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Post by nomuse on Aug 29, 2006 16:39:32 GMT -4
At the risk of committing a board foul I would be interested in knowing your native language, billy. I find it difficult to completely understand most of your posts. Perhaps more attention to essay structure would help; topic, development, conclusion.
For instance; in your post above you ask me to "..read some photography context sites to see the difference of..." This is in the context of a paragraph explaining how several of the factors I mentioned can be ruled out in the specific case at hand. But taken by itself, this sentence appears to be an accusation that I do not understand basic photography and have confused aperture with focal length. This is doubly confusing, as my mention of them was as a list of different elements that might come into play; I do not see how a reader could assume I meant color stock was one thing, ISO was another, but aperture and focal length were identical.
You see the problem? Since I can not understand the point you are making, I am unsure on how to reply.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 28, 2006 22:07:59 GMT -4
Human factor is the biggest factor of alterating a visual result, not necessarily for Apollo photos. As for observing value these photos are unique and priceless. You mean to say tungsten-balanced film, or the difference between ASA-100 and ASA-1000, or the difference between Ektachrome and Fujicolor, is negligible? And what about shutter speed, focal length, aperture? I do not discount human factors, but I think you are unwise to discount other factors.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 23, 2006 19:06:01 GMT -4
Hamsters. Hrm. Some work I did on IDW's radiation calculations convinced me he was working with an astronaut body mass of 1.04 kilograms. That would be one fat hamster....but I think we may be on to something here.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 17, 2006 16:52:50 GMT -4
The trouble is, brotherofthemoon, the HB's probably page down past OUR long posts as well. From their viewpoint (all science was made up to confuse the less-intelligent) it's all Star Trek-type gibberish anyhow.
I would think that some people would twig, tho, that the thinkers on one side are capable of reasoned, lively posts that are easy on the eyes and fun to read, and the other is all about creative spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and random icons; making for posts that only someone raised on AOL would find easy to read.
But the idea that if you can't make a clear statement about it, you probably aren't thinking clearly about it: this idea is a wee bit in disfavor in many corners.
Reading my above, I have to add this thought. Of course the AOL-type posts are considered superior by many web denizens! Logic, math, and cited references are not something they desire or are comfortable with when encountering. On the gripping hand, icons and ALL CAPS and profanity are the most efficient vehicle to communicate a general emotional slant and a quick re-inforcement of group identity and boundaries.
So while "We" (the AB'ers) are wincing over the creative grammar and trying to find the substance in their posts, "They" (the HB's or CT's) are struggling with paragraph after paragraph of dense, organized text, trying to locate the substance _they_ crave; calls to emotion and personal attacks. It's Jack Sprat and his wife, forum post style.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 12, 2006 15:33:30 GMT -4
Lovely summation, count.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 7, 2006 14:54:39 GMT -4
Speaking of the band....
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Post by nomuse on Aug 5, 2006 15:54:27 GMT -4
I think there's something a little more subtle going on. Sorry to drag the subject further from Aldrin's boot, but...!
The people I run into with pseudo-scientific or conspiracy beliefs seem to approach them more in the style of visiting a haunted house or telling ghost stories; it is in the spirit of entertainment.
I personally find this attitude infuriating. It is one thing to clown around at the Oregon Vortex and laughingly pretend that there really are mysterious energy fields and warpages of space there. It is quite another to pretend that a misunderstanding of the technical accomplishments, personal heroism, and actual science of Apollo, is a diverting but ultimately meaningless amusement.
The former costs you eight bucks and you get a funhouse ride out of it anyhow. The latter allows you to lie to yourself that understanding how the world actually works and what real science is, is not particularly important -- and this allows you to go on to skip math classes, vote randomly on science-based issues, and waste money (and possibly health!) buying quackery like carburetor enhancers and magnetic bracelets.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 7, 2006 18:10:49 GMT -4
It's interesting, but the present handful of threads on GLP I get the very strong sense the attitude has shifted over there regarding the moon landings. Most of the posters are in agreement with the official story. Or perhaps it is that more and more of the posters think that particular crop of hoax-believers are idiots.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 6, 2006 20:15:43 GMT -4
It's worse than that.
IDW is challenging the description of the second post-accident burn performed by Apollo 13; the one that hastened their return to Earth. In his mind, and in the minds of most of the other posters it seems, this could only be done if you could SEE THE EARTH (as you were, after all, trying to head towards it!)
As I understand the description on the NASA site, they were actually able to put the Earth into some sort of sighting reticule. I'm assuming some sort of periscope arrangement but I really don't know the details. The important thing to me, though, is that the operation doesn't require it. And even if it did require viewing the Earth, that would be a trivial engineering challenge to make possible. Either way it's a non-starter.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 6, 2006 15:46:35 GMT -4
If anyone is bored, the tired old arguments have surfaced again at Godlike Productions, in a thread originally started to talk about the current search for the original Apollo 11 tapes. Not much to see there...but at least our old friend Interdimensional Warrior is there, magnetic photon and all.
