'Pluto Truthers' Are Pretty Sure That the NASA New Horizons Mission Was Faked

MarkWhittington writes: Forget about Apollo moon landing hoax theories. That is so 20th Century. Gizmodo reported that the "Pluto Truthers" have followed the astonishing images being sent back by NASA's New Horizons probe and have come to the conclusion that they are faked. After all, if the space agency could fake the entire moon landing, it would be child's play to fake a robotic probe to the edge of the Solar System.

Comments

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably the same "area 51" nutters?

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just proof that you can present proven facts to a idiot (or an iDiot!) but you cant make it think!

Re:WTF?

[RDW]

Presumably the same "area 51" nutters?

Worse than that. A few hundred of the more extreme 'truthers' even deny that Pluto is a planet.

Re:WTF?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Really? Perhaps you didn't know it, but dwarf planets make a "whoosh"ing sound.

Re:WTF?

[Mashiki]

It isn't a planet, you moron

And A is no longer a vowel, and North is no longer a direction!

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a pebble is a boulder and a pond is an ocean.

Re:WTF?

[charlieo88]

Too bad there isn't a mod for "didn't get the joke."

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they are I'm the direct possession of a battle axe

Re: WTF?

[meglon]

... but their more difficult to kick through the goalposts than a gnome planet.

Re:WTF?

[mark-t]

I've been considering that what may be the only way to convince a die-hard moon hoaxer of the possibility of getting to the moon is to take them there personally... and if (or when) they start insist on saying that what they think they are experiencing is some sort of induced hallucination brought about by drugs or some such thing, just shove them out the airlock without a spacesuit. They'd probably last no more than a few seconds, but I sincerely think it would be enough for most of them to consciously accept the reality of the experience at least before they died. Of course, even if they don't... it's still not a total loss, because at least they won't continue to be around try and convince other people of their tripe.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, that's why we can't call Pluto a planet... Because we're scared of having more than 9? How ridiculous.

Re:WTF?

[Mr.CRC]

This brings up an interesting consideration. Why do a bunch of astronomers get to decide this, or anyone else for that matter. I simply refuse to stop calling Pluto a planet. Whether I conform or not to the changing definitions of scientists has no bearing on what Pluto actually IS, or even what I understand it to be. Furthermore, isn't the categorization hierarchical? Why can't "dwarf-planet" be a subset of "planet?" So then calling Pluto a planet or dwarf-planet makes no difference, both are equally correct, though the latter conveys more information.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

No because we'd end up with hundreds of planets. The only reason Pluto was ever called a planet is because people didn't know much about the solar system when it was discovered. Had it been discovered today, it would never have made planet classification.

People who are unwilling to change their views based upon new evidence cannot be called scientists. That goes for everyone who says Pluto is a planet just because their obsolete schooling told them so.

Re:WTF?

[redwraith94]

Probably the same people that called it a planet.

Re:WTF?

[redwraith94]

To an ant.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, these sequels about our planet systemd have really gone to far. Lucky for us that it is space scale.

Re: WTF?

[silentcoder]

For thousands of years mass and weight were considered the same thing. In common English they are still conflated... in fact weight is more commonly used to describe mass than mass is ! Think of weight loss programs... visiting orbit is the most effective weight loss program we have. But scientists have different definitions. The common English mistake originated because on earth weight and mass is directly correlated but that's only because we defined the early units of mass by measuring weight on earth.
In the end though mass is the amount of matter an object contains and weight is the gravitational force it exerts on the planet earth. The latter correlates with the former up close but because of the inverse square law that correlation dissappears very fast as you travel. At low earth orbit weight is as close to zero as makes no difference... but mass is unchanged.
The point is thst in science definition is actually extremely important. In fact science can be said to consist of nothing but changing definitions that get more acurate over time. We have a special process for doing so but definition is the end product of science because that's how we communicate knowledge most effectively. And if definitions cannot change then science would be not science.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail.

If you are in orbit you must have weight. That's how you orbit.

Inverse square measures from the centre of the earth, not from the surface. You still have most of your weight in low earth orbit.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the relevant part of the definition is broken, as it doesn't actually refer to a trait the object possesses. If they'd decided on a particular amount of mass or physical size, that would be relevant, as it's a trait of the object itself. It's kind of nuts to have a category of this sort come down to whether it's over here, or over there, if the object itself is otherwise identical.

It's like deciding that you're not actually a human if there are any bricks near you.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot argue with stupid.

Oh, dear.

Re: WTF?

[Trapezium Artist]

I suspect that you have missed the point entirely: silentcoder made the correct distinction between "mass" (an inherent property that depends on the number of atoms etc. in an object and that is independent of where the object is) and its "weight", which in physics terms means the force exerted by that object on something, which is the mass times the local acceleration.

Thus a person with a mass of 80kg standing on the Earth exerts a force due to gravity pulling them down onto the surface, i.e. 80 kg x 9.8 m/s2 = 784 Newtons. But for all sorts of obvious reasons, we just use the shorthand version to say that the person "weighs" 80 kg.

