
Norway the Slow Way - arch_stanton
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/travel/reif-larsen-norway.html
======
fernly
Just this past july we rode the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Trondheim. Although
the upper decks of the MV Polarlys are like a modest and tasteful cruise ship,
and the majority of passengers were there for the scenery and the day-trip
excursions, they do still haul cargo and commuters. At every stop there are
cars and cargo being put on and off the cargo deck. One surprise was when I
got up at 4am to see the famous road bridge at Måløy, and walking through the
Panorama deck found there were a dozen people sacked out sleeping on the
couches. Apparently you can buy a no-stateroom ticket cheap, and people do.

Some pics if anyone cares: [http://cortesi.smugmug.com/Scandinavia-2014/Trip-
Segments/Hu...](http://cortesi.smugmug.com/Scandinavia-2014/Trip-
Segments/Hurtigruten-Cruise-Norway)

~~~
rrodriguez89
nice pictures man.

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teddyh
> _the country boasts one of the most undulatory coastlines in the world,
> measuring an astonishing 64,000 miles (by comparison, the entire United
> States coastline measures 95,471 miles)._

It is, in fact, impossible to measure the length of a coastline:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox)

This accounts for the fact that contrary to the article’s stated length of
64,000 miles, the World Factbook gives the length as 15,626 miles¹ and the
World Resources Institute once gave the same length as 33,056 miles².

① [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/no.html)

②
[http://web.archive.org/web/20120419075053/http://earthtrends...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120419075053/http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/coastal-
marine/variable-61.html)

~~~
sanoli
true, but you can compare them, if you use the same measuring length.

~~~
teddyh
The World Factbook gives Norway’s coastline as being 80% as long as the length
it gives for the United States’, and the WRI gave the same percentage as about
40%. Contrary to this, the article claims Norway’s coastline is 150% of that
of the US. I doubt this figure, and no source is given.

EDIT: I misread — the article’s actual percentage is a far more reasonable
67%. I withdraw my objection.

~~~
DanBC
> measuring an astonishing 64,000 miles

> the entire United States coastline measures 95,471 miles).

> 150%

Did you misread that? You quote Notway as havig a shorter coastline.

~~~
teddyh
> Did you misread that?

Thank you, yes. Post edited.

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Dolimiter
What is the cost to produce a page like this? Must be high, versus the cost of
a normal article with inline images. I cannot imagine that the ROI is worth
it. Therefore I think that this article format will disappear for economic
reasons.

~~~
Y-bar
NY Times did an even longer and more advanced article like this a while ago
called "Snow Fall: The avalanche at Tunnel Creek"
([http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunne...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek))

It had over 3.5 Million page views the first week. Estimates are that it took
about three man-months to write and design the long article. But that was two
years ago, and without any of the tools and experience they have now.

That's expensive, but napkin-calculations can be done:

Average yearly at NY Times according to Google is: $98 167 That means about
$33 000 plus some taxes and costs for three monte, say, $50 000 then.

Can you sell one ad space in such an article at $50 000 / 3 500 000 = $14.29
per 1k impression?

NY Times sells ads at $6.29 for 1k impression on their sports pages. On the
Snow Fall article three such ads would be enough to cover the estimated costs.

As a comparative note: A full page print ad costs $10 per estimated reader, it
is possible that this Norway article is also published in the regular print,
and will therefore recuperate some costs there as well.

~~~
dmix
They've also done it plenty of times.

[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/)
[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-
gunshots/](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-gunshots/)
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/magazine/bad-p...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/15/magazine/bad-
paper-debt-collector.html) [http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/gun-
country/](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/gun-country/)
[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-
jockey/](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/the-jockey/)
[http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/tomato-can-
blues/](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/tomato-can-blues/)

------
tokai
I can't stand this trend of formatting. Hopefully the fad will fade quickly.

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wickedOne
i think the presentation (lay out and semi interactiin) of the article is very
well done! running smooth on 1920 * 1200

leaving for bergen myself in a couple of hours: can't wait

