Author Topic: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.  (Read 125858 times)

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #165 on: July 09, 2012, 06:15:50 PM »
I think even the turkey froze.

Had the turkey been moving previously?  :-\
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Trebor

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #166 on: July 09, 2012, 06:52:44 PM »
Lack of stereo vision doesn't mean he doesn't experience perspective. Avoiding perspective would require an "eye" larger than everything in sight. It sounds like a cognitive defect to me.

I have noticed that many hoax proponents appear to have such incredibly poor spatial reasoning skills that I wonder how they manage to feed themselves, however. I've seen them stymied by things as simple as determining which of two overlapping objects is in front of the other.


It seems to be how most discussions with HB seem to go :|

Offline Lunchpacked

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #167 on: July 09, 2012, 07:20:33 PM »
Lack of stereo vision doesn't mean he doesn't experience perspective. Avoiding perspective would require an "eye" larger than everything in sight. It sounds like a cognitive defect to me.

I have noticed that many hoax proponents appear to have such incredibly poor spatial reasoning skills that I wonder how they manage to feed themselves, however. I've seen them stymied by things as simple as determining which of two overlapping objects is in front of the other.


It seems to be how most discussions with HB seem to go :|
afraid of turning this thread  into a brilliant british collection of "moonhoax arguments" like these, i'll refrain from comparing the moonlanding deniers with jim trott of vicar of dibley.  no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, man has landed on the moon.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #168 on: July 09, 2012, 10:31:51 PM »
And one of the younger people at the party, when pressed as to where they worked these days, replied "Software engineer." 
Well, I consider myself a software engineer. Or at least I've written a lot of software. Yet I began as an electrical engineer, with two university degrees and two FCC licenses on the wall.

I switched to mainly software mainly because I like instant gratification; it's frustrating to come to an abrupt halt while working on a hardware project in the middle of the night because you don't have a required part. In software, if you need a part in the middle of the night you just run "apt get install" and continue on your merry way in a matter of seconds...

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #169 on: July 09, 2012, 10:39:12 PM »
A great example of this is his "Ham radio" video. He makes a game-ending error at the very beginning, confusing the bands, or range of frequencies, that hams are licensed to broadcast in, with their ability to receive any frequency that they can set their receiver up for.  For someone even casually familiar with hams, or radio in general, it is a stunning and embarrassing error.
I'm a ham, and space communications is one of my specialties so these are among my favorite hoax claims. You should see the look on my face when I see someone make them. I don't hunt, but it's probably similar to the expression hunters get after sitting in the blind for hours when they see a full-grown buck or bull wander by and stop...

« Last Edit: July 09, 2012, 10:54:39 PM by ka9q »

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #170 on: July 09, 2012, 10:46:47 PM »
you are correct, hunchbacked admittedly makes lazy researched videos
Indeed he does. And as long as I've been sparring with the guy, he still surprises me sometimes with his laziness.

Example: he's made several videos claiming that we shouldn't be able to see Buzz Aldrin through his visor in those famous pictures of him saluting the US flag on the moon, especially AS11-40-5875, that it was impossible with the sun in his face. I patiently tried to explain that this is exactly the situation where you'd be most likely to see a face through the visor. His face is brightly lit by the sun; we're off to the side; and Buzz is looking through the left side of his visor, so the sun's reflection occurs elsewhere and does not obscure him. The visor directly in front of his face is reflecting only black sky, so it doesn't interfere.

The only reflection that does appear in front of his face is that of Neil Armstrong, the photographer. (I wonder if anyone has noticed this before?)

Not buying this, he went on to claim that the face didn't even look like Buzz Aldrin. And for comparison he showed a picture from Apollo 11 training that he claimed to be of Buzz Aldrin -- yet it was of Neil Armstrong! The mistake was so obvious that I think even he acknowledged it -- but went on to say that it was "unimportant" and that he would not correct his video.