On the Moon, their mass would be the same, because they'd have the same number of atoms in their body. But they'd exert much less force on the surface, because the gravity on the Moon is only 1/6th of that on the Earth. So, they would weigh less. It's at that point that the shorthand way of talking about weight becomes useless.

Take the person and stick them infinitely far from any gravitating body and there would be no acceleration and thus no force, so the person would be weightless, but not massless (same number of atoms still).

Of course, in low Earth orbit, you're right in pointing out that the Earth's gravitational acceleration has not diminished much. However, while you're falling freely towards the surface of the Earth under that acceleration, the spacecraft you're in is falling out from underneath you at the same rate, so you don't exert a net force on it. Thus you're effectively weightless.

(If you're both falling freely towards the Earth, why don't you hit it at some point? Because you're flying sideways at such a high speed that the Earth's surface curves away from underneath you at just the same speed as you're falling towards it, so you never hit.)

But here's another thing. Under general relativity, gravity is much better thought of as a curvature of spacetime and it turns out that the motion of even massless objects (photons) is affected by that curvature (think Einstein, Eddington, etc.). Indeed, given a very strong gravitational field / very high spacetime curvature, e.g. around a black hole, photons can go into orbit. This is because while they don't have any mass, they do have energy.

So, in a more correct general relativistic setting, even your basic assertion that "to be able to orbit, you must have weight/mass" is wrong.

Re: WTF?

[Ginger Unicorn]

I simply refuse to stop calling Pluto a planet

why?

Re:WTF?

[RubberDogBone]

Here is the thing, other than your dog and perhaps your cat and some farm animals, not a goddamn thing in this universe CARES what people call it.

If you have a mythical being known as "significant other" he or she may care what they are called.

But that's it. What humans call Pluto and whether we consider it a planet, a mini Planet or a bowl of yogurt are of no consequence whatsoever to that world. It. Doesn't. Fucking. Care.

So if IT doesn't care, don't you go getting your panties (purchased for research purposes of course) in a wad.

Re:WTF?

[RubberDogBone]

Tossing them out an airlock, they would probably live for 20-30 seconds. They'll suffocate long before heat or cold or radiation kills them.

As was said of the man you went insane and ripped out his own entrails in a fit of madness, "He lived long enough to regret his actions"

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case we are the ants so it still applies.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

not a goddamn thing in this universe CARES what people call it

People are a part of the universe, genius.

Re: WTF?

[lurcher]

This is because while they don't have any mass, they do have energy.

e = mc^2

Makes that statement a contradiction.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need to change my views. I'm not a scientist. I'm a politician and an elected representative of the people. *I* make others change their views, through laws and acts. Your science is no match for me: I can have your budget slashed to the point you will have to start a new career as a burger flipper if you want to feed your family. How would you like it, brainy? What about I have this beloved project of yours postponed so much you will have to retire before you can even see it started? What about I play on my electorate's fears and have your precious research curtailed, hunh? Think about it. Remember who has the power here.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because they were wrong. Oh wait, there is an Area51? Who's nuts now?

Re:WTF?

[Midnight Thunder]

Presumably the same "area 51" nutters?

Possibly, or these are the same people who still believe in the flat earth theory?

Re:WTF?

[Ken D]

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Chester State Park Lake, SC - 160 acres
Great Pond, ME - 13.33 mi^2

Re:WTF?

[Quirkz]

I don't know about North, but one children's book I read recently seemed to have gotten rid of West. In the picture of a Disney princess holding a map, the four directions were marked as N, E, S, and 0.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists could just nuke your sorry ass with the bombs that they invent.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reported to the FBI for impersonation of a public official. Enjoy federal "pound me in the ass" prison and remember, don't drop the soap.

Re: WTF?

[countach]

Well hang on now. In the period when English as a language come into existence, there was no known distinction between these 2 concepts. Later on the scientific boffins started to call "mass" one of the concepts, and "weight" the other, but this never filtered through to common usage. I would say in common English therefore, mass=weight they are interchangeable. Only if you are in scientific circles do they become different. It's not a mistake, it's language. The scientists don't get to redefine language unless everyone agrees with it.

Re: WTF?

[mark-t]

A day's supply of O2 is too long... the time scale is such that their brain would not intuitively realize any danger, barring any kind of rational response, which a hoaxer who was convinced that being on the moon was just a drug-induced hallucination has demonstrated themselves incapable of, until they were about to be asphyxiated... they would lapse into unconsciousness first, and so they would never feel any imperative need to consciously change their mind... plus you would not get to hear them screaming as they suffered because they would be unconscious.

So all your method does is simply kill off a moon hoaxer without any serious chance of actually convincing them they were ever wrong. At least the method I proposed has a pretty good chance of convincing them they were wrong before they died by first giving them the opportunity to rationally change their mind by accepting the reality of being on the moon in a safe environment, and only if they *prove* themselves incapable of being convinced by that experience, putting them in imminent danger where any suffering they might endure before they expire is only just barely long enough for them to at least be able to realize they were wrong.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the story set in France?

