6 ms·
Pretty clever using the timezone offset to approximate the user's location without using GeoIP. I hadn't noticed that but sure enough, my (approximate) location
by willcodeforfoo 6y ago
Pretty clever using the timezone offset to approximate the user's location without using GeoIP. I hadn't noticed that but sure enough, my (approximate) location is in view first.
- iamtedd 6y agoEh. I'm in the southern hemisphere, and the Github Globe first appears in the middle of the Philippines Sea. They're just assuming everyone is in the northern hemisphere.
- nl 6y agoSame. I think the combination of timezone and language settings would work for the obviously problematic cases (eg, Australia vs Japan/China/Asia, and South vs North America. Africa is still a problem though.)
- bewuethr 6y agoThat shouldn't matter for the timezone, though, no?
- iamtedd 6y agoUsing the timezone was Github's way of easily getting the right orientation of the globe for the viewer's location. In my case (and I'm guessing everyone in the southern hemisphere) that doesn't work.
- BiosElement 6y agoAren't most globes oriented that way for display though? They copied the normal angle used for physical globes so it's instantly recognizable I suspect.
- mattmanser 6y agoWhoosh, that was his point entirely. Globes are Northern hemisphere biased because of the history of European colonialism.
- dmurray 6y agoIt looks like it starts showing the globe North of about 5° South, which would get 89% of the world's population. Pan down just another 3° (include the population centres in Indonesia, without sacrificing anything in the North) to get to 94% of the population. Of course, Github's user base may be distributed differently. Source: https://youtu.be/p-MGKz4qjJw https://youtu.be/p-MGKz4qjJw
- pabs3 6y agoHemispherism is pretty common in tech, kind of surprising to see it in a project to produce a globe though :)
- zodiakzz 6y agoClever but a bit lame given the fact that I guarantee your IP address is already analyzed from a bazillion angles (incl. GeoIP) way before it hits the frontend process. Not sure why they can't use that information.
- tpetry 6y agoIt‘s because i could see your pull request on this globe. If they use GeoIp they tell me where you live. But they use the user suplied location to not tell me any secret i should not know. Its genious!
- sgtfrankieboy 6y agoBecause that information is not available in standalone frontend component. They would have to make an additional API request to get that when timezone is available locally.