[HN Gopher] Average color of the NYC sky every 5 minutes
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Average color of the NYC sky every 5 minutes
        
       Author : sethbannon
       Score  : 476 points
       Date   : 2023-06-08 18:36 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nskyc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nskyc.com)
        
       | avelis wrote:
       | It's unfortunate you can't bookmark dates but really cool none
       | the less.
        
       | scrame wrote:
       | great domain name!
        
       | rollinDyno wrote:
       | Very cute, although I'd like to see what the results are like
       | when choosing the dominant rather than the average color.
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | national smoke map
       | 
       | https://data.usatoday.com/fires/
        
         | burkaman wrote:
         | Also https://fire.airnow.gov/
        
           | ck2 wrote:
           | airnow is almost useless in some areas
           | 
           | The only single sensor near my city is 50 miles away, it says
           | air quality is fine, yet the smoke tracker map has several
           | wildfires nearby
           | 
           | We need a huge, reliable pm2.5 etc network, start with every
           | single public school
        
             | shagie wrote:
             | A significant number of the sensors show up as "LOW COST
             | PM2.5 SENSOR (PurpleAir)"
             | 
             | https://www.purpleair.com sells those sensors (you can see
             | their coverage on their map).
             | 
             | It would be something to assist/help fund and public
             | schools would be an excellent place to have them be
             | situated.
        
       | UberFly wrote:
       | This is such a cool idea. Some people are so cleaver.
        
       | foxandmouse wrote:
       | I find it fascinating how Toronto is no where near as bad as New
       | York. The fight to protect the environment has to be a global one
        
         | bobthepanda wrote:
         | At the latitudes of the US and Canada, the prevailing winds
         | blow from west to east.
        
         | post-it wrote:
         | https://firesmoke.ca is an excellent resource for seeing the
         | current smoke levels across the continent.
        
       | fragmede wrote:
       | For SF, there's https://isitfoggy.com/daylight2.html
        
       | karles wrote:
       | Is this data not polluted by the skyline? Or does it somewhat
       | take buildings/the skyline into account, and correct for the
       | shades of these objects?
        
         | mikepurvis wrote:
         | Based on the color selected out of the night shots, I'm
         | assuming the average is of just the plain sky, with the water
         | and buildings cropped out.
        
           | andai wrote:
           | From some fiddling in an image editor, it looks like it's a
           | fairly small rectangle (I'd guess top left corner?)
        
       | samstave wrote:
       | Zooming out is kinda neat...
       | 
       | But I would like to be able to see the background image for some
       | of the shots bythemselves - as there are some cool pics of that
       | view.
       | 
       | https://i.imgur.com/S9I3arV.png
        
       | sgt101 wrote:
       | This is going to sound brutal - but citizens of New York... if
       | there is anyone in the world to blame for this, it is you...
       | 
       | Sorry. I know that's horrid. But it's also true.
        
         | bobbylarrybobby wrote:
         | Can you explain that?
        
           | sgt101 wrote:
           | Sure, I will explain. New York is one of the epicenters of
           | consumption that has driven climate change and precipitated
           | the wild fires in Canada. The USA has been one of the most
           | sustained producers of carbon in the world for the last
           | century and has exported this tendency world wide.
           | 
           | Boys and girls - you did this. The sky is orange because of
           | things you did. Face it, front up and deal with it.
        
           | whimsicalism wrote:
           | My guess is they are referring to NYC as center of capital
           | markets.
        
             | sgt101 wrote:
             | No - personal carbon consumption. New Yorkers have lived an
             | unsustainable life style for the last 100 years, for the
             | last 50 years you've all known about it - but you've done
             | nothing about it.
             | 
             | Yes - the capital markets are also huge enablers.
        
         | jpk wrote:
         | Without really supporting or elaborating on your thesis here,
         | this comment it basically content-free.
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Does this go back further than 2 days?
        
       | throwaway290 wrote:
       | It would be interesting if he specified how he came up with RGB
       | values for sky color, like what is his neutral grey point etc.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | Yeah you can't just do this with a consumer webcam out of the
         | box because they're constantly trying to auto-adjust the white
         | point. I mean not if you want anything "accurate". (Some
         | webcams allow you to lock the white point in software though.)
         | 
         | But indeed, it is very non-obvious what you'd select for the
         | constant exposure and white point (or combined as a gray
         | point). You might also want to apply a strong curve to the
         | brightness so nighttime skies are quite visible.
        
