Twenty-three years ago, during my daily trips to the university campus, I had the exact same idea. However, I became distracted by calculating the position of the sun and delved into astronomical algorithms, which led me to never complete it. Kudos to you, that's really impressive!
I recently took a bus over the Andes and was congratulating myself on choosing a seat on the shady side. Then I realized that in the southern hemisphere the sun is in the north and I had outsmarted myself.
It is funny in my language as we have the same word for both noon and south.
Is it French (midi)?
South in French is sud, while noon is indeed midi. However, the two words are the same in Latin (meridies, lit. midday, as in p.m. = post meridiem, etc.), so probably in some of the other Romance languages they do match?
Midi is also a word for south in French, colloquially.
The south of France is known colloquially as "Le Midi".
I imagine he's talking about południe in Polish.
Also in Italian. "Mezzogiorno" both means noon and south.
Yes. There are is mnemonic phrase in german to tell where the sun is in morning/noon/evening which contains "sun is never seen in the north" - which just not work on the southern hemisphere.
Interesting because the sun rises and sets from the north (NE, NW) during the summer in the northern hemisphere. The effect is more pronounced the farther north of the equator you are and Germany is quite far north.
Then I realized that in the southern hemisphere the sun is in the north
That's not exactly true.
South of the tropic of capricorn, the sun is in the north at noon.
Between the equator and the tropic of capricorn the sun could be slightly towards the north or south or directly overhead at noon depending on the season.
As for sunrise and sunset the sun could be just about anywhere if you go south enough and the season is right.
At the south pole in summer, the sun just runs 360 degrees around, floating slightly above the horizon, and daylight is 24 hours long. If you are standing 1km from the south pole, you will see the sun in the south direction at midnight and in the north direction at noon.
And if you go just further from the south pole, e.g. to Patagonia in summer (i.e. now) the sun rises and sets close to the south and goes around to the north at mid-day. Daylight is close to 20 hours long. It's similar to the south pole situation except when the sun gets close to exact south it dips below the horizon for a few hours and you have a short-lived few hours of darkness. But you do see the sun in the southeast at sunrise and southwest at sunset.
When I travelled to Brazil, I was confused as the North Star (Polaris) had disappeared.
I need this for flights, not for the sun, but I somehow always have fomo when having to choose between left and right side of the plane on the seat selection screen
It would have to predict the model numbers of the planes though: some newer ones I have been to (A350s) seem to have automagic dimming windows. Getting on flights with such windows is better even if you have to sit in the sun!
I hate those windows, when fully dimmed they let through a lot of blue light, and blue light is bad for sleep.
On the other hand though I detest window seat passengers who insist on having the windows closed for take-off and landing. I'd like to know when to expect a thud, thanks. The electric shades are nice in that aspect because they are never fully opaque.
Don’t you have to have the blinds up for take off and landing? You definitely do in Europe.
I don't know, it would make sense for the US FAA to require that but I don't have the authority to ask that of the window seat passenger, and most flight attendants don't care.
They're more concerned that my seat back is not pushed back by the 3mm that they move.
They are equally strict about the window blinds in Europe.
I don't travel enough on other airlines to make generalisations.
You can usually predict the plane quite well if you know the airline and their fleet and they show you the exact seating plan.
Boeings 787 also have this. There isn't even a lid to close/open the window. And in some situations you can't "undim" it. Kind of annoying when it's midnight and you want to take a look at the moon and stars.
I have a beta version for flight at https://dev.sitinshade.com/flight
Search based on the destination and departure airport. Please note that it is still in beta, so there may be some issues.
Currently, manual entry of flight duration is required.
Working on flight duration estimation, scenic side, and movie recommendations based on flight duration : - )
Seems to work, I'm located in Reykjavik Iceland and the website tells me there is no sun :)
Left Side: 0.00% Right Side: 0.00% No Sun: 100.00%
Suppose when you live in Iceland or other similar latitudes, and the sun starts to appear on the horizon, the preferred seating is the sun side to see hours long sunrise / sunset
That's a big assumption that the sun can even be seen lol it's always cloudy here in SE Canada it seems. It's nearly 8am the sun supposedly is up but the clouds are so thick it may as well be 5am.
SE Canada is like France, though. We’re talking Iceland here, which is way north compared
Oh I know Iceland is about the same as northern Labrador or even south east Nunavut. But here in SE Canada especially Newfoundland the warm Gulfstream and Labrador current both meet here so it can be quite foggy. Plus it seems we are like the tailpipe of North America every weather system seems to end up here even hurricanes.
