Swing by this new debunking website:

http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk

It has some good stuff including a "HB Checklist":

Quote: "HB Checklist

Next time you visit an Hoax-believer's site, why not amuse yourself by calculating it's level of silliness using the simple checklist below.

Start with a score of zero and add the appropriate amount for each item on the checklist that you find:

+1 for each use of the term 'Astro-not'

+1 for each unreferenced photgraph.

+2 for each HB Howler used.

+2 for excessive use of UPPER CASE text to emphasize points."

... and the checklist has several other items, such as this one:

"Promises to provide startling new evidence. For a price. (+50)"

I also love the statement at the very bottom of the page:

"Please note: If you are the subject of this website, and you feel in anyway maligned, ridiculed libeled, misrepresented or otherwise wronged, do not hesitate to send us an e-mail, which we shall subsequently ignore"

http://www.nasastooge.fsnet.co.uk

PS: It also has links to Clavius and BA under the headline "The Good Guys - follow these links and you'll learn something" !!!!!

JJ



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JJ on 2002-04-28 10:04 ]</font>

Looks great. I'm going to be browsing this one for a while. I especially like "Howler #4--Seethruart". HWSNBN actually has an entire category to himself. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Oh, and welcome aboard JJ. Thanks for the link.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Cool link. Thanks.
My goodness! Is HWSNBN still around? I haven't even seen him at JREF for ages. I thought the guy had finally been rubber-roomed.
Lisa

HWSNBN? JREF?

He who shall not be named? (Who that is, I have no idea).

The (Go ahead, name me. See if I care) Incubus

__________________
"Science is a way for us to not fool ourselves." - Richard Feynman

He Who Was Not To Be Named was a bloke who claimed to see images in magnified pixels in jpeg images, never realizing the way that jpeg images distort actual bit-map images.

If you take a picture of a person standing against a white wall, and convert it to jpeg format, you will probably see a strange blurry outline around the person's silhouette. This is because the jpeg format has "compressed" the entirely of the white wall into a large data region of "only white." It makes the image take up a lot less space on your disk drive. But it also means that a lot of data is "lost" and then "reconstructed" by the image algorithm.

I'm not very good at web pointers, but you can probably find examples of what I'm trying to describe.

This poor bloke, seeing these compression artifacts, insisted that they were real. This led him to imagine that he saw faces, spaceships, cities, etc., where there actually weren't any.

You can actually do the same for yourself: take a digital camera, and go out to your backyard: take a nice close-up picture of a square yard of your lawn. Then bring the image back to your computer and convert it to jpeg format.

Now, look at it closely. Enlarge it. Pore over the details. At first, you will only see blades of grass... But soon, soon... You'll start to see triangles, squares, pyramids, towers... The longer you look, the more you'll see: faces, letters of the alphabet, familiar shapes... The coastline of Gibraltar... An eagle... An angel... A 54 Ford...

The fault is not in our photographs, but in ourselves: the human eye and the human visual cortex are highly specialized at discerning patterns. This is a valuable survival trait in a state of nature -- it's well worth it to be able to pick out a gazelle amidst a clump of acacia trees -- but it can lead a naive person into error.

HWWNTBN specialized in that kind of error.

Silas

Piper aka Seethruart(IMO Pipe-up-his-butt)

A really, really annoying(damned family site rules) HBer from before when BA went to this version of his BB. Dude must have an incredible imagination, that's about all I'll give him. Then again, he does have a very well known habit of using a magnifying glass on Apollo pics that are on his computer screen. No joke.

__________________
"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." [Carl Sagan]

According to "Acronym Finder",
http://www.acronymfinder.com/
JREF = James Randi Education Foundation

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

John knows quite a bit about JPEG compression. And about Seethruart. I know about JPEG compression intimately, and the ugly artifacts of the Discrete Cosine Transform.

DCT-compressed images are not meant to be examined microscopically. The algorithm is meant to preserve only those graphical elements which are significant to human vision at the macro level.

The problem is that the JPEG strategy is to break up the image into square zones (8x8) and compress each zone individually. When expanded again, pixels at the zone boundaries do not correlate anymore across the boundary.

The DCT algorithm is like the Fourier transforms many of us studied in engineering. It is based on the principle that a complex signal can be closely approximated by summing a set of simpler waveforms (i.e., cosine waves) of varying wavelengths, amplitudes, and phases.

