Top all-time · #2229
James Darpinian
Personal blog · james.darpinian.com/blog · on HN as modelessprogrammingweb
James Darpinian's personal blog at james.darpinian.com covers programming and web. Since 2019, 34 different Hacker News readers have linked it 91 times, most often “Show HN: See a Satellite Tonight. No Telescope Required”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-01-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
A satellite-viewing tool, 'See A Satellite Tonight', that shows when and where to look for satellites like Starlink and the ISS, plus blog posts on satellites, humanoid robots and Apple encryption.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Programming topics related to web apps, VR/AR, and machine learning.
Most-linked posts?
- Show HN: See a Satellite Tonight. No Telescope Required16 people · 26 mentions · first linked 2019-09-21
- /satellites/?special=starlink7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-01-29
- How “See a Satellite Tonight” Works3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-07-15
- I Guarantee You Haven't Seen These Humanoid Robots3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-02-12
- How to Test for Safari on Windows2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-01-09
- /satellites/?special=starlink-latest2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-01-16
- Integer math in JavaScript2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-07-14
- /satellites2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-19
What Hacker News says?
post https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
Comment linking /blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight-works
on “Low Earth Orbit Visualization”Submitted Show HN: See a Satellite Tonight. No Telescope Required as a story · 863 points
HN discussionFor spotting satellites at night, try my site: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ Most of the satellites shown on the Leolabs site are too dim to see without a telescope because they don't reflect enough light. My site calculates brightness and filters down to the ones that you can see with the unaided eye. There are still quite a few! ISS in particular is very bright and can even be seen before sunset. The new…
Comment linking /satellites/
on “Low Earth Orbit Visualization”Submitted See a Satellite Tonight as a story · 221 points
HN discussionThey just launched the next batch of Starlink satellites minutes ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4xBFHjkUvw . The 60-satellite train should be visible in the sky over the SF bay area around 9:35 tomorrow night: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink Random FAQ about Starlink below: The combination of low latency (20-40ms) and high bandwidth (100+Mbps) has never been available in satellite int…
Comment linking /satellites/?special=starlink
on “SpaceX Starlink is now its own ASN and present at the Seattle Internet Exchange”Submitted Integer math in JavaScript as a story · 90 points
HN discussionI live 10 miles from Boston and I've seen them a whole bunch. I've used https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink
Comment linking /satellites/?special=starlink
on “Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day”Submitted See a Satellite Tonight as a story · 89 points
HN discussionhttps://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ Put in your location and it will tell you when and where to look at the sky to see one. Works great for me and hopefully it will work for you.
Comment linking /satellites/
on “Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day”Submitted I'm sorry, but omnidirectional treadmills can't work and here's why as a story · 72 points
HN discussionI’d like to be able to conveniently access my most popular comments. There are quite a few things in there that I might like to write longer-form articles about. ( https://james.darpinian.com/blog/scraping-my-own-hacker-news... gives one way of doing it, by crawling your /threads?id=‹username› page, which does contain the point counts for each comment by you.)
Comment linking /blog/scraping-my-own-hacker-news-comments
on “Hacker News Official API”Submitted How “See a Satellite Tonight” Works as a story · 7 points
HN discussionA while ago I made a blog post collecting 20+ efforts for humanoid robots specifically. There has been a real explosion in humanoid announcements in the past few months and it's hard to keep up even if you follow the news. https://james.darpinian.com/blog/you-havent-seen-these-real-... Edit: Haha, case in point. I opened Twitter and sure enough there's a new announcement of a humanoid robot today, from Intel/Mobiley…
Comment linking /blog/you-havent-seen-these-real-humanoid-robot-demos
on “An electric new era for Atlas”Submitted See a Satellite Tonight as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYou're probably aware but I will just report it anyway. On that link ( https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ ), there doesn't seem to be a lower bound limit on the 'polar angle' rotation. So I am able to rotate below the 'horizon' and look up to the earth's 'inner surface' (the concave side of the mesh). The trajectories dashed lines are still rendered and drawn on top of the earth's 'bottom' but are all glitchy a…
Comment linking /satellites/
on “Radio Garden – Explore live radio by rotating the globe”Submitted Manna: Two Views of Humanity's Future by Marshall Brain as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNot my project but here’s a blog post from the author. https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
Comment linking /blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight-works
on “As last module docks, China completes its space station”Submitted I Guarantee You Haven't Seen These Humanoid Robots as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere’s a blog post by the author of the app for more insight into the amount of work and details put into it. https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
Comment linking /blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight-works
on “As last module docks, China completes its space station”Submitted How “See a Satellite Tonight” Works as a story · 3 points
HN discussionLast week I stood outside my apartment and watched Tiangong fly across the sky[0]. What an incredible time to be alive. [0] https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
Comment linking /satellites/
on “As last module docks, China completes its space station”Submitted See a Satellite Tonight as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhttps://james.darpinian.com/satellites/# Shows you satellites that will be visible from your position in the coming hours / days. Incredibly cool tech stack too.
Comment linking /satellites/
on “Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?”Submitted Integer Math in JavaScript as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYes, in fact GPUs are perfect for this. Here is a Monte Carlo financial simulation I built in WebGL 2. https://james.darpinian.com/money/ (Warning, programmer UI) It performs one million Monte Carlo runs instantly every time you move a slider. Each run is one execution of a pixel shader and they all happen in parallel. WebGPU will make this kind of thing more accessible. It's kind of a pain to do it in WebGL, but ev…
Comment linking /money/
on “WebGPU – All of the cores, none of the canvas”Submitted Show HN: Decoder Ring – Instant Error Code Lookup as a story · 2 points
HN discussionBeing on the HN front page is going to blow out your budget for the month probably. Hope it doesn't cost you too much! I had issues with my own site using Street View which is even more expensive than maps ( https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ ) until I found out you can apply for large amounts of free Google Maps API credits for educational and non-profit use. It's a little stressful because if you exceed your…
Comment linking /satellites/
on “Show HN: 3D map of shade around the world”Submitted Techniques to Reduce Latency in Your Apps as a story · 1 points
HN discussionTrying to match up that claim with the claim of https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink that satellites should be visible at 12:10am this Saturday over Boston. 12:10am is nowhere close to dusk in Boston this time of year.
Comment linking /satellites/?special=starlink
on “Starlink Is a Big Deal”Submitted The race to the first useful humanoid robot: 20 demos as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
