The Flat Earthers and High Altitude Ballooning

The Earth is flat. You can easily prove this for yourself. Just grab the biggest hard edged ruler you have, put the edge up against the ground (preferably on a bit with no bumps) and you'll see the Earth does not curve away from the ruler. It's flat from end to end.

I'm the first to admit I don't know a lot about the beliefs of modern day 'Flat Earth' believers other than they believe the Earth to be flat and not spherical as Science has generally demonstrated since before we could send people into space and actually see for ourselves.

The Flat Earth Society's website has some FAQs here for their general thinking on their beliefs which, to me, don't make a convincing case for the Earth being flat. Largely because it includes conspiracy theories that suggest even NASA is being duped into believing the Earth is spherical along with a misunderstanding of how cameras, lenses and the photo-shopping of images work.

That aside, Flat Earther's should consider taking up high altitude ballooning. At its simplest level high altitude ballooning is the process of strapping a video camera to a weather balloon and letting it float as far out into the atmosphere as it'll go before the balloon bursts, sending the camera back to the ground. Maybe try it from different points on each side of the Earth and see how things match up (I don't know... it's just an idea).

I'm not suggesting it as a way to see the curvature of the Earth for themselves using their own cameras, lenses and being able to view photoshop free images, rather, if their theory holds up, it could help make their case.

Though I've also read on their website that it's not up to them to prove that the world is flat. They appear to be of the mind set that others should disprove it. I think it's been disproved without a shadow of a doubt but, I imagine Flat Earther's would likely tell me I drank the Kool Aid.

My only thought is, whatever shape you think the Earth to be, it should be demonstrable with actual facts that either have been discovered or have yet to be. The Earth is here. We're on it. Why not prove it's flat and shut those Spherical Earther's up once and for all?

Has anyone bothered to find that 150 foot tall wall of ice that circumnavigates the entire discworld of Earth in Antarctica? NASA surely can't guard the entire thing when the USA can't even effectively guard the Mexican border?

Comments

Jack Nicholson, Anger Management and The Joker

I was watching the Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler movie, Anger Management on DVD and I got to thinking just how good an actor Jack Nicholson is. That's no big revelation really. I'm fairly certain Jack's won a number of awards for his work over the years. However I'll continue on. On the special features of the Anger Management DVD someone comments that almost everyone has a Jack Nicholson impression, because Jack's voice is unmistakably his. Team Jack's voice with the man himself and you have a living icon that few people in the western world would fail to recognise. When you go to see a movie with Jack Nicholson, as soon as he appears you instantly recognise him as Jack, yet, in every single movie I've ever seen him in, he immediately becomes the character. You're no longer watching Jack Nicholson. I particularly like his character, the unorthodox anger management therapist, Dr Buddy Rydell, in Anger Management. Nobody plays a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde char...

Movie Opinion: The Michael Keaton Batman Trilogy - Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), The Flash (2023)

The Michael Keaton Batman Trilogy on DVD. Despite its questionable CGI, troubled star, and the turmoil surrounding the DCEU's future when it was released, 2023's, The Flash does give us a new, and probably final, installment in Michael Keaton's run as Bruce Wayne/Batman. With that in mind, this holiday season, I had a real itch to spend a day binge watching what is now The Michael Keaton, Batman Trilogy . To give you some context, I own every Batman movie (except Pattinson's The Batman ) on DVD, and every DCEU movie up to The Flash. The ones I don't own are only missing because I haven't gotten around to buying them, and they're likely still available on a streaming service I'm subscribed to. I've had Keaton's first two Batman movies in my collection for the best part of two decades but I can count on one hand how many times I've watched each. The last time was more than a decade ago. Before I watched them recently, if you'd have asked...

Movie Opinion: Let's Talk About Indiana Jones Movies (Probably Spoilers)

I love the character of Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford. Recently I bought a DVD box set of all four Indiana Jones movies so I could finally have them in my film collection. With Indiana Jones 5 ramping up production, and set to be released in 2021 (after being pushed back from 2020) it seems like a good time to look back at the previous four films. I won't be reviewing each film. Chances are, if you're reading this, you've either seen them, or decided not to see them based upon the reviews when they were released. I just had some thoughts about each film for discussion.

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

TV Series Review: 12 Monkeys (2015 - Season 1 ) Spoiler Free

Being a fan of the 1995, Terry Gilliam movie, Twelve Monkeys , when I discovered SyFy channel had adapted it into a TV series, 12 Monkeys , I was interested to see how that would pan out. Although the show has been aired in Australia on free to air TV (I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed there at ridiculous hours on occasion), it's only recently that the first two seasons were added to Australian Netflix. So I added it to my list of shows to watch. This article is not so much a review of the show, rather it's my thoughts on adapting to the TV version after being a big fan of the film. At this point, I've only seen all of season one and the first episode of season two. Going into the TV series I literally went in cold, not knowing anything about the approach to this adaptation from pre-publicity or trailers beforehand. I didn't really have any expectations other than wondering if the show would stick to the movie plot lines closely and, if they did, how w...

Tesla Unveils Optimus Robot Prototype and Second Generation Prototype - Movie, iRobot, May Be a Documentary?

Tesla Optimus Prototype One, Development Platform. September 30th finally rolled around along with Tesla A.I. day and the unveiling of not one but two Tesla Optimus Robot prototypes. Which was quite a bonus since we hadn't heard anything much about these robots when I wrote about them in July of 2022. Before revealing the first prototype, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, made a point of managing everyone's expectations, just in case anyone was thinking they were about to see anything close to the actual human concept 'robot' we saw last year. I honestly don't think anyone was expecting that. Prototype One - Development Platform The prototype that walked out on stage, for the very first time without ever being tethered to anything (apparently), was still incredibly impressive despite not being streamlined and highly refined in its capability. It walked quite well - eerily similar to the first generation robots in the 2004, Will Smith movie, iRobot , and even did a bit of a dan...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog