…and this is a 
As big as dinner plates?
Category: Cephalopods
Posted on: April 30, 2008 10:27 AM, by PZ Myers
Why is it that every time a journalist writes about large squid eyes, they've got to compare them to dinner plates? It's so trite. How about hubcaps? Frisbees? How about just giving the dimensions and leaving it at that? Oh, well, I've had to miss most of the live webcasts of the colossal squid anatomy lesson, just because my schedule is horrid this week, but I've caught up with some of the details, thanks to the most excellent Te Papa Blog, which has nicely fleshed out the lessons with lots of photographs.
Last night's Café Scientifique here in Morris was discussing the dumbing down of traditional media, and comparing coverage of scientific issues on TV and in newspapers (usually execrable) with new media, like blogs (which at least have the potential to actually provide depth.) I was struck by that difference here. Read the USA Today article on the colossal squid eye, which boils down to basically, "Oooh, they're big!". Then compare it to the blog entry on the colossal squid eye, written by a scientist. The latter is much more informative, and contains more specific details, and isn't afraid to challenge the reader with words longer than a single syllable.
Comments
For your benefit I can inform you that they were referred to as "as large as basket balls" in a major Swedish newspaper.
Posted by: MrStray | April 30, 2008 10:39 AM
CNN says they're as big as soccer balls.
Posted by: Laelaps | April 30, 2008 10:43 AM
There was a comedian who did a bit about the fact that the newspapers always compare the size of tumors to the size of fruit ("a tumor the size of a grapefruit") and compare hail to the size of sports equipment ("golfball-sized hail")...
Posted by: Grant Canyon | April 30, 2008 10:47 AM
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | April 30, 2008 10:52 AM
Large enough to cover your face?
Posted by: Don | April 30, 2008 10:56 AM
Why eyes as big as dinner plates? Traditional measure. See Hans Christian Andersen - 'The Tinderbox'
Posted by: Edd | April 30, 2008 10:59 AM
Is this dumbing down of the media though? I'm young, but I always assumed they were pretty dumb all along.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 30, 2008 11:02 AM
Squid = dinner. Makes sense to me. One has to know if the eye will indeed fit on a dinner plate.
Posted by: Carlie | April 30, 2008 11:07 AM
They are as big as 1/300 of a football field.
Posted by: Quiet_Desperation | April 30, 2008 11:12 AM
They're as big as a squid eye. Problem solved.
Posted by: Mike P | April 30, 2008 11:16 AM
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | April 30, 2008 11:17 AM
That's how I describe my dinner plates.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 30, 2008 11:19 AM
"Squid = dinner. Makes sense to me. One has to know if the eye will indeed fit on a dinner plate."
LOL!
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 30, 2008 11:19 AM
Anybody who's lived in Oklahoma knows that hail comes in the following sizes: dime, nickel, quarter, golfball, baseball, and softball.
Giant squid eyes are the size of dinner plates for the same reason that Eohippus was the size of a fox terrier. (So was Hyracotherium.)
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | April 30, 2008 11:20 AM
What do you expect from a squid slightly longer than a London bus?
Posted by: Moggie | April 30, 2008 11:25 AM
Sven our local weather guessers claimed we'd have "penny sized" hail. Wash DC area.
Posted by: True Bob | April 30, 2008 11:27 AM
Someone give me a link to freshen up a hazy memory:
I think it might have been a Gary Larson cartoon, with a talking dinosaur saying something like "Man, there's walnuts here the size of your brain!"
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 30, 2008 11:32 AM
crockery seems to be the standard unit of measurement for eyes. consider "your eyes are the size of saucers!" or even "look at that eye! it's the size of a gravy-boat, less a sugar-bowl!".
Posted by: alex | April 30, 2008 11:32 AM
Apparently, collosal squids are tasty:
"It was almost like a tua tua, you know a cockle. It was very nice. It left a real taste in your mouth and stayed for quite a while," he said.
I look forward to collosal calamari rings.
Posted by: silence | April 30, 2008 11:34 AM
Calamari rings as big as Rosanne Barr's belt.
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 30, 2008 11:36 AM
(.)(.)
