Stream of Stuff

[geckzilla]

Check out Amundsen's cool spectacles, though.
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/directory ... dsen-hans/

[geckzilla]

Tonight I am amused at how obviously this looks like an internal reflection to me while the people behind the story are completely baffled. The owners of the camera seem totally unfamiliar with its optical properties. I mean, come on, the "lights" are lined up perfectly with the deer's eyes and you can even see the outline of the inverted ears.

http://www.okcfox.com/story/25173653/mi ... il-cameras

[neufer]

I'm with Chris on this one.

The friend Jon Vegard was, in fact, along the direct path of the stone
that he dropped/tossed beneath him (but only after he was quite
sure that it wouldn't hit the extremely well helmeted Anders).

• 1) A meteorite landing that close to someone on Earth would surely be heard (if not seen) with the meteorite subsequently found & verified. However, for this most common & easily verifiable situation we have only a few dozen examples at most world wide.
  
  2) Only a tiny fraction of such meteorite falls could possibly have been captured on home video/audio;
  ...hence, of course, NO such home video/audio meteorite fall exists.
  
  3) Only a miniscule fraction of all home video is performed during free fall(; when such a dark meteor would hardly go noticed in most cases and it could seldom be verified). BUT MIRACULOUSLY WE DO HAVE AN EXAMPLE IN THIS EXTREMELY RARE CASE!!!
  (Nice looking folks like this would never EVER joke about such a serious matter...that's for sure!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUBK0IfyOfU&t=28m35s

The only real meteorites that I know of with nice flat well cleaved sides
only got that way after having landed on Earth.

[neufer]

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Tonight I am amused at how obviously this looks like an internal reflection to me while the people behind the story are completely baffled. The owners of the camera seem totally unfamiliar with its optical properties. I mean, come on, the "lights" are lined up perfectly with the deer's eyes and you can even see the outline of the inverted ears.

http://www.okcfox.com/story/25173653/mi ... il-cameras

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzyhubOYft8#t=149

It's just old Frank again.

[owlice]

Tonight I am amused at how obviously this looks like an internal reflection to me while the people behind the story are completely baffled. The owners of the camera seem totally unfamiliar with its optical properties. I mean, come on, the "lights" are lined up perfectly with the deer's eyes and you can even see the outline of the inverted ears.

http://www.okcfox.com/story/25173653/mi ... il-cameras

I couldn't watch that whole video; the stupid was killing me.

[Chris Peterson]

Tonight I am amused at how obviously this looks like an internal reflection to me while the people behind the story are completely baffled. The owners of the camera seem totally unfamiliar with its optical properties. I mean, come on, the "lights" are lined up perfectly with the deer's eyes and you can even see the outline of the inverted ears.

http://www.okcfox.com/story/25173653/mi ... il-cameras

Man, that's sad. What a commentary on the credulity and ignorance of people these days.

And seriously: "the camera is infrared and doesn't emit light"? What do they think that giant array of IR emitters covering the top quarter of the camera is for? Doesn't anybody who reviewed this know the difference between passive and active IR cameras? Do they think that deers have eyes that glow intensely with their own internal IR source? What kind of cameramen and film editors wouldn't know about these very ordinary and common optical aberrations?

Jeez.

[MargaritaMc]

Man, that's sad. What a commentary on the credulity and ignorance of people these days.
Jeez.

Have you seen bystander's new signature file, from An Enemy of the People?

"I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over." — Henrik Ibsen

Says it all, really...

Margarita

[Nitpicker]

I like calling people stupid as much as the next stupid person, but I have to admit that it is doesn't really help to make anyone less stupid.

[geckzilla]

I tried to make a detailed post explaining exactly what it was but someone just replied and said "u are wrong simply!"

[Ann]

I don't blame that man and that woman for failing to understand how their camera works.

But what about the TV network? Surely there is someone there who understands the effects you can get out of cameras and who could have explained what the camera recorded. Imagine a friendly, respectful person interviewing Rainer and Edith Shattles, explaining why they got the effect they did and also praising them for getting such beautiful deer imagery and commending them for asking for advice to understand the strange reflection. The couple could have felt proud of themselves, and a lot of people might have learnt a useful lesson about cameras.

But no. The TV network broadcast the most gullible explanation possible into potentially million of American homes. How can we be surprised, then, when people reject the truth when it is shown to them?

Why did the TV network do what they did? I think the simplest explanation is that they catered to the hunger for the miraculous and the unexplained that is found in many people. Well-known skeptic James Randi once debunked a magician who claimed to do real magic, and afterwards Randi got a lot of angry reactions from people who didn't appreciate having one of their favorite fantasies taken away from them. So instead of doing like James Randi and explaining the truth to people, the TV network accepted the claim of the Mississippi couple and served up a story of UFOs and government coverups. I think the network hopes it will get more viewers that way, and also they will make people highly suspicious of politicians, scientists and intellectuals, so that it will be easier to fool the general public into believing in something other than the truth when the TV network finds it convenient.

Ann

[Nitpicker]

If it looks like Rupert and smells like Rupert, it is probably Rupert (Murdoch).

Apologies to all.

Signed,
The Commonwealth of Australia.