       | georgeplusplus wrote:
       | My heart goes out to new yorkers. This cannot be healthy. If
       | there are long-standing health repercussions I doubt there will
       | be any recourse they can take.
        
         | netfortius wrote:
         | Haven't the Americans looked for a reason to invade Canada, for
         | like ... forever?
        
           | okennedy wrote:
           | Because that worked out so well for us the last time we
           | tried... [0]
           | 
           | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | That was invading _Britain_ more like, it 's time for a
             | rematch.
             | 
             | Of course, we may re"match" by lighting California on fire
             | again when the prevailing winds are from the Southwest.
        
             | boomboomsubban wrote:
             | According to that, the entire war cost ~$105 million
             | dollars, which is about $2 billion dollars today. So 3
             | years of war equals around one day of the current US
             | military budget.
             | 
             | I realize your post was mostly silly, but it made me
             | curious so I ran the numbers.
        
             | ksherlock wrote:
             | The US kicked the British out of Canada in 1867.
        
               | amscanne wrote:
               | I presume this is a joke (though I don't get it), because
               | AFAIK the US had nothing at all to do with Canadian
               | federation.
        
               | ksherlock wrote:
               | Post civil war, there was concern that Canada would be
               | manifest destinied. Britain was somewhat supportive of
               | the CSA and Alaska was purchased in 1867 so there were
               | reasons to think they were next.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | No, we've got a good thing going obviously. We have a nice
           | big peaceful border, they send us celebrities and artists,
           | and we will absolutely demolish any country that fucks with
           | them.
           | 
           | We generate plenty of wildfire smoke internally anyway.
        
         | nemo44x wrote:
         | People will be fine and no one is going to develop long term
         | health issues from a couple days of smokey air. I feel bad for
         | people with lung conditions as breathing was made more
         | difficult for a bit but no one is dying from this.
         | 
         | And what recourse? Who?
        
           | chimeracoder wrote:
           | > People will be fine and no one is going to develop long
           | term health issues from a couple days of smokey air. I feel
           | bad for people with lung conditions as breathing was made
           | more difficult for a bit but no one is dying from this.
           | 
           | That's simply not true. People can, and do, develop long-term
           | issues from acute exposure to bad air (that's literally why
           | the range is called "Hazardous" on the AQI).
           | 
           | Not to mention that one in ten New Yorkers has asthma, which
           | means that yes, people can literally die from acute exposure
           | to air pollution.
        
             | nemo44x wrote:
             | > People can, and do, develop long-term issues from acute
             | exposure to bad air
             | 
             | Not for a day, no. At least not for what was going
             | happening in the East Coast. It wasn't like ash and debris
             | was flying through the air. It was like sitting around a
             | campfire. People aren't that fragile. Now, hypochondriacs
             | might think they are (and we have a growing population of
             | those), but they simply aren't. Is it bad for someone with
             | COPD? Yes, but the damage had already been done for years.
        
               | georgeplusplus wrote:
               | Go directly inhale camp fire smoke for 24 hours straight
               | and tell me how you feel.
               | 
               | Do you live in NY? I dont know anyone that lives here
               | that feels the way you do. I can only reason that someone
               | who is so far removed from the situation can say
               | something so callous.
               | 
               | My dad who has 65 years in NYC has never seen it this
               | bad, and that was with pollution before EPA was created.
        
               | nemo44x wrote:
               | I do in fact life in the area. From Tuesday afternoon to
               | Wednesday afternoon it smelled a bit smokey and it was
               | hazy and the sun reflected off the particles. Was eerie.
               | 
               | And I kept my windows closed and we did not go to the
               | playground. But the dog was still walked and I went about
               | my business walking around or driving when needed. It was
               | an exceptional scenario but it wasn't dangerous.
               | 
               | People need to get over themselves I think. It was fine
               | for the short duration it was.
        