Posted by: wÒÓ† | April 30, 2008 11:37 AM
So do huge squid and octopus eyes (of course I don't mean this one, which hasn't been studied well yet) have an enormous amount of innervation and receptors, or are they just big in order to focus more light on a reasonably modest number of receptors?
For that matter, do any cephalopods have the number of receptors that a human has? Or, that a hawk has, to up the comparison figure? What I have understood is that cephalopods don't see as well as we do, because although their retinas are made the "right way" for an eye, our foveas have a relatively unobstructed view (the blood vessels are kept to a minimum there), and a huge number of receptors.
Which might suggest as well that cephalopods would have much better peripheral vision than we do, since ours is restricted by blood vessels.
By the way, this measurement of the squid eye isn't composed of the dimensions we'd see in the living animal, is it? I'm guessing that it's the measurement of the entire eyeball, which is substantially greater (at least in vertebrates) than the part exposed to the world.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 11:40 AM
I have this picture of about 30 of them gathered around, slicing into the giant squid, with conversation like "Good heavens, Dr. Featherston, would you look at this structure here?" "It's incredible, Dr. Witters! I can't believe what we're learning! Just pass me that scalpel and a fresh plate, would you?" ... with background sounds of "Nom, nom, nom."
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 30, 2008 11:42 AM
It's like weather forecasts when they describe hail, it's always hail the size of golf balls, small dogs or the differential on a 57 Chevy or something stupid like that.
Posted by: Michael | April 30, 2008 11:53 AM
Laelaps wrote: "CNN says they're as big as soccer balls."
See, that analogy would be lost on lots of Americans. If someone asked me how big a squid's eye is, I would say something along the lines of, "The colossal squid's eye is as big as your whole frickin' head!!!"
Posted by: gg | April 30, 2008 11:53 AM
Dinner plates, cannon balls... it gets the point across. I do have to say it would be nice to see the actual dimensions as well since my dinner plates probably 2 inches larger in diameter than my grandma's fine china.
I agree with the dumbing down of the media. Take a look at this story from our local news trying to link the drownings of multiple young men across the country to a shadowy gang of killers who's murder sign is graffitti smiley faces.
http://kstp.com/article/stories/s421846.shtml?v=1
How many smiley faces have you seen drawn on public surfaces? The ability to forego the most basic logical test in the name of news is the biggest problem and cuts across not only science but just about everything newsworthy these days.
Posted by: Jens | April 30, 2008 11:54 AM
You need to read Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books. Tiffany, an apprentice witch, researches this in some detail.
Tiffany is an inquiring child, who when she reads that (the monster) Jenny Greenteeth has eyes the size of soup plates, carefully measures soup plates to check the size.
Posted by: Quidam | April 30, 2008 12:00 PM
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | April 30, 2008 12:05 PM
This is dumbing down of the media though. I like this post, greatings.
Posted by: Autoescuela | April 30, 2008 12:07 PM
It's like weather forecasts when they describe hail, it's always hail the size of golf balls, small dogs or the differential on a 57 Chevy or something stupid like that.
What's stupid about using golf balls?
Honestly, people, comparative descriptions of size have existed forever and fully accepted. There is no correlation to intellect here. There's enough nonsense in this world to pick on as skeptics. Do we have to start making up new issues? Stop trying to feel superior over piffles and trivialities. It's embarrassing.
"CNN says they're as big as soccer balls." See, that analogy would be lost on lots of Americans.
Sweet Feathery Smoking Jesus, what are you on about? We have vast soccer leagues (AYSO) for kids here in the States! We're the birthplace of the term "soccer mom!" I'd wager >95% of Americans know what a soccer ball is.
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | April 30, 2008 12:07 PM
Not coincidentally, colossal squid dinner plates are the size of humans.
True story.
Posted by: Jams | April 30, 2008 12:16 PM
But is this dumbing down of the media, or just the media being its same dumb self its always been?
Posted by: Dennis N | April 30, 2008 12:16 PM
The BBC always uses the London bus scale for leviathan animals.
