Started as my MA thesis in 2022, kept building since, mostly solo with a little funding. Fully open source, self-hosted, AGPL-3.0, Next.js + Deck.gl on the frontend, Strapi backend, Python ETL pulling from museum open-access APIs. Currently indexing over 100k artifacts from all over the world, across 8 collections (Met, V&A, SMB Berlin). Recently added an md export so researchers can download provenance data for a filtered set of artifacts.
The infrastructure is conceptualized as an indexer, not a hoster. Even images are kept as URLs pointing to the source institutions. It's connective tissue between archives that were never designed to speak to each other, with an origin-first search UI concept. The data model is on purpose flat, to avoid encoding problematic taxonomies, and routes researchers directly to the source giving responsibility to the source institutions rather than duplicating institutional data. It indexes the relationship between origin sites and destination collections.
Coming from a design background, taking this project from prototype to production app has been incredibly rewarding, but honestly it\u2019s getting a little bit overwhelming to scale alone. I would love community\u2019s feedback on performance scaling, any code contributions, data pipelines for missing museum apis or general feedback.
Repo: https://github.com/hburakyel/ex-situ
Live: https://exsitu.app"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: Ex Situ \u2013 Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://exsitu.app/map"}},"_tags":["story","author_hbyel","story_48988158","show_hn"],"author":"hbyel","children":[48988677,48988753,48988960,48988995,48989035,48989268,48989317,48989522,48989530,48989919,48990114,48991281,48992302,48992673,48992779,48995536,48995708,48996086],"created_at":"2026-07-21T04:48:32Z","created_at_i":1784609312,"num_comments":41,"objectID":"48988158","points":51,"story_id":48988158,"story_text":"Hi, I designed and developed a spatial index that maps museum artefacts as connecting arcs/hyperlinks from their origin site to institutional location/sources. The Index specifically looks at western/euro-american institutions and maps their collection categorised by them under Islamic art, Asian/African art, ethnological collections, Middle East, South America etc.
Started as my MA thesis in 2022, kept building since, mostly solo with a little funding. Fully open source, self-hosted, AGPL-3.0, Next.js + Deck.gl on the frontend, Strapi backend, Python ETL pulling from museum open-access APIs. Currently indexing over 100k artifacts from all over the world, across 8 collections (Met, V&A, SMB Berlin). Recently added an md export so researchers can download provenance data for a filtered set of artifacts.
The infrastructure is conceptualized as an indexer, not a hoster. Even images are kept as URLs pointing to the source institutions. It's connective tissue between archives that were never designed to speak to each other, with an origin-first search UI concept. The data model is on purpose flat, to avoid encoding problematic taxonomies, and routes researchers directly to the source giving responsibility to the source institutions rather than duplicating institutional data. It indexes the relationship between origin sites and destination collections.
Coming from a design background, taking this project from prototype to production app has been incredibly rewarding, but honestly it\u2019s getting a little bit overwhelming to scale alone. I would love community\u2019s feedback on performance scaling, any code contributions, data pipelines for missing museum apis or general feedback.
Repo: https://github.com/hburakyel/ex-situ
Live: https://exsitu.app","title":"Show HN: Ex Situ \u2013 Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts","updated_at":"2026-07-24T10:59:51Z","url":"https://exsitu.app/map"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"paulpauper"},"title":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["arc"],"value":"Intelligence Explosions Are Social"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["institute"],"value":"https://institute.deepmind.com/essays/artificial-symbiotic-intelligence/"}},"_tags":["story","author_paulpauper","story_49868865"],"author":"paulpauper","created_at":"2026-09-27T17:35:08Z","created_at_i":1790530508,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"49868865","points":2,"story_id":49868865,"title":"Intelligence Explosions Are Social","updated_at":"2026-09-27T23:40:35Z","url":"https://institute.deepmind.com/essays/artificial-symbiotic-intelligence/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"nerdsutra"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["arc","institute"],"value":"HN users may mostly know Wet Bulb Temperatures through Chapter 1 of 'Ministry for the Future' set in India. Well, the topic was close to home, so I built something for myself.
Where I live, the difficult dry summer heat usually peaked in May/June, but now seems to extend into September.
I grew up with 100F / 37C summers, sometimes reaching 110F / 43C, and temperatures around 86F / 30C felt familiar and manageable.\nSo it\u2019s confusing when the same 86F / 30C now feels so much warmer.
May/June were hot but dry, so sweat didn't pool and stick... Now Jul through Sep the air often feels muggy, thick like a soup with moisture, holding heat well into the evening.
