Hacker News Reader

Comment by hackbinary | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, but you're statement is contradictory:

   a.) Dazzle wasn't intended to hide the ship
   b.) make it difficult to ascertain it's [sic] class, speed and heading

   Hide = hard to find
   Difficult = hard
   Ascertain = to know, to find out, to determine

The point of camouflage is to hide 'information', and while that can be to make something blend in with its location/surroundings, it can also certainly be to make it appear to be something else, or doing something different from what it is actually doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage

View on HN

You can't be serious with this.

"Hide the ship" means:

    All I see is open ocean, sir!

"Difficult to ascertain its class, speed, and heading" means:

    I don't know what kind of ship that is, sir! Nor do I know
    what direction it's traveling in! Hell, it's hard to see how
    fast it's going as well, sir! But I do know this, sir, there's a
    ship there.

But I think you're smart enough to figure that out.

No, these are all degrees of the same thing, concealment. That is the point of camouflage. There are two main strands to camouflage: 1. prevention of detection (crypsis), 2. look like something else (mimicry).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_camouflage https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/camouflage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

Oye. Ok, so the parent comment was this:

> Dazzle wasn't intended to hide the ship but rather make it difficult to ascertain it's class, speed and heading.

Here I am rephrasing it to fit your terms:

> Dazzle wasn't intended to [prevent detection of] the ship but rather make it [look like something else].

But for some reason you chose instead to read that as a contradictory statement?

You're glossing over that what's being disputed is whether you are hiding the ship, or attributes of the ship. In one case, the purpose to prevent detection, in the other, it's to prevent useful action after detection.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com