               | dahart wrote:
               | > It wasn't like ash and debris was flying through the
               | air.
               | 
               | Isn't that exactly what smoke is? It's worse than visibly
               | large particles, the small particles are more likely to
               | get inside your lungs and do damage.
               | 
               | > Not for a day, no.
               | 
               | You might want to familiarize yourself with the evidence-
               | based WHO air quality guidelines which sets standards
               | based on short-term 8 & 24 hour exposure periods, and
               | separate long-term recommendations for annual exposure.
               | https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-
               | stories/detail/what-ar...
               | 
               | The recommended short-term 24 hour exposure levels are
               | far below what NYC saw (as well as what many cities in
               | the west have had for months at a time over the last ten
               | years. These numbers are published based on the WHO's
               | ability to _demonstrate_ that adverse health effects
               | appear in the population when exposure exceeds these
               | levels. The recommendations were lowered recently
               | compared to their 2005 numbers because the studies and
               | data and evidence have grown in the last 20 years and it
               | shows that even mild levels of exposure result in more
               | doctor's visits, more lung conditions, more athsma, more
               | damage and more risk.
        
               | nemo44x wrote:
               | Junk "science". It's extrapolations that make no sense
               | and that don't translate to reality. Ever heard the
               | saying "lies, damn lies, and statistics?" Well that's
               | what this interpretation is.
               | 
               | You can't generalize from a 1-off event like we saw
               | (where most nobody was being exposed for much of it) and
               | then average across the population and say it causes
               | things.
               | 
               | Repeated exposure, yes. But not this. Is it good for you?
               | No. But it's not like it's really hurting anyone. Walking
               | past a person smoking a cigarette isnt going to give you
               | cancer no matter how hysterical sone people get about it.
               | It's ridiculous to even entertain it.
        
               | dahart wrote:
               | Crazy. Why do you believe that? Have you read the WHO's
               | methodology? What is your expertise in air quality
               | studies and/or policy? Do you know how many scientists
               | and organizations outside the WHO agree with their
               | assessment?
               | 
               | Nobody said anything about walking past a single smoker,
               | that's pure straw man in this context. The stats also
               | aren't generalized from a single event. You're arguing
               | armchair FUD logic without any facts, against real-world
               | evidence from a global organization with a many decades
               | history of monitoring all available science on this
               | topic.
               | 
               | The full methodology and 24 pages of scientific
               | references are available online:
               | https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240034228
        
               | nemo44x wrote:
               | > Crazy. Why do you believe that?
               | 
               | Because no one is dying from some smoke blowing across
               | the region for a day, lol.
               | 
               | Chronic pollution is a problem. Breathing bad air daily
               | is a problem. working around smoky environments day in
               | and day out is a problem Having some smoke in the area
               | for a day is not.
               | 
               | I'm tired of the neurotics and hypochondriacs making big
               | deals out of things that aren't. Like, don't get fat and
               | don't smoke, and use bad things in moderation and get
               | regular checkups and don't stress about everything and
               | you'll live to 80 in most cases. Some people get unlucky.
               | 
               | People dramatizing this recent event like it was HARMFUL
               | to them and "scary" or some type of public health crisis
               | are insane. Posts like yours that for whatever reason
               | want to reference something that isn't really science but
               | is used like it's irrefutable truth to say that the smoke
               | event was somehow dangerous - I mean, just c'mon. It's
               | fine.
        
               | dahart wrote:
               | > Because no one is dying from smoke blowing across the
               | region for a day, lol.
               | 
               | Why do you think that? How do you know, exactly?
               | 
               | I would totally recommend reading the WHO report! The
               | guidelines are based on mortality statistics. They have
               | in fact studied how often people are dying from a 24 hour
               | exposure to bad air. Statistically, a few people are
               | actually dying from one "bad day" exposure. It's not many
               | people, but it's still a measurable number greater than
               | zero, and they are demonstrating the number is greater
               | than if they didn't have the one bad day of smoke. Yes,
               | for a single event it affects the most prone population.
               | What we are talking about is risk factors. Most people
               | will not die from one day of smoke, but that doesn't mean
               | no one will.
               | 
               | I could see this topic being irritating to hear about if
               | you don't believe in science and don't trust the WHO, and
               | we certainly have a political climate with people
               | intentionally trying to reduce public trust in science
               | and organizations like the WHO. But it's worth keeping an
               | open mind and studying a little bit about what they're
               | actually saying, what they're not saying, and how they
               | arrived at their conclusions.
        
