71–80 of 99 posts
Compare the fox's journey of 2,176 miles in 76 days to the average Pacific Crest Trail through hiker's 2,660 miles in 152 days. That's 29 vs 18 miles per day. The PCT record is about 50 miles per day. So an athletic human could have kept up with this canine. Of course the humans don't have to scavenge their meals along the way and the fox doesn't have to carry supplies. Typically dog companions don't do well on such…
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It's nothing to do with manliness, but just common sense. If you don't know the sun sets in the West and is at its highest point roughly at noon in your local timezone what else is there that you don't know? Basic practical knowledge comes in handy all the time. There isn't a skill that I have that I have not used (and not just to use it when some better alternative was available) and there are still plenty that I'd…
> If you don't know the sun sets in the West and is at its highest point roughly at noon in your local timezone what else is there that you don't know? And how many more things I do know > Basic practical knowledge comes in handy all the time. It doesn’t. The ability to strike a tent, roast a grizzly bear, read weather from moss and bird patterns comes in handy about 0% of the time. Even knowing that the sun sets in…
Compare the fox's journey of 2,176 miles in 76 days to the average Pacific Crest Trail through hiker's 2,660 miles in 152 days. That's 29 vs 18 miles per day. The PCT record is about 50 miles per day. So an athletic human could have kept up with this canine. Of course the humans don't have to scavenge their meals along the way and the fox doesn't have to carry supplies. Typically dog companions don't do well on such…
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why? why do humans nowadays need this skill?
For the same reason that you should be able to set up a tent, cook a meal, write some software and repair some piece of kit that you need. It's the kind of thing that comes in handy all the time. Of course you could rely on all kinds of technical gizmos to cover you but that stuff can break, run out of battery power, be lost and so on. Good luck finding your way out of the national park with your empty phone.
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Human navigation is cultural. Urban culture (for better or worse) tends to cut people off from physical reality. Spend a few days with a Cape York indigenous person and find out how amazingly good people can get at this. John Huth's The Lost Art of Finding Our Way is a good read for anyone interested in improving their navigation skills.
For those who don't know: The natives of the Cape York area speak a language with no words for front, back, left, or right, they only have words for compass directions. Thus, speaking their language forces you to be aware of compass directions at all times. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.htm...
You might also like: - Polar bear shot dead in Iceland I can't say that I would. I guess this is as good a place as any to ask – what's the value of interrupting the article halfway through to link me to other articles? It's something I expect from the likes of Buzzfeed, but now the BBC is doing it too. Did they think I'd get bored halfway through?
Their metrics are for “articles viewed”, not “articles that the reader read and enjoyed”. They don’t care if you get bored halfway through, they probably don’t even care if you read the article. As long as the numbers for the money metrics go up, they’re happy.
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For those who don't know: The natives of the Cape York area speak a language with no words for front, back, left, or right, they only have words for compass directions. Thus, speaking their language forces you to be aware of compass directions at all times. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.htm...
I wonder if they'd also be less ego-centric, given that they don't perceive the world in terms of their orientation?
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It's scary how inept people are in general at navigation. Telling the time and obtaining a rough compass heading by the position of the sun should be something anybody can do but surprisingly few people can do this.
Human navigation is cultural. Urban culture (for better or worse) tends to cut people off from physical reality. Spend a few days with a Cape York indigenous person and find out how amazingly good people can get at this. John Huth's The Lost Art of Finding Our Way is a good read for anyone interested in improving their navigation skills.
No, it simply puts them in a different physical environment. People who grow up in a city learn to navigate in a city. People who grow up in the bush learn to navigate in the bush. We adapt to the physical environment in which we find ourselves. Studies have shown that even pigeons follow roads to the extent that if they take a wrong turn, they will backtrack to a roundabout and follow a different road rather than cut "cross country." And why not? The roads are obvious physical landmarks; why wouldn't pigeons use them?
Wow, I assumed that there was so much water surrounding Greenland that it would be impossible for a fox to swim or get there by themselves. Any idea how much of the path to Greenland from the poles and Canada is covered by ice and how far is pure water?
The article also says Iceland is connected by ice? > The shrinking of the polar ice pack is having an impact on Arctic foxes - they can no longer visit Iceland, for example When was Iceland regularly connected by ice?