

‘Bird Man’ Hoaxster Comes Clean on Dutch Television - georgecalm
http://wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/birdman-admits-hoax/

======
redthrowaway
I think I speak for most when I say that my reaction to this news is "expected
disappointment". I never truly believed it was real, but I _wanted_ to.
Dearly. I very much wanted to believe that some Dutch guy had realized the
dreams of Icarus. I wanted to believe that it was possible that I, too, could
soar through the clouds with nothing but my own body and some nylon keeping me
aloft.

Regardless, let us not deride the filmaker, nor undeservedly dismiss his
goals. He wanted to make us dream, and in that he succeeded. Let us take from
this a renewed sense of the possible; let us allow our doubts to float away
and think once more as children. Let us see in this a promise, perhaps not of
human-powered flight, but of the power of human imagination. Let us realize
that the reaction to this video reflects a deeper yearning, and let us strive
to fill that hole.

We will likely never achieve the dream of unassisted flight, but we may yet
achieve other dreams as seemingly hopeless. Let us not allow ourselves to be
too greatly constrained by what is, that we miss what might be.

~~~
knowtheory
Why _not_ deride the film maker?

The problem i have with him is the same problem that i have with _all_ liars.
Namely, that the world is such an interesting and fascinating place, that
wasting time on hoaxes and stupid "ha ha! i tricked you!" sorts of media is
largely pointless.

This dude can claim that his effort was really an "experiment" about online
media and how to tell a story, but frankly, I think that's bullshit. This guy
isn't doing research about what it takes a viral video to study viral videos
so that society might better understand how it is that information is passed
between members of a network (and there are folks who study this sort of
thing).

This dude is just trying to make a project of his go viral. I really see very
little distinction between this project and any other sort of fame-whoring,
save for the amount of effort put in.

So, please tell me if you can, why this hoax is an improvement, or even a
useful fiction in the face of _real_ science/engineering awesomeness like
this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E77j1imdhQ>

~~~
bitwize
High art = trolling. This has been true at least since Derrida, possibly since
Marcel Duchamp's statement that an artist is legitimate only in how much he
challenged accepted notions of art.

~~~
knowtheory
I don't have a problem with artists needling society (and you're absolutely
right, there are a lot of amazing artists who have been epic trolls).

I have a problem with artists needling society solely _because they can_.

As a work of inspiration/aspiration, human bird wings is rather underwhelming.

------
epaga
I still am completely confused at how professional editors at both Wired
Science AND Gizmodo that must see loads of fake videos every day were unable
to tell the video was a fake. Especially the takeoff had the obviously-CG look
about it -- didn't it?

It is so strange that it makes me genuinely wonder whether they didn't
actually realize it was fake and just wanted to generate controversy and page
views.

On the other hand, even Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters said there was "nothing
about the video that seemed fake" to him. Wha...? Seriously?

~~~
ars
I was just as baffled as you.

The only thing I can think of is that people want it to be true so badly that
they don't really _want_ to look for errors.

~~~
kaybe
It's not like anything actually changes for most people. Judging wrongly
carries virtually no cost at all.

------
andrewfelix
When Jesus Diaz posted it on Gizmodo, the immediate response from commenter's
was suspicion. Diaz responded by lambasting the critical readers. Here's a
choice quote:

 _"It is doable and he did it. It's not fake. It's been covered by the euro
press and it's real."_

Have a read of some of his other less thoughtful comments:
<http://gizmodo.com/people/jesusdiaz/comments>

~~~
petroica
I saw his responses and realized how fortunate I was to not have read Gizmodo
in several years.

Here are some of my other favorite quotes from him:

"The burden of proof is on you. These guys did something, showed it to the
world, and the typical armchair experts who usually scream PHOTOSHOPPED! or
FAKE! are doing exactly that from their offices, dens and basements."

"Yes, and the go camera video is also faked. And all the newspaper and TV
coverage. I'm so tired of the armchair FAKE experts who don't have a fucking
clue."

------
tokenadult
The whole "bird man" incident does a lot to illustrate why The Believing
Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct
Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer

[http://www.amazon.com/Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-
Const...](http://www.amazon.com/Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-Construct-
Reinforce/dp/0805091254)

may be the most important new book published in the last year. I had just
finished reading the book when the "bird man" story broke, and what did I see
on Hacker News threads but many people saying that they believed the story
because they wanted to believe it, and they would believe a single, otherwise
unevidenced claim in a self-produced video rather than the whole body of
tested theory from currrent physical science. This is the usual observation of
human behavior: people form beliefs first, for largely self-reassuring
reasons, and then strive mightily to hunt up rationales for maintaining those
beliefs, despite contrary evidence. Really, to raise the quality of discussion
here on Hacker News, we all ought to read The Believing Brain at our earliest
opportunity and think about all the threads we have seen here where
participants conclude first and ask questions later.

~~~
alecco
Another good book with a chapter on this is "Thinking Fast and Slow".

------
cjy
Discussion on the original claim:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732385>

------
malkia
I do remember reading a book as a kid, where it explained that our human
muscles are relatively x70 less stronger to birds when compared to the body
weight - e.g. you need on average to be x70 stronger with your hands to be
able to flap and fly.... But I'm not sure how accurate that is. It was fun
fact (or not? not sure... but when I saw the guy flying, I guess it might've
been faked)

~~~
reneherse
I remember seeing a similar calculation that for a human to fly using scaled
bird wings one's pectoral muscles would have to be about 6 feet thick.

So we're not talking arc reactor levels of power, but probably more than one
can output from a small backpack of batteries like in the vid ;)

~~~
fr0sty
> but probably more than one can output from a small backpack of batteries
> like in the vid ;)

Actually, Lithium-Polymer battery packs capable of a sustained output in
excess of 2kW weigh only a few pounds.