               | nemo44x wrote:
               | > They have in fact studied how often people are dying
               | from a 24 hour exposure to bad air. Statistically, a few
               | people are actually dying from one "bad day" exposure.
               | 
               | Yeah it wasn't the million other things they did in the
               | last 80 years of their lives. Perfectly healthy people
               | keeling over because of a bad air quality day lol. Please
               | take a moment to use a small bit of logic here. This is a
               | make believe idea like people who died in car accidents
               | but had Covid were victims of Covid. This is aggregate
               | nonsense and to suggest a single, mild event (hundreds of
               | miles from danger) was the bullet to the head is so far
               | fetched as to be hilarious to me.
               | 
               | I'm not a science renter but as a person highly educated
               | in that field I can spit bullshit quickly. I know what
               | the report is saying because stats and math are fun to
               | tell a story. But just because you're using the tools of
               | science doesn't mean you're doing meaningful science.
               | 
               | Your report is a political statement to justify
               | power/action when it isn't warranted. Much like people
               | used to reference the word of god as authorities truth.
               | 
               | Maybe all the alarmists and doom sayers caused unhealthy
               | rubes undue stress that that's what did it. They never
               | even breathed a breath.
               | 
               | Your science is laughable at best in the context of this
               | weeks event.
        
             | bbarnett wrote:
             | _Not to mention that one in ten New Yorkers has asthma,_
             | 
             | One in 10 people do NOT have asthma.
        
               | chimeracoder wrote:
               | > One in 10 people do NOT have asthma.
               | 
               | You are incorrect. Current prevalence state-wide is 8%[0]
               | and lifetime prevalence is 14%, indicating that many
               | people are expected to develop asthma but have not yet
               | been diagnosed.
               | 
               | Incidence is more concentrated in the city due to a
               | strong causative relationship between asthma and certain
               | measurable factors: poverty, childhood exposure to
               | vehicular-generated air pollution, and the tendency to
               | have highways located near poorer neighborhoods.
               | 
               | If you look at a map of asthma incidence in the city by
               | neighborhood, this heterogeneous distribution is even
               | clearer.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/stateprofiles/asthma_in_ny
               | s.pdf
        
               | quesera wrote:
               | > _Current prevalence state-wide is 8%[0] and lifetime
               | prevalence is 14%, indicating that many people are
               | expected to develop asthma but have not yet been
               | diagnosed_
               | 
               | Perhaps a bathtub curve? Many people have childhood
               | asthma which resolves in adolescence. So they'd count for
               | lifetime but not current.
        
               | bbarnett wrote:
               | Well, all I can say, is these numbers seem crazy to me.
               | It appears that the condition is all a mishmash of "lungs
               | in bad state", predicated by anything from "that dude was
               | breathing deadly toxic air", to "always like this".
               | 
               | I think there should be more nuance here, but concede you
               | are correct as the subject is discussed.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | chimeracoder wrote:
         | > My heart goes out to new yorkers. This cannot be healthy. If
         | there are long-standing health repercussions I doubt there will
         | be any recourse they can take.
         | 
         | It's not good, but it's far from the worst around. The peak AQI
         | here in NYC was about 350, which is actually much lower than
         | the average AQI in Delhi between November and January, for
         | example. (Air pollution is highly seasonal).
         | 
         | Effects of air pollution are cumulative, so the people who
         | really suffer the most from it are the ones who experience this
         | regularly, as opposed to historical anomalies like this.
        
         | Wowfunhappy wrote:
         | It's actually back in the healthy range as of this morning! I
         | could immediately tell the difference when I woke up before
         | sunrise, I went for a long walk outside and it felt great.
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | It mostly seems to have moved down to Pennsylvania at this
         | point.
         | 
         | Smoke happens, it is bad, but I'm sure everybody in the country
         | gets it a couple times in their life (unless you live on
         | Martha's Vineyard or something).
        
         | isleyaardvark wrote:
         | It's not great, but for comparison many cities in Asia have a
         | much worse AQI much more often.
        
           | hgsgm wrote:
           | That's not the equality I wanted.
        
