ApolloHoax.net

Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: mako88sb on June 11, 2012, 04:15:49 AM

Title: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 11, 2012, 04:15:49 AM
I've went through the threads in the archives about this character and as I suspected, his arguments and supposed education that he's hoodwinked some mindless minions on youtube with did not withstand the scrutiny of people who actually understand the science and engineering involved with the space program. I pointed this out to him and of course he's in the right, you guys are wrong but his opponents were in greater number so he left you to your ignorance. Seeing as a lot of the arguments dealt with basic fundamentals I suggested he round up some former and current colleagues to help him out instead of hiding out at youtube. I asked him what was more important, having his ego massaged by  his band of bozos or coming back here to prove he's not the fraud that he's been made out to be. I must of hit a nerve because he's no longer responding to me.

What I was wondering if it would be possible to move his postings from the archive and make it a sticky on the new site? I got pretty fed up with him when someone pointed out that the actions of the astronauts seem pretty genuine and consistent for guys who would be experiencing a great and challenging new adventure. His response was that the only reasonable explanation is that they where drugged and/or under mind control to be so thoroughly convinced that the lunar landings where real.  I won't be able to stop him from posting and making nonsensical videos but I sure as heck want to point out every chance I get that he's probably a fraud. I've made a couple posts telling people they see his handiwork here by searching the archives but it would be much easier if they could see it on the new forum. Thanks!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 11, 2012, 02:04:45 PM
The reason the archives exist is that it's a royal pain to transfer things from them.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 11, 2012, 03:37:53 PM
Yeah, I was afraid of that but figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I realize it's pretty hopeless trying to convince some of these nuts they are wasting their time with this nonsense but for those who are sitting on the fence, I'd hate to seem them swayed by Hunches fancy but fundamentally flawed videos.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 12, 2012, 01:57:25 PM
I recall somebody asking about his credentials but I'm not sure if he gave any kind of satisfying reply. I noticed he posted this almost a year ago at youtube:

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on June 12, 2012, 05:03:22 PM
I recall somebody asking about his credentials but I'm not sure if he gave any kind of satisfying reply. I noticed he posted this almost a year ago at youtube:



34 seconds in: "It means I entered this school in 1973, that is only two years after the last Apollo mission."

This is exactly the kind of hard-hitting research and fact-checking we've come to expect from hunchbacked.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 12, 2012, 05:19:18 PM
I sure do wish I had entered that school. You automatically get a university degree without having to pass an exam (2:21). That would have saved me a lot of bother. What a fool I have been. What a fool...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 12, 2012, 05:55:21 PM
It really doesn't matter where he went to school, what he did in the military or where he worked.  What matters is if he can back his claims up with something other than his own authority.  Unless, that is, if he wants to stayed walled up in his own little corner of YouTube.  If that is the case, he is irreverent.  So let him stew in his own juices over there and commune with the like minded.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 13, 2012, 06:41:19 AM
I think you mean irrelevant. But he's an atheist, so I guess he's irreverent too.

Hunchbacked is an utter enigma. I've been sparring with him for years and I still can't figure out what makes him tick. He's a fascinating study.

Most of the time he seems perfectly sincere. Most Apollo deniers respond to the demolition of their arguments by swiftly and permanently banning the offender. Hunchbacked rarely bans anyone, and never for any length of time. About the only way to get him really mad is to accuse him of insincerity or dishonesty.

Yet there are also times when his arguments are so blatantly biased, misleading and just plain wrong that it's almost impossible to accept that he isn't aware of it and doing it deliberately. So I still can't figure him out.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Trebor on June 13, 2012, 08:17:07 AM
One of the first videos he did he used the 'Earthrise' sequence from Apollo 8 to show that those images were not taken from the lunar surface.
After that I really can not take him at all seriously.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 13, 2012, 09:18:04 AM
I think you mean irrelevant.

Yes.  Since the editing time limit was set for two hours, my spelling check/proof reading error count is going up.   Particularity for posts made in haste before moving on to other topics. 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 13, 2012, 01:38:19 PM
Some of his claims are just downright bizarre. Many, even if true, would make no sense in the context of a hoax. It's just the usual denier's collection of "anomalies" that are somehow supposed to mean something.

A while ago he showed a picture of an Apollo CSM taken through the LM rendezvous window just before docking after lunar ascent. He objected to the fact that we could not see the side of the service module except for part of a thruster quad. The reason was obvious: the camera was very close to the CSM's X (longitudinal) axis, i.e., within the radius of the CSM, so from simple perspective one could not see the exterior of the (opaque) SM.

Many of his videos make it clear that he has great difficulty correctly interpreting 3-dimensional objects depicted in photographs, something that most people find intuitively easy.

I'm reminded of something that Bellcore's Bob Lucky said back in the 1980s about artificial intelligence: it was just a matter of time before a computer became the world's chess champion, but we still don't know how to program a computer to walk into a room and merely find a chessboard -- something that any 5 year old (sighted) child with average intelligence can do quite easily. It demonstrates just how vastly different computers and human brains are in the way they operate.

It's hard to study a mental process that seems so intuitive and effortless to almost everyone. But maybe there are a few people who lack this natural ability, and they may someday help us understand how it works in the rest of us.

Another Hunchbacked gem has him claiming that the famous hammer and feather demonstration on Apollo 15 was faked; the hammer's fall (which really took place in earth gravity, naturally) was retarded to simulate lunar gravity by sliding down a blanket on the front of the MESA. I tried to point out that a) Scott is standing in front of the MESA and b) the hammer falls in front of Scott; ergo the hammer must fall well in front of the MESA -- to no avail.

It's almost as if his mind can interpret a perfectly ordinary scene as though it were an M.C. Escher painting of an impossible scene that actually exists. Or something.

Sometimes I wonder if hunchbacked/inquisitivemind is actually a very elaborate and long-running practical joke, because no real, rational person could seriously believe the claims he makes. Yet he seems absolutely sincere.

I know people often object to performing armchair psychiatry over the net, but it's very tempting.



Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: raven on June 13, 2012, 01:55:19 PM
One of the first videos he did he used the 'Earthrise' sequence from Apollo 8 to show that those images were not taken from the lunar surface.
After that I really can not take him at all seriously.
Ow, ow, ow.
I think that just made my head meat implode. :o
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 13, 2012, 02:53:57 PM
A while ago he showed a picture of an Apollo CSM taken through the LM rendezvous window just before docking after lunar ascent. He objected to the fact that we could not see the side of the service module except for part of a thruster quad. The reason was obvious: the camera was very close to the CSM's X (longitudinal) axis, i.e., within the radius of the CSM, so from simple perspective one could not see the exterior of the (opaque) SM.

This issue perplexes me somewhat. Almost every photo is argued as being evidence of a hoax now, but if they were produced on Earth they would still appear the same way. Most photographic claims are leaving me with the question 'and so what?'

The hoax theory is becoming more a more torturous and complex. In a way, it is a good thing, because it actually blows itself apart, particularly as most sane people can see that how more and more ridiculous it is becoming when the theorists argue over every minute detail they can find.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on June 13, 2012, 04:46:20 PM
Some of his claims are just downright bizarre. Many, even if true, would make no sense in the context of a hoax.
Similar to He Who Shall Not Be Named, whose claims address the credibility of his critics on points that have little nor nothing to do with a hoax theory.  This is actually quite common in fringe argumentation, where opponents are running away from the common explanation rather than toward any particular one.  Hence their arguments tend to look like laundry lists of reasons not to believe some particular thing, rather than an explanation of how the data fits a new desired conclusion.

Quote
Many of his videos make it clear that he has great difficulty correctly interpreting 3-dimensional objects depicted in photographs, something that most people find intuitively easy.
Some more than others.  Spatial reasoning is a measurable trait that varies greatly from person to person.  People who want to be successful photo interpreters must develop that trait further.  Sadly there are people who don't recognize their inability to reason spatially.  Yet they profess to be experts.  Jack White is a notable example; he actually appears to reside on the low end of spatial reasoning skill, infamously unable to determine which way a Lunar Module is facing in any given photo.

Quote
It's hard to study a mental process that seems so intuitive and effortless to almost everyone.
Indeed, but it's not as transparent as all that.  We can study visual perception separately as a science, and this knowledge then informs how we interpret (and sometimes misinterpret) photographs.  The most successful photo interpreters are those that have some conscious understanding of how they might misperceive, and they take conscious steps to avoid those errors.

Quote
Sometimes I wonder if hunchbacked/inquisitivemind is actually a very elaborate and long-running practical joke, because no real, rational person could seriously believe the claims he makes. Yet he seems absolutely sincere.
I have to invoke Dunning and Kruger here.  He may be a real person, but he may not be especially rational in the sense of being able to assess his own ability and that of others.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 13, 2012, 05:09:36 PM
Similar to He Who Shall Not Be Named, whose claims address the credibility of his critics on points that have little nor nothing to do with a hoax theory.

I understand that the raison d'etre for this stance is that if his critics credibility is scrupulous over some minute detail, then how can they be trusted on Apollo. I am convinced that this stance has origins in Ralph Rene's propaganda argument that He Who Shall Not Be Named bought into. However, if one asks Who Shall Not Be Named about Ralph's alternative theories and whether Ralph has the credibility to comment on Apollo, when Ralph hadn't the faintest idea how to use the laws and theories of physics; He Who Shall Not Be Named cries foul and argues that Ralph's theories may have been wrong (in some cases), but it does not mean he was wrong about Apollo.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: raven on June 13, 2012, 05:18:03 PM
Who be 'He That Shalt Not Be Named'? Dost he hither from some antipodal region?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 13, 2012, 05:33:30 PM
Who be 'He That Shalt Not Be Named'? Dost he hither from some antipodal region?

He dost Sire. He dost. He watcheth over a nest of vipers, each with eyes of burning red and lashing tongues, which spiteth venom so foul on they that are called NASA.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: sts60 on June 13, 2012, 05:35:43 PM
...Similar to He Who Shall Not Be Named,...

You were around on BABB at the time of the "original" He Who Shall Not Be Named. 

Pi... I mean, HWSNBN insisted that pictures of, say, a bootprint on the Moon were actually images of cities and such taken from orbit.  Or something like that.  He was famous for appearing in a thread whenever his username was mentioned.  I don't remember what happened to him, but another user (Wiolawa, I think) carried in a similar vein with photo analyses showing that pretty much everyone was an alien reptilian except, well, herself.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: raven on June 13, 2012, 06:02:17 PM
Who be 'He That Shalt Not Be Named'? Dost he hither from some antipodal region?

He dost Sire. He dost. He watcheth over a nest of vipers, each with eyes of burning red and lashing tongues, which spiteth venom so foul on they that are called NASA.
Verily, thou has described him to breadth, width, and height, cast in the very likeness of a man, though boy be the better description of one such as he.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 13, 2012, 06:26:01 PM
...Similar to He Who Shall Not Be Named,...
You were around on BABB at the time of the "original" He Who Shall Not Be Named.

It seems there might be 2 HWSNBM. Sith always come in pairs, a master and an apprentice. I recall in the old forum, we finally referred to our antipodean friend as HWSNBM. My original reply to Jay refers to the antipodean HWSNBM of YouTube fame.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on June 13, 2012, 07:47:51 PM
Who be 'He That Shalt Not Be Named'? Dost he hither from some antipodal region?

He dost Sire. He dost. He watcheth over a nest of vipers, each with eyes of burning red and lashing tongues, which spiteth venom so foul on they that are called NASA.
Verily, thou has described him to breadth, width, and height, cast in the very likeness of a man, though boy be the better description of one such as he.

He is a thing shaped like itself?

(As long as we are quoting here...)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: VincentMcConnell on June 13, 2012, 10:35:21 PM
I always remember JW being referred to on here as HWSNBN.

Since hunchbacked is the topic of this thread, he recently made a video about the long debunked bull*hit with the Earth apparently being too small in some Apollo 17 photographs. When optical properties were explained to him, he just gave us more excuses and nonsense. The guy is 58 years old and he just CAN'T be reasoned with. I don't recommend anyone spending too much time dealing with Hunchy, although I sometimes do.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 14, 2012, 10:03:50 AM
I know quite well that I'll never be able to talk any sense into him, but he's just too fascinating a character to ignore. The overused "slow motion train wreck" metaphor comes to mind.

I enjoyed my one or two college psychology courses, but even if I had taken many more I suspect much human behavior would still be an unfathomable mystery to me. Maybe it's just me, but the laws of physics -- even quantum and relativity -- seem almost intuitively obvious by comparison to the laws (if any) of human behavior.

I knew from very early childhood that I wanted to go into one of the physical sciences (e.g., chemistry or physics) or engineering (I became an EE). The "hard" sciences always seemed so much more understandable and downright tractable than anything in the social (or "soft") sciences.

I also avoided biology because it just seemed like a lot of rote memorization; nobody really understood why living things are as they are. But biology has come so far in just the past few decades that I think the 21st century will be the century of biology in the way that the 20th century was the century of physics. Who knows, maybe by the 22nd century we will finally begin to understand ourselves.


Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 14, 2012, 12:37:00 PM
I knew from very early childhood that I wanted to go into one of the physical sciences (e.g., chemistry or physics) or engineering (I became an EE). The "hard" sciences always seemed so much more understandable and downright tractable than anything in the social (or "soft") sciences.

Having been invovled with social science in academic circles fort the last year, it's not entriely intractable. There are many research areas that show facets of human behaviour are common sense. The research simply backs them up. It is not so different to hard science in terms of methods and analysis.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on June 14, 2012, 02:09:31 PM
Hello, everyone. New poster here. Recently disabled/retired at 59 and, with time on my hands, I have become a little fascinated by the HB phenomenon.

On to business - in a strange way, I find that I enjoy watching Hunchy's YT videos. A Gish Gallop of that level of misinformation, set to classical music... it's just a strange art form in its own right.

Total nonsense, of course, but my sense of humor runs toward the absurd, so maybe that's it. It's like an episode of 'Our Gang' where the kids are explaining the moon landing to each other.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 14, 2012, 02:28:48 PM
I enjoyed my one or two college psychology courses, but even if I had taken many more I suspect much human behavior would still be an unfathomable mystery to me. Maybe it's just me, but the laws of physics -- even quantum and relativity -- seem almost intuitively obvious by comparison to the laws (if any) of human behavior.

Average human behaviour is actually pretty easy to understand.  The issue is that conspiracism deals with the outliers.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Donnie B. on June 14, 2012, 04:58:08 PM
... It's like an episode of 'Our Gang' where the kids are explaining the moon landing to each other.

That's a really good comparison.  But now I'm going to picture JW (et al) with a huge cowlick!

Oh-tay!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on June 14, 2012, 06:55:43 PM
... It's like an episode of 'Our Gang' where the kids are explaining the moon landing to each other.

That's a really good comparison.  But now I'm going to picture JW (et al) with a huge cowlick!

Oh-tay!

Now imagine Froggy saying Armstrong's line.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 14, 2012, 08:22:38 PM
On to business - in a strange way, I find that I enjoy watching Hunchy's YT videos. A Gish Gallop of that level of misinformation, set to classical music... it's just a strange art form in its own right.

Yes, a bit like a thrash metal version of Swan Lake where Prince Siegfried watches the swans gently float across the lake's surface. A strange art form, but nonetheless, comical and amusing in its own right.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: VincentMcConnell on June 14, 2012, 10:40:38 PM
On to business - in a strange way, I find that I enjoy watching Hunchy's YT videos. A Gish Gallop of that level of misinformation, set to classical music... it's just a strange art form in its own right.

Lately, Hunchie's videos have become increasingly more annoying. They're way too long and they have Disney movie style music. His failed attempts at Engineering are easily beaten by ApolloWasReal's knowledge, so I see no use bugging much with him. In the long run, I'm more interested in learning about Apollo and manned spaceflight in general than I am arguing with conspiracy theorists these days. Actually, I'm glad to have made my account here again. Hoax theory is kind of fun to mess with sometimes, but I prefer spending that time on the ALSJ or just researching my favorite missions.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 15, 2012, 01:14:33 AM
I like Disney movie music.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 15, 2012, 05:21:34 AM
In the long run, I'm more interested in learning about Apollo and manned spaceflight in general than I am arguing with conspiracy theorists these days.
That's actually why I spar with him in the first place. Most Apollo deniers just parrot the same, tired claims we've heard so many times. They're just boring. Hunchbacked is different. He produces copious amounts of original off-the-wall claims, and while researching rebuttals to them I learn many things I might not otherwise learn. I find that enjoyable even if he doesn't.

I am baffled that he claims to have an engineering degree. I see several possible explanations, none of which seem completely satisfactory:

1. He's simply lying about having such a degree.

2. His French engineering school, which I don't really know anything about, either has no academic standards to speak of or he simply managed to slip past them somehow. In my years of interviewing candidates for engineering jobs at work, I've noticed that even major, well-regarded universities produce the occasional graduate who leaves me utterly baffled as to how he or she actually got a degree. There are very few exceptions: MIT and perhaps Cal Tech. They seem to be extremely thorough at weeding out those who don't belong there.

3. He cheated his way to a degree.

4. He actually knew his stuff at one time. Or more precisely, he once knew enough to know what he did not know, but something has happened to him since.

I can't figure it out, but I lean toward #2, possibly combined with some of #4.



Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: frenat on June 15, 2012, 08:24:57 AM
maybe he's a train engineer?  Model trains?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on June 15, 2012, 08:47:00 AM
My favorite "hunchie" was his claim that a "flat spin" meant a space vehicle would naturally point its flat part towards the center of the orbiting body. So, so bizarre.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 15, 2012, 09:24:51 AM
He is so prolific and so bizarre with his Apollo claims, and has made them for so long, that I'd be hard pressed to pick just one single favorite. The Apollo 'hoax' seems to have consumed his life for at least the past few years; producing Youtube videos (and defending them against the Apollogists) seems to be his full time occupation.

Of course, it wasn't exactly a surprise to see him on other forums attacking the Warren Commission and proclaming that JFK was murdered by a vast CIA conspiracy -- the same agency he believes primarily responsible for the Apollo "hoax". I believe the phenomenon is known as "crank magnetism".

He genuinely seems to feel a profound rage at what he sees as the biggest "crime against science" in human history: the "fake" Apollo program. As arrogant and clueless as he is, I actually feel kinda sorry for him.





Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 15, 2012, 12:09:11 PM
I know quite well that I'll never be able to talk any sense into him, but he's just too fascinating a character to ignore. The overused "slow motion train wreck" metaphor comes to mind.

Yes, despite myself, I find I'm checking out his latest posts whenever I get access to our computer. His persistence is an admirable trait but it's unfortunate he can't recognize how misguided he's become. I thought he was retired or out of work but I seen he responded to someones query a few days ago and stated that yes, he's still working. Maybe consulting work from home? I don't know how much time he spends making his videos and responding to critique but it certainly does seem to occupy an inordinate amount of his time.

I have to commend you for taking the time to try and enlighten him even though it's not likely that he will ever admit he's wrong. I imagine there's probably a few people who aren't to sure if the landings where real and checked out some of his videos. Seeing your persuasive counters to the contrary may of steered some in the right direction.

I see he's posted a new video, this time concerning "intended incoherence's" in a lunar rock he noticed. No doubt a sure sign that the geologists where also unwilling participants in all of this.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 15, 2012, 01:51:45 PM
"Intentional incoherences" have become his primary theme. That is, he believes many competent, honest people were forced (by the CIA, naturally) to do useless work on the Apollo project, and in protest they hid many clues that he is the first to discover. They usually take the form of some unworkable circuit, design or subsystem. Basically, if something was used in Apollo, that proves it couldn't work -- even if the exact same design is widely used outside the space program.

Of course, they all worked just fine, he is simply unable to understand them.

I'm strongly reminded of Dr. John Nash in A Beautiful Mind and his strong delusion that the Russians were hiding secret messages in public newspapers and magazine articles that only he was smart enough to decode. This, more than any other reason, is why I strongly suspect paranoid schizophrenia -- with the caveat that I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, etc, etc.

Yet there's a psychological phenomenon -- with the French name of Folie à deux, interestingly enough -- in which otherwise normal people can pick up the delusions of someone who isn't healthy. I think this is one of the reasons it's necessary to debunk the Apollo deniers and other pseudoscientists such as creationists (evolution deniers), global warming deniers, etc.




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 15, 2012, 02:32:45 PM
To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 15, 2012, 04:45:46 PM
Again, with the caveat that I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, it does have the formal names of "shared psychotic disorder" or "induced delusional disorder".
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ChrLz on June 15, 2012, 08:58:14 PM
I was going to comment that there probably isn't much mileage (kilometreage?) in actually seeking out HB material..  But then I went over to Abovetopsecret a while back to help reveal Fattydash/Patrick1000 in his latest incarnation, so I guess..

By my own petard, hoist I am..
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 15, 2012, 09:41:33 PM
I lump the "theory of the conspiracist mind" into a subset of the general "theory of mind."  Everybody has a theory of mind about how others perceive the world and see us, but each one of us takes a slightly different view.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 15, 2012, 10:20:33 PM
Interesting viewpoint. The mere existence of a "theory of mind" -- the realization that others have minds similar to yours, with their own views of the world around them -- is often cited as one of the characteristic features, along with self-awareness, of higher intelligence. Only a few species seem to have it, and even human children take a few years to develop it.

One of the interesting implications of a "theory of mind" is that lying, or even knowing what it means to lie, requires a sufficiently advanced intelligence. That probably explains why dogs, for example, are so guileless.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 16, 2012, 01:30:44 AM
Again, with the caveat that I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, it does have the formal names of "shared psychotic disorder" or "induced delusional disorder".

Is that what caused those Swedish twins to go bonkers a few years ago? That was easily the craziest thing I can recall seeing and reading about.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 16, 2012, 02:05:15 AM
Not sure who you're talking about, but there's some mention of them in the Wikipedia article.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 16, 2012, 08:45:28 AM
Interesting viewpoint. The mere existence of a "theory of mind" -- the realization that others have minds similar to yours, with their own views of the world around them -- is often cited as one of the characteristic features, along with self-awareness, of higher intelligence. Only a few species seem to have it, and even human children take a few years to develop it.

