yesterday at 11:27 PM
Written by Walter Murch?? Like, the guy who is considered maybe the best editor and sound designer of all time, who was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and won 3??? (Editing perhaps second only to Thelma Schoonmaker.)
yesterday at 11:48 PM
From the footer of TFA:
Walter Murch has been working in film for more than 50 years, as an editor, sound designer, writer, and director. He edited and sound-designed many films for Francis Coppola (The Godfather Trilogy, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now) and Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain). His interest in science can be seen in his editing of Mark Levinson’s film Particle Fever (2013), about the search for the Higgs Boson.
Yes, That Walter Murch.
In The Blink Of An Eye is on the bookshelf just behind the monitor I'm typing this on, with my headphones and BMD Speed Editor slightly blocking my view of it.
yesterday at 11:58 PM
(2020). Previous submissions with comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23639294 (Jun 26, 2020 - 96 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28844872 (Oct 12, 2021 - 108 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210508 (Jan 1, 2023 - 6 comments)
This submission is from 4 days ago, so it must've been placed into the second chance pool.
yesterday at 11:38 PM
The part about coal coming from dead trees during a window of time before bacteria evolved lignin digestion is no longer the scientific consensus. Such bacteria existed earlier; not all coal is high lignin; and coal still formed later. Too bad; it was a lovely story!
yesterday at 11:50 PM
It's not bacteria. The only organisms that can digest lignin are fungi, and they do it by blasting lignin with peroxides.
As such, this works only in aerobic environments (not swamps).
today at 2:23 AM
> The difficult thing is that most old folks grew up thinking that oil, coal, and gas were great, and it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks.
Doesn't seem cynical enough to me. Some people make money on oil, coal, and gas, and it doesn't matter what they believe about the climate, they would do anything to continue enriching themselves. It is even worse, really, because they are not just some individuals, it is a big network of organizations. And some states too have their GDP dependent on a fossil fuel trade. You can probably talk a capitalist into surrendering their money-making practices, if they are damaging the Earth, but you can't convince an organization to dissolve or a state to go into a deep recession.
today at 3:10 AM
But oil, gas and coal are indeed cool, you get some of the highest chemical energy density substances on Earth for the price of digging. It sucks that burning them reverts the atmosphere to something life isn't really adapted anymore, but the substances themselves are still pretty cool.
today at 1:29 AM
The hero image is titled Murch_HERO. Big publishers get lazy with their titling too!
today at 1:32 AM
It needs better alt text for accessibility
today at 4:35 AM
> at 43 percent a lightning strike will cause the entire atmosphere to ignite since it is so high in flammable oxygen
Good article except oxygen is not flammable. Oxygen is the stuff that makes other stuff flammable.
today at 2:39 AM
Too much teleology.
yesterday at 10:57 PM
I was surprised that some birds can fly even higher. There is a record of Rüppell's vulture at 11+ kilometers altitude.
yesterday at 11:25 PM
Sadly this wonder of nature was deduced from the 5 feathers that were all that remained after the noble creature was ingested by a turbofan engine of an airliner.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7...
yesterday at 11:54 PM
Yeah, unfortunately.
today at 12:42 AM
A beautiful article. Thanks for sharing!
last Saturday at 1:47 PM
Interesting article and thank you a lot for this education!
yesterday at 11:16 PM