Nord
Est
Sud
Ouest

Re: WTF?

[Trapezium Artist]

No it doesn't.

Just because energy is on one side of the equation and mass on the other, that doesn't mean they are the same thing. There is an equivalence between them in the same that a certain amount of mass can be converted into a certain amount of energy (and vice versa), but it doesn't mean that they are the same.

And this equation is specific to the situation where the object with mass isn't moving (which is why E in this case is called the "rest mass energy"). More generally in special relativity, for an object that is moving and has a momentum p, the equation becomes:

E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2

Re:WTF?

[CanadianMacFan]

Astronomers get to decide what is a planet because that's their job. Doctors get to decide and name things to do with the body. Biologists do the same with other plants and animals. People involved in an activity get together, choose an elected body (usually), and they make up the rules. Sometimes the rules are voted on. That's how things work.

Re:WTF?

[kellymcdonald78]

I simply refuse to stop calling Broccoli a type of rock, why do a bunch of biologists get to decide to call it a vegetable. Definitions mean things, and generally the professionals who work with these terms on a daily basis are best positioned to create these definitions.

Re:WTF?

[david_thornley]

Omigosh, he pushed me out of an airlock into a very realistic-looking vacuum chamber!

About the only thing we can't reproduce on Earth is different gravity. If the idiot is going to rationalize away that, spacing the idiot isn't going to do any convincing.

Re:WTF?

[Coren22]

If you are pointing to the "object has cleared its orbit", wouldn't that also then exclude Jupiter (the Trojan asteroids) and Earth (numerous discovered co-orbital asteroids)?

Re: WTF?

[Coren22]

There is an area 51, I don't think anyone ever denied that. It is an area designation of the groom lake facility, a part of Nellis Air Force Base. That it has anything to do with aliens, that is what sane people deny. I believe they recently released the information about what went on in the facility too, it was used to develop top secret aircraft, such as the U2, which if you saw them in the 1950s, you likely would think it was an alien aircraft. The A-12 (Early version of the SR-71), and F-117 were also developed there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Lots of information on that Wikipedia article.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what "they" want you to think. Our government has had anti-gravity technology since the Roswell crash, but don't want you to know.

Re:WTF?

[mark-t]

We can't reproduce a vacuum chamber large enough to pass on even casual inspection as appearing to not be inside of any building. The largest vacuum chamber in the world (built, I believe, somewhere around 2010) is only about a hundred feed across, which might barely accommodate a typical Douglas jet (certainly nothing larger), but would be far too small to be believable as any kind of out-of-doors environment if they were inside of it unless they think that NASAs secretly been keeping holodeck technology (in which case, their brains are so far gone that a lack of oxygen to it will make no discernible difference to its function anyways).

Personally, I suspect that surrounded with the reality that they are in a vast airless environment, far too vast to reasonably be anything but outside of any man-made building, and about to die will probably be sufficient sensory input to their poorly functioning brain that their final conscious act will be conclude they were wrong.

If not... well then, hey, it's no great loss to humanity. If so, then at least they realized it before dying, even though they were unable to communicate it.

Of course, all of this presumes that convincing them is worth killing them over in the first place. Presumably, if you can do so without killing them, then so much the better because they will be best equipped to relay to other misguided souls precisely how their line of reasoning fails, in terms that those who would think like that in the first place are likely to understand.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why you would never make it as a Republican. You see, for us Republicans the suffering of our victims comes before everything else. I don't really care if at the end of it those hoaxers are convinced they're on the Moon or not. I care that they suffer, screaming their lungs off, pissing and shitting in their suits (I'm not giving them a diaper) and that I can relish in their suffering. But I know that in the end, if I put my mind in it, I will have them swear that they admit the Moon landings are real. And then I will rape, torture and kill their loved ones. Because I'm a Republican, and that's the way of my kind.

Re: WTF?

[mark-t]

Except, as I said,,, they won't be screaming their lungs off.... they will lapse into unconsciousness before the dinosaur part of their brain kicks in and realizes that there is any real danger. Remember, these are people who don't believe in the moon landing in the first place, so why would you expect them to take the notion that you are stranding them on the moon seriously enough to raise an objection to it?

Of course, if you just enjoy knowing that someone is suffering whether or not you can hear them, then what's the point of making them wait? While I'm sure your recommended approach is fine for that, it strikes me as being not very efficient in terms of resource usage, since it is an unnecessary expenditure of otherwise perfectly usable air.

Re: WTF?

[silentcoder]

Fair enough, but not really the point I was making. The point I was making was that scientific definitions are very important - and indeed do change over time. Once upon a time there was no scientific distinction between the concepts either.
We knew how to measure weight, but the only variable we could really change between measurements was the mass - so for a long time even early proto-scientists used them interchangeably (Archimedes's density idea with the king's crown didn't make the distinction and while it wasn't truly science yet [ideas weren't tested] it was certainly an early fore-runner).

