[HN Gopher] The Exploding Whale remastered: 50th anniversary of ...
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The Exploding Whale remastered: 50th anniversary of legendary
Oregon event
Author : danso
Score : 152 points
Date : 2020-11-12 14:49 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (katu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (katu.com)
| ceph_ wrote:
| Direct link to the video without the shitty local news site:
| https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34
|
| Side rant: Their ad-tracking cookie opt-out is the epitome of a
| dark design pattern. It took over 2 minutes to run. Including
| saying "done" in a pop out and the only leaving a cancel button
| for another 15 seconds. There's absolutely zero reason it should
| take even 1/10th of that time, other than purposefully bad UX.
| nebulous1 wrote:
| That js popup actually got an audible laugh from me. Left me
| curious as to whether it triggered it if you just accept all
| the cookies.
| nelaboras wrote:
| It's even darker, after those two minutes it told me some
| advertisers can't receive the opt out by https so it wasn't
| actually submitted, and to follow another link.
|
| And then it didn't load the actual content...
| danso wrote:
| KATU, this local news site, are the ones who not only produced
| the original segment, but 50 years later, worked with the
| historical society to restore and digitally remaster the
| original film. Their article contains context and retrospective
| commentary.
|
| edit: to be clear, just explaining why I submitted the link
| rather than the Youtube link. I don't endorse dark patterned ad
| code, though I've tried opening the link in a couple of
| incognito browsers and didn't run into any issues.
| [deleted]
| interestica wrote:
| The KATU video seems to be limited to 360p max for me. The
| YouTube link is the remastered quality that the article seems
| to be describing.
| danso wrote:
| Looks like I ended up being in the wrong then. This morning
| when I read it, the article embedded the high-res Youtube
| video (which you could also click to view directly on
| Youtube) at the bottom of the article. Looks like that at
| some point today, they've removed the Youtube embed for
| their own player:
|
| http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp
| s...
| gspr wrote:
| It's not just a shitty local news site, it's part of Sinclair
| Broadcast Group, the epitome of scummy, society-destroying
| media.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Aaanyway... how about that whale?
|
| Much like those proposals for constructs that would warn people
| of the dangers of radioactive waste for 10,000 years, this
| video has served as warning for 50 years about what not to do
| with a dead whale on the beach. With the remastering, perhaps
| it can still continue its mission for many more years to come.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| plus, opting out will set _hundreds_ of "no thank you" cookies
| with all their 3rd party tracker, if I understand correctly.
|
| I closed the page without reading/viewing, and came here to
| rant about it. Thanks for being first. :)
| johtso wrote:
| Right.. probably one of the worst I've come across. Finally got
| me to make the effort to install a browser extension. Seems to
| be doing the trick.
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-dont-care-about-...
| quaffapint wrote:
| If you use uBlock Origin with the annoyances filter you don't
| see any of that. As far as cookies, you can just use something
| like Vanilla cookie that will clear them outside of the one's
| you want to keep. Unfortunately the browsers dont let them
| clear the other storages, but at least you wont have the
| cookies following you.
| leephillips wrote:
| I didn't see any of this, and I have no plugins installed.
| Perhaps my hostfile blocked it:
| http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
| C19is20 wrote:
| What better way to show the value of adblockers, host file,
| ublock etc to people that might otherwise think they're
| unnecessary.
| m23khan wrote:
| I wonder if Twitter's fail whale was inspired by this event.
| svat wrote:
| Wikipedia has an article:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale
|
| The 1970 event remained little-known until in 1990 Dave Barry
| wrote about it[1], and it became _really_ well-known thanks to
| the internet in 1993 or so when (part of) this article[2] "went
| viral" on bulletin boards.
|
| The Wikipedia article mentions many other incidents, none as
| iconic as this one.
|
| > Whale corpses are regularly disposed of using explosives;
| however, the whales are usually first towed out to sea.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/19...
|
| [2]: https://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/resources/dave-
| ba...
| [deleted]
| chris_wot wrote:
| I wrote the original Wikipedia article, for which I received the
| Oddball Barnstar.
| jtbayly wrote:
| That's remastered? They didn't bother touching the audio at all.
| Too bad.
| ddlatham wrote:
| One difference I noticed from my memory of watching it 20 years
| ago is in the original video there was a delay between the
| visual of the explosion and the audio, which makes sense
| because of the distance. In this version, they appear to have
| synced them up.
| phkahler wrote:
| And I recall a distinctive red in a large portion of the
| stuff blasted upward. Did they remove the blood in the
| remaster?
| roywiggins wrote:
| KATU's YouTube channel has the original-quality version
| also:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPuaSY0cMK8
|
| The color balance is totally different. The remastered
| blast is not nearly so red, but then, neither is the entire
| rest of the video.
| [deleted]
| roywiggins wrote:
| It's a 4K scan of the original film, a substantial improvement
| over the extremely 1970s broadcast quality video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPuaSY0cMK8
| lando2319 wrote:
| Does anyone know what the current official solution is for a
| smelly whale carcass stuck on a beach?
|
| Seems like hauling it a few miles offshore would do the trick,
| but who knows it might wash back.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| How? I image that some kind of net could be made to attach to a
| tug and haul out to sea, but such a thing would have to be
| custom made to handle a 50 ton whale on sand.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Here's an idea: loop several thin wires around the carcass,
| connect them to a tractor and pull... Should break it down
| quite easily into several moveable chunks.
| itronitron wrote:
| I'm thinking a trebuchet could be built onsite, straddling the
| carcass and facing the ocean. Then schoolchildren could use
| buckets to fill the counterweight box with wet sand. Seems like
| a nice STEM activity.
| justin66 wrote:
| > hauling it a few miles offshore
|
| 1. Where are you going to put the crane? It's a beach.
