Strange streak discussion: 2004 Dec 7 APOD

[Luis]

The insect people have already won – APOD agreed with their idea. The ongoing debate is too frustrating.

You sound like a Republican.
We could have done away with these 122 pages if you would have declared that it was a 'rod' from the beginning. Or maybe you'd have preferred the authority of APOD making such a decree.

But then you can't really believe the question is settled.
Otherwise, why are you here?

Well, I have it on high authority (Democratic Party) that it IS a "rod"... so there you goober!

And this one is forgery. It wasn't me! That post is a hoax!

[Luis]

No wonder you can't see the logic... you don't have either the experience or the know how, and therefore, you are operating from a position of insufficient information. Ergo, your emotional state will prevent you from pursuing logic. In other words.. you will see what you want to see and no one, no how, can offer you anything to change your mind. Tsk tsk... that's a shame.

Once I read in a psychology book that what we dislike of ourselves and cannot come into emotional terms with it is what we tend to criticizes in others...

[Guest]

You sound like a Republican.

But then you can't really believe the question is settled.
Otherwise, why are you here?

Well, I have it on high authority (Democratic Party) that it IS a "rod"... so there you goober!

And this one is forgery. It wasn't me! That post is a hoax!

We know. Scientific Republican is an oxymoron nowdays.

[brazentone]

But I'll ask anyway. It looks to me like the streak is a trail which begins, not ends, at the light pole.

You say the lamp inside the light pole fixture isn't working. Was the lamp globe burst, or whole and just not working? If the lamp was burst, I'm wondering, if it burst precisely at the moment of exposure, maybe the whitish cloudy looking stuff is the gas exploding out of the lamp and the streak is the trail of some lamp debris shooting from it. I realize that it would have to be some kind of powerful explosion to make a streak that long, but there is a lot of pressure in streetlight lamps, so maybe it's possible.

Please forgive me if this is indeed silly; I'm not a scientist, not by a long shot!

Standard incandescant and halogen lamps are vaccuums inside, that's how the filament can get to the verge of superheating, the point where it produces usable light, without bursting into flames. If a lightbulb were to break, it would almost certainly implode due to that vaccuum. An explosion could only occur if there was enough pressure difference caused by something to make the area just outside the bulb be at lower pressure. Or, a lightbulb could explode if something were to hit it with enough force to redirect the implosion in the direction the item was travelling, and then the item itself catches fire from the heat of the filament. Possibly, a high-pressure exhaust gas of some kind could hit the bulb, break it, and then catch enough fire to generate the white smoke seen. However, this is unlikely because there is no source of flammable gas nearby in either the picture in question or the surrounding frames.

More likely, if the lamp were struck by some strange kind of lightning, the bulb's glass would superheat and explode with enough force to overcome the negative-pressure interior. The change would occur so fast that certain particles would probably skip the fluid state and jump straight to gas, which would explain the smoke. But a change this fast and furious spurred on by an external energy source (such as lightning) would most certainly have some kind of affect on the lamp itself, not just the bulb.

Maybe, if you allow me to babble a bit, the lamp was very sturdy and grounded enough such that a very low-intensity lightning bolt would simply be absorbed by it with no damage, but the rapid change in temperature and energy state was too much for the delicate glass bulb to withstand. I can see this happening if the lamp is a solid steel construction. A low-intensity lightning bolt like that would also lend to the theory that the bolt has already happened at the time the picture was taken, and all that remains is the ionization trail.

Someone also commented that the trail seems to start at the lamp and go out. In the event that lightning is to blame, it is worth noting that it effectively starts at both ends. Any object that is about to be hit by lightning has a corona effect, proving that the electric connection has already been made. The fact that the streak seems wider at the point of the lamp may just be a lesson in perspective. The other end of it could feasibly be miles away from the camera, which is impossible to guage in this case.

Those are my wonderings. Feel free to correct me.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

The camera was just about on the P of Parliament House.



