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Life-Size Photo of a Blue Whale

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 13, 2008 03:33 PM
from the baleen-why-can't-you-be-true dept.
Earth Graphics Software Science
Smivs writes "The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society have posted a navigable life-size photo of a blue whale! It will take a while to look at all of it, but it starts at the eye (which is a great idea). The picture is navigable — there is an insert of the whole picture and you can change the view by moving a cursor around — but if you just let it run, the whale will slowly 'swim' past you. It's a bit like being in a submarine with the whale going past a porthole. Definitely worth a look!"
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Submission: Life-size photo of a Blue Whale by Smivs (1197859)
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  • "no content for you please install macromedia flash player 7"

    • Re:Funny result of NoScript (Score:5, Insightful)

      by apathy maybe (922212) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:43PM (#23395554) Homepage Journal
      But once you enable JavaScript, and assuming you have Flash, it is actually pretty cool. You can't actually keep the picture on one part (it just keeps floating), but it's a great way to examine the whale.

      Oh, and before some idiot says it, yes we all know blue whales aren't being hunted and probably won't be. However, they are threatened by extinction from various other sources, including pollution of various kinds, and too much noise meaning that they can't communicate. (And we all know what happens if you can't communicate, you can't copulate.)
      • Omg, the last part was so funny and so true. The hit really hurts thought :/

        I'd still think you deserve a +10 insightful for it :)

        • The hit really hurts thought :/
          It hurts more than just thought!

          Though, I guess on /., perhaps you're right.
          • Is it weird english or no english at all or just wrong english?

            How do you say "vid nÃrmare eftertanke" or something like that in english then?
            • I think the joke was based on the use of 'thought' instead of 'though'.

              A common enough mistake, I think.

              Often, it will make the sentence incorrect, but that is not the case with the sentence you used.

              In this case, it implies it hurts your thought (ie what you are thinking about) - and since the post you were replying to was refering to 'copulate' and /. posters only really do that 'in their minds', the concept of "hurting thought" is surprisingly apt.

              Not funny anymore? Didn't think so. Perhaps it wasn't to

      • Re:Funny result of NoScript (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Original Replica (908688) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:44PM (#23397074) Journal
        pollution of various kinds, and too much noise meaning that they can't communicate.

        It's not just that it's noisy so they can't communicate. The Navy is maiming whales with it deep sea sonar. Kinda like how a gunshot blast beside your head damages your hearing. They are perfectly aware of this and they don't really care other than the PR problems, but that is being addressed. [nature.com] First they just tried to use bad science to make it OK. [ucsusa.org] And then the blinded whales started beaching themselves. [motherjones.com] But at least one court isn't fooled by the carte blanc of "national security". [msn.com]

        Disclaimer: I grew up in Virgina Beach, VA most of my friends and their families from back home are in the Navy. I want our Navy to be strong and safe, but I don't want to mutilate whales to do it. Good sonar didn't do jack shit for the USS Cole, and I don't think Iraq or Afghanistan has much of a Navy to worry about. How about a new better technology instead of just turning the volume up on the sonar.

        • I don't think Iraq or Afghanistan has much of a Navy to worry about.
          No, but Iran and China do. Not compared to ours, true, but both counties have submarines; China has ballistic missile subs, and Iran has torpedoes that travel over 200 mph underwater.
          • You forgot to mention the Chinese sub that got so close to a US navy ship that they almost actually. Here is a link [dailymail.co.uk] to it. I can't find the one link that claims a few US navy ships had to correct courses because the sub was in the wrong place.

            Your right, this is a very real threat.
            • Some of ex-navy folks in the UK have stories like that. One story that I heard about was the Russian submarine that was watching a NATO exercise and accidently strayed in front of another submarine which was using active sonar. The sonar reading read that there was a submarine less than 10 metres away. and was now ringing like a bell.
              • It doesn't surprise me. I had a friend who served something like 20 years on a sub in the US during the cold war who told me that a lot of what they did was trail other country's military ships to monitor their activities and every once in a while, after 3 or 4 days they would make themselves known while another sub was watching to see what kind of protective measures and reactions they would take. I guess we learned a lot about the Russians this way and they learned a lot about us too.

                This Chinese sub, lik
        • Because leaving ActiveX running while setting up a firewall to deal with a separate problem is a smart move.

      • And we all know what happens if you can't communicate, you can't copulate.

