while. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/gGDWkkj-UDg
Out of curiosity, is there any reason why this video is shown as unlisted on youtube?
So excited to see this on Hacker News! Brief Shoutout for anyone who would like to see a better online experience for our National Parks System: 1. write into rec.gov asking for a booking API! 2. join accessland.org 3. build apps using Rec.gov's availability API (disclaimer: I'm involved with accessland.org)
What with all the talk about bot abuse in this thread, an API may not be a good idea
An advantage of an API is that keys can be revoked for bad actors, so it at least gives some measure of control where there was none before.
I tend to agree that the lottery is the way to go for popular sites instead of first-to-book; it's fair and stops older folks from never getting a booking because they don't know how to build a faster bot.
There are a few other very effective hacks that I am loathe to publish here, but there _are_ ways to get sites for the determined.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell it doesn't provide availability information, though.
Availability is available :) Booking is not.
Note: If anyone has examples of startups accepting payments on behalf of the government please include them here. It helps with research. (Tax filing companies are the ones that come to mind... looking for other examples.)
I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.
...you are joking, right?
I worked in the bot defense space for quite some time, and it’s insane how much of the bot efforts were dedicated to getting camping spots. I’m happy to see this being recognized because I had many summers ruined because I couldn’t just get my old favorite camp spot.
In my experience many of the best camp sites I have been to have been in federal forest land on forest roads. The tougher the road the better (limits traffic). I have found some amazing places in Colorado that you could never reserve and they don’t exist as official camp sites. You find a good spot and you camp. Camp grounds with packed in sites are... good for some things. I acknowledge this is a problem for some hi…
So excited to see this on Hacker News! Brief Shoutout for anyone who would like to see a better online experience for our National Parks System: 1. write into rec.gov asking for a booking API! 2. join accessland.org 3. build apps using Rec.gov's availability API (disclaimer: I'm involved with accessland.org)
Can you elaborate? You want us to help you build apps or get them to make an API or?
The Federal Parks system took the first step in creating an availability API (with an intention to open up bookings via API as well). California then forked the language (with minor revisions), so they are slated to have an Availability API "soon" (who knows when it will actually come). This sets precedent at the federal and state level for parks, and also establishes a data schema that all the other state, county, city, local govt parks can build into, which would allow us to have a fully integrated discovery system for the public when looking for places to get outside.
A big part of persuading governments to follow is showing examples of what's possible, and the Rec.gov information & availability API, however limited, enables 3rd parties to do just that.