12 ms·

Japanese aquarium urges public to video-chat with eels

91 points by behoove 6y ago

rabboRubble 6y ago
Okay never more irritated to not have the contact details! Did I miss them somewhere in the article?
- yreg 6y ago
  Article with facetime contacts: https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/
con 6y ago
Here’s the Japanese news post by the Sumida Aquarium, which includes the Email addresses to FaceTime the eels: https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ A shame that The Guardian’s article did not include a backlink to it.
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  It's absurdly common with news articles. They never link the stats/paper/organisation. I often wonder about the amount of collective time spent by individuals simply trying to find the data summarised in an article. For all the lamenting about the media's decline there's plenty of amateur blogs out there that manage to link their sources when writing an article.
  - mherdeg 6y ago
    My pet peeve is when news organizations write about a court case (whether civil, like a lawsuit, or criminal) and forget to include (1) the court name and docket number so you can look up the status and filings yourself; (2) a copy of the latest filings to date (this can be harder to do depending on your platform).
  - freeflight 6y ago
    It's even more infuriating when certain words have a link you would expect to be the source, but it turns out the link only leads to a sub-category of news about the word.
  - goostavos 6y ago
    This is my biggest pet peeve with news in general. Why does a high school paper have more rigor in terms of citations than the average post from a major news organization? It honestly drives me crazy. How in the world can a majority of major news organizations not overcome the hurdle of... adding links to what they're covering..? It makes digesting political news all but impossible.
    - montebicyclelo 6y ago
      I suspect there is motivation for a news organisation not to send users away from their website.
      - ekianjo 6y ago
        Probably because content outside of news websites is a lot more worth a read.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        And often, but not always, actually contradicts the headline and/or the content of the "news" article itself.
    - som33 6y ago
      >This is my biggest pet peeve with news in general. Why does a high school paper have more rigor in terms of citations than the average post from a major news organization? Because news is not meant to inform, it's meant to indoctrinate and keep you passively under the thumb of the rich. https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/B06Y2LSTZZ https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Econo... >It makes digesting political news all but impossible. The question is do you know the upper classes know your brain doesn't see the world as it is, you can be told the facts and not reason to the right conclusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - dewey 6y ago
    I was wondering the same and once when I asked someone who knows about the topic the answer was basically: Don't want to give free backlinks for SEO, don't want people to just scroll to the link and leave the site. It might just be a policy to not add links except if it's to articles on the same site, which is obviously stupid from the user's point of view.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    It’s not very relevant to a story about eels, but the problem media has with primary sources, is that you can’t spin primary sources. They would rather have you read their editorial account of the primary source, rather than provide it to you, where there’s a greater risk of you making up for own mind about what to think of it.
    - mokus 6y ago
      It’s infuriating how true this seems to be. Especially in politics, so many big-name news sites across the entire political spectrum seem to consistently run stories that collapse instantly when checked. How on earth do they still exist with a business model that seems to consist solely of making absurd interpretations of YouTube videos and tweets?
  - nicthesailor 6y ago
    Fwiw, I recently started writing for a well-known website. When I asked if it's okay to link to sources, they told me I was allowed to if absolutely necessary. I should try not to because it takes readers away from our site, and they might not come back. I suspect that many sites have the same line of reasoning.
    - bartread 6y ago
      > I should try not to because it takes readers away from our site, and they might not come back. > I suspect that many sites have the same line of reasoning. Not your fault, obviously, but FFS: this is the most vapid line of reasoning. If I want to find out more I'm going to leave your site anyway, so surely it's better if I'm not irritated by your lack of citations when I do inevitably go? Does Wikipedia worry about people leaving and not coming back? No. Do you know why I go back to Wikipedia all the effing time, often using it as a starting point for research? Well, one of the big reasons is that many articles have a decent list of authoritative citations and external links at the bottom that I can use to find out more when I need or want to. Talk about myopic: even the BBC do this, and it's incredibly frustrating. Absolutely smacks of some clueless senior manager[1] setting up the wrong metrics for measuring site performance. [1] Manager bashing is a bit of a tired trope here on HN and I'm not trying to make a generalisation but, as with every job, some of them are certainly idiots/clowns.
      - karatinversion 6y ago
        Wikipedia’s business isn’t monetising people’s attention.
        chongli 6y ago
        Thus news should not be a business. The business model of news is diametrically opposed to informing the public. We’re better off sticking to nonprofit journalism.
        CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
        Yet Wikipedia is the one creating actual economic value
- sosodev 6y ago
  Thanks for linking to the source. This is super cool! I'm going to try and get through tomorrow night. I hope the eels appreciate English.
- masswerk 6y ago
  I suggest to repurpose the hashtag (#pleaseRememberHumans) for an initiative about human needs regarding news sites – and also for issues with overly crafted UX in general (e.g., websites shying away behind a shield and hiding behind a subscribe dialog as soon as a human visitor shows up) –, once the original event is over.
hestefisk 6y ago
I’d like to show them my hovercraft.
GPUboy 6y ago
Maybe this reaction is natural and good. Perhaps they are in a worse state when people are constantly interrupting their lives?
rjtobin 6y ago
Although I think this is wonderful, I wonder is there a non-public outreach reason for not just showing pre-recorded videos of people? I’m also curious about how well these eels can perceive screens. Some animals seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem to totally ignore it. Is there some biological difference here, maybe the frequencies of light emitted by a TV/monitor being designed for human eyes?
- kranner 6y ago
  FWIW this particular type of eel supposedly has excellent eyesight (if I have the right eel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroconger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroconger
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Some animals perceive movement much more quickly than we do, so standard 24 or 30 FPS video appears like a slideshow to them (apparently pigeons fit this category, I have no idea which animals it was tested for). For binocularity, I'm not as sure, but it may be that with different eye setups, perspective has different rules to appear realistic. There is also the simple fact that images on a screen don't appear realistic to us either, we just choose to take interest in them because we understand what they are meant to represent.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > Some animals seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem to totally ignore it In my experience, it's more about the particular individual of animal rather than broadly "all eels can see screens", at least that's what I experience with my dogs. One of them ignore screens and seemingly can't see / don't want to see what's on the screen, even if prompted to look at it. The other one watches TV with me, as soon as I'm watching something. And if there is something appearing on the screen resembling an animal, she tries to scare them away with barks. Humans on TV is fine, and she follows them, but birds, dogs or any other animal is an enemy according to her. Even animated animals are recognized as animals for her, unless they are too abstract. Watching BoJack Horseman was an interesting experience, to see where she would react vs not. Seems most animals/humans in that show are fine, unless they are really behaving like animals, then it's not fine.
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
Just turn on a TV like Americans do for their children
zuhayeer 6y ago
“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” one Twitter user wrote
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 6y ago
Aquariums in Japan are simply awesome. One of each five aquariums in the world are there. This means that there is a permanent competition for public's eyes and the risk to the people forgetting about a particular installation and favouring other. The direct translation of this article for me is: Aquariums are expensive to maintain, especially if the public expects a high level of excellence. If your bussiness depend on massive loads of people and suddenly this is not possible anymore by the current situation, you have a problem. Some systems will struggle after two-three months of sudden lack of income. Either they are trying to monetize remote viewings or, if coronavirus keeps pushing, "Adopt an eel" campaign will most probably follow. Both are reasonable solutions to a problem, of course, as long as people remain informed if their video-chat data are being monetized somehow.
l1ghthouse 6y ago
“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” :P