        I don't know if I agree with that. I've definitely had relationships that were all copulation and no communication. In fact, looking back, I think some of them would have been better like that.

  • So? (Score:2, Funny)

    by pla (258480)
    The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society have posted a navigable life-size photo of a blue whale!

    I already have a life-size photo of a blue whale, thanks.

    Of course, from my 5MP digital camera, that means a resolution of only 2dpi, but still "life size" in the sense that it would take 110ft (by a couple dozen rolls wide) of plotter paper to print.

    • I already have a life-size photo of a blue whale, thanks.

      Of course, from my 5MP digital camera, that means a resolution of only 2dpi, but still "life size" in the sense that it would take 110ft (by a couple dozen rolls wide) of plotter paper to print.
      The kind of thinking that only comes from a lifetime of desperately struggling to come to terms with size-related inadequacy.

      My first thought was to flame you for being a jerk. Instead, you have my commiserations.

        • Apparently, the mods have deemed it not a very good one. :(
          "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of trolls and mods."
          - urCreepyNeighbor

  • Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:41PM (#23395524) Journal
    That was the first useful use for Flash I've seen. I liked how when your cursor went over the "close" icon it says "Think before you close this window. This may be the last life sized blue whale you will ever see".

    Kudos to the presenter, and thanks to the submitter. When is Google Earth gong to be life sized? ;)
    • Well, it's a life-sized EYE of a blue whale...

      Nine minutes in, and that's all that's loaded.

    • Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)

      by flyingsquid (813711) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:11PM (#23395966)
      When is Google Earth going to be life sized? ;)

      Actually, my startup company already has a working beta along those lines. It's a map search, it's life sized, and it's got a three-dimensional, interactive interface. We call it BoxSearch, and it works like this.

      You walk into the Immersive Interface Device, which looks like a large cardboard refrigerator box. We close the flaps on the Immersive Interface Device and render the environment: a high-resolution, three-dimensional map of the world, and then when you walk out of the device, you're in the BoxSearch virtual map. The resolution is incredibly high, the colors are bright and crisp, and using our proprietary BoxSearch technology, you can actually touch, hear, and feel objects in the BoxSearch virtual world, just as you would in the real world. The BoxSearch virtual world includes every object you would see in the real world down to individual grains of sand, and it's updated constantly to reflect the current location of people, cars, etc. The only drawback so far is that movement is limited to the speed through which you walk through the BoxSearch virtual map space.

      If you have a few million dollars and are interested in investing in the next Google, contact me and I'll put you in touch with the people at BoxSearch and give you a tour. For now, BoxSearch and the Immersive Interface Device are located in the living room of my apartment, but once we get more funding we're hoping to move to more professional accomodations.

      • To Whom it May Concern (Score:5, Funny)

        by Kamokazi (1080091) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:16PM (#23396784)
        Dear Sir or Maddam:

        I am an attourney from the firm Dewey, Phucum, and Howe, contacting you on behalf of the company, Redundant, Overly-broad, Far-fetched, Lame and Completely Obscure Patents and Trademark Exploiting Registry, LLC. (Hereafter known as ROFLCOPTER, LLC). ROFLCOPTER, LLC. asserts that you have violated 1,337 of their patents in your 'BoxSearch' product and demand that you cease and desist all development and production and turn all assets over to ROFLCOPTER, LLC, along with eleventy billion dollars to cover legal expenses. Foremost among these patents is USPTO# 867,530,911, which covers "Any large box used in a manner that causes you to make large sums of money." Clearly your BoxSearch product is an exact copy of ROFLCOPTER, LLC.'s patent, and therefore you owe us 'large sums of money'.

        We look forward to your large check.

        Sincerely,

        Harrison Richard Spallsitch
        (The guy on the back of the phone book...two from the right)
    • I liked how when your cursor went over the "close" icon

      Another nice touch, with FlashBlock on you get:

      no content for you
      please install macromedia flash player 7


      Content Nazi.
      • I can't see any way it could have been done without either Flash, or a server-side script. If you are using flashblock (normally I do, but I'm at work) you are likely to not allow scripts to run, either.

  • For which screen size? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by funfail (970288) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:43PM (#23395558) Homepage
    What does "life-size" mean? Isn't it dependent on the screen size?

