8961

Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 15, 2015, 05:52:30 PM »

So the director is admitting that it will be the same as the comic with exception of the events of Man of Steel that they are trying to shoe horn into this unoriginal sniper rifle-weilding Batman movie. Got it.

Tom, since when is TDKR the origin story of the Justice League?

They are cribbing the plot nearly exactly. A dead Robin, a Batman coming out of retirement, the nuke, the emp, the horses, a sniper rifle-wielding Batman, the Joker, a scene where large parts of Gotham are on fire, human factions aligning themselves with superheroes, Batman's super suit. Totally unoriginal. We saw that story already, 30 years ago. The fact that they are shoehorning in the events of Man of Steel and are forcing Wonder Woman and Aqua Man into it for the sole purpose of cashing in on future movies doesn't make it breathtakingly original.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 15, 2015, 01:11:03 AM »

In DKR the original Robin Dick Grayson is dead, and his costume in the BvS trailer seems to suggest that Robin is also dead in this movie.

Are you sure it's Dick Grayson and not the second Robin Jason Todd who's dead in the comic? Doesn't Alfred ask Bruce something like "Have you forgotten what happened to Master Jason?" when Bruce is thinking about recruiting Carrie?

Perhaps so.

The movie isn't a direct adaptation of TDKR, Tom.  It's obviously taking a lot of influence from it, but like Snyder pointed out in the article that someone linked a while back, the Superman in the comic is in a very different place than the Superman in the movies.  Also, Jason Todd was the Robin that the Joker had killed in TDKR, not Dick Grayson.

EDIT: What beardo said.

So the director is admitting that it will be the same as the comic with exception of the events of Man of Steel that they are trying to shoe horn into this unoriginal sniper rifle-weilding Batman movie. Got it.

8963

Earth Not a Globe Workshop / Re: The Conspiracy Chapter Notes

« on: July 14, 2015, 09:41:25 PM »

Thank you for those resources, Dionysis.

Some notes on Wernher Von Braun:

I am leading a campaign to demand a public apology from NASA for harboring the Nazi War Criminal Werner Von Braun. During the war he was a colonel in the SS and directly oversaw the slave labor camps which built the V2 ballistic rockets. Von braun was also a personal acquaintance of Hitler.

After the war Von Braun was brought to the US he was made director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and served as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle. His history was whitewashed and it is claimed he either that he knew nothing of the atrocities committed at Dora and Mittelwerk or that he was powerless to stop it. He is portrayed in his NASA biography as a jolly scientist who resented the Nazis, was apolitical, and was only pursuing his life-long interest in rocketry.

This is, in fact, false.

A survivor's account from Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility:
 

Like the good Nazi he was, he immediately started shouting that it was
sabotage, when just at that point VON BRAUN arrived accompanied by
his usual group of people. Without even listening to my explanations, he
ordered the Meister to have me given 25 strokes in his presence by an SS
[man] who was there. Then judging the strokes weren't sufficiently hard,
he ordered that I be flogged more vigorously, and this order was then
diligently carried out, which caused much hilarity in the group, and
following this flogging, VON BRAUN made me translate that I deserved
much more, that in fact I deserved to be hanged, which certainly would be
the fate of the "Mensch" (good-for nothing) I was.

A quote from an article called  The Rocket Man’s Dark Side, published by TIME:

Indeed, some 20,000 died at Dora, from illness, beatings, hangings and intolerable working conditions. Workers, scantily clad, were forced to stand at attention in the biting cold during roll calls that went on for hours. Average survival time in the unventilated paint shop was one month. One prisoner told of being bitten on his legs by guard dogs. Presumably to test the effectiveness of a new medication, one of his legs was treated, the other allowed to fester and deteriorate.

For reasons best known to von Braun, who held the rank of colonel in the dreaded Nazi SS, the prisoners were ordered to turn their backs whenever he came into view. Those caught stealing glances at him were hung. One survivor recalled that von Braun, after inspecting a rocket component, charged, "That is clear sabotage." His unquestioned judgment resulted in eleven men being hanged on the spot. Says Gehrels, "von Braun was directly involved in hangings."

Hangings were commonplace, and Dora inmates remember von Braun arriving in the morning with an unidentified woman, having to step between bodies of dead prisoners and under others still hanging from a crane. These were not ordinary hangings, Gehrels says, "not hanging that breaks the neck of the prisoner, but they were slowly choked to death with a kind of baling wire around their neck."