         | elif wrote:
         | Over a decade ago my wife was thru hiking and got caught in the
         | smoke of a California wildfire. The ash scratched her corneas
         | and her vision is still impacted to this day.
         | 
         | It's definitely not something to take lightly, even if you wear
         | a mask.
        
         | jgalt212 wrote:
         | Or you can live in the Colorado with fresh air, but way more UV
         | exposure. There are always trade-offs.
        
           | zucked wrote:
           | We've (Coloradoans)been dealing with wildfire smoke pretty
           | much forever. On average our air quality is quite good, but
           | fires in _any_ of the PNW /SW states regularly impact our air
           | quality during the spring, summer, and fall. We held the
           | dubious title of worst air quality in the world for at least
           | a day earlier this spring.
           | 
           | It's been a little comical having this NYC air quality
           | situation keep finding it's way into my news sources -- it's
           | been a part of my life as long as I've been alive. I check
           | the FireNow site as much as I check the weather during the
           | warm month.
        
           | googlryas wrote:
           | On the Front Range, where most people live in Colorado
           | (~Denver + north and south 60 miles), the air quality can
           | actually get pretty bad due to inversion, and this has been
           | noted since pre-statehood. We also are lucky enough to get a
           | lot of wild fire smoke from California, Canada, the PNW, as
           | well as our own home sourced wildfires. Maybe 2 years ago it
           | felt like the whole summer was smoky, and we had stretches
           | where the AQI was 500+ here in Boulder.
           | 
           | https://denvergazette.com/outtherecolorado/news/the-brown-
           | cl...
        
       | alex_duf wrote:
       | Such a simple idea, yet so well executed.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | blululu wrote:
       | I stiched the last two days of this into a quick Timelapse - very
       | cool to watch. https://youtu.be/KTv6tqyr8YU
        
       | paweladamczuk wrote:
       | I wonder how the camera was calibrated in terms of white balance
       | (if at all).
       | 
       | I have this idea to implement in my house: a sensor that would
       | measure temperature of the light outside and set the lights
       | inside to the same temperature. Getting this measurement right
       | seems to be non-trivial. Though maybe it wouldn't have to be
       | exact in terms of physical units, a pair of sensors calibrated
       | together (one for outside, one for inside) might achieve the
       | desired result too.
        
         | hunter2_ wrote:
         | I think it must have a fixed white balance, or the average hue
         | captured would hardly change over time at all.
         | 
         | Adjusting the inside lights until the inside sensor is
         | satisfied, rather than based on specifying in absolute units,
         | would also have the benefit of taking into account any
         | influence on indoor overall color contributed by your walls,
         | window coverings, and anything else. Might need to average
         | multiple sensors for best results, unless a single sensor does
         | that through a wide angle diffuser.
         | 
         | This is a bit like how automatic audio equalizers (I think
         | Sonos offers this, for example) don't work just by ensuring
         | that the speaker delivers the desired frequency response curve
         | (or lack thereof), but by actually using a measurement mic,
         | since your experience will be influenced by the combination of
         | speaker+room. The difference is that you only need to have the
         | mic around when making changes to the room/furniture (which is
         | rare) whereas you'd be making changes to the indoor light bulbs
         | continuously (based on outdoor light), so you need your indoor
         | sensor running continuously.
        
         | djkoolaide wrote:
         | Could be mistaken but I think my Mac already does this -- it
         | has "true tone" and when I open the lid, my main external
         | monitor changes color temperature.
         | 
         | I wonder if there's a way to scrape that data and then send it
         | to Home Assistant for light control.
        
           | sillysaurusx wrote:
           | If only color calibration were that easy.
           | 
           | People should really get comfortable with the idea that color
           | is relative, so choose whatever looks nice to you and stick
           | with it. True Tone certainly isn't scientific.
           | 
           | In this scenario, all that matters is that the instrument
           | doesn't try to change its white balance. You can actually
           | calculate the spectral energy of the sky based on these color
           | changes alone, and it doesn't matter if you start at a white
           | balance of fluorescent or incandescent.
        
