Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek • Hacker News Board

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#111

Post by ydev » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 11:18 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #43

I'm an avoid back country snowboarder (split boarder) in the Canadian Rockies, and now further north into Coastal Alaska and I've spent many seasons as ski patrol, and taken numerous Avalanche training courses. After my first 4 day course, the message was very clear: "You are now the least knowledgeable people that should be in the back country". I kept thinking "I know just enough to know I know nothing". Reading th…

This article bring back memories since I was at Stevens Pass that day and remember all of the commotion. Saying that these experienced skiers lacked training and practice is completely false. Here is an article that was originally written around the time the accident happened: http://espn.go.com/action/freeskiing/story/_/id/7593035/aval...

"All of the people in the group were experienced backcountry skiers and were carrying avalanche rescue gear, Michelson said. They were skiing the line in sections, one by one, in accordance with standard safety protocol."

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#112

Post by yitchelle » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 12:43 PM UTC

technotony wrote: post #104

I've a lot of experience in back-country, including places like Iran where I skied several peaks. The one time I got into trouble (we had to be rescued by helicopter) was a scarily similar situation to this. I was with a large group (12) of some of the most experienced back-country people I've ever met. I was far and away the least experienced. This group included two Everest summitteers and the head of a mountain re…

Great advice! These set of advice can even translated into this crazy startup work that we all live in!

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#113

Post by moronic_shit » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 1:12 PM UTC

dude.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#114

Post by cpfohl » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 1:22 PM UTC

jashkenas wrote: post #91

fourstar wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised since Jeremy Ashkenas works there. They've got probably some of the best front-end web developers and they're extremely smart for realizing that those kind of people are what it takes to keep them relevant today.

Credit where credit's due -- this project has nothing to do with me. A small army of talented folks from Sports, the Graphics department, Photo and Video put it together over the course of several months: http://cl.ly/LibF More details on how it was made here: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/198970/how-th...

If you do see anyone there who you know worked on this, let them know they did a phenomenal job.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#115

Post by freyfogle » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

jrwoodruff wrote: post #71

The NYT just kinda blew my mind. A newspaper article just blew my mind. This is, by far, the best multimedia storytelling I think I've ever seen. Kudos to the team involved in putting this together, you've shown me the future of media and the internet.

Is anyone from the NYT here and can you give any insight into how long this project took to complete? Is this a beautiful one off, or is the goal that this format eventually becomes the new norm?

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#116

Post by pyre » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 2:09 PM UTC

DigitalJack wrote: post #74

blantonl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot agree enough with this. I spend quite a bit of time every year in Whitefish Montana, and avalanche awareness is a big deal there in the winter time. Back country skiing is akin to skydiving. Significant experience and training is required. From avalanche awareness training, to avalanche rescue training, to tools and devices that a back country team needs to have to safely participate in the back country snow…

I suppose out of bounds in the case of skydiving would be something like base jumping?

  > Back country skiing is akin to skydiving

I got the impression that "Back-Country Skiing" == "Out of Bounds Skiing".

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#117

Post by c1sc0 » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 2:12 PM UTC

freyfogle wrote: post #115

jrwoodruff wrote: post #71

The NYT just kinda blew my mind. A newspaper article just blew my mind. This is, by far, the best multimedia storytelling I think I've ever seen. Kudos to the team involved in putting this together, you've shown me the future of media and the internet.

Is anyone from the NYT here and can you give any insight into how long this project took to complete? Is this a beautiful one off, or is the goal that this format eventually becomes the new norm?

It says right at the bottom, copied for your convenience:

Graphics and design by Hannah Fairfield, Xaquín G.V., Jon Huang, Wayne Kamidoi, Sam Manchester, Alan McLean, Jacky Myint, Graham Roberts, Joe Ward, Jeremy White and Josh Williams. Photography by Ruth Fremson. Video by Catherine Spangler.

Additional video by Eric Miller and Shane Wilder.

Kristen Millares Young contributed research. The reporting for this article on the Feb. 19 avalanche at Tunnel Creek was done over six months. It involved interviews with every survivor, the families of the deceased, first responders at Tunnel Creek, officials at Stevens Pass and snow-science experts. It also included the examination of reports by the police, the medical examiner and the Stevens Pass Ski Patrol, as well as 40 calls to 911 made in the aftermath of the avalanche. The Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research provided a computer-generated simulation of the avalanche, based on data accumulated from the Stevens Pass accident report and witness accounts. Additional sources are: LIDAR data from King County GIS Center; Iowa Environmental Mesonet, Iowa State University; Mark Moore, U.S. Forest Service; National Avalanche Center.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#118

Post by pyre » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 2:13 PM UTC

kerno wrote: post #81

What am I missing here? It looks visually great, but aren't we basically looking at text with embedded videos? On Twitter the buzz about this made me this was a brand new way of presenting articles - you know what it reminds me of most? A book.

This comes across as comparing poor journalism to good journalism and complaining that you it's all 'just words,' so what's the 'big deal?'

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#119

Post by c1sc0 » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

subsystem wrote: post #34

scott_s wrote: post #6

The best long-form presentation of an article or essay I have ever seen on the internet.

It's great, but I can't help to get flashbacks to the mid '90s multimedia era. If someone would have shown me this as the future cutting edge back then, I probably would have been disappointed.

Had the same feeling. Made me think of a 1997-ish flash-laden special about a Mount Everest ascent some sports channel did. Technically pretty-much the same (integration of text + video + audio + animation), just using HTML instead of Flash. The difference is in the storytelling. This stuff only works if the story is front & central and the gimmicks augment the story.

Re: Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

#120

Post by JoeAltmaier » Fri, Dec 21, 2012, 2:29 PM UTC

Pretty snow pictures not impressing me. Annoyed at the interruption of the storey flow. Never watch irrelevant videos anyway - hate podcasts with a passion - information density around zero.

So not for everybody. From the comments here, you'd think its gods gift to journalism.

Also it hijacked my Back button on my browser, had to kill the page, lost my browse context so I resent it for that too.