One of the interesting implications of a "theory of mind" is that lying, or even knowing what it means to lie, requires a sufficiently advanced intelligence. That probably explains why dogs, for example, are so guileless.

Chimps seem to have a theory of mind and can understand what other chimps can see and act accordingly.  Dogs can follow the gaze of a handler but don't seem to have the ability to imagine what another dog can see, leading us to conclude that bred-in instinct is at work rather than theory of mind.  The fact that each of us has a different theory of mind is one of the problems with eyewitness accounts.  No matter what we see, the human tendency to theorize a state of mind of others adds a unique and inseparable fifth dimension to what each of us observes. 

My theory of the conspiracist mind is that their theory of mind is an outlier on the distribution that leads them be overly fearful of being deceived.  It is that theory of mind that keeps them from an objective examination of the facts and to hear reason.  But as with all such theories, my belief is more perceptual than scientific.  And no doubt there are underlying biological issues of the same kind that give the all the members of this forum such different sets of skills.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 16, 2012, 10:13:36 AM
Not sure who you're talking about, but there's some mention of them in the Wikipedia article.

Oh, well here's the first of 4 parts of the incidents that started Sept 25 2008 in the UK. I stumbled upon it a couple years ago. A very bizarre case to say the least and a perfect example of how the truth can be stranger then fiction:




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 16, 2012, 11:16:36 AM
"Intentional incoherences" have become his primary theme. That is, he believes many competent, honest people were forced (by the CIA, naturally) to do useless work on the Apollo project, and in protest they hid many clues that he is the first to discover. They usually take the form of some unworkable circuit, design or subsystem. Basically, if something was used in Apollo, that proves it couldn't work -- even if the exact same design is widely used outside the space program.

Yes makes a lot of sense to leave clues and hints that are so obscure that he's the first to notice them.  You would think that if somebody went to that much trouble, they would at the very least have a simpler and surer secondary plan that would kick in if too much time had passed.



 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on June 16, 2012, 03:20:41 PM
One of my favorite videos by the Hunched One - and it's like the fondness you have for a really bad movie, mind you - is the one on what he calls NASA's "Fantasy Equipment". He tosses out twenty or more 'incoherencies' in about ten minutes, things he claims no one else has picked up on.

Some of them are just downright mysterious. He puts up a a PLSS schematic, traces the O2 circuit in color, then moves on with no other comment. (??) He just loves line drawings and points out numerous places where photos don't match up with drawings. Oh, and he thinks the placement of gauges on the OPS is ridiculous, since the astronaut can't see them while wearing the PLSS - evidently he missed the diagram of the RCS.

I know he's just one more deluded soul, and I probably shouldn't be so amused, but he just works so hard at being misinformed that I regard it as an art form.




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 16, 2012, 05:42:07 PM
Dogs can follow the gaze of a handler
Really? Whenever I try to point at something (like a thrown ball she didn't see in flight) our dog just stares at my hand. She doesn't seem to understand the concept of indirection.
Quote
My theory of the conspiracist mind is that their theory of mind is an outlier on the distribution that leads them be overly fearful of being deceived.
I have often had exactly the same thought. But I think it's not the fear of being deceived so much as it's the fear of being thought a fool by others. (That in itself invokes a theory of mind, I guess.) Since most conspiracy theorists simply lack the training or experience to test the evidence for themselves, and because they're too paranoid to take the word of others, they 'play it safe' by classifying as fiction anything they can't be sure is real.

Consider that the strongest and most obvious attribute of nearly every conspiracy theorist is his open contempt for the gullible 'sheeple' from whom they try so hard to distinguish themselves.

Ironically, by becoming such gullible believers in conspiracy theories, this causes them to be perceived as precisely the fools they fear being thought of. (Yeah, I tried to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition, but it wasn't easy.)


Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 16, 2012, 05:57:08 PM
Dogs can follow the gaze of a handler
Really? Whenever I try to point at something (like a thrown ball she didn't see in flight) our dog just stares at my hand. She doesn't seem to understand the concept of indirection.
Not being a dog person, I can't tell you much about this, but I have spoken to hunters that have said this and read it in other places.  It is probably not be a characteristic of all dogs. 

Quote
I have often had exactly the same thought. But I think it's not the fear of being deceived so much as it's the fear of being thought a fool by others. (That in itself invokes a theory of mind, I guess.)

Each of us uniquely imagines what motivates others.  Most of us are, I think, sufficiently close to being correct. 


Quote
Ironically, by becoming such gullible believers in conspiracy theories, this causes them to be perceived as precisely the fools they fear being thought of. (Yeah, I tried to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition, but it wasn't easy.)

When this problem strikes me in the middle of a heated debate, I just tack on "asshole" to the end of the sentence, problem solved.  You restraint is appreciated. ;)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 16, 2012, 06:10:06 PM
it's like the fondness you have for a really bad movie, mind you
A perfect metaphor.
Quote
He tosses out twenty or more 'incoherencies' in about ten minutes, things he claims no one else has picked up on.
Yes. This is how I became so fascinated by him. I'm an electrical engineer, many of the 'incoherences' he finds are in electronic subsystems, so he's just too easy a target. We've sparred over such esoterica as the VOX in the LM's voice communications system, the wideband FM modulator the LM uses to transmit TV, the A/D converter in the LM telemetry system and the read-only 'core rope' memory in the Apollo Guidance Computer. All of these things have been used successfully outside Apollo, some much more than others, yet almost no amount of literature citations (NASA or non-NASA) has much effect on him. In many cases he claims the circuits violate certain 'design rules' that he makes up out of whole cloth, design rules that a non-electrical engineer probably wouldn't know are imaginary. (Like I said, our arguments get pretty esoteric.)

In the case of the VOX circuits it took days just to get him to concede that 'VOX' means 'voice actuated keying' despite my finding that exact definition in ham radio references as well as NASA's own documents.

Sometimes, much to my surprise, he actually backs down and admits a mistake. But it's never the last mistake that would permit something to actually work; he always keeps a few in reserve to ensure it can't. And sometimes he can be hilariously petty; in our discussion about the CSM's radio subsystem, I had reduced his 'incoherences' to just one: a device labeled as a 'triplexer' had only two radio ports, not three. After unsuccessfully appealing to a simple and perfectly understandable documentation error, I finally found evidence that the device was indeed a triplexer. The third port had been used in early models for development flight instrumentation. When it was removed from the production models, the designer decided to leave the triplexer alone and just not use the third port.

And it goes on and on like this...

Quote
I know he's just one more deluded soul, and I probably shouldn't be so amused, but he just works so hard at being misinformed that I regard it as an art form.
Exactly. Our arguments often go far beyond surreal, and surrealism is a key element of the kind of comedy that has always appealed to me. (Yes, I'm a Python and Adams fan.)

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 16, 2012, 09:46:31 PM
(Yeah, I tried to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition, but it wasn't easy.)

It is generally considered preferable to just give up and do it rather than warp the sentence.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 16, 2012, 10:28:42 PM
(Yeah, I tried to avoid ending this sentence with a preposition, but it wasn't easy.)

It is generally considered preferable to just give up and do it rather than warp the sentence.

What?  Ya don't like my solution?  8)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 16, 2012, 10:35:07 PM
Yes. This is how I became so fascinated by him.

May I add, you are amazingly patient with him too. In fairness though, he's not like the rest of the YouTube crowd. His arguments might be very flawed, but he's the complete opposite of straydog02, un4g1v3n1 and the rest of the loyal attack dogs when it comes to interacting with others. It is really quite refreshing in some senses, and the lack of the venom and vitriol does make him slightly more endearing.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 16, 2012, 11:32:37 PM
Oh he can produce venom, but you're right that he doesn't produce nearly as much as the others you mention.

But what really makes him unusual among deniers are the traits he shares with us rather than with most of those who agree with him. For example, he genuinely seems to believe in free speech. Occasionally he even cites the American principle of the "marketplace of ideas" and the best answer to bad speech being good speech, not censoring people just because you disagree with them.

He also claims to favor science and rationalism and reject ad hominem arguments, though of course he doesn't exactly come close to that ideal.

But most of the time, when you present him with an argument that he can't refute, he'll make a unsupported assertion that you're wrong, label it as "bullshit", or simply ignore it.

More than once, the issue was whether NASA had made some statement, not whether that statement was actually true. I'll cite a NASA reference with the statement, and his usual response is that anything written by NASA is a "joke" and meaningless. A most strange dude.





Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on June 17, 2012, 03:30:44 AM
Quote
Exactly. Our arguments often go far beyond surreal, and surrealism is a key element of the kind of comedy that has always appealed to me. (Yes, I'm a Python and Adams fan.)
I, too, am a fan of the surreal and absurd, and he do get surreal.

For me, though, the thing with HBs is that, once you assume there was a hoax, it follows that you believe that everyone involved is a fraud and a liar, including the very brave and dedicated men who actually rode the rockets. So any HB allegation is inherently insulting to thousands of honest people as well as to the intelligence of anyone with a functioning brain. No matter how well mannered, it's really hard for me to regard any of them as much above the level of the Seibrels of the world. /rant

Disclaimer: There are those (few) who ask questions out of honest ignorance and seem willing to accept scientifically valid answers once they are pointed out.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 17, 2012, 04:08:32 AM
Not being a dog person, I can't tell you much about this, but I have spoken to hunters that have said this and read it in other places.  It is probably not be a characteristic of all dogs.
The funny thing about our dog is that it's a Brittany, a member of a class of gun (hunting) dogs known as "pointers". When they discover prey they will face it, stop, and raise a leg to "point" the hunter to it. Dogs, like their wolf ancestors, are of course cooperative pack hunters. Apparently this is instinctive behavior for the less dominant members, with the more dominant members making the kill and eating first.

Yet our Brittany seems to not have a clue what I mean when I point. Maybe if I faced the ball, lifted my leg and froze, she'd get the idea...




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on June 17, 2012, 05:28:47 AM
Last week, we went on an away day where one of the activities was learning how to herd sheep, except we used ducks and geese.  We had to use a sheep dog to herd the geese around the field and back into the pen.  We just kind of ran away from the geese while the dog did all the work. He knew where to run to get them to come towards us.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on June 17, 2012, 11:42:18 AM
Last week, we went on an away day where one of the activities was learning how to herd sheep, except we used ducks and geese.  We had to use a sheep dog to herd the geese around the field and back into the pen.  We just kind of ran away from the geese while the dog did all the work. He knew where to run to get them to come towards us.

"Wake up, geesle!"

Nah, it just doesn't have the same ring as "sheeple".
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 17, 2012, 12:16:41 PM
One of my favorite videos by the Hunched One - and it's like the fondness you have for a really bad movie, mind you - is the one on what he calls NASA's "Fantasy Equipment". He tosses out twenty or more 'incoherencies' in about ten minutes, things he claims no one else has picked up on.

Some of them are just downright mysterious. He puts up a a PLSS schematic, traces the O2 circuit in color, then moves on with no other comment. (??) He just loves line drawings and points out numerous places where photos don't match up with drawings. Oh, and he thinks the placement of gauges on the OPS is ridiculous, since the astronaut can't see them while wearing the PLSS - evidently he missed the diagram of the RCS.

I know he's just one more deluded soul, and I probably shouldn't be so amused, but he just works so hard at being misinformed that I regard it as an art form.


Must admit, I get worked up more then I should about Hunchbacked but comparing himself to Galileo well discounting any kind of proof that his videos are nonsense is so absurd I can't help myself. Finally got a chance to have a look at more of his videos and I noticed the amount of "likes" is usually such a small number that it's clear he's spending a lot of time and effort for very little recognition.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on June 17, 2012, 02:53:54 PM

In the case of the VOX circuits it took days just to get him to concede that 'VOX' means 'voice actuated keying' despite my finding that exact definition in ham radio references as well as NASA's own documents.


I'm intrigued.  What did he think VOX meant?

Puts me in mind of IDW and his arguments that "S-Band" meant sideband.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on June 17, 2012, 10:21:59 PM
Quote
"Wake up, geesle!"

(http://static.ivygateblog.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dr-seuss-1-sized.jpg)

I wish.  The world needs him.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 18, 2012, 05:57:40 AM
So many crackpots and cranks compare themselves to the persecuted Galileo that it's almost a standard litmus test for being a crackpot.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said that if you're going to compare yourself with Galileo, it is not sufficient merely to be out of the mainstream. You also have to be right.

The irony of a crank like Hunchbacked comparing himself with Galileo is that he actually behaves much more like the monks who refused to look through his eyepiece at the moons of Jupiter. He refuses to even consider the evidence against his position.

One of Galileo's great contribution to science was the notion that you should never take somebody else's word when you can see the results for yourself. Another was his emphasis on mathematics as an indispensable tool in science; without it you "wander the labyrinth forever in darkness".

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Andromeda on June 18, 2012, 06:08:26 AM
So many crackpots and cranks compare themselves to the persecuted Galileo that it's almost a standard litmus test for being a crackpot.



http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 18, 2012, 06:15:25 AM
I'm intrigued.  What did he think VOX meant?
I'm not sure. He simply didn't want to accept that it meant "voice activated", mainly because I had said it did. Admitting that they were VOX-activated removed the "incoherence" that he thought kept it from working. And admitting that it actually worked after all had to be avoided at all costs.

This was a good example of an argument in which I learned quite a bit while researching a rebuttal. I had not understood the finer details of the Apollo voice comm system, mainly because I'd never really studied them. I had wondered, for example, how they avoided interference between the S-band/VHF relays in the LM and on the rover when nobody was in the LM to make the changeover during an EVA.

Turns out that VOX is the key (!) The VHF return-link transmitters in the PLSS have to remain on to send telemetry and biomed data; only the audio paths from the microphones to the transmitters are VOX-keyed, to keep the world from having to continually listen to their breathing and the noise of the suit fans.

But the VHF forward-link transmitters on the LM and on the rover, those that carry Houston's voice to the astronauts, have their carriers VOX-keyed. Houston transmits to the LM and rover on the same S-band frequency but on separate FM voice subcarriers, allowing them to direct uplink voice to the LM, the rover or both. Since the VHF relay transmitter in the LM or rover emits RF only when audio is actually present on its own uplink subcarrier, the two transmitters won't simultaneously transmit and interfere with each other at the PLSS receivers unless the ground were to send uplink voice on both subcarriers. Mystery solved.




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 18, 2012, 06:19:35 AM
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegelquack.html
Exactly.

Note that Hunchbacked's avatar is Daffy Duck.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: raven on June 18, 2012, 06:48:37 AM
Exactly.

Note that Hunchbacked's avatar is Daffy Duck.
How appropriate, considering later, non-screwball, Daffy's characterization is generally of a pitiable braggart who demands attention.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 18, 2012, 07:49:03 AM
And who always has to be right: "Duck season!" "No, it's rabbit season!"

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: PetersCreek on June 18, 2012, 12:20:22 PM
To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.

That sounds like a corollary of the Puppy Principle (or vice versa): one puppy, left to his own devices will get into as much trouble as he can.  Two puppies, four times as much.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Andromeda on June 18, 2012, 12:34:43 PM
To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.

That sounds like a corollary of the Puppy Principle (or vice versa): one puppy, left to his own devices will get into as much trouble as he can.  Two puppies, four times as much.

The same can be applied to rabbits.  I don't know why.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 18, 2012, 02:10:39 PM
And heaven help you if you put a rabbit down next to a duck!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: DataCable on June 18, 2012, 09:51:47 PM
And heaven help you if you put a rabbit down next to a duck!
They make a wrong turn at albakoikee (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/albuquerque)?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: SolusLupus on June 18, 2012, 10:43:13 PM
One of Galileo's great contribution to science was the notion that you should never take somebody else's word when you can see the results for yourself. Another was his emphasis on mathematics as an indispensable tool in science; without it you "wander the labyrinth forever in darkness".

Risking getting entirely off topic, I read a rather convincing argument that the printing press was pretty much THE catalyst for scientific progress, because not only could ideas spread so much more easily and without all those nasty errors intrinsic in creating hand-written copies, but also because you could write down and share formulas and "static" ideas, and develop a body of work that was not up to simple interpretation.  Even more advanced scientific instrumentation has a lot to thank the printing press, because you could draw up a plan and then have it copied accurately, so others can rebuild your instrument.

I never really thought about it like that before, myself.

Now, with the internet and libraries granting access to so much material from all across the globe, no one has any good excuse for scientific ignorance -- unless they just can't be bothered, but don't push forth an unscientific opinion.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 18, 2012, 11:28:23 PM
When A&E put together a hundred most influential people of the millennium list, Gutenberg was at the top.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 19, 2012, 08:53:52 AM
Puts me in mind of IDW and his arguments that "S-Band" meant sideband.
Who's IDW? Must be before my time.

When I began reading Apollo documentation, every time I saw "USB" I kept reading it as "upper sideband" because that is its most common meaning in ham radio. But every scientist and engineer, among others, learns quickly that every one of the 17,576 possible combinations of three English letters in an acronym has at least a half dozen distinct meanings.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on June 19, 2012, 10:46:11 AM
Who's IDW? Must be before my time.

"Interdimensional Warrior," the instigator of the monumental hoax thread at Godlike Productions.  His arguments are a unique sort of bizarre.  He made a brief appearance at BAUT to attempt to challenge me (and only me), but got his head handed to him in very short order and either left or got banned.

Quote
But every scientist and engineer, among others, learns quickly that every one of the 17,576 possible combinations of three English letters in an acronym has at least a half dozen distinct meanings.

USB = Underwater Stump Blasting
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 19, 2012, 10:53:28 AM
every one of the 17,576 possible combinations of three English letters in an acronym has at least a half dozen distinct meanings.

Indeed. Here in the UK there is occasional confusion over the acronym 'STD', which can be applied equally well to a serious health issue and telephone numbers....
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 19, 2012, 10:58:09 AM
I think my personal peak acronym collison factor (ACF) for a TLA is 3. I once had to juggle three separate and valid meanings for "UPS": United Parcel Service, Uninterruptible Power Supply and Upson Hall (a computer RJE terminal at Cornell University). Now it's just two, like USB.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Andromeda on June 19, 2012, 11:04:38 AM
every one of the 17,576 possible combinations of three English letters in an acronym has at least a half dozen distinct meanings.

Indeed. Here in the UK there is occasional confusion over the acronym 'STD', which can be applied equally well to a serious health issue and telephone numbers....

Don't forget the American custom of Save The Date cards is starting over here as well.

I'm sure there is some connection - you get a STD before the wedding, dial using the STD code to talk about the wedding and if you're really unlucky you can get a STD at a wedding.... (although I think those are called STIs now).
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 19, 2012, 11:08:18 AM
Wow, weddings sound really risky now...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Andromeda on June 19, 2012, 11:13:01 AM
Wow, weddings sound really risky now...

Depends what you plan to do at them!  Got something to tell me...?  ;D
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: twik on June 19, 2012, 11:35:30 AM
Had a customer once who made LUST videos.

Leaking Underground Storage Tanks.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on June 19, 2012, 11:53:11 AM
I think my personal peak acronym collison factor (ACF) for a TLA is 3. I once had to juggle three separate and valid meanings for "UPS": United Parcel Service, Uninterruptible Power Supply and Upson Hall (a computer RJE terminal at Cornell University). Now it's just two, like USB.

The building code for the Undergraduate Library at the University of Michigan is UGLI, which aptly described its architecture until a major makeover in 1993.  Not Albert Kahn's best work.

Gillianren may remind us that to be a true acronym it must be pronounceable as a word, so the A in TLA may have to stand also for "abbreviation," giving us a metacollision of TLAs.

The LUT was originally going to be the Saturn Launch Umbilical Tower.

The one that's most annoying to me is ASCI and ASCII.  Both are pronounced "ass-key," but one refers to the American Supercomputer Initiative (those nice people who give me money to built ever-faster computers) and the other refers to the long-time standard for encoding text in digital form.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Luke Pemberton on June 19, 2012, 12:56:08 PM
I used to work for an organisation that had a Science and Technology Directorate. You can't make it up can you?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 19, 2012, 01:45:33 PM
When I was a kid I played in a youth soccer league for my home town of Perth. The league was called Perth Minor Soccer. Our shirts all had the letters PMS on the chest.

"Hey, do you want to go see a movie tonight?"
"I can't... I've got PMS."
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Laurel on June 19, 2012, 02:06:34 PM
When I was a kid I played in a youth soccer league for my home town of Perth. The league was called Perth Minor Soccer. Our shirts all had the letters PMS on the chest.

"Hey, do you want to go see a movie tonight?"
"I can't... I've got PMS."
Reminds me of the Big Bang Theory episode where the Physics Bowl team called themselves Perpetual Motion Squad. :)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 19, 2012, 02:20:52 PM
When I was a kid I played in a youth soccer league for my home town of Perth. The league was called Perth Minor Soccer. Our shirts all had the letters PMS on the chest.

"Hey, do you want to go see a movie tonight?"
"I can't... I've got PMS."

My favorite local hobby shop here in Calgary went by the name "PMS Hobby Craft" for years until they decided to change it to the more politically correct "PM hobby Craft' back in 2000. I didn't realize until a few years ago that they started out as a camera shop and the PMS stood for Photo/Movie Supplies.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: sts60 on June 19, 2012, 02:25:17 PM
Peripheral Motor & Sensory.  Check the patient before and after applying splints, bandages, backboards, etc.  Good PMS * 4 is what you want.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on June 19, 2012, 03:06:47 PM
My older sister went to the University of Puget Sound.  We used to refer to it as the University of the Brown Trucks to annoy her.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 19, 2012, 03:26:46 PM
Oddly enough, the university I went to chose not to make a straight acronym out of the school of Cognitive Research And Psychology Studies....
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: raven on June 19, 2012, 03:36:00 PM
Oddly enough, the university I went to chose not to make a straight acronym out of the school of Cognitive Research And Psychology Studies....
*missing the point* 'And' is rarely part of acronym. For example NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on June 19, 2012, 03:39:54 PM
You have IDW to blame for my presence here (the poster, not the comic book company).  Ah, acronyms.  I've been hacking together a budget robot on an R/C car chassis and yesterday I spent buying a new motor controller.  And had a heck of a time understanding why "ESC" kept appearing in the descriptions.  Apparently stands for "Electronic Speed Controller."  Give me the friendly H-Bridge any time!  (Which doesn't stand for anything...the circuit diagram kinda LOOKS like an "H.")

