A curious phenomenon called 'Etak' • Hacker News Board

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#161

Post by jollyllama » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 7:32 PM UTC

Thtjifiti wrote: post #37

SamBam wrote: post #17

The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…

This sounds very romantic, but they were mostly at drift. Most very using rafts without any form of propulsion. "Navigation" across wast distances was one way road with no return ticket. They had to do it for overpopulation, not for some explorative spirit.

>They had to do it for overpopulation, not for some explorative spirit.

Navigation methods aside, those aren't mutually exclusive.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#162

Post by jagged-chisel » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

> By today’s standards it was also supremely difficult and tedious to find locations and even more difficult to work out how to get there.

If by "today's standards" you mean "ask a computer and it just does it for you," then sure. But this is by no means difficult and involves the most minor tedium.

Want to get from Nashville to Charleston? Grab a US atlas, hold your straight edge to connect the two cities. Find the highways that connect the two close to the straight line. Signage abounds along the way. If you know Charleston, SC is generally east and a bit south, you can likely follow signage mostly without the map. Maybe you need a Nashville-level street map to get to the highway, and maybe one for Charleston to find your hotel. But tedious? Not especially.

Without signs, and needing to measure each leg? Or asking locals along the way? Now that's tedious.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#163

Post by AshamedCaptain » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #47

The article claims that the "match roads by turns" technique "was later adopted by all navigation apps". Does anyone know if this is true? My impression was that they rely on GPS position only for positioning, even though modern phone hardware should give really nice gyroscope/accelerometer data.

Try googling GPS "Lock on Road" for some examples.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#164

Post by austinprete » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #146

YouWhy wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to the "Jodorowsky’s attempt was ... never released" critique by trying to expand on both the similarities and dissimilarities between Etak and Jodorowsky's Dune.

My comment wasn't really about Etak at all, I just thought you might have mixed up Jodorowsky's Dune with Lynch's! The Lynch one seemed like a better fit, although I think "set up an entire field for subsequent success" is a bit of a stretch for both of them.

The documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune” presents a fairly strong argument that the “Dune bible” that was assembled for that movie and shopped around to production studios strongly influenced many of the great sci-fi films (or at least iconic scenes in them) in the years to follow.

Specific examples from the documentary were Star Wars and Alien. The latter of which included Dan O’Bannon (screenwriter) and H.R. Giger (effects+concept artist), reprising their roles as staff on Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Highly recommend the documentary by the way. I actually just saw it a couple weeks ago, so the comparison made a lot of sense to me.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#165

Post by sovok_x » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 9:18 PM UTC

RicoElectrico wrote: post #36

> The second key invention was a ‘heading up’, moving map display. This meant that the vehicle remained at the center of the screen and the map moved and turned under the vehicle. What you saw ahead of you in the windshield was what was displayed on the screen. This proved highly intuitive. Later on they talk about "heads up" map digitizing, did this mean the map rotated as the operator digitized the street? Seems qu…

Heads up map digitizing seem to refer to the method where computer operator digitized an aerial image map by manually tagging its features displayed on the screen, in contrast to heads down digitizing where they used a special tablet.

Anyway I really need such articles from time to time not to lose my faith in humanity.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#166

Post by jpm_sd » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 9:36 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #152

gizmo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. If you try to build a commercial product and fail that doesn't entitle you to the profits made by others who made a successful product.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Patents exist to reward research or invention that results in practicable ideas. Entrepreneurialism is not (and should not be) part of that.

Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#167

Post by gizmo » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 9:43 PM UTC

flkiwi wrote: post #142

gizmo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. If you try to build a commercial product and fail that doesn't entitle you to the profits made by others who made a successful product.

If the successful commercial product is based on the research of someone else, why does building a commercial product that succeeds entitle you to the innovations of others? I tend to favor liberalizing intellectual property, but your lens seems to suggest that value exists only in commercial success which ... is odd.

Patents also block people from coming up with the same design independently. In addition you've got patent trolls who will gladly shake you down but who have no desire to use their patents productively themselves. Patent law turns the simple mechanics of designing a good product into a mess that involves lawyers and other gatekeepers. This benefits incumbents and makes the market inaccessible for upstarts.

I don't believe businesses deserve protection from competition. Not even when they've done meaningful original research. Society wins when people with the ability to bring a better product to market are legally allowed to do so.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#168

Post by buildsjets » Tue, Apr 16, 2024, 10:16 PM UTC

ljf wrote: post #160

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more than viewing a ring of waves bounce of objects in the water, they observed waves diffracting around an island

As a young child I went mackerel fishing on a small boat in Shetland with my father and a local he knew. The man steered the boat with one had in the water, until he announced we were near a shoal of mackerel - he said he could feel the grease of their bodies in the sea water. We threw some lines in and sure enough we caught plenty of fish for dinner.

I used to fish for salmon quite a bit. Herring schools release enough oil into the water to visibly affect the wave action at the surface. You can also smell it.

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#169

Post by ThinkBeat » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:06 AM UTC

Somewhat off topic. What do big military submarines use these days to navigate?

Do they have nav systems based on topographic data of the sea floor? (I dont know if it is mapped to the degree its possible). Could that be read accurately with only passiv sensors? I think you could read it perfectly with sonar whatever that may have evolved into these days.

I guess they could reach depth where they can poke an extraordinarily long antenna to the surface and talk to GPS systems? (I dont know if such an antenna exists but it would make sense)

Re: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

#170

Post by tmerr » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 1:25 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #118

One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated. I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the produc…

A more optimistic takeaway is that if you set out to solve a hard problem then you might be surprised about your tech's applications elsewhere. Between 1983 and 1989 they built a company that they went on to sell for ~25 million, or ~64 million in 2024 dollars. I don't know how much went into it but it doesn't sound like an obvious failure.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/60130710.html?did...