"What a thunderous pile. You are either completely ignorant of science or lying. Which is it?"
The video concerned is the one in which Mike tries and fails to reproduce the image-editing steps needed to create the utterly dishonest image Bara and Hoagland call "Data's head." In other words, how to get from this....
credit: NASA JSC
...to this.
credit: Richard Hoagland
This utter travesty is one of the very first things this blog commented on, six whole years ago. I went to the trouble and expense of ordering up the 46.1 MB, 5190 x 6175 px tiff file from JSC, and did my own analysis proving that Hoagland's manipulation was fraudulent.
When, last year, Mike Bara produced his own video, using Microsoft Office Picture Manager, I again commented at some length.
Why Mike chose to resurrect this comedy of errors, on The Farcebook and The Chirper yesterday, is a mystery. But it's what prompted "Jett Rink"'s appropriate comment. Mike's reply was very typical:
"I propose a 3rd alternative: You are a complete idiot."
I know which option I believe.
7 comments:
Maybe it has to do with being lectured recently by a college student about image analysis.
Today, he's calling for the murder of a group of young thugs who beat a cat to death. Is doing this on Facebook a crime?
Dunno... I imagine it's reportable.
Bara is deleting comments when he gets owned
Mike Bara:
"talk to me when you can prove you're not so ugly that guys turn to stone when they look at your face".
Tara Jordan:The irony.How do you think you rank in order of unattractiveness?.You are fat,short & bald.
Bara couldn't duplicate the image because Hoagie added color to make it look more like C3PO/Data. Of course Mikey can't admit that, so we get this BS.
Bara says that these artifacts are not due to image manipulation.
He then shows us why they are not due to image manipulation, by manipulating the image. WTF ?
Besides all the display of the amateur and naive image enhancements, my objections are more fundamental and "in your face". Studying the "head" in even the most outrageous version, one could see a couple of fundamental problems with the conclusion that it's some humanoid head or even "android" (as in "possessing human features").
1. The "eye sockets" are not symmetrical enough. The one at the right (for the viewer) might be called a "socket" but the left one is merging with a dark spot next to the head and appears dislocated. Not to mention a suspicious "third eye" on almost the same distance further left on the floor exactly in line. The second (or middle?) "hole" makes this only hinting at a possible socket but not exactly the size and place it ideally should be. Try to replicate the angle with a real skull and it quickly becomes obvious that symmetry is not really there. Some impossible geometry is being implied even and it's actually worse in the coloured enhancement!
2. Mouth, jaw, chin are all completely obscured and/or distorted or at least become a feature mostly lost in shadows. And it seems uncommon to any common android head. Perhaps it's a gas mask with a giant "Darth Vader" respirator at the front? Point is that without the two dark spots under a light patch or stone there's not much left to go on.
3. There's a third feature, quite exaggerated in the false colour enhancements, on the "left cheek", which is completely out of place for any realistic head. To prove possible facial features, not only you need some features to be in place but also demonstrate the lack of other random features in the exact same facial area.
Ultimately it's even hard to make the case that this is a single rock with whatever shape. It seems more like two different objects lying apart with a dark shadow filling in the "blank" of a mouth.
It's Cydonia all over again but without the sacred angles and possessing a more "human" touch and as well a better Star Trek reference in place. It was a "golden" find from that perspective.
Dee
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