The above pieces are well researched and paint a bleak picture of Von Braun. Why couldn't NASA have taken the high road and focused on its own rocket scientists? Werner Von Braun should have been put in prison and sentenced to death as a war criminal, not made a director of NASA.

8964

Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 14, 2015, 08:00:49 PM »

I would not be surprised if the Joker was in Batman Vs. Superman. The trailer hints that the Joker will make an appearance. The Joker appears in The Dark Knight Returns, and BvS seems to be ripping it off wholesale in terms of action and plot. There are items which suggest his appearance. The newspaper:



And the "Ha Ha Joke's on you Batman" scrawled over Robin's costume:



In DKR the original Robin Dick Grayson is dead, and his costume in the BvS trailer seems to suggest that Robin is also dead in this movie. The way Bruce Wayne looks at the empty cowl further suggests that he is retired or semi-retired at the start of the film and brought out of retirement to deal with the issues raised by Superman's debut.

Then there's the rifle scene:



This shot of Batman holding a rifle is an obvious callback to the part in DKR where Batman curiously dawns a rifle:



I submit that, therefore, this movie will be entirely unoriginal, a direct rehash of the Dark Knight Returns. If anyone wants to know the plot or the ending of BvS, one can do so by picking up a copy of the comic book or watching the adapted Dark Knight Returns animated movie.

8965

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 14, 2015, 06:24:50 PM »

So the Earth is concave?  Have you measured the level of the horizon with a theodolite?  Is the same true when you are on top of a skyscraper?  I don't know where you are going with this.

Rowbotham has measured the horizon with a theodolite.

What theodolite did he use and how accurate is it? When standing on the ground the horizon is only 0.02 degrees below eye level. What was the topography where he made the measurement?  Did anyone else corroborate this?

You are saying that the ground is flat and level, when this is clearly not the case. I see the lands slope upwards to my eye level.

Well this is obviously a tromp d'oeuil and I hope you can admit that.  Why does the ascension cease at the horizon instead of continuing upwards?  Clearly because the ground is not ascending in fact.

The lands are ascending via perspective, and this has physical consequences. Go back to the multicolored box example. The angle of the box changed in relation to you the further you got from it, until it was facing you head on. The angle of the light rays from the box changed as the distance was increased.

If something is now 90 degrees from the ground, straight ahead of you, those light rays are coming in parallel to the ground.

If we are in a room and hold a laser pointer up to the level of our eye and shine it at a wall at exactly 90 degrees from nadir (straight down), are those rays not arriving parallel to the ground? It stands therefore, that when looking across the horizon, if a body is 90 degrees from nadir, on top of the ascending earth horizon in the distance, those rays are also arriving parallel to the ground.

Your ideas that perspective does not apply to light are simply wrong. If something is straight ahead and facing you, its light is being broadcasted from that side you see.

Another example. Imagine we had a very large and powerful laser pointer resting on the ground. It is turned on and beaming a very narrow light beam right close along the surface.  When we are standing next to the laser pointer we are looking down at it. But it is possible to get that laser pointer to shine on our face, directly into our eyes, by simply walking away from it (in the direction of the beam) until such a distance that the laser pointer is on the horizon and we are looking at it from its side. The straight beam of light, which is being broadcasted right near the flat surface, is now in our eyes. Since you agree with the multicolored box example, you must logically agree with this as well, which illustrates the matter succinctly.

8966

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 14, 2015, 01:07:49 AM »

So the Earth is concave?  Have you measured the level of the horizon with a theodolite?  Is the same true when you are on top of a skyscraper?  I don't know where you are going with this.

Theodolite evidence is addressed in Earth Not a Globe.

What I am getting at is that you are saying that the ground is flat and level, when this is clearly not the case. I see the lands slope upwards to my eye level.

Here is an analogy which will put the matter to rest:

Imagine we have a large pair of dice the size of a crate, say waist high. There are 6 multicolored sides, but only two sides are visible to you. The green number 5 is the side facing you, and the red number 3 is the top side facing upwards. If you are standing 2 feet away over dice and look down you will see mostly the top red number 3. As you walk away from the dice into the distance, the dimensions of the dice will change, the 3 will become squished with perspective as the side 5 faces you more. Eventually, if you get far enough, the 3 will not be visible at all, and you will be looking solely at the green number 5 side.

