1681

Flat Earth Theory / Re: gravity

« on: February 15, 2016, 02:54:07 AM »

Please look up the Equivalence Principle, it should answer any questions you might have of this nature.  It was Einstein who said that the effect of gravity was equivalent to that of a constant acceleration, not us.

Yes, I have looked up the Equivalence Principle in the Wiki and elsewhere and maintain that it cannot be legitimately applied to the whole earth.

Irrelevant.

1682

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Greed

« on: February 14, 2016, 06:20:00 AM »

I don't see how working to get things you like is greedy

You're just not a good person obviously.

1683

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Diplomacy

« on: February 14, 2016, 06:17:46 AM »

I'm in too.

1684

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: 2016 US Presidential Race

« on: February 14, 2016, 04:26:48 AM »

It doesn't matter who wins the Presidency now that Scalia croaked. The liberals will overtake the SC.

Don't worry, the Republicans will ensure there's a vacancy in his spot until after the election.

1685

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: A victory for Satanism is a victory for America

« on: February 14, 2016, 01:58:06 AM »

I used to hang out with a couple Satanists.  Nice people, though the ritualistic cannibalism kind of turned me off.

1686

Flat Earth Theory / Re: gravity

« on: February 13, 2016, 07:30:51 PM »

Please look up the Equivalence Principle, it should answer any questions you might have of this nature.  It was Einstein who said that the effect of gravity was equivalent to that of a constant acceleration, not us.

1687

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Gravitational Waves

« on: February 12, 2016, 02:53:37 AM »

They aren't mutually exclusive though.

I don't see why you would assume Junker is saying they are.  That they are not mutually exclusive does not mean that they must both exist.

1688

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: 2016 US Presidential Race

« on: February 12, 2016, 02:48:03 AM »

In this particular case, I'm linking to an archived homepage of HuffPo featuring this:



The original is unavailable since the homepage has since changed

I admit it's a blaringly sensationalist headline, but do you really not think Trump has shown himself to be all three of those things?  Comparing it to talk of "Obama's concentration camps" (which I'm assuming don't actually exist in the real world, though you can correct me if I'm wrong) seems to go a bit on the deep end.

1689

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

« on: February 05, 2016, 08:09:51 AM »

As for the TV shows, Arrow is great.  It's not a popular opinion, but I actually think the first season of it was my favorite, possibly because of it being grittier and more realistic.  The dark tone felt less effective when later seasons added more fantastical elements to the show.  Also, I wish they would come up with a different seasonal arc to the villain trying to destroy the city.

I loved the first season.  The first season finale is easily the show's finest moment, and even looking back I think one of the best hours of TV ever (helping to cement my opinion that this is the best show currently on TV, even if it doesn't always reach those highs anymore).  I think the second season was the best because Manu Bennett as Slade was the perfect villain; his murdering of Moira felt both shocking and inevitable at the time it happened, which is quite a feat to pull off; on the whole, Slade's thirst for vengeance was terrifying, and Bennett played the part perfectly.  The third season was just too busy (and I echo your opinion that the show loses something the more supernatural it gets, although I think it's still pretty fantastic).  It was still good, some of it great, but it didn't reach the levels that were reached in the first two seasons.  My biggest criticism of the show as a whole is probably the same as yours; they lean too heavily on the entire city being at risk to hang the season on.  I think it might be because that first season finale was so fucking incredible that they keep trying to top themselves, but by now they should probably give it a rest.  It did lead to one of my favorite lines in the series - Detective Lance in the season 3 finale saying "City's under attack, must be May" or something to that effect.

The Flash is also great, and its eschewing of darkness in favor of Silver Age wackiness has been to its benefit, although my one big criticism is that the romantic subplots keep repeating the same tired, predictable, and painful-to-watch tropes about how Barry can't tell his love interest that he's the Flash because that'll put her in danger even though she's already been put in danger many times and now his relationship with her is suffering because he has to make excuses and run off at inopportune times, blah blah blah.

My biggest problem with the first season was that it took Iris so long to catch on.  Or was she told?  I can't remember exactly.  At any rate, she's a reporter.  There was a point where it seemed like everybody but Iris knew that Barry was the Flash, which kind of just makes her look stupid (of course the exact same criticism can be leveled at Laurel on Arrow... who's a lawyer; but really the less said about Laurel's character the better).  My other criticism of the show is that some of the time travel elements just don't make sense if you stop to think about them.  But it's goofy fun, the TV equivalent of a popcorn movie, so I'm willing to let some of its more glaring flaws slide.  Mark Hamill playing The Trickster, basically using his Joker voice from the Batman animated series, was such a hoot.