But the question of what is, or is not, a planet is a scientific one - and this is a matter of definition. Newer knowledge led to the definition changing, and when it did - Pluto no longer met it. That's science. As it happens some of the discoveries from New Horizons suggest Pluto may have rather more mass than we previously believed - possibly even enough to once more meet the definition, so it could actually rejoin the list of planets again.

Having said that, it's not actually all that interesting. The amount of public interest in whether Pluto is a planet or not is ... well silly. It's ultimately like the mass and weight thing, outside of a science discussion - who CARES if you do call it a planet ? It matters in science, but not in common speech.

What we SHOULD be paying attention to is what New Horizons already sent back that we didn't expect to see - and can't explain. In just these first few pictures, a tiny subset of what's coming ... we saw giant mountains of ice, which shouldn't be there. The substances we thought Pluto was mostly made from can't form ice mountains that big, they aren't strong enough. So what ARE they ? We have no idea. The most likely possibility is water but we have no way of proving that, and if it IS water it means Pluto has a LOT more water than we thought.
And then there's the huge question coming out of what isn't where we expected: craters, there aren't any. Not having craters is an even bigger mystery. The only things we know off that can prevent an object in space from having impact craters is an atmosphere or tectonic activity - two things we were sure Pluto didn't have.
Now it seems it probably has at least one of them... and we can't explain EITHER. How could something with so little mass have an atmosphere ? But it's also so small and far from the sun... where could it possibly get enough energy to drive tectonic activity of the scale needed to resurface a world ?
One idea that's been suggested is that smaller tectonic activity could throw up plumes of dust and smoke creating atmospheres - these don't last long as Pluto lacks the gravity to hold onto them, but maybe last long enough to wear down any impact craters. It's attractive because it means we don't have to explain an atmosphere and it would need less energy than the kind of tectonics that resurfaces Venus regularly... but we didn't expect ANY tectonics, even this reduced energy version still requires way more energy than we thought Pluto could possibly have.

Whatever the real answers are, and they are likely to be surprizes we haven't come close to thinking about yet, they will be huge... they could massively alter our most fundamental theories about such questions as "how did the solar system form" and "how did Earth come to be".
In 500 years nobody will remember the debate about whether Pluto is a planet or not just as I'm sure there were a lot of things that happened in Galileo's time that seemed important and of which we don't even have records... but what we learn to answer these questions (and the others likely to be asked in the coming months)... that could be the Galileo moment of our generation... of our century.

The next big leap forward in astronomy could be happening right now... and the public is mostly interested in arguing about something that is important in the same way a good filing system is important and for the same reason - but definitely not very interesting and certainly not exciting.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean Area 51 is used for something other than testing advanced prototype aircraft?

Re:WTF?

[gzuckier]

It isn't a planet, you moron, it's a dwarf planet. If you define "planet" (the non-dwarf kind) to include Pluto, then you need to also call Vesta and a bunch of other objects "planets", so instead of 9 planets, it'll be somewhere in the teens, and growing as we discover more Kuiper Belt objects.

We call them little people planets now.

Re:WTF?

[Quirkz]

Interesting. I think it was Belle with the map. Her kingdom does have some French influence, though of course they do all speak and write English in the American movies and books. It seems weird they'd insert a little authenticity into the map and nothing else. I also *think* it was a zero and not even an O, but that's kind of hard to tell sometimes.

Re:WTF?

[SalafranceUnderhill]

You can lead a donkey to water, but at the end of the day, it's still a donkey.

Is anything true?

[GloomE]

Maybe they should just go full solipsism and be done with it.

Re:Is anything true?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is true. All is false. Eternity is meaningless if it never existed.

Re:Is anything true?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I knew you were going to say that.

Re: Is anything true?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not true!

Re: Is anything true?

[silentcoder]

You forgot "everything is permitted "

Re:Is anything true?

[david_thornley]

I'm a solipsist. Isn't everybody?

Re:Is anything true?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite thing is when people say, "I believe I create my own reality."

I kick them in the shin as hard as I can, then ask, "Why did you do that??"

But....

[roc97007]

But but.... WHY??

Re:But....

[bondsbw]

Because of the Paypal link in the video description.

Re:But....

[TapeCutter]

Why - From memory, the 1970's movie "Capricorn One" was the first time I heard the meme, now get off my fake alien lawn..

Re:But....

[roc97007]

That's a good answer. What I meant, though, was why would NASA bother to fake a mission to Pluto?

Re:But....

[GloomE]

To justify all the money that the government gave them, which they actually spend on hookers and blow. (and Photoshop subscriptions)

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how they don't claim the US military faked a bunch of wars too seeing as how NASA's funding is around 40 times less.

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember going to see that movie with my grandmother when I was five years old. I also remember walking out (being walked out) by my grandmother and having to listen to three days of rants on the type of garbage movies had become.

From what (little) "research" I've done on the subject, "Capricorn One" started it all.

Re:But....

[penguinoid]

Funny how they don't claim the US military faked a bunch of wars too seeing as how NASA's funding is around 40 times less.

Really, cause I heard quite a few people complaining about fake weapons of mass destruction..

Re:But....

