
132 year old message in a bottle found on West Australian beach - Someone
http://museum.wa.gov.au/about/latest-news/132-year-old-message-bottle-found-on-wa-beach
======
kuhn
In case you couldn't get through because of the HN hug of death here's another
link to the same story: [http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/oldest-
known-messag...](http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/oldest-known-
message-in-a-bottle-found-on-wa-beach/9518632?pfmredir=sm)

------
gpvos
_> >Between 1864 until 1933, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard from
German ships, each containing a form on which the captain would write the
date, the ship's coordinates and details about its route._

 _It was part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory to better
understand global ocean currents. <<_

Now I wonder: did that actually work to get a better understanding of these
currents?

~~~
PoachedSausage
Quite possibly.

The Tokio Express[0] Lego spill[1] has provided some data on ocean currents.
There was also a spill of yellow bath ducks that turn up on beaches around the
world.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokio_Express#Accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokio_Express#Accident)

[1]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28582621](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28582621)

Yaarr!!

~~~
selectodude
The thing that sticks out to me is that they expect lego pieces to hit
washington state 23 years after the spill without biodegrading.

I hope we're able to fix that someday.

~~~
dragonwriter
That Lego are durable and don't rot is, I would say, a feature not a bug. (It
would be better if they were practically recyclable, OTOH.)

~~~
adrianN
Lego are made from ABS, and ABS can be recycled.

~~~
dragonwriter
ABS can be recycled, but normal municipal recycling (which has to take and
sort multiple recyclables mechanically) can't practically sort ABS pieces the
size of Lego bricks for proper recycling, which results in them ending up in
landfills from municipal recycling. If you set up dedicated collection
infrastructure for Lego bricks and delivered them in huge lots (or merged them
with another waste ABS stream) for delivery to an ABS recycler you could
recycle them, but the logistics and economics don't seem likely to be workable
for that.

------
JohnDeHope
What time is it. Where am I. What is my name. Where am I from. Who is my
captain. Where have I come from. Where am I going to.

This note in a bottle knows more about itself than I do.

~~~
gpvos
Well, it knows where it _wants_ to go to. Arrival is not guaranteed. This may
still be more than you and I know about ourselves, though.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Wow, UDP packet from 132 years ago :-)

------
flashman
Here's the authentication report: [http://museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-
archaeology-db/sites/defaul...](http://museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-
db/sites/default/files/ma_report_325_paula_bottle_message_020318_0.pdf)

~~~
perilunar
"Upon his return to Germany and having been appointed as Director of the
Deutsche Seewarte, Neumayer conceived and implemented the drift bottle
experiment that would last from 1864 to 1933, and include thousands of
bottles. Of all these jettisoned bottles only an estimated 8-10% (662 message
slips) found their way back to Hamburg"

10% is not bad really.

Also, it gives you a rough estimate of the chance of your 'rescue' message
ever reaching anyone.

~~~
maaark
Note to self: If lost at sea, do at least 10 message-in-a-bottles.

------
Jaruzel
Kym and Tonya Illman's website has good pictures of the bottle and message:

[https://www.kymillman.com/oldest-message-in-a-
bottle/](https://www.kymillman.com/oldest-message-in-a-bottle/)

~~~
Accacin
I enjoyed the part where they quote themselves.

------
sooper
I am really amazed that a ships log from 132 years ago was retained and is
still available. Is this a common thing?

~~~
digi_owl
Archives of the Royal Navy officers logs seems to date back the 1660s.

[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-
research/r...](http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-
research/research-guides/royal-navy-ships-voyages-log-books/)

~~~
HarryHirsch
The archives of the Spanish _Archive of the Indies_ are a century older than
that, and if the Portuguese _Casa da Índia_ hadn't been destroyed in the great
1755 earthquake we'd have sailing records from the dawn of the Age of
Discoveries. The records and maps were national secrets, and for good reason.

You do wonder if the NSA will declassify its records 100 years from now.

~~~
mbroncano
They have even older documents in Simancas

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo_General_de_Simancas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo_General_de_Simancas)

------
yosito
I found a message in a bottle in Hamburg. Never did figure out what it says
though. If anyone on HN is up for the challenge, here's a photo of it:
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/TximCkxHoliDmnwy1](https://photos.app.goo.gl/TximCkxHoliDmnwy1)

~~~
jerrre
Could you tell a bit more about where, when, how you found it?

~~~
yosito
I found it while canoeing along a canal in Hamburg, July of 2016. That's all
the detail I remember.

------
Kluny
> " ... The note was damp, rolled tightly and wrapped with string. We took it
> home and dried it out, and when we opened it we saw it was a printed form,
> in German, with very faint German handwriting on it.”

It was damp? How does a slip of paper last 130 years when there's water in the
bottle?

~~~
sdrothrock
The article also mentions that the cork or whatever sealed the bottle was
missing, so it sounds like the cork got dislodged when the bottle washed
ashore and that's when the contents got damp.

------
foxfired
Write a note on your iPad. Remove that silly pin number, turn it off. Put it
in a bag. Put it in the attic. Live your life and forget all about it.

130 years later, the now obsolete technology is found. Boy they are gonna have
a hard time reading that note you left.

This is when we get to appreciate a medium such as text. Our information is
becoming more and more complicated to the point that it might become
impossible to decipher, or near impossible.

Edit: missing word

~~~
Cthulhu_
You see it happening already, people are finding e.g. old tape drives from MOS
Technology
([http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5256](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5256))
which could contain valuable information about the design of some older
processors and such, but they're unreadable and/or rotted. Same for older
films, which are finally getting painstakingly restored and digitized.

TL;DR if you're making something, and it turns into something great, make sure
your older stuff, the stuff you did to work towards it, is archived somehow.

~~~
efreak
Would vinyl records make a better long-term storage medium than CDs or
magnetic tapes?