Constantine I watched when I heard that Matt Ryan was going to guest-star in an episode of Arrow, apparently linking their continuities together.  I'm not sure if that really did end up making all the events of that show canon within the Arrowverse/Flarrowverse/whatever, or if it was just Ryan's take on the character.  Probably the latter, but I wouldn't blame the CW too much for that, as Ryan's performance was easily the best part of Constantine, which was in all other respects just okay.

I still have to watch Constantine.  I saw the pilot and I guess it just didn't impress me much, because even though I've been a fan of the comics for a long time I just never made it a point to watch it or get caught up on it.   

I haven't seen Lucifer at all, but frankly, that show just looks terrible.

I watched the pilot.  The guy playing Lucifer (Tom Ellis) seems to be having a lot of fun with it.  The fact that it's basically a police procedural featuring Satan in the main role feels like a bad joke.  I'd like to think they'll break out of that mold and go for something deeper but I don't have much faith in that happening.  I never read Mike Carey's comic but I always loved Neil Gaiman's take on the character in Sandman.  I enjoyed the show despite the fact that its premise is so dumb, probably because of Tom Ellis' performance more than anything else.

And then there's Gotham, which isn't a bad show so much as it is completely fucking nuts.  The people behind this don't seem to have any idea what kind of show this is trying to be, and apparently keep trying to re-invent it entirely every few episodes.  Or maybe they all just disagree on what the tone should be.  In one episode they'll be trying to keep it grounded and gritty like the Nolan films, in another they'll be wanting to base it on the Burton films, in other episodes it goes for camp so goofy that it feels like a tribute to the 60s show, and then there are some episodes that I can only assume were inspired by the Frank Miller comics the writers were using to snort lines of cocaine.

I know it's a common criticism that Gotham often feels like it doesn't know what kind of show it wants to be.  I don't think its lack of consistency is quite as bad as you make it out to be; even at its campiest there's a strain of darkness that puts it above the level of the old TV show, and on the flip side of the coin, even at their darkest the comics still retain some elements of camp; with a Rogues Gallery that includes characters like The Ventriloquist, The Riddler and even The Joker I think that's inevitable.  So I don't mind it having a presence on the show and I think it's at least consistent with the comics.

Sometimes the writing is just awful.  That whole Jerome subplot was silly and cliched to the point that they were making it so obvious that he was meant to be the Joker that I saw it coming from a mile away that he wasn't going to end up being the Joker.  I hate to say "This is how I would have done it..." but hell, this is how I would have done it: I think it would have been interesting if they had introduced a series of characters who each in their own way share traits of the Joker, so that we never really know which one it ends up being (it would have been a nice tribute to the multiple-choice nature of his origin in the comics).  But they fucked that up when they made it so obvious that he was Joker, and then fucked it up worse when they killed that goofy motherfucker off, and the show was still the better for the latter, because he was terrible.

I guess it's mostly the performances that keep me going back, particularly Robin Taylor as Penguin, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, and Sean Pertwee as Alfred.  The rest of the cast is fine for the most part (and I will never get tired of seeing Morena Baccarin, even if her character is a bit thin), but I really can't stand the kid that plays Bruce.  I don't know; maybe it's just too understated to the point of being boring.  But somehow one of the most interesting and complex characters in comics becomes trite and one-note in that performance; too much the mask that is Bruce and not enough the actual character that is Batman, if you follow.  I also don't miss Fish Mooney.

1690

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Official Sports Thread

« on: February 04, 2016, 04:17:05 AM »

football

lol

1691

Flat Earth Community / Re: Zetetic method VS scientific method. A forum game.

« on: February 02, 2016, 03:53:15 AM »

zetetic method:

modern medicine in general.

Double blind studies are Zetetic?

Certainly.  I'd love to hear how you think they are not zetetic? 

Double blind studies generally start with the hypothesis that the medicine being studied works better than a placebo.

They are then analyzed without any preconceived expectations about that hypothesis being allowed to influence the results.  Double-blind studies effectively take the inherent bias out of the scientific method, and it's that bias that zetetics criticize about the scientific method more than anything else.  For sure, they are an example of applied zeteticism at its finest.

1692

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Some what I think are simple questions to answer.

