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Imagine you have dreamed of some new discovery your whole life. Let's say you are convinced that, I don't know, there exists in the world a naturally bright pin
by beowulfey 3y ago
Imagine you have dreamed of some new discovery your whole life. Let's say you are convinced that, I don't know, there exists in the world a naturally bright pink species of cat. You study cats; you know their behaviors, and can guess at the means of finding this elusive pink jungle cat. You search for years to no avail... when suddenly, without prior warning you are on vacation in some remote island and hear a rumor. This pink cat you've searched for is known to the locals, and they can tell you exactly how to find them. You follow the guidance and sure enough -- there they are! The legends are true! You're shaking with excitement and want to document this finding for other pink cat researchers, but you don't have any professional equipment. Just your phone... but any evidence is better than nothing, right??
TL;DR: You are not the intended audience for these videos. They're not trying to convince you -- it's meant for other researchers. We are just seeing the leaks.
- Knee_Pain 3y agoMy iPhone can take stunning videos. This is not 2010 anymore
- beowulfey 3y agoCongratulations on owning an iPhone! (I do too, they’re great.) But I want to emphasize that the quality of the phone camera was not the point of that story.
- Knee_Pain 3y agoThen what was the point? If I saw a unicorn and took out my phone in a hurry I could get a video of exceptional quality, granted I uploaded it somewhere without too much compression. Seems like you wanted to create a little abstract story ignoring the reality of hardware
- beowulfey 3y agoWow, I’ve never thought about it like that before. You’ve done a good job explaining your opinion on this matter! Thanks for the feedback.
- mcpackieh 3y agoI'm not him but I share his confusion. Honestly I can't figure out what sort of point you're trying to make here. What's the point of all the island and pink cats stuff if not to make the point that the researchers didn't have adequate video cameras available to them at the time? jiggawatts's gripe is that the researchers seem generally incapable of effectively using the cameras they already possess (including iphones), where do pink cats and islands come into this?
- nomel 3y ago> jiggawatts's gripe is that the researchers seem generally incapable of effectively using the cameras they already possess (including iphones) I’m not sure why there’s an expectation that they know how. Expertise in one subject doesn’t make you capable in others. I’m not sure if you’re ever worked with phds before, but there’s often an extreme contrast in ability and lack of ability, depending on the context. There’s a good chance these people don’t spend much time messing with their phones.
- mcpackieh 3y agoYes, that makes sense to me. Lot's of people are simply bad at taking photos, including myself. The isle of pink cats argument doesn't make sense to me though, I'm confused as to what that was even trying to say.
- beowulfey 3y agoHa, I'll definitely admit it's not the best metaphor. My point was the last sentence of my original comment: when you're in the heat of discovery, witnessing something for the first time, you are NOT thinking about the quality of the video you are trying to capture! These videos were not intended for public consumption -- they were likely sent to a friend or something, showing the exciting thing they were witnessing. It just irked me that people are looking at this video and thinking that this is a press release or something.
- jandrese 3y agoNot if you are on your fifth coffee and super exited about your work.