91 points by behoove 6y ago

rabboRubble 6y ago

Okay never more irritated to not have the contact details! Did I miss them somewhere in the article?

yreg 6y ago
Article with facetime contacts: https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/

con 6y ago

Here’s the Japanese news post by the Sumida Aquarium, which includes the Email addresses to FaceTime the eels: https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ https://www.sumida-aquarium.com/news/details/2236/ A shame that The Guardian’s article did not include a backlink to it.

DarthGhandi 6y ago
It's absurdly common with news articles. They never link the stats/paper/organisation. I often wonder about the amount of collective time spent by individuals simply trying to find the data summarised in an article. For all the lamenting about the media's decline there's plenty of amateur blogs out there that manage to link their sources when writing an article.
- mherdeg 6y ago
  My pet peeve is when news organizations write about a court case (whether civil, like a lawsuit, or criminal) and forget to include (1) the court name and docket number so you can look up the status and filings yourself; (2) a copy of the latest filings to date (this can be harder to do depending on your platform).
- freeflight 6y ago
  It's even more infuriating when certain words have a link you would expect to be the source, but it turns out the link only leads to a sub-category of news about the word.
- goostavos 6y ago
  This is my biggest pet peeve with news in general. Why does a high school paper have more rigor in terms of citations than the average post from a major news organization? It honestly drives me crazy. How in the world can a majority of major news organizations not overcome the hurdle of... adding links to what they're covering..? It makes digesting political news all but impossible.
  - montebicyclelo 6y ago
    I suspect there is motivation for a news organisation not to send users away from their website.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      Probably because content outside of news websites is a lot more worth a read.
      - remarkEon 6y ago
        And often, but not always, actually contradicts the headline and/or the content of the "news" article itself.
  - som33 6y ago
    >This is my biggest pet peeve with news in general. Why does a high school paper have more rigor in terms of citations than the average post from a major news organization? Because news is not meant to inform, it's meant to indoctrinate and keep you passively under the thumb of the rich. https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/B06Y2LSTZZ https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Econo... >It makes digesting political news all but impossible. The question is do you know the upper classes know your brain doesn't see the world as it is, you can be told the facts and not reason to the right conclusion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- dewey 6y ago
  I was wondering the same and once when I asked someone who knows about the topic the answer was basically: Don't want to give free backlinks for SEO, don't want people to just scroll to the link and leave the site. It might just be a policy to not add links except if it's to articles on the same site, which is obviously stupid from the user's point of view.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  It’s not very relevant to a story about eels, but the problem media has with primary sources, is that you can’t spin primary sources. They would rather have you read their editorial account of the primary source, rather than provide it to you, where there’s a greater risk of you making up for own mind about what to think of it.
  - mokus 6y ago
    It’s infuriating how true this seems to be. Especially in politics, so many big-name news sites across the entire political spectrum seem to consistently run stories that collapse instantly when checked. How on earth do they still exist with a business model that seems to consist solely of making absurd interpretations of YouTube videos and tweets?
- nicthesailor 6y ago
  Fwiw, I recently started writing for a well-known website. When I asked if it's okay to link to sources, they told me I was allowed to if absolutely necessary. I should try not to because it takes readers away from our site, and they might not come back. I suspect that many sites have the same line of reasoning.
  - bartread 6y ago
    > I should try not to because it takes readers away from our site, and they might not come back. > I suspect that many sites have the same line of reasoning. Not your fault, obviously, but FFS: this is the most vapid line of reasoning. If I want to find out more I'm going to leave your site anyway, so surely it's better if I'm not irritated by your lack of citations when I do inevitably go? Does Wikipedia worry about people leaving and not coming back? No. Do you know why I go back to Wikipedia all the effing time, often using it as a starting point for research? Well, one of the big reasons is that many articles have a decent list of authoritative citations and external links at the bottom that I can use to find out more when I need or want to. Talk about myopic: even the BBC do this, and it's incredibly frustrating. Absolutely smacks of some clueless senior manager[1] setting up the wrong metrics for measuring site performance. [1] Manager bashing is a bit of a tired trope here on HN and I'm not trying to make a generalisation but, as with every job, some of them are certainly idiots/clowns.
