Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - jimster

Pages: < Back  1 [2] 3  Next >
21
Suggestions & Concerns / How to insert image
« on: April 28, 2021, 09:30:38 PM »
I tried to insert image by copy and paste (nothing), by clicking insert image () and by click and drag. Apologies for being old and dense, probably missing the obvious.

Thanks in advance.

22
Flat Earth Investigations / Where is the sun in daytime?
« on: February 27, 2021, 06:32:40 PM »
When it is noon in Greenwich UK, the sun appears directly overhead, a little to the south. At that same time in Kolkata India, the sun is setting and appears to be on the surface to the west. In Chicago USA, it is sunrise and the sun appears to be on the surface to the east.

Plot this out on the map in the FAQ, and from Kolkata, the sun appears to be on the surface in Africa. From Chicago, it appears to be on the surface of South America. From Greenwich, it appears to be high overhead.

How do we figure out where the sun is at noon in Greenwich?

23
Flat Earth Investigations / Where is the sun at night?
« on: February 26, 2021, 10:31:49 PM »
On a clear night, I can see stars over the entire sky. Where is the FE sun? Seems like it can't be anywhere in the sky if I can see stars over the entire dome. Yet in other places, the sky is light blue and the sun is clearly visible. Even if the light shines directionally downward as a beam and doesn't travel far enough that I can see it when it is night here, I can still see stars in every direction. Why does the sun not block the stars wherever it is up there? Why does the sunlight not get to the entire earth when the comparatively weak light of the stars gets to me from the most distant part of the dome?

I hope some FE will explain. Thank you in advance.

24
Flat Earth Theory / Help me understand how light rays travel
« on: February 25, 2021, 09:10:27 PM »
My roommate invited me to go scuba diving at Anacapa Island with him. He had a boat at Channel Islands, near Oxnard. Anacapa Island is about 20 miles offshore. As we motored out, the shoreline disappeared, but you could still see the hills behind Oxnard, which looked like they were sinking beneath the horizon, until just the peaks, then nothing. Looking forward, the top of the Anacapa first became visible, then lower and lower until we could see the shoreline. The reverse happened on the trip back, first seeing the tops of the hills inland behind Oxnard, then more and more became visible until we could see the shoreline. The air was crystal clear and the sea was calm.

I want to diagram what I saw from the side, where did the light rays travel?

Can anyone explain how and why the light rays work to make this happen on FE? I am trying to diagram how this would work at various distances on FE. How can I see things beyond Oxnard and not be able to see Oxnard? Why does it look like the peaks sink into the ocean? I can see the tops of the hills beyond Oxnard, but I can't see Oxnard. I can see miles across the water, so no wave or swell blocked my view.

     /\
   /   \
 /      \                                                                                           
/        Oxnard______________________________boat____________
                                                                                                                                                         
Please show how the light rays travel when I am about 5 miles from shore such that I can see the sea for miles and the tops of the hills behind appearing to be right on the surface, yet not see Oxnard.

25
Every day the sun can be seen on the horizon at sunrise and sunset. As I understand Zetetic, that means that the sun is on the surface of FE. If the sun never comes close to the earth, then clearly the sun is often nowhere hear where it appears to be. How can I figure out where the sun is and how the light bends? Preferably, both the amount and mechanism of the bend?

Then I looked at the FAQ maps and tried to figure out where the southern cross is. At midnight in early December in Capetown SA, it is just before dawn in Perth and just after sunset in Rio. All of them see the southern cross to their south, but that is 90 degrees out between each, all pointing directly away from the center of the map. Clearly the southern cross is not where it appears to be. Again, where is it really, and how does the light bend?

Please help me investigate where the sun and southern cross really are, how the light is bending and why.

Thanks in advance.

26
Philosophy, Religion & Society / categories of truth
« on: February 07, 2021, 07:49:19 PM »
Epistemology is a rabbit hole, but ... I think it is useful to observe there is a way to categorize what people regard as truth.

1. Things the vast majority accept as true, roughly speaking - F=MA, Putin rules Russia, water boils at 212 degrees fahrenheit at sea level, Lindbergh was first to fly the Atlantic, US Declaration of Independence in 1776, Trump was the 45th president, the earth is round (oblate spheroid). These things have many consistent connections to each other, are documented in multiple original sources, and are relied on in daily life. Physics, chemistry, biology, history. These are sometimes controversial in small part, but physicists agree on a huge amount of physics (tested by use in gadgets) even if they don't agree on string theory or quantum.

