Surf Conditions Application

Got a chance to look it over. Very very cool. I love the visualiztion. Dragging the bar would be a nice touch, but overall I think it's really interesting. Very cool!

Sweet. Always love different representations of the data. My favorite forecasting site that incorporates a ton of data in easy-to view graphical images is SwellInfo: http://www.swellinfo.com/surf-forecast/ocean-beach-california.html

It also has pretty much all the data I'd want: swell size, period, direction, tides, wind strength & direction, and weather.

Are you using the spectral data from the buoy history? Looks pretty cool, It would be interesting to add the forecast from WWIII as well. Relevant spectra can be found at
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/wave/prod/wave./enp.tz.spec_tar

also if you have the capacity to keep history around, it would be cool to be able to compare past swells to forecast/current conditions.

I was just thinking about historical conditions on stokereport. Would be kinda neat to attach the conditions (swell height/direction/period, tide, wind speed/direction, maybe temp) to each stoke report. I would love to be able to refer to the condition-details of every 'Great' surfing report for each location. Could be a neat way to resurface old reports too.

I love the alpha. Would be great to be able to move the timeline like a scrub. Is the data smoothed? It's super-cool that this is a leisure-time project.

nice one matt!

it's interesting to see the combination of different swells. as a couple people above mentioned, one thing i've always wanted was to be able to relate a given session to the buoy data. swell direction is one thing i've never had a beat on.

like greacen said, i too would like to be able to drag the timeline.

mattdh666, nice work!

redtim and greacen... Have you two been spying on me?

Attached is a screenshot of a system that I started building a couple of years ago. It's been live, and I've been personally using it, for almost a year. When I was in early development, StokeReport launched and I was pretty shocked. I assume that the StokeReport developer and I both read The Wisdom of Crowds at the same time?

I released my site a little less than a year ago to a small group of local friends. I've been slowly responding to feedback and working on the idea since. I've learned a lot in my super secret year long alpha. I've also learned a ton watching StokeReport grow. In the past six weeks, StokeReport has blown up!

My site differs significantly from this one in a few ways:

* we associate real buoy, weather, and tide data with your logged session

* we encourage and allow you to have a closed group of friends with whom to share your logged sessions

* we use you and your circle of friend's log history to tell you where you might like to surf on a given day

* we support secret (only you can see), private (you and your friends can see), as well as public (everyone can see) breaks; but we prevent any user from creating a system wide public break

* we give you current buoy, weather, and tide data for any break that you create

* we're a digital version of that paper logbook where you record your surf sessions; but with friends!

Our core goal is to make it easier to answer the question, "Where should I surf?" while remaining true to existing surf ethics. I choose where to surf based on convenience, conditions, and community. I'm trying to build a tool that takes these elements into account while helping me to answer that question. If a reasonable surf local does't feel good about using my site to log on their break, then I'll take that as a sign that I'm not being true to existing surf ethics and adapt. I like surfing. I'd rather give up my ego and site than a good surf experience. Luckily, we've put a ton of thought into building an incredibly informative yet ethical site, so I think we'll succeed in our goal.

StokeReport's recent growth, great community, and surprisingly regulated reporting led us to recently revisit our priorities. Our current push has us shifting away from website development and moving towards building a tool for StokeReporters. To that end, we're working on an iPhone app that could serve as a client to StokeReport. Logging through our app would post to both StokeReport and our site. StokeReport would win by getting more mobile contributors and StokeReporters would win be getting historical session and condition data. Imagine the many views into that data...

I'd love to hear what you think -- either in comment form or as a direct "contact me by email". Of course, you're all friends, so if any of you wants an invite to my system, please hit me up. I'll let you in.

I'm stoked on StokeReport, and stoked that everyone else it, too. Thanks!

wow. a lot of great ideas there.

@alimills, i love the idea of the iphone application hooked into stokereport. it would be great to do some brainstorming with you on that.

@mattdh666, super interesting work. i'd love to chat about your visualizations.

you guys up for a geek-out beer session? ... open invitation to the other geeky stokereporters out there ... you know who you are ;)

@greacen, attaching all the observed data to each stokereport would be easy to do. i already track the "wave quality score" (the big number by the graph on the front page) on each report, so that i can refine the score algo with the reported conditions over time.

I'd be happy to join ya. I like beer and I work for an iPhone app company.

Hmmmm FR: maybe a SR meetup calendar module?
Registered users can post events? IE riptide this Wed, Beertech surf gather, etc.

cooool. Would love to meet up & chat about this stuff. cross-pollination = good.

Yes to beers. Yes to brainstorming.

I could probably skip Nitzer Ebb tomorrow night and make it to the Riptide. Thursday and Friday are both bad. The weekend works. I work by the ball park and live by the beach, so anywhere on the N ###### line is pretty easy for me. Lemme know.

whoops! comment deleted.

Definitely into beers and surf geeking.

Ditto to @redtim's comment. Keep us posted, ye who organize beers & surf geek get togethers.