Within each zone, the value of each pixel is recorded in a precise order. This ordered list of values is a "signal" in the signal processing sense. You could draw a graph of pixel value over "time". You can approximate this signal with a set of tuned cosine functions. The more precise the functions, the closer the signal is approximated. Then you just save the function parameters as the data that approximates this zone. The "quality factor" of JPEG compression indicates the precision of the stored parameters.

Now if the zone is all one color, the pixel values are all the same. This is very easy to encode -- you only need one function with an amplitude of zero (biased, of course, for the constant color value). For you DCT junkies, the DCT coefficient matrix is all zeroes except for C(0,0).

If the zone is partially a patch of solid color, and partially a foreground object with complex coloring, the pixel value list (or graph, if that's how you prefer to think of it) is flat for a bit, then complex, then flat again, then complex. That's a devilishly hard thing to encode, especially with only a few functions. Imagine trying to make a flat line with a series of lumpy cosine curves.

So at the boundary between foreground and single-color background in a zone, some of the background colors have little off-color spots. This is where the DCT failed to make a clean transition between the flat and wavy parts of the signal. It can't do a perfectly flat wave under those conditions, so it fudges a little.

The DCT can do sharp boundaries, but only in the horizontal and vertical directions. If a slightly angled sharp boundary is presented, it may be easier to start with the horizontal or vertical boundary, and then try to fudge it in one direction or another. If you zoom in on that block, it will look artifically horizontal or vertical.

All very complicated, I know. I've simplified it a little. But the moral is that if you want to do image analysis at the microscopic level, do not use lossy compression techniques.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-04-29 00:29 ]</font>

I used to wonder what would happen if I put a picture under a microscope. Would I see the fibers of the paper on which the film was printed, or would I see the microscopic elements of the things in the picture? Then I turned 8 and realized the answer.

I remember seeing Sneakers with an imaging processing guy. He fidgeted in his seat when they magically enlarged and "enhanced" the license plate number photographed from a distance. He was muttering, "You can't [expletive] do that!"

Old Piper (Maybe it's safe to say his name now?) used to pop up again and again whenever anyone mentioned him or his photos. He was so intractable and rude about his "arguments" that he did nothing but stir up the flames every time he appeared.
The members of this board finally figured out that he just wanted attention, even if it was negative. He finally disappeared when people just stopped responding to his posts. I don't know what happened to him, but I guess the new sign-up requirements have kept him out of here at least. Has anyone else seen any trace of him on any other boards this year?

But his "site" is still up (it's actually just a pic hosting site), so you can check out his nonsense if you're interested.

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/...ame=seethruart

(If you like his stuff, you might go on to check out the SIBS. They're my favorite photo anomaly experts, and they're ever so much fun. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

As late as January 28, 2002, he posted here:

http://communities.anomalies.net/cgi...c&f=2&t=000012

Quote: "Topic: Anomalous Discrepancies in NASA Apollo Photos

posted January 28, 2002 07:09

After reading the rest of the messages in this part of the forum, I realized this is an appropriate place to post this link.
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?seethruart
The link contains images of anomalous discrepancies in NASA Apollo photos (among other things).

There is a lot there, so you may want to bookmark the site and come back again and again. There is also more to come.


Seethruart

--------------------

Speak softly and carry a big stick."

It seems that he is Member 511 and you can read his posts here:

http://communities.anomalies.net/cgi...sts&u=00000511

JJ

Thanks JJ. It seems he was still posting as of March 5th, and still ingratiating himself to others with his rude and antagonistic ways. Although in this case he was strangely not talking about little figures in the dirt:

http://communities.anomalies.net/cgi...&f=25&t=002216

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

Anomalous discrepancies: brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

Remember when he accused the military, NASA employees and contractors, and scientists of murder? Hmmm, military, NASA employees/contractors, and scientists. As far as this board goes, I don't think he left anyone out.
Lisa

HWSNBNs other problem seemed to be that he was not only looking at jpegs too closely, he was looking at them through a magnifying glass while on his computer screen. Go figure.

I guess this site gets the Grand Prize. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

__________________
~AstroMike

I was checking out the links on crank.net and saw this piece of work:

http://www.anomalog.com/bergrun.html

Is this a joke or is this guy serious? If he's serious I can't believe he has the credentials he claims he does. What a maroon..

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Art Vandelay on 2002-04-29 16:42 ]</font>