Now to connect my ISP (not Internet Service Provider, but In-System Programmer) to USB so I can stick some C in another AVR...

(I know; I know those aren't all acronyms. )
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Laurel on June 19, 2012, 03:41:28 PM
Oddly enough, the university I went to chose not to make a straight acronym out of the school of Cognitive Research And Psychology Studies....
Which reminds me, the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party didn't keep that name for long.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on June 19, 2012, 03:41:56 PM
Oddly enough, the university I went to chose not to make a straight acronym out of the school of Cognitive Research And Psychology Studies....
*missing the point* 'And' is rarely part of acronym. For example NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I'm not sure "Crips" is any better (that's sure to be the default pronunciation.)  On the gripping hand, "SCRAPS" is kinda cool.  Sounds like  Keith Laumer acronym.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 19, 2012, 03:43:08 PM
I know, but the University wanted acronyms in the truest sense, i.e., as was pointed out earlier on this thread, words that could be properly pronounced. That required a vowel. Eventually they gave up and just shortened the words, so it became COGS, and the school of biological sciences became BIOLS.

Another course that was offered absolutely did have to include the 'A' from the 'and': Computer Literacy And Information Technology....
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on June 19, 2012, 09:56:48 PM
Quote
Peripheral Motor & Sensory.  Check the patient before and after applying splints, bandages, backboards, etc.  Good PMS * 4 is what you want.

I had actually forgotten that one. Although we used it for Pulse, Motor & Sensory.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Mr Gorsky on June 20, 2012, 07:25:52 PM
For several years in the mid-late 1980s, one of the UK's largest, best known and most respected financial institutions offered a pension contract called the Castle Retirement Annuity Plan.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: AtomicDog on June 20, 2012, 07:38:06 PM
Meh. My wife went to Furman University.  It gets old after a while.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Al Johnston on June 21, 2012, 05:10:04 AM
Apparently the Cambridge University New Theatre Society lasted two years before anyone noticed...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ChrLz on June 21, 2012, 08:05:44 AM
In a similar vein to Atomic.. I used to work for Flinders University (in South Oz), and I gather the cricket club was asked to cease and desist selling a very popular line of shirts..
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on June 21, 2012, 08:29:27 AM
The students at a nearby university that began as a teachers college and named after one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Texas have been known to where shirts that say; Sam Houston Institute of Teaching.  The real and boring former name of the school is the less than inspiring; Sam Houston Normal Institute.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on June 30, 2012, 07:23:59 PM
Now hunchbacked is claiming Spirit & Opportunity are fakes seeing as somebody pointed out laser returns sent back from the Spirit rover on Mars were many, many times weaker then those reflected from the retro-reflectors but still detectable. I guess anything that might corroborate the Apollo landings is got to be bogus. Hard to believe that this clown compares himself to Galileo and is supposedly a huge fan of science. 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Trebor on June 30, 2012, 08:47:40 PM
... laser returns sent back from the Spirit rover on Mars ...

?
Laser returns?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: carpediem on June 30, 2012, 09:09:45 PM
Now hunchbacked is claiming Spirit & Opportunity are fakes seeing as somebody pointed out laser returns sent back from the Spirit rover on Mars were many, many times weaker then those reflected from the retro-reflectors but still detectable. I guess anything that might corroborate the Apollo landings is got to be bogus. Hard to believe that this clown compares himself to Galileo and is supposedly a huge fan of science.
Where is he saying this?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on June 30, 2012, 09:47:56 PM
His frequent self-comparisons to Galileo, besides being a crackpot cliché, are especially ironic because Galileo wrote so eloquently about the vital importance of mathematics in science. And Hunchbacked, despite his claim to be an engineer, is virtually innumerate. I have seen him use a mathematical formula only once, for the angular size of an object seen at a distance.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 01, 2012, 04:28:36 AM
His frequent self-comparisons to Galileo, besides being a crackpot cliché, are especially ironic because Galileo wrote so eloquently about the vital importance of mathematics in science. And Hunchbacked, despite his claim to be an engineer, is virtually innumerate. I have seen him use a mathematical formula only once, for the angular size of an object seen at a distance.

in one of his newest videos, he calculated that the memory of the AGC was less than nine times of that which was stated by NASA.. 4 kilowords vs 32 kilowords.. 

he has not provided any sources.. though i have asked for them, so he might present them. but out from the picture he shows, i see room for 6 rope modules, not just the 4 HB claims, (in the illustration, two of the modules are already inserted, and labled "rope modules" and in the second illustration, you see the right bay is empty, and has room for 3 rope modules) and that there are room for 4 trays of 6 rope modules in the whole unit, and using his calculations that would corresponded to 24kilo words, perfectly coherent with AGC block 1 of 24kilo words, (but not block 2 with 32 kilowords which is the one HB must be referring to.)

i'm still waiting for his sources, but if anyone of you guys know what documentation he is using, please share it :)



edit: added youtube video in question
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on July 01, 2012, 09:13:24 AM
Now hunchbacked is claiming Spirit & Opportunity are fakes seeing as somebody pointed out laser returns sent back from the Spirit rover on Mars were many, many times weaker then those reflected from the retro-reflectors but still detectable. I guess anything that might corroborate the Apollo landings is got to be bogus. Hard to believe that this clown compares himself to Galileo and is supposedly a huge fan of science.
Where is he saying this?

Over at this youtube video:



Some kooky stuff being discussed but the reflectors on the moon is also being debated from  about 4 or 5 days ago.  Instead of wading through it all, I copied the main points below:

Jebus495: Are you saying that the moons surface will reflect a laser beam directly back on it's original trajectory? If that it what you're getting at, you're very wrong.
There is NOWHERE on the moon that a laser will do this except for the reflector arrays.


hunchbacked: I say that the moon's surface reflects the laser beam in several directions, but that the relief may be averagely such that it sends it back in enough good directions for the echo to be received on earth; concerning the tiny retro-reflector, it receives a so small part of the signal that it can only send back an almost insignificant part of it and not even in the perfect direction.

Jebus495: You could have stumped me early on by saying that the beam reaches a radius of about 3250 meters before it reaches the moon.

hunchbacked: That's what I wanted to make you understand.

hunchbacked: Now calculate what it represents for the tiny retro-reflector which does not even have a surface of a quarter of square meter: The retro-reflector receives an insignificant part of the signal; even if it sends it back perfectly it is still a very small part of the signal sent back; add to that the fact that the atmosphere deviates the signal, the retro-reflector sends back the signal in the perfect direction it receives it, but this direction is not the exact direction it has been sent!

hunchbacked: The retro-reflector is very efficient at short range, but on the moon, it is totally inefficient, inadequate for the conditions.

GABEONEILL: That is simply not true, the beams sent back from the Spirit rover on Mars were many, many times weaker then those reflected from the retro-reflectors, even over a larger distance and less output, neither the atmosphere nor size made any difference.

hunchbacked: Of course, Mars is much farther away than the moon, it is not surprising!

GABEONEILL: I rest my case.

hunchbacked: I think that you didn't get what I said.
Mars is considerably farther away than the moon, and the signal is much weakened by the distance.
I don't even believe that there is an echo from Mars, rover or not.


GABEONEILL: My point was that even though the output of the devices was many times weaker and at a farther distance from Earth they were still detectable.

hunchbacked: So you really think that an echo coming back from mars come from a mars rover?
There's not even a proof that this echo comes back from Mars.
And I can tell you one thing: There is no rover on Mars!


At that point, I asked him if he thought Spirit & Opportunity are fake and how does he know this but he seems to be ignoring me again after I asked him a few times how to artificially produce the zap pits found on lunar samples seeing as he figured it be easy to masquerade meteoric lunar samples found in Antarctica as ones brought back by faked landing missions.

Now as Trebor was wondering about, I wasn't even aware that they where getting laser reflections from Mars or was GABEONEILL talking about something else? I did try searching for something about the Rovers having reflectors but no luck there.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 01, 2012, 10:51:43 AM
His frequent self-comparisons to Galileo, besides being a crackpot cliché, are especially ironic because Galileo wrote so eloquently about the vital importance of mathematics in science. And Hunchbacked, despite his claim to be an engineer, is virtually innumerate. I have seen him use a mathematical formula only once, for the angular size of an object seen at a distance.

in one of his newest videos, he calculated that the memory of the AGC was less than nine times of that which was stated by NASA.. 4 kilowords vs 32 kilowords.. 

he has not provided any sources.. though i have asked for them, so he might present them. but out from the picture he shows, i see room for 6 rope modules, not just the 4 HB claims, (in the illustration, two of the modules are already inserted, and labled "rope modules" and in the second illustration, you see the right bay is empty, and has room for 3 rope modules) and that there are room for 4 trays of 6 rope modules in the whole unit, and using his calculations that would corresponded to 24kilo words, perfectly coherent with AGC block 1 of 24kilo words, (but not block 2 with 32 kilowords which is the one HB must be referring to.)

i'm still waiting for his sources, but if anyone of you guys know what documentation he is using, please share it :)



edit: added youtube video in question

HB got me the source.. sent in a pvt message.. i shared it in the comments for him.

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/hrst/archive/1029.pdf

i haven't started reading it yet, but i on the second page, it reads: The publication of this document does not constitute approval by {nasa} of the findings or conclusions contained herein. It is published for the exchange and stimulation of ideas.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 01, 2012, 11:16:17 AM
I've been following that YT thread with interest. My knowledge of electronics is 'way too limited to try to debate anything about the functioning of the AGC, but I do see that Hunchy still shares a characteristic of most of the CT crowd - he can look right at something and (claim to) not see it. Like the two bays that already have memory modules in them.

Of course, that's hardly news to anyone familiar with his videos.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: dwight on July 01, 2012, 03:27:47 PM
Hunchbacked spent a whole three weeks debating me over the fact that I was the author of "Live TV From the Moon", that I worked for a well-known European/German based TV network, or had any expertise in TV theory. Three weeks. In that time he could have contacted Apogee books, who would have forwarded me his email. Heck he could have even contacted my employer - the same one who filed my paper work with the German Immigration Authorities to secure my residence permit for this country.

He and his sidekick gijshu claimed they could make an easy debunk of "Live TV". That's the book that says a TV camera works by light which enters through a lens, strikes an image senor plate which converts that to an electric signal. I still haven't heard any debunk to this day, but I did have him attempt to tell me how to spell my name and which nationality I was.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 01, 2012, 06:46:33 PM
@dwight

Oh, that Dwight. Well, that sounds right (Hunchy). 

Although my fingers leave my control occasionally, I try really hard not to try to comment on the Hunched one. I try only to engage with him for my own amusement, since I know I'm just shouting down a well.

Speaking of TV, do the HBs really think that people smart enough to pull off a hoax the size of the one NASA supposedly did would have gone to the trouble - and risk - of  televising hours of clear color video of the EVAs when they could have just stuck to the low def B&W like on A-11?

Ah, well.

 ::)What's all the ruckus overhead, Hunchy?
 :-\Seems I have a 'roo loose in the top paddock. Just ignore it.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: dwight on July 01, 2012, 07:23:47 PM
In all the time I spent researching the book I never once had anyone from NASA, Westinghouse, RCA, or any of the tracking stations get secretive or hush-hush on me. If I asked a question I was given more information than I needed. In the cases where an answer was not readily known, I was given a list of emails and telephone numbers of people who did know the answer.

Compared to the HB camp who would dance around the issue, tell me a list of reasons why so-and-so couldn't be named. They then proceeded to tell me why I had no idea what I was talking about while simultaneously getting equipment names wrong. You get the idea of the calibre of the type of people that camp provides.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 02, 2012, 04:27:39 PM

just having some fun :P
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on July 02, 2012, 04:41:30 PM
Great response.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 02, 2012, 05:23:03 PM
Great response.
thanks.. the moon hoaxers request videos instead of comments, i'll give them videos.

they do seem to be influental, Chev4206 peed himself and started bleeping after i bleeped all his cursewords in the first video i shared two weeks ago, and he continues to do so even today on hunchbackeds new video.
Quote
First in!!! Bleeping.
and he really has his skirt in a bundle, trying to figure out who i am. guess a newcomer that comes on "this strong" from the beginning has him stumped.

Code: [Select]
OFFTOPIC!
if you like making these nay sayers squirm, try busting 419 (nigerian) scammers.
they are kinda like moonhoaxers, only much more gullible, and fun.
if you are interested, or just want a good laugh or 60, start here:[urlhttp://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm[/url]
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 02, 2012, 08:01:46 PM
There's a new (I think) video meister over on YT going by the name of Foosmasoos who has found a whole new crop of what he thinks are photographic anomalies, mostly based on how quickly one can shoot repeated shots with the Lunar EDCs. I don't think he actually is Hunchedback, but he's kind of how Hunchy would be if he could construct a clear sentence.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 03, 2012, 02:20:22 AM
Go! Animate is cute. It kinda grows on you. Somehow the hoaxers arguments sound even sillier when they're spoken.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 03, 2012, 02:26:30 AM
FoosMasoos has been around for some time, but he only started to produce videos recently it seems.

Yeah, he has built a real house of cards around the claim that the Apollo lunar surface film cameras couldn't take pictures as fast as NASA documented. To "prove" this he gets a terrestrial model of the 500 camera and punches off a few pictures, adding as much of a pause between each press of the shutter as he thinks we won't notice.

This led to much amusing argumentation that is still going on. When I pointed out that the Apollo cameras were specially modified by having their viewfinders, mirrors and secondary shutters removed, and that this could significantly speed up picturetaking, I was presented with mined quotes stating that the Apollo cameras were "standard", as though that word could magically do away with the obvious differences. I now see that equivocation - using words with multiple or ambiguous meanings - is one of their favorite tactics.

What would really be fun is to find a copy of the Apollo version of the Hasselblad, sans mirror, and see how quickly it takes pictures.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 03, 2012, 02:41:25 AM
Go! Animate is cute. It kinda grows on you. Somehow the hoaxers arguments sound even sillier when they're spoken.
i don't know why, but i do enjoy those cheesy and garbled voices. the way the pronounciate is often way off the subject discussed. "why d'you THINK we, Never WENT to th' muun" kinda reminds me of g-man from halflie actually :P
"Wake up hoaxers... wake up and smell the ashes.."
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 03, 2012, 09:33:55 AM
What would really be fun is to find a copy of the Apollo version of the Hasselblad, sans mirror, and see how quickly it takes pictures.

As fast as you can push the button.  The shutter recycle is almost instantaneous.  I used one built for Apollo 14 but not flown (i.e., the flight spare).
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 03, 2012, 11:15:43 AM
Quote
When I pointed out that the Apollo cameras were specially modified by having their viewfinders, mirrors and secondary shutters removed, and that this could significantly speed up picturetaking, I was presented with mined quotes stating that the Apollo cameras were "standard", as though that word could magically do away with the obvious differences. I now see that equivocation - using words with multiple or ambiguous meanings - is one of their favorite tactics.
Interesting. I also pointed out that he was proceeding from a false assumption since he had not actually established the cycle time for the Hassie EDC model.

Foos posted a video clip from ALSJ where Jack Schmidt was talking while he was shooting a pan and you could actually hear the camera drive motor  (sound conduction through the suit, maybe?) and it seemed to me to have a very fast cycle time. I refuted whatever it was that Foos was claiming on that particular video and he snotted that I had missed the entire point of his vid.

Is there a name for the logical fallacy of "you're not smart enough to understand"? Appeal tm Self-Delusion, maybe? Sort of a first cousin to Dunning-Kruger, I guess.



Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 04, 2012, 12:52:42 AM
Do we actually know what the film advance time was for the Apollo version of the Hasselblad 500EL? The one without a viewfinder?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 04, 2012, 02:59:18 AM
That one's always been a non-starter for me.  Sure, you can calculate that theoretically n many pictures can't be taken in n many minutes.  But why would you calculate an average when you can just log the actual events?  The majority of the pictures can be tracked as to exactly when they were taken by being mentioned in the continuous audio, as well as often being seen being taken in the video record.

If you have a 2:30 minute EVA caught on 2:30 minutes of audio tape, and when you play that tape back, they mention 138 times "hey, that's a good one.  Lemme step back for another," then what exactly would be the point of taking the totals and dividing one by the other and then squinting at the number and trying to decide if it is too small?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: dwight on July 04, 2012, 05:46:46 AM
ssssshhhhh nomuse. That type of logical thing will ruin everything.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 04, 2012, 07:33:07 AM
FoosMasoos' claim is not that the average picture taking rate was too high, but that the Hasselblad's maximum rate was too slow for a particular pan sequence that Apollo 15's Dave Scott is seen taking on TV. He clicks his own Hasselblad trying to show that it wasn't fast enough.

But his argument has several fatal flaws, the biggest being an apples/oranges comparison: Foos' Hasselblad is a standard 500EL with viewfinder and reflex mirror that took a surprisingly long time to flip up and down for each shot. The Apollo cameras were modified by removing the viewfinder, mirror and secondary shutter (not sure what that was) and that would obviously let the camera shoot faster. We don't know what other speed modifications might have been made to Apollo's version, but with lunar EVA time costing millions of dollars per minute I'm sure it occurred to somebody to make those cameras as fast as possible. Nor does Foos tell us his shutter speed; I wouldn't put it past him to pad the results with a slow shutter speed. He also didn't seem particularly anxious to press the shutter release for each new shot.

The discrepancy he claims wasn't all that big to begin with, so these little factors could all be quite significant.

When confronted with these problems, he and his supporters naturally try to shift the burden of proof claiming that we had to prove that NASA's version could take pictures fast enough -- not for him to prove that it couldn't.

Just about every hoaxer I've ever met tries to shift the burden of proof. They don't buy Carl Sagan's saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Or they turn it around and claim that going to the moon was so extraordinary that it requires the extraordinary proof -- as though we didn't already have quite a bit of it given that Apollo was probably the most thoroughly documented engineering project in human history.

 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Peter B on July 04, 2012, 07:53:30 AM
That one's always been a non-starter for me.  Sure, you can calculate that theoretically n many pictures can't be taken in n many minutes.  But why would you calculate an average when you can just log the actual events?  The majority of the pictures can be tracked as to exactly when they were taken by being mentioned in the continuous audio, as well as often being seen being taken in the video record.

If you have a 2:30 minute EVA caught on 2:30 minutes of audio tape, and when you play that tape back, they mention 138 times "hey, that's a good one.  Lemme step back for another," then what exactly would be the point of taking the totals and dividing one by the other and then squinting at the number and trying to decide if it is too small?
To be fair, I don't think the Apollo astronauts called many of their photographs. In some cases I think it takes a lot of effort to assign GETs to a lot of photos, and that only works on the assumption that Apollo is real. In other words, I doubt you could use the photographic record in that way to prove the reality of Apollo.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 04, 2012, 08:03:45 AM
Foos posted a video clip from ALSJ where Jack Schmidt was talking while he was shooting a pan and you could actually hear the camera drive motor  (sound conduction through the suit, maybe?)
That led to an amusing side discussion -- how could the sound of the camera motor make it to the microphones through the vacuum of space? Obviously they were actually on earth in an atmosphere, somewhere in Area 51, clear proof the whole thing was a hoax!

I hadn't noticed this sound before, so I first listened around and confirmed that it does indeed appear only when taking pictures. (The sound is similar to that produced by interference in analog radio systems, and that's what I first thought it might be.) So how did it get into the astronauts' microphones? I seriously doubt that it could get there acoustically even on earth; their microphones were of the noise-canceling type and the helmet was a pretty good obstacle to sound. Conduction through the suit is a possibility, but that seems unlikely given that it's a soft, flexible material.

I noticed that the sound was a fairly pure tone; it didn't really sound like a motor and gear train picked up by a microphone. A bigger clue was that while you can hear the motor come up to speed, you never hear it slowing down. The whine just cuts off. I then realized that we were almost certainly hearing EMI - electromagnetic interference. The camera motor, battery and wiring produced a magnetic field interrupted at an audio rate by the brushes and commutator in the DC motor. This field can easily penetrate the camera body (aluminum is nonmagnetic) and the pressure suit and induce a small signal in any nearby electrical circuits.

The camera is mounted on a bracket on the front of the PLSS remote control unit on the astronaut's chest. Right next to it is the connector and wiring carrying earphone and microphone audio between the PLSS radio and the headsets on the astronauts' "Snoopy cap".  You don't hear the motor slowing to a stop because turning off the power at the end of a cycle immediately cuts off the current flow and the magnetic field it produces.

Naturally our hoaxer friends were skeptical about this explanation, even though this kind of EMI problem is all too familiar to any electrical engineer or technician. You're really handicapped trying to explain such things to people lacking even a minimal understanding of physics and, more importantly, any honest desire to learn anything that might kill the hoax delusion that seems to be the main source of the meaning and purpose to their lives.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 04, 2012, 06:40:31 PM
So he only meant that there were too many frames taken in a particular panorama for the time given?

That's a little more clever.

Only not really.  I want a term for this because as the dialog goes on it happens more and more.  The Apollo Denier has this emotional attachment to the first argument they heard (or dreamed up) and liked.  But what happens, when they are finally dragged kicking and screaming away from the primary form, that emotional longing pushes them to offer a related or evolved argument.

AD: "No stars in the pictures."

RS: "Daylight film."

AD: "They should have brought 'better' film."

RS: "Apollo 16."

AD:  "But they didn't report seeing stars here and here, and..."
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 04, 2012, 08:43:30 PM
Quote
I want a term for this because as the dialog goes on it happens more and more.
I think what you're referring to is called "moving the goalposts". Each time you answer a claim, the HB changes the claim slightly so that your answer no longer fits, which eventually leads the exchange far afield from the original claim.  If the HB is successful, he will finally get to an unanswerable question, then assert that you were unable to answer his original claim.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 04, 2012, 11:55:20 PM
Foos posted a video clip from ALSJ where Jack Schmidt was talking while he was shooting a pan and you could actually hear the camera drive motor  (sound conduction through the suit, maybe?)
That led to an amusing side discussion -- how could the sound of the camera motor make it to the microphones through the vacuum of space? Obviously they were actually on earth in an atmosphere, somewhere in Area 51, clear proof the whole thing was a hoax!