~~~
jonnathanson
It's a big improvement over previous attempts at this sort of multi-format
presentation. I'll give NYT a lot of credit for pushing things in this
direction, even if some of their early efforts fell a bit short. (Some
previous articles in this style were too cute for their own good, and wound up
hard to read).

~~~
wickedOne
agreed; they appear one of the few who embrace the new possibilities in
publishing and actually try to come up with something different and are not
afraid to make some mistakes in the process…

i'd love to see other (news) publishers to walk this path as the options are
there, they just need some creativity

~~~
jonnathanson
Agreed.

Apparently NYT had a big come-to-Jesus meeting earlier this year, where they
discussed the challenges their business model is facing, and resolved to do
something about it. Who's to say whether this stuff will move the needle for
them. But at least they're doing interesting things, and I support them.

NYT can't necessarily see the future (when it comes to journalism, nobody
can). But it recognizes that _its_ future lies in high-quality articles, and
it's investing in new definitions of quality. Many of its competitors are
moving in the opposite direction, adopting practices from content farms and
clickbait sites. In the long run, NYT will need to do a lot more to rethink
its economics. But for now, its investment in quality is probably a good move.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Apparently NYT had a big come-to-Jesus meeting earlier this year, where they
discussed the challenges their business model is facing, and resolved to do
something about it. Who 's to say whether this stuff will move the needle for
them. But at least they're doing interesting things, and I support them._

IMO they need to get the basics right first. Why, for instance, can't I use
their iPad app to access all of the content from the print edition, and in a
similarly-dense format?

------
gyardley
Never taken the Hurtigruten, but if you're after a bit of an unorthodox
vacation I can't recommend anything more highly than the Lofoten Islands in
summer.

Fly into Tromsø, spend a couple of days there, then rent a car and head west.
Gorgeous scenery, twenty-four-hour sunlight, great hiking, and mild weather -
we loved it.

~~~
tbassetto
You can also fly to Bodø and take the ferry from there to Moskenes.

I would recommend spending more time in Moskenesøya and less in Tromsø (or
just avoid it). Go to Tromsø during the winter for seeing the northern lights
instead :D

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untilHellbanned
Not sure why the focus here is on whatever incremental tech NYTimes used to
create this article.

The cultural commentary of how parts of the world are now moving at vastly
different speeds to the point where we are almost seeing bona fide time-travel
seems WAY more important to think about.

~~~
Dewie
> The cultural commentary of how parts of the world are now moving at vastly
> different speeds to the point where we are almost seeing bona fide time-
> travel seems WAY more important to think about.

How was this article an example of that?

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dipso
The BBC have been experimenting with these kind of long-form "rich media"
articles too:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8701/index.h...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8701/index.html)

It's an admirable attempt at telling a story and I appreciate the journalism.
Perhaps I'm ADD, but I just don't have the attention span to get engrossed in
this kind of format and follow every word through to the end.

~~~
wickedOne
if you have the attention span to read articles of this length without the
gimmicks i think you should be able to digest this format

~~~
eru
Perhaps the paper articles don't distract dipso as much?

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lujia
Does anyone know if that last part with the spinning globe was created in
D3.js? I'm constantly gobsmacked with what can be done with that library.

~~~
glifchits
Mike Bostock (the author of D3.js) is a NYT employee. His name is listed in
the final credits for this piece, and a lot of other NYT content. I assume he
is often called in to sprinkle some D3 magic onto a lot of their interactive
articles.

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mieses
I'm seduced. But I think this technique is based on tricking those who enjoy
reading conventional text articles. It pulls the rug out from under them as
soon as they start scrolling. It's mischievous and, in some ways, quite
typical of the NY Times.

------
revelation
They should just go back to Flash. It spins up the CPU, too, but at least it
then doesn't stutter..