I think the conversation more-or-less stalled out over the question (in the minds of most of the GLP crowd) of how you could possibly steer a spacecraft if you couldn't see in front of you.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 5, 2006 2:37:57 GMT -4
I'm trying to imagine a station manager saying "We want ratings, people -- so absolutely do not dig up anything new, anything that goes against the status quo, anything our audience can't get on every other station out there. And above all, avoid controversy! Look at where that kind of behavior got Woodward and Bernstein -- we obviously don't want that kind of attention for _our_ newsroom!"
I guess these guys went to the same classes where scientists were shown that the best way to get a Nobel Prize was to avoid original work at all costs....
I
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Post by nomuse on Jun 26, 2006 22:01:47 GMT -4
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Post by nomuse on Jun 26, 2006 18:33:19 GMT -4
Normally I dislike the term "Debunk," but in this case I embrace it. That site is bunk! Yet another site that uses blurred, cropped, dark, compressed pics to try to make a point. He might as well argue that the face of Brittany Spears appears inside the helmet on the left, and a salad bar is visible in the shadow of the Lander.
I think I may have seen this before. Either that, or there is a trend in using HTML code to make the site's title appear in Red, White, and Blue.
Just for laughs...
Exhibit #1: I have to say it isn't immediately obvious. In most of these "where's the...?" questions, a close look at even the compressed version of the picture will reveal traces of a ridge or similar ground formation capable of hiding them. I am a little struck by the body position, which suggests he's in the middle of a bunny step or leap. I won't make any argument based on that, however. Still, I do have to ask...if the dust was so sensitive it should show every footstep, every tire mark, et al, then HOW was the "fake" achieved? How exactly does one get camera men and assistant directors and grips and so forth through a set like this without leaving footprints everywhere? Or is he trying to imply the dust actually doesn't take footprints, and every print and tire track we DO see was molded into the scenery by an army of plaster castings?
#2: I have a possible candidate for the a bright white object in the direction of his "hotspot." The astronaut taking the picture. From the angle, this can't be the MESA, and if there is an astronaut standing behind the camera he would, it looks like, be front-lit in direct sunlight.
#3: He goes on and on about "two rocks, see two rocks, the same two rocks." Are his pattern recognition skills not up to the CRATER that appears on the lower part of both pictures? From the size and angle, it appears that astronaut #1 walked forward about ten feet. #2, with the camera, walked a couple of feet, and the camera was tilted down a little more in the second shot. Any other oddities are easily explained by cropping of the final results.
#4: I don't understand what he is going on about here. I think he is making assumptions based on absolutely flat everything...that the horizon is as flat as a board, that the Lander is completely level, and that astronauts stand bolt-upright even when climbing off a ladder. But as I said...I can't really tell what he is going on about.
#5: I'm getting tired of this game. Had to read and re-read this page for almost ten minutes before I began to understand what he was trying to say. Forget the science classes -- can we send him to English Composition first? Again I have to question his pattern recognition skills -- he points at a black object with burn marks. I see a grey object with a shiny spot. Well, okay. This seems to boil down to "a rocket is a rocket is a rocket"; that attitude control thrusters should behave exactly the same as the main descent engine. That, and the way he both mis-states the mainstream position and makes blatantly incorrect misquotes (the engine was on until touchdown?!) makes whatever point he may be making here too weak and scattered to actually argue about.
#6: Heh. Amusing, but I'd close the door. He gets so close, too....with the door standing wide open, the cabin is able to radiate heat out into its surroundings. Meaning you come back to a very cold room for the night. It is nice for a change, though, to read someone who has actually read more than a few words in his life about the program and some of the contingency planning.
#7: I love his final words; "No JPEG compression here!" Um...I didn't notice my browser loading a png...
#8: A two-in-one. First off, yes, you CAN cast a shadow like that without having to put your arms in front of your face in the classic "say cheese!" posture. I guess he doesn't spend as much of his day looking at his own shadow as I do (theater lighting technician -- ask Jay about it!) And second, the camera is, duh, detachable. How did he miss that one?
#11: Oh, let's skip a few. Interesting photometrics there. So....I can light a larger area to the same brilliance just by slanting the light? Oops...'scuse me, gotta deal with some melting ice caps here. And tell all my artist friends to stop shading spheres and cylinders.
Well. It is cute that he believes in the majority of the program, equipment, and landing series. He also appears to have some basic grasp of and respect for science. I wonder if there is a pattern in certain hoax believers one could call "mission creep"; that first they start with thinking everything was a fake, then as they encounter more convincing evidence they allow that some of it was real, and so on and so forth until they are down to that last niggling %1 that no hoax believer seems capable of finally abandoning.
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Post by nomuse on Jun 27, 2006 18:04:37 GMT -4
And besides that, it allows you to say "waxing gibbous."
I've always felt that more conversations should include the phrase "waxing gibbous."
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Post by nomuse on Jun 22, 2006 16:42:51 GMT -4
Heh. Just to clarify, by "long exposure" I meant on the order of years. No idea if hard UV degrades any of the protein bonds, but getting thoroughly desiccated isn't going to do the feather any good over the long haul.
As far as dropping the feather -- I'd be more concerned about taking it outside in a storm and dropping it in an oil slick. A few minutes on the Moon isn't going to do much of note.
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