Posted by: Silmarillion | April 30, 2008 12:18 PM
Yes, I watched the "squid cams" for several hours last night. Yes, I ate dinner in front of my laptop for fear of missing something cool. Yes, I am apparently now a member of Squid Geek Club. Is there a handshake I need to learn? Do we have t-shirts or members-only jackets?
Posted by: Ben | April 30, 2008 12:18 PM
The comparison with soccer balls makes sure it will be understood in the US. Here in the UK they would simply be footballs, which would imply an ovoid object to most Americans, and New Zealanders for that matter, though rugby balls are bigger ovoids.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | April 30, 2008 12:25 PM
But is this dumbing down of the media, or just the media being its same dumb self its always been?
It's much ado about nothing.
Seriously, thinking simple size comparisons are "dumbing down" is pedantry raised to mental illness status. I can picture some of you sitting on a bench in a park, rocking back and forth and muttering like Rain Man.
"Can't compare to dinner plates. Gotta give precise size. Can't compare to dinner plates. Gotta give precise size. Angstroms. Gotta give it in angstroms. Angstroms are precise. Anything less spells the downfall of civilization. Angstroms are precise. But not on Monday, definitely not on Monday."
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | April 30, 2008 12:30 PM
So, something like 20 square metres? :p
Not quite a kid's meal portion of a cubic centifurlong, but maybe a skosh less than a demismidgen of a hogshead.
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | April 30, 2008 12:36 PM
As big as a 53t chainring. That's my standard of measurement.
Posted by: MikeM | April 30, 2008 12:37 PM
I'm Welsh and my country's claim to fame seems to be its use as a very popular unit of measurement. Apparently an area of Amazonian rainforest the size of Wales is chopped down each year. That's the classic example; there are many others.
Posted by: Dylan | April 30, 2008 12:39 PM
Saying that they're as big as dinnerplates suggest that they are flat...
Would it be more accurate to say that they are as big as bowling balls?
Posted by: Stanton | April 30, 2008 12:40 PM
Squid says, 'Human eyeballs are the size of snack food. Keep that in mind when you find a scuba diver.'
By the way, the blue whale is said to have the largest vertebrate eye, at 150 mm, which is the size of 15 cm (vs. the 27 cm. mentioned for the squid). Or, uh, maybe really huge hailstones.
It's not surprising that's the biggest vertebrate eye, but at 5 cm., what is reportedly the largest land animal's eye residing in an ostrich head is somewhat more surprising. OK, birds have big eyes, but so do cats, hence ostrich wouldn't have been my first guess.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 12:42 PM
But what is it in "football fields"? (The other chosen metric.)
Posted by: DouglasG | April 30, 2008 12:43 PM
It's almost as big as PYGMIES + DWARFS!!!
Posted by: DwarfPygmy | April 30, 2008 12:44 PM
Here, Rhode Island and Delaware end up being used as comparisons. Oh, and Texas, if it's a pretty big area.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 12:44 PM
I'm just waiting for the creobot to come round and tell us, "See, dinner-plate eyes are irreducibly complex! Ergo, God!"
In other news, I remember once hearing someone refer to the "tentacle-like squid giant axon". *headdesk* No, the tentacle is that *other* part of the squid...
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 12:48 PM
One measure that I really dislike is "Astronomical Units" or 149,597,870,691m.
Large numbers like that are meaningless so what's wrong with 150 Gigametres?
There's nothing particularly significant about the Earth-Sun distance anyway - it's not even a constant, it varies by 60m.
Posted by: Quidam | April 30, 2008 12:55 PM
Dumbing down? We should be very careful here. You are assuming there were consistent days of finely crafted journalism. Check out journalism's history and you will see that its always been sketchy at best. Sure there were the great journalists and publications we compare the others to. But they always have been and still are the exception.
I always try to check myself a bit when I start arguing how "x" has gone to hell for "y" reason. I will always remember a professor saying, "'Good 'ol days?!?' There were never 'Good 'ol Days!' Pick any 'Good 'ol Day' in human history and think about what it would be really like to live in it."