That the green number 5 is facing you head on, and the red number 3 cannot be seen, nor any other side of the box, can only mean that the light rays from the green face are traveling parallel to your eye, despite the box being supposedly lower than eye level.

Another example, imagine we have a long large tube sitting on the floor. Looking down on the tube next to it we see its cylindrical exterior. But the is possible to walk such a distance away from the tube, away from one of the openings, until we can see inside of it. And if the tube were on the horizon we could see through it entirely, and if we were aligned perfectly with the opening it would appear to us as a ring on the horizon.

Anyone knows that bodies in the distance on the horizon will be viewed from their side, no matter how short or tall. This fact, or even the fact that the angles change at all, demonstrates beyond doubt that the static straight line "side view" pathway of light you are imagining in your head does not really apply, and must account for matters of perspective. The angles literally change as bodies grow distant from you, as illustrated with the multicolored box example above. The angles will change so much, until you you have rotated a body 90 degrees between the time you stood over it and when it got to the horizon.

This phenomena is plain and visible, applies to "straight rays of light," and cannot be described without perspective.

8967

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 14, 2015, 12:51:56 AM »

I have been very clear. I don't know what you mean about light having to curve at all. Perhaps you should provide an illustration. Draw a perspective diagram with the horizon at eye level, and then put a dime on that horizon. Show me where the light curves. If you cannot coherently describe your position I am afraid there is little left for me to discuss here.

My position is perfectly clear: a six foot tall person looking at a 6 foot tall object at any distance cannot, in any circumstances, have that view completely blocked by a 0.5cm obstruction which is resting in the ground, given that the Earth is level. The same holds for any obstruction which is shorter than both the observer and the subject.

The ground ascends as it recedes, until it gets to the level of your eye. Just look outside in an area with no immediate obstructions. It looks like we live on the inside of a bowel. How is that?

8968

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 14, 2015, 12:33:48 AM »

I have been very clear. I don't know what you mean about light having to curve at all. Perhaps you should provide an illustration. Draw a perspective diagram with the horizon at eye level, and then put a dime on that horizon. Show me where the light curves. If you cannot coherently describe your position I am afraid there is little left for me to discuss here.

8969

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 10:42:08 PM »

Actually the Vanishing Point is a perspective term which is the point at which parallel lines receding from an observer seem to converge.

Then why do you refer to objects too small to see, yet are nowhere near the horizon, as having reached their vanishing point?  Perhaps you should choose one definition for vanishing point and stick with it.  It would make discussions like this a whole lot easier.  For objects too small to see, perhaps saying that they have reached their limit of angular resolution would be more appropriate.

I don't believe I have ever used that term in that way, as a place where things "vanish". Please read over my original post where I brought it up.

Perspective brings the ground up to the level of your eye. Things on the vanishing point horizon are at eye level. This is fundamental to perspective.

The earth is not perfectly flat, and so any disturbances on the surface will become apparent where the land rises to meet the eye, creating a mass, even if imperceptive, for which far and distant bodies which might be a magnitude further away, can shrink behind.

There are actually multiple vanishing points at the horizon. Objects at differing heights will appear to reach the horizon either sooner or later than each other, non-consistently, as they are each traveling along their own perspective lines into their own vanishing points.. Consider a plane flying at 1000 feet and a plane flying at 40,000 feet. The higher plane will appear to descend into the earth slower than the lower plane. In fact, the lower plane will disappear into the horizon faster, long before the higher plane. We see  from that example, which is undeniably apparent, that there are multiple sets of vanishing points which are height dependent. In the mountain example, the land below has simply reached its vanishing point before the mountain, and that is why the land at the horizon is at eye level, and the mountain beyond that is still above the level of the eye, remaining so until sufficient distance puts it into the horizon.

The descriptions above are the same as those in Earth Not a Globe, logically intuitive, and are consequence of the observations of our natural world.

8970

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 09:56:06 PM »

The part where a dime on the ground is 0.5cms tall and never would intercede between an elephant and my eyes except possibly blocking a small portion of the elephants toe.

The dime might only block a small portion of a toe if the dime is right up against the elephant. But what if the elephant is 1000 feet behind the dime?

