Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

[Mikey]

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Anyway, speaking of proper science, this year's Ig-Nobel prize for biology went to the team who, after investigating the sensitivity of our canine cousins to magnetic fields, discovered that dogs prefer to defacate and urinate along a north-south axis.
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news.discovery.com/tech/2014-ig-nobel-prize-winners-photos-140919.htm

Wind direction and speed is surely more important? My bog faces south if anyone's interested -so I piss facing north and shite facing south.

M

[Spikes]

Well, I don't know if there's anything in what Hoagland says or not - but I suspect that there is.

I look forward to the next time I come across a piece that states that a 'big announcement' is due on such  and such a date, and then watching that date become three years ago....

[The Legendary Shark]

That's not what happened, Rich.
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The image I saw appeared to show ancient artificial objects, like bits of scrap, some of which had been obviously "swirled over" with a Photoshopesque smudge tool. It appeared to be an unflattened image which was soon replaced by the flattened image in which the majority of the anomalies had been removed/obscured/replaced.
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From what I understand, NASA contracts out a lot of its image processing to private companies, who get the data before NASA and process it for them. Some of these companies may not be the scientific saints that NASA employees are. There is an information bottleneck as the data is transmitted from source to receiver to processor to NASA and can be intercepted and altered at any time. It's not quite as simple a process as you seem to think. The solution to this, of course, would be for the spacecraft to upload its images directly to the internet as well as professional imagers. NASA scientists wanted to do this but the government did not - guess who won?
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And just because something is law, that doesn't make it so, whether you capitalise it or not.
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And I'll thank you not to call me fucking stupid. I would not say such a thing to you.

[Jim_Campbell]

And I'll thank you not to call me fucking stupid. I would not say such a thing to you.

He didn't say you were fucking stupid, he said your assertion was fucking stupid. Which it is.

This alone:

the spacecraft to upload its images directly to the internet

is idiocy of such gargantuan magnitude that you should stop talking on this subject before you embarrass yourself further. Unless, of course, you have a credible citation for it, in which case I will offer you an unreserved apology.

Jim

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Tell me this then Shark. How does one take a perfect picture on Mars? There's barely any atmosphere, therefore barely any protection from all that nasty radiation the sun spews out constantly. I mean, CCDs are just kind of fancy solar panels, collecting a bunch of photons, which are then statistically analysed before being converted into ones and zeros which are analysed AGAIN before being re-resolved into an image. Then it has to be transmitted, literally BILLIONS of miles through the void of space (which isn't really a void, but teeeming with that radiation and particles) with as little signal loss as possible, and that's before it even has to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere (fucking jam-packed with all kinds of interference) before being received by Nasa whose computers have to analyse the data pacet AGAIN before resolving into an image to release to the public.

If you know of a better way, a way of getting a picture all the way from the harsh environment of Mars, through billions of miles of Solar winds and the atmosphere, onto my lapotop, without even the SLIGHTEST bit of distortion, you could make millions, but then again, you don't believe in money.

And what do these NASA scientists get for all their years of hard work and effort to show you what it looks like on another planet? They get called fucking liars by some joker on the internet.

[The Legendary Shark]

I thought you were ignoring me?
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Well, all right - data to receiver to internet and imaging companies directly. Data interpretation software would be freely available to download so that anyone who wants to devote the processing power to extracting the images can do so.
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No citation, sorry. I guess I'll have to live without your apology.

[Jim_Campbell]

No citation, sorry. I guess I'll have to live without your apology.

So —massively dubious technical aspects notwithstanding— your claim that NASA "wanted to do this" was something you pulled out of your arse, then?

And, yes, I do have you on ignore. Sadly, other people do not and when they quote you, I see what they quote.

To be clear: I do not have any personal animosity towards you, nor do I think you're stupid. Nonetheless, you say some brain-meltingly stupid things and attempting to convince of you simple facts or basic scientific principles is an exercise in frustration that can sometimes cause posters to become exasperated, myself included.

Jim

[Richmond Clements]

To be clear: I do not have any personal animosity towards you, nor do I think you're stupid. Nonetheless, you say some brain-meltingly stupid things and attempting to convince of you simple facts or basic scientific principles is an exercise in frustration that can sometimes cause posters to become exasperated, myself included.

Yes, this.

And also:

And what do these NASA scientists get for all their years of hard work and effort to show you what it looks like on another planet? They get called fucking liars by some joker on the internet.