I hadn't noticed this sound before, so I first listened around and confirmed that it does indeed appear only when taking pictures. (The sound is similar to that produced by interference in analog radio systems, and that's what I first thought it might be.) So how did it get into the astronauts' microphones? I seriously doubt that it could get there acoustically even on earth; their microphones were of the noise-canceling type and the helmet was a pretty good obstacle to sound. Conduction through the suit is a possibility, but that seems unlikely given that it's a soft, flexible material.

I noticed that the sound was a fairly pure tone; it didn't really sound like a motor and gear train picked up by a microphone. A bigger clue was that while you can hear the motor come up to speed, you never hear it slowing down. The whine just cuts off. I then realized that we were almost certainly hearing EMI - electromagnetic interference. The camera motor, battery and wiring produced a magnetic field interrupted at an audio rate by the brushes and commutator in the DC motor. This field can easily penetrate the camera body (aluminum is nonmagnetic) and the pressure suit and induce a small signal in any nearby electrical circuits.

The camera is mounted on a bracket on the front of the PLSS remote control unit on the astronaut's chest. Right next to it is the connector and wiring carrying earphone and microphone audio between the PLSS radio and the headsets on the astronauts' "Snoopy cap".  You don't hear the motor slowing to a stop because turning off the power at the end of a cycle immediately cuts off the current flow and the magnetic field it produces.

Naturally our hoaxer friends were skeptical about this explanation, even though this kind of EMI problem is all too familiar to any electrical engineer or technician. You're really handicapped trying to explain such things to people lacking even a minimal understanding of physics and, more importantly, any honest desire to learn anything that might kill the hoax delusion that seems to be the main source of the meaning and purpose to their lives.



A ha.  Got you!  Everyone know that electromagnetic radiation can't travel through the vacuum of space.  Oh wait.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 05, 2012, 01:27:10 AM
A ha.  Got you!  Everyone know that electromagnetic radiation can't travel through the vacuum of space.  Oh wait.
This led to the incredulous (they're always so incredulous) complaint that space suits that can stop the lethal radiation of space from frying the astronauts can't stop a little magnetic field from a camera?

And it went downhill from there. I might as well be trying to explain Apollo to our cats.



Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ineluki on July 05, 2012, 07:38:05 AM
And it went downhill from there. I might as well be trying to explain Apollo to our cats.

Apollo is boring for cats, try Schroedinger's Mouse.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 05, 2012, 09:29:06 AM
A ha.  Got you!  Everyone know that electromagnetic radiation can't travel through the vacuum of space.  Oh wait.

There was someone on BAUT that was somehow convinced this was the case. He had a strange set of beliefs including the idea that transverse waves had limited range in vacuum, explaining why stars weren't visible on he moon, but were made visible by the ionosphere converting longitudinal waves (!?) to transverse waves. He kept insisting on "proof" that star photos could be taken in vacuum in the form of photos taken by consumer cameras from the ISS, despite the ISS being within the ionosphere. Towards the end he was claiming that the close inspection the Shuttle windows received after each trip was to check diffraction gratings that somehow did the same thing, not because of the possibility of orbital debris impacts.

Reasons for a vast conspiracy to cover up the opacity of the vacuum to normal light were never given.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 05, 2012, 11:21:22 AM
Quote
When confronted with these problems, he and his supporters naturally try to shift the burden of proof claiming that we had to prove that NASA's version could take pictures fast enough -- not for him to prove that it couldn't.

Then he claimed that the speed of the picture taking wasn't the point of his video. When I asked what his point was, he replied that I didn't get the point of the video, I wasn't smart enough to try to advocate for Apollo. I was dashed.  :'(

A related comment on the Apollo Hassies. In one transcript, someone (Cernan, I think) made a comment something like "I think this mag's empty - it didn't click". Evidently it was possible to feel the shutter click through the fingertip "thimbles".

Quote
To be fair, I don't think the Apollo astronauts called many of their photographs.

Not specifically, but there was a lot of "Get a before shot here." or "OK, I'm gonna do a quick pan" or "Stand still for a second so I can get a shot".

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: twik on July 05, 2012, 12:30:28 PM
A ha.  Got you!  Everyone know that electromagnetic radiation can't travel through the vacuum of space.  Oh wait.

There was someone on BAUT that was somehow convinced this was the case. He had a strange set of beliefs including the idea that transverse waves had limited range in vacuum, explaining why stars weren't visible on he moon, but were made visible by the ionosphere converting longitudinal waves (!?) to transverse waves. He kept insisting on "proof" that star photos could be taken in vacuum in the form of photos taken by consumer cameras from the ISS, despite the ISS being within the ionosphere. Towards the end he was claiming that the close inspection the Shuttle windows received after each trip was to check diffraction gratings that somehow did the same thing, not because of the possibility of orbital debris impacts.

Reasons for a vast conspiracy to cover up the opacity of the vacuum to normal light were never given.

I was really intrigued by that one. It certainly was a new CT to me, and its author knew a certain amount of technobabble. However, he played an excellent game of "keep away" with the actual point he was trying to make. I was rather dashed when he was banned - it was like getting to the last chapter (or what you think is the last) of a novel, only to find the pages torn out.

I don't think he was onto anything, I just wanted to know what he was going on about. Why exactly did he think the scientific community was hiding the evidence that light isn't visible in a vacuum?

I've concluded that this is one telltale sign of a crank. They won't actually come right out and tell you what their point is, for fear that you'll attack it directly.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Laurel on July 05, 2012, 02:24:35 PM
Apollo is boring for cats...
Not all cats.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/toonseman.html (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/toonseman.html)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 05, 2012, 04:57:36 PM
Apollo is boring for cats...
Not all cats.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/toonseman.html (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/toonseman.html)

because that cat looked really interested :P
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 06, 2012, 01:43:22 AM
He's more interested in the picture of himself.  He's the cat Gaston.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: GoneToPlaid on July 06, 2012, 11:54:26 AM
Do we actually know what the film advance time was for the Apollo version of the Hasselblad 500EL? The one without a viewfinder?

Yes. Exposure interval between frames (continuous exposure mode) was 1000 milliseconds.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: dwight on July 06, 2012, 12:19:58 PM
Welcome GoneToPlaid!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 06, 2012, 01:10:43 PM
I was really intrigued by that one. It certainly was a new CT to me, and its author knew a certain amount of technobabble. However, he played an excellent game of "keep away" with the actual point he was trying to make. I was rather dashed when he was banned - it was like getting to the last chapter (or what you think is the last) of a novel, only to find the pages torn out.

Solon wasn't banned, just got an infraction and his thread locked after making some really absurd demands for minute technical details of the optical systems of any instrument that actually did see stars, while once again ignoring all the posts pointing out the many errors in his arguments and introducing yet another unclear claim (he apparently found the use of vidicon tubes suspicious for whatever reason).


I don't think he was onto anything, I just wanted to know what he was going on about. Why exactly did he think the scientific community was hiding the evidence that light isn't visible in a vacuum?

Apparently it was something to do with ancient civilizations that were cutting stone blocks with gamma ray lasers. I don't think he had any sort of coherent set of ideas, just a bunch of random beliefs that he found too appealing to drop.


I've concluded that this is one telltale sign of a crank. They won't actually come right out and tell you what their point is, for fear that you'll attack it directly.

Don't forget the willful ignorance. If Solon starts another thread elsewhere, I bet he'll use the same claim that transverse waves have limited range in vacuum and starlight is plane waves, despite it having been explained in detail to him multiple times that all electromagnetic radiation in vacuum is transverse waves, and that plane waves are not a different type of wave, just waves of any sort with a particular wavefront geometry.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: twik on July 06, 2012, 01:21:09 PM
I got the impression s/he was playing a tactic I call "unraveling". In it, the CTist tries to make some apparently trivial point. Once they get people to admit that point, they expect the rest of known scientific thought will unravel from that weak spot, like pulling a thread on a knitted blanket.

I really think Solon started the thread believing people would at least admit that "seeing stars in a vacuum" was unproven. Then, s/he would have his/her "aha!" moment, claiming, "But all Apollo/relativity/nuclear physics/BB theory/evolution is based on light being visible in a vacuum. So, you must admit that they're all wrong! Bwhahahaha!"
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 06, 2012, 03:48:09 PM
I got the impression s/he was playing a tactic I call "unraveling". In it, the CTist tries to make some apparently trivial point. Once they get people to admit that point, they expect the rest of known scientific thought will unravel from that weak spot, like pulling a thread on a knitted blanket.

I really think Solon started the thread believing people would at least admit that "seeing stars in a vacuum" was unproven. Then, s/he would have his/her "aha!" moment, claiming, "But all Apollo/relativity/nuclear physics/BB theory/evolution is based on light being visible in a vacuum. So, you must admit that they're all wrong! Bwhahahaha!"

Ah, the "house of cards" approach. It's rather hilarious when it stalls before getting anywhere. "The two capacitor problem shows mainstream theory violates conservation of energy! This means atomic theory, quantum mechanics, relativity, and the big bang theory are wrong!" Cue painful demonstrations of inability at basic mathematics and reasoning skills as the crank (Ronald Satz/Transpower in this case (http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php/126254-Doubts-About-quot-Modern-Physics-quot)) struggles to avoid admitting that not only is mainstream theory just fine, his own theory is deeply flawed...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 06, 2012, 05:57:19 PM
The ghost of Ralph Rene still walks among us................
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 07, 2012, 04:17:20 AM
I have made a video concerning Hunchbaked's video "The ovverated memory of the apollo computer"
Check out Hunchbacked's video first if you haven't already (he'll remove it if he accepts being wrong)



Here is my reply video.


let's see if he accepts being wrong and removes his video..
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 07, 2012, 03:19:33 PM
now he's claiming i'm right, but only in theory, implying that it would not work practically.
it seems like ole hunchbacked is getting stumped.. i even noticed he removed his comments claiming someone did a lazy job, i replied to him saying i hope that the guy doesn't do lazy research aswell, wink wink nudge nudge say no more..

is this the start of the end of hunchbacked? is he finally starting to see the light of his errors?

5 bucks his delusions drags him back into the deep..

Selected comments from hunchbacked:
Quote
Effectively, they say that there can be 6 rope modules of 6k words...but there is what they say...and what they show...and it is not always the same thing!
yes, the high quality pictures in the pdf are much more correct than the silly text describing it.

Quote
May be sometimes I miss some things in my research, this is partly because of the fact that I trust my knowledge and my analysis of what I see.
But there are nevertheless incoherences between what they say and what they show.
this is my favourite.. he actually confesses that he does not check his findings.
well with anyone but himself.. if he agrees with himself, then he must be correct.. :P

edit: fixed typos and added hunchbackeds comments
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 07, 2012, 09:28:24 PM
Quote
now he's claiming i'm right, but only in theory, implying that it would not work practically.
I'm really surprised at that. My understanding of his video was that he based his figures on the total number of wires available for bits. Not that I would know either way - sadly, electronics is all noise and no signal for me - but it's odd that he would accept anyone's number but his own. If that's even what he's saying. Hunchy's comments are only slightly more intelligible than electronics to me.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 08, 2012, 12:44:46 AM
Hunchy's comments are only slightly more intelligible than electronics to me.
More?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 08, 2012, 04:28:23 AM
Quote
now he's claiming i'm right, but only in theory, implying that it would not work practically.
I'm really surprised at that. My understanding of his video was that he based his figures on the total number of wires available for bits. Not that I would know either way - sadly, electronics is all noise and no signal for me - but it's odd that he would accept anyone's number but his own. If that's even what he's saying. Hunchy's comments are only slightly more intelligible than electronics to me.

He even accepted it as a video reply to his own video.
he says he's going to make a new video.. will he address my raised issues with his video? or just make new claims?

i don't have much knowledge in the apollo computer (rather none), but even i could see that he is wrong..

it must be aggrevating that an aerospace engineer from the finest aerospace engineering school in all of france, is easily stumped by a guy with little formal education beyond "normal school runs"
no wonder he only accept his own analysis and knowledge, 'cause he knows it does not hold water. i'll bet all his claims can be easily debunked..
if you have the time, go make a "debunk" video on one of his claims. no need to make it fancy, just make some title cards in paint, and use wevideo or something to put the pictures together in minutes. if he is proven wrong time and time again, maybe he will stop producing his shitty animated movies. i certainly won't stop making counter videos on his videos, but as i have work and a life, i don't think i'll be able to produce more than one a week tops.. come on, join in on revealing hunchbackeds poor research and analysis. he might even admit he was lazy i his research.

even though its a bit late for a ID4 quote...
"Get on the wire, tell them how to bring those sons of bitches down. " ;)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 08, 2012, 10:45:46 AM
if you have the time, go make a "debunk" video on one of his claims. no need to make it fancy, just make some title cards in paint, and use wevideo or something to put the pictures together in minutes. if he is proven wrong time and time again, maybe he will stop producing his shitty animated movies.
Believe me, I've been trying. The guy is beyond all hope. On occasion I have actually succeeded in persuading him that he's made a mistake, but it's very rare and he always keeps a few more bogus "incoherencies" for the system in question to "prove" that it still doesn't work.

I've cited NASA documents (when the issue is what NASA says about something) and textbooks. I've provided schematics of commercial, non-space equipment using the same circuits and techniques. I've explained things from basic physical principles. Nothing works. Given that his videos rarely get more than a few hundred hits -- Youtube videos of people popping their zits get hundreds of thousands -- Hunchbacked might as well be Dr. John Nash, looking for Soviet secret messages and stuffing his results in a mailbox at an abandoned building.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on July 08, 2012, 11:50:53 AM
Oh great.  Way to go.  Now he's going to think he's on-track for a Nobel Prize!

 ::)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 08, 2012, 11:55:58 AM
   
Quote
Quote
Hunchy's comments are only slightly more intelligible than electronics to me.

More?
Sad, isn't it? I'm a former Mensa member, but when I try to understand how a transistor works (for example) it's just static. My brain just isn't tuned to that frequency.
======================
Quote
if you have the time, go make a "debunk" video on one of his claims. no need to make it fancy, just make some title cards in paint, and use wevideo or something to put the pictures together in minutes. <snip> .. come on, join in on revealing hunchbackeds poor research and analysis. he might even admit he was lazy in his research.
Just for fun, I may make an attempt at that. He certainly provides plenty of fodder, and my results can't be worse than his.
======================
On the Death Of HB Support:
Although Hunchy is still kicking, I notice the Unnamable One hasn't posted anything new on the subject in 5 or 6 months. I saw this video a while back and I'm thinking maybe this guy has a point:

Maybe we've finally exceeded the limit of their attention spans.




Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 08, 2012, 03:28:13 PM
I think arguing by video, for either side, is a bad way of doing it.  I don't think there's much of a way to present a coherent point without having a lot of title cards--so many, in fact, that you might as well just write things down.  I suspect this is a generational thing, and I'm risking sounding like an old fogey.  But I do not think the ready access to recording equipment is entirely for the best.  I think it's making people lazy and sloppy.  This is why, for example, you see people's Facebook photo albums full of seventy-five identical shots of their baby.  They don't have the skill and good sense to separate out the best ones for you.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Abaddon on July 08, 2012, 04:11:48 PM
Do we actually know what the film advance time was for the Apollo version of the Hasselblad 500EL? The one without a viewfinder?
Wow, we are graced with the presence of GoneToPlaid. Weren't you the one that did the deconvolved LRO images?

Those were epic and astonishing.

I fail to see how any Apollo denier could stand up in front of those.

Welcome, and thank you for your hard work. I am off to your youtube channel. Haven't looked at them in a while, but I enjoyed them immensely.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Tomblvd on July 08, 2012, 04:34:59 PM
I think arguing by video, for either side, is a bad way of doing it.  I don't think there's much of a way to present a coherent point without having a lot of title cards--so many, in fact, that you might as well just write things down.  I suspect this is a generational thing, and I'm risking sounding like an old fogey.

I agree with you. Tremendously bad.

The problem can be seen with the innumerable videos of Jarrah White. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that he has yet to make a video about the Moon Hoax that doesn't have at least one factual problem with it. And he just continues to produce them, like so many bowel movements, making stealth edits as he goes, never acknowledging his previous errors.

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. Yet to cover his rear, he just made another video where he changes the subject and corrects the error without mentioning he got it wrong, but he doesn't bother to correct the original video. AFAIK, it is still there.

If this were being discussed in a forum, he would be unable to simply run away from an error such as that, which, of course, explains why he never ventures out from his little hovel of YouTube.

In addition, some of us had a look at his written debate skills, and it wasn't pretty. After getting beat up pretty badly by Jay on the IMDB website, he got very nasty. He seems to have a very thin skin and quite a temper.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 08, 2012, 05:56:54 PM
I think arguing by video, for either side, is a bad way of doing it.  I don't think there's much of a way to present a coherent point without having a lot of title cards--so many, in fact, that you might as well just write things down.  I suspect this is a generational thing, and I'm risking sounding like an old fogey.  But I do not think the ready access to recording equipment is entirely for the best.  I think it's making people lazy and sloppy.  This is why, for example, you see people's Facebook photo albums full of seventy-five identical shots of their baby.  They don't have the skill and good sense to separate out the best ones for you.
you are correct, hunchbacked admittedly makes lazy researched videos, and hunchbacked says he will not even consider any ideas unless you make a video. so i find his sources, read the chapter in question and not just look at the pictures and just use his own "evidence" against him.. it has kinda worked 2 of three times i've tried, (one video he has not commented on yet.)

of course, we would be better off without these videos all together, but since they are being made, the least i can do is try to set the story straight and expose the lying hoaxers for what they are. so other people on the fence who happen to stumble across his videos gets both sides of the story, not just the hoaxers.
even with more or less no knowledge of the AGC i countered his claims and got him to admit he made errors because he relies on his own knowledge and analysis :P
and learned a bit more about apollo in the process.

it takes me no more than an hour or so to produce a rebuttal video, and that is with no video editing knowledge, using youtube provided tools.

i'll try my best to counter any more of his silly claims and try to set the story straight
atleast i get results from my work :) one removal of his vids and one approved as a reply video. i think it is rare for a hoaxer to accept a reply video from a "shill" much less remove a video and admit by his own will that it was based on lazy research. if I/we prove him wrong enough times, he might quit or realize he might actually be wrong (and pigs will fly) but to me it's worth a shot.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 08, 2012, 06:05:45 PM
I absolutely agree; video is the worst format for this sort of thing. Hunchbacked's videos are all basically just (ugh) Powerpoint presentations with music and a very clumsy user interface for changing slides. I can't stand having text shown to me at a rate I can't easily control.

This sort of thing would be far better expressed in a good old fashioned text article, perhaps updated to the Internet era by being written in HTML with embedded pictures and links to relevant audio clips.

One funny thing about Hunchbacked's videos is that most have some sort of classical music soundtrack that actually isn't half bad, but a few have tripped the automated Youtube copyrighted music detector and gotten them censored. Hunchbacked, being the ultra-paranoid soul he is, thinks they specifically went after him because of his anti-Apollo views; I don't think we were ever able to explain that the Youtube machinery is automated. Like most deniers, he just doesn't want to accept that he just isn't that important. Look at how they're all still convinced that NASA pays us to spar with them; 'paid NASA shill' has become one of their favorite epithets.


Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 09, 2012, 12:18:17 PM
I'm really surprised at that. My understanding of his video was that he based his figures on the total number of wires available for bits.

Think of it as the number of digits on your odometer.  Older ones had only five digits plus tenths, unable therefore to accurately register distances greater than 100,000 whole units.  While you knew whether your car had "rolled over" (i.e., had overflowed the odometer), the device itself couldn't register it; 134,432.6 miles registered the same as 34,432.6 miles.  Newer odometers have six digits plus tenths.  Adding just one more digit allowed for an order of magnitude greater capacity.

Each additional wire on the computers "bus" adds another digit, effectively increasing the largest number that the signals on the bus can represent -- by collectively considering wires with voltage on them as 1s and wires with no voltage as zeros.  That largest number limits the size of memory that can be addressed -- the number of memory "words" the computer can keep track of.  Each word of the computer memory is numbered.  And to retrieve the contents of that word, the processor turns wires on or off on the bus to correspond to the number of the desired word, then asks the memory system to respond.  The memory reads the pattern of on-off voltage on the wires and interprets it as the binary number of the word it should retrieve.  The more wires, the more bits (binary digits), and the more bits the higher the maximum number of memory locations.

Unfortunately the AGC did not use a "flat" memory architecture.  It employed a "bank" strategy where the same memory address numbers could refer to different physical memory banks.  Consequently an additional step was needed in the processor to set the proper bank.  For example, memory address 261 could refer to one word in one bank for one purpose, and a completely different word in a completely separate bank for another purpose.  Using this method the number of wires in the bus could be kept small, yet still address a large amount of memory.

Hunchbacked really doesn't understand computers, so he doesn't really understand what's going on in the AGC.  To understand how the banking was implemented in the physical wires, you really do need to be an expert.  If you recall, I addressed his computer questions at length on the previous forum.  It was obvious that he really didn't understand much beyond the Intel personal computer architecture, and wrongly believed that every computer must have to work substantially the same.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 09, 2012, 12:25:00 PM
I absolutely agree; video is the worst format for this sort of thing.

I also agree.  And his insistence to consider only responses submitted in video form is obviously a ploy to discourage critics from responding.  I can write and edit several forum posts in the space of a coffee break.  I'm not about to spend an hour making a video that's simply a recitation of the important text.

Quote
This sort of thing would be far better expressed in a good old fashioned text article, perhaps updated to the Internet era by being written in HTML with embedded pictures and links to relevant audio clips.

You mean like this (http://www.clavius.org)?  ;D
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 09, 2012, 12:47:19 PM
And he [Jarrah] just continues to produce them, like so many bowel movements, making stealth edits as he goes, never acknowledging his previous errors.

This is one of the many things that convince me he knows he's wrong and is just out to see how much attention he can get.  And it's also the difference between my colleagues and his:  mine have a contest going to see if they can catch me in an error.  His simply stroke his ego.

Quote
In addition, some of us had a look at his written debate skills, and it wasn't pretty. After getting beat up pretty badly by Jay on the IMDB website, he got very nasty. He seems to have a very thin skin and quite a temper.