Posted by: Heather | April 30, 2008 12:59 PM
Oh, Quiet Desperation, give us our fun. We're just a bunch of geeky science nerds who like to discuss the measurements of squid eyeballs. Don't be the football jock who wants to beat us up! ;)
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 1:01 PM
@47 Heather:
Exactly. Also, you ever notice how people's "good 'ol days" invariably coincide with their childhoods/young adulthoods? Of course they were good--you had little responsibility, your body was young and attractive, you were more energetic, you had your whole life ahead of you...what could have been better? ;)
Now, if only those damn young whippersnapper kids today would quit telling me that Rainbow Brite and Depeche Mode were stupid... ((shaking fist from front porch))
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 1:06 PM
#47: "Dumbing down? We should be very careful here."
I agree. Let's just go with "Dumb Media". Reading the article linked, it's clear that the author didn't care, and clearly was uninterested in why anyone else would care. But she/he obviously had column inches to fill and had wasted a few minutes learning some facts, so they scribbled down the most interesting thing: squid eyes big!
It's a disease widespread through journalism, but science journalism is positively rife with it: there's simply no curiosity. Whenever any new scientific fact is ever discussed, it's almost always linked to "origin of the universe / will lead to a treatment of disease X / will make our computers faster". Boring!
Posted by: Nathaniel | April 30, 2008 1:10 PM
Posted by: Cairnarvon | April 30, 2008 1:13 PM
Dinner plates aren't exactly a standardized unit of measurement either.
Argh! It's a newscast! Not a peer reviewed paper! Did you people learn nothing about significant digits in chemistry class? News reports about squid eyes do not require as many significant digits as the papers to be written on the squid in question.
Our old set was even rectangular.
Freaks! ;-)
Oh, Quiet Desperation, give us our fun. We're just a bunch of geeky science nerds who like to discuss the measurements of squid eyeballs. Don't be the football jock who wants to beat us up!
Well, I'm a science fan, too. Bigger than most. But sometimes you guys make me want to go hang out with the jocks because they won't hyperventilate over a harmless peccadillo of general language usage. Or use worlds like "peccadillo."
But then again, when with serious jocks, toss out who has the best pitching or passing career, or something else involving sports statistics (or "sah-tistics" as they say in Indiana), and head for the hills. ;-)
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | April 30, 2008 1:23 PM
The grab bag of journalistic analogies is tragically small.
As big as freshly made key lime pies. No....toddler's birthday cakes.
Squid=Food is right! In fact, we could make a entire invertebrate/cuisine mathematical system.
Posted by: PAP | April 30, 2008 1:27 PM
I think you'll find that they are three times the size of Wales.
Posted by: BobT | April 30, 2008 1:30 PM
Ha ha, you wrote "use worlds."
No, actually I'm not writing to add more pedantry about typos to some of the bizarre concerns about comparing the size to a dinner plate--which actually isn't too bad a way to get the idea across. The "soccer ball" comparison is better for comparing roughly spherical objects, but really, writing how many centimeters or inches it is really doesn't get the idea across properly, and "dinner plates" are good enough to do so.
I don't blame people who make jokes about "hail-sized golfballs" or what-not, because after hearing those comparisons of large hail with golfballs (which really are a good comparison, and I can't think of any other analogies which would work as well, especially since golf balls are of a fixed size), one rather naturally inclines to joking about it.
It's one thing to laugh, though, quite another to suggest that good everyday comparisons are somehow inappropriate.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 1:37 PM
Posted by: alex | April 30, 2008 1:58 PM
Glen,
I feel it in my bones that soon an OM will follow your signature. It's also how I forcast rain or a cold front...
Posted by: jsn | April 30, 2008 1:59 PM
/i undertand that the area of Wales is measured in Wales./
You Welsh DO tend to wear a lot of corduroy.
Posted by: jsn | April 30, 2008 2:05 PM
I have mixed feelings about the whole "popular science" movement. I think it's great that interested members of the public are getting to learn about science. OTOH, I think it often is "dumbed down" unnecessarily. If I've learned anything from sites like talkorigins and posts like PZ's explanation of changes in chromosome number (which have taught me more about evolutionary biology than I've learned in my 2.5 years as a college biology major), it's that people can understand many of the basic principles of science, so long as it's explained with clarity. People seem to make the mistake of thinking that clarity = over-simplification. Nothing could be further from the truth. Also, the over-simplification of scientific concepts simply reinforces the popular notion that science is somehow "elitist" (I hate that word...).