And the event, if offshore took place right about X

not that an insect would approach the coast.

[Bob Peterson]

No wonder you can't see the logic... you don't have either the experience or the know how, and therefore, you are operating from a position of insufficient information. Ergo, your emotional state will prevent you from pursuing logic. In other words.. you will see what you want to see and no one, no how, can offer you anything to change your mind. Tsk tsk... that's a shame.

Once I read in a psychology book that what we dislike of ourselves and cannot come into emotional terms with it is what we tend to criticizes in others...

More specifically, you are referring to behavior called PROJECTION. Here's a definition from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: 6 b : the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.

[Doc Bluto]

OK. After some considerations, I do think MrMoons picture does it for me. I'm throwing out the bug theory and now, sadly, agreeing with Doc Bluto. I do not want to .. but I think Doc is right here finally. OK.

I detect Doc Bluto has now resorted to pretending to be hazeii. Funny how fakers always get found out.

Actually, not. Someone is engaging in rascally behavior.

[Probs]

I think the picture could easily be a fake.
If the photographer had said "here is a picture of a meteorite", everybody would be out to prove it was a fake, and if it was shown to be fake he would be in trouble. However, leaving the origin open makes the photographer sound credible and may have the effect of leading people away from even checking that it is fake.

What I found really surprising when I looked at the survey results (many pages back) a
few days ago is that I was the only person who thought this was likely or even slightly probable to be a fake. It seems that this is changing slightly now.
How many people here have personally meet this guy and would trust him?
How many have never even heard of him before until now?
How many would buy a house or a car from him?

We have all seen that fakes be generated in a few minutes which are just as good as the bug simulations carried out with much more time. Clearly the possibilty that it is a fake it has to be accepted by any scientific minded person.

The nice thing about assuming things like this are fake from the start is that it is easier to prove something is a fake beyond any doubt than it is to prove something is real beyond any doubt. In this case we have a chance of proving that it is fake but we have no hope of ever proving that it is real.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

Yes, I agree. This bickering among the verbose is numbing as I've always found verbosity to be inversely proportional to intelligence.

We just had a sister and brother, 2nd and 5th grades post better than some here. This is a wide open family site and I tire of the petty squabbling among some who would consider themselves mature.

So the exposure ran [first curtain:49/1000 sec dark exposure: flash@1/1000sec: second curtain].

[I thought the post of the trail being just the dark colors of a rainbow was precious ]

Since there is no light source between the insect and camera, the trail is caused by the exposure going to total black for a period. Of the 1/20 sec exposure of an individual trail pixel; how long did it go black (compared to its fully exposed sister pixels) to give the darkened result we see?

That result factored into the wedge of trail length vs. distance from camera will give us insect size and speed combinations [directly proportional].

I can't shake a fly from my mind's interpretation of the flash portion of the exposure. But that's just my paradigm.

[Doc Bluto]

Obviously, my point was totally missed. I wasn't stating Crop circles, or bigfoot as fact. What I was saying was, they were clearly hoaxes, but someone went out to disprove it. They actually did the fieldwork to disprove those hoaxes. ......

I'll buy that.. but you will face an awful lot of people who will tell you that you are wrong. They WILL tell you that crop circles ARE real and bigfoot IS their brother-in-law. So, maybe I do still miss your point.

Basically, in order to fully support your arguement, we'd have to kidnap the Photographer, strap him to a lie detector, and try to see if he's telling us the truth.

Basically, Yes... I would agree since you have nothing more to go on aside from your imagination.

Let those of us who believe it to be the truth to follow our assumption, and you can follow yours. So far, there's nothing you've done to convince us towards your line of reasoning.

And I'm not trying to convince you of any theory at all. And as far as wanting to follow truth... I think you just said that if you want to believe that 3+3 = 7, that's your business. And if I attempt to say "Please consider that 3+3 = 6" you're reply would be: "I'll believe what I want". Whoa dude...

