If you look at my Pacific snapshot it is from a game. The Flat Earth people will be right to say it's fake. It is an image that is allowed under copyright. The more interesting thing is no Google flat image will show this view. It is unique to being a 2D snapshot of the globe. If rotated a little to the North even more land is replaced by ocean.
I am glad this Flat Earth thing came up. It's the tip of the Fake News iceburg. I am glad I came up with islands in the Pacific that are either hundreds or many thousand miles away depending on where the flat map places it. In other words a trip taking an hour in real life is said to take perhaps 15 hours by Flat Earth people or needs complex excusses. As I doubt they would devided the Pacific where it made it too obvious I say an hour. It might be very hard to draw that line where no island and it's neighbour aren't split beyond the range of an aircraft.
I remember winning a quiz by saying Magellan was the first man to sail around the World. I then told the quiz master that he wasn't as he died en route. As I said at the time I gave the answer they wanted. It caused a stir and my team were not very happy. I wasn't on that ship in 1519 so what do I really know? It was Magellan's voyage.
Back to Fake News. Without wishing to say what, we now have to live with Fake News. It always was, but was real enough to decide. I would say speaker cables and the like are Audio's Fake News. Not 100% but when money is involved it will be. It is very hard for me to say if measurements tell us very much. How to make two the same, yes. What is obviously bad, yes. I feel a good spec gained by the simplest route ( 0.1% THD with harmonics on an exponential curve ) possibly does sound best. Then I become a Flat Earther in some eyes. I wouldn't want their reality much of the time.
I am glad this Flat Earth thing came up. It's the tip of the Fake News iceburg. I am glad I came up with islands in the Pacific that are either hundreds or many thousand miles away depending on where the flat map places it. In other words a trip taking an hour in real life is said to take perhaps 15 hours by Flat Earth people or needs complex excusses. As I doubt they would devided the Pacific where it made it too obvious I say an hour. It might be very hard to draw that line where no island and it's neighbour aren't split beyond the range of an aircraft.
I remember winning a quiz by saying Magellan was the first man to sail around the World. I then told the quiz master that he wasn't as he died en route. As I said at the time I gave the answer they wanted. It caused a stir and my team were not very happy. I wasn't on that ship in 1519 so what do I really know? It was Magellan's voyage.
Back to Fake News. Without wishing to say what, we now have to live with Fake News. It always was, but was real enough to decide. I would say speaker cables and the like are Audio's Fake News. Not 100% but when money is involved it will be. It is very hard for me to say if measurements tell us very much. How to make two the same, yes. What is obviously bad, yes. I feel a good spec gained by the simplest route ( 0.1% THD with harmonics on an exponential curve ) possibly does sound best. Then I become a Flat Earther in some eyes. I wouldn't want their reality much of the time.
A more interesting question is do we have Police these days. I heard on the BBC that inventions spread so quickly no one is able to even think what laws we need. Credit cards, The Internet etcetera work above the governments we want to protect us. The BBC said that we will get robotic cars whether we want them or not and governments like rabbits in headlights will do nothing to stop it. This is a very big change. This is the real problem.
The real Fake News problem is no one says a thing. BTW, do you really want your phone to know your face? The BBC might be Fake News, I trust them even when they make my blood boil which is nearly always. I do watch Russia Today to try to see where they say the same. Mostly they do with their own slant. Sometimes RT gets a bit daft when too close to the bone for them. I still listen as they are professional enough to make a limp attempt at objectivity.
The real Fake News problem is no one says a thing. BTW, do you really want your phone to know your face? The BBC might be Fake News, I trust them even when they make my blood boil which is nearly always. I do watch Russia Today to try to see where they say the same. Mostly they do with their own slant. Sometimes RT gets a bit daft when too close to the bone for them. I still listen as they are professional enough to make a limp attempt at objectivity.
I remember at school two things very well that relate to the Flat Earth. I was the only one in the class who openly loved science, history and maths. I was also very large and very strong. It meant I got more respect than loving science would usually get. I even got asked for advice and help with homework. It just comes to mind how alien my world was to the other 30 kids, I knew it and made sure they realised I was right to like what I liked.
Their disinterest must have got worse as school became a distant memory. They only knew what people who seemed to know things told them ( no books at home to read ) and they might get a pass in a science if they tried to rememeber things. I have been told that many never used that knowlegde in later life and have forgoten most of it within two weeks of the exam. What we know here at DIY Audio is as strange as the Flat Earth to most people, in fact from our small scale the Flat Earth seems more real.