More like there are two modes: no Sun or sunlight directly in your eyes.
I get the same result[1], and I'd have expected that if I still live in the Arctic, but I'm a lot further south and see the sun out the window right now.
Really nice idea and it works to an extent, but it doesn’t seem to use the bus routes — just sent me the quickest route via the motorway.
Not sure how much of a ball ache that would be to implement though as I guess you would need to pair a lot of APIs or pay google out the backside
Currently OpenStreetMap routing API, would have to be replaced with the Google Maps Transit API.
Would be great to offer this as an option, even if we would have to fill in our own API key. The train tracks in my country differ quite somewhat from the roads when I try it out. Also. busses take defined routes and not the shortest path. Google Maps provides all these routes.
OpenStreetMap routing API should provide routing with Car, Bicycle and Foot profiles. You might have to modify the API call to change the profile.
PS: There might be other free alternatives to using the main osm.org API which will be more reliable.
Would you get significantly different results? I'd expect this would work OK even if you assumed travel in a completely straight line - unless you're tacking like a sailboat, you're going to spend most of your time travelling close to the overall direction of travel.
At least i do. Tried my regular commute, but it has a bridge witch is dedicated for buses and emergency cars. So would be a nice addition, but the added complexity of using something like travel api in google maps, witch would cost more. Really liked the idea, and usually seems to work ok.
I tested with London to Paris — if it's easy with your routing system, you should add the Channel Tunnel as a fake road. I'm not sure why it chose a ferry so far off the shortest route.
Currently, it uses OpenStreetMap routing.Planning to change to the Google Maps Routing API.
Check the prices on that, it can get exorbitant
The site could probably charge extra for better quality results.
Perhaps they could split it into a free version using open street data, and a paid version with actual transit routes and other relevant data (tunnels could be marked as 0% sun coverage if they are able to find a data source for it)
Both sides are pretty good for being well shaded from the sun, in the Channel Tunnel, in my experience.
The routing takes the Portsmouth-Cherbourg ferry, which is not the way any bus would go. They take either the Channel Tunnel, or one of the shortest ferries like Dover-Calais.
That would have seem to be something trivial to think about for anyone with a modicum of sense of orientation.
I guess most people don't have that.
Congratulations on your superior sense of orientation.
Your comment comes across as arrogant and (embarrassingly for you) you’re wrong. There are more variables - the direction the roads go in. The changing position of the sun during the journey. The date and time. It’s nothing like as clear cut as you make out.
Try “London to Edinburgh” at this time of year and you’ll see what I mean - there’s only 10% difference in sun exposure between the two sides of the bus.
The sun doesn't rise in the East and set in the West though. And a random short route I put in had about 30 turns and all kinds of angles. Not everywhere is a US grid city :-).
Not all routes are a straight line. The time of day also matters…
What a cool idea! Well done! One feature suggestion: it would be cool if it asked you if you prefer the shade or the sun. I’m in Canada, and during winters I love to sit on the sunny side of the bus.
You need a feature to tell you to sit on the "wrong" side ? There's just two sides !
Well, I don't _need_ it of course :-) Just saying it would be cool.
Cool? Or warmer?
Great idea. I'm wondering how dis you computed the sun postion in every area of the eath ?
Back in the 1980s when doing this we used a Naval Almanac - the US Navy navigation | star position formulas and data are all open source (as products of the US Government).
These days you can tease similar information from Celestia, Stellarium, and other astro projects.
Sun angle wrt a smooth perfect ellipsoid is one thing .. actual sun angle + shadows in the presence of mountains, valleys, forests, tall buildings, etc is a whole other ball of fun.
Calculation based on azimuth of bus and sun considering change in time and movement of bus.
No idea how OP did it, but libraries like astropy make it very easy: https://docs.astropy.org/en/stable/generated/examples/coordi...
gosh, I've been thinking about making this for years, now I have to generalize for planes
Currently building for flights too. beta version - https://dev.sitinshade.com/flight
How about trains?
If the railway path and estimated time are openly available, Certainly, it can be implemented.
I entirely expect your motives to be non-commercial but I reckon there will be bus or train ticket sites who would pay for this. Which would also allow more people to benefit from it. Well done on a great job
Sunny-side pricing!
Or the opposite!