~~~
smileysteve
Given the same environments; not really. Given heat and/or UV, vinyl is going
to warp before thermoplastic (or foil glue -- except the cheapest cds). Given
humidity tape is going to go bad quickly, but so will vinyl.

------
JoeAltmaier
They didn't return it to the German Naval Observatory! The instructions were
quite clear. I would have instantly mailed it in.

~~~
caf
These days it's easier to send a faithful copy. The Bundesamt für
Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie has been informed:

[http://www.bsh.de/de/Das_BSH/Presse/Pressearchiv/Pressemitte...](http://www.bsh.de/de/Das_BSH/Presse/Pressearchiv/Pressemitteilungen2018/Pressemitteilung03-2018.jsp)

------
nathancahill
That message lasted longer than any URL on the web will.

~~~
knodi123
yeah, but the indexing's a bitch

~~~
orthecreedence
Well, the captain should have consulted with an SEO expert and used a
robots.txt.

 _ship ships bottle bottles message messages ocean oceans sea seafaring
currents ocean-currents weather nautical captain vessel_

------
perilunar
This is the sort of experiment I'd like to take part in. "Here's a hundred
bottles of gin. All you need to do is drink the gin, fill in the form and the
log, put the form in the bottle, seal it, and throw the bottle overboard. On
second thought, fill in the paperwork before you drink the gin."

~~~
jusssi
The message in the gin bottle says:

"We're out of gin, please send more"

------
TechnoCurious
Does anybody know what material the bottle cap was made of? Since this was
1886 it couldn't have been plastic. Also I don't think any kind of metal
(which most probably would have been non-stainless steel, copper or brass)
would have survived the ocean and beach environments for that long.

~~~
perilunar
The report says they were "corked and sealed". Probably with wax to prevent
the cork rotting.

------
tannhaeuser
If it weren't from gov.au I'd say the story of trying to decipher a message in
a bottle in anticipation of sunken treasuries only to find out it was part of
hygrographic studies is sure a classic canard - it's even a classic Uncle
Scrooge plot.

------
deathhand
This story should remind us all how much of our consumer focused life is
discarded on a everyday basis and what we will leave behind for future
generations.

------
n0tme
Did they use these historical artifacts for a photo shoot in the sand?

~~~
sundvor
The text of the ABC article linked above states that the bottle was found
sticking out of the sand, looked like a nice old one for the shelves to the
finder - and letter was discovered when the bottle was emptied of sand.

Given that most late model portable pocket sized computers have very decent
camera sensors in them these days, chances are it was taken on the spot there
and then.

------
johan_larson
Out of booze! Send more!

------
snarf21
I'm surprised it didn't say "Dilly Dilly!" but it is cool what the original
paper was about.

~~~
gpvos
What is _that_ a reference to?

~~~
TheGrassyKnoll
A TV (beer) ad here in the US.

------
debt
Message in a bottle has a really shitty bitrate.

~~~
theoh
The latency is the insurmountable problem. The bandwidth could be immense with
modern storage tech.

~~~
sevensor
You could also use more bottles. Perhaps a hundred million would do?

~~~
masonic
If there's fishing in the area, it could be throttled by net neutrality
compliance.

------
kazinator
I don't see how it could "damp", yet in such good condition after such a long
time. Ah right; ingress of moisture began just days or weeks before discovery.
Very likely!

Hoax/fake, I think.

~~~
s0rce
Did you read the article? The details of the bottle lines up with the ship
captain's logs. It would have been quite elaborate hoax to correctly reference
the logs, find a vintage bottle, paper and printing press and forge the
handwriting... not saying it isn't possible but the museum staff seemed
skeptical and were convinced by the evidence.

~~~
kazinator
That's assuming the bottle, paper, and museum staff even exist. From where I'm
sitting, this is just pixels and text.

> _It would have been quite elaborate hoax to correctly reference the logs,
> find a vintage bottle, paper and printing press and forge the handwriting._

Ah, from that point of view it seems like a lot of effort. But suppose someone
already happens to have the vintage bottle in their possession, from a long
time ago. Then they happen to learn about this ship and its logs. "Hey, I have
a bottle from around that time, ...".

All sorts of situations and combinations occur in the world without a lot of
effort, due to things just falling in place. Then they look like they would
require effort if viewed from the point of view of having been contrived.

It's similar reasoning to the greater ease of finding two documents with a
colliding message digest hash, compared to finding a colliding document for a
_given_ document.

Sure, the _given_ situation is hard to contrive, but it's one of an infinity
of possible hoaxes, and there are many people in the world with many
experiences and ideas and things in their possession and so on.

~~~
kyle-rb
Yeah. Has anyone really ever seen this "Australia" in person?

~~~
kazinator
So, connect the dots for me: everything reported against Australia is
necessarily as real as Australia itself? Or where are you headed with this?

~~~
kyle-rb
Well, I'm not opposed to the idea of Australia in general. It's really just
some of the fantastical-sounding stuff you hear. Like do you really believe
that there exists an island nation founded by British convicts which once lost
a war against emus and is home to egg-laying mammals?

~~~
orthecreedence
I've personally not been there, so I remain skeptical. And if I _did_ go to
"Australia" who's to say the plane wouldn't just fly in loops for 6 hours and
land outside Las Vegas in an elaborately constructed set made to look like
this fabled land of giant spiders and marsupials?

Seems the people who believe in Australia are the same ones who would blindly
accept that the earth is round...

~~~
s0rce
You'd also have to fake the stars in the night sky and trick everyone to not
notice the timezone didn't change. Probably easier to fake a moon landing.

~~~
kyle-rb
Technology has come a long way since we faked the last one.