How one can say it's "unimportant" to get the right reference picture when trying to identify a face is beyond me. The guy must be nearly blind. The defect could be in his eyes, or in the processing of their signals.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2012, 11:48:44 PM by ka9q »

Offline Noldi400

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #171 on: July 10, 2012, 03:17:00 PM »
I was puzzled by that one myself. I kept wanting to point out that it was just some lucky chance of the light and the camera being at just the right angle, but I knew he'd jump on the phrase "lucky chance". Hunchy is possibly the best example among the HBs of arguing from incredulity - if he can't understand it, it must... somehow... be evidence of a hoax. His jumbled English doesn't help much; sometimes it's hard to make out just what it is he objects to.

And the face in the photo was unmistakable, IMO. Buzz has a pointed nose that's hard to miss.
"The sane understand that human beings are incapable of sustaining conspiracies on a grand scale, because some of our most defining qualities as a species are... a tendency to panic, and an inability to keep our mouths shut." - Dean Koontz

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #172 on: July 10, 2012, 03:53:46 PM »
Well, I consider myself a software engineer. Or at least I've written a lot of software. Yet I began as an electrical engineer, with two university degrees and two FCC licenses on the wall.

I also like the pure inventiveness of software.  In the engineering disciplines that produce solid objects, you have a somewhat limited design vocabulary.  Mechanical assemblies, electrical circuits, and chemical processes all have to be composed from a relatively small number of simple elements.  There are only a few ways, for example, to convey mechanical force around a corner or across a distance.  Software exists in a more abstract domain and benefits from a broader and more flexible vocabulary.

The classical engineering discplines (e.g., mechanical, electrical, chemical, nuclear, civil) typically require a "core" engineering curriculum that's very rigorous and emphasizes not only the physical sciences but also the ineffable practice of "being an engineer."  There's much more to being an engineer than simply being a technologist.  Engineering is the intersection of technology with the human and business worlds.  It is a much higher calling to be an engineer than simply to be a technician.

But if you go to school for "software engineering" you learn practically none of that, and most software engineers don't realize this.  The gulf between "real" engineering and software engineering is not just elitism or resentment.  The software engineer simply hasn't been subjected to as rigorous an academic program as the classical engineers, and consequently is not really able to bring viable engineering principles to his work.  I maintain that the most successful software engineers are those who began their careers as another kind of engineer.

Here's how I define the taxonomy.

Computer science.  The philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of computation.  There is actually quite a large body of mathematics that applies to software.  Programs are elaborate mathematical structures that can be studied as abstract mathematical constructs.  Functional algebra, for example, leads to a heightened understanding of the concepts of iteration, invariance, and composition.  Program code that respects functional algebra knowledge, even if written as a declarative program, tends to work better.

Software engineering.  The application of engineering principles to the commercial production and operation of computer programs.  This emphasizes constraint management, requirements management, traceability, estimability, quality assurance, and related safety and business concerns.  The goal of software engineering is program code that succeeds as a sustainable commercial product.  ("Commerce" here includes open-source and non-profit use.  The emphasis is on accountability to the end user and sustainability in creation.)

Computer programming.  The nuts and bolts of producing software.  A computer programmer is to a software engineer what a machinist is to a mechanical engineer.  It's not a matter of hierarchy so much as an emphasis of roles.  A good engineer knows to listen to his machinists on matters of production efficiency and ease.  Similarly a good software engineer relies on talented programmers to assist him in creating designs that can be effectively implemented and tested.  At some point, in order to be useful, a software design must be implemented in one or more programming languages and deployed on the target hardware.

Software development.  A catch-all term for elements of all of the above:  theoretical foundation, good design practice, and competent implementation and management.

Web development.  A cesspool of chaos hobbled by a high proportion of under-qualified practitioners and undisciplined technological carcinoma.  But that's just my opinion.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #173 on: July 10, 2012, 04:06:08 PM »
And as long as I've been sparring with the guy, he still surprises me sometimes with his laziness.