Indeed he does.

The whole IMDb episode began when Jarrah tried to get me to answer his latest questions via personal email.  I told him my well-known and longstanding policy that I do not debate in private, and will debate only in public with a third-party moderator enforcing decorum.  And I bluntly told him that the moderation condition applied especially to him, given his longstanding obsession and prior track record.  (His initial rampage in 2004 on Yahoo! Groups is still carefully preserved.)  He was so insistent that he should be excepted from those requirements that I finally had to blacklist his email.

He showed up to IMDb unannounced and unsolicited and proposed that venue as the neutrally-moderated forum for our debate.  IMDb was his idea, not mine.  So it's highly disingenuous of him to stomp off saying that he was treated unfairly there.  He chose the judge and jury, so if they condemn him then that's his problem.  And yes, he was moderated there for his typical temper and foul language.  He posted a cleaned-up version of the same post later that day, so there's no question he knows exactly why his earlier post was removed.  It most certainly wasn't that it contained killer testimony that was redacted to save me from embarrassment.  He proved amply why moderation was needed in his case.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 09, 2012, 01:14:31 PM
it must be aggrevating that an aerospace engineer from the finest aerospace engineering school in all of france, is easily stumped by a guy with little formal education beyond "normal school runs"

Yeah, does anyone actually still believe he's an engineer?  He isn't.  There is no way someone with his deplorable lack of understanding could survive as a professional engineer.  Based on his rudimentary knowledge of computers I venture that he's an IT tech or something, probably having once aspired to engineering but then having subsequently failed for obvious reasons.

Someone who trusts his own knowledge and analysis to present it without review clearly hasn't spent much time in an actual engineering context.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 09, 2012, 03:42:28 PM
Heh.

A few years back I was at a Thanksgiving dinner with my dad and some of his old circle.  Dad's an EE and that's as "soft" as this group got...mech engineers, civic engineers; a whole bunch of crop-hair button-shirt hardnoses.  And one of the younger people at the party, when pressed as to where they worked these days, replied "Software engineer." 

I think even the turkey froze.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 09, 2012, 03:50:46 PM
it must be aggrevating that an aerospace engineer from the finest aerospace engineering school in all of france, is easily stumped by a guy with little formal education beyond "normal school runs"

Yeah, does anyone actually still believe he's an engineer?  He isn't.  There is no way someone with his deplorable lack of understanding could survive as a professional engineer.  Based on his rudimentary knowledge of computers I venture that he's an IT tech or something, probably having once aspired to engineering but then having subsequently failed for obvious reasons.

Someone who trusts his own knowledge and analysis to present it without review clearly hasn't spent much time in an actual engineering context.
I actually do believe that hunchbaked has decreased vision or blindness on one eye.. his way of describing perspective seems like it has been tought from a book, not experienced..
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 09, 2012, 05:46:21 PM
now he's claiming i'm right, but only in theory, implying that it would not work practically.

...theory and practice are generally rather closely related in computer science. Memory addressing is not an exception...if it works, it works.

I haven't dug into his argument in detail, why does he think there needs to be more wires? Does he think each word needs a separate external conductor? Or that the number of addressable locations increases linearly with the number of connectors?


I actually do believe that hunchbaked has decreased vision or blindness on one eye.. his way of describing perspective seems like it has been tought from a book, not experienced..

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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 09, 2012, 06:13:42 PM
now he's claiming i'm right, but only in theory, implying that it would not work practically.

...theory and practice are generally rather closely related in computer science. Memory addressing is not an exception...if it works, it works.

I haven't dug into his argument in detail, why does he think there needs to be more wires? Does he think each word needs a separate external conductor? Or that the number of addressable locations increases linearly with the number of connectors?


I actually do believe that hunchbaked has decreased vision or blindness on one eye.. his way of describing perspective seems like it has been tought from a book, not experienced..

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.
you should see hunchbacked photshop the things into the "right" position. there was one incident with a crater in two photos taken with a slight change in perspective, he moved the crater, and the comparison was WAY off any normal perpective. and just one crater mind you, all the others around it that clearly moves consistenlty with normal perspective were untouched. they can find errors in the smallest details, but things right infront of their noses is ignored?

I'd like to see how deep they can dig themselves in the hoax lies..
i suspect it would results in something like this:
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 09, 2012, 06:15:50 PM
I think even the turkey froze.

Had the turkey been moving previously?  :-\
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Trebor 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 :|
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked 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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q 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...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q 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...

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q 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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah 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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah 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.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 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?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: DataCable 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?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Nowhere Man 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...  :-[

Fred
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff 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...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q 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.
I don't use sig lines often, but I think I just found one.

My pet peeve about the web is the incredibly gratuitous use of javascript. Ever tried to surf with it turned off for security?

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: pzkpfw 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.)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on July 11, 2012, 10:00:52 AM
It sound to me like web design is just another way of communicating where the uses people want to make of it are changing faster than the current skills of the designers, the tools they have to use and the budget for development.  I compare it to word processing programs, back when is was a competitive developing product.  Every new version from each of the several manufacturers added an array of new features,  some of which were only partially useful and some that didn't actually work but the promises helped get boxes off the shelf.  My experience was that MS Word 2000, despite its glaring flaws,  was the first one to get close to right.  Since that program, word processing has been more about refinement and developing  increasingly marginal functionality.  Today the basics of word processing are so well developed that they are given away for free.

The WWW may get to a refinement stage at some point, but I suspect it will only minimally resemble the web we use today. 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 11, 2012, 10:56:18 AM
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.

Ahem (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clavius.org%2Fphotoret.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

I find computer programming is like crack.  Addictive, but it screws you up.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 11, 2012, 11:31:52 AM
Ahem (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clavius.org%2Fphotoret.html&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

Indeed, the Clavius HTML is at least two major versions old, most of it having been written in 1999 and 2000.  For example, the ALT option for an image was optional for many years, required in HTML 4, and likely to be reverted in HTML 5.  And the explicit demarcation of literals is a new requirement.  But you'll notice that Clavius is just static markup.  There's no executable content.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 11, 2012, 01:38:52 PM
... says the under-qualified practitioner...  :-[

Fred

No, please don't take offense.  Naturally I wrote and rewrote that statement a dozen times seeking to avoid offense.  The comments in the preceding portion of your post indicate you have some real understanding of the factors involved, so please don't think you're being spoken ill of.

My cynicism aside, let me expand on this.  The demand for web applications and software-as-a-service is growing dramatically.  To fill this need, the industry draws a little from seasoned and experienced software developers and a lot from entry-level or transplanted novices.  The disproportion arises from economic factors to be sure, but also from the response on the part of vocational schools that teach the rudiments of programming at an accelerated pace.  Unless properly mentored by experienced people with a sense of real engineering practice, the product they produce ends up being of too low a quality or of unmaintainable design.  The web development curricula in vocation schools trims out much of the "extraneous" practice (e.g., version control, design for test, requirements analysis) that actually ends up being the major determinant of a software product's commercial viability.

Sadly too few web design shops are willing to pay to have a seasoned mentor on hand.  This means the wunderkinder have free reign, and although they're doing their best, they don't know all the things they should be doing differently.  They have to relearn how to make the wheel, and this costs their bosses and clients money.  Or, worse, they have no interest in expanding their expertise.

My pet peeve about the web is the incredibly gratuitous use of javascript. Ever tried to surf with it turned off for security?

I was at Netscape as an OEM for much of the "should we or shouldn't we?" Javascript debate.  Sadly I was on the "should we" side, but only because the alternative for rich content was Java, and at the time the Sun virtual machine was a horrible, undebuggable mess.  A few people were still preaching the gospel that rich content itself was a mistake in toto, but the Netscape founding fathers had already predicted that this would be where the web would evolve.  They were correct, but unfortunately so were the static-content preachers:  client-side executable content in web pages is a major source of security failures.  Clavius.org is static content.  It won't break your browser.  It can't be hijacked to deliver malware.  It is an example of the original intent of the worldwide web from back in the early 1990s.  But even so, as others have noted, there are some new syntax compliance issues I should probably address...

It sound to me like web design is just another way of communicating where the uses people want to make of it are changing faster than the current skills of the designers, the tools they have to use and the budget for development.

Yes.  As I mentioned above, the high demand for web-based technology creates a market for people who are minimally competent.  And it also creates a market for enabling technologies that grow in an uncontrolled fashion -- the "undisciplined technical carcinoma" I described originally.

Web design merges with web development.  The former emphasizes the user experience while the latter includes the programmatic logic underlying the reason you've visited a web site.  One of the flagship graphic arts publications, Communication Arts, now includes a category for interactive design -- i.e., web sites.  What this means is that graphic artists are moving into the software space and are doing so with little relevant training, skill, or experience.  One of my major clients is a web hosting and telecommunication company (which I'm basically re-engineering from the ground up).  It's the one that hosts Clavius and now employs Kevin, the guy whose teenage prank web page (http://batesmotel.8m.com/) motivated me to look at the hoax claim originally.  Yes, Kevin now actually reports partly to me and helps keep Clavius running.  Savor the irony.

But incidental to my work for them I see a lot of web code, and a lot of it is absolutely the worst code I've ever seen.  It's clear that many of these developers really have no clue how computers work.  So much of it has been obviously cut and pasted from unrelated projects with no thought for fit.  Certain graphic design firms ("We also do web development!") are the worst offenders, clearly marketing themselves as programmers in addition to artists, but having no demonstrable skill beyond bare functionality.

It's easy to learn enough computer skills and acquire enough helper componentry to create a visually compelling web page.  But a web application typically has program code that generates the front-end presentation and a separate set of code that implements the back-end functionality, the "business logic."  Junior programmers can do well in the front end coding, which is typically quite straightforward and can benefit most from even badly implemented code reuse.  But the back-end logic typically requires more finesse and also means interfacing with data stores in a safe and efficient manner.  It's this back-end code that ends up being poorly implemented by novice programmers or transplanted artists, and wreaking havoc in the web space.

The eagerness with which graphic artists and designers want to move into this lucrative line of work hasn't been matched by their proficiency.  Here's a client-of-a-client who typically manages to get it right:  http://wearetopsecret.com .  Check out their "careers" page: http://wearetopsecret.com/enlist/ .  Not only are these guys hysterical to work with, they have kept their software-developer position open for something like eight months now because they have been unable to find a candidate that meets their standards.  I've seen what their standards are, so I think there's hope for the web-development world.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 11, 2012, 02:28:45 PM
People have got to get experience somehow. Back when I had my website, I saw it more as an opportunity to learn HTML/CSS than what it was supposed to be.

Same goes for my baby at work, a programme I wrote in Java. It is itself uninteresting but I like the opportunity to learn.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 11, 2012, 04:25:04 PM
People have got to get experience somehow.

Agreed.  In a four-year bachelor's program, such as the one I taught in, you have ample opportunity to write code.  When I was teaching computer graphics, the students were writing about twice as much code daily as they would have in a commercial software developer position.  It's still student-level code, but it improves markedly over four years.  Contrast that with a one-year "We'll teach you PHP" program.

Then yes, your first couple of jobs will give you good experience.  But a decade ago, a new hire would have been paired with a seasoned mentor, and would be assigned work where inexperience didn't matter and could be easily corrected.  These days the demand for warm-body programmers means that meaningful mentorships are rare and that new hires are expected to work on critical components from the very start.

Quote
Back when I had my website, I saw it more as an opportunity to learn HTML/CSS than what it was supposed to be.

Indeed, because most of the regulars here are self-starting learners.  Now imagine if that site were for a paying customer.  Or handled credit-card information.  I witnessed a web-based business melt down because their one-and-only novice programmer had made some elementary errors in storing financial information.  His site was hacked, and more than a thousand credit card numbers ended up in the hands of a Russian hacker.  The owners of those credit accounts have a legitimate right to know why an inexperienced programmer was entrusted with a critical task.  And the poor business owner, who trusted his programmer, ended up paying many times more in legal defense fees than he would have for competent software development.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Nowhere Man on July 11, 2012, 07:09:09 PM
... says the under-qualified practitioner...  :-[

No, please don't take offense.  Naturally I wrote and rewrote that statement a dozen times seeking to avoid offense.  The comments in the preceding portion of your post indicate you have some real understanding of the factors involved, so please don't think you're being spoken ill of.
Who's taking offense?  I'm living what you described right now, and I am under-qualified for web development -- I'm learning it as I go along.  It doesn't help that this is the third majorly different approach to web-site architecture that my company has taken.

But if we get it going, you'll be able to buy term life insurance right off our web site (blatant plug).

Fred
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Mr Gorsky on July 12, 2012, 06:06:58 AM
I did quite a lot of HTML between 5 and 10 years ago building websites for my songwriting, the band and various other local projects that didn't have any money to pay a proper developer to do it for them. Then I discovered WordPress and have hardly touched web coding since ... although I do wish I understood more of the PHP and SQL underpinning so that I could troubleshoot and tweak myself rather than relying on someone else.

That said, SQL databasing, HTML5 and CSS constitute parts of some the modules in year 2 of my CS degree, so there is still some hope for me.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 12, 2012, 06:14:30 AM
I don't think there would have been much risk of that.  It didn't store credit cards.  It was more static than a petrified melon.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 12, 2012, 01:58:19 PM
Who's taking offense?  I'm living what you described right now, and I am under-qualified for web development -- I'm learning it as I go along.
I hope no one takes offense.  But if I make a cynical comment that sounds like a sweeping dismissal of an entire industry, I would expect some criticism.  If on the other hand you recognize and understand your limitations, and strive to improve yourself, then you're not the kind of person I'm talking about.  The kind of person I'm talking about is a little more Dunning-and-Kruger-esque.

I do know some sharp cookies in the web development industry; they just are stretched too thin to matter.  A good friend of mine is spending the last few years before retirement as a web developer.  He was a design engineer on the B-1B bomber and as rigorous a chap as you'll find in the aluminum-and-kerosene camp.  It's cute; his PHP almost looks like Fortran.

Quote
It doesn't help that this is the third majorly different approach to web-site architecture that my company has taken.
It doesn't help the schedule and budget, I'm sure.  And it's liable to be highly frustrating to the delivery team.  But you want to see why the direction changed.  Endemic to any engineering project is the notion that you can't often know the end from the beginning.  That is, what you learn about the problem while attempting to solve it (as opposed to what you though about it on paper) often reveals issues that are best solved by changing the high-level design before you go too far down the wrong path.  Managing uncertainty through the design process is part of what I help people do.  The dilemma of design is that the decisions you make early on have the most profound effect on the viability of the end product, but you rarely know enough at the early stages to make informed decisions.  So the architecture change may have a been a bold but defensible move.  It's often the right thing to do, even when short-term economic factors suggest making the agreed-upon design work, somehow.

Or your managers may be incompetent idiots.  That happens a lot too.

Quote
But if we get it going, you'll be able to buy term life insurance right off our web site (blatant plug).
Good luck to you, and I hope you make it past PCI compliance testing.  Because if my client's experience is any indication, people who suck enough at web development to get out of the business seem to gravitate toward compliance testing.  If we tested airplanes the way these people test security compliance, the countryside would be littered with smoking craters.  Chalk it up to something else that's moving way too fast and habitually stumbles over itself.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 12, 2012, 02:29:38 PM
Then I discovered WordPress and have hardly touched web coding since ...

The stagnation of Clavius at the moment is my waffling over what authoring system I'm going to upgrade it to.  Unfortunately despite the clear "win" of WordPress, my client invariably spits on the floor when you mention it.  That's because while it presents a fantastic experience to the web author, unpatched installations are an attractive target for hacking.  My client's attitude is "It's your virtual host, do what you want with it."  My client's customers' attitude is, "Hey, we just want to have a web site to talk about cake decorating, we expect you to handle the technical side."  Clearly I have my work cut out for me.

Quote
That said, SQL databasing, HTML5 and CSS constitute parts of some the modules in year 2 of my CS degree, so there is still some hope for me.

Yeah, I seem to recall someone trying to teach me SQL once.  However, HTML didn't exist when I was an undergrad.  I have a whole lecture on the subject of how to do persistent storage right, but that's enough software-bashing for July.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 12, 2012, 04:08:28 PM
You know how I maintain my personal website?

Emacs. Directly on the HTML.

Sure, simple black text on a white background is so...1995. But hey, it works. And it's secure.

If simple black on white text with the occasional chart or picture is good enough for professional journals, it's good enough for my website.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Donnie B. on July 12, 2012, 05:11:52 PM
... your managers may be incompetent idiots.  That happens a lot too.

Or as we like to say in my workplace: "Dilbert is a documentary!"
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 12, 2012, 06:04:12 PM
Emacs. Directly on the HTML.

Clavius.org was written mostly this way.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 13, 2012, 12:28:29 AM
Emacs. Directly on the HTML.

Clavius.org was written mostly this way.

I pretty much used Notepad the whole way.  Nowadays, I'd use Programmer's Notepad.  None of that WYSIWYG rubbish.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 13, 2012, 09:45:39 AM
We must now know what our Jay thinks of different languages.
HTML
CSS
Javascript
Java
C++
C#
French
Perl
VBA

I have used all of these.  VBA is a mainstay of work based around Excel.  I also shoe horned Java into my workscope and am now exploring it for personal use.  I used HTML and CSS of course for my website and sometimes for some things at work.  Javascript goes with the work stuff though I never used it for my website.  I used C++ at Uni and did some stuff early on in my career using it before I learnt Java.  C# was a brief flirtation.  I used Perl a lot during a particular role at work as it is favoured among a section of the reservoir engineering community.  And Frenchmen appear to be quite common in the subsurface department along with, increasingly, Italians, but I don't know Italian.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on July 13, 2012, 10:24:49 AM
Reading the last page or so, I'm reminded of the scene in "Cinema Paradiso" after the Neopolitan has rebuilt and taken-over the theater.
Previously (in a small subplot), the town priest used to pre-screen the movies and ring a little bell to order the projectionist to cut-out "pornography" (i.e. kissing) to protect the town's morals.  At the grand reopening, the priest watches helplessly as the people watch an unedited movie.  His hands twitch, trying to ring a little bell that is not there.

In my mind, in this thread, the wandering conversation is the kissing, the priest is a visiting BAUT moderator, and the bell is his "close thread" button.   ;D
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 13, 2012, 03:53:20 PM
We must now know what our Jay thinks of different languages.

I haven't used all of them, so we might have to suspend the T-shirt rule for this post.

HTML/CSS.  Not really a language as computer scientists would use the term, because it isn't Turing-complete[1].  It's considered a markup language in the sense that it attaches properties to static data in a dynamically invariant way.  As I said, Clavius is hand-coded HTML, without CSS.  So in the sense that someone can build and maintain a reasonably large web site whose source remains human-readable, HTML/CSS is a clear win.

However, as with all things, people can resist trying to "own" it.   Hence one of the shortcomings is the lack of a clear, persistent, enforceable standard for the language, leading to the colossal inability to parse it deterministically across all clients, and the reliance on vendor-specific "extensions" to the language in the grasp for market share.  So while it's elegant in its simplicity and utility, it will likely remain hopelessly polluted until it is deprecated and replaced.

CSS (style sheets) arose from the inevitable compromise between graphic designs and the architects of the worldwide web.  The original intent was that plain text would be acceptable on the web (as was the norm for the bulletin boards it was designed to replace), but the author could add optional "markup" to suggest how an intelligent client could display it more meaningfully.  But within only a few years, this had degenerated into the need to be "pixel-compatible" among Netscape and Internet Explorer.  And efforts to interest professional graphic artists in web content production fell flat until the technology allowed them to practice their art.  "Well, it might display differently in a different browser," got a universal middle finger from artists.  Hence CSS was born in the artistic sense to give content developers more control over the layout engine.  But from the computer-science standpoint, CSS also provides the property of inheritable data classes.  This offers the clear win of having a single point of truth in a data set:  e.g., I'm going to specify the typeface, color, and size of text for things like headings, and subheadings can inherit and use as much of that as they want.  If you change your heading color to robin's egg blue, you only have to change it one place.

The syntax and meaning of CSS statements are clear and mostly self-evident, so CSS would be considered a transparent[2] language.  HTML and CSS are meant to go hand-in-hand, so I lumped them together.

Javascript.  File under "Probably Should Not Exist."  This language was born inside Netscape as the result of internal turmoil over how best to support rich content on the WWW.  The company's master plan was to use Java as the language for the "serious" rich-content engine, and the lighter-weight Javascript as the casual method.  Hence the name, even though the language bears little if any resemblance to Java and is controlled by completely different groups.  Back then, the philosophy was still that everyone should be able to make a basic web page using only simple text editors and hand-written code, even if authoring tools would develop later.

Integrating Java with the web browser proved as practical as integrating an elephant with a Cadillac, so the notoriously buggy and resource-intensive Java never really caught on for rich WWW content.  Further, the decision was made early on that Java rich content would be restricted to "applets" and that it would interact with browser internals only through the plug-in architecture.  This made it difficult to mix rich and static content, such as is now provided in the Document Object Model.  Hence Javascript was lighter, easier to develop in, and better integrated with the page content as the content authors perceived it.  Therefore for all its faults, it fits better what authors were looking for.  And with much use comes the demand for a fuller feature set, which led to an organic and disorderly expansion of the language.

Today Javascript is aimed largely at making a web page seem more like an interactive desktop program.  It's clearly what users want out of the web experience some 20 years after its inception, but the undisciplined approach to expansion exposes a risk.  Everyone wants faster cars, but no one wants to wear seat belts.  So the problem is no so much with Javascript as a language as it is with the architecture that makes something like Javascript necessary.

Java.  One has to carefully distinguish between Java the language and Java the phenomenon.  As a language it leaves much to be desired.  It was designed when object-oriented programming was considered to be the final evolution of computational paradigms.  This would not be so bad if classes weren't the only available aggregation of data and functionality.  Everything is a class in Java, even things that shouldn't be.  Further Java's object model is crippled.  There is no multiple inheritance, leading to notoriously unnavigable class hierarchies that do little more than correct the object model.  There is no guaranteed destruction of objects.  And polymorphism is poorly supported.

