Hacker News Reader

Comment by cjrp | Hacker News Reader

Russian trawlers going back and forth in that area…

https://x.com/PerErikSchulze/status/1794828268480438514

While this looks alarming and makes an engaging tweet, I have no idea how regular trawling patterns look like. They might circle around fishing spot.

Dave Barry made a similar observation about antismoking PSAs, objecting to one that had someone throw a diseased lung on a table. He pointed out that you could present any random internal organ and it would look just as bad: "This is what will happen to you if you keep smoking. Look! A perfectly healthy goat kidney!"

I think what had a big impact on me is they show both a healthy lung and a smoker's lung

This was the big one for me too. The juxtaposed healthy versus unhealthy lungs resemble an uncooked chicken versus a roast chicken which was left in the oven for 30 minutes more than necessary.

https://www.scotsman.com/webimg/legacy_elm_28724349.jpg?crop...

The antismoking PSA that made the strongest impression on me, by far, was the one that showed a grandfather encouraging a baby to take a step. Eventually, the baby starts walking, and rushes over to the grandfather.

And through the grandfather, who fades to translucency.

It wasn't just me; that PSA made enough of a splash that it was called out on Friends.

I've tried to find that PSA in the past, but with no success. Once I asked a friend if they could find it, and the response was "Oh, I know exactly the one you're talking about. I won't help you look for it. I hate that commercial and I don't want to see it again."

Looks like it's made it onto youtube by now in glorious 240p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6pb6XxrbmE

I note that the second comment is "This commercial was what made my father stop smoking." It's interesting to think about the balance between disturbing the smoking audience so strongly that they stop, and disturbing the non-smoking audience so strongly that they complain about being exposed to your traumatic imagery and imperil your funding.

There have been some Oceanic anti-speeding ads that had the same effect on people, apparently. There's one where time freezes right before a collision and the person at fault apologizes for the little boy he's about to murder. There's one where the driver is talking to the ghost of his friend who died in a car crash. There's one where the grim reaper spins a roulette wheel every time a driver makes a mistake at an intersection. There was one where they rewind time, nudge the speedometer slightly lower, and resume normal time, and a fatal accident (pedestrian hit by car) turns into a bruised leg.

> There's one where the grim reaper spins a roulette wheel every time a driver makes a mistake at an intersection.

In my imagination, this one would end with the roulette wheel stopping on 0, but the result of 0 not being depicted.

The wheel is labeled things like "near miss" and "death".

Related, I was struck by a comment made by the respiratory specialist doctor Martin Tobin, during the George Floyd murder court case. He said less than 10% of smokers actually go on to get 'issues'. He was pushing back on the line that as a smoker, George Floyd was more prone to react badly to 'having a knee on his windpipe...' you know the rest.

I did rewind and listen again then look up what he was saying and indeed, my assumed knowledge of smoking was altered.

Apologies for my vagueness with 'issues', I don't want to under or over state what he said and right now I can't locate the exact sentence within the days of testimony.

This man... https://archive.is/x5MRY

For anyone curious, I found the relevant sentence. An astonishingly counterintuitive almost throwaway remark by a world's expert sent me on a deep dive on what else can and does cause lung problems. Dr Martin Tobin says it at 3h 02m 40s...

https://www.c-span.org/video/?510467-1/derek-chauvin-trial-d...

What was your takeaway? Any added insights/reading?

Radon is scary, and surprisingly everywhere in some regions.

I am aware there is a lot of complexity (obviously) in why people develop lung cancer, or any illness for that matter, but within that assumption was smoking being far worse than it actually is. Reading further, and this may also seem obvious written out in this simple form, the cancer numbers for people in homes using coal burning for cooking food varies hugely depending on the coal. And that the incidence of lung cancers in 'never-smokers' is rising rapidly globally.

He said that less than 10% of smokers HAVE lung issues, not “eventually get” lung issues. Big, big difference.

Thanks for your input. You're rephrasing what I do say, but with capital letters. Not sure what your point is.

No, you said “go on to get issues”, I said “have issues”.

That is a difference.

Removed capitalisation because I’m against capital punishment. /s

10% aren’t low odds when it comes to health issues.

Thats what they do. Those lungs are fake, sold by medical supply companies. They just take a healthy pig lung and dye it black and burn holes in it for "tumors".

You can google for places to buy them.

I'm pretty sure there is some of automated brigading, every post I make gets modded down for no reason. Why mod this down? It's just a fact that is easily verifiable. It had been voted up to 2 or 3, then very quickly went to 0. Very odd.

https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/smokers-lungs-kit-2/...

"These inflatable swine lungs have been stained realistically and then specially preserved in odorless, nontoxic solution that retains the texture and elasticity of fresh lungs."

That's what trawling is . . . it is completely normally for a trawler to go back and forth like that.

But not over a cable.

Submarine cables are clearly marked on nautical charts, and even recreational boaters know not to anchor in those areas.

A professional trawler captain is not going to accidentally trawl over such an area.

Fishers are infamous for flaunting the rules though. I think we can only judge this if we see records of other ships in the area.

You can, at least at that specific time that all other boats were not trawling over cables.

There's a big difference in seriousness between being able to show whether they were likely doing something they shouldn't be doing for the sake of making more money on the fishing, vs. if they were doing what they were doing with the intent of causing damage, though. But of course, that difficulty is also exactly why it'd also be a great way for an adversary to damage your cables.

means motive opportunity -- 3 for 3

given the use cases re: satellites on the island, and the continuing cold-yet-increasing tensions with Russia, it's absolutely reasonable to make that assumption

maybe they'll try to blame this on Ukraine like they tried with the undersea pipelines that got blown up, too

It's reasonable to assume. But it's wildly insufficient for either a prosecution or diplomatic consequences, especially given that all 3 also would apply to a trawler just intent on profiting from trawling.

I agree the odds are reasonably high Russia arranged this on purpose. And that's fine for the purposes of a discussion that doesn't have consequences, but not for much more.

<https://archive.is/yZivT>

Is that boat trawling directly over the same area where the cables were damaged? Unclear from the tweet alone...

yes – the trawling pattern in the GIF is over (part of) the area marked as damaged in the NRK article: https://www.nrk.no/tromsogfinnmark/this-is-what-the-damaged-...

that part loads funny, i had to reload the article and click on the little globe picture before it loaded and then it still didn't load correctly.

I mean, clearly "lack of evidence"!

>After an inital investigation, the police dropped the case due to lack of evidence, and inadequate legislation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com