[geckzilla]

I think it is perfectly reasonable that nobody at the TV network actually knew better. Of course, now that it is out there for the world to see, I am sure they are getting plenty of comments explaining the phenomenon. Problematically, so will the comments from people who sincerely believe it is a UFO. People are easily confused unless you can demonstrate something very simply to them. Infrared light is confusing. Camera lenses are not simple. Lens flares and internal reflections confuse people all the time. Sometimes I answer questions from people who send pictures to the APOD Facebook page asking what this weird thing in the sky is and I have to explain it's just a reflection. That said, I also do not expect them to run a subsequent story with a full debunking, either because it would be unpopular with viewers or because their time is better spent on other things.

[Chris Peterson]

I think it is perfectly reasonable that nobody at the TV network actually knew better.

I don't. Cameramen regularly use cameras with IR illuminators, just like we see on the wildlife camera. Both cameramen and editors see very similar ghosting and internal reflections all the time.

I'm with Ann. The TV station was happy to cater to the credulous.

[geckzilla]

Ah, well, I may be giving them too much credit.

[geckzilla]

You know those thermostat placebos? It works with software. Touch an icon and it turns from an X to a check. Voila, you feel better! Well, maybe not you or me, but apparently a lot of people did.
http://www.dailytech.com/Texas+17Year+O ... 34668c.htm

[MargaritaMc]

You know those thermostat placebos? It works with software. Touch an icon and it turns from an X to a check. Voila, you feel better! Well, maybe not you or me, but apparently a lot of people did.
http://www.dailytech.com/Texas+17Year+O ... 34668c.htm

It amazes me that people install things without first checking them out (but possibly Play Store should be more cautious? Dunno.)
I got my advice for android anti virus/malware apps here
http://www.androidauthority.com/10-best ... id-269696/ and installed Hornet. It's alerted me of one malware (adware) containing app since I've installed it.

(And I checked out Android Authority as well - it seems well known and established...)
M

[Chris Peterson]

It amazes me that people install things without first checking them out (but possibly Play Store should be more cautious? Dunno.)
I got my advice for android anti virus/malware apps here
http://www.androidauthority.com/10-best ... id-269696/ and installed Hornet. It's alerted me of one malware (adware) containing app since I've installed it.

It's extremely unlikely you need any sort of antivirus program at all. Serious malware is pretty rare, and annoying stuff like adware is easily avoided by simply reading the reviews at the Play Store or the Amazon Store before downloading something.

A bit of common sense is orders of magnitude more useful for avoiding malware than any software protection (and the same applies to PCs and other platforms, as well).

[geckzilla]

Phil Plait finally stuck a fork in the meteor rock and parachute thing. It was fun to watch his blog posts go from cautiously optimistic to cautiously pessimistic and now he has firmly concluded it was a rock packed in with the 'chute. After a few days of furious analysis by people around the interwebs, the skydivers themselves are accepting this gracefully and they have been very candid and open about the whole process, supplying all the raw video and info they could to get to the bottom of this. There was no hoax. Just a case of mistaken identity. Everyone's honesty with the matter is pretty refreshing, even if it had a rough start with the sensational headline.

[Chris Peterson]

Phil Plait finally stuck a fork in the meteor rock and parachute thing. It was fun to watch his blog posts go from cautiously optimistic to cautiously pessimistic and now he has firmly concluded it was a rock packed in with the 'chute. After a few days of furious analysis by people around the interwebs, the skydivers themselves are accepting this gracefully and they have been very candid and open about the whole process, supplying all the raw video and info they could to get to the bottom of this. There was no hoax. Just a case of mistaken identity. Everyone's honesty with the matter is pretty refreshing, even if it had a rough start with the sensational headline.

My own view is that the matter isn't settled at all. The analysis is credible, but seems far from conclusive. While I consider the pebble scenario much more likely, that's all I'd say... not that it definitely wasn't a meteorite.

[geckzilla]

The funny thing about Phil is that he posts a lot of things in a writing style like "This is it, end of story." Sometimes it's good and other times not so good. If we sent up a whole bunch of cameras on balloons, maybe we can film a genuine dark flight and then compare it with the skydiver's video and come to a conclusion of greater certainty. Of course, it's more likely that a hundred airplanes will crash into the balloons before a dark flight is captured, but it was all for science.

[geckzilla]

How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
Some useful advice and instructions.

[geckzilla]

Well, I have spent too much time playing with this silly toy that owlice gave me (Why did she give me a toy? Because that's what moms do. No, she's not my mom, but she could be.) that diffracts light. It looks like this:

I've got a high pressure sodium lamp outside my window which I curse on a near nightly basis but I have noticed it plays rather well with this toy. Somehow I got the idea that maybe I could see emission lines through the thing and ended up putting my eyeball right up to the thing and sure enough there were definite intensity peaks. This is just a toy, though, and I can't figure out if it's just an imperfection in the thing or if they're actually what I think they are. I managed to take a photo...

Aaand that was my night.

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF]Diagram showing the spectral output of a typical[/color][/b] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_lamp]high pressure sodium (HPS) lamp[/url].

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[b][color=#0000FF]Output spectrum of a typical[/color][/b] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal-halide_lamp]metal-halide lamp[/url] [b][color=#0000FF]showing peaks at 385nm, 422nm, 497nm, 540nm, 564nm, 583nm (highest), 630nm, and 674nm.[/color][/b]

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[geckzilla]

I've got the horrible orange type.

[neufer]

I've got the horrible orange type.

• Orange ja glad

(Try saying Betelgeuse three times.)