One of the things the Java language gets right is introspection, the ability to programmatically inspect and traverse an anonymous data object.  It was one of the first languages to support it and thus one of the first languages to effectively use local/remote transparency[3].  And in contrast to broad failures of its object model, a finer-grained expression of the inheritance it does support makes class hierarchies and roles somewhat clearer.  One can, for example, define an interface and implementation class.

Java the phenomenon bears more attention.  There's good and bad.  Among the good is a vast infrastructure of solid commercial code that can be relatively easily deployed to implement a business computing model.  And at the other end is the emergence of virtual machines compact enough to run on mobile devices; Java's resource requirements were previously legendary.

Foremost among the bad is the personality cult.  Those who use Java a lot often fall under the spell of thinking that because Java is good for some things, it should be used for all things.  This has led to some highly inappropriate uses of Java in contexts system programming and to some frankly anti-engineering activity in companies that rely heavily on software:  Java evangelists persuade the use of Java where it is clearly counterindicated.  Strings in Java are inexcusably mis-implemented.  And then you have the chronically broken interoperability promise:  Java has had 20 years to become a "write once, run everywhere" language, but has suffered for the same length of time from brittle dependency on its runtime environment.

C++.  C++ is three of my favorite languages.  As the first object-oriented language intended for commercial use, it suffers from trying to be everything to everyone simply because no one yet knew what they wanted.  It got the object model right in the sense that not everything has to be an object.  You can write largely unmodified C and have it work also as C++; it's an almost pure superset of its parent language.  And it provides a simple inheritance model that includes multiple inheritance.

The problem with any object-oriented language is how strongly to type it.  C++ typing is based largely on C typing, and that leads to severe problems in polymorphism that C++ could solve only with the unholy kludge of templates.  But in a remarkable turnaround, the Standard Template Library turned that weakness into a strength and gave the language a set of robust built-in data structures.  Only with the advent of the STL does it make sense to write an application in C++.

C#.  I've only used it for a few toy programs.  I see it as a language that tries valiantly to correct many of the flaws in Java.  It's a detail, I know, but I consider one of its major strengths to be first-class support for "get" and "set" methods that can have programmatic content.  Let's say you represent a mechanical pocket feature as a class.  A uniform pocket has a profile, a depth, a draft angle, and a fillet radius.  If you're going to machine the pocket out of aluminum, the fillet radius can't be smaller than your smallest round mill bit.  If you're going to injection-mold it, the draft angle can't be 90 degrees.  C# allows you to assign values to these data members, but allow for code to be called in specific cases to do things like validate the input.  In other languages you have to use the data visibility constructs to restrict access to those data members, and the client program has to know what "setter" method to call.

French.  The Fortran of natural languages -- old as hell, way too many dialects, and impossible to parse.  Further, they seem to have banished all their consonants to Germany.  This would be a usable language if the pronunciation didn't overload to so many written forms, all with different grammatical meanings.  How many ways can you spell "/uh/"?  And how many things can it mean?  Also gets minus points for having its own personality cult.

Perl.  The way it's used today tempts me to file it under "Probably Should Not Exist," but in fact Perl arose as a good idea.  It has just gotten way, way out of hand.  In Unix there is a "shell" program that implements the command-line interface.  The shell gives you a usable (but somewhat syntactically opaque) Turing-complete function set, so that in addition to typing single commands you can write looping and decision constructs and use variables.  Unix also provides a program called awk, named after the initials of its authors, that provides extensive pattern-matching on text, and implements a rule-based approach:  if you recognize this pattern in the input, do this action.  Perl attempts to unify those highly useful functions under one roof.

However, to say that Perl has evolved organically from its roots as the "super" shell to something unholy and despicable is the understatement of the year.  A large amount of very useful code has been written in Perl.  And there is no doubt that it's an extremely powerful language for system programming.  But Perl evangelists don't see why their adage, "There's always more than one way to do it," ends up proliferating all those various ways to do it such that no one is really sure what the code does anymore.  It's hard to write transparent Perl.  Further, the Perl cult has at times lauded code obfuscation, smugly illustrating the most obscure and arcane way to do something as examples of the power of their preferred tool.  As I tell my clients:  "Don't be clever; be clear."  So as a result, "expert" Perl programmers are more apt to write code that no one but they can maintain.  This is rarely commercially viable.  I've seen companies have to throw out hundreds of thousands of lines of Perl because the developer left and none of the other Perl programmers could figure it out because they typically do things one of the other many ways to do it.

Perl's type system is a disorganized mess.  Billed as a weakly-typed language, it instead introduces a new concept of contexts, which is simply an implicit fiasco of type conversions and interpretations that the programmer must learn and obey.  And the same identifiers behave differently in different contexts, which are created in part by different prefix symbols:  $ for scalars, @ for arrays, and % for association lists.  And its storage model is also a disorganized mess.  The runtime system handles memory allocation by means of garbage collection, but the introduction of an anonymous reference data type creates ambiguity in the reference counting, leading to huge memory-leak problems in persistent (i.e., long-running) Perl programs.  In short, in attempting to avoid the problems of static and strong typing and explicit memory handling, Perl has simply duplicated them in a way that makes it harder to debug.

In case it's becoming obvious, I don't admire language evangelism.  I consider it to be counterproductive and childish.

VBA.  Never used it.  With that said, I've used a few dialects of Basic simply because I studied compiler design under Tom Pittman, a principal contributor to Tiny Basic.  It was "mandatory."  Once you strip Basic of line numbers, the resulting structured basic is a highly usable language that is among those surviving the test of time.  I personally have never found the need to program for anything running a modern Microsoft operating system[4].

NOTES

[1]  Computer science pioneer Alan Turing proposed a theoretical model for computation based on a few simple abilities.  These abilities can be extended to programming languages, since a language implies an underlying computational model.  One of them is the ability to execute different program steps based on the value of stored data.  Another is the ability to change the contents of that same stored data.  This results in useful constructs such as decision structures and repetition structures which are deemed essential to any non-trivial computation.

[2]  Transparency is a desirable property of programming languages and the programs written in them that one can look at them and get a reasonably correct idea of what they're trying to do.  For a program to be transparent means that one who knows the syntax of the language can read the code and say, "Oh, I see, it's checking to make sure an account balance has not gone negative."  For a language to be transparent means that the syntax and the semantics are closely related and reasonably self-evident.

[3] Local/Remote transparency is the pattern where two programs running on different computers communicate over a network and exchange data, but the details of that communication are hidden at the application logic level.  So a program may say, "Create a mechanical pocket feature out of this profile curve and some additional information," and obtain a description of the resulting geometry.  But under the hood the program may have packaged up the profile curve and other data, sent to a remote computation server over a network, and obtained the result back over the network.  This naturally requires the two programs to agree on the format of exchanged data.  Programming languages that allow introspection of data objects can write a general function to traverse any object and render it in a form suitable for network transport.  Non-introspective languages such as C++ implement local/remote transparency only with great difficulty; either the data objects have to be specified in a meta-source, or tedious marshalling and unmarshalling functions have to be written manually for each object.

[4] Surprisingly, DOS and Windows 3.x live on as embedded operating systems, even in life-safe applications.  Star Trek: The Experience used Windows 3.1 on its motion-base controller.  Science and engineering have moved in large measure to Linux, which is also the OS of choice in the Internet infrastructure.  The financial market is still based on old IBM operating systems.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 13, 2012, 03:59:26 PM
NOTABLE OMMISIONS

C.  Probably the single most successful programming language ever.  It's successful because it has a clean syntax, a useful type system, free development tools, an an enormous public library of highly useful functionality.  A vast amount of code continues to be developed in C today.  On the negative side, some people don't get pointers and memory management.  Especially people who only know Java.  Others get it, but rightly argue that it makes it difficult to maintain commercial code in C.  Arguments persist that C is not a high-level language, and this may have some teeth to it.  But the level of abstraction in a language is not the sine qua non of its effectiveness and utility.

Fortran.  Another long-term warhorse, although unlike C it has required several substantial makeovers across the decades in order to remain viable.  C was designed right from the start.  Fortran was created before much work had been done in formal specification of languages.  The reason it's still viable is that for heavy computations it's still the most efficient language.  NASA is still coding in Fortran, although they mandate the modern dialects.  We engineers have several widely-used computational kernels that no one frankly wants to debug again, and they're in Fortran because that was the appropriate language of choice when the need for them arose.  At this point it requires less effort to maintain Fortran compilers than it does to re-implement and retest all these kernels again in a newer language.

Lisp.  Fortran is the Gene Kranz of the programming world.  Lisp is the Bob Dylan of the programming world.  Lisp syntax is predicated on the most elegant and basic element:  the s-expression.  So is its data model.  It was and remains the most accessible example of functional programming, and many other "modern" languages and their programmers could learn many things from Lisp programmers.  For example, why "free variables" are bad.

Unfortunately its simplicity and elegance are its downfall, since the way Lisp is typically written requires help matching up all those parentheses.  One of the language's most powerful constructs, the lambda expression, has found its way into -- of all places -- Perl.  Perl supports a functor-literal.  Lisp isn't very transparent.  Operations such as car and cdr derive from obscure details of its original implementation and aren't immediately evident as list operators.  Reading and writing Lisp requires thinking in the functional-programming paradigm, which is a difficult gear to shift for programmers working in more declarative languages such as C or Java.

PHP.  For better or worse, PHP is the other language that runs the web.  While it retains much of the same syntactic nonsense as Perl, it pares it down to the case where instead of multiple ways to do things, there may be only two ways to do any one thing.  This makes it a cleaner, more commercially viable language.  As with many modern languages, and object-oriented object model has been initially tacked on, and then revised, meaning that at least three distinct code base types exist.  PHP is notorious for security problems on the web, not because the language is insecure but because PHP programs are not written typically to be secure.

XML.  Again, not strictly a programming language but a markup language.  It is widespread in the industry today, and growing.  It attempts to generalize a data structure taxonomy into elements and attributes that are defined by the application such that parsing data streams can be modularized into a syntax-level parser (the XML parser) and an application-level parser (e.g., a financial package reading spreadsheet data).  While billed as both human-readable and machine-readable, most practical applications of XML fail badly at human readability.  Also for most applications there is a 5-to-1 overhead ratio for XML encoding, meaning that the payload occupies only 20 percent of the total volume of data exchanged.

If you understand HTML you'll understand XML because the tagging syntax is nearly identical.  However, if you think that XML is the best way to encode a structured data stream for your application, then I'll bet you dollars to donuts you're wrong.

Pascal/Modula.  This is one of the most amusing tales in the field of computer science -- the story of how the revision to a programming language managed to eliminate everything its predecessor did right while committing new and grave errors.   Pascal was created as a teaching language by Niklaus Wirth, and because students tended to want to program in the languages they learned in college, the language escaped out into industry.  It was ruthlessly strongly typed, and eventually required the "variant record" kludge to implement type-casting.  C quickly took over as the procedural language of choice.  Not to be undermined, Wirth went back to the drawing board and came back with Modula-2, which introduced a pre- object-oriented abstraction, the module.  He also inexplicably required the language's keywords to be in upper case, and eliminated the variant record that got around his sadistic type system (which he retained and further tightened, but to which he added useful intrinsic types).  A great deal of commercial code in the 1980s was written in Pascal, but very little in Modula; it remained solely a teaching language.

COBOL.  If you write COBOL, I will have someone come to your house and punch you in the face.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 13, 2012, 05:22:04 PM
The dilemma of design is that the decisions you make early on have the most profound effect on the viability of the end product, but you rarely know enough at the early stages to make informed decisions.


Yup.

If I was still in school, I'd be tempted to write my thesis on how the functional process impacts the artistic process in theater.  We've learned, more or less, how to manage the endemically small budgets, but all designers suffer through having to commit to paper (so the shop can start hammering wood) before critical artistic information is collected.  And there is no going back -- almost never is an opening delayed.  So tech week becomes this wonderful time when what you spent six weeks building doesn't work with the final version of the choreography (or whatever), and you have only hours to come up with a replacement.

I'm there this moment.  The choreography is changed, the set is just delivered and the transitions are completely different, the band is playing in unexpected places, and there are script cuts... and I have something like forty sound cues to revise before tonight's final dress.  And this is "Willie Wonka."  These aren't drop-needle cues, these are ten-hours-per-finished-minute soundscapes.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 13, 2012, 05:39:56 PM
I used HTML and CSS of course for my website and sometimes for some things at work. 

My own opinion: CSS is unnecessarily convoluted, crippled by compromises, and could be vastly improved with a few trivial modifications...like variables and numeric expressions. For example, you can use it to produce a 3 column flexible (resizing to fit your browser window) layout, but it requires stupid amounts of copy and paste, and modifying it requires recomputing values scattered all around the CSS...

In contrast, abusing a table gives you immediate, controllable, reliable results with a fraction of the work, despite being the "wrong" way, using semantic structuring of data (the table) to do layout (which should only concern presentation of data).

(Edit: here's an example of what I'm talking about: http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/perfect-3-column.htm)


Javascript goes with the work stuff though I never used it for my website.  I used C++ at Uni and did some stuff early on in my career using it before I learnt Java.

I do most of my non-embedded work in C++. It is at times a terrible language (particularly when templates are involved), but it has many useful features that C lacks, and I often need the performance that can't be had in higher level languages. The advantages of C++ over C apply less to embedded systems...due to memory usage, code size, etc. Embedded systems often don't even have a heap (making the STL rather less useful), and templates can easily generate multiple versions of a piece of code for different types...a powerful feature for desktop programming, and a quick way to eat up flash space for a microcontroller. The stronger typechecking is nice and the OO features provide some benefit with essentially zero overhead when not using virtual functions, but it's very common to just use plain C in embedded systems.

The Java language is not terrible, but is unnecessarily verbose, omitting useful features like operator overloading, and fails to reach its potential as a high level language by trying too hard to look friendly to C/C++ developers, while failing to replace C/C++ due to its heavy VM based runtime. Languages like Objective C, Smalltalk, and Ruby show what Java should have been aiming for. And when I used it, the standard library was awkward to use and full of holes...some containers mysteriously missing functions that others have, one piece of functionality being supported but not the complementary piece of functionality you'd expect to be there, etc...


I used Perl a lot during a particular role at work as it is favoured among a section of the reservoir engineering community.

That's terrifying. I'm of the opinion Perl should be classified as an esoteric language, and not considered for actual use. I honestly do not know why anyone uses it. It's a vast mass of ad-hoc feature additions, bizarre interactions, special cases, special variables, "contexts" that completely change the meaning of code...it has operators that hold state, that don't do the same thing twice in a row. It lacks named arguments for its functions...everything's passed in an array. It has different prefixes for variables of different types...and sometimes you can refer to a variable using the "wrong" prefix to do something special, like referring to an array as a scalar to get its length. And it'll often "helpfully" flatten arrays for you (replacing nested arrays with their contents), making it difficult to create a hierarchical data structure...and so on.

I mentioned Scheme before...it's pretty much Lisp stripped down to the basics and given a clean start, with a reputation for minimalism and academic use that it's starting to grow out of. My implementation of choice is Gauche, a Scheme intended for general purpose scripting, with a BSD license and very easy integration with C/C++ code. Another dialect of Lisp is used by Emacs.

And I have yet to encounter a situation where XML is the best, or even a particularly good solution. It seems to get automatically used by default just because it works and everyone else is using it. It has numerous faults...its tagging structure is CPU intensive to parse and not amenable to multithreaded processing, and horribly redundant. I often see the fact that it compresses well stated to be an advantage...I still haven't figured out how people can think that. (it compresses well because it's an inefficient way of representing data)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on July 13, 2012, 05:48:29 PM
COBOL.  If you write COBOL, I will have someone come to your house and punch you in the face.
I wish we'd known each other in 1980.  A good face punch would have been more instructive than learning COBOL on punch cards.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: DataCable on July 13, 2012, 07:28:32 PM
A good face punch would have been more instructive than learning COBOL on punch cards.
And less painful?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 13, 2012, 09:38:58 PM
CSS ...like variables and numeric expressions.

That's a very good suggestion.  Any time you can create a "single point of truth" in software, you've improved it.

Quote
...making it difficult to create a hierarchical data structure...and so on.

This is important.  I always advise to understand the shape of your data first.  The algorithms and modules will follow more or less naturally from that.  If you have to compromise on the shape of your data, then you will waste effort manipulating it in awkward ways.

Quote
Another dialect of Lisp is used by Emacs.

...to great advantage.  It's always amusing to hear IDEs and other editors promise to provide "an Emacs interface," when in fact all they provide are the default Emacs key bindings.  They always look funny when I ask where I should install my elisp.  One of the cardinal rules for design (in any domain) is never to promise what you can't deliver.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on July 13, 2012, 10:33:24 PM
Forth?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 14, 2012, 12:26:30 AM
I thought variables were supposed to be introduced in CSS 3.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Not Myself on July 14, 2012, 02:41:00 AM
Since you're casting a wide net, may as well include things like TeX and LaTeX.  And PostScript.  And if you think French is hard to parse - well, I'd put it comfortably in the easier-to-parse half of the natural languages I know.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on July 14, 2012, 07:22:40 AM
A good face punch would have been more instructive than learning COBOL on punch cards.
And less painful?
Pain is transitory, but a well learned lesson can last a lifetime.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 14, 2012, 01:13:01 PM
Well.

Reading all this, I'm not entirely sure whether to be be relieved or saddened that I drifted out of programming in the early 90s.

I started with an odd little language called TI Basic, then learned Xbase/Clipper with a few forays into RPG II, then into C++; mostly self taught along with a sort of collaberative tutoring from other programmers in the little computer shop where I worked for a couple of years.

That was the period during which id Software boasted that Doom was "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world" and we worked hard at supporting this claim. The boss - who was the most avid player of any of us - finally had to forbid play during working hours, which led to a lot of "working late" at our shop.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 14, 2012, 02:20:07 PM
I thought variables were supposed to be introduced in CSS 3.

Possibly, I haven't touched CSS 3. Looks like it's a proposal, and there's resistance to the idea...variables are "too complicated" and "confusing" for the poor designers. Somewhat incredibly, some people are arguing that the ability to parameterize a CSS file would reduce reusability...


Forth?

Another language that requires you to pull out your brain and re-seat it sideways. Very simple to build a compiler/interpreter for, rather compact in resulting code size and resource usage, and unfortunately quite easy to write incomprehensible code in.

For a very similar language, look at PostScript. You've probably already got software for running it...if you're on a Mac, Preview.app will automatically produce a PDF, if you're on Linux, you can probably figure out a few options. There's even a partial Javascript/HTML5 implementation: http://logand.com/sw/wps/index.html
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: pzkpfw on July 14, 2012, 09:19:24 PM
In contrast, abusing a table gives you immediate, controllable, reliable results with a fraction of the work, despite being the "wrong" way, using semantic structuring of data (the table) to do layout (which should only concern presentation of data).

Amen. The next time someone hassles me for using tables, I'm telling JayUtah they program COBOL.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 14, 2012, 09:24:49 PM
Forth?
It was widely used for a time (probably still is) in certain old embedded systems. The onboard computer on the AMSAT Phase-III spacecraft (Oscars 10, 13 & 40) ran a German variant of Forth called IPS. Yes, it was incomprehensible but it was compact. That was important when you only had a 400 bps link to an 1802 computer with 16KB of space, and you couldn't just reload the whole thing every time you wanted to change or add something.

The fact that Forth is so compact and easy to implement but impossible to understand does suggest it as a good intermediate language. As cjameshuff says, like Postscript and PDF.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 14, 2012, 10:11:34 PM
The Java language is not terrible, but is unnecessarily verbose, omitting useful features like operator overloading,
My colleagues kept saying that operator overloading wasn't very useful, but it was what finally prompted me to learn C++ after programming in C for many years. I have two different applications that can really use it: algebraic forward error correction algorithms like Reed-Solomon codes that operate over Galois (finite) fields, and orbital tracking programs that do a lot of analytic geometry, especially vector operations. Being able to define '+' and '*' over very different things than just integers and floating point numbers can really make the code more readable, and that should be the primary goal of any good programming language.

Problem is, I had already written these applications in C so I knew how fast they could run. I could never get my C++ version of my Reed-Solomon decoder to go faster than about 25% of my C version. So while the C++ version is an excellent teaching tool -- the formulas look just like they do in the textbooks -- I am still not sure how useful it is for real programs that have real performance requirements.


Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 14, 2012, 10:41:43 PM
Problem is, I had already written these applications in C so I knew how fast they could run. I could never get my C++ version of my Reed-Solomon decoder to go faster than about 25% of my C version. So while the C++ version is an excellent teaching tool -- the formulas look just like they do in the textbooks -- I am still not sure how useful it is for real programs that have real performance requirements.

The performance impact shouldn't be anything like that. There's a few things you could be doing wrong...passing by value when you should be passing by reference, etc.

This is one downside to C++...it's easy to accidentally write code that works, but does things like unnecessarily copy complex objects or initializes them in an inefficient way. You should usually be able to avoid these pitfalls, however.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 15, 2012, 06:11:12 AM
That's what I thought. But I was handicapped by working at an extremely low level, overloading the '+' and '*' operators to implement Galois field arithmetic. A Galois field is a finite set with "add" and "multiply" operations that behave much like regular arithmetic, the main difference being that Galois field arithmetic never overflows. All arguments are permitted and produce results in the set (i.e., it's closed). Just like regular arithmetic it has "+" and "*" operations with identity elements "0" and "1" respectively. Multiplication behaves like repeated addition, and exponentiation behaves like repeated multiplication.  All this is what makes it a field.

In the usual representation of each set element, polynomial form, "addition" consists merely of XORing the two binary values. Simple enough.

"Multiplication" is a little more complicated. It can be done directly in hardware with feedback shift registers but that's tedious in software. Just as in regular arithmetic you can multiply by adding logarithms (the principle of a slide rule) so the usual software approach is to convert the arguments from polynomial form to index (log) form with a lookup table, add the logs with regular addition and convert back to polynomial form with an antilog table. Multiplication by zero is a special case; as with regular numbers you can't take the logarithm of zero so you have to test and set the result to 0 if either argument is 0.