No, it still would not work.  Try and make a scale diagram of the light rays and see if you can get it to work.  Post it here when you are done.  The light would all have to curve down towards the dime.

What do you mean "to scale"? Perspective is not "to scale." Distant elephants are tiny, and are easily obscured by dimes.



Everything gets compressed and shrunken with distance to perspective. If the elephant is illuminating one elephant worth of light in its immediate vicinity, at 1000 feet away where the elephant is smaller than a dime, and those light rays are likewise shrunken. The area the elephant is illuminating is now smaller than a dime.

8971

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 09:19:29 PM »

The part where a dime on the ground is 0.5cms tall and never would intercede between an elephant and my eyes except possibly blocking a small portion of the elephants toe.

The dime might only block a small portion of a toe if the dime is right up against the elephant. But what if the elephant is 1000 feet behind the dime?

The part where the dime is supposed to be on the ground blocking your view of the elephant rather than in your hand blocking your view of the elephant.  Rather than having us imagine it, why don't you draw a scale diagram like he asked you to earlier?

I drew a diagram. Perspective put the dime at eye level. No evidence was presented by the opposition that the horizon is not at eye level.

Incorrect.

Well, on the one hand, the perspective vanishing point is always on the horizon which is always very far away.  On the other hand, small things can become too small to see (vanish) long before they reach the horizon.  The dime could reach its vanishing point at a few hundred feet while the vanishing point on the horizon is several miles away.

Actually the Vanishing Point is a perspective term which is the point at which parallel lines receding from an observer seem to converge.

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

In graphical perspective, a vanishing point is a point in the picture plane that is the intersection of the projections (or drawings) of a set of parallel lines in space on to the picture plane. When the set of parallels is perpendicular to the picture plane, the construction is known as one-point perspective and their vanishing point corresponds to the oculus or eye point from which the image should be viewed for correct perspective geometry.

The way you are using it, as a definition of where things "vanish," has nothing to do with traditional perspective theory.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 07:57:31 PM »

The part where the dime is supposed to be on the ground blocking your view of the elephant rather than in your hand blocking your view of the elephant.  Rather than having us imagine it, why don't you draw a scale diagram like he asked you to earlier?

I drew a diagram. Perspective put the dime at eye level. No evidence was presented by the opposition that the horizon is not at eye level.

8973

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 07:39:11 PM »

But it is still just a trick of the eye. Tom needs to show the path of the light rays on a FE and how they can result in the effect he is describing. I sincerely doubt it is possible unless you start positing light that curves independently of refractive effects.

How is light curving when you hold a dime up to your eye and block out an elephant?

What I described is exactly the same, except it is perspective bringing the dime up to your eye instead of your arm, and it's happening further away.

I understand your position and requested you show the path of the light rays which make a plane appear to be a hill. Please let me know if you are having difficulty with understanding my request.

Imagine a light diagram of someone holding out a dime with their hand to obscure an elephant. Where does the light go and how does a small thing obscure a large thing?That is basically what would be drawn.

When I imagine what you are talking about I have to imagine light that does not travel in a straight line. Since light travels in a straight line I can only conclude that your assertion is incorrect.

The light leaves the elephant and can't hit your eye because a dime is in the way. What is difficult to understand about that?

8974

Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 13, 2015, 06:53:57 PM »

At one point, Batman and his followers are forced to ride horses because a Nuclear Warhead detonated in space causing an EMP, affecting the entire Western Hemisphere.



and, lo and behold, from the movie trailer we find a scene with horses:

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 13, 2015, 06:34:25 PM »

This movie also seems to be sharing the Dark Knight Returns's custom Batman logo:





The suit is essentially the same. From The Dark Knight Returns animation:



Concept art for this movie:

8976

Arts & Entertainment / Re: First Look at Ben Affleck's Batman

« on: July 13, 2015, 06:19:44 PM »

This movie appears to be based on the comic mini-series The Dark Knight Returns, which shares an animated film of the same name. The suit Batman uses to fight Superman, the human factions aligning themselves with super heroes, are all the same.

8977

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Baumgartner

« on: July 13, 2015, 05:58:18 PM »

Slightly off-topic Tom Bishop, out of curiosity, what does this picture represent?

http://s739.photobucket.com/user/jorroa5990/media/Screenshotfrom2012-09-26171216.png.html

—

It looks like he's trying to use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the distance from the earth where lines A and B intersect in space. It is unclear why, however.