[eexaa]

Because it is clearly simpler to put an entire planet into underground recording studio under area 51?

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying these conspiracy nuts complained about the US military having fake weapons of mass destruction?

Also, weapons != wars.

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a few internet trolls that people latched onto and decided they were on to something.

Space doesn't exist, it is all a hoax.

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

The weapons might have been fake, but the wars were very real.

Re:But....

[penguinoid]

If the cause of war is fake, then it could be argued that the war is fake too. For example, if a doctor gives you antibiotics for the flu, then you've been given fake medicine -- technically real medicine, but for the wrong thing and it doesn't help you but still costs as much as real medicine.

Re:But....

[formfeed]

Why?

1. They took pictures of Pluto, but decided to show us fakes, because there is something on the surface, we are not supposed to know....
2. The probe never made it past Jupiter, because one of its moons' defense systems got activated...
3. NASA hasn't had a space program for 40 years. The money is used to build a secret settlement under Antarctica.
4. If none of these reasons are true, it can only mean the Truth is even more frightening...

Tards will be Tards

[Anonymous Coward]

But they can be harmful. For example, I've become convinced that Trump became obsessed years ago with conspiracy theories and he's now running for president on that...

Re:Tards will be Tards

[bobstreo]

But they can be harmful. For example, I've become convinced that Trump became obsessed years ago with conspiracy theories and he's now running for president on that...

Please don't confuse mentally handicapped individuals with those suffering from Reality Impairment.

Re:Tards will be Tards

[Will.Woodhull]

I think it more likely that Trump discovered "tards will be tards", figured out some ways to capitalize on that, and, since he is clearly without ethical encumbrances, is taking advantage of the Republican idjits to push his own agenda fast, far, and furiously.

He is a masterful tard manipulator. That's dangerous.

Re:Tards will be Tards

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it more likely that Trump discovered "tards will be tards", figured out some ways to capitalize on that, and, since he is clearly without ethical encumbrances, is taking advantage of the Republican idjits to push his own agenda fast, far, and furiously.

He is a masterful tard manipulator. That's dangerous.

Mitchell and Webb had him pegged years ago. He has no chance at the presidency, but he is the best hope the Republicans have so far .. that is other than Jeb Bush who is apparently dumber than his brother... I digress, Watch Mitchell and Webb's commentary on Donald Trump and Celebrity Apprentice.

Re:Tards will be Tards

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't confuse mentally handicapped individuals with those suffering from Reality Impairment.

...because it is degrading to the mentally handicapped.

Not an interesting story

[Improv]

If you look around you'll find wackos of every kind. Unless there's a lot of these attention-desperate people, why should we be interested in this?

Re:Not an interesting story

[Dutch Gun]

These people are only after attention, and by putting this story on slashdot, we've given them exactly what they wanted. No sane person seriously believes this or gives it even the least bit of credibility. Oh, and it's not really even funny either, if that was the angle - it's just sad. I'm not even going to bother reading the article, because I don't want to contribute any advertising traffic.

My summary: Still plenty of attention-seeking morons in the world. News at 11.

Re:Not an interesting story

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look around you'll find wackos of every kind. Unless there's a lot of these attention-desperate people, why should we be interested in this?

I fully agree with you. What's really messed up is not that there are wackos out there, it's that there are news reporters (questionable web reporting included) that decide the appropriate word to label people must be taken from the "1984 handbook on naming".

We call people who are obviously lying "truthers". Think about that for a moment. After ten years of using words at odds to their definitions, it is not a surprise that most people have difficulty in constructing really well thought out, defensible, positions based on solid, non-contrived evidence.

Re:Not an interesting story

[dcollins117]

If you look around you'll find wackos of every kind.

Some of them are trolls, I'll bet, just out to make mischief. But I personally know three people who are officially diagnosed with schizophrenia, and talking to them is sometimes illuminating, albeit extremely frustrating. Their world view is just too different to relate to.

Delusional thinking isn't just for full blown schizophrenics, either. One woman I used to work with (and I thought was normal) told me one day about her encounter with a UFO and it's alien occupants. Wow, I did not expect that from her.

When I was a very young kid, I either had visual hallucinations or maybe I was dreaming and only thought I was awake, but my experience was that I saw some really weird stuff. Stuff that can't possibly be true, so I can't exclude myself from the delusional category, either. Thankfully nothing like that has happened since.

Re:Not an interesting story

[rtb61]

This is interesting because it represents one thing more than any other, the main stream media meme of inventing issues to draw the public's eyes to watch associated advertising. Truth is these lies are a whole lot less damaging than the similar style of lies told in main stream media to garner attention and generate profits. So why don't those conspiracy sites tell the same lies as main stream media, because that space is already occupied by more skilled and far more expansive organisations, forcing those conspiracy sites to create their own different lies in order to garner attention.