Basically the only difference between our assumptions is our distrust in people. Maybe someone cheated on you recently, or your parents weren't there for you

Well no.. not at all. What I am saying is that this IS a factor that must be considered. And no, you cannot psychoanalyze me here... that would be as fruitless as your guesses about the "image in question". I will say that I am simply glad that the hoax possibility is being discussed. That's more important than what you might think. And, you are correct, this may be an image of something truly extraordinary. I have never denied that possibility. I am trying to demonstrate (as MrMoon has done with some degree of success) that intentional manipulation MUST be regarded as a prime candidate - regardless of your "feelings". And, that's a possiblity that has been intentionally ignored - despite the potential. That's it! That simple.

The burden is still not on my own images. Never was. BTW, I CAN sustain the image data in my copies, unlike MrMoon who simply didn't take the time to do so. Why not trust me on that? (Why are YOU such a distrusting individual...? Touche').

Bottom line: His crude fake should raise a red flag with all of you. And it hasn't. I am concerned when people CLAIM or boast to think critically, and when they think they really are thinking critically, when they really are NOT thinking critically. There IS a difference. I have attempted to cajol, interject, and demonstrate this throughout this thread.

Do I know what this image is? Not at chance. I have NO clue. I have no clues outside of the image itself. Hence, we'll never know unless the author has more to add. BUT I DO know how easy it is for faking digital images and therefore FOOLING a lot of people. Or better yet, saying nothing and letting folks put their imagination into high gear - often running away to far reaches when there is insufficient information (this is the realm of crop circles, UFO's, bigfoot, grays, alien abductions, and the FACE on MARS).

[Bob Peterson]

Apprehend Pryde Now
Bring Him To Me
The Bamboo Is Ready

[Luis]

Well no.. not at all. What I am saying is that this IS a factor that must be considered. And no, you cannot psychoanalyze me here... that would be as fruitless as your guesses about the "image in question". I will say that I am simply glad that the hoax possibility is being discussed. That's more important than what you might think. And, you are correct, this may be an image of something truly extraordinary. I have never denied that possibility. I am trying to demonstrate (as MrMoon has done with some degree of success) that intentional manipulation MUST be regarded as a prime candidate - regardless of your "feelings". And, that's a possiblity that has been intentionally ignored - despite the potential. That's it! That simple.

Doc Bluto. You seem to finally have come down to reason and engaged in a proper discussion, so I will attempt to talk to you and not treat you as a troll, but as far as I'm concerned this is a provisional state and your troll state may be re-flagged at the least show of misbehaviour.

You came late into the discussion. Within the first 10 pages of the thread it was understood that it was decided to trust the photographer. We decided to assume it was not a hoax and work on that basis. The hoax hypothesis was never dismissed, we just assumed it to be false.

During your troll days you clearly pointed out that this may be a hoax. Well that is nothing new. We all assumed that in page 1.

Now that you are not a troll, let's listen to you.
We have so far shown that the most likely case if it was not a hoax is that of a bug. Now let's assume it is a hoax. How do we prove or disprove it?

The way I would approach this is not to try to replicate the hoax, (I have recently seen horses and orcs in middle earth that were not there when the movie was shot. This however does not prove that all the horses in all movies are digitally created.Not even all the horses in middle earth are hoaxes. Some of them were real), what I would try to do is to prove that particular picture is a hoax.

How do I do that, I have not a clue. Maybe Victrengle can help. He seems to be calling the shots when it comes to image processing. Where do we look to find evidence of a hoax. I would guess looking at the JPG compression around the streak and the "bug".. But where else. Experts were supposed to examine the picture and concluded it was not a hoax. How did they reached that verdict? Can we replicate their reasoning and question it?

Anybody interested?

Happy Xmas!

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

Okay, in that vein here is a picture of Roundstone Harbor in the tranquil County Galway, Ireland.