~~~
onemoreact
People can do 2kW for a little while, you need closer to ~50kW or really
really big and light wings. At which point your 200lb of battery's and moters
bump that to ~100kW.

------
BasDirks
Checkout his amazing fake documentary Metalosis Maligna:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtKMS1kjlo>

Be warned, it's pretty graphic stuff.

------
dsr_
I don't think anyone is really surprised, but there's certainly a place in my
head which wishes it had been real. Oh well.

~~~
ars
It can be real. Just add a motor with a fan in the back.

Your arms and legs can still do all the steering and altitude control (which
is where the fun lies).

It's the flapping that is impossible. It's so incredibly clear than the kind
of flapping shown in the video can not provide lift (no matter how strong your
motor, and no matter how large the wings) that I don't understand how anyone
was fooled for even a second.

If you want to flap then on each upstroke you have to either fold the wing or
rotate it. Otherwise you get nothing except an up-and-down bobbing.

If you ever get a chance to hold a bird extend its wings and look at the
construction and the way it moves. Notice especially the "elbow" in the middle
of the wing.

~~~
lgeek
Also see Yves Rossy. He's flying with a tiny jet-powered wing and does all the
steering with his body (there are no other control surfaces).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJLLkTrF4w&t=1m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIJLLkTrF4w&t=1m10s)

~~~
Malcx
Ted talk with Yves, lacking a bit in technical detail but worth a watch.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_rossy_fly_with_the_jetman.html>

------
tathagatadg
Think of the shame people are facing who posted the story to their social
network and backed it up with spirits uplifting comments like "if you have a
dream, you can fly"! - reassuring faith in engineering and hard work(8 years
he said). One particularly missing feature of the feel-good video was the lack
of technical details ... but then you believe the source from where it came
and your brain accepts it based on the established trust relationship with the
source (in this case, hackernews/weird science) - and more importantly a
video.

The difference between watching news and movies - is what we should compare
this video to. When I'm seeing the space station in a news clip my brain is
telling me this is legit because what I have seen previously from this source
has proven to be legit. But when I see death star being blown up, I'm realize
its fake because it comes from a source which, well, told you Jedi traits were
real. :(

Whatever you proved bird man, you won't be able to sleep at night. Ever.

------
grannyg00se
Eight months of work to produce an obviously fake/impossible low quality
video? It's surprising that it took so long.

------
skrebbel
> I think I speak for most when I say that my reaction to this news is
> "expected disappointment". I never truly believed it was real, but I
> _wanted_ to. Dearly.

This was exactly the point. The guy is a movie maker, a story teller. By
positioning it as real instead of a hollywood blockbuster, it got these
emotions going inside a lot of people. Moving people is the goal of any story
teller, and by doing it this way, and this well, the impact was much bigger
than if the film had been called "My Special Effects work: flying like a
bird".

Neo does a lot more spectacular things in _The Matrix_ , but it moves us less
precisely because we _know_ that it's all CGI.

I say, a massive success.

The only way to tell a more moving story is to tell a real story of something
spectacular. This is what all the war journalists are doing - genocides and
floods always do well on public TV. Essentially, you could call the Bird Man
hoax the "good news" version of the same goal.

~~~
skrebbel
huh? what was not fit for HN about my comment?

if you disagree with the content, how about your respond instead?

------
justjimmy
"People are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's
true." - Zeddicus

------
daeken
Oh wow, this is the same guy behind Metalosis Maligna. That was a fantastic
faux-documentary.

------
angersock
I'd like to chime in as one of the folks who was ardent in the defense of the
possibility of the birdman and who turned out to be wrong.

It's a shame that this ended up being faked instead of real, but I would like
to point out to the community something before we all start talking about how
easy people are to dupe, how easy it is for people to ignore reality for
something they believe, and how some folks were _right all along_.

The way the (original, I think?) thread went down was a mixture of claims that
it was obviously fake, backed by some comments and notations basically of the
variety of "It looks shooped, I can tell from some of the pixels."

There was absurd amounts of unsubstantiated criticism, and very little
criticism based on anything other than the video.

There was not "this is fake, but technically feasible for these reasons."

There was not "this is fake, and technically infeasible for these reasons."

There was not "this is fake, and obviously infeasible for these reasons."

The handful of attempts that people made to explain why it was physically
impossible (beyond the mere statement of "lol y u no physics education")
oftentimes ignored the claimed evidence and circumstances of the act (e.g.,
asserted manual power instead of assisted flight) or tried to base it on some
weird analogy using the natural world (e.g., a bird's weight scales thus-and-
such a way) or just plain appealed to authority (e.g., in the whole history of
human flight we've never gotten this to work).

There was an equally poor showing on the part of people arguing it was
possible (I among them). Very few real numbers were pulled out, and more
thorough analysis would've been appreciated.

But, at the end of it, here's the core narrative we need to question:

1\. Person does something seemingly impossible.

2\. HN says it isn't possible, can't be possible, _appealing solely at first
to the video and the shooping_.

3\. HN minority tries to reason that it might be possible, is met with bad
analogy and analysis.

4\. Person turns out to be fake, lots of sorrow and/or "We were right!"

Folks, we need to do a better job of 2 & 3\. We can't just jump on things as
impossible without doing the math, without doing the numbers. We need to be
honest in our critiques, and distinguish between "impossible in general" and
"impossible for this implementation".

We don't judge our code by some of the pixels--why do you want to judge
engineering writ large this way?

------
chj
what can i say? this is certainly not funny

~~~
BasDirks
Do you think perhaps the project was not about "funny"?

~~~
chj
This man work 8 months rather than 8 days, just to make a fake video, so it is
stupid. To make people dream? watch real birds fly is the best way.

