Live data from Hacker News

Black Tide in Brazil

correspondent.afp.com

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#41
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell us more about the active countermeasures? How do they work and what makes them very obvious?

That is “stealth”. It’s obvious because it is expensive and secret tech. But also because if you look at the ship you see a ship, whereas the radar shows an albatross or something small. Transitions are also notable for radar operators that are really paying attention. A ship that turns into a goose and then back into a ship, for example.

From the POV of the radar stealth tech is mostly passive countermeasures. Active = jamming.

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#43
post #15

A bit of local context. The Brazilian president accused Green Peace in staging the accident. Also according to Bolsanaro fish are not dumb and if they see oil they are going to avoid it (that was a real treasure for memes).

Bolsonaro has a long history of not having the slightest clue about how to manage an ecological emergency.

[deleted]

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#44

A bit of local context. The Brazilian president accused Green Peace in staging the accident. Also according to Bolsanaro fish are not dumb and if they see oil they are going to avoid it (that was a real treasure for memes).

Can they see the oil? I read mobile fish can avoid it, but shellfish and such can't move that fast if they're already in it. https://www.itopf.org/knowledge-resources/documents-guides/e...

This is the bullshit asymmetry principle at work:

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

a/k/a Brandolino's Law.

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/01/28/bullshit-a...

The claim is bullshit. We know it's bullshit. Refuting it ties up resources and conversations.

Flag it as bullshit and move on.

See also burden of proof fallacy:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have source for the chemical analysis? Curious to read...

I'm not sure if data from the analysis will be made available to the large public anytime soon, but in the links below you can find more information about the protocol in use, measures taken so far and a statement from Petrobrás about the type of oil found in the region. https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2019/10/25/petrobras-d... https://www.marinha.mil.br/manchasdeoleo/informacoes-sobre-o... http://www.petrobras…

English tl;dr: Gas Chromatography and “Positive Ion Electron Impact Low Resolution Mass Spectrometry” allow them to compare the samples with known samples from other oil fields. Since petroleum has organic origins, it’s footprint is pretty much specific to the environment it comes from.

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically Brazil has been considerably better since he got elected and most things seem to be moving in the right direction. What exactly is this cost that you mentioned?

Debatable at best. 1- Employment is slightly increasing but still tragically low. Whatever gains in employment are coming from loss of worker rights. 2- Record historical inequality and increasing means unavoidable civil unrest in the future 3- Inflation is down due to idle capacity, not increasing production 4- Stock market is up at the cost of (the promise of) privatization of oil and profitable public companies 5-…

The possibility of growth is at least there if Bolsanaro can mitigate the gross inefficiency of government corruption that has plagued Brazil for so long. See Operation Car Wash for the tip of the iceberg. His politics are almost incidental; the leftists would still be in power if they hadn't habitually robbed the state of its seed money.

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#47

That is an amazing amount of love and care for brazilians to go out onto the beaches and "pick up" oil. I can't even fathom americans doing that.

Americans absolutely did support the cleanup efforts of the BP spill in the gulf... the 24/7 news cycle was talking about it for months.

don't forget the Exxon Valdez spill. That spill generated so much public attention and effort it seems like an entire non-profit industry was born from it.

Re: Black Tide in Brazil

#50
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell us more about the active countermeasures? How do they work and what makes them very obvious?

That is “stealth”. It’s obvious because it is expensive and secret tech. But also because if you look at the ship you see a ship, whereas the radar shows an albatross or something small. Transitions are also notable for radar operators that are really paying attention. A ship that turns into a goose and then back into a ship, for example.

I think you may be mixing up active jamming (which works like shining a searchlight in someone's eyes--they can't see or track you, but it's very obvious that there's someone out there) and passive stealth (which tries to reduce the emissions that the vehicle emits or reflects).

Anyone can make a jammer, but it only helps if you can evade your pursuer before they get a look at you optically; it's not much use for a lumbering oil tanker.

As zentiggr says, you can get some degree of passive stealth just by turning off your own radio/radar, but anything more than that requires a custom-engineered (and strangely-shaped) hull, propulsion, etc. that takes military-level money to design and would be extremely obvious in any port. So, again, not practical for this kind of smuggler.

Post reply on HN