People who are utterly convinced of their own moral rectitude quite easily forgive themselves of even the most egregious error.  They believe they should be afforded extra latitude because their cause is morally superior and can tolerate more factual slippage without injury.  It's clear from the argumentation that the broad hoax theory argues that NASA faked the Apollo missions because NASA is evil, not because they lacked the technological foundation.  Despite arguments for the latter, the hoax believers give NASA limitless capacity to fake things.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Noldi400

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #174 on: July 10, 2012, 04:18:52 PM »
My favorite quote of his is:

"There is nothing to suggest there was NOT a hoax."

Shifting burden of proof, anyone?
"The sane understand that human beings are incapable of sustaining conspiracies on a grand scale, because some of our most defining qualities as a species are... a tendency to panic, and an inability to keep our mouths shut." - Dean Koontz

Offline DataCable

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #175 on: July 10, 2012, 05:06:41 PM »
Web development.  A cesspool of chaos hobbled by a high proportion of under-qualified practitioners and undisciplined technological carcinoma.
Don't mince words, Jay, what do you really think?
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Offline Nowhere Man

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #176 on: July 10, 2012, 08:27:56 PM »
Web development.  A cesspool of chaos hobbled by a high proportion of under-qualified practitioners and undisciplined technological carcinoma.
Don't mince words, Jay, what do you really think?
Being in the middle of a web development project myself, and having our company's software architect go to another company in the middle, and with a conflict of approaches brewing, I have to agree with Jay...

... says the under-qualified practitioner...  :-[

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Offline cjameshuff

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #177 on: July 10, 2012, 09:38:12 PM »
I maintain that the most successful software engineers are those who began their careers as another kind of engineer.

Experience in embedded firmware development can be similarly valuable. The intersection of software and hardware is an interesting place to work. Interesting in multiple senses...I recently had an issue where a device was screwing up persistent storage (and its own firmware) because of the processor resetting and running startup code as the power supply dropped after the device was unplugged. That was tricky...attaching a debugger doesn't really help for a device that's just been unplugged from power. (digital oscilloscopes are wonderful devices...)


Web development.  A cesspool of chaos hobbled by a high proportion of under-qualified practitioners and undisciplined technological carcinoma.  But that's just my opinion.

It's a wretched quagmire, full of examples of design by committee, feature creep, absurd repurposing of technologies for things they simply aren't suited for, etc.

I much prefer embedded systems. (And graphics programming, but I haven't actually gotten paid for doing that yet.) Not that you can totally escape such things there. Modern digital video is another big mess...

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #178 on: July 10, 2012, 11:20:16 PM »
Web development.  A cesspool of chaos hobbled by a high proportion of under-qualified practitioners and undisciplined technological carcinoma.  But that's just my opinion.
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My pet peeve about the web is the incredibly gratuitous use of javascript. Ever tried to surf with it turned off for security?


Offline pzkpfw

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #179 on: July 11, 2012, 02:30:39 AM »
My pet peeve about the web is the incredibly gratuitous use of javascript. Ever tried to surf with it turned off for security?

I used to have to work on certain Govt sites that had to work in some stupid range of old browsers and also with JavaScript on or off. That was awful, especially when the clients seemed to expect all the fancy features to work, in all cases. Nowadays the JavaScript (might be off) thing is mostly ignored. It's pretty much assumed everybody will have it on. (And to a certain extent: is the security worry really relevant any more?).

What still annoys me is how JavaScript etc are used to build fancy websites, but it's not really (in my opinion) by actual improvement of the environment. Like JSON. It's nice to have a standard data format, but it's really just a "standard" used to allow something to be done with something that perhaps wasn't supposed to be doing it. Modern websites may look all nice and be easy to use, but under the hood they are just getting more and more complex, more and more layers and standards, and it's getting harder and harder to learn it all. Shouldn't it be getting easier?

(I stay well clear of any complex public-facing web work. For in-house use (where I can get clients to accept very basic sites) I make a game of building simple interfaces, down to using courier font and white-on-blue as in old WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.)