I'm sure "awesome" was the last word coming to mind for the poor people on that boat; hope they made it through okay. Although it might have been better if, instead of trying to fight the current, they'd gone with it, revved up to full throttle and used the extra velocity to sling-shot out of the whirlpool.
@1, that was Charybdis. Do you realize this makes the second reference to an old Police song on Slog this morning?
LiveScience rang up a retired UW seismologist:
Based on eye-witness accounts and video in recent years, whirlpools probably occur with some regularity after large tsunamis, said Ruth Ludwin, a retired seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
"Whirlpools have a big impact on the human imagination," Ludwin said. "They're very notable and very frightening. But from the perspective of the geological record, they don't leave any particular sign that has been recognized so far."
There's no sucking going on. Other than the breathless reporting, that is.
Water is not disappearing down the center like a bathtub drain or a Poe story. The camera zooms back several times to show a long curved breakwater, open at one end. The influx of water at an angle to the center of the basin set the whole mass slowly spinning. The owner of that boat is very lucky it ended up there instead of being pummeled with debris and washed a kilometer or more inland.
@6 well, yeah, but that's cause they're usually not quick frozen in their whirlpool state.
You can see a few whirpool like magma formations (probably due to rapid drop in temperatures) and mud formations (same thing), but in general, anything in water won't be preserved. They're mostly flat, though, since cooling takes time.
@ 13, That misuse of the word is only "generally accepted" by people who can't be bothered to know or consider the literal meaning. Just because words are commonly misused, doesn't mean one can no longer use them properly. This certainly is awesome.
@13. Just because "awesome" has been co-oped by everyone under 40 to mean "neato", its original definition is still incredibly apt. The whirlpool was awe-inspiring. It was awesome in the literal sense of the word and no amount of whipper-snapper common vernacularism is going to undo that.
If that pilot is trying to get out of the whirlpool, he aimed precisely the wrong way. Aim in the direction of the spin, but tangentially out. Directly fighting the motion is the dumbest approach (other than diving straight in.)
I'm not quibbling over the definition of "awesome". I merely stated that, from the perspective of the people on that boat there are a whole host of other, even more appropriate words that may have come to mind well before "awesome" was even considered.
For example: "私は今、自分自身を小便だ恐ろしいクソ", which roughly translates into English as "so fucking terrifying I'm pissing myself right now"...
@2 is right. Goko Godzilla.
-It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws - it's not.
-WE SHOULD RUN LIKE IT IS GODZILLA!
LiveScience rang up a retired UW seismologist:http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/2011…
Water is not disappearing down the center like a bathtub drain or a Poe story. The camera zooms back several times to show a long curved breakwater, open at one end. The influx of water at an angle to the center of the basin set the whole mass slowly spinning. The owner of that boat is very lucky it ended up there instead of being pummeled with debris and washed a kilometer or more inland.
You can see a few whirpool like magma formations (probably due to rapid drop in temperatures) and mud formations (same thing), but in general, anything in water won't be preserved. They're mostly flat, though, since cooling takes time.
Now, if we get some UFOs with freeze rays ...
bad science.
Notice how I didn't put a "Science" tag on it.
I'm not quibbling over the definition of "awesome". I merely stated that, from the perspective of the people on that boat there are a whole host of other, even more appropriate words that may have come to mind well before "awesome" was even considered.
For example: "私は今、自分自身を小便だ恐ろしいクソ", which roughly translates into English as "so fucking terrifying I'm pissing myself right now"...