One of the weirder Flat Earth ideas: The World if it did spin is going so fast the winds would tear us apart or whatever. This neatly forgets friction and the similarity to a fluid in keeping pace. If I was to fuel their fire I might say the World is a sphere, however as they say there is a solid sphere outside keeping the atmosphere in. This is something we might struggle to prove wrong. It is all very well saying that gravity and the magnetic bottle stops any loss, that takes some deep thought to examine. As we all know over lets say 200 million years it's going to have to be more perfect than anything we know of to still have air to breath. The miniture forces of the other planets and not minute of our Moon cause doubt. Even if a 0.0001% loss per year we would be in trouble. I have to speculate that the planet is replacing the loss. It is possibly well known by some how this works. The magnetic bottle is not perfect and we are near to the Sun. It all begs a question, how could this work?
One thing I observe. As much as I love science I am very poor at working with new ideas, I get there in the end. I suspect I question too many things and want to know what it is I am doing. Others just learn and use. However I suspect they unlearn just as fast.
My major interest is why didn't the Flat Earthers say this about the air ( or anyone )? We would have a tough time saying they are wrong. I guess they are fed up with being told they know nothing as the real reason to say Flat Earth is the truth. I would be very amused if my little speculation here fueled their fire. It won't as they must go with the sphere to do it.
One speculation I have is the Flat Earth is put out to test how we react ( people who do not believe saying it ). We could all do this if we wanted to. Most people who love science wouldn't do it. Science is the only thing we have where telling the truth as best we know it is the aim. A club of truth. If you think about it most things in life only nod at the truth. When hi fi we are allowed our taste as long as we use science to define it.
Their disinterest must have got worse as school became a distant memory. They only knew what people who seemed to know things told them ( no books at home to read ) and they might get a pass in a science if they tried to rememeber things. I have been told that many never used that knowlegde in later life and have forgoten most of it within two weeks of the exam. What we know here at DIY Audio is as strange as the Flat Earth to most people, in fact from our small scale the Flat Earth seems more real.
One of the weirder Flat Earth ideas: The World if it did spin is going so fast the winds would tear us apart or whatever. This neatly forgets friction and the similarity to a fluid in keeping pace. If I was to fuel their fire I might say the World is a sphere, however as they say there is a solid sphere outside keeping the atmosphere in. This is something we might struggle to prove wrong. It is all very well saying that gravity and the magnetic bottle stops any loss, that takes some deep thought to examine. As we all know over lets say 200 million years it's going to have to be more perfect than anything we know of to still have air to breath. The miniture forces of the other planets and not minute of our Moon cause doubt. Even if a 0.0001% loss per year we would be in trouble. I have to speculate that the planet is replacing the loss. It is possibly well known by some how this works. The magnetic bottle is not perfect and we are near to the Sun. It all begs a question, how could this work?
One thing I observe. As much as I love science I am very poor at working with new ideas, I get there in the end. I suspect I question too many things and want to know what it is I am doing. Others just learn and use. However I suspect they unlearn just as fast.
My major interest is why didn't the Flat Earthers say this about the air ( or anyone )? We would have a tough time saying they are wrong. I guess they are fed up with being told they know nothing as the real reason to say Flat Earth is the truth. I would be very amused if my little speculation here fueled their fire. It won't as they must go with the sphere to do it.
One speculation I have is the Flat Earth is put out to test how we react ( people who do not believe saying it ). We could all do this if we wanted to. Most people who love science wouldn't do it. Science is the only thing we have where telling the truth as best we know it is the aim. A club of truth. If you think about it most things in life only nod at the truth. When hi fi we are allowed our taste as long as we use science to define it.
No, it doesn't.
There's a few trolls or idiots out there faffing with the flat earth stuff, but it's waaaay below the noise level and really irrelevant. Not worth the slightest engagement with 'em.
More of a problem are those who like to believe the Earth is 6000 years old. Some of those idiots have political power, both sides of the pond.
You didn't get the point. People who come to DIY Audio to the outside world are more weird than the Flat Earthers. You and I could probably clear a pub in minutes if insisting to talk our stuff.
The world of Football works equal wonders on me. Colleen loves Football. To wind her up I get questions right about it at the quiz. I have less than zero interest but do remember the odd fact.
