1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 28, 2023, 10:31:33 PM »

Let's give you one shot at this. Define "fall of the curve".

2

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 25, 2023, 01:10:10 AM »

I doubt it would matter to those who already made up their mind about her credibility.

For sure. Luckily, I'm not one of those people, so I'm not sure why you haven't yet laid out your argument for how accepting hush money for lying about something makes one more credible.

As always, you'd be doing so much better if you were simply capable of honesty. 🙄

3

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 24, 2023, 11:30:01 PM »

How much of Daniels' lying can be attributed to receiving hush money and/or being required to sign an NDA on the matter?

Potentially lots and lots. Does it make her more credible if she accepted money for it?

4

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 24, 2023, 10:22:02 PM »

Trump has lied.  Then he's doubled down on lies.  Then he made up a new chart to justify his lie. (One example).

This entire diatribe collapses, since Trump says things which are true on occasion. This isn't a game of two doors, two guards, one who always lies and one who always tells the truth.

It's one person who repeatedly contradicted herself on the matter, one one person who didn't contradict himself. One of them is guaranteed to have lied (I'm ruling out a Schrödinger's Sex With Trump scenario for the sake of the argument). The other one is likely to have lied.

I see no reason to propose that Daniels is more credible than Trump in this scenario. She is guaranteed to have lied.

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 24, 2023, 08:16:27 AM »

Regardless, it’s irrelevant to Trump’s legal woes. He did pay her money in a possibly illegal manner.

Sure. I'm just responding to honk's bizarre suggestion that Daniels is more credible than Trump on this matter. I suspect she only is because honk personally dislikes Trump.

6

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 23, 2023, 11:21:59 PM »

I'd argue that Daniels is far more credible than a notorious liar than Trump.

Who's more credible? Daniels, who repeatedly said she didn't sleep with Trump, or Daniels, who repeatedly said she did sleep with Trump?

After all, she is very credible. So credible, in fact, that maybe both statements are true. Yes, that has to be it.

7

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 23, 2023, 08:31:23 PM »

Imagine unironically paying someone for the fact you didn't have sex with them.

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Appearance of the sun

« on: March 23, 2023, 09:23:42 AM »

I don't see why the photo would be dismissed as fake outright, without any analysis, and it's not what happens here. I would recommend caution when a 22-post account declares themselves an expert on this forum and asks you to "dude just trust me bro" on things like this.

Additionally, Magicalus, this style of posting is not acceptable here. If your post is not a sincere discussion of the Flat Earth Theory, it does not belong in the FET board. If you want to complain about how super right you are and how stinky FE'ers are, do so in the Angry Ranting board.

That said, your question is very non-specific. You want "an explanation for why the sun looks the way it does", which honestly gives us absolutely nothing to work with.

Please explain your argument (presumably in favour of RE?), and clarify what it is you'd like to discuss.

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 20, 2023, 08:41:27 PM »

Why would RE make a sharp horizon impossible? I mean, it wouldn't be perfectly sharp because of the atmosphere

I mean, you answered your own question. The horizon in RE curves downard with distance from the observer. This, combined with refraction, will cause it to gradually blur away.

the line between sea and sky is, on a clear day, very distinct

This continues to be false, and you've provided ample evidence for that. I really wish you could stop just restating it without making a further argument.

I think the word "gradually" is where we are stuck. The foggy day picture is a gradual fade. The other horizon pictures are not.

That certainly sounds like the disagreement. I explained what I mean by the term (and I'm going with a pretty straight-forward dictionary definition of "gradual" and "gradient"), and I showed you how you can verify the presence of a gradient in an image. My reading of what you're saying is "nuh uh, it's obviously not gradual", repeated ad nauseam.

Now, having thought about this some more I'm not sure there would be as much difference between a FE horizon and a RE one.

Yup. They'd be more-or-less identical, with too many different factors to account for to make a reasonable distinction between the two in real life.

One comment on the horizon dip thing - when I first came here the claim that the horizon always rises to eye level was vigorously defended by TB and on the Wiki.

Was it just Tom, perchance? I know he used to subscribe to the "no EA, just perspective" view, and, as far as I know, he was in the minority here.

Now it seems that Wiki page has been quietly deprecated.

"Quietly"? It sounds like you're trying to put a negative spin on this. We don't usually announce changes to the Wiki, but if you really wanted to track them, the changelogs are public.

It's how things usually work here - if a good debate takes place, we* try to update the Wiki to reflect the outcomes. This is evident in the Water Level Devices page (the closest I could find to an active defence of the horizon "always being at eye level") - it explicitly refers back to the thread, and includes copies of Bobby's pictures that tinypic has since deleted. This isn't some sneaky secret effort - it's preservation of information.