An algebraic code like Reed-Solomon (used on the Compact Disc, among many other things) can be implemented over a Galois field of any size, but GF(256) (8 bit field elements) is by far the most popular because it's a natural fit to most computers. So I'm doing lots of very simple operations on 8 bit values so the C++ overhead is substantial. I played with it for some time trying to minimize the amount of copying but as I said I never got it faster than 25% of my existing C code.

Maybe this is just one of those things best done in C; it's a shame because once you implement the Galois field classes (which also includes polynomial division) the C++ is so much smaller and easier to read, just like the coding theory textbooks. When you do it in C, the coding algorithm becomes lost in all the C implementation details.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: LunarOrbit on July 15, 2012, 12:44:04 PM
Web design/development is a nightmare without CSS and some form of server-side processing (PHP or ASP) to include common page elements (headers, footers, etc.) into pages.

The company I work for has taken on clients with existing websites that were created years ago using MS Frontpage (or possibly MS Word). There is no consistency in the fonts because the various style changes were made to individual words or paragraphs rather than to the HTML tags. And without the ability to use server-side includes the headers and footers have to be hard coded into each and every page. If you want to add a new menu link to the header you have to change every single page rather than just making the change in one header file that is automatically included on all of the other pages.

I guess what I'm saying is that static HTML is fine for small websites, but it becomes a lot of work to maintain for large sites. That means you waste a lot of your time unnecessarily. My other website (TheSpaceRace.com (http://thespacerace.com)) was static HTML with just a bit of PHP up until maybe 2 or 3 years ago when I started using Wordpress. I'll recommend Wordpress to anyone... it frees up all of that time I used to spend fiddling with the HTML so now I can focus more on the actual content. For example, I don't have to worry about changing the "Next Page" and "Previous Page" links on 50+ pages every time I added a new page, because Wordpress handles that for me automatically.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 15, 2012, 01:21:50 PM
I'm still reeling from the scathing attacks on Perl.  Since moving out of reservoir engineering, I don't use it as much anymore, but still use a little bit for manipulating text files, eg collating several csv files into one single csv that I use in visualisation tools.

As a scripting language, I find it is the easiest to just write and run of the ones I know.  It is true that so often the code looks like someone smashed their head on the keyboard and that's before we get into its use of regular expressions.  I love regular expressions.  I've used them now in a number of languages and they fit the most organically into Perl.  I'm still not clear of the whole meaning of greedy and global though.  Ease of using hashes is also neat.

Why no boolean though?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 15, 2012, 02:34:20 PM
If I remember correctly, I knew a guy who helped write a reference book on Perl.  I don't know quite why; several of the people in that writing group were tech types of one stripe or another, but it was a long time ago, and the only thing I remember for sure is that he submitted the glossary to our group.  It was full of things like "call by volume: summon your children by throwing encyclopedias at them."
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 15, 2012, 02:54:15 PM
More on Perl:
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/ancient-languages-perl
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 16, 2012, 10:48:09 AM
Amen. The next time someone hassles me for using tables, I'm telling JayUtah they program COBOL.

Going back to what I said about graphic artists, in the Olden Days the HTML table was the only fine control a web designer had over the relative positions of objects in an HTML document.  The web quickly outgrew the "dressed up text" character and became a page-layout environment, and the HTML table was the only standardized element (distinct from browser-dependent nightmares) that let you arrange things with pixel-level accuracy.

Netscape Navigator became the de facto reference implementation, and other browser developers went into kaniptions attempting to duplicate the results of Netscape's table layout engine.  The layout of an HTML table is non-trivial, and almost doesn't have a closed form.  Try it sometime, but not without a good supply of breakable objects you can do without and some vodka.  Netscape didn't necessary get it right, but their idiosyncrasy simply won based on popularity.

And today the HTML table is still the simplest, most universal way to lay out a page with deterministic juxtapositions.  As long as the W3 insists on the linear-flow model (a la Tex and LaTex) for HTML documents, people will (and should) continue to use it.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 16, 2012, 11:30:27 AM
The sad thing is that it's true.  When I was preparing some visualisations of a programme concept using HTML/CSS, I tried to be a good boy and not use tables to lay it out all the components.  I was never able to get it quite right.

On the other hand, using tables hard codes the layout.  Using CSS for the layouts makes it pluggable.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 16, 2012, 03:34:57 PM
I'm still reeling from the scathing attacks on Perl.

Well, it is what it is.

Quote
...but still use a little bit for manipulating text files, eg collating several csv files into one single csv that I use in visualisation tools.

No other scripting language is better at manipulating text.  This is Perl's strong suit.

Quote
As a scripting language, I find it is the easiest to just write and run of the ones I know.

Perl fulfills the role for Unix that REXX does in the IBM mainframe world.  And I too will write a 50-line Perl script to automate some simple task, or as an ad hoc solution.  With a little experience, everyone can keep enough Perl in their heads to quick-draw it like a gun and get past some obstacle.

The fact that Perl has clear strengths doesn't stop it from having crippling weaknesses, and from being grossly misused.  It's the weakness and misuse that we're railing against.  And part of that problem is the strong Perl evangelism community that tends to respond to clear failures in the language as if they were shortcomings in programmer skill and knowledge.  That's a pretty entrenched defense.

Quote
I love regular expressions.  I've used them now in a number of languages and they fit the most organically into Perl.

Regular expressions are the heart of text processing in any language.  Their elementary integration into Perl is one of its strengths.  The propensity to compose write-only (i.e., forever thereafter illegible) regular expressions to implement some rule is one of the weaknesses, not of the language but of how it's commonly used.

Quote
I'm still not clear of the whole meaning of greedy and global though.

Greedy means to match the longest possible string in the input sentence, for any one invocation of the matching algorithm.  This is most often what you want, and what Perl does by default.  However there are real-world cases where the most straightforward-looking regular expression doesn't do what you want.

Consider the task of extracting all the HTML tags from a sentence.  A tag is an open angle bracket "<" followed possibly by the negation qualifier "/", followed by some upper or lower case text, followed by the closing angle bracket ">".  So a viable regular expression in the classical syntax would be '</?[a-zA-Z]+]>' read as "< followed by zero or one / followed by one or more alphabetic characters followed by >".  But in fact HTML tags may contain qualifiers that in turn may contain arbitrary text.  So you'd be tempted to expand the meat of the expression as '</?.+>' thinking that the engine will stop accepting the overspecified "." (i.e., match any character) when it sees the closed bracket >.

But in the marked-up sentence

We want to succeed

you want your expression to match

We >want to succeed

but under greedy rules it will match

We want to succeed

because the first > in the initial tag also matches under the '.*' element and the algorithm detects a longer matchable string, ending with the final > after the tag.

The greediness question is therefore one of affinity where departure from one parsing state is ambiguous.  In the world of actual machines, think of the interaction between your turn signals and hazard lights.  When your hazard lights are on, the turn signals don't work.  The engineers specifically gave greater "affinity" (or precedence, if you prefer) to the hazard lights when resolving contention for the control signal.  Similarly you can choose whether your regular expression engine will give greater affinity to the continuing case or to a succeeding case.  Greedy means the continuing case has greater affinity.

A better way to write the expression is '</?[^>]+>' which means "< followed by an optional / followed by one or more characters that aren't >, followed by >".  While better suited to the task, it gets criticism because it's not very clear.  And these expressions become even less clear when the expression gets more complicated.  What, for example, would the expression look like when you recall that > may legitimately appear inside a string literal that's an argument to a qualifier?

Global means that an input sentence may contain several distinct matchable strings (i.e., but separated by non-matching symbols); a global match returns a list of matching substrings or allows you to restart the search where the previous one left off, and a global replacement replaces all matching substrings rather than just the first.  In my example above, the sentence contains two substrings that match the simple HTML tag expression.  But the desirable non-greedy match will only catch the first one.  A global match would require us to deal with a set of plural matches, or the ability to restart the search on the substring "Want..." so that we would catch the closing tag.  For regex-based rewrites, the "g" qualifier says "replace all matching substrings, not just the first."

Quote
Ease of using hashes is also neat.

You can argue that all possible data structures can be composed using only a container and an association list, which is the theory behind Perl data structures.  However, Perl's array-flattening pretty much eliminates that.  And when you add references, composing any meaningful data structure in Perl is a nightmare of dereferences, delimiters, and context-changing coersions.  That said, the simple hash is your friend.

Quote
Why no boolean though?

Because in Perl it's a context, not a data type.  Despite all the other contexts that also have associated intrinsic data types.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 16, 2012, 03:56:25 PM
[Forth is a]nother language that requires you to pull out your brain and re-seat it sideways.

Can't have said it better.  The compactness issues are not irrelevant; sometimes those are the constraints.  The AGC had to sacrifice code clarity in order to fit it into the box.

But in general, the primary purpose of a computer program in source form is to express design intent to another programmer.  Compilers and interpreters are generally lenient in what they'll accept as the specification of a program, but the human eyes and brain are too easily fooled and require a clear expression.  Hence a language that forces you to think in an unnatural way about how a problem is being solved puts you immediately at a disadvantage.  Yes, stack-based languages are easy to interpret, but that's not how humans think.

Quote
For a very similar language, look at PostScript.

Indeed, and programming anything but the simplest list of function closures in Postscript is a nightmare.  I once irritated an entire office floor by programming a fractal computation in Postscript and sending it to the printer.  Printers are notoriously ineffective at number crunching, so after two hours of running we finally killed the job.

One can program in stack-based languages, but one generally shouldn't if you expect it to be commercially successful.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 16, 2012, 06:02:03 PM
More on Perl:
https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/ancient-languages-perl

Quit a bit on the rantish side, but he raises some good points.

Quote
All languages suck. At this junction in human history, the best thing you can do as a programmer (other than perhaps write your own language) is not to get too attached to any particular one, and choose them as appropriate for the task at hand, since each language has its niche.

My point exactly.  A software engineer may rank his proficiency in various languages, but to develop a language affinity to the point of evangelism is tantamount to saying you have to build spacecraft out of concrete.

Quote
To alleviate the situation, in Perl 5, Larry [Wall] added references, which are sort of like C pointers, but more confusing, and with none of the inherent value of pointers.

A legitimate criticism against C/C++ is the difficulty of pointers and pointer expressions.  Modern languages have fallen all over themselves in the rush to avoid the low-level ugliness of actual machine addresses and underlying storage.  Yet in the C world, pointers are highly necessary, especially in C's system-programming role.  However, Perl takes everything that was bad about pointers in C, but leaves us without the ability easily to debug them.  No wonder, then, that Perl programs that make heavy use of references are now all of a sudden suffering huge heap bloat because the garbage-collector (that magical piece of runtime software that's supposed to free the programmer from the drudgery and error-prone tedium of memory management) can't figure out whether something is freeable or not.

Quote
Perl also has "contexts", which means that you can't trust a single line of Perl code that you ever read.

This is the single biggest criticism I have against Perl.  In its attempt to be a weakly-typed language, it has succeeded only in being an inscrutably and dangerously typed language.  I can't count the number of times my clients had to deal with obscure bugs caused by code in which the inferred in-context type didn't match the actual in-context type, and so the value was silently misinterpreted.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 16, 2012, 06:23:32 PM
...the C++ is so much smaller and easier to read, just like the coding theory textbooks. When you do it in C, the coding algorithm becomes lost in all the C implementation details.

In my instruction this is what we call "transparency at the application level," or "transparent application logic."

Now if you're copying algorithms out of books, it often can be one of those cases where you work until you get it right, then you encapsulate it and never deal with it again.  Many of our computational kernels such as LS-DYNA work this way, even though they're traceable to academic papers.  And we have control-logic code that works this way.

But it's hard when you're implementing a mathematical construct, and you plan later to write new programs that implement new applications of the underlying algebra.  Debugging those programs is indeed a matter of being able to see your new formulas expressed in the code.  This is what we mean by transparency at the application level.  You want the rules of a business operation or the laws of a scientific model to be visible in the code so that they can be verified by inspection and modified with confidence.  But when an operation analogous to addition has to be represented as a function call, it loses that transparency.

Code: [Select]
vec3 tensor = anchor_pt + direc_vec;

is more comprehensible than

Code: [Select]
vec3 tensor;
vec3_copy( &tensor, (vec3 *) &anchor_pt );
vec3_add( &tensor, &direc_vec );

I programmed lots of design-engineering code in C++ using classes to represent 2D and 3D points and vectors in Euclidean or projective space.  It's especially awesome to be able to know that an E3 point is structurally and conceptually equivalent to an E3 vector (hence can be used somewhat interchangeably), that a point or vector can be promoted in dimensionality by adding a zero to the new dimension (i.e., a standard cast) and that straightforward conversions exist between projective and Euclidean points.  Encoding all those equivalences and conversions in your object system lets you program at the mechanical bushing level, not the coordinate-goes-where? level.

But yes, efficiency.  The sad fact is that the alleged near-C performance of C++ code is typically achieved only if you eschew many of the useful features of C++.  Transparency at the application level can only happen if you accept inefficiency at the machine-code level.  While you can optimize with clever use of references and coding that avoids temporaries, there is overhead.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 17, 2012, 09:26:58 AM
Code: [Select]
vec3 tensor = anchor_pt + direc_vec;

is more comprehensible than

Code: [Select]
vec3 tensor;
vec3_copy( &tensor, (vec3 *) &anchor_pt );
vec3_add( &tensor, &direc_vec );

This is exactly why I'm writing my new astrodynamics package in C++ rather than the C I used 30 years ago. (Yes, I know that some libraries already exist, but I'm doing this largely to learn some of the algorithms.)

But I'm concerned that performance will suck. I'm sure it'll be fine for running out predicts for a satellite, or tracking one in real time, but when you're doing orbit determination, or even better a complex interplanetary trajectory design, I expect to iterate my routines quite a few times and then performance will become important again.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 17, 2012, 11:19:22 AM
Quit a bit on the rantish side, but he raises some good points.

Well, the site is titled "Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants".


A legitimate criticism against C/C++ is the difficulty of pointers and pointer expressions.  Modern languages have fallen all over themselves in the rush to avoid the low-level ugliness of actual machine addresses and underlying storage.  Yet in the C world, pointers are highly necessary, especially in C's system-programming role.  However, Perl takes everything that was bad about pointers in C, but leaves us without the ability easily to debug them.  No wonder, then, that Perl programs that make heavy use of references are now all of a sudden suffering huge heap bloat because the garbage-collector (that magical piece of runtime software that's supposed to free the programmer from the drudgery and error-prone tedium of memory management) can't figure out whether something is freeable or not.

Apart from a different choice in operators, I honestly don't see a good way to make pointers any simpler or clearer than they are in C (with the exception of the syntax for function pointers). Any syntax that would make the simple cases clearer would add more clutter that makes the complex cases less clear. However, I don't see any particular benefit to having them in a higher level language...


Quote
Perl also has "contexts", which means that you can't trust a single line of Perl code that you ever read.

This is the single biggest criticism I have against Perl.  In its attempt to be a weakly-typed language, it has succeeded only in being an inscrutably and dangerously typed language.  I can't count the number of times my clients had to deal with obscure bugs caused by code in which the inferred in-context type didn't match the actual in-context type, and so the value was silently misinterpreted.

Contexts were what finally pushed me to lump Perl in with the esoteric languages. How can anyone treat such an inherently obfuscated language as anything but a joke? Forth requires a different mindset to work with, but fundamentally does make sense. Perl tries to catch you off guard...

For text processing or general quick scripting, I use Ruby. It has its share of problems, its approach to language design could be considerably more disciplined (several bad ideas were added early on, many copied from Perl, and many are now deprecated or no longer supported), but it's nothing like the monstrosity Perl has become, while providing much of the same functionality. (Given the earlier discussion on web technologies, though, please note that I specifically mean Ruby, not Rails.)


But yes, efficiency.  The sad fact is that the alleged near-C performance of C++ code is typically achieved only if you eschew many of the useful features of C++.  Transparency at the application level can only happen if you accept inefficiency at the machine-code level.  While you can optimize with clever use of references and coding that avoids temporaries, there is overhead.

There's often a tradeoff with abstraction. For instance, vector math can suffer from treating vectors as discrete entities when you aren't using SIMD to operate on the components in parallel and can operate on each component individually. Working with vectors means tracking intermediate values for all components which can mean extra work moving data around, while working on one set of components at a time can allow the same calculation to be done with fewer registers and no reference to main memory.

However, operator overloading is fundamentally just a different way to say which functions you're calling. I have a hard time seeing well-written operator overloading accounting for a 400% increase in execution time over equivalent C code.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 17, 2012, 02:24:13 PM
not to be a busybody, or anything, but this thread turned from the idiocy of hunchbacked to programming  java or websites or something. that's all well and all, but wouldn't it be better to have a programming discussion in the off topic boards rather than hunchbackeds thread in the hoax board? :)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 17, 2012, 02:38:12 PM
But I'm concerned that performance will suck. I'm sure it'll be fine for running out predicts for a satellite, or tracking one in real time, but when you're doing orbit determination, or even better a complex interplanetary trajectory design, I expect to iterate my routines quite a few times and then performance will become important again.

Here's the benefit of my long experience.  If this is something you're writing for work, write it in a language and a style that's maintainable and comprehensible.  Then spend your money on faster silicon.  Seriously.  Engineering time runs in the hundreds of dollars per hour.  It costs thousands of dollars to optimize code, and thousands of dollars more over the life cycle of the code to maintain unclear (i.e., optimized) code.  Spend that money on faster hardware, because it's guaranteed to give you a more predictable, more useful performance increase than trying to bum inefficiencies out of the code by hand.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 17, 2012, 02:47:20 PM
not to be a busybody, or anything, but this thread turned from the idiocy of hunchbacked to programming  java or websites or something. that's all well and all, but wouldn't it be better to have a programming discussion in the off topic boards rather than hunchbackeds thread in the hoax board? :)

Yes, I move we continue this in a new thread.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Glom on July 17, 2012, 03:13:07 PM
not to be a busybody, or anything, but this thread turned from the idiocy of hunchbacked to programming  java or websites or something. that's all well and all, but wouldn't it be better to have a programming discussion in the off topic boards rather than hunchbackeds thread in the hoax board? :)

Yes, I move we continue this in a new thread.

NEW THREAD!  WHORE OFF!  I mean NEW THREAD! (http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=150.0)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 17, 2012, 05:34:26 PM
Well, the site is titled "Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants".

Didn't notice that.  I find the ad hominems against Larry Wall somewhat disturbing.  Yes, the guy is an autocrat when it comes to Perl, and yes he has strong delusions of grandeur.  But I'd have toned it down.  You can point out those effects on the final product without the value judgment.

Quote
Apart from a different choice in operators, I honestly don't see a good way to make pointers any simpler or clearer than they are in C...

Agreed, and I'm not suggesting we try.  The pointer data type is crucial to C programming, and it's not a difficult concept.  There are two typical "gotchas" and you've identified one of them:  pointers to function types.  The other is related, and that's whether array or pointer operators take precedence, a.k.a. how properly to declare and handle char *argv[].

Quote
Contexts were what finally pushed me to lump Perl in with the esoteric languages. How can anyone treat such an inherently obfuscated language as anything but a joke?

Perl evangelists tell you it's because you aren't smart enough to understand it or open-minded enough to realize how beautiful it is.  One can write comprehensible Perl.  But the evangelists will tell you you're not using the language to its full potential.

Quote
There's often a tradeoff with abstraction. For instance, vector math can suffer from treating vectors as discrete entities when you aren't using SIMD to operate on the components in parallel and can operate on each component individually.

Very astute.  There's the perennial question of whether a vector should be

Code: [Select]
struct vec3 {
  double x, y, z;
};

or

Code: [Select]
struct vec3 {
  double coords[ 3 ];
};

In the latter case affine arithmetic can be implemented as a loop.  Optimizing compilers for vector CPU architectures know how to vectorize inner loops, so they implement looped arithmetic as vector instructions.  This is how we did it on the old IBM/3090 and on the Cray.  For E2, E3, or P3 points the speedup isn't especially noticeable since the setup required to start the vector instructions eats up most of the vectorization.  But if you're transforming a NURBS surface with 200 control points and a 190-element knot vector, the speedup is enormous.

Quote
Working with vectors means tracking intermediate values for all components which can mean extra work moving data around, while working on one set of components at a time can allow the same calculation to be done with fewer registers and no reference to main memory.

Well we got lazy on the Cray, which stores intermediates in cache registers where they can be fetched into CPU registers in 1 cycle.

Quote
However, operator overloading is fundamentally just a different way to say which functions you're calling. I have a hard time seeing well-written operator overloading accounting for a 400% increase in execution time over equivalent C code.

Yeah I'd still like to see that code, because I feel confident that either I or someone on my team could have made it run faster.  In the straightforward C++ programming mindset you're probably going to create lots of temporaries.  That's C++'s dirty little secret.  But there is some syntactic handwaving you can do (e.g., make sure all your RHS values are received as references) to make it so that for most arithmetic you're dealing (under the hood) with references to existing objects.  Back when we were doing this for the aforementioned spline surfaces as first-class objects, we had some whiz programmers who knew how to do this.

Representing design geometry as C++ objects really generates a lot of very fun debate.  Lots of size/speed tradeoff discussions as well as where to generalize the arithmetic for maintainability.  If the dimensionality of a point or vector is a stored parameter, then linear arithmetic can be implemented in a common base class as loops bounded by the dimensionality.  But how to store it effectively, when your model is of a Boeing 777 airframe containing approximately 67 gazillion points?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 17, 2012, 08:11:49 PM
Okay, just looked him up.  That's the guy!  That's the guy I was in a writing group with!  That's really random.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 17, 2012, 08:36:35 PM
Here's the benefit of my long experience.  If this is something you're writing for work, write it in a language and a style that's maintainable and comprehensible.  Then spend your money on faster silicon.  Seriously.
If this was for work, I'd say exactly the same thing. It's not; it's a hobby project.  But I'm still writing it in C++ rather than C, and I won't actually worry about performance unless or until it actually becomes a problem.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 17, 2012, 08:45:58 PM
Agreed, and I'm not suggesting we try.  The pointer data type is crucial to C programming, and it's not a difficult concept.
I'm really glad to see I'm not alone on this. Back when Java was the new rage, it was fashionable to trash pointers and say how inherently evil the concept was. I was always baffled by this because, when I learned C, I thought pointers were one of its most elegant and powerful features. Power does breed danger, of course, and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble with them, but I couldn't see that as a reason to get rid of them entirely. Just learn how to use them properly and safely, as you would a circular saw or power drill.