Thats really when it clicked for me what WBGT/Wet-Bulb Temperatures was about:\nWet Bulb Temperature is not really a measure of 'hot' air like Heat Index. It\u2019s a measure of how 'cool' my body can get by sweating.
Both are temperatures, but from different math, about very different things, and sending very different signals.
To make the signal more usable, I built *Wet Bulb Tracker*, an app that sends you automatic Notifications when wet-bulb conditions reach higher-risk levels, while telling you what the temperature risk level means. It\u2019s to give the average home user a heads up.
I spent a lot of time iterating on the UI in Figma, trying to make WBGT look and feel more directly and immediately related to health, less like another Temperature. And to make it understandable at a glance.
The app leads with the temperature, but uses five color-coded risk levels to give them meaning based on many published global institutional categories - from OSHA, Military, to Govt Ministries.\nThere's also an hourly timeline (with scrubbing), with written guidance on staying cool for each level. The day\u2019s weather on the side as a background essential.
For optional extra convenience, 6-day forecasts help you plan the week, and Widgets and a Watch App also keep the timeline visible.
The math model implementation I couldn't have built without AI. Claude Code was particularly good, building a hybrid Liljegren & Dimiceli/Piltz system that each provide different parts of the main WBGT equation, rendered in Swift.
I'm interested in whether the way I've communicated WBGT actually makes it stand out from regular heat Index.
What would make this more useful as an everyday summer or travel tool?
Check out the app on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/wet-bulb-temperature-tracker/i...
wet-bulb-temperature.com"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: Wet Bulb Tracker Tracker \u2013 sends you humid-heat alerts and forecasts"}},"_tags":["story","author_nerdsutra","story_49863884","show_hn"],"author":"nerdsutra","children":[49863919,49874252],"created_at":"2026-09-27T06:22:17Z","created_at_i":1790490137,"num_comments":3,"objectID":"49863884","points":2,"story_id":49863884,"story_text":"HN users may mostly know Wet Bulb Temperatures through Chapter 1 of 'Ministry for the Future' set in India. Well, the topic was close to home, so I built something for myself.
Where I live, the difficult dry summer heat usually peaked in May/June, but now seems to extend into September.
I grew up with 100F / 37C summers, sometimes reaching 110F / 43C, and temperatures around 86F / 30C felt familiar and manageable.\nSo it\u2019s confusing when the same 86F / 30C now feels so much warmer.
May/June were hot but dry, so sweat didn't pool and stick... Now Jul through Sep the air often feels muggy, thick like a soup with moisture, holding heat well into the evening.
Thats really when it clicked for me what WBGT/Wet-Bulb Temperatures was about:\nWet Bulb Temperature is not really a measure of 'hot' air like Heat Index. It\u2019s a measure of how 'cool' my body can get by sweating.
Both are temperatures, but from different math, about very different things, and sending very different signals.
To make the signal more usable, I built *Wet Bulb Tracker*, an app that sends you automatic Notifications when wet-bulb conditions reach higher-risk levels, while telling you what the temperature risk level means. It\u2019s to give the average home user a heads up.
I spent a lot of time iterating on the UI in Figma, trying to make WBGT look and feel more directly and immediately related to health, less like another Temperature. And to make it understandable at a glance.
The app leads with the temperature, but uses five color-coded risk levels to give them meaning based on many published global institutional categories - from OSHA, Military, to Govt Ministries.\nThere's also an hourly timeline (with scrubbing), with written guidance on staying cool for each level. The day\u2019s weather on the side as a background essential.
For optional extra convenience, 6-day forecasts help you plan the week, and Widgets and a Watch App also keep the timeline visible.
The math model implementation I couldn't have built without AI. Claude Code was particularly good, building a hybrid Liljegren & Dimiceli/Piltz system that each provide different parts of the main WBGT equation, rendered in Swift.
I'm interested in whether the way I've communicated WBGT actually makes it stand out from regular heat Index.
What would make this more useful as an everyday summer or travel tool?
Check out the app on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/wet-bulb-temperature-tracker/i...
wet-bulb-temperature.com","title":"Show HN: Wet Bulb Tracker Tracker \u2013 sends you humid-heat alerts and forecasts","updated_at":"2026-09-28T06:14:19Z"}],"hitsPerPage":50,"nbHits":26,"nbPages":1,"page":0,"params":"query=Arc+Institute&tags=story&hitsPerPage=50&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":13,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"roundTrip":19},"afterFetch":{"total":1},"fetch":{"query":8,"scanning":3,"total":12},"total":13},"query":"Arc Institute","serverTimeMS":14}