         | sillysaurusx wrote:
         | Your idea is pretty straightforward. Set up a camera outside,
         | point it at the sky, capture a screenshot, average the color,
         | set smart lights to that color.
         | 
         | Presto, yellow sky makes yellow light.
         | 
         | You'll quickly grow tired of how it looks. And not because it
         | isn't calibrated correctly.
        
           | jrockway wrote:
           | What the high end variable-temperature lighting systems seem
           | to do is just use your clock and latitude to simulate what
           | color temperature the sky would be at a given time of day,
           | and set the lights to that.
           | 
           | I've never seen it in action, I only have boring old single-
           | color lights. I am not really annoyed by 2700K lamps during
           | the day, and mixing daylight and 2700K doesn't really look as
           | awful as you'd think during zoom calls.
        
             | sillysaurusx wrote:
             | The main point is that those high end systems won't look
             | any better to you just because they calculate out a color
             | curve based on your lat,long. It'd look just as good if you
             | point a camera at the sky. Your high end systems also won't
             | capture changes in weather, so that's less cool. But then
             | you'd get bored of it looking rainy whenever it rains.
        
       | yonatan8070 wrote:
       | Has the developer of this posted any blog or documentation of how
       | it works? What hardware/software is used for it?
        
         | 83 wrote:
         | The first two night photos have logos for EarthCam, Live, and
         | some location data. Seems they found a way to remove those in
         | later images.
        
           | william- wrote:
           | It appears that the camera provider was switched around 1 day
           | ago [0].
           | 
           | [0] https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666541169273372672
        
         | gnarbarian wrote:
         | probably a webcam
        
           | zuppy wrote:
           | i presume you're on mobile and it's not visible there. on
           | desktop you can hover any section and you will see the
           | picture that is used as the source.
        
             | hgsgm wrote:
             | Tap on mobile
        
             | jonas-w wrote:
             | On mobile (i use firefox an android) you can tap on the
             | sections
        
         | imadj wrote:
         | The author is a designer who do many creative coding projects,
         | he mentioned in an interview[1] back in 2011 that:
         | 
         | > I wrote this program that hooks up to a webcam. It takes a
         | photo out the window every five minutes, and it will upload
         | that to a server. The server then reads the sky portion of the
         | photo, and it goes pixel by pixel. What it does is it takes all
         | those values, the RGB values, and it averages them. So what you
         | are seeing is not the dominant color in the sky it's actually
         | just the average color.
         | 
         | Mike Bodge's personal website:https://bod.ge/
         | 
         | Recent tweet by author:
         | https://twitter.com/mikebodge/status/1666507978663690240
         | 
         | Here's also a submission from a decade ago (2011):
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685621
         | 
         | Shameless plug: Assisted by my HNRelevant browser extension
         | 
         | [1] https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/06/23/mike-bodge-nskyc-
         | cre...
        
           | tantalor wrote:
           | Average _how?_ In RBG? HSL? LAB?
           | 
           | Average raw RGB gives you bad results.
        
             | imadj wrote:
             | Well, I'm afraid I can't help you with that
             | 
             | If you're enthusiastic about the project, maybe consider
             | DMing the author on Twitter to discuss it with him
        
       | iso1631 wrote:
       | Nice, however "a day ago" isn't particularly helpful. For this
       | local EDT time would be fine, but I'd like to know it it's 8am or
       | 11am
        
       | cypherpunks01 wrote:
       | #50a7f1 from this morning is an incredibly beautiful blue
       | 
       | https://storage.googleapis.com/nskyc-3727d.appspot.com/nyc/1...
       | 
       | Makes me miss NYC.
        
       | CWCorrea wrote:
       | With some kind of API to retrieve the colors the site would be
       | really useful.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | radres wrote:
       | So simple yet beautiful!
        
       | Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
       | #000 I didn't think it'd be that dark even at local midnight
        
         | Wowfunhappy wrote:
         | It's going to depend on the camera and processing, since the
         | dynamic range of human vision extends _well_ beyond the RGB
         | color range.
        
