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0x389

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designer and engineer based in barcelona, catalunya my websites: https://the389.net • https://4m3ric4.com previously, software engineer at https://www.samara.com

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Not quite. Initially, it gets general direction, say the West Coast. Then, depending on vehicle choice, it has a list of preferred waypoint categories. After arriving to a waypoint it makes a decision where to go next.

For example, if you picked a camper van, your next stop may be a gas station (for snacks), after that it may decide to head for an RV-park, then for some natural attraction and so on.

Think, most browsers limit number of peers to 256. Not sure what happens after exceeding the limit. Never tested, honestly.

Having 256 people on a call must be a crazy experience, but the app only connects you to other drivers in vicinity, the radius is about 100 km.

Thanks for trying it out!

The frontend is built with Svelte. This was my first time using the framework and I found their website super helpful: https://svelte.dev/docs

Used Mapbox API and geolib (https://github.com/manuelbieh/geolib/) for building routes and for other geospatial tasks.

"Talkie" was built with simple-peer (https://github.com/feross/simple-peer) and WebRTC. Great tutorial can be found on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/WebRT...

On the backend I use Vercel's serverless functions which are mostly acting as trivial proxies for various open API's.

Feel free to email me if you need more info.

There is no way to set current location and destination currently.

Starting point is always the geographical center of the US near Lebanon, Kansas. The route and general direction are not pre-determined and depend on the vehicle choice. There is no destination really, you can stop at any time.

Available radios change as you progress depending on your location in the game.

The destination is not pre-determined and depends on the vehicle you chose.

Everyone start at the geographical center of the United States in Lebanon, Kansas and later statistically most likely find themselves on one of the coasts. Just because of the overall direction of the highways.

Ended up in Anchorage once. Must say rural Canadian craigslist is wild.

Thanks for checking out the website and for the feedback! Compiling everyone's requests into one ranked list right now. Showing the number of users nearby is the most requested one and I love the idea.

It is intentionally goal-less: there is no end, no achievements, you just explore.

The total for exploration percent is the US highway mileage according to the Federal Highway Administration, many many miles.

That's a good idea to indicate drivers nearby, let's see what I can do. Thanks!

You should have new pics every few miles, like 3 or 5. Perhaps traffic is limited, experiencing HN effect at the moment. Try to reload the page.

Thank you!

It takes pictures automatically as you progress. For the current speed you can check the "vehicle" application. There is no fuel data, but you can read tailpipe CO2 emissions in "metrics".

Back when I worked at Samara (Aribnb's R&D) we needed to generate a dataset with more or less realistic road trip routes. With stops on the way and realistic destinations. Working on that and then exploring the results was fun and made me realise I could build it for everyone's fun too. That's from technical side, but also my wonderful 5 years in the United States and all the trips we had inspired me from sentimental side too.

There was a short outage. Had to upgrade a plan to allow more peers. It's back and I just chatted with someone very nice from Brooklyn, NY and few other people listening. Extremely intimidating for me as an introvert though.

There is a camera roll "application" that fills with photos taken nearby as you progress. I personally find it more intriguing than traditional street view services (e.g. google) as it captures the country in any condition whether it's snow or rain, day or night, highway or a dirt road.