Thanks
Your logo should be: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/two-guys-on-a-bus
... except reversed?
Yes lol.
LOL
The idea is nice, the problem is that the route the app uses (it uses for example a highway) isn't the one the bus would use.
Hmm, shouldn't the more shady side be the same in practical scenarios (like not going the other way around the globe, etc)?
There are quite a few bus routes that wind back and forth, especially in urban and mountainous areas potentially offering a lot of shade from buildings and cliff edges for parts of the route anyway.
Whether these journeys involve long enough in direct sun to matter is another question.
Yes, but I believe that the diff of sun(RIGHT_SIDE) and sun(LEFT_SIDE) is the same, no?
Like the bus cannot get to the same destination by taking a route where the sun shines on the other side more. (Ignoring some fringe theoretical routes where you do a massive detour over equator.)
edit: I was too fast with my reply to read yours properly. Sorry.
a lot of shade from buildings and cliff edges for parts of the route
I don't believe sitinshade.com handles those anyway.
Shady side is comfy but remember that 120 min of daily indirect or direct exposure to UVB can protect your eyesight health.
Just 120 min a day under a tree during childhood.
Dolgin, Elie. 2015. The myopia boom. Nature 519: 276.
Williams, Katie M., & al. 2017. Association Between Myopia, Ultraviolet B Radiation Exposure, Serum Vitamin D Concentrations, and Genetic Polymorphisms in Vitamin D Metabolic Pathways in a Multicountry European Study. JAMA Ophthalmology 135: 47-53. doi: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2016.4752. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2016.4752
Does the glass block lots of UV?
Glass blocks 100% of UVB and 25% of UVA. So while you wont burn, light through glass will still cause skin damage.
Thanks - I learned something today.
Looks like some bus companies treat their windows to block the UVA as well. Eg https://www.valleymetro.org/blog/2022/07/how-valley-metro-ke...
Oh man, I had this idea a long time ago when I was still commuting to work during sweltering hot summers in trams with no AC. Glad to see someone implemented it.
If you want to take it to the next level, use GIS information to account for building shadows and waiting times in stations and at traffic lights.
I just started using the metro instead :)
I never got the idea because our busses had a sort of plastic bar tied to some plastic fabric that you could pull down over the windows. Worked pretty well for blocking the sun. Ofcourse this was way before internet became popular so I guess the ancient knowledge has been lost to humanity by now. The long distance busses also had some sort of air cooling function that they sometimes started up if it was a very warm day.
Todays busses don't even have heating in the winter. If I can't bike, I'm taking the car nowadays. Can't sit in a bus when it's -20 C outdoors and -18 indoors.
:-)
Todays busses don't even have heating in the winter
Reminder that not all busses are the same, and your experience is extremely localised to you - even different bus companies (or bus models used by a single company) in the same city can be completely different, yet alone different parts of the country, yet alone different countries.
Near me, for example, pretty much all busses have heating for the winter, and maybe half (random estimate) have AC for during hot weather while the other half just have windows/vents to open or shut.
UI is confusing. As someone who is living in Pakistan, I do not know what to put on location fields.
What's your suggestion then? How do Pakistanis tell Google maps where they want to go from and to?
My bad. I thought it does not work internationally but it does!
Works. Beautiful. Also works internationally. Good job!
It would be splendid if you used 24 hour format per default instead of AM/PM or at least let me choose. You correctly figured out I am at UTC+01:00, but we don't use AM/PM here.
I'm not perfectly happy with the colors in the final map. You use blue to represent right, yellowish for left and dark gray for "no sun". Your suggestion on top for preferred seating uses red. To me the preferred seating color should correspond with the left/right colors.
It says 13:31 for me, and it's just a <input type="time" ...> element. Is your browser using an AM/PM locale?
Thanks for the suggestion.
Time selection relies on the default settings of the browser/system.
Ineffective because a bus isn't stationary and can change orientation as it travels.
I’m assuming this is taking that into account. Otherwise why would it compute a route?
It considers the bus's movement, orientation and the changes in time.
This would work for trains as well right? Overground trains i mean
It seems they route along roads between bus stops, so you won't get train routes that follow the tracks. But in principle the solution should be very similar.
If the routing is done with an internal database (rather than some roads-only API) it might be straightforward to use the railway lines from Open Street Map [1]. Or even the public transport routes recorded in OSM [2].