« on: February 02, 2016, 03:48:20 AM »

The more commonly agreed length he would have been using for a stadion put his estimate at 16% off what REers now claim is the circumference of the Earth.  That is a good guess at best.  If I measured my height and told you that I was seven feet tall while standing in front of you, you would think I was an idiot, because it's clearly almost a full foot taller than I actually am.  That's comparable to the difference between what Eratosthenes came up with and what modern globularists come up with.  If a poll was done that was said to have a margin of error of +/- 16%, nobody would take it seriously.  Again, that's comparable to Eratosthenes' accomplishment.

But keep trying to defend its accuracy, by all means, because every one of you that does so only proves my point about the gullibility of REers.

1693

Flat Earth Community / Re: Zetetic method VS scientific method. A forum game.

« on: February 02, 2016, 03:14:01 AM »

zetetic method:

modern medicine in general.

Double blind studies are Zetetic?

Certainly.  I'd love to hear how you think they are not zetetic? 

1694

Flat Earth Community / Re: How do we know the Earth is spherical?

« on: February 01, 2016, 03:03:54 AM »

Mods, hasn't this ridiculous video been debunked thoroughly enough that a thread featuring it automatically belongs in Angry Ranting by now?

1695

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Some what I think are simple questions to answer.

« on: February 01, 2016, 02:00:27 AM »

I did and after reading your reply went back to check and did not see any answers.

Try reading harder.  I have faith in you!  And try the wiki too.  There's bound to be something about Eratosthenes' crackpot observation in there somewhere.

Just why was "Eratosthenes' crackpot observation" so crackpot. He used his eyes and senses, with a bit of help from others. He had very primitive measuring tools! Yes, he paced out (probably paid someone) the distances, and measured shadow angles by measuring the lengths of the shadow and the pole. Surely that's as Zetetec as you can get!

Why you call him a "crackpot" was he based his result on a spherical earth, but that had been accepted for hundreds of years!

Yes, if the flat earth was the accepted model at the time I guess he would have come up with a figure for the height of the sun.

But, I challenge you to repeat Eratosthenes experiment but with a number of very different spacings of the measuring points.  Say 7.5° (almost the same as Erosthanes), 15°, 30°, 45° and 60°.  I am sure you can find members that live in suitable locations.  I think you will find great differences in the height of the sun - mind I have seen some weird explanations for this!

But, please don't label these old observers as "crackpots" because they disagree with you.  Up until the telescope they had little more in the wasy of measuring instruments than eyes and angle measuring instruments that could be constructed with the tools available - mind some very amazing instruments were constructed.

Eratosthenes wasn't even close to what REers claim is the true circumference of the Earth.  It honestly boggles the mind that REers are so quick to point to him as helping to prove your theory.  This is why we FEers refer to the indoctrination we go through our entire lives as brainwashing! 

1696

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Ultimate Proof?

« on: January 31, 2016, 05:47:57 PM »

It's actually kind of funny.  People have been saying "I suspect in the next two years..." for as long as I've been a member here, nearly a decade.  Some things never change.

1697

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

« on: January 31, 2016, 05:35:04 AM »

Dark and brooding is fine as long as it fits the character.  It does not fit Superman.

How can Superman be dark and brooding when his family crest literally means hope?

How is this question not a total non sequitur?

1698

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Do other planets exist?

« on: January 31, 2016, 12:07:57 AM »

You say they're real so they must have been taken at different angles of a round object (according to you).

No, I never said that.  How could that be when the Earth is flat?

You told me to use google to find pictures of the Earth, you claimed those pictures are real, the pictures in google images show many different continents as the central focus, this is impossible if the earth is flat.

Do you have any evidence to support your outlandish claim?

Where did I slip up?

Obviously you aren't taking aetheric refraction into account.

You need more consistency in your logic to get people to believe your conviction.

Frankly I don't give a shit if you believe my conviction.  Go away if you don't like the answers I give you.  You are a typical smug REer.

1699

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Do other planets exist?

« on: January 30, 2016, 10:38:07 PM »

You say they're real so they must have been taken at different angles of a round object (according to you).

No, I never said that.  How could that be when the Earth is flat?

1700

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Do other planets exist?

« on: January 30, 2016, 10:01:29 PM »

So where are the pictures of our planet from space?

Can't you use google?  They are not hard to find.

So you are a round worlder, showing pictures of the earth from different angles would be evidence of a round world and you have bought it. Why are you here?

No, I am a Flat Earther.  I can observe for myself that the Earth is flat, I don't need images from a million miles up influencing my judgment.

Now I'm confused, how do you see pictures of the world at different angles, think their real and also think the world is flat.

I'm confused by what you mean by seeing the world "at different angles".  I look down, I see a flat Earth.  The only angle i need to see that is 90 degrees, though it works equally well at 45 degrees or 60 degrees.