THIS is a complete red rag to me. Like claiming that 9/11 or 7/7 didn't happen (as an example) is a massive insult to everyone who died or fought to save lives on that day, claiming scientists - SCIENTISTS - are involved in covering up, well, I'm not sure what you're claiming they're cover up - is an incredible insult to the men and women who spend years of their lives doing the impossible. 

Right, I'm off to drink beer and relax...

[The Legendary Shark]

There is no citation because it came up in conversation in a science chat room a few years ago with a guy who worked for a lab that sub-contracted to NASA. His field was something to do with Pluto, as I recall. Therefore my citation would be "some guy in a chatroom" which even I know is unacceptable, despite the fact that he was one of the semi-regs I'd known for years.
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Nor do I have any animosity towards you, Jim. Would it surprise you to discover that I find you equally frustrating? You continually misinterpret my posts and then lead with your heart instead of your head. You say "this is stupid" but you rarely say why. Even here, you assume that I think the processes involved in getting data from Mars to the internet is a piece of piss which, as Pops points out, is simply not the case. You are exactly the kind of person, along with Rich and others, that I most enjoy verbal sparring with. (Which is why Rich's comment on my personal experience, or at least his skewed interpretation of it, upset me so much.)
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For what it's worth, I don't have anyone on ignore and, as far as I recall, I never have (well, maybe S***o once).

[The Legendary Shark]

Rich, once again you misinterpret what I'm saying and lead with your heart instead of your head. You even say it yourself - "red rag".
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I believe that the overwhelming majority of scientists (the overwhelming majority of people on Earth, for that matter) are basically honest and decent. They do their jobs to the best of their ability and integrity.
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For you to suggest that I think otherwise is frankly insulting.
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Give a scientist data and he or she will work with it properly and correctly. Show a geologist images of Mars and he or she is in Heaven - as am I. I think that my living long enough to see such fantastic pictures of alien worlds in such exquisite detail, captured by such magnificent scientific instruments, is one of the most fantastic, awesome and mind-expanding aspects of still being alive to experience them. How, then, can I despise and distrust scientists as much as you accuse? My God, man - I love scientists!
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But NASA isn't run by scientists. It's run by the same people who run the White House, the FBI, the CIA, ATF and the Pentagon canteen - bureaucrats. Bureaucrats beholden to politicians. And science and politics don't mix - because politics will decide what to fund and install bureaucrats to assign data to scientists and scientists to data.
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I want nothing more than to see scientists in charge of NASA. Imagine the insane projects they'd come up with! It'd cost an absolute fortune, and they'd probably set fire to a lot of things, but the results would be incredible.
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At the moment at NASA, scientists work with the data they're given - with which they do an exemplary job. But yes, some scientists will be liars, a very few who want to go up in the world for whatever reason. It only takes a very few bad apples in strategic places, both among the scientists and the bureaucrats and the politicians, to skew the whole thing. The odd mistake here, lost data packet there and you could cover anything up - even from the NASA scientists.
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But surely if something fishy were going on, somebody would speak out? Well, some do.

[JPMaybe]

The odd mistake here, lost data packet there and you could cover anything up - even from the NASA scientists.
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But surely if something fishy were going on, somebody would speak out? Well, some do.

More evidence-free horseshit.  By all means provide some evidence that these "few bad apples" are manipulating data- evidence other than "because I saw a picture that looked funny".

[The Legendary Shark]

Well, JPM, if it's something you're interested in looking into then I fear you'll have to do it for yourself because you wouldn't believe anything I said or trust any source I could cite or support any interpretation I could make.
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As far as I am concerned, this argument has reached an impasse and it might be as well to move on, if that's what everyone wants. Or we can carry on. Either way,  I can never go back to seeing the world in the same way as you do and you will never see the world as I do. Which is as it should be really.
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I enjoyed the debate, though. Very stimulating and 19.47 miles better than TV!

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh - my last post was Reply #911 ;-)

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Well, JPM, if it's something you're interested in looking into then I fear you'll have to do it for yourself because you wouldn't believe anything I said or trust any source I could cite or support any interpretation I could make.

Well you don't appear to believe  or accept anything anyone else says.

[Mikey]

There's no point in continuing this argument, it's actually the sort of thing left to that other thread, which incidentally keeps me away from the board a lot, but as a sometime scientist the assertion that there's a select few who keep the rest from independently verifying stuff is frankly the most insulting thing. I know what you might say to that Sharks, but you know I'll disagree.

M