* - mostly Tom these days, though I used to have a good streak a few years ago, and I hope to get back into it.

10

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 20, 2023, 12:38:02 PM »

I personally wouldn’t consider presenting a passage explicitly stating that the horizon always rises to eye level taken from a former wiki page titled “Horizon always at Eye Level” as mindless quote-mining.

Emphasis on former.

Any comments on the other quotes you provided? How mindful were they? Why are you only focusing on one?

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 20, 2023, 11:25:46 AM »

Definitely my mistake in assuming that the items I mentioned in the wiki have much to do with FE.

They do have "much to do" with FE. The book is an important historical record, and provides useful context on how we developed over time. It used not to be available elsewhere, and has since once again become a well-known piece of our history. It absolutely "has much to do" with FE.

Unfortunately, this is on you for mindlessly quote-mining a resource you haven't bothered to familiarise yourself over the course of five years.

12

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Is it time for a new FAQ?

« on: March 20, 2023, 11:19:26 AM »

There seems to be an ongoing problem around here: RE'ers aren't quite sure what FE'ers believe.

This is incorrect. There is a small number of very persistent RE'ers who didn't bother to learn the basics, and who aren't interested in learning - they're just here to explain how right they are, no matter the arguments they need to make to get there. In this case, it's pretty clear that Stack simply searched for the words "eye level" and quote-mined whatever he thought would prove his point. Unfortunately, he didn't bother to find out what he's quoting, or why it's there, so he ended up citing an old book, which we preserved as a historical reference.

The book is clearly named in the page he quoted, and the page discussing the perceived dip in the horizon is in a fairly good state (not perfect, but what ever is?). The only source of Stack's confusion is Stack.

From the perspective of someone who doesn't read, it won't much matter what we write. As such, we will not be taking responsibility for the non-readers. It will be impossible to appease that group, nor should we expend any effort to try. The permanoobs are not, and have never been, the target audience of this place. We will not be changing for you.

13

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 19, 2023, 09:57:12 PM »

So now, if I say “some”, that still seems to be an issue.

Yes, it's still an issue, because you still don't have the first idea about FE, but you have the audacity to push beliefs onto others. Being "cautious" about how you phrase your complete lack of respect is not going to improve the situation. You need to fix the issue, not express it more cAuTiOuSlY.

Again, if I came here and started insisting that you defend something that "some RE'ers" believe (but which doesn't seem to have much to do with RE), you'd rightly think I'm out of my mind. Connect the dots.

For two, there’s some stuff in the wiki regarding horizon/eye-level/dip experiments

C'thulhu, give me patience. Yes, the Wiki documents a broad variety of FE and RE arguments, current and historical. You have to exercise a modicum of critical thinking, rather than just point at webpages you haven't read and say "duuuuuh here is some stuff?"

There’s also this in the wiki leading me to believe that some FEr's may dispute the dip:
“...since it is the nature of level surfaces to appear to rise to a level with the eye of the observer. This is ocular demonstration and proof that Earth is not a globe.”

Perhaps if you bothered reading the page, or at least its very first couple of sentences, you would know what you're quoting. It's very poor form of you to just go "huh, this is some stuff" and not include a link to what you're referencing. Let's help you out. What you're referring to is https://wiki.tfes.org/A_hundred_proofs_the_Earth_is_not_a_globe. The first line of this page is:

For a list of Flat Earth experiments see Experimental Evidence. The following is a verbatim copy of the book A Hundred Proofs the Earth Is Not a Globe by William Carpenter (1885).

Your second quote, unsurprisingly, comes from the same historical reference.

Stack, there's no nice way of saying this - you've spent half a decade here, and you still don't know how to use this site. You need to take a huge step back and start lurking - you should have done so in 2018. Learn to fucking read.

14

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 19, 2023, 03:30:06 PM »

As in some FE contend that the horizon line would and always rises to eye-level

Have you considered bringing it up with the people who hold this view? You're unlikely to find them here, and repeatedly trying to bait people into this by saying "well, sOmE FE'ers claim this" only encourages people not to take you seriously.

SoMe Re'ErS can't even figure out the difference between velocity and acceleration. SoMe Re'ErS think that spirit levels can only operate thanks to the nigh-immeasurable differences in gravity affecting 2 ends of the tube. And that's just with things sOmE rE'eRs claim today - if we started digging up centuries-old beliefs, there's more fun to be had. We don't hold all of RE accountable to that, because that would be an utterly psychotic thing to do.

If you want an argument from your anonymous "some FE'ers", go talk to them.

15

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 16, 2023, 05:42:27 PM »

Perhaps it's also because of the dip.

