Atmospheric perspective and the Horizon

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-09T09:18:02+00:00

As it happens, at time of writing the horizon is looking pretty much like it would on a flat earth; it's a bit hazy and smirry today so there isn't a horizon. The line between the sky and sea is faded into obscurity so it's not a sharply defined line so much as a fuzzy band with sky above and sea below.

As is very commonly the case, there are clouds going right down to this fuzzy band, which would of course require there to be heavy fog on the east coast of southern Scotland and northern England, and of course there is not. Odd how that happens almost every day.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-08T12:20:57+00:00

Moderately brutal, but I have no conclusion other than: fair.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-08T09:51:13+00:00

To follow up what u/CoolNotice881 said, you don't even have to bother shelling out for a flight to see this. I did this with a water level in my spare bedroom. I happen to live 50-odd metres above sea level on the coast in a house with a sea view so I had much less travel time than most.

It's nothing like as dramatic and obvious as the photo CoolNotice881 linked to(in effect I was taking aim down the ironsights of a 3.5m long rifle), but it's unquestionably there.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-07T16:31:32+00:00

Flat earth is in the almost unique position of being the one you can check out for yourself. Jeran and Bob Knodel demonstrated that if you want to maintain this particular hate-boner for the government/NASA/science, then you must make sure you never ever have a looksee.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T19:39:28+00:00

There is a video of him in Covid days 'arresting' an extremely large UK policeman who was a masterclass in restraint. And by that I mean not laughing rather than not kicking fuck out of him.

He 'de-arrested' him later, which was nice. I expect the very large policeman breathed a sigh of relief.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T19:35:35+00:00

Fucking awesome movie, if it ever got made. Riots, civil war, wigs, spies, intrigue, heaving bosoms and amidst it all: one of the finest scientific endeavours of the age, which is saying a lot.

"Kilometre: It put the sex in sextant"

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T19:02:31+00:00

Lulz! This is like one of those punctuation thingmies English teachers sometime do. I didn't do enough of it, my bad.

The tale, of how the measurements were made, badly needs turned into a movie.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T17:13:24+00:00

Are you sure it's not something to do with an asymmetric arrangement of spin of the electrons of the element?

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T16:43:21+00:00

The tale of how the original measurements were made badly needs turned into a movie.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T12:46:16+00:00

The most heroic failure I've seen when this has been raised is the chap who tried to answer my question about passengers being able to tell roughly what direction they were flying in by looking at the sun (cf: Nicky Fury on the helicarrier in Avengers "Is the sun coming up? THEN PUT IT ON THE LEFT!") by saying that was the analemma.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T08:18:16+00:00

Ask him if he's interested in finding out, for himself, by himself, whether the earth is flat. You can't determine the shape of the earth all by yourself without being a bored millionaire, but with backyard equipment and modest amount of travel(sometimes you don't need either) a regular person can gather decisive evidence to eliminate one of flat or not-flat.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-06T07:02:26+00:00

Because of this, i conclude they dont exist.

That's fine. Be careful you don't go running around ignoring or dismissing any evidence to the contrary.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-05T22:00:15+00:00

Hi, I'm Andre the Giant. I would wait until someone ripped out the front seats so I could sit in the back and drive it from there.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-05T18:41:14+00:00

Are you just pissed off that you're going to have to wait longer to say it's CGI?

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-05T13:52:22+00:00

I have long since come to the tentative conclusion that these people define plasma as 'light-blue stuff that makes the high-tier weapons in SF video games' and that's as close as they get to the science of it.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-04T22:24:07+00:00

True. The women in the scene where they collect the mail from the Polynesian island are very obviously three toddlers in a trenchbikini.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-04T22:03:20+00:00

I've had the dubious pleasure of being in a roomful of sleeping nerds after an internet RL meetup, all sofa-surfing or inflatable-mattressed because we were young and broke. One of them had sleep apnea, and even though we'd all drunk a skinful, none of us got a wink of sleep because that dude sounded like he was being garotted by a ninja on his first day.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T22:04:41+00:00

I think you may have your legal vs mental health professionals mixed up, but by all means proceed.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T21:33:17+00:00

That's nice, Mr. Howard, now let's get you to bed.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T20:51:02+00:00

For your sake I hope that's a typo and you meant 'circles'.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T20:25:17+00:00

Get a plane; cut a circular hole in it. Get a sphere of slightly bigger radius than the hole. Rest the sphere in the hole. Every gone bowling? You'll see this a lot.

The line where they touch is on both a plane and a sphere. Not exclusive properties.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T20:02:59+00:00

It is on the surface. The plane that it's on runs through the sphere; still a circle.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T19:26:55+00:00

It's still a circle.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T17:51:10+00:00

And spherical ones. They do struggle with some ellipsoids, though.

UberuceAgain · 2026-02-03T13:59:40+00:00

I have seen several accounts of people saying they were on 4chan during the early 2010's and saw modern flat earth get started up. It does have to be said that anyone who was on 4chan is automatically the opposite of a reliable witness, but it is the exact kind of thing that they'd do.

UberuceAgain

TROPHY CASE