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Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

independent.co.uk

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Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#71

Post by soheil »

atoav wrote: post #4
joncrane wrote: post #2

I 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…

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…

You seem to be missing the point of the OP wittingly. It's inconsequential that playing the animation at its normal speed would be a bad idea, what is also important is the effect it will have on an average reader of the Independence, the most obvious impression is that the whale is running for its life, which makes this disingenuous.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#72

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

hansvm wrote: post #7
witherk wrote: post #5

I'm open to an explanation. But, I think a lot of the effect of the animation is created by the dots representing the whale and ships being huge. In reality the dots would be tiny and almost never come into visible range of each other.

Shipping noise can travel much further underwater than through the air. If the effect being shown is real then I wouldn't be shocked if sound were the culprit.

For scale, the latitude lines are drawn at 0.2 degree increments, i.e. 12 nautical miles or 22 km apart (1 degree of latitude - or 1 degree of longitude if and only if you're at the equator - is 60 nautical miles).

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#73

Post by pvaldes »

ornornor wrote: post #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.

Non sequitur.

Most (if not all) of those are clearly maritime traffic connecting two points of the shore in an endless loop, not fishing ships.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#74

Post by calylex »

Why do we get sensationalist articles on HN? Surely the reason this is interesting is not the animation quality. I really hope certain sites would not even appear due to their poor reputation score focusing sensationalism. Here is a few to name:

quantamagazine.org, nautil.us masquerading as science journals

phys.org masquerading as physics journal

indepenedent.com, et al not masquerading as anything they are just crap

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#76

Post by olefoo »

ajnin wrote: post #58
joncrane wrote: post #2

I 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…

I witnessed an interesting phenomenon : invariably when information is presented from some article that hints at either animal intelligence or harmful influence of humans on animals, some armchair commentator will come forward with an alternate explanations that reduces the observed behaviour to a basic mechanistic instinct related to feeding or reproduction or survival. That comment will also be the most upvoted one…

It could be a collective defense mechanism. The idea of animal intelligence being a threat to what many people perceive as the necessary status quo of being able to endlessly consume the resources of nature without consequence.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#77

Post by scubazealous »

scubazealous wrote: post #55
joncrane wrote: post #2

I 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…

Disclaimer: Not a marine biologist by trade but took several classes and have close friends in the profession. What people do not realize is that these whales communicate by sound and have very sensitive hearing. Boats, especially the larger ones you see being used for fishing/shipping generate a lot of noise due to powerful engines and underwater cavitation caused by their propeller spinning. This can drown out whal…

I was trying to think of an analogy and came up with this: imagine trying to complete grocery shopping in a large store except all the other shoppers are blasting air horns constantly. Of course, you avoid them but it does not matter which aisle you escape to, another shopper will enter and you will need to find another place to avoid the sound. Its a weird analogy but is the closest to normal life I can come up with.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#79

Post by kortilla »

chmod775 wrote: post #54
darkerside wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's your opinion on weather map/satellite images then? You are aware they're not real time and the storms/wind isn't actually moving that fast? Are the people who make them incompetent? Or would they simply be useless if played back in real time - since you would hardly be able to see any movement at all.

If you speed up a video of pedestrians at cross-walks it suddenly becomes pedestrians running across the street to avoid being run over by cars going way too fast.

Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships

#80

Post by kortilla »

ajnin wrote: post #58
joncrane wrote: post #2

I 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…

I witnessed an interesting phenomenon : invariably when information is presented from some article that hints at either animal intelligence or harmful influence of humans on animals, some armchair commentator will come forward with an alternate explanations that reduces the observed behaviour to a basic mechanistic instinct related to feeding or reproduction or survival. That comment will also be the most upvoted one…

> The commentator does not present additional information

The commentator pointed out that the video is literally sped up which changes the entire meaning.

Have you considered this has nothing to do with hating animals and entirely to do with hating articles written to create drama and/or crisis where there is none?

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