Perhaps; but that would directly contradict your compatriots' position that the opposite is happening because of the dip. That's pretty much the sad state this thread has been reduced to.

16

Flat Earth Community / Re: Question for my research

« on: March 15, 2023, 06:52:55 PM »

Sounds like you just identified a fantastic reason to do it 👀

17

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 13, 2023, 01:19:09 AM »

Basically your claim is that the horizon can't be sharp because we have an atmosphere.

No.

I repeat my invitation: if there is something you don't understand, you can try the radical approach of asking questions.

Can you explain that? It's the "Strength" slider I adjusted. The higher I set that the more and thicker lines it shows as edges. As I turn it lower those lines get fewer and thinner. If you turn it all the way down then you don't get any edges at all. So how would thicker lines imply less confidence?

Sure! Although you're correct that adjusting the "strength" slider would result in thicker lines, that's not related to what I'm saying. Within the same run of the same algorithm, a thicker line implies a more poorly defined edge. You can see that in action in several of my examples from earlier:



Ignore the "foggy day" portion (it's useless for oh-so-many reasons), but compare the """reality""" portion to the "mathematical model". See how the gradient translates to a visibly thicker line than the sharp delineation? (Or, in one case, see how the line isn't there at all for the "mathematical model"?). Although each example uses a different algorithm, the underlying reasons for this can be grouped together. In layman's terms - we know for sure that there's a boundary between two colours somewhere in """reality""" - but determining where it is is exactly is challenging, and hugely depends on how you define it. Thicker line, less obvious edge.

And what would that demonstrate? That there is no mathematical perfect edge?

Nah. You're really fixated on this "it's either mathematically perfect, or it's not there at all" thing. It's not helping your argument.

Now, I reckon you forgot what we're talking about by now, so let me offer a quick reminder. It was your position that a sharp edge would be proof of RE, and that a gradient horizon would be indicative of FE. My position is that this is not the case - you should be expecting a gradient in both models, and therefore your argument is a waste of time. We are now stuck on you simultaneously rejecting that there is a gradient to the horizon, while repeatedly stating "well, okay, it's not mathematically perfect, but duuuuuh". In reality, there are no ifs or buts about it. Take your favourite photo of the horizon (n.b., not a wave that's less than a mile away from the photographer) and inspect the colours. They will gradually fade away, as is expected of RE and FE alike.

So...I guess my wall doesn't have an edge then. Except of course it bloody does. Whether it's JPEG compression or lack of sharpness in the image or whatever, the picture doesn't show a perfect edge.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh. Are you sure you took a course on image processing? I'm getting suspcious here. You're not looking at JPEG compression or "lack of sharpness in the image". You're looking at interpolation (probably bicubic) - if you wanted to preserve the colour gradients, you should have used nearest-neighbour.

Here's a perfect black-and-white image, followed by a small portion of the same image, but enlarged with bicubic interpolation:




You keep slamming your head against tools you don't know the first thing about. That's not how you science.

Here's what happens if you enlarge your door/wall photo with the right tool for the job.



Gosh, look at that! There's hardly any gradient at all! And it would have been sharper if the initial image wasn't of arse quality. Of course, you could have just used a colour picker like I told you to aeons ago, but whit kan a man dae?

18

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 12, 2023, 01:15:59 AM »

You keep claiming this, but haven't explained why you believe it to be false

Of course I did. You're just a little preoccupied repeatedly declaring your supremacy, even when it defies RET. Let me know if you ever choose to break that cycle. It might not turn you to FE, but maybe it'll make you a semi-servicable denizen of the 21st century.

Yes. Of course you can produce different results by setting the sensitivity to different levels.

Ah. But that's not what I did, and you already know that's not what I did. I pre-empted your reaction and informed you that I didn't mess with the parameters, and that I certainly didn't take them outside of reasonable defaults. Of course, you're also not a moron, so you know some of the outcomes I showed you couldn't be possible by just adjusting "sensitivity" (not that you know what that means in the context of the algorithm you chose, because you don't know what algorithm you chose, but the intuition is there).

I used the one in Paint.NET. I can't remember exactly what sensitivity level I set it to, I can find out if you really care.

Oh, I don't care. I know what you did. It's you who doesn't. But let me spoil your fun a little further - it's not just finding out what value you picked for "sensitivity" that you need to move your argument forward. You need to find out what "sensitivity" is; what the algorithm you chose does.

Before you start thinking about Zeteticism, it would be prudent for you to at least understand basic science. Plugging data into programs you don't understand and hoping they'll support your preconceived notions just ain't it.

I did an image processing course as part of my degree by the way

I'm sorry, and there really is no nice way of saying this, but - I hope you don't expect me to be impressed. I spent most of my professional life teaching undergraduates, and I have a very low opinion of the system. You might as well tell me you've been potty trained. I don't disbelieve you, but I'm not immediately swept off my feet.