    A 22" monitor has %34 larger area than a 19" one. Since the whale is 3 dimensional, it translates to a difference of %55.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pushing-robot (1037830)
      The size of your monitor isn't significant; it's the dot pitch that matters. Almost all current desktop LCDs are between 0.25mm and 0.275mm; if they scaled the image for the middle of that range, it should be accurate to ~5% on regular monitors.

      Consider also that not all whales are the same size. At birth a blue whale is around 7m long. A large adult can exceed 30m. "Life size" is not an exact number.

      I don't think they need to add a disclaimer just because some guy out there might decide to view the site
      • No, not dot-pitch. That's the space between the pixels. What matters is how many pixels there are per inch.
          • A small dot pitch with huge pixels would still result in fewer pixels per inch: If I use a single pixel that's a square inch, it will be one pixel per inch, even if you had the pixels a plank length from each other.
      • Either use dot pitch + resolution OR screen size + resolution are important. In either case you can set your resolution incorrectly and throw off the "actual size" calculation.

        As for the image, I'm running 1024x768 on a 17" LCD and I swear that thing is much too small. Maybe it's a baby whale.

        I did some calculations and found that the thumbnail is about 1/125 scale (on my screen). The whale on the thumbnail is 10.2cm which would make the whale 12.75m. Seems small to me but according to this site [mar-eco.no] size at
      • Not necessarily. My notebook's 10.6" screen is natively set to the exact same resolution (1366 x 768) as my 42" HD-Ready TV.
  • One of the most horrifying experiences I've ever had was at the National Museum of Natural History and seeing the Blue Whale replica as a small child. Thanks for bringing those memories screaming back to the surface.
    • I also like swimming with the blue whale in Endless Ocean on the Wii. You can really get a feel for just how big these animals are. Probably not as good as your experience, but still somewhat cool.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by rwa2 (4391) *
      Dude, you need to have kids (or borrow some) and take them to see Finding Nemo on the big screen, if just for the whale scene. It will totally give you awesome nightmares. For some definition of awesome.

  • A neat concept but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by east coast (590680) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:50PM (#23395686)
    Why don't they have some kind of method to stop the "swimming"? At least I didn't see one. It's kind of annoying to be frank about it.

  • Photo? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ludomancer (921940) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:55PM (#23395752)
    It's really nice regardless, but it looks more like a high-res CG render.

  • Server is already dead.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    after only 10 comments... anyone have a mirror?

  • That's nothing. (Score:3, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot (874524) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:01PM (#23395852)
    I have life-size map of the US. The scale says "1 mile = 1 mile".
    When people ask where I live, I say "E5".
    [Thank you Steven Wright.]

  • "Cosmic View" and "Powers of Ten" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith (263124) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:13PM (#23396744) Homepage
    This calls to mind a wonderful book by one Kees Boeke... who I assume is no longer alive... published in 1957 and entitled (in its English translation, anyway) Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps. The book is a series of more-or-less realistic drawings, starting with a girl sitting in a chair in a Dutch school playground, then zooming outward, picture by picture, each picture drawn on a tenfold smaller scale than the next.

    The third or fourth picture shows a blue whale, which, for some reason, managed to beach itself in the school playground.

    After ascending outward to show a cluster of galaxies, it then resumes in the schoolyard, zooming inward, tenfold larger each time. I recall that the girl has a small cut on her hand--to give later opportunity to zoom in on blood corpuscles--and, again for no good reason, there happens to be a copepod (of all things) lying on the edge of the cut!

    Later, the same theme, with explicit acknowledgement to Boeke, was pursued by Charles Eames and Philip Morrison in a photographically illustrated book called Powers of Ten, and an animated movie of the same title by the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. The medium-scale shots are aerial photographs of Chicago's lakefront area, perhaps the Museum of Science and Industry, and I guess are undoctored photographs... no whale in it, anyway. Too bad.

    Both books are absolutely marvellous, real mind-openers for nerdy kids of the right age... (Click, click) Can it really be that both are out of print? A shame...
  • But haven't spotted the pot of petunias yet.

    Go on, flame me till I'm charcoal about it being the wrong type of whale... you know you want to ;-)
  • I can't wait for the Cmdrtaco version. Here's to hoping there's a "Steet View" option!
    • Drat, I think you're right. I was really looking forward to mapping out all of the interesting barnacles or something.

      But come to think of it, this is really something we need more of. Especially of humans. You'd think the porn industry would already be on top of it.

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