2.  Things that only a few have figured out the truth of and are contrary to the general beliefs held above. These include black helicopters, 5g mind control, microchips in vaccine, Q, reptile overlords, chemtrails, etc, and of course flat earth. All these require some combination of conspiracy, ignoring of some evidence, violations of the laws of physics, impossible technology, acceptance of inconsistency with known fact, and creation of whole new phenomena whose only proof of existence is that it is necessary to support a conclusion that has already been made.

Example: Bob Knodel and his ring laser gyroscope sees 15 degree/hr precession, concludes there must be an unknown force they can't identify or measure.

The conspiracy has to be global, multi-generational, immensely powerful, yet secret, meaning so small and inexpensive that it can be hidden. The details are never available, it is always vague.

Example: A tiny number of people at NASA convince the majority that the earth is round and make their space shots seem real. The question "Who at NASA and SpaceX knows the truth and who is a dumb sheep?" can never be answered, just a continuing insistence that NASA can and does control everything from "stick pushers" to the "ice wall patrol". Simultaneously huge, powerful, complete, and yet tiny and invisible.

I claim category 1 is science, and category 2 is faith. In science, you look at all the facts and conclude, even if you don't like the results. In faith, you decide what you want the results to be and change or disregard any conflicting observations. If you look into any faith based belief, it requires conspiracy and disregarding facts and logic.

You can use category 1 to do useful things, like navigation. Category 2 does not produce useful gadgets. There are many category 1 navigation devices (astral, inertial, gyrocompass, time/speed/distance, odometer, geodetic markers), no FE map, sextant, star chart, nothing.

Whatever woeds you want to put to it, however you want to argue, I think FE is category 2, and category 2 is an excellent bet to be bs.

I don't like it that the earth is round, I would prefer we could measure distances in a flat plane, the notion of the water being held in quite opposite directions on opposite sides of the earth is difficult to accept or feel comfortable with. But the earth is round.

27
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Typhoid Mary
« on: January 31, 2021, 10:04:05 PM »
Typhoid Mary was forcibly isolated after causing multiple outbreaks of typhus, yet refusing to believe it and continuing to work as cook and nanny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

I think this is the same question as "can the govt force you to wear a mask?"

28
Flat Earth Investigations / FE claim from Wisconsin pharmacist
« on: January 31, 2021, 09:46:32 PM »
The Wisconsin pharmacist who intentionally sabotaged hundreds of doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine because he thought COVID-19 was a hoax, also believes the earth is flat and the sky is actually a “shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wisconsin-vaccine-saboteur-steven-brandenburg-is-a-flat-earther-fbi-document-reveals

Is this a real flat earth official idea, or is he just making stuff up?

If the Bible says God made the sky, and he says govt made it, is he a blasphemer, or just incorrect belief?

Does FE endorse sabotaging the vaccine (which was given to people)?

After reading the entire story, is he a good representative of FE thought and behavior? I think he is an archetype.

29
There are groups of people (you need a group, one alone would just look crazy) who believe in large, powerful, and yet perfectly secret (in the sense that no one can find evidence sufficient to convince the general public). Sometimes, these groups are confronted with news that makes their beliefs clearly wrong.

Examples:

Jehovah's Witness founder predicted the end of the world, several times. Spoiler alert, it didn't end. Yet there are millions of Jehovah's Witnesses.

The guy on "Behind the Curve" who got a ring laser gyroscope and watched it precess by 15 degrees per hour, even after he put it in a Faraday cage. Yet there remain FEs.

Q predicted that Trump was working with Mueller to bring down the democrat/hollywood pedophile/cannibal ring, and that a storm would happen, democrats arrested and Trump remaining president. To my knowledge, Q never made a successful prediction, nor was there any evidence that any prediction was ever true nor that Q was actually who he said he was.

What is this system of thinking where you become convinced of something, see real world evidence that it is not true, and yet insist ever more emphatically that it is still true?