Keep in mind this, main stream media routinely tells lies to drive mass murder under the guise of military threats, conspiracy theorists mostly tell lies of no consequence ie what is the result whether or not there are alien bases on Pluto, what actual difference does it make, pretty much the same as the idea of alien bases on the moon, honestly it doesn't change one thing. So nothing at all like pumping war because of military industrial complex owners and advertisers, that consequence trillions of dollars thrown away and the mass murder of men, women and children, not serial criminal double digits but millions of people. So what should be done about the main stream media propagandists whose intent is to conspire in the killing of millions of people to feed their greed.

Re:Not an interesting story

[DerekLyons]

Unless there's a lot of these attention-desperate people, why should we be interested in this?

Because This Is Slashdot - and how can we feel superior without our daily Two Minute Hate?

Re:Not an interesting story

[jfengel]

They said we'd hit Peak Attention-Seeking-Moron in 2007. We've proven them wrong. The fools, the poor, mad fools.

Re:Not an interesting story

[Anonymous Coward]

no. it is pretty unbelieavably funny...

Re:Not an interesting story

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a very young kid, I either had visual hallucinations or maybe I was dreaming and only thought I was awake, but my experience was that I saw some really weird stuff. Stuff that can't possibly be true, so I can't exclude myself from the delusional category, either. Thankfully nothing like that has happened since.

Everyone at any time can see or hear strange things. The "healthy" ones will just dismiss them as being impossible or improbable. If you can separate your internal musings from the reality, you are not delusional.

Re:Not an interesting story

[antdude]

You're a wacko and a troll like me. We are all wackos and trolls to someone else. :(

Re:Not an interesting story

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully nothing like that has happened since.

You just keep telling yourself that, you poor deluded fool!

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA employs ~19,000 people that are all in on the joke and have never once leaked the 'truth'... all so they can troll some conspiracy theorists...

The ultimate long-con.

Re:Of course

[gcnaddict]

Nope. See, the way it was done was by employing ~19,000 to go forward with the mission, but at some point, a small team running maintenance on the mission mid-transit realized the mission failed when the probe was popped 2/3rds of the way through its flight. A plan was hatched with the NSA to use existing test code from the development effort to emulate signals from the probes at all the telescopes capable of listening to it. The NSA's role would simply be to install the interception equipment at the telescopes to man-in-the-middle the responses from the telescopes to the relevant computers in such a way that the expected test data would be injected. Therefore, you only had a small team of maybe ~50 which was involved in covering up the failure of the operation, including a few graphic designers who could create astounding mockups of Pluto and Charon extrapolated from a combination of the Hubble 2010 image with artistic direction guided by existing photos of Triton, a body very similar to Pluto. Introduce a scary software glitch mid-flight because nothing ever goes 100% right. As far as the ~19,000 knew, the mission succeeded.

OR, the glitch a weekish before the rendezvous was the point where the graphic design and emulation teams would have to be brought in. THAT's what happened! It's just that the probe was unrecoverable from a software glitch!

Or, you know, it actually went as fucking planned.

Re: Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is so full of win. That "truther" needs a serious lesson on math and ratios. Jupiter is what, 1000 times larger than Pluto?

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

How could all of this been done when it is a provable lie that life exists on this planet, hell I have my doubts this so called planet earth is a planet at all and not a petri dish sitting forgotten in some corner of a lab.

Re: Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

More like 188,000.

"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[msobkow]

"Truther" conspiracy nuts don't believe in *anything* they can't see, feel, hear, or touch themselves. They probably think the very *existence* of Pluto is a lie.

You can make people go to school, but you can't force them to become educated. :(

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[msobkow]

Personally I think "truthers" are just very lonely and insecure people who are trying to boost their own egos through claiming to have "secret" or "superior" knowledge to the rest of the world. Kind of sad, really.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Even if it did exist, how could a probe punch through the sphere of fixed stars at the edge of the universe in order to travel to an alleged tiny rock far beyond?

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who are 100% certain the WTC towers came down in a controlled demolition, especially building 7.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I think "truthers" are just very lonely and insecure people who are trying to boost their own egos through claiming to have "secret" or "superior" knowledge to the rest of the world. Kind of sad, really.

One might say the same for armchair psychologists, of course.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell them. They are pathetic.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[TapeCutter]

Duh - It went thru a hole where a star fell out, you've heard of falling stars, right?

Re: "Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

So... They don't believe in women either?

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because we can't disprove their science our option is to fall back to the old ad hominem tactics. You and your ilk are so content being drones in society that you deny reality that punches you in the face... Historically common but always tragic for society

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

OUR job isn't to prove or disprove their science. Their job is to prove it and until they do, personal opinion is the only game in play.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[guruevi]

Why would the government go through the controlled demolition when simply smacking some planes would do damage enough? It only has the potential to leave more evidence.

What wasn't reported much on however, was the subpar quality of both the buildings' designs and materials. The buildings weren't designed to withstand a plane collision or an earthquake even though due to their height, they should've been.

The reasons the buildings collapsed the way they did (catastrophically) was due to American capitalism - get the most profit out of any project regardless of the consequences and lives involved. But pointing the finger at themselves (engineers and architects trying to make a quick buck) is harder than blaming someone else.

Re: "Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think any buildings in the '70's were built to be "airliner-proof."