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 2:07 PM
Glen, QD, etc.
I didn't get the sense we were making fun of the dinner plate/golf ball/football fields comparisons because they were inaccurate or inappropriate--at least, not any more or less so than a number of other comparisons...rather, just because they are cliched and boring. Like the Jurassic Park raptors, we intelligent creatures get tired of jumping at the prey in the same way all the time. Eventually, we'll send a buddy around the to back door.
Anyway, I doubt anybody here is advocating a violent overthrow of the mass media to ensure that all squid eyeball and hail measurements are only reported in terms of square decimegalonians or whatever...or, is anyone? I mean, it sure would be interesting to watch.
My personal favorite, of course, is "as big as an American cockroach's ovaries...when MAGNIFIED 50 TIMES MUWAHAHAHA!!!"
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 2:09 PM
True, dat. There are so many other possibilities...
The standard:
Eyes as big as dinner plates...
The literal:
Eyes 30.4 cm across...
The overwritten faux literary, with bonus portentous overtones:
Massive black eyes as wide as the harvest moon as it looms on the horizon, a cold splinter of the coming winter reflecting distantly in its yellow warmth...
Pulp fiction:
Eyes that just wouldn't quit, eyes you could fall into, eyes in which might lurk a lonely gumshoe's doom. A man could get lost in eyes like those, lost to the world, but happily lost...
Political:
Massive, all-seeing eyes, suited for sighting prey in the dim light of the abyss. Or, speaking of the abyss, sensitive enough to detect Bush's approval ratings. Or Cheney's ethical streak...
Trash culture, with contemporary reference:
Eyes as big as Britney's butt...
Posted by: AJ Milne | April 30, 2008 2:09 PM
Gamer geek speak...
"Eyes as big as YOUR MOM'S butt!!! Ooooo sick burn..."
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 2:15 PM
Oh come on! You know damn well that most Americans don't know a centimeter from a light year and that their eyes glaze over whenever they see a number bigger then what they can count on their fingers.
Of course the media has to "dumb it down". I think the dinner plate is a very apt description. What other items would an American be able to visualize better then food or tools for eating?
Posted by: ThirdMonkey | April 30, 2008 2:20 PM
What other items would an American be able to visualize better then food or tools for eating?
Eyes as big as your 1.5 MPG massively overcompensating SUV's hubcaps...
Eyes as big as the flywheel on the rowing machine you bought but never use...
Posted by: AJ Milne | April 30, 2008 2:25 PM
Quiet_Desperation
What's that in Buicks, which seems to be the referred measure for military equipment (see any reference to a SCUD missile) or in Libraries of Congress, which is universally used for data of any sort. My fave universal measure is timecubes though.
Posted by: AlanWCan | April 30, 2008 2:32 PM
I've been wondering something.
Given that this is/was such an extraordinary creature, was there any thought to allowing it to go about its business?
It strikes me as odd that we simply kill this thing on sight with no second thought, then dismantle and analyze it as though it were a machine or something.
Thanks for any thoughts on this.
Posted by: Kevin Hoover | April 30, 2008 2:42 PM
Marine scientists said the creature's eye measures 10.8 inches across, larger than a large dinner plate and the biggest animal eye on earth.
Sounds like an awful small dinner plate. I don't know where they get their dinner plates from.
Posted by: 386sx | April 30, 2008 2:52 PM
@66 Kevin
From one of the articles linked to, it appears the squid "was caught accidentally by fishermen last year." Seems to imply that the scientists took advantage of a fortuitously already-dead squid (ok, not fortuitous for the squid) rather than going out hunting for it themselves.
That being said, the question about the ethics of purposely killing wild animals for research is a valid one. I'm not sure what current standards are for this.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 2:54 PM
Re killing it 'on sight with no second thought', I don't think that's such a good characterization of what happened, here. My understanding is this catch, at least, was an accident, and once it was clear what they'd brought to the surface, the NZ fisheries guy onboard the vessel involved figured it wouldn't have survived anyway. So they figured, damage done, it's an extremely interesting specimen, let's bring it up for study.