Given this testament to faith, and the explanatory powers of changing the laws of physics and giant, multi-generational, yet perfectly secret conspiracies, is there any idea that can be disproven? 

I have been warned about off topic posting. I will be watching for that on this thread, as my only question, the OP topic, is: "How can groups of people maintain faith with valid evidence against and none for?"

30
Flat Earth Investigations / The bi-polar FE maps in the wiki/faq
« on: January 16, 2021, 08:59:00 PM »
I want to ask about distances, about what direction a ham radio operator points his antenna, about the north star and lattitude, about where the sun appears to be at a particular moment in different places on your map, about why the summer/winter and northern/southern hemisphere stars are not visible at the same time, why planets are "wanderers" while stars appear to move in perfect formation, about why the water doesn't run off the edges without the ice wall idea, what happens if you fly os sail off the edge, about how a storm originating in the south pacific gets to CA, about the route of the Vendee and the Ocean Race make any sense on your map, the relative sizes of Australia, South America, and Africa, about how the sun at noon over Africa appears directly east of both Tierra Del Fuego and Newfoundland, what happens if you sail west from the equator at the South American coast.

And my very favorite, where is the north star on the bi-polar FE map, is there a place it can be that gives your lattitude to every place in the northern hemisphere, is not visible in the southern, and appears to be on the surface of the earth at the equator?

Looking for a satisfying, plausible answer.

31
There must be Trump supporters here, flat earth and Trump are both at heart conspiracy theories. What id the people storming the capital expect to happen?

Did they think they would take hostages, get their way, Pelosi would start doing whatever the Trumpers wanted through fear? Would they kill her and replace her with a Trumper? Then they all go home, back to their jobs, la-de-da? The legislature would vote to decertify the election? Announce that "everyone knew Trump would win, so if he didn't, there must have been fraud, so Trump is still president"?

Help me out on this, and no general answers. Vague answers enable delusion conspiracies, specific answers find the truth.

Anyone here understand how this was supposed to end in a good way for Trump? Details, please.

32
Flat Earth Theory / How to make a FE map, step one.
« on: July 08, 2019, 01:53:04 AM »
Mathematically, if one knows the distances between known locations, one can fit them to a surface and produce an accurate map.

But what will FE take as thise distances?

Can we use Google, mapquest, bing, etc?

If not, how can we determine those distances?

I need several landmarks spaced hundreds of miles apart and their distances. How to get?

For instance, Stockholm, Paris, Cairo, Moscow. What are the distances between these cities? Can I use the Google/bing/mapquest distances?

33
Flat Earth Theory / how do gyrocompasses work on FE?
« on: July 07, 2019, 10:40:28 PM »
What does FE think of gyrocompasses?

Do they exist?

Do they point north?

Since they have no magnets and work by conservation of angular momentum and not by magnets, how do they work on FE?

34
Flat Earth Theory / question about sun in dome model
« on: April 16, 2019, 06:11:28 AM »
The sun is still up there at night, and can't be seen because it is too far, atmospheric scattering or perspective and vanishing point. Both of these are gradual and linear. Why does the sun not get progressively smaller and dimmer until midnight, when it would again gradually become visible? All day, bright enough to light up the entire dome until just before sunset, then the rate of darkening gets waaay faster and soon completely wrong. Why the suddeen change in the darkening rate?

35
Flat Earth Theory / knowing the distance to the moon
« on: April 10, 2019, 10:11:09 PM »
There are several ways to measure the lunar distance, for instance using the radius of the earth and measuring the lunar eclipse, Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos in the 4th century BC and later by Hipparchus, whose calculations produced a result of 233000–265000 mi. Also parallax, meridian crossing, and occultations.

By recording the instant when the Moon occults a background star, (or similarly, measuring the angle between the moon and a background star at a predetermined moment) the lunar distance can be determined, as long as the measurements are taken from multiple locations of known separation. Notice this depends on the star being behind and much farther away.

In 1950, it became possible to bounce a radio signal off the moon. Governments, scientists, and amateur radio operators have bounced radio waves off the moon and timed the return Given the speed of light.

More recently, a laser was bounced off the moon and the distance calculated by the speed of light.

Should I conclude the moon is about 238,000 mi away, as determined by these several methods?