I do remember writing a simple edge detection algorithm. I wouldn't claim to be an expert in this, but I know the basics of how they work. I'm not as ignorant about all this as you suppose.

And yet you keep referring to them as if there was only one. That's why I showed you the outputs of multiple edge detection algorithms, without straying away from their reasonable parameters (again, plural). I don't just say you don't know how they work for the hell of it, nor do I do it to insult you. It's just that every message you send shows that you have no idea what you're taking about, beyond maybe a couple hours of a C++ lab.

And OK, I did set it at a level which detects the line. You got me.

I didn't "get you". In fact, I assumed you didn't touch the sliders. The fact that you did simply means that I underestimated how much you meddled with a sound methodology.

BUT, I don't believe that was fudging the results. In the image which shows the results of the edge detection tool the edges of the sails show as weaker lines than the horizon line. I mean...sails have edges, right?

Another example of you showing you don't know what you're talking about. For your algorithm of choice, a thicker line would imply less confidence in edge detection. But you thought the opposite. You're just slamming data into a program you don't understand, and confidently declaring your conclusions from outputs the meaning of which you don't understand.

And that's the reason your suggestion of a colour picker makes no sense. That would work in showing the difference between two pixels which delineate a perfectly clear edge, but those don't exist in the real world.

That's because you are, fundamentally, anti-scientific. You want to find an edge. You therefore reject any method that will not find one. But I didn't tell you to look for an edge - I told you to look for a gradient. And measuring colours of adjacent pixels is a very reliable way of identifying a colour gradient - they either do smoothly change from one colour to another, or they don't. There are caveats here, of course - some of the examples shown in these thread are hilariously JPEG-crushed - but let's learn how to crawl before running a marathon, eh?

Once again, I encourage you to do science. Don't sit here farting our declarations of how wrong I am - you didn't even understand what I'm saying, you're quire a few steps away from being able to analyse whether I'm right or not. If you have questions about I propose, try the radical approach of asking them.

It's not about what I want, it's about reality.

I passionately agree. I'll be ready for you whenever you'd like to discuss reality, rather than chasing results you want.

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 11, 2023, 06:03:34 PM »

Ummm....  The dark blue area in the bottom half of the picture is the sea and the light blue area in the top half is the sky.  To my eyes, there is a pretty clear and distinct change from dark blue to light blue in the middle.

And that, my dear friend, is why we don't measure these things by looking at low-resolution pictures with the naked eye. Even in your cherry-picked example, there's a clear gradient, which you could measure, if you were interested in not being a complete waste of oxygen.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Curvature of the Horizon

« on: March 10, 2023, 06:16:29 PM »

But I've shown examples and I've used an edge detection tool which demonstrates that the distinction between sea and sky is clear.

No, it does not. If your methodology demonstrates something that's false, you should seriously question your methodology. But sure, let's poke at it some more.

Using "an edge detection tool" (you didn't clarify what tool, how you set it up, or what it actually did - because you don't know any of these things) can produce the following results on a familiar image (this will of course not be an exhaustive list, just a sample):

Option 1:


Option 2:


Option 3:


Option 4:


Option 5:


Option 6:


All of these images were generated using fairly standard edge-detection algorithms, with fairly typical parameters. So, which one of them is "double-plus-good real"? Is it option 3, because it shows what you consider "obvious"? Or option 2 because it's the opposite of what you'd expect? Ooh, ooh, maybe it's option 5, which so beautifully identified the actual edge of your use of the gradient tool. You didn't even bother to place it in the middle when you produced your picture, you just wanted it to "look right".

Or maybe, just maybe, throwing a tool you don't understand at a problem is not the right solution here, especially when the tool was never designed to find what you're trying to find? Just a thought.

You might also notice that, even between different applications that did find an edge in """reality""", they found it in different places. Egads, your methodology, which was supposed to show us that locating the horizon is easy, results in... multiple possible locations of the horizon. Crazy how nature do that.

Pete has claimed that it's the wrong tool, his suggestion of a colour picker makes no sense.

You're very generous to yourself. Please try not to mix up you not understanding something with it making no sense. There are resources available out there to help you understand. This includes me - you can ask me questions instead of [checks notes...] screaming "FAAAAAAKE!" and running away.

No-one is claiming we live in a mathematically perfect world where the line would be perfect, but the distinction is clear enough.

I agree - the distinction is that your "foggy day" and "reality" (oh, why did you have to name it so...) sections show a gradient, and the "mathematical model" one does not.

Oh, wait, that's not the "clear distinction" you wanted. Huh.