Oh, ship!

January 28, 2007 5:17 PM

Where, exactly, were commercial vessels in the San Francisco Bay in the past hour? Here, for one. Behold the power of AIS! Previously
posted by Ogre Lawless (22 comments total)

Wireless signals and teh Intertubes have really converged since the first ALOHA.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:39 PM on January 28, 2007

i hope the terrists don't read metafilter
posted by localhuman at 5:44 PM on January 28, 2007

OMG TWO ARROWS HIT.
posted by ninjew at 6:04 PM on January 28, 2007

Here's something similar for Boston's Logan Airport (delayed by 15 minutes or something):

AirportMonitor
posted by adamg at 6:05 PM on January 28, 2007

Soon, you will be able to mesh this with Google Maps for anyone's location, anywhere.
posted by Balisong at 6:30 PM on January 28, 2007

i hope the terrists don't read metafilter

My thoughts exactly. No more need to engage in suspicious observations that might be detected by police... But then again, the terrists are all busy in Iraq right now.

I wonder when the Iraq airport gets this capability, one could watch the spiral takeoffs and landings.
posted by bhouston at 6:32 PM on January 28, 2007

Hm, like an APRS for big ships.
posted by hattifattener at 8:33 PM on January 28, 2007

Heh, if you look in one of the rivers all the way west, theres a tug named "millenium falcon".
posted by Mach5 at 8:45 PM on January 28, 2007

Awesome.
posted by russilwvong at 8:47 PM on January 28, 2007

Brilliant! Thank you OL...
posted by speug at 9:55 PM on January 28, 2007

You know, the Queen Mary 2 is showing up next week...
posted by cali at 10:07 PM on January 28, 2007

Ship Mappins.
posted by fandango_matt at 11:10 PM on January 28, 2007

This will be good for keeping up-to-the-minute tabs on all the retail crap coming in from China.
posted by rolypolyman at 11:42 PM on January 28, 2007

Heh, if you look in one of the rivers all the way west, theres a tug named "millenium falcon".
posted by Mach5 at 8:45 PM PST on January 28

That must be Marin native George Lucas's private tug, hanging out over in the Oakland dockyards with the "AT-AT" cranes. If any Bay Area types haven't seen this before, look south next time you cross the Bay Bridge and tell me those didn't inspire Lucas to create the AT-AT. And you meant east, right? I know you meant east...but...I'm a bastard and have to correct people. I'm sorry.
posted by StrangerInAStrainedLand at 2:09 AM on January 29, 2007

You know, the Queen Mary 2 is showing up next week..

So this could also be handy for the center for disease control.
posted by srboisvert at 3:28 AM on January 29, 2007

Nice, thanks.
posted by teleskiving at 7:17 AM on January 29, 2007

Awesome post, thanks.
posted by Kwine at 9:49 AM on January 29, 2007

Great post. Thanks.
posted by Gankmore at 10:29 AM on January 29, 2007

I just have fun watching the alcatraz tourist ferries going back and forth
posted by Megafly at 10:37 AM on January 29, 2007

I wish I had known about this sooner. Until a few months ago, my father was a towboat pilot on the bay. It would have been cool to freak him out by calling him and "guessing" where he is.
posted by brundlefly at 10:41 AM on January 29, 2007

Thank you. I just emailed the link to my nephew in Sunnyvale. He will enjoy it immensely.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:29 AM on January 29, 2007

This will nice for seeing if my ferry is delayed.
posted by Four Flavors at 10:18 AM on January 30, 2007