8978

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 05:42:33 PM »

But it is still just a trick of the eye. Tom needs to show the path of the light rays on a FE and how they can result in the effect he is describing. I sincerely doubt it is possible unless you start positing light that curves independently of refractive effects.

How is light curving when you hold a dime up to your eye and block out an elephant?

What I described is exactly the same, except it is perspective bringing the dime up to your eye instead of your arm, and it's happening further away.

I understand your position and requested you show the path of the light rays which make a plane appear to be a hill. Please let me know if you are having difficulty with understanding my request.

Imagine a light diagram of someone holding out a dime with their hand to obscure an elephant. Where does the light go and how does a small thing obscure a large thing?That is basically what would be drawn.

How can the dime obstruct your view of the elephant if the dime is too small to see and below your eye level?

For the first point, the dime may be too small to see, but it is still going to block light rays. Consider a tower on the horizon. Although the bricks which make up the tower are too small to see, they are still each undeniably blocking the light of the things behind it.

For the second point, perspective places things at the horizon on your eye level.

Consider: Imagine we are on a very large dirt plane. We are 5 feet 10 inches tall. We look directly 90 degrees ahead at the horizon and see a dirt line. How can we see dirt at our eye level if we know that the dirt is 5 feet 10 inches below us?

From Chapter 5 of The Perspective Handbook by Joseph D'Amelio we read:

Anyone who has ever been to the seaside will have seen a horizon (as long as it wasn't foggy). This is the line you see far away, out to sea. It's the line where the water stops and the sky starts. There are horizon lines everywhere, but usually you don't see them because something like a hill or a tree or a house is in the way.

You always see the horizon line at your eye level. In fact, if you change your eye level (by standing up, or sitting down) the horizon line changes too, and follows your eye level. Your eye level always follows you around everywhere because it's your eye level. If you sit on the floor the horizon is at your eye level. If you stand up, it's at your eye level. If you stand on top of a very tall building, or look out of the window of an aeroplane, the horizon is still at your eye level.

It's only everything else that appears to change in relation to your eye level. The fact is, that everything looks the way it does from your point of view because you see it in relation to yourself. So if you are sitting looking out of the window of an airliner everything is going to look shorter than you because at this moment you are taller (or higher) than everything else.

In an editorial from the London Journal, July 18, 1857, one journalist describes the following from a hot-air balloon ascent:

The chief peculiarity of the view from a balloon at a considerable elevation was the altitude of the horizon, which remained practically on a level with the eye at an elevation of two miles, causing the surface of the earth to appear concave instead of convex, and to recede during the rapid ascent, whilst the horizon and the balloon seemed to be stationary.

During the rapid ascent in the balloon the author saw new and distant lands reveal themselves from the stationary horizon. His perspective lines were constantly changing, revealing additional lands, while the horizon line remained stationary at eye level.

It could be argued that this should not have happened if the earth were a globe. The horizon should have been seen to drop rather than remain stationary.

If you believe that the horizon is below eye level, that will need to be demonstrated, as experience in nature suggests otherwise.

8979

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 04:28:34 PM »

The dime vanishes at the vanishing point only in so much that you cannot easily see it, as it is beyond the resolution of the eye, which Rowbotham estimates to be at about one 60th of a degree in arc seconds.

Oh, so then the dime isn't necessarily on the horizon or at eye level?  Thanks for clearing that up.

How does that follow from what you quoted?

Well, on the one hand, the perspective vanishing point is always on the horizon which is always very far away.  On the other hand, small things can become too small to see (vanish) long before they reach the horizon.

Regardless if you can see it clearly, it's still going to obscure light rays from the elephant. It is a physical obstruction.

8980

Flat Earth Theory / Re: And the mountains?

« on: July 13, 2015, 04:23:08 PM »

But it is still just a trick of the eye. Tom needs to show the path of the light rays on a FE and how they can result in the effect he is describing. I sincerely doubt it is possible unless you start positing light that curves independently of refractive effects.

How is light curving when you hold a dime up to your eye and block out an elephant?

What I described is exactly the same, except it is perspective bringing the dime up to your eye instead of your arm, and it's happening further away.