You'll note the crane brought its own boats and one has ferried the man standing atop the salesman's submerged vehicle. He'll be hooking up the lifting straps.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

So she's a mite soggy.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

We'll have County Galway's waters pristine again.

[Guest]

MrMoon wrote:

I will not re-make the fake image with the right dimensions. It's not worth it. I just did it to show that it's a very simple thing to do.
Imagine that there was no "trail picture" and that I was the first one doing it. how could you tell it was a fake?

What is so absolutely funny is... they couldn't. Not in a million years... You are so correct!!!! What is disturbing is the utter disregard for that.

I don't think so. As someone has suggested, get pryde and strap him into a lie detector, and if we wanted to, we could certainly do that within the nex million years.

skyglow1

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

Whoops.

Well, everything's not always perfect.
There are some days you just should have slept through.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

Well, BigBrother will make short work of this

[victorengel]

Doc Bluto,

Many of us have been using as a problem statement something along these lines:

Assuming the picture is not fake, what is it that is represented in the picture?

This being the case, there's absolutely no point in trying to discern whether the picture is a fake. It makes not difference to the validity of any discussion relating to our problem statement.

That being said, do you have any evidence that the picture is a fake?

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

I've seen the oil sheen.
We'll get the car out of the way first.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

We'll get this mess out of the harbor.
That first operator must not've been watching his equipment.

[Can't use my Bad Buoy]

{Sorry, about duplication and cheating you of another pic in sequence}

Well.....

..I don't think there's much room left in Roundstone Harbor.



A holiday diversion, but it does go to the topic raised.

[victorengel]

{Sorry, about duplication and cheating you of another pic in sequence}

Well.....

..I don't think there's much room left in Roundstone Harbor.



A holiday diversion, but it does go to the topic raised.

You mean because the last picture is a fake?

[Bob Peterson]

Well no.. not at all. What I am saying is that this IS a factor that must be considered. And no, you cannot psychoanalyze me here... that would be as fruitless as your guesses about the "image in question". I will say that I am simply glad that the hoax possibility is being discussed. That's more important than what you might think. And, you are correct, this may be an image of something truly extraordinary. I have never denied that possibility. I am trying to demonstrate (as MrMoon has done with some degree of success) that intentional manipulation MUST be regarded as a prime candidate - regardless of your "feelings". And, that's a possiblity that has been intentionally ignored - despite the potential. That's it! That simple.

Doc Bluto. You seem to finally have come down to reason and engaged in a proper discussion, so I will attempt to talk to you and not treat you as a troll, but as far as I'm concerned this is a provisional state and your troll state may be re-flagged at the least show of misbehaviour.

You came late into the discussion. Within the first 10 pages of the thread it was understood that it was decided to trust the photographer. We decided to assume it was not a hoax and work on that basis. The hoax hypothesis was never dismissed, we just assumed it to be false.

During your troll days you clearly pointed out that this may be a hoax. Well that is nothing new. We all assumed that in page 1.

Now that you are not a troll, let's listen to you.
We have so far shown that the most likely case if it was not a hoax is that of a bug. Now let's assume it is a hoax. How do we prove or disprove it?

The way I would approach this is not to try to replicate the hoax, (I have recently seen horses and orcs in middle earth that were not there when the movie was shot. This however does not prove that all the horses in all movies are digitally created.Not even all the horses in middle earth are hoaxes. Some of them were real), what I would try to do is to prove that particular picture is a hoax.

How do I do that, I have not a clue. Maybe Victrengle can help. He seems to be calling the shots when it comes to image processing. Where do we look to find evidence of a hoax. I would guess looking at the JPG compression around the streak and the "bug".. But where else. Experts were supposed to examine the picture and concluded it was not a hoax. How did they reached that verdict? Can we replicate their reasoning and question it?

Anybody interested?

Happy Xmas!

This Trolling business is disturbing, I must say. http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html

[Jorge]

I'm kind of fond of this one:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/b ... eleton.htm