The Earth in terms of writting seems to be about 6000 years old or less if saying what we do know. It is very odd how little is known about us for the other 200 000 years. It almost says my classmates ruled for that time. Malta seems to be where people first built structures ( or Mexico etc ). Cave paintings 30 000 years ago show art skills exactly as now ( more so maybe ). "Original sin" must have been writing as one died but ones thoughts didn't. They had to be important thoughts to be written again or written at all. Writing using an Alphabet being the first attempt at data compression, pictures not as good.
The world of Football works equal wonders on me. Colleen loves Football. To wind her up I get questions right about it at the quiz. I have less than zero interest but do remember the odd fact.
The Earth in terms of writting seems to be about 6000 years old or less if saying what we do know. It is very odd how little is known about us for the other 200 000 years. It almost says my classmates ruled for that time. Malta seems to be where people first built structures ( or Mexico etc ). Cave paintings 30 000 years ago show art skills exactly as now ( more so maybe ). "Original sin" must have been writing as one died but ones thoughts didn't. They had to be important thoughts to be written again or written at all. Writing using an Alphabet being the first attempt at data compression, pictures not as good.
I want to add to Football. One night every pub was full of England fans. My friend Martyn insisted to say how much he hated Foofball in the pub. I gave him a very big prod in the ribs and said if he wanted to say alive to shut up, they didn't hear him is my guess. He was sure they wanted to talk about BBC LS3/5A more than Football. I made a few polite reflections on the game which seemed to be well received. The upshot was we were give a free meal when at first it looked like we were going to get lynched. I kid you not. Martyn still felt what he had to say far more interesting, at that point I would have disowned him. You know he only talks about LS3/5A's. I begged him to buy some JR149's. I am taking him to meet someone with LS5/9 soon. She was a BBC producer.
No chris but NASA is a mainstream USA agency right??
Nothing MSM should be blindly trusted (Especially from the US)
Nothing MSM should be blindly trusted (Especially from the US)
Religion mostly. The Dark ages. etc.
I actually watched a rather nice copy of Independence Day on PAL Laserdisc the other night, it was much better and more engaging than the bluray version. the LD version reminded me more of the error-prone VHS version that I saw as a kid, the Bluray version was overpowering and I couldn't focus on any one thing without getting overwhelmed by the special effects. The Laserdisc version however was quite comforting and relaxing.
My post above. is basically what flat earthers are all about. They believe that the belief in a flat earth is more comfortable to them and so therefore science must be wrong and everybody who says otherwise must be wrong. It is overwhelming to them to think that earth is round, and that we went to the moon.
But of course semi-normal people believe in collecting VHS or Betamax and or Laserdisc or Vinyl. semi-normal people have an edge here in that there is a distinct cosmetic advantage to these technologies, I personally am overwhelmed at the constant special effects which are present on bluray and so therefore I prefer my movies in Laserdisc format, flat earthers are much the same really because to them earth IS flat and they cannot leave the earth so therefore who is going to change their minds? To them the truth that the planet is round and that we went to the moon is overwhelming. And so therefore they choose to not believe in it. Or rather they choose to not partake in the truth.
But you won't see me thinking that the earth is flat just because somebody says it is without any evidence. I believe in the scientific fact that water is good for me in small quantities, even though it is basically hydrogen and oxygen, some of the most flammable substances on earth. I even bathe in the stuff! And sing too! What a dangerous hobby showering is! I'm mostly a bag of water! Am I going to spontaneously combust anytime soon? Probably not...
Did I just compare vinyl users to flat earthers? Oh my. *dons-his-anti-witchburning-protective-suit*
But of course semi-normal people believe in collecting VHS or Betamax and or Laserdisc or Vinyl. semi-normal people have an edge here in that there is a distinct cosmetic advantage to these technologies, I personally am overwhelmed at the constant special effects which are present on bluray and so therefore I prefer my movies in Laserdisc format, flat earthers are much the same really because to them earth IS flat and they cannot leave the earth so therefore who is going to change their minds? To them the truth that the planet is round and that we went to the moon is overwhelming. And so therefore they choose to not believe in it. Or rather they choose to not partake in the truth.
But you won't see me thinking that the earth is flat just because somebody says it is without any evidence. I believe in the scientific fact that water is good for me in small quantities, even though it is basically hydrogen and oxygen, some of the most flammable substances on earth. I even bathe in the stuff! And sing too! What a dangerous hobby showering is! I'm mostly a bag of water! Am I going to spontaneously combust anytime soon? Probably not...
