tppiotrowski

I remember the same in Tiblisi, Georgia!

Syabru Besi is downriver of the border and the starting point for the Langtang valley trek which is probably the third most popular trekking location in Nepal (behind Everest basecamp and Annapurna circuit). I think the tourist data they have is from tourists that are traveling with guides but from my experience many tourists also bypass the official requirements and trek solo so the number could be much higher if the Langtang is affected.

The cloud effect is really nice!

Building data comes from OvertureMaps data which is a superset of OSM. I update the building data set each month so if you make changes in OSM they should show up on ShadeMap at latest 30 days later.

Nice. I'm really proud of how fast the annual sunlight calculation is for a location but it def needs better UX.

"Top of canopy" - view from above like looking down from an airplane window. You won't see any shadows looking down on a forest because you only see sunlight landing on the top of the canopy. Most accurate.

"Below canopy" - what shadows would look like on the ground. If you're in a dense forest everything is in shadow because the trees obscure the sun. I guesstimate how big and where the below canopy shadows land. Any vegetation that's more than 2 meters tall, I place a shaded area beneath it. Not super accurate because it treats trees like cylinders instead of a sphere/triangle on top of a cylinder.

"No trees" - only building and terrain shadows are shown on the map.

The map likely geolocated you somewhere without buildings (or maybe in the ocean) and where it is the middle of the night (so everything is in shadow).

Try this link which shows the shadows at the Space Needle in Seattle WA today at 5pm:

https://shademap.app/@47.61991,-122.34913,15.43536z,17865792...

Or look at the shadows of the Alps at sunrise:

https://shademap.app/@45.46158,6.45036,7.47555z,178633748245...

Agreed. From current data it's not possible to know the type of tree, only their locations so the model is simplified.

Sorry about that. The current tree estimate is done via computer vision but I am working on migrating to LiDAR backed data which should eliminate false positives.

Just waiting for the TBs and TBs of data to download and then this Macbook M4 is going to make some heat...

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a tree or bush outside your window? I estimate where tree shadows fall but it's not super accurate. In the settings dialog you can toggle, "below canopy", "above canopy" or disable tree shadows altogether.

Site maintainer here. There is a polygon drawing tool in the upper right corner of the map. You can use it to draw polygons on the map and assign them a height. The shadows will update instantly. You can use it to add buildings that are missing from the map, simulate a tree placement or even simulate cutting down a tree if you set the height to 0.

Website creator/maintainer here. Happy to try and diagnose the error if you elaborate on what the discrepancy is (tree, building, hill, etc)...

Not specifically for eclipses but has been useful in finding places where the sun will be visible during the current eclipse since the eclipse will occur when the sun is quite low on the horizon.

Happy to field any questions about the project.

Related project I did in 2014 tried to do this. I was a web developer so used the web audio APIs to trigger a recording when the decibel level exceeded a certain value. I was living in a big tent in my friends back yard in Sydney at the time and was convinced it was airplanes coming into SYD that were waking me up at 4am but never really captured conclusive evidence because my laptop battery couldn't make it through the night :)

Maybe we need a journal completely dedicated to replication studies? It would attract a lot of attention I think.

> This is a huge leap from the previous global dataset, which contained about 1.7 billion buildings

I use the monthly release of Overture Maps building dataset and the last one had around 2.3 billion buildings iirc

[1] https://docs.overturemaps.org/blog/2025/11/19/release-notes/

I remember thinking there's a small arbitrage opportunity in countries that don't have pennies and nickels. In NZ I believe stores round to the nearest decimal (.02, .01 => .00 and .03, .04 => .05). They lose on some sales but gain on others. However, they don't round if you use a CC.

Here's one for the FIRE folks: if it rounds up, use a CC and if it rounds down use cash. Use all those pennies you save using your CC to retire 3 minutes early.

I think what Claude generated code is still missing is the feeling of "I learned something from reading this code. Reading this code made me a better programmer". We're not there yet. That's why we have forgiveness for the scripts/tests/etc Claude writes - those are purely for utility. However, reading Claude code must make us feel like we're getting smarter, not dumber.

My experience using Claude code is that it's excellent at React/React Native and because apps are mostly a View layer the consequences of bad "vibes" are less far reaching.

Protomaps does this already. They do a planet build each day and offer a download for free:

https://docs.protomaps.com/basemaps/downloads

I think mbtiles are being phased out for pmtiles because no DB required and can be served from static storage like R2/S3 (with a worker but hopefully the worker part goes away and they support byte offset requests soon)

Fair. I used Phoenix because it's the only published city shading plan I've come across. It could just be that arid/hot climates are the places trees are needed. The study linked was in Houston, Texas.

The Phoenix report is valuable because it provides lessons that should be avoided going forward: change the laws so property owners are not liable if a tree outside their business hurts someone, don't plant a tree if you can't irrigate it, work with local residents to plant and water trees to save on labor and increase success, etc.

If there's other municipal shade reports I'd love to read them. Helping people find shade is what I do for a living. [1]

[1] shademap.app

Planting trees is hard. Phoenix AZ has a tree planting program called the Shade Phoenix Plan and they publish public reports.

Watering and maintenance are a big cost. Iirc it's about $1000 to plant a tree. $100 for the tree and $900 for the irrigation and labor to plant it. In the first 10 years of the program 2/3 of the 106,000 planted trees were removed due to accidents, storms, not enough water/aging. [1]

[1] https://www.phoenix.gov/content/dam/phoenix/heatsite/documen...

There are a few other reasons that aren't baffling:

roots destroy water pipes and heave sidewalks and pavement. They can interfere with power lines as well. :(

Counterexample:

https://x.com/levelsio/status/1730659933232730443

The YC crowd seems to think the only worthwhile businesses are worth $1 billion+ otherwise why bother

> He was told it would take $10,000 to fix, and the representative also let slip that all Tesla repairs are covered by warranty for A YEAR - meaning he could have got his suspension fixed for free in January 2024

They bought it December 9, 2022. What am I missing?

Edit: or was it fixed on his last visit of June 2023 and then was eligible for replacement?

I agree with this. Any law that's not universally enforced: speeding, jaywalking, tax audit, etc is a tool for political persecution.

Sorry about the burnout. Sounds like you've got skills and I'd encourage you to explore something smaller. There is a path as a solopreneur. I do sun and shadow modeling using publicly available datasets [1]. My customers are gardeners, permaculture, hunters, fishermen, photographers and also real estate prospectors but they're people not big orgs or banks. It feels good to work on this level and personally answer emails and questions. I don't make much revenue but I like the grassroots path. Maybe you'd find it rewarding as well.

[1] shademap.app