           | orangepurple wrote:
           | I agree and if you want to refer to a color in an absolutely
           | correct, objective, device-independent manner you need to
           | define it in terms of L*a*b*
           | 
           | The CIELAB coordinate space represents the entire gamut of
           | human photopic (daylight) vision and far exceeds the gamut
           | for sRGB or CMYK.
           | 
           | You might initially think that the three axes of what is
           | "RGB" defines a perfect color cube which accurately describes
           | all perceptible colors but this is not true. The typical RGB
           | we encounter when encoded with an sRGB gamut (almost always
           | on smartphones, TVs, and PCs as of 2023) forms a bizzare
           | polyhedron in the objective L*a*b* color space instead of
           | filling the whole thing with itself because it is just a
           | small subset of what we can actually see: https://en.wikipedi
           | a.org/wiki/File:SRGB_gamut_within_CIELAB_...
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIELAB_color_space
        
         | googlryas wrote:
         | 1WTC and all the other buildings are pretty bright at night. I
         | assume if they were physically masked out, the camera would
         | have better chance to pick up some light reflected off the
         | atmosphere
        
       | notRobot wrote:
       | Scroll down to the end of the page to 2 days ago! It's insane!
        
         | js2 wrote:
         | Manhattan 2 days ago vs _Night of the Comet_ :
         | 
         | https://imgur.com/a/MYpreX5
         | 
         | EarthCam view:
         | 
         | https://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/worldtradecenter/?cam=s...
         | 
         | No idea if this link remains permanent:
         | 
         | https://static.earthcam.com//hof/newyork/skyline/16862004424...
        
       | rcthompson wrote:
       | The vague timestamps like "an hour ago" are an odd choice, since
       | they're very non-unique.
        
       | ReptileMan wrote:
       | Is the urban legend that it started out of controlled burn at
       | WTREX conference true? Couldn't verify, but there are also no
       | outlets debunking it.
        
         | WorkerBee28474 wrote:
         | Yes, but that was in Alberta. The smoke in New York is coming
         | from fires in Ontario and Quebec, which were probably started
         | by lightning strikes.
        
           | DANmode wrote:
           | Hot take: Canadians may need to learn controlled burns.
        
         | rootusrootus wrote:
         | That fire did happen, but was extinguished about a month ago:
         | https://www.albertaprimetimes.com/beyond-local/banffs-out-of...
         | 
         | The 'urban legend' remains because it is constantly mentioned
         | on right-wing 'news' sites as proof that DEI programs are
         | dangerous to society.
        
           | sokoloff wrote:
           | I read that article. What is the _possible_ connection to DEI
           | programs?
        
             | rootusrootus wrote:
             | It was a prescribed fire event called WTREX, which stands
             | for Women-in-Fire [0] Prescribed Fire Training Exchange.
             | Right wing sites haven't been shy about their viewpoint
             | [1].
             | 
             | [0] https://womeninfire.org/
             | 
             | [1] https://freebeacon.com/politics/burning-down-barriers/
        
       | falloutx wrote:
       | Such a great little website. you can see it was more orange than
       | Hackernews header just 2 days back.
        
         | DirectorKrennic wrote:
         | What concentration of fine particulates would be necessary to
         | produce a sky the exact color of HN's header?
        
           | kesava wrote:
           | what a funny/scary thought :)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | antonvs wrote:
           | YC116 aims to find out. Now hiring. Our mission: Making the
           | world a better place by making the sky HN orange.
        
             | SahAssar wrote:
             | With occasional low hanging black clouds for when famous
             | people die.
        
             | code_runner wrote:
             | Do I have to relocate to nightvale in order to get a job?
        
           | altairprime wrote:
           | The Tubbs fire did a fine job of this, but it's always dimmer
           | than the luminosity of HN orange on a typical screen, so it
           | depends on how you define "color".
        
           | darkwizard42 wrote:
           | Not being exact, but at least 150+ AQI seems to generate a
           | significant impact on sunlight coming through creating that
           | "smoky"/"faded" look. I can't comment on how to get the
           | orange exactly as I think it also requires specific
           | particulate matter to get that.
        
             | Tade0 wrote:
             | Not particulate matter, but photochemical smog, so nitrogen
             | and sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds and of course
             | ozone.
             | 
             | Add sodium lamps for lighting and you get a rich, orange
             | hue.
        
       | schappim wrote:
       | Things start to get interesting if you zoom out:
       | 
       | https://files.littlebird.com.au/Shared-Image-2023-06-10-08-5...
        
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