Posted by: AJ Milne | April 30, 2008 2:56 PM
Thanks, jsn, but I don't know if OM is much of anything I'd like to be bothered with. TM didn't seem to like the idea much either...
Sure, most, but if you look at the original post (plus a few comments), it does seem to really be faulting the media for just that reason. PZ seems to think that writing the dimensions is enough, while I believe the media do well to make these comparisons. I do agree that the media could tell us more, though, especially what the scientist told us, why the squid eye is so large.
If you read "Feedback" in New Scientist, they actually poke fun at the opposite tendency, some rather creative and bizarre comparisons that their media come up with. Like weights in "blue whales" and the like. Which tends to convince me that as boring and clicheed as most US comparisons are, we probably do best to stick with them.
Frankly, I don't know how big a "hubcap" is, for one of PZ's alternatives. They do vary, and I just don't have the intuitive feel for even the hubcaps on my car that I have of a "dinner plate" (most are pretty standard, around 11 inches).
What I really do wish is that they'd tell us how far across the visible portion of the eye is (roughly, since it will likely be different in a dead squid than in a live one), since I suspect that the size of the eyeball alone is more misleading than any of the rest of the dimensions and analogies given. One report states that 10 centimeters of the eye are visible. That (well, that in inches, around four) would inform people better of really what size of eyes we're discussing here, than do any of the diameters mentioned, the soccer ball analogy, or dinner plates.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 2:58 PM
It was already dying. These creatures live at extreme depths and under enormous amounts of pressure. Bringing it to the surface was more then enough to kill it and unfortunately the fishing boat that caught it had no idea what they had until it surfaced.
Although it is necessary to dissect a creature to fully understand its anatomy, it is preferable to observe them in their natural habitat.
We should be grateful that the fishing boat managed to preserve it so that it could be studied and that its death would not be wasted.
Posted by: ThirdMonkey | April 30, 2008 3:00 PM
I see. I didn't do my due diligence before asking that question.
Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by: Kevin Hoover | April 30, 2008 3:04 PM
Here's an account that uses "beach balls" and "hubcaps" for comparison--and it's worthy in noting that one giant squid eyeball is said to have been 18":
So if 10 cm of the eye was visible from the outside of a 27 cm eyeball in the dissected squid, one would figure around 6" or more would be visible in the squid with an 18" eyeball.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | April 30, 2008 3:10 PM
Anyway, I doubt anybody here is advocating a violent overthrow of the mass media
And yet, oddly, I do. :-) But for far better reasons, of course.
Posted by: Quiet_Desperation | April 30, 2008 3:12 PM
How many Smoots to a giant squid?
OK, that was pretty geekalicious (and dated) but it had to be done.
Posted by: Heather | April 30, 2008 3:14 PM
ThirdMonkey, what was the point of your hateful, bigoted and ignorant, spittle dripping comment? If you weren't joking and are older than six years old, you need professional help.
Posted by: Samos3 | April 30, 2008 3:16 PM
Be grateful they weren't as big as the Round Tower in Copenhagen.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 3:21 PM
I don't think so. The main complaint is clearly that they don't offer any other information besides the clichéd comparisons:
That's the "dumbing down" part, IMO.
Posted by: windy | April 30, 2008 3:21 PM
The Colossal Blowfish is still cooler.
*sour grapes*
*pout*
*etc*
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 3:23 PM
@ #75,
its ok, Smoots are still alive and valid. I go running over that bridge.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 30, 2008 3:25 PM
Glen, some folks are seeing the Death Of All Journalism in the dinner plate or golf ball comparisons.
And, of course, the emotionally immature are using it to trot out their "See! This proves every single American in existence is a low grade moron!" which is the intellectual equivalent of projectile diarrhea.
I'm just saying "Nothing to see here. Move on. Slow news day."
And you folks wonder why you have little to no influence come election day.
Posted by: Quiet_Desperation | April 30, 2008 3:27 PM
@#56 "i undertand that the area of Wales is measured in Wales."