36
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cartography

In the 1700s, the Cassini family made maps of France. These maps are so accurate that they can be superimposed on current maps and the roads match. This map was used by many, detailed and accurate. At the same time, the east coast of the Americas had been axplored, settled, and mapped accurately. The west coast of the Americas is missing or wrong on these maps, as is Australia, Hawaii, Alaska. Baja CA was shown as an island in one famous early attempt at a map of the est coast of the Americas.

So at the same time, cartography had a reliable, useful, accurate map and a map of the Pacific rim that was wrong and incomplete. So what to think of cartography? Accurate and useful, or wrong and in need of overhaul.

The same situation exists in modern science. Like France in 1800, many people had walked the territory and worked out where everything really was. We could say the map of France was "settled", so much confirmation and so many using the map. Few Eurpopeans had explored the west cioast of the Americas and the pacific, so the maps were sketchy and often wrong. As more people came and explored more, those maps converged on accuracy.

In 1800, one could say, the maps of the pacific keep changing, maybe cartography is screwed up. Perhaps we should doubt the map of France? If you don't acknowledge the reasons why some maps are more accurate than others, you could make false claims and waste time re-doing the map of France.

Similarly, in science, some areas have been thoroughly mapped and those maps repeatedly checked. These areas are things like F+MA, the preiodic chart, and round earth. You can dispute this, but these maps have been subject to many tests and are never wrong. There is a "new world" in science, noty accurately mapped yet, people still working on difficult to explore questions. The science equivalent is big bang, string theory, and quantum. Like the maps of the pacific in 1800, there are incomplete and conflicting maps. Even scientists will agree that this stuff is not completely or certainly understood.

My point is that when you are discussing with FE, they can always say you might be wrong, because science is wrong/incomplete/controversial. Yet the "settled science" of things long discovered, tested many times by experiment and by engineers is so likely that most treat it as true, and it works. FEs try to put the incompleteness and error corrections of big bang, quantum, and string theory off on some very tested and well known science.

In other words, in 1800, saying the map of France is wrong because the maps of the new worlds are may bolster your argument, but revisiting F=MA, the periodic chart, and the earth is round is a waste of time. The earth is flat has the same odds as F not equal MA and the periodic chart is wrong.

37
Flat Earth Theory / zetetic vs atmolayer
« on: March 17, 2019, 10:20:41 PM »
The idea of zetetic is everything must be by direct experience. Look out your window, does it look flat, and do you feel it move, that tells the tail.

In explaining star trails and any optical or radio observation that seems to mean the earth is round, FEs talk about an "atmolayer" that furnishes the necessary diffraction to make it look round by bending the waves in some as yet not known way.

Since no one has seen the atmolayer and it has not been measured or studied in any way, does this conflict with the zetetic philosophy? Can there be zetetic science about something that no one has ever seen?

38
Flat Earth Theory / What do all FEs agree on?
« on: March 17, 2019, 07:37:03 PM »
When I ask about various things, FEs often say they don't agree with some other FE's idea, for instance you say "that map is wrong", they say "well, some other FE's map and I don't believe that one". Seems to me worth discussing the things that all FEs agree on, the "settled science" of FE.

What are those things, what do all FEs agree on?

39
Flat Earth Theory / amateur radio operators
« on: March 17, 2019, 07:13:38 PM »
Amateur radio operators think they are using satellites they built as relays for long distances using line-of-sight frequencies.

https://www.amsat.org/

They think they are going to use SpaceX to launch their new satellite.

They think they point highly directional antennas at their own satellites and successfully broadcast to someone far away all the time.

Search youtube or google "amateur radio satellite", many many hams all over the world, moonbounce, talking to ISS, aiming their antennas with RE geometry, etc.

Here are the things hams think about RE:



Are there any FE hams? Will there ever be?

40
Flat Earth Theory / studying sun using zetetic
« on: March 17, 2019, 06:29:22 PM »
Last night I did zetetic observation of a sunset. It appeared the sun went down below the western edge of the earth. This morning I observed it emerge from below the eastern edge of the earth. So, as I understand zetetic, the truth is exactly what you see. It appears to me that the sun went underneath the earth and came up from the opposite edge.

Is this a good zetetic conclusion?

Pages: < Back  1 [2] 3  Next >