Those buildings were evidently engineering marvels because they could be built so tall without being just huge monoliths of concrete. Do you think the Burj Khalifa is airliner-proof? I haven't read anything about it, but I'm sure if you plough into it with a plane, it's gonna really fuck up the building.

Also note that the planes hitting the buildings didn't bring them down. It was the long-burning fires that brought them down. All that jet fuel burns long and hot.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[DutchUncle]

Umm . . . they DID withstand plane collisions. Both of them. No toppling whatever. And when they collapsed from the heat of a Jet-A fueled fire (give the bad guys credit for picking the right strategic planes - fully fueled for long flights), they collapsed straight down rather than taking out multiple blocks in all directions. Sorry, I think your rating of "subpar" is incorrect.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

"Truther" conspiracy nuts don't believe in *anything* they can't see, feel, hear, or touch themselves.

Troofers believe in a whole bunch of things they can't see, feel, hear. (and they probably touch themselves way too much).

Gang stalking, alien probing and abductions, the hollow moon and the secret moon bases, people living beneath the Arctic ice mass, chemtrails, remote mind control, shape-shifting lizard people, alien visitors from outer space, the English royal family eating babies, astrology, tarot, crystal healing, past lives, Deepak Chopra telling the truth, fairies (not the gay kind), angels, ghosts, Carlos Castenada, the Bible as literally true, ectoplasm, what really happens at Bildenberger conventions, the cancer curing properties of water vortexes, lucky rabbits feet (didn't work for the rabbit), Uri Geller, that their psychic abilities aren't psychotic episodes, that if a /. poster quotes their posts twice they're being stalked, that they're not highly suggestible attention whores, etc - a long list of things they can't see, touch, feel or hear.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[lgw]

Building 7 free falling without being hit by an airplane because of office furniture on fire? Seriously?

For serious. Any building will collapse if left to burn long enough. Building 7 would seem normal if we didn't have public fire departments everywhere.

the buildings came down by controlled demolition,

You, controlled flight of an airplane into a building, demolishing it. Can't argue with that.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[lgw]

The reasons the buildings collapsed the way they did (catastrophically) was due to American capitalism

No skyscraper in the world will survive that load of flaming jet fuel (the airplane impact itself was nowhere near enough to bring the building down).

But, since you seem to love communist engineering let's remember the The Banqiao Reservoir Dam Failure, likely the most deadly engineering failure in history: 62 dams broke, 170,000+ died as a result, 11 million left homeless.

After years of studying the incident, researchers concluded that it was the design of the Banqiao Reservoir Dam and the other reservoirs, along with the principles pertaining to the containment of the river, which should be blamed for the failure and subsequent calamity. While many pointed fingers at the weather forecast all those years ago, researchers are citing that the tragedy was man-made and not entirely a natural disaster.

During the late 1950s, scientists warned that any given reservoir`s flood control was being ignored and that the irrigation functions of those reservoirs were overemphasized during the heat of the construction frenzy. It has been estimated that China continues to have 87,000 reservoirs across the nation that were built during this low standard construction era and most of these have fallen into serious disrepair. On top of sub-par construction standards, the country also lacked any early warning system as well as an evacuation plan that could have saved lives.

Yeah, sure, keep preaching the evils of capitalism.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't exactly call the way the came down as 'controlled'

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Will.Woodhull]

I have met people who are educated beyond the level of their intelligence. So I think the better sound bite is: an educated idiot is still an idiot.

Re: "Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong: we Republicans do not hate you and want you to die because we're lonely. Au contraire, we're surrounded by the wealthy and the powerful and a rich coterie of sycophants. The reason we want you to suffer and die a slow, long and ignominious death is, simply, because! That's it. We don't need any reason. When you're powerful and wealthy - as we Republicans are - we do not need any reason to do anything. We do as we please. And we're pleased by starving, torturing and raping you to death. Because we're Republicans, and that's the way of our kind.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dave420]

You seem incapable of actually having a discussion with someone. If someone points out some unfortunate truth from "your" side, you simply point out something unfortunate on the "other" side, as if that achieves absolutely anything. Seriously. This is getting pathetic. Learn to actually discuss things, not just play a game of "internet nuh-uh!"

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[drkstr1]

http://rememberbuilding7.org/7... My guess is that the plane that went down in the fields (due to passenger intervention) was supposed to hit building 7. They brought it down anyways because... what else were they supposed to do? It really isn't all that far fetched, if you consider for a second, the amount of psychopaths that rise to a position of power simply for their willingness to do things that is normal people would consider unimaginable.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dbIII]

One of those "engineers" is on slashdot at times and it turns out HR called him "software engineer" when he became a team leader after a few years as a programmer. Such "engineers" are easily identified by assertions that redhot steel is just as strong as cold steel and similar symptoms of not earning the title by either experience, training or education.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dbIII]

The buildings weren't designed to withstand a plane collision

Most are not, partly because the risk is low and partly because many were built when aircraft were smaller.
The WTC was designed and partly built before the first Boeing 747 flew.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dbIII]

Discussion? I think you came to the wrong room. He's pointing out reality to someone that was looking at something else instead.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

THESE towers were.