Did I just compare vinyl users to flat earthers? Oh my. *dons-his-anti-witchburning-protective-suit*
Last edited:
The reason that it is so hard to convince 'flat earthers' of the scientific prooofs of otherwise is that they (the flatters) have no concept of science and the scientific method.
Arguments we have are only effective if the guy at the receiving end understands science, understands the scientific method and accomplishments. If you don't, the science arguments are just some other 'I believe....' snippets that have no real weight.
Its like explaining an orgasm to a virgin ;-)
Jan
Arguments we have are only effective if the guy at the receiving end understands science, understands the scientific method and accomplishments. If you don't, the science arguments are just some other 'I believe....' snippets that have no real weight.
Its like explaining an orgasm to a virgin ;-)
Jan
My favourite Flat Earth story is GPS is in fact all the phone masts we see, no satelites. This means the pilots of your aircraft really earn their money doing it the 1950's way. They say the hump on the 747 is to allow for the pilots wallet. It's hush money.
I am a little cautious to say Flater Earthers say this or that as I suspect much is just people having fun. Not very nice fun as some people get very paranoid reading this stuff. The main reason I won't debate the NASA and the Moon stuff is I feel Russia or any other power that can know couldn't resist telling us the truth. Whilst it is not proof it is as near as we can get. If every photo we saw was 100% correct is another story.
As I said some time back a water drop says the easiest shape for a object in space to become is a globe. The fact it is not a perfect globe makes it more credible. Anything else is not easy to explain.
I am a little cautious to say Flater Earthers say this or that as I suspect much is just people having fun. Not very nice fun as some people get very paranoid reading this stuff. The main reason I won't debate the NASA and the Moon stuff is I feel Russia or any other power that can know couldn't resist telling us the truth. Whilst it is not proof it is as near as we can get. If every photo we saw was 100% correct is another story.
As I said some time back a water drop says the easiest shape for a object in space to become is a globe. The fact it is not a perfect globe makes it more credible. Anything else is not easy to explain.
Whenever I talk to a flat earther I worry that they will steal my brain and pickle it in a jar. You know like in that Star Trek TOS episode called Spock's Brain.
Oh No! Not my brain!
Oh No! Not my brain!
Last edited:
Fiction is great because it allows us to test the water. It also prepares the way if it does happen. Fake News is something like hallucination where one can not be sure of it's pigeon hole unless knowing many facts that say Fake. Fake News makes people think they saw or knew something. It always existed, now it is perfected.
It is said and I am sure with no real knowledge that Einstein could take himself to that place to see a problem, where people hallucinate. Many engineers I know talk with their hands and eyes almost like holding a thing. Being dyslexic I do the same and really doubt it is rare, spelling ( note the inference in that of spells ) is how others lost their gift. It's a very fair trade as Spoke said when blinded, I would trade spelling words for ideas. Fake Ideas is not how one should use this ability.
I always questioned the good book over lies. Only as what we base our laws upon mostly still is that. What is a lie? Colleen pointed out to me I tell lies most of the time, I thought I didn't. What she calls a lie is not aimed at hurting anyone and seldom for my gain as they always are detected. A lie as I feel is intended in law is one that is calculated to harm another. The Flat Earth I feel is a lie meeting this criteria.
It is said and I am sure with no real knowledge that Einstein could take himself to that place to see a problem, where people hallucinate. Many engineers I know talk with their hands and eyes almost like holding a thing. Being dyslexic I do the same and really doubt it is rare, spelling ( note the inference in that of spells ) is how others lost their gift. It's a very fair trade as Spoke said when blinded, I would trade spelling words for ideas. Fake Ideas is not how one should use this ability.
I always questioned the good book over lies. Only as what we base our laws upon mostly still is that. What is a lie? Colleen pointed out to me I tell lies most of the time, I thought I didn't. What she calls a lie is not aimed at hurting anyone and seldom for my gain as they always are detected. A lie as I feel is intended in law is one that is calculated to harm another. The Flat Earth I feel is a lie meeting this criteria.
Nige I've been catching up on a lot of Brit SciFi from the 50's and early 60's wonderful stuff. "Fiend Without a Face" particularly good though I saw it as a kid.
"Transatlantic Tunnel" (30's) is very interesting for its socialist political angle. The scene where they "torture" funding out of posh businessmen by making them listen to Beethoven(?) is one of my favorites.
"The Man Who Reclaimed his Head" (also 30's) used the term atomic bomb directly.
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.