Sure, I burned myself enough times but I came up with a few simple tricks that seemed to work wonders. They're probably old hat now, but I came up with them in the mid 1980s while writing the first multitasking Internet stack for the IBM-PC. I used dynamic memory very heavily, so one of my practices was to always clear a pointer when its value is no longer valid, such as when it is passed to free(), or when it passes a data structure to some other function that will take responsibility for freeing it. I also hacked the malloc and free routines to detect pointer corruption and double frees. That alone caught a huge number of bugs.

But what did I know? I'd only been programming in C for 20 or so years when Java became hot, and so I couldn't really appreciate how vastly superior all the newer super-high-level languages really were...

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: carpediem on July 17, 2012, 09:37:52 PM
Okay, just looked him up.  That's the guy!  That's the guy I was in a writing group with!  That's really random.
You were in a writing group with Hunchbacked?
I, for one, would love to read some of HB's writings. Are they available somewhere on the web?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 18, 2012, 12:38:32 AM
No, not Hunchbacked.  Larry Wall.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 18, 2012, 01:12:20 PM
Okay, just looked him up.  That's the guy!  That's the guy I was in a writing group with!  That's really random.

Wow, that's actually a feather in your cap if you hang out with a lot of geeks.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 18, 2012, 02:18:17 PM
Speaking of Hunchbacked's writings, when he was here as 'inquisitivemind', somebody (I think it was me) asked him if he was Youtube user 'hunchbacked'. He said "Yes. How did you know??!" I told him that his idiosyncratic writing style was absolutely unique and that I could recognize it anywhere.

One of the defining features of the crank as listed in the Wikipedia article is a refusal to use standard terminology. He certainly fits the mold with words like "incoherences", referring to the lunar rover as a "jeep", and so on.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 18, 2012, 04:41:14 PM
Wow, that's actually a feather in your cap if you hang out with a lot of geeks.

It also shows exactly what kind of geek I am, that it took me this long to put it together, and if I remember correctly, I used to spend Thursday evenings in his house.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 19, 2012, 02:04:16 AM
It turns out Hunchbacked really is a aerospace engineer, or atleast has a diploma that says so.. Vincent confirmed it has hunchbackeds real name on it



Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: carpediem on July 19, 2012, 04:59:33 AM
Vincent confirmed it has hunchbackeds real name on it
How would Vincent know?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 19, 2012, 06:47:23 AM
Vincent confirmed it has hunchbackeds real name on it
How would Vincent know?
Vincent knows his real name, and has him on facebook. he requested it uncencored, and hunchbacked apparently delivered.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ChrLz on July 19, 2012, 07:57:55 AM
Vincent? The same kid who vehemently denied Apollo and hero-worshipped Jarrah White, before doing an about face, and then has now about-faced AGAIN on Shenzou 7?

I'm sorry, but the dreck coming from Youtube is just getting very wearisome, and now we add facebook claims of credential 'proof'?  Personally, I'd rather not see this sort of stuff dragged over here..  (OK, so I'm tired and have had a less than great day..)

How, exactly, would Vincent be able to detect even a simple forgery?  Again, given his lack of experience, his posts here and the way he has been suckered twice already? I'll let the other regulars here be the judge..

There is only one way to properly verify a certificate/diploma.. and it is nothing like what is being presented here.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 19, 2012, 10:37:12 AM
Well (ahem) Vincent didn't say it was a genuine diploma - he just confirmed that it had the correct name. It could still have been faked.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Echnaton on July 19, 2012, 12:38:35 PM
I do not take anything that Vincent says at face value. 
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 19, 2012, 01:33:55 PM
I mean, for all we know, the diploma is underwater.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 19, 2012, 04:11:09 PM
Was it a Master's Degree.......in Science?

(Duck's Breath Mystery Theater quote.  On a totally unrelated note, I now have bragging rights of having FOH'd one of their shows.  Yet another near-brush with near-fame.)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 19, 2012, 08:19:08 PM
There is only one way to properly verify a certificate/diploma.. and it is nothing like what is being presented here.
To tell you the truth, I don't care where his diploma is from and whether it's fake or not. It won't change the fact that the man is just utterly deluded, and that his actual knowledge isn't anywhere near what he thinks he knows. He's demonstrated that very clearly for some time.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on July 23, 2012, 09:52:09 AM
I was reading some Apollo related book reviews on Amazon yesterday and noticed some character by the username "iruri" consistently giving any book or video on the subject a one star review. This is pretty absurd seeing as he usually states right away that he wouldn't even consider buying, reading or watching such material as he's convinced the landings where faked. The guy sounds a lot like hunchbacked even accusing one guy of treating Apollo as a religion. There have been numerous complaints from people about why Amazon doesn't delete these bogus reviews even though they seem to delete any reply's to "iruri" that might hurt his feelings.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 23, 2012, 11:03:57 AM
I went over and checked out some of his reviews. I don't think it's hunchbacked;  he has a very distinctive style that this guy doesn't have. Whoever he is, though, he's certainly quite delusional.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 23, 2012, 02:21:14 PM
Has anyone ever scratched a committed Apollo Denier and NOT found weirdness below?  Every one I can think of, even when they seem reasonably cognizant of how the real world works and can talk rationally about their Apollo theory, eventually exposes some strong belief in Ancient Astronauts or the Cold War being faked or chemtrails or other mind-boggling weirdness.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 23, 2012, 02:59:11 PM
Your observation has a name: Crank Magnetism.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: mako88sb on July 23, 2012, 03:52:06 PM
I went over and checked out some of his reviews. I don't think it's hunchbacked;  he has a very distinctive style that this guy doesn't have. Whoever he is, though, he's certainly quite delusional.

Your probably right seeing as you have dealt with hunchbacked a lot longer then me. He never mentions the CIA being involved at any rate.

I realize there's too many reviews being posted at Amazon for them to properly police them but when they get lots of abuse reports for one individual, you would think they would make some attempt to restrict his actions.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: pzkpfw on July 23, 2012, 06:37:27 PM
I was reading some Apollo related book reviews on Amazon yesterday and noticed some character by the username "iruri" consistently giving any book or video on the subject a one star review. This is pretty absurd seeing as he usually states right away that he wouldn't even consider buying, reading or watching such material as he's convinced the landings where faked. The guy sounds a lot like hunchbacked even accusing one guy of treating Apollo as a religion. There have been numerous complaints from people about why Amazon doesn't delete these bogus reviews even though they seem to delete any reply's to "iruri" that might hurt his feelings.

That got me curious so I had a look.

He gave a 5 star review to a Kaysing book, to which someone (Christopher Girvan) commented:

 "India Delta India Oscar Tango."


(Most of his reviews have an Amazon count like "0 of 7 people found the following review helpful", so I don't think it's too bad.)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: JayUtah on July 23, 2012, 06:55:05 PM
"India Delta India Oscar Tango."

Falcon one-one-zero.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: pzkpfw on July 23, 2012, 08:40:39 PM
"India Delta India Oscar Tango."

Falcon one-one-zero.

I don't understand. Am I Falcon zero-zero-one?


(Edit: (after next post) thanks. Never seen that one. Interesting...)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: cjameshuff on July 23, 2012, 08:43:35 PM
I don't understand. Am I Falcon zero-zero-one?

http://www.combat.ws/S4/SAILOR/APNDX3.HTM
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 23, 2012, 08:49:53 PM
Ah, got it. In EMS we used to have an off-the-book set of '12-' codes (to supplement the official '10-' codes) that were very similar.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 24, 2012, 12:07:32 AM
He gave a 5 star review to a Kaysing book, to which someone (Christopher Girvan) commented:

 "India Delta India Oscar Tango."
Or .. -.. .. --- -


Quote
(Most of his reviews have an Amazon count like "0 of 7 people found the following review helpful", so I don't think it's too bad.)
I'd like to think that Amazon would use these "helpful" ratings to weight each review in the average.

I see another problem with the Amazon review system. There were many 1-star reviews of the Apollo 13 Blu-ray disk, not because they hated the movie (far from it) but because they had extreme difficulty in playing it on their player. There ought to be a separate check box for media and packaging problems that have nothing to do with the quality of the program because these probably also bring down the averages.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: nomuse on July 24, 2012, 03:35:01 AM
Your observation has a name: Crank Magnetism.

Naw, I'm aware of that -- I call it the Pringles Effect myself (you can't have just one).  And this is even more than the stereotypical way the Apollo Deniers show up at the more structured boards looking polite and educated with "just a couple of questions."

It is the gaping void of weirdness that always seems to be there.  And the way it gets exposed in almost off-handed way.  You'll be talking about S-band communications or something -- and getting into a fair amount of technical detail -- and the AD will make a remark like; "Ah, but that only works on a ROUND Earth."

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 24, 2012, 04:46:27 PM
"You can't eat just one" was Lays.  Pringles is "once you pop, you can't stop."  However, Pringles is a more aesthetically pleasing name.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on July 24, 2012, 05:37:46 PM
After "Crossing the Line" (nauticalese for crossing the equator) and after being initiated into the Solemn Mysteries of the Realm of Neptunus Rex (nauticalese for getting your butt sheleighlied for a few hours and forced to endure various humilitating activities and thereby earning the hallowed title of Shellback.) one sailor* was overheard to ask his chief, "When we go back up north, are we going to cross the equator again or go around it?"

*The sailor was in my division. Not so bad in itself except my division navigated the ship!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 24, 2012, 07:20:29 PM
Well, he could have been joking...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 24, 2012, 08:46:39 PM
I think Hunchbacked has now gone totally mad. A new video "A Command module or the Nautilus?" claims that the interior scenes in the Apollo 11 command module showing Buzz Aldrin making a sandwich and spinning a can in zero g were performed under water, and that Buzz was replaced with an identical-looking imposter.

Look up "Delusional misidentification syndrome". It fits him perfectly.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on July 24, 2012, 08:58:07 PM
"They're here already!  You're next!"

Sorry, couldn't resist.   :o

(obscure? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFnSxeDfENk))

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 24, 2012, 09:09:23 PM
Believe it or not, I've never seen that movie. I know I should watch it, it's considered a classic.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 24, 2012, 09:12:35 PM
I hadn't even watched the whole clip when I wrote that last message, as it gets even better. The "actor" playing "Buzz" is wearing a mask, and the wires to his headset are actually tubes that allow the actor to breathe!

No question about it. This guy needs some serious help.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 25, 2012, 12:47:51 AM
even hoaxers are against him and call out his sloppy (if any) research he has made..
Quote
govt shills usually resort to Ad hominem as they have no other way to counter logic or truth. However in this case, hunch, I think your conclusions need more thinking through. It appears to buzz and we'd at least expect the CM to be in low earth orbit. Going down this road hurts all the other good research being done to expose Fakery and false flags. Just saying.
--he he.. "good research"...

the truly delusional part is when he claims the water buzz has on a spoon is actually air bubbles under water.
this guy really has lost his marbles
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Count Zero on July 25, 2012, 01:12:57 AM
Quote
the truly delusional part is when he claims the water buzz has on a spoon is actually air bubbles under water.
Ah, but you see, that would work if the CM set, filled with water was actually in zero gravity.  If they had launched it into an orbit with a very high apogee, they could avoid gaps in communications coverage.  Very clever, these Zionist-Nazi fakers who did it to impress the Soviets who were totally in on it...
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 25, 2012, 05:47:13 AM
Quote
the truly delusional part is when he claims the water buzz has on a spoon is actually air bubbles under water.
Ah, but you see, that would work if the CM set, filled with water was actually in zero gravity.  If they had launched it into an orbit with a very high apogee, they could avoid gaps in communications coverage.  Very clever, these Zionist-Nazi fakers who did it to impress the Soviets who were totally in on it...
but it couldn't, because rockets can't work in space since they don't have anything to push against.. :P
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ka9q on July 25, 2012, 08:24:53 AM
I don't think hunch has ever weighed in on the question of rockets in space. He's smart enough to avoid our attempts to bait him into an argument with that foulmouthed Brit who does claim they can't work in space. The Brit has become rather quiet lately; as I told him, those moments of realization must get harder to suppress all the time when trying to maintain a pretense of utter non-comprehension.

But hunch has definitely gone around the bend with this latest video. As somebody said in the discussion of the Chinese spacewalk, it all looks most unlike an underwater scene. I am particularly struck by how the refractive index of the "water" has been changed to exactly match air, and how it exerts absolutely no drag on and Buzz's spinning food can. The can is even wobbling because its center of mass is offset, and the water doesn't interfere it at all.

Maybe it's not actually water but superfluid helium. Why not? Makes about as much sense.

I think I've finally had it with this guy. He is so obviously bat-insane that there's no point in even trying to reason with him anymore.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Lunchpacked on July 25, 2012, 08:36:00 AM
I don't think hunch has ever weighed in on the question of rockets in space. He's smart enough to avoid our attempts to bait him into an argument with that foulmouthed Brit who does claim they can't work in space. The Brit has become rather quiet lately; as I told him, those moments of realization must get harder to suppress all the time when trying to maintain a pretense of utter non-comprehension.

But hunch has definitely gone around the bend with this latest video. As somebody said in the discussion of the Chinese spacewalk, it all looks most unlike an underwater scene. I am particularly struck by how the refractive index of the "water" has been changed to exactly match air, and how it exerts absolutely no drag on and Buzz's spinning food can. The can is even wobbling because its center of mass is offset, and the water doesn't interfere it at all.

Maybe it's not actually water but superfluid helium. Why not? Makes about as much sense.

I think I've finally had it with this guy. He is so obviously bat-insane that there's no point in even trying to reason with him anymore.
i know hunch tends to agree qith all hoaxers, and he has agreed with the english foulmouth about the issue.. funny thing, i saw "Chewie" a couple of days ago, and he is still "bleeping" (which started after i made a goanimate video about him 1-2 months ago, having the character say words like "bleepity bleeping bleep" instead of swearing), so it seems that i have atleast reached one moonhoaxer, but not like i intended. :P
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 25, 2012, 01:59:34 PM
Believe it or not, I've never seen that movie. I know I should watch it, it's considered a classic.


And it is!  We watched it in my film class.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 25, 2012, 11:19:52 PM
First, what movie are we talking about?

Second. This might fit here, or it might not. I'm not sure whether it's worth starting a new thread.

Is there any circumstance that you can imagine that would lead you to believe, or even suspect, that the Apollo lunar landings were a huge, complicated hoax?  Would it even be possible to mount such a hoax?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 25, 2012, 11:53:14 PM
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Which, depending on your political slant, is generally assumed to be an allegory for Communism or conformity.  In my film class, we were instructed to come up with something else it could be an allegory for (and no Christ metaphors; too easy--and no more turning things into Star Wars, which we'd done with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington).  My group suggested Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Second, we've talked about that one before.  Generally speaking, it would start with an explanation of how it was possible which covered everything.  Also, some real evidence of the hoax itself--the location of the giant vacuum chamber and so forth.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Noldi400 on July 26, 2012, 04:01:11 AM
Oh. Duh. Yes, of course - it just didn't register. A bit of trivia: in his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King reported that Jack Finney (who wrote the original novel) stated that he had no particular political slant in mind when he wrote it - it was just intended as a scary yarn.

Hoax: that's what I've noticed as missing from, I think, every HB's claims. They pick away at what they see as anomalies or contradictions, but not one (that I've seen) has actually put together a comprehensive hypothesis (I'll not dignify it as "theory") as to just how such a hoax would be pulled off.

This is probably no surprise to anyone here, but even with no engineering or related subject in my background, when I started following the HB's a while back even their "strongest" arguments seemed childishly stupid if you have even a little knowledge of the subject matter.

Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: ajv on July 26, 2012, 05:26:40 AM
For the past few months I've been trying to recall a scene that I'd seen or heard or read somewhere. The heroes were trying to escape the guards/police by pretending that their minds had been taken over and were now emotionless. But the woman cries out when they see a dog in danger and their escape is discovered.

It's not a famous scene but I couldn't place it: was it from Daleks - Invasion Earth or Earthsearch II or ... ?

But when Count Zero referenced "They're here already" I was reminded of the movie and recalled my forgotten scene. Thanks!
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: DataCable on July 26, 2012, 06:41:08 AM
The heroes were trying to escape the guards/police by pretending that their minds had been taken over and were now emotionless. But the woman cries out when they see a dog in danger and their escape is discovered.
Equilibrium comes to mind, but I think the only involvement of dogs in that one was the protagonist showing compassion for dogs which his fellow officers were about to slaughter.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on July 26, 2012, 11:15:04 AM
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Leonard Nimoy version
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: carpediem on July 26, 2012, 12:37:50 PM
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Leonard Nimoy version
Except it has a dog with a man's face which discovers them. The dog isn't in danger.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on July 26, 2012, 02:03:15 PM
Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Leonard Nimoy version
Except it has a dog with a man's face which discovers them. The dog isn't in danger.

Oh, right. What the Hell was I thinking?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: gillianren on July 26, 2012, 02:39:40 PM
Oh. Duh. Yes, of course - it just didn't register. A bit of trivia: in his book Danse Macabre, Stephen King reported that Jack Finney (who wrote the original novel) stated that he had no particular political slant in mind when he wrote it - it was just intended as a scary yarn.

Yes, and the film teacher in my class (it was the history of the twentieth century through film, and we had one film teacher and one history teacher) wrote to Don Siegel, the director, and got much the same result.  I believe the history teacher's point in making us come up with other things it could be an allegory for was to point out that you can claim art supports pretty much any perspective, if you work at it.  My class was inclined to work at it if it amused us.

Quote
Hoax: that's what I've noticed as missing from, I think, every HB's claims. They pick away at what they see as anomalies or contradictions, but not one (that I've seen) has actually put together a comprehensive hypothesis (I'll not dignify it as "theory") as to just how such a hoax would be pulled off.

They don't have a narrative.  They don't have a story to replace the extant one.  All they have is a claim that the narrative as we know it is flawed.

Quote
This is probably no surprise to anyone here, but even with no engineering or related subject in my background, when I started following the HB's a while back even their "strongest" arguments seemed childishly stupid if you have even a little knowledge of the subject matter.

Oh, likewise.  I've always been terribly open about my failure to really get a lot of the more technical arguments.  I see long strings of numbers, and my eyes just start to glaze over.  I'm grateful that there are people for whom that is not the case, but I am assuredly not one of them.  However, I have never once found a hoax argument even a little convincing, even when I don't really understand the real-world issues which make it obviously wrong, simply because the landings' being real makes more sense than faking whatever needs to be faked.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Chew on July 26, 2012, 03:22:34 PM
Recently at a skeptics conference there was a panel discussion on conspiracy theories. Ben Radford commented that one great way to stump a CT is to ask them, "What do you think happened?"
Not 5 minutes after he said that, during Q&A, one guy stood up and said he believed 9/11 was an inside job and started a Gish Gallop. Radford interrupted him and asked... wait for it... "What do you think happened?" It was hilarious!!! Radford said exactly how to shut up a CT and this idiot stood up and opened his mouth.
The guy tried to keep galloping but Radford kept pressing him to answer the question. The guy finally paused and had to admit he didn't know.
Few things are as pathetic as someone who desperately needs advice but won't heed it. And fewer things are as pathetic as someone who can't learn from their own mistakes.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: bknight on September 17, 2018, 03:06:50 PM
Warning Necro-thread revival
Some of his claims are just downright bizarre. Many, even if true, would make no sense in the context of a hoax.
Similar to He Who Shall Not Be Named, whose claims address the credibility of his critics on points that have little nor nothing to do with a hoax theory.  This is actually quite common in fringe argumentation, where opponents are running away from the common explanation rather than toward any particular one.  Hence their arguments tend to look like laundry lists of reasons not to believe some particular thing, rather than an explanation of how the data fits a new desired conclusion.

Quote
Many of his videos make it clear that he has great difficulty correctly interpreting 3-dimensional objects depicted in photographs, something that most people find intuitively easy.
Some more than others.  Spatial reasoning is a measurable trait that varies greatly from person to person.  People who want to be successful photo interpreters must develop that trait further.  Sadly there are people who don't recognize their inability to reason spatially.  Yet they profess to be experts.  Jack White is a notable example; he actually appears to reside on the low end of spatial reasoning skill, infamously unable to determine which way a Lunar Module is facing in any given photo.

Quote
It's hard to study a mental process that seems so intuitive and effortless to almost everyone.
Indeed, but it's not as transparent as all that.  We can study visual perception separately as a science, and this knowledge then informs how we interpret (and sometimes misinterpret) photographs.  The most successful photo interpreters are those that have some conscious understanding of how they might misperceive, and they take conscious steps to avoid those errors.

Quote
Sometimes I wonder if hunchbacked/inquisitivemind is actually a very elaborate and long-running practical joke, because no real, rational person could seriously believe the claims he makes. Yet he seems absolutely sincere.
I have to invoke Dunning and Kruger here.  He may be a real person, but he may not be especially rational in the sense of being able to assess his own ability and that of others.

This all occurred before my time.  sts60 brought it to my attention in a thread contained in ISF.  Anyway so who is "He Who Shall Not Be Named"?
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on September 17, 2018, 03:25:06 PM
Kangaboy, Jarrah White.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: bknight on September 17, 2018, 03:45:11 PM
Kangaboy, Jarrah White.

OK, but why was he tagged with that handle?  I've seen his name posted all over this forum.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on September 17, 2018, 04:58:15 PM
Pass
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: bknight on September 17, 2018, 05:44:53 PM
Thanks, anyway. :)
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: benparry on September 18, 2018, 05:11:47 AM
Hunchbacked is still very active on a few groups and pages on FB.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: Abaddon on September 18, 2018, 08:43:22 AM
Kangaboy, Jarrah White.

OK, but why was he tagged with that handle?  I've seen his name posted all over this forum.
Minimise search hits for the moron.
Title: Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
Post by: bknight on September 18, 2018, 08:54:04 AM
Kangaboy, Jarrah White.

OK, but why was he tagged with that handle?  I've seen his name posted all over this forum.
Minimise search hits for the moron.

LOL, Ok.