I'm surprised that so many posts are people saying they want this. I've never felt a strong preference for shady seats while traveling. Why do (many) people prefer them?
Well, last year I was doing a 1hr commute on a bus in Italy with 35 degrees outside and with broken AC :) It's not fun to have the sun pointing at you for 10 minutes straight I can tell you that
I'm fine with sun for a few minutes but it get's distracting and makes it difficult to sleep and work on a laptop.
Is it much more complicated than to prefer the predominantly northwest side in the morning and northeast side in the afternoon (for northern hemisphere)?
Do you live in a city with a grid based road system? In a country with more organic road networks, that wouldn't work
A glance at the driving route on Google Maps should show you the typical vehicle orientation.
Have I found a bug? I entered JFK and Heathrow, it resolves to correct airports but the map shows a route between London and Lisbon.
Addresses used:
John F. Kennedy International Airport, JFK Access Road, Queens, New York, 11430, United States
Heathrow Airport, Cranford Lane, Hatton Cross, London Borough of Hillingdon, London, Greater London, England, TW6 2DN, United Kingdom
This is an OpenStreetMap issue, that's what it gives you when you ask for driving directions across the Atlantic: https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=fossgis_osrm....
I'm not sure exactly what's going on, even if you provide a US address in the middle of the country it will only ever give you directions for the European side. If you replace Heathrow with a different continent, like Africa or Asia, it correctly says it can't find a route. My best guess is that the algorithm sees there is a water crossing, but then finds the ferry from France to England and says "ah ok all good". Maybe there is a special case to handle Europe to UK that is causing the problem? If you put in JFK to Dublin it will find two ferries, France to England and England to Ireland, but still nothing on the North American side.
Edit: No nothing to do with the ferries, I think Europe just has some special status. For example, try Brazil -> Morocco vs. Brazil -> Spain.
I think you used standard bus route search with JFK and Heathrow. OpenStreetMap suggests Lisbon since the departure and destination are on different continents, providing a route in close proximity to the destination with access to the sea.
If you prefer the flight path, you can visit dev.sitinshade.com/flight [beta].
This is working well! My only feedback is that I was checking a location far outside my timezone (-12 hours). This means I have to look up the timezone for that location. I would prefer to always use the "local" timezone, from the starting location.
Thanks for the suggestion. That would be a great addition.
Cool project. Where does it get worldwide bus route info? Does OSM have an API for it?
Yes,OpenStreetMap has
At least one Turkish website (obilet) also offers this info. I consider this whenever I purchase a ticket.
Makes sense, it would be good if bus and train companies integrated this into seat selection. It really does make a difference.
Thank you for not having region based restrictions. It works for any place and destination.
If Google had made this, it would be US only.
I would gladly use "sit in the sun" version of this.
It shows the percentage of sunshine for both sides. Simply choose the other side than the one that is recommended for shade.
Whats the technology behind this? Is it spatial SQL or some other python-based spatial analysis? I suppose the map is either open layers or leaflet, but the other part is more interesting. Sorry, didn't find it on the page or here, please take excuse if already answered. Thanks
Backend: Node.js Calculations are performed based on the azimuth of the sun and the bus, taking into account the movement of the bus and change in time.
It's not working for me :(
I'm trying a trip from the north of France (Paris) to the south (Lyon) in the morning while the sun rises. So the sun is mainly on the East (so left of the bus) and the app tells me to sit on the left side of the bus.
At this time of year, during daylight, the sun is mostly in the south in France. The journey is south-easterly and takes 5 hours, so the right side is sunny for most of the journey!
Nice! This would be cool to integrate with "shademap", to visualize the shade/sun during the journey.
[1] https://shademap.app/@37.75153,-119.53737,12.65679z,16416003...
Thanks for this link - I'm amazed to see it even has an approximation for my city based on buildings (Detroit.)
This is really useful tool for photography. On Android, I also use Sun Surveyor to determine when the sun is hitting the right side of a building, but it doesn't show the shadows cast by other buildings!
Posh!
A popular folk etymology holds that the term is an acronym for "port out, starboard home",[4] describing the cooler, north-facing cabins taken by the most aristocratic or rich passengers travelling from Britain to India and back. However, there is no evidence for this claim
This reminded me of the fabulously British song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BzjPukTLoY
Please post this to /r/SkincareAddiction
Sick project!
good one!
like it since im blonde
In a related vane, has there ever been a map/routing app that included weather forecasts visually on the map? Like, a storm cloud on route ahead that is based on the forecast for that position at the estimated time you'll reach it.
