[HN Gopher] When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid from a Clamp,...
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       When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid from a Clamp, That's a Moray
        
       Author : aranchelk
       Score  : 111 points
       Date   : 2021-06-22 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | corobo wrote:
       | The author waiting for you to laugh at their title is also a
       | Moray
       | 
       | https://cdn.imgy.org/1zVQ.jpg
        
       | valarauko wrote:
       | > _... climb the ramp for the uniformly measured 1.1-inch pieces
       | of squid that all of the other trained eels received._
       | 
       | Why 1.1 inches? I assumed that this was a whole number in
       | centimetres, but its 2.794 cm. My guess is that its 3 cm, which
       | works out to 1.1811 inches - and the NYTimes rounded down to 1.1.
        
         | FredPret wrote:
         | It's almost like when you read an article that says point A is
         | "about" 16 km from point B
        
         | jjk166 wrote:
         | ~15.3 millifathoms
         | 
         | ~93 light-picoseconds
         | 
         | ~139 microfurlongs
         | 
         | ~0.9 attoparsecs
         | 
         | ~16.4 millismoots
        
         | Armisael16 wrote:
         | Maybe it's a certain mass of meat?
         | 
         | I also don't see any reason the food chunk needs to be an
         | integer number of whatever unit it's measured in.
        
           | valarauko wrote:
           | Something like 10g of meat would make sense in this context
           | too. The fact that the article specifies that the strips are
           | measured out in length suggests weight isn't the criteria.
           | 
           | It doesn't _have_ to be an integer value (or a reasonable in-
           | between value like 1.5 or 2.5) of whatever unit they used,
           | but its the most parsimonious approach for the graduate
           | student who actually does the work - unless there is a good
           | reason not to.
           | 
           | EDIT: from the paper:-
           | 
           | > _Individuals were offered squid pieces that were 3 mm by 30
           | mm. These prey dimensions were ideal for this study because
           | they were small enough that feeding on a single prey item
           | would not result in satiation, which could influence feeding
           | kinematics (Sass and Motta, 2002). Also, offering prey of a
           | rectangular shape rather than a square shape provided length
           | that elicited head movements, which enabled us to observe
           | multiple protraction and retraction cycles during transport._
        
       | mnw21cam wrote:
       | Inspired by https://xkcd.com/1814/ perchance?
        
         | nwellnhof wrote:
         | I think XKCD was inspired by the "moray" pun which is even
         | older.
        
       | iamben wrote:
       | What an absolutely incredible (and completely relevant!)
       | headline.
        
         | hetspookjee wrote:
         | I see the first rhyme (Ramp / Clamp), but perhaps I'm missing
         | another level of ingenuity in the title?
         | 
         | Regardless, the article was very well written, "Muscled
         | bucatini of a body" is just hilarious.
        
           | whoisburbansky wrote:
           | The rest of the image captions follow through on the rhyme!
        
           | witherk wrote:
           | https://youtu.be/69O4PXzAQ5Y?t=24
        
           | jrd259 wrote:
           | A parody of the song "That's Amore" by Allen Sherman has
           | lyrics like "When you're diving at night And your feet feel a
           | bite That's a moray!" and "When you see a big eel with its
           | jaws made of steel that's a moray".
        
             | hluska wrote:
             | There's kind of a neat back story to Allan Sherman. The guy
             | largely paved the way for entertainers like Weird Al
             | Yankovic by introducing parody as an actual form of musical
             | appreciation. Over the course of his life, he offended
             | almost all the biggest names in music and got sued so often
             | that I suspect he was on a first name basis with judges.
             | 
             | John F. Kennedy was apparently caught singing this song:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpzLcFBv5zA
             | 
             | It's interesting to think what music and comedy would be
             | like today without Allan Sherman. He was one hell of an
             | innovator.
             | 
             | Edit - "How's your nephew Seymour? Seymour joined the peace
             | corps. He's nice too." I love this stuff...:)
        
             | asfarley wrote:
             | In the the introductory issue of Spawn, Violator (in his
             | clown form) sings this song.
        
             | hetspookjee wrote:
             | Thanks for the explanation, now I get the remarks better.
        
               | jonny_eh wrote:
               | That explanation is wrong. That Alan Sherman song is a
               | parody of the Dean Martin song, just like the article:
               | https://youtu.be/69O4PXzAQ5Y
        
               | tyleo wrote:
               | One day some may believe that the song is based on this
               | article.
        
