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Remote New Zealand Volcano Sees Dinosaur Alert?
Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing to a ChannelNewsAsia story discussing a 'dinosaur' sighting in webcam pictures of a remote New Zealand volcano. The latest live webcam picture shows the offending creature, with Geonet spokesperson John Callan saying: "Some wag has glued a [toy] pink dinosaur in front of our digital camera", even though "...most people do not go ashore on the uninhabited, rumbling" White Island, east of Auckland, where the webcam is located. Apparently, the dinosaur will stay for now, since authorities "are not planning on removing it, counting on the sulphur and high acid environment to deal to the creature."
I'm a little surpised the news article and Slashdot are just using the term "pink dinosaur"... is it that hard to recognize Dino from The Flintstones?
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a story complete with picture in case of a Slashdotting.
This is a great hack. It has to be an inside job. How else would they know when the camera takes pictures, to avoid getting caught. Not to mention the exact location of the camera.
Too funny!
"Some wag" is a cop out. They did it and are afraid to admit it. Who else would have the necessary safety equipment to put the toy there, other than the people who put the web cam there, and who else would know exactly where the web cam was on an island that "people don't go on"? We're expected to believe "some wag" jusy happened along in that forbidding scenery and just happened to be carrying that particular toy, and happened to find that aprticular spot and know what the thing was attached to?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
... to go unnamed.
Actually, there IS no other news, which is why this made it to the front page.
Who has the time to go up a volcano to pull a global prank? Only a geek
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Slashdot points to BoingBoing points to ChannelNewsAsia points to a webcam pointing at New Zealand?
I think I'm getting dizzy..
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
This could create a new fad. Place object of choice in the field of these site cams.
Many plastics are fairly resistant to acidic environments and sulfur aren't they? Isn't this why toys like this last for hundreds of years? I realize that many plastics have different chemical characteristics, but aren't the majority pretty inert? Someone out there with some plastics chemistry knowledge like to weigh in?
After turning up the audio gain for the web cam, said dinosaur was heard to vocalize: "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh!!!"
That's great except that it's not Barney, that's Dino from Flintstones.
That's not a dinosaur, it's Smaug! He's escaped from the set of Peter Jackon's The Hobbit and is trying to nest!
If they don't do something quickly, this could be even worse than the incident when all those orcs got loose during the Battle of Helm's Deep filming and slaughtered that busload of Japanese tourists!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If you're ever setting up a webcam outside, position it so that the sun is always behind it, not shining directly into the camera for two or three hours every afternoon.
I learned this the hard way; my weathercam has exactly the same pattern of smokey lines across the sky now too..
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
actually it's not that remote, it's a 40 min boat ride from where i live, tourists go there almost daily (yes i've been too) and it certainly is not fuckin east of auckland!
And we get to watch Dino slowly melt into purple goo.
in bed.
Actually, white island isn't that remote. It is a fairly popular daytrip. I'd post photos from a holiday there, but there's no way my 128k DSL line can handle slashdot :-(
Here is a copy of the photo, as the site is S L O W at the moment
..in case of slashdotting. Mirror
If plastics melt in this particular enviroment, what is the webcam made out of?
C:\earth\humans\del *.m0ronz
If it does slowly melt like the article implies, it would be rather neat to download and save the photo everyday and create a time-lapse video of it melting... If it actually does...
I rather doubt this is a small toy glued to the camera, since Dino is currently (May 25 10:00 am NZST picture) casting a rather distinct shadow on one of the rocks.
Unless, of course, the prankster also glued a rock to the camera... :-)
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
1. More objects appear next to Dino.
2. Dino melts.
The real thing is that scientists are conducting experiments on the poor little thing by testing the limit that Dino can reach in an inhospitable environment. Please stop the insanity and save the dinosaur.
--This announcement is sponsored by PETA
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
the dinosaur _is_ there, I work at GNS and our internet is really slow thanks to you lot.
One variety of which involves going to the GPS coordinates and finding the webcam, then either staying there 'till it takes your picture, or calling a friend back home and having them go to the site and click "save".
Makes authentications of one's claim that you were there a bit easier; just post the photo to the forums. Yeah, you could Photoshop it, but no one cares enough to do that.
yet another fool who reads the headlines, but doesnt follow the links.
The plastic dino is in every hourly shot with the lighting perfect.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Gee, I'm not sure what I could have to back it up that would make you believe me. Yes, it was an inside job. No, I don't have proof.
Not if you don't want to meet a hydrogen sulfide(I think?) gas cloud that might come out of a vent at any second and wind up dead pretty much on the spot. Remember they said they're planning on the acidic fumes taking care of Dino? That sucker's active (the volcano, not Dino), and I remember a story about most of a team of volcanologists getting killed from that and a rock slide (of course, they ignored warning signs of an impending event, but still- you don't get anywhere near that close to an active volcano without at least a gas mask.
Please help metamoderate.
Was there with some friends a few years ago. It was fun. Sail north for a couple hours, climb around the volcano for a few hours, and sail back. I've got tons of pictures of us climbing around the crater, sulpher pools, and factory ruins. They used to have factories built in it to process the sulphur, but after they were destroyed the third time, they never rebuilt.
It's actually fairly safe there. The volcano is quite well behaved. It throws out steam continuously, and only occasionally has hissy-fits where it throws out rocks the size of coffee-tables. Those come and go, so as long as you avoid it during particularily active times, you'll be fine.
Something like the stuff on happytreefriends.com (MAY NOT BE CHILDREN FRIENDLY)?
Neeat ;)
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Someone has found that the dinosaur turned up between 1100 and 1200 NZST on the 5th of May. :)
20040505-1100
20040505-1200
As in the email I sent to the Inquirer in reply to this article, it appeared between 11am and Noon NZST on the 5th of may, as evidenced by these archived shots: 11am Noon. Given the positioning and angle, I suspect someone who has access to the camera and was able to make sure it was lined up correctly.
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
I've been studying this sauropod since thursday, and I believe that it is a plastic pen topper, one of a group of Flintstone pen toppers available on the web:
http://amres-pics.com/p_asp/a4091.asp
Here's the topo of the island:
http://www.gns.cri.nz/what/earthact/volcanoes/nz volcanoes/bookimages/Whit_fig1.gif
..and more stuff about it:
http://www.wi.co.nz/hazards.htm
The camera is actually located near the beach, about 3/4 kilometers from any active vents, so it's pretty safe and highly accessible by boat. Apparently groups of geology students are sent out there to study, and probably to maintain the camera too. I guess one of them had this fancy topper along, and was struct by sudden inspiration. Since there is likely a pen or pencil under Dino, it will be highly stable against disturbances.
There is a forum about White island, but in 3 years most posts seem to be blank submits from students "learning" about the island. There was one post a few days ago that mentioned the 'saur, but no other word before that.
A page on that now-slashdotted site showed the camera setup, and it looks like the camera is just above ground level, matching what's seen in the live image, so I doubt it's faked.
Compared to some other photos, the island seems fairly quiet right now.
Perennial student + Impractical joker + CSS junkie = Big John
The dinosaur is contravening OSH guidelines by not wearing a hard hat.
Judging from these photos (please mirror), it looks like the plastic dinosour is on site. I base this on the varying lighting on the thing, and the shadow on the rock.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
That would be pretty evil to have a Geocache on an active volcano.