9/11 in Realtime

61 pointsposted 3 days ago
by clessg
(911realtime.org)

15 Comments

retrofuturism

3 days ago

Quoting user nyx from the last time this was posted. >To fix the broken timestamp in the upper right, open your JS console and set timeZone.diff equal to your negative UTC offset. I'm in US Pacific Time, so I ran timeZone.diff = 8

robbiebyrd

2 days ago

I really, really do apologize for not fixing this yet.

sigmoid10

3 days ago

The OS desktop-y simulation is a nice idea, but it makes the site unusable on mobile. Even the video player seems unnecessarily complicated. So unless you have a full screen available to you all day, you're gonna miss out on a lot.

dudefeliciano

3 days ago

I don't think this is intended to be used on mobile. From their intro/disclaimer: a multimedia experiment for teachers, with the purpose of helping their students truly understand and absorb the events of September 11, 2001.

Also, there were no smartphones on 9/11/2001, it helps with immersion :)

robbiebyrd

2 days ago

You're absolutely right, there sure weren't any smartphones, or at least not the ones we think of today.

I have a sort of unlisted version of the site that has been used in classrooms and museum exhibits: http://tv.911realtime.org

You can use the keyboard to navigate, and you will probably have to hit the spacebar on first load to get the player to play.

L,S: Louder, Softer -,+: Change Channel M: Mute

sigmoid10

3 days ago

I get that, but even in schools you'd need a monitor at this at all times. Overall it means you limit the audience to a fraction of its potential for what is essentially a gimmick that is not part of the story to be taught (and it's clearly intended to teach). You could easily simulate TV screens on a static page, which is also how most people would have experienced this. I doubt the fraction of people following the news on a Mac was significant back then.

Pawka

3 days ago

It also requires an internet connection. Which also limits the audience.

Obviously this material is not available for everyone. But I'm glad the author created it in a form as it is.

robbiebyrd

2 days ago

Thanks Pawka, I appreciate the support! I am re-working the interface that the 911realtime.org uses to make it responsive and more modern; you can see it here: http://classicy.ing

We're hoping that by the 25th anniversary, we can have a brand-new experience with more features and stability.

If you, or any other engineers, teachers or computer-savvy volunteers would like to contribute, you can find me at http://keepinghistory.org

sigmoid10

2 days ago

That's like saying not everyone has eyes, so why should anyone create visual content. It totally misses the reality of those numbers.

Dibby053

3 days ago

FWIW it works fine for me on mobile. The default layout is odd but it's possible to move and resize every window.

Krutonium

3 days ago

I wish it wasn't MacOS 9 - A far more relevant UI for this would have been 9x or 2000. And a lot easier to use, too.