Fuck me, Independent. I've not got all day.
Want to load some content in at any point or are we just gonna get a few more random videos and other guff loaded in first?
Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
41–50 of 93 posts
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#42Surely ships' wakes don't go on for that long? What would the image look like if the tracers of the ships were reduced to a quarter of their size, which would be much closer to reality?
On twitter they explain the tail represents speed, not wake.
https://twitter.com/NiklasAstrand/status/1358321916369592321
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#43I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…
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Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not a marine biologist, but worked in VFX: Of course this is sped up, watching those ships travel their routes in realtime would be a bit like watching paint dry. Certain aspects/patterns of movement will only become visible when the playback speed is changed (early 20th century theorist Walter Benjamin called this the Optical-Unconscious ). So e.g. it is easier to judge patterns in the traffic flow of vehicles…
The choice of speed seems consciously intended to make it seem more frantic than it is. It's too fast to make out what's going on. If they played it half speed, it would be closer to reality and also easier to see and understand, so why is it this fast?
Half speed... so we take half a week to watch it?
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#45I think to properly interpret this, you’d need to see a control case where the same whale is the same or similar area with zero ships. Do they normally just swim in that pattern? Perhaps that’s the normal manner in which they troll for krill.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#46I think to properly interpret this, you’d need to see a control case where the same whale is the same or similar area with zero ships. Do they normally just swim in that pattern? Perhaps that’s the normal manner in which they troll for krill.
Sadly I don't think we can get that control case without shutting down all shipping in a huge area.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The choice of speed seems consciously intended to make it seem more frantic than it is. It's too fast to make out what's going on. If they played it half speed, it would be closer to reality and also easier to see and understand, so why is it this fast?
Or this was the speed things came out when converted to video. I think attributing this to malice is really not a great move, given that we can only guess here and a lot of people without advanced video knowledge wouldn't make this a conscious choice unless it is much too slow or fast
Another simple hypothesis: a frantic-looking animation is more likely to get upvoted on Reddit so if 5 people posted animations at different speeds, a frantic-looking one might have a better chance at surviving
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#48“That’s horrible!” Most people say while reading this on their way to the sushi restaurant. We’re ruining the world for all living things (and ourselves but we don’t seem to have fully grasped it yet). I have nothing to add except that it’s very sad. I could say “quit buying fish if you’re at all concerned about the situation” but I expect to be downvoted to oblivion for stating such a radical idea.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#49Each travelling ship leaves behind a tail that's much longer than what I would expect if it was meant to represent the wake. Does anyone know the significance of the tail?
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The choice of speed seems consciously intended to make it seem more frantic than it is. It's too fast to make out what's going on. If they played it half speed, it would be closer to reality and also easier to see and understand, so why is it this fast?
Or this was the speed things came out when converted to video. I think attributing this to malice is really not a great move, given that we can only guess here and a lot of people without advanced video knowledge wouldn't make this a conscious choice unless it is much too slow or fast
That's why I say "seems" instead of "was". I don't want to assume it's on purpose. But I'm sure they had control over the speed of the animation. If they didn't make it look frenetic on purpose, they were incompetent in their attempt to make it describe reality.
If they didn't mean it to seem that way, the responsibility is on them to fix it. This is only my opinion, but I'm sure I'm not alone.