    - karatinversion 6y ago
      Wikipedia’s business isn’t monetising people’s attention.
      - chongli 6y ago
        Thus news should not be a business. The business model of news is diametrically opposed to informing the public. We’re better off sticking to nonprofit journalism.
      - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
        Yet Wikipedia is the one creating actual economic value
sosodev 6y ago
Thanks for linking to the source. This is super cool! I'm going to try and get through tomorrow night. I hope the eels appreciate English.
masswerk 6y ago
I suggest to repurpose the hashtag (#pleaseRememberHumans) for an initiative about human needs regarding news sites – and also for issues with overly crafted UX in general (e.g., websites shying away behind a shield and hiding behind a subscribe dialog as soon as a human visitor shows up) –, once the original event is over.

hestefisk 6y ago

I’d like to show them my hovercraft.

GPUboy 6y ago

Maybe this reaction is natural and good. Perhaps they are in a worse state when people are constantly interrupting their lives?

rjtobin 6y ago

Although I think this is wonderful, I wonder is there a non-public outreach reason for not just showing pre-recorded videos of people? I’m also curious about how well these eels can perceive screens. Some animals seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem to totally ignore it. Is there some biological difference here, maybe the frequencies of light emitted by a TV/monitor being designed for human eyes?

kranner 6y ago
FWIW this particular type of eel supposedly has excellent eyesight (if I have the right eel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroconger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteroconger
tsimionescu 6y ago
Some animals perceive movement much more quickly than we do, so standard 24 or 30 FPS video appears like a slideshow to them (apparently pigeons fit this category, I have no idea which animals it was tested for). For binocularity, I'm not as sure, but it may be that with different eye setups, perspective has different rules to appear realistic. There is also the simple fact that images on a screen don't appear realistic to us either, we just choose to take interest in them because we understand what they are meant to represent.
capableweb 6y ago
> Some animals seem to be able to process things on a screen while others seem to totally ignore it In my experience, it's more about the particular individual of animal rather than broadly "all eels can see screens", at least that's what I experience with my dogs. One of them ignore screens and seemingly can't see / don't want to see what's on the screen, even if prompted to look at it. The other one watches TV with me, as soon as I'm watching something. And if there is something appearing on the screen resembling an animal, she tries to scare them away with barks. Humans on TV is fine, and she follows them, but birds, dogs or any other animal is an enemy according to her. Even animated animals are recognized as animals for her, unless they are too abstract. Watching BoJack Horseman was an interesting experience, to see where she would react vs not. Seems most animals/humans in that show are fine, unless they are really behaving like animals, then it's not fine.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

Just turn on a TV like Americans do for their children

zuhayeer 6y ago

“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” one Twitter user wrote

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pvaldes 6y ago

Aquariums in Japan are simply awesome. One of each five aquariums in the world are there. This means that there is a permanent competition for public's eyes and the risk to the people forgetting about a particular installation and favouring other. The direct translation of this article for me is: Aquariums are expensive to maintain, especially if the public expects a high level of excellence. If your bussiness depend on massive loads of people and suddenly this is not possible anymore by the current situation, you have a problem. Some systems will struggle after two-three months of sudden lack of income. Either they are trying to monetize remote viewings or, if coronavirus keeps pushing, "Adopt an eel" campaign will most probably follow. Both are reasonable solutions to a problem, of course, as long as people remain informed if their video-chat data are being monetized somehow.

l1ghthouse 6y ago

“I never regretted my Android phone this much before” :P