I thought it was measured in Whales, a Whale being 10 Buicks (1970's vintage), a Buick being 2 Harleys, a Harley being 3 tricycles, A tricycle being 1.5 skateboards, A skateboard being 3 dinner plates, and a dinnerplate being 15 calimari rings, one collosal squid eye, or 1.75 whale eyes to bring the analogy back around. Correct me if I'm wrong of course...this measurement system is nearly as difficult as the Imperial system. I think I'll go back to my little metric world now.
Posted by: Jens | April 30, 2008 3:31 PM
<otaku> Bull. Everyone knows that, among land animals, Japanese schoolgirls have the biggest eyes. </otaku>
Posted by: Otaku | April 30, 2008 3:34 PM
The latest description of the eye on Yahoo uses a beachball as simile, which seems to exaggerate the proportions markedly from a standard dinner plate, unless the writer originally wrote "BIG ASS DINNER PLATE". Of course there is the problem that many journalists think 6cm=6in....
I'm sure more precise anatomical details will be forthcoming for the cephalogeeks among the Pharyngulans.
Posted by: Jsn | April 30, 2008 3:40 PM
The plate comparisons bother me less than the absolutely horrific, vomit-inducingly inaccurate size charts that seem to appear in every news article concerning large squid (this one being a pleasant exception). Here's one of the worst:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39045000/gif/_39045759_colossal_squid2_203inf.gif
Makes my blood boil. This one at least gets the shapes right, but gives the CS an eight-meter mantle and a nearly bus-sized FIN:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44601000/gif/_44601628_colossal_squid_226x229.gif
This is how it should look. I've seen this diagram in only one article and have been unable to find it again:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44601000/gif/_44601628_colossal_squid_226x229.gif
Posted by: DCN | April 30, 2008 3:49 PM
a Whale being 10 Buicks
No, A Whale is 9.99778 Buicks. We must be precise here. This is important work! ;-)
Posted by: Quiet_Desperation | April 30, 2008 3:50 PM
0.5 Cubits?
(with apologies to Bill Cosby and Noah): Riiiight!
;)
Posted by: WRMartin | April 30, 2008 3:52 PM
Actual address of the third, least offensive pic:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v12/BurningHammer/_42715003_colossal_squid_203x235.gif
Posted by: DCN | April 30, 2008 3:52 PM
The latter is much more informative
And geared to an audience more specifically interested in the topic, and actively looking for more detail.
Really, do you folks honestly not *get* this? Really?
Should TV Guide print the running times of shows to the millsecond?
Posted by: TheTriffid | April 30, 2008 3:54 PM
Ya' just had to start in on dinner plates, didn't ya. I once went on a 45 minute rant (which I'll condense here) about the use of dinner plates as a measure. It came from a comment that the moon looked the size of a dinner plate. Now for a squid's eye there's the implicit assumption that you're putting the plate next to the eye and saying "yup, 'bout the same size". Ignoring the non-standardized sizing, which I'm fine with since it's Fermi problem kind of estimation, the two are comparable in a logical sense. But the moon? No. So then the question is "at what distance". Is that dinner plate at the end of my nose, at arm's length, as seen in the dining room from the kitchen, across the street ...
Posted by: Don't Panic | April 30, 2008 3:55 PM
Glen: That's no beachball. It's a squid eye.
PZ: It's too big to be a squid eye.
Hank: I have a very bad feeling about this.
Glen: Turn the blog around.
PZ: Yeah. I think you're right...
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 4:09 PM
@81 QD:
"...some folks are seeing the Death Of All Journalism in the dinner plate or golf ball comparisons."
*looks around, confused*
@89 TheTriffid:
"Should TV Guide print the running times of shows to the millsecond?"
*throws up hands in exasperation*
You guys DO realize these are just blog comments, idle chatter, the equivalent of bullshitting over a beer at happy hour, right? This reminds me of those people who wring their hands and get upset whenever someone criticizes some scientific aspect of a movie, because it's just a MOVIE and it's not supposed to be REAL and god why don't you guys just get a LIFE!
Hey, guess what! People like to talk about stuff! Sometimes that stuff isn't really important! We like to talk about it anyway!
I mean, PZ's blog may be well-known, but this isn't exactly gonna be published in a journal somewhere. Freakin' relax.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 30, 2008 4:19 PM