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I guess we all have pet peeves but this one (while interesting) is a bit silly. Pillow designers are looking to create an attractive pillow that will sell - le
by watty 9y ago
I guess we all have pet peeves but this one (while interesting) is a bit silly. Pillow designers are looking to create an attractive pillow that will sell - let's face it, a dead butterfly is more aesthetically pleasing than a living one due to the outstretched wings.
- jfk13 9y agoA dead butterfly may fit more "snugly" into the frame of a square pillow, but personally -- and aesthetics, after all, are rather subjective -- I would dispute that it is "more aesthetically pleasing" than a living one. (Disclaimer: this has long been a pet peeve of mine, too, as my wife could testify!)
- watty 9y agoYes, I didn't mean to speak for everyone - I'm sure many people prefer the living picture which has more emphasis on the body and less emphasis on the wings.
- 3131s 9y agoI definitely do. After seeing her drawings of a butterfly with correctly positioned wings, now I can't help but notice how bad the other more typical depiction looks.
- cannam 9y agoNot just the body, but also the layering or overlap of the wing segments which makes the sheathing mechanism apparent - that is very beautiful in itself (even if I don't know the right terms for these things). The typical image looks unnaturally stretched and two-dimensional in comparison. I found the article aesthetically as well as scientifically persuasive.
- amelius 9y agoJust look at it as a special projection method that has been applied to an image of a living butterfly :)
- nicky0 9y agoIs it really more aesthetically pleasing, or just more familiar?
- megamindbrian 9y agoMore pleasing because the underside of the wings aren't as colorful.
- detaro 9y agoYou don't necessarily see the underside of the wings in a natural pose.
- jfk13 9y agoAh yes - the undersides of butterfly wings are just SO dull, aren't they? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Hauhechel-Bläuling%2C_Polyommatus_icarus_Paarung_1.JPG/1920px-Hauhechel-Bläuling%2C_Polyommatus_icarus_Paarung_1.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Ha...
- dragonwriter 9y agoAesthetics are subjective and often driven by familiarity; the two options you present aren't exclusive alternatives, the second explains one reason why the first would be true rather than providing an alternative to it.
- draw_down 9y agoYeah, I'm with you. They're meant to look pretty, anatomical/biological accuracy is not the point. I'm sure there are many, many such inaccuracies in illustrated animals one could find, if one cared to.
- pvnick 9y agoAgreed - who cares, other than the odd nut like the author. The wings are spread out further and show more of the wing. It looks nicer.
- ksenzee 9y agoIf you find the author to be an "odd nut" for caring about scientific accuracy, you may possibly be on the wrong website.
- sixothree 9y agoI find this attitude fairly disgusting.
- pvnick 9y agoA bit of a tangent - it seems to be common for folks to express disagreement with a certain sentiment by labeling the sentiment or the person expressing the sentiment as some adjective of repulsive, immoral, or gauche, rather than describing what about the position they disagree with. It is a bit lazy on your part.
- sixothree 9y agoYou're exactly correct. It was lazy. This is hacker news and we have something special here. One-liners like that are deserving of your response. That was the feeling evoked by the comment. I was taking a break from work and didn't spend time explaining. There are so many reasons I find that comment bothersome. But mostly it's probably my upbringing in the deep south where any intellectual pursuit would put you into the category of "odd nut" whose time spent on a subject was worthy of dismissal because of "common sense" is more important.
- regularfry 9y agoNow it's been pointed out, it's blindingly obviously wrong to me, for one reason: the "live butterfly" looks more aerodynamic. Entertainingly, this is no less wrong: the one time a live butterfly is likely to have forward-stretched wings is in flight.
- pimlottc 9y ago> Entertainingly, this is no less wrong: the one time a live butterfly is likely to have forward-stretched wings is in flight. I'm sorry, do you have evidence for this assertion? The author specifically addresses this, saying the position is atypical even during flight. It just seems rude to me to dismiss the author's argument so flippantly with what seems to be an unfounded supposition.
- regularfry 9y agoUgh. Off the high horse, please. I'm not disagreeing with the author. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7a7ZAqWBIs&t=79 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7a7ZAqWBIs&t=79 shows a butterfly manoeuvring in flight such that it stretches its wings forward. My statement was simply that if a butterfly is ever going to have its wings forward, it will be while it is in flight. Stop looking for drama where there isn't any.
- anigbrowl 9y agoTell me what you're expert in and I'll find examples of its misapplication that are really annoying to you. This kind of dismissal-by-ignorance is one of the reasons we can't have nice things. a dead butterfly is more aesthetically pleasing than a living one due to the outstretched wings No it isn't; you're just used to seeing them that way. There's an excellent scientific reason for it, since it facilitates species identification, but I'd rather see butterflies portrayed alive than dead unless that's semantically appropriate (eg for a gothic aesthetic). I have a garden and we let it run fairly wild to attract bird and insect life, so I have lots of real butterflies, bees etc to look at.
- watwut 9y ago"No it isn't; you're just used to seeing them that way." Being used to things looking certain way is always factor in what people find aesthetically pleasing. It goes for color preferences, shapes and pretty much anything else too.
- anigbrowl 9y agoYou know, I went on to address that in the very next sentence.
- notatoad 9y agoAren't "pet peeves" kind of silly by definition? if it weren't silly, it would be a legitimate concern rather than a pet peeve. I did find this really interesting though. Sort of a window into a world i'd never otherwise think about.
- ouid 9y agoI always thought that it was weird to keep peeves as pets.
- asciimo 9y agoYet we don't illustrate other colorful animals as though they are being drawn and quartered. The aesthetic pleasure is diminished when we think that the subject is dead.
- amelius 9y agoIt's silly because the depiction does not show a "dead" butterfly per definition: this is something that the human viewer makes of it (through reference to the prepared butterflies), and in this case the article writer is trying to enforce that view on us. For all we know, a butterfly could find such pictures attractive. Half-baked analogy. A person in split-leg position is not natural. We rarely see people in such position. But to say that [1] is a picture of a dead person would be clearly nonsense. [1] https://images.clipartof.com/small/28591-Clipart-Illustration-Of-A-Black-Silhouetted-Female-Gymnast-Doing-The-Splits.jpg https://images.clipartof.com/small/28591-Clipart-Illustratio...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rwallace 9y agoWell, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; personally I find the live one more aesthetically pleasing.