|
| 2. Where are you going to put the ship or tugboat? It's a
| beach.
|
| I don't know the solution to beached whale disposal either. I
| just assume that it's really, really gross.
| evan_ wrote:
| You wouldn't need a crane. Lay out nylon straps on the beach,
| push or roll it onto the straps with an end loader, secure
| the straps around it and push it the rest of the way into the
| water.
|
| Once it's in the water and floating you can pull it from a
| boat 50 meters away if you need to.
| pinot wrote:
| There's a bit of a trick to pushing a 20t rotting chunk of
| soft flesh into straps wide enough to then not slice
| through the beast when under tow.
| crygin wrote:
| Not all whale carcasses float -- some sink like a stone
| (and some sink, only to later rise again).
| pugworthy wrote:
| Marine salvage operations can do it. In fact about 21 years
| ago, a 650 foot ship (the New Carissa) grounded on the beach
| about 50 miles south of the whale location. It broke apart,
| but the salvors were able to float and tow a 440 foot section
| back out to sea to sink it.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Carissa
| claudiulodro wrote:
| TFA says the current recommendation is to bury the whale.
| seszett wrote:
| Until at least about 20 years ago when I lived there, on the
| coast of France, the whales were simply buried under sand until
| they were decomposed, and then dug up.
| webmaven wrote:
| Unsurprising, perhaps, that such a Whale of a Tale has inspired
| several songs. The best of those I can find online is 'The
| Exploding Whale Song' by Dan Tanz[0], but my all time favorite is
| Kay Shapero's 'Blubber'[1].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/cR3JcMblV0o
|
| [1] Lyrics only, unfortunately:
| http://www.kayshapero.net/kaysongs.htm#Blubber
| Anon4Now wrote:
| It also seems to be the inspiration for the end of the Aussie
| movie _Swinging Safari_ (2018), one of my favorite quirky
| movies in the last few years.
| webmaven wrote:
| _> It also seems to be the inspiration for the end of the
| Aussie movie Swinging Safari (2018), one of my favorite
| quirky movies in the last few years._
|
| I'll check that out. Thanks for the recommendation!
| geonic wrote:
| Does anyone know why they decided to blow up the whale? I mean,
| the consequences should have been obvious to anyone. Where did
| they expect the pieces to go?
| yeezyseezy wrote:
| In the video, the engineer says that they expect the whale to
| be vaporized
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Blowing them up with dynamite was a common response in those
| days. Experts believe that they didn't use enough, and didn't
| place the charge properly.
| ouid wrote:
| My guess is that no one had a _solution_ , so the problem fell
| through to the first person with an _idea_.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| If it wasn't a crowded/ popular-ish beach (not LA crowded,
| Oregon Coast crowded), it would have likely been fine. The big
| problem was the fact that they have a bunch of spectators who
| were parked within the blast range.
| aaron695 wrote:
| > I mean, the consequences should have been obvious to anyone.
|
| Only on HN could some become an expert on how to blow up whales
| after watching one video.
|
| 1927 - STRANDED WHALE - DISPOSING OF THE CARCASS - DYNAMITE
| RESORTED TO https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93580808
| nerfhammer wrote:
| did they place the charge directly underneath rather than in
| such a way that it would blow the wreckage directionally out to
| sea?
| roywiggins wrote:
| The video contains an answer to that particular question!
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Perhaps the assumption was that many small pieces would be
| easier to clean up than one big piece. And that the very small
| pieces would be removed by other animals, or the weather.
|
| Apparently they vastly overestimated how much explosive to use,
| resulting in the now infamous consequences.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Apparently they vastly overestimated how much explosive to
| use,
|
| I disagree. Had they over-estimated there would have simply
| been pink mist and a bad smell.
| tantalor wrote:
| > overestimated
|
| Don't you mean underestimated?
| roywiggins wrote:
| According to the article:
|
| "The decision to blow up the whale came from the Oregon
| Department of Transportation and George Thornton. According
| to Linnman, Thornton had consulted with the United State
| Navy, which had done things like this in the past. The
| general consensus from all involved after the explosion was
| that not enough dynamite was used."
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The original call must have been an interesting
| conversation.
|
| Credit must be due just for getting through switchboard to
| someone who could give a professional opinion.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I think the idea was that they'd blast it into tiny pieces that
| crabs and birds could easily dispose of. Obviously it didn't
| work out that way.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The whale carcass was beginning to rot, which meant a massive
| stink. So they decided to blast it into pieces that could be
| eaten by seagulls... only that this plan failed and the chunks
| were too big.
| throwaway_pdp09 wrote:
| 8 tons of whale mince is going to need a hell of a lot of
| seagull. Just poking a hole or three in it to let the gasses
| out then hauling it into the sea seems an option ( but IANA
| whale carcass disposal expert)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Don't ask me :D I just took the info from the article.
|
| On the other side, given I'm half Croatian, seagulls and
| other meat-eating birds will absolutely devour that meat in
| no time - they will lead other flocks of birds to the food
| source.
| ouid wrote:
| I'm paraphrasing here, but "we think it will work, but the only
| problem is we don't know how much dynamite to use" strikes me as
| the statement of a man who was offered a job that he would, under
| no circumstances, say no to, including the particular
| circumstance where he has no idea how to do that job. Can't say I
| would behave much differently in that situation, though.
| delibes wrote:
| Ah. Memories of downloading a 320x256 mpeg of this in the 90s :)
| tonystubblebine wrote:
| Exactly. This video is one of my first great Internet memories
| and I had a saved copy on my computer for years.
| buggeryorkshire wrote:
| Yup, RealVideo represent!
| flomo wrote:
| Maybe the first internet viral video? I think I got it on
| Gopher.
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(page generated 2020-11-12 23:02 UTC)