Because there's a flight path nearby and they're really big.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they were only trying to kill people and couldn't have predicted the collapses. No one else did until it occurred. They are not materials and chemical scientists, just dumb terrorists learning the basics of flight control. We got unlucky they fell, but lucky they fell relatively straight down.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dave420]

He's pretending one thing doesn't exist, or is perfectly acceptable, because something else exists.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dave420]

Your guess is worthless, as it is based on no evidence. What happened to WT7 is well understood and supported by evidence, so first you have to show how that is nonsense. No one has managed to do that yet without resorting to guesses and hunches (similar to those you just made).

Re: "Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dave420]

What happens if you mix it with all the contents of the towers (office furniture, heaps of paper, carpets, electrical equipment), and put it in a massive stream of fresh oxygen (the wind)? I guess it'll be a bit more than 800C. Just a quick question: If you started the house fire with jet fuel, would it burn at 800C or 1000C?

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dave420]

The fire retardant coating of the steel was mainly knocked off at the impact point by the fully-fuelled jet plane smacking it at hundreds of miles an hour, meaning it wasn't able to retard the fire. It severing the sprinkler lines too didn't help, as that meant the fires were burning in an incredibly-well-ventilated office (containing lots of combustible things), unhindered.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[lgw]

I don't spent much time trying to rebut nonsense claims these days. However, of all the real-world systems with track records, it's clear which one works best.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

Jet fuel may have a low combustion point, but it burns at around 1500 degrees F. That's not a cool fire. It's hot enough to make steel malleable and start working with it.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

The buildings weren't designed to withstand a plane collision

"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door—this intense grid—and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting."
Frank A. Demartini, the on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, Jan 25, 2001.

"We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed. [But] the building structure would still be there."
John Skilling, Lead WTC Structural Engineer 1993

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

The buildings weren't designed to withstand a plane collision or an earthquake even though due to their height, they should've been.

That's actually completely false. They were designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707, which was the largest commercial airplane when the towers were designed. This information is widely available, and I have no idea why anyone would question it at this point. Manhattan is not in an earthquake designated zone, and no buildings from that era are designed for them. Implying that the WTC buildings were faulty because they didn't have something that no other building in the area has and that they were not required to have is deceptive. The new WTC is (reportedly) designed with some earthquake resistance.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[KGIII]

Let us not forget that any disagreement is being postulated by paid shills and astroturfers regardless of merit.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Let us not forget that any disagreement is being postulated by paid shills and astroturfers regardless of merit.

Alex Jones has fans? The troof

https://sites.google.com/site/911guide/truthersexposed, Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, and Jason Bermas is obviously a Jew, and a 100th degree Mason. Plus - Jason is a woody word.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[KGIII]

They are probably Lizard People. I saw it on YouTube...

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dbIII]

See my post above and try reading as far as line two this time.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[dbIII]

He's pretending one thing doesn't exist

That is another way of looking at it. Your suggestion completely failed the reality test and it's not a thread about SF or fantasy.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[drkstr1]

My guess has nothing to do with the facts of building 7. I was simply speculating as to why they would bring building 7 down in a controlled demolition when it never got hit by a plane (which is the official sorry by the way... It's only the "why" that's under debate). Exactly three planes were hijaked, only two made it to the target, and yet, all three buildings went down in a similar fashion. I definitely don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, in fact I'm quite a skeptic usually. The problem is that the official story isn't logically consistent with reality, which is bothersome to me. I always feel unease with things don't add up. If buying into the official story helps you sleep at night, then more power to ya!

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[ToddInSF]

I've seen this BS repeated over and over and over again, it's simply remarkable to me how stubborn people are to cling to a childish paranoia.

The argument that jet fuel can not burn hot enough to melt the steel is flawed. Because the steel didn't NEED to melt; it just needed to become malleable enough for it and the connecting structure around it to fail. What the crazies always ignore is the fact that those load-bearing steel beams WERE UNDER LOAD.

Also, arguing that jet fuel burning can only reach just so high a temperature, that's equally bullshit. I can make kerosene, almost anything, burn much hotter than it's combustion temperature just by blowing a little bit of air on it. In this case, a very light breeze at that height can suffice to bring the burning temperature up a few hundred degrees. Not rocket science. In metallurgy they've been doing this for literally centuries now.

Nobody cut corners; the building was a technological marvel, and is still considered remarkable.

It's unrealistic and betrays a lack of understanding of basic physics and economics to expect any commercial or residential structure to be entirely impervious to a jet filled with fuel traveling at a high speed.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Anonymous Coward]

The Architects & Engineers for 9/11 truth prove that the buildings came down by controlled demolition

Except for the part about having any hard evidence at all. All they offer is conjecture and conspiracy theories, they don't actually do any investigating to confirm or disconfirm their assertions. "It must be the truth, because... logic!"

How on earth could all the explosives necessary to take down the buildings have been planted? How