             | lisper wrote:
             | When you see lots of teeth in the waters beneath...
        
             | lupire wrote:
             | Can you find a reference to that song by Sherman?
        
       | doctorhandshake wrote:
       | Reminds me of the classic Paul Ford tweet, " When the moon hits
       | your knees / And you mispronounce trees / Sycamore"
       | https://twitter.com/ftrain/status/968474426336514049?s=21
        
         | jcims wrote:
         | When you're in Saskatchewan / and the dragliners yawn / that's
         | some ore, eh?
        
           | rdiddly wrote:
           | When your cultural norms take on certain broad forms, that's
           | a more.
        
           | hluska wrote:
           | I'm from Saskatchewan and while I've never heard that before,
           | I'm going to start using it. That's really good - thanks for
           | sharing! :)
           | 
           | We can even change the lyrics to:
           | 
           | When you're in Saskatchewan, and cheap oil's at the end,
           | that's Scott Moe, eh?
        
           | mbg721 wrote:
           | For fans of the Dick van Dyke Show, "He tells jokes, he's a
           | ham, his last name's Amsterdam, that's-a Morey".
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | When the jaws open wide and there's more jaws inside, that's ...
       | a moray?
        
         | jacurtis wrote:
         | It also sounds like the beginning of a horror movie
        
           | at_a_remove wrote:
           | I am not sure when the titular _Alien_ reveals its additional
           | set of moray-like jaws but that certainly comes to mind.
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | Somewhere a NYTimes headline writer is pumping their fist in the
       | air...
        
         | reaperducer wrote:
         | Writing headlines was one of the joys of my time in the
         | journalism industry. I especially liked alliteration.
         | 
         | When I moved to television, the opportunities came and went
         | with the talent (anchors). Some loved it, some hated it.
         | 
         | On morning shows you could get away with a lot of things. I
         | would occasionally write entire stories in iambic pentameter,
         | or as poems, because when you're pounding out copy at 1am,
         | that's what you do to keep your brain engaged.
         | 
         | One of my favorite memories was the day I aired a live feed of
         | something happening in New Zealand. The chyron I wrote was
         | "Aukland, New Zealand/Tomorrow."
        
           | ectopod wrote:
           | I thought a chyron would be some poetic form I'd never heard
           | of. It's actually the text and graphics at the bottom of the
           | screen on a news program.
           | 
           | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chyron
        
         | jmkb wrote:
         | Everyone's still trying to top "Headless Body In Topless Bar"
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Style
        
           | edzillion wrote:
           | My favourite has always been 'Ike beats Tina to death'
        
           | 0xcde4c3db wrote:
           | I was going to suggest "Foot Heads Arms Body", but that one
           | is apparently a myth. Despite considerable interest in the
           | headline and a widespread belief that it actually ran,
           | mentions of it seem to be universally vague about the
           | particular appointment (which would at least tell us that
           | there was an actual event about which to run an article) and
           | nobody has produced the article itself.
        
       | happytoexplain wrote:
       | Cool, I've never seen the action of the inner jaws displayed so
       | prominently (the way the squid is pulled into its mouth).
        
       | rdiddly wrote:
       | Alternate headline: Results Are In for the Times Employee "That's
       | A Moray" Headline Contest
        
       | rkapsoro wrote:
       | When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
       | 
       | That's amore
        
       | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
       | Kudos to the title writer.
        
         | recursive wrote:
         | Check all the image captions too.
        
       | addicted wrote:
       | There's more of these sprinkled in the image captions.
        
       | doodlebugging wrote:
       | When the sun's in your eye and you can't see to drive, that's
       | annoying!
       | 
       | Great article.
       | 
       | I learned that eels have two sets of jaws and watched them in
       | action while enjoying the clever captions. Nice.
        
       | lisper wrote:
       | I wonder if this was the inspiration for the xenomorph:
       | 
       | https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Inner_jaw
        
         | s_dev wrote:
         | Actually I think it was a Goblin Shark.
        
         | jamesgeck0 wrote:
         | According to the artist, they didn't research any animals for
         | the Xenomorph's double jaw.
         | 
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/11eel.html
        
       | rcarmo wrote:
       | Best title I've seen in weeks, and I just passed it on to some
       | Italian-Americans who had a good laugh singing it...
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-22 23:02 UTC)