I feel like routing apps have completely stagnated basically since the Waze acquisition by Google.
It’s common in boating, for sure!
This is amazing! My kids get sick on train rides and I think a lot has to do with the sun strobing through the trees. I’ll try this next time to at least not be on the sunny side.
Strobing lights can trigger migraines, which can cause nausea.
This is really an interesting feature, haha!
genius. works for my trip to dudley castle!
Great work! Two questions on this related to extended trips that I can't find obvious answers to, even after using: [answered] does it calculate exposure for points on trip moving, or is exposure for all points calculated for same time? (Moving south-north for two hours before noon would be exposure on right/east for first half, on left/west for second half in northern hemisphere).
Secondly, does this have any difficulty with trips that encompass certain times that often serve as "reset" markers? Such as trips that include midnight, or multiday trips?
[edit: example for nothern hemisphere clarification]
[second edit: looks like it does for first question, ref Oklahoma City to Wichita KS starting an hour before noon]
Simply well done.
The look and feel of the Submit button is cherry on top.
Another solution is to wear sunglasses and/or a hat and to use an E-Ink device when traveling. I have tested it multiple times, works quite well.
Once a bus firm in Türkiye used this method
Would be great to have the best route with less low angle sun facing directly into your face and blinding you when driving.
Another idea for a simple website would be to find the less icy side of a street. Often south facing sides of streets have less ice on them.
This is so interesting and the fact that it works anywhere in the world is awesome buddy! And kudos for finishing your side project
More and more, I really appreciate great efforts that make a small but meaningful improvement in some under-noticed aspect of living. It seems zen-like.
Bravo. :) What a great project and execution!
This is what I really need! My eyes are very sensitive to sunlight. Good stuff.
When I was a kid I used to take a bus from East to West coast of Italy in Summer. Despite my best efforts to calculate the side with minimum sun exposure, I always ended up on the sunny side. This also happened when doing the opposite of my predictions. An app like this would have helped me a lot, but it would be nice to have the possibility customize the route.
Great stuff :D I traveled too much between the ages 10-20 and I would have loved a site like this :D
Are you a vampire?
Another use case: seating in stadiums for outdoor sports. (Whether you want to be in the sun or not will depend on the time of year.) You'd need data on how stadiums are oriented though.
This is the kind of tool I like. Not sure what kind of edge case I've hit though. Trip from Perth to Exmouth in Western Australia, leaving 1:13pm UTC+1000, ends up suggesting the wrong side.
Preferred Seating : Left Side 1250 km / 776.41 miles :14h 40m 33s Sun Exposure Data Left Side: 49.62% Right Side: 7.94% No Sun: 42.44%
Nice idea
Love it! Always wanted to build something like this. Glad you made it first though!
Drop your Twitter in your profile. Would love to give you a follow :)
Love it, I constantly try to pick the right seat on the bus and always fails to do so. I wish it was a feature in google maps.
Not sure if I'm the only one, in the bus I try to avoid the sun but I'm looking for it in the train/plane.
Just pick a seat with no sun
Good job!
Congratulations! The idea and execution made me smile.
This must be an epitome of a hobby project!
This is very cool, congrats OP!
I wish it would let me select some other cities the bus passes through, since as another commenter said it just uses the quickest way by car - though I guess that would not impact the seat selection too much, since the general direction of travel is still the same!
You should team up with the people who wrote zonopjebakkes/seatsinthesun, which is used for finding bars and cafes that have terraces that are still in the sun, mostly useful in late summer afternoons as the evenings are getting shorter and cooler.
This just doesn't seem very POSH.
sell it to apple!
Love that this is a web page and not another app taking up space on my phone.
This is the level of creative thinking the industry needs! :D
Kudos for the idea and execution, it's awesome :D
Thanks!! I always try to imagine in my head where the sun will be before I book a ticket ;) Now this is more accurate!
I love HN community :) Congrats for just making something and putting out there!
Given the uniqueness of this idea, I'm curious about the technical challenges you faced while developing "SitInShade."
worked instantly! Where is the explanation for the calculations?
This is brilliant, one thing I would say is making the “Preferred Side” value red leads my eye to believe red = negative/not good/don't so I was searching for something else without thinking. Probably better to make the affirmative/do this/sit here colour green not red.
Excellent stuff! I do this manually right now for flight/bus journeys.
Please extend this with the position of the Sun in your window.
I don't mind the Sun if it's coming from the back, for example.
Very cool!
Love the idea + really nice website! Fun fact: There are some trains from Berlin to Munich which go through Leipzig, where they come out of the train station the same way they go in there, so both your ride direction and window side switches, which can be very annoying. ("luckily" there isn't much sunshine in this area most time of the year, haha)
Damn, this one hit the spot. Nice idea
The same is useful to place the baby in the car in the better side on a long trip
https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/b3e9006e-0bb5-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/b3e9006e-0bb5-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/e3d74d89-05b5-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/908e19f7-fab4-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/ce92e91e-33b5-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/25f088f8-2cb5-... https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/9a0ebdf0-1eb5-... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i... https://groups.google.com/g/ibm.software.network.directory-i...
Cool project!
I'm having occasional problems with autocomplete of city names:
Try typing "Sacramento" slowly... it shows 0 results as you type letters 6..9, then suddenly finds it on the last letter
I need this combined with Alltrails or some other trail map data! My 4mo old absolutely hates direct sunlight which makes finding good walks/hikes in a carrier very challenging.
what is the tech stack you used to build this site?
hot dog/not hot dog
Lmao can you just bring a poster paper and cover the windows
I asked myself the same question a couple times, but never thought of make an app out of it. Well done!
will someone think of the vampires ?
When I travel, Before I pick a seat, I will think about the direction of the bus or plane to decide which side(left or right) seat I should select. Sometimes I like the sun while traveling, sometimes I'm not. The method is simple, it needs three factors, 1. The direction of this transportation tool way to your destination; 2. The time range; 3. The direction of the sun in the time range. So if I create this site, I need these variables first: 1. Tell me where are you going(such as From, To). I can confirm the direction of the transportation tool on Google Maps. 2. Tell me the time, I can calculate the direction of the sun based on the time range. After that, I can know which side seat you should choose.
Getting lost on the 0.1% edge cases or improvements is why I never finish side projects, either.
I don't think getting the position of the sun is an edge case, it's a fundamental capability for the product to work at all
You could probably make a lookup table that works "well enough" in like a few hours.
You could probably make it in a few minutes - the direction of the sun is, to a first approximation, 15 degrees times the number of hours it is after midnight. This leads to a trick for using an analog watch as a compass:
https://www.citizenwatch-global.com/support/exterior/directi...
https://www.watchaffinity.co.uk/blog/how-to-use-your-watch-a...
This is more prone to errors closer to the equator and in the summer (https://possiblywrong.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/using-a-watch...) but should be good enough for picking a side of the bus.
(This is all in the northern hemisphere; in the southern hemisphere the sun goes the other way, so change the sign on everything.)
The equation of time gets in there too if I recall correctly - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time
And this gets into a neat part of the Clock of the Long Now and a cam needed to keep track of that over 10,000 years. https://longnow.org/ideas/the-equation-of-time-cam-keeping-g...
The equation of time would be in there! But the largest that gets is about 16 minutes, corresponding to a 4-degree error in position, and there are much bigger sources of error. But thanks for the link to the Clock of the Long Now!
I believe they meant edge cases when dealing with sun position calculations or maybe other things, not that the sun position is an edge case.
I don't always manage to adhere to my own advise here. But talking to "customers" really solves this.
Half these customers can't be bothered by the edge cases that I've been poring over for nights. The other half puts forward edge cases that I've never been aware of. Some of which are critical to their work-flow. Many are implemented in mere minutes. "Wow. That saves us 30 minutes typing over prices, every day!".
As an engineer I love to find solutions. But as an entrepeneur I really must understand the problem and scope. that 0.1% edge cases is hardly ever part of the success.
Thanks for posting this, honestly the 0.1% scare me sometimes on technical project. I think you're right, just gotta talk to my customers directly if they even care about it.
Writing the level editor for my raycaster is why I never wrote my raycaster
The hard part was obtaining information such as solar azimuth, altitude, declination, hour angle, etc without using external APIs. Spent around 5 days implementing backend.
Way too late now, but to help others this fancy Excel sheet provided by NOAA is awesome! It implements all of these equations in Excel and is pretty easily portable to your programming language of choice. https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/calcdetails.html
P.S. Using this has made it clear to me how bad most sunrise/sunset calculators actually are.