Life-sized blue whale! In your browser! : Pharyngula

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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« God has an awesome PR department | Main | Michael Egnor, Whig historian »

Life-sized blue whale! In your browser!

Category: Organisms
Posted on: March 28, 2007 2:58 PM, by PZ Myers

It's a b i g picture, slowly scrolling by, of a full-sized blue whale. Load it up and just let the whale swim past your window…it'll take a while.

(via inkycircus)

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Comments

Posted by: Nomen Nescio | March 28, 2007 3:15 PM

i want that for a screensaver.

Posted by: Cat's Staff | March 28, 2007 3:36 PM

On a Mac you could probably use something like WebDeskTop to get it to show up as your desktop picture (not screensaver).

http://stevenf.com/software/webdesktop/

I haven't tried it with this.

Posted by: abeja | March 28, 2007 4:23 PM

I found that site several days ago, and I'm confused. All I see is a bunch of blue on the screen, so then I move the little box over to a lighter part of the whale's body and wait (and wait and wait!), but the screen never changes at all! Am I doing something wrong?

Posted by: Ben | March 28, 2007 4:33 PM

I think it's actually moving.... just VERY VERY VERY slowly. I'm going to try at home with a more powerful machine and see what happens.

Still insanely cool idea.

Posted by: Thony C. | March 28, 2007 5:05 PM

On my 24inch iMac with the browser opened to cover the whole screen its just awesome.

Posted by: DaveX | March 28, 2007 5:15 PM

I didn't care for it much as a screensaver, but the watery sounds are pleasant enough with the screen off. Check out Brian Eno's "77 Million Paintings" if you want a REALLY killer screen display.

Posted by: andyo | March 29, 2007 12:05 AM

That is kinda scary!

Anyway, anyone knows in what size monitor and at what pixel dimensions will this be real life-size?

In other words, how many pixels per inch should my monitor be set up?

Posted by: csrster | March 29, 2007 5:09 AM

I just get a message saying I need Flash 7. Since I _have_ Flash 7 I'll just have to assume that the Icelanders beat me to the page and poor Wally has been chopped up for cetacean sushi.

Posted by: Bob Angstrom | March 29, 2007 5:14 AM

http://www.wdcs.co.uk/media/flash/whalebanner/content_pub_en.html

We have
a microscopic anatomy
of the whale
this
gives
Man
assurance

William Carlos Williams

#10

Posted by: Evan | March 29, 2007 11:06 AM

abeja:

The imagery is loaded as needed to create a seamless image covering the browser and nearby; essentially identical to google maps. The "water" (blue background and little spots) on the other hand is there all the time. I've had the same issue you have sometimes, where the "water" part loads but the whale imagery fails to load. Keep trying - it's worth it.

#11

Posted by: abeja | March 29, 2007 5:26 PM

Thank you Evan. I didn't realize that what I had been looking at previously was the water, and that the whale hadn't loaded at all. This time I went to the page and the whale popped up right away. I'm glad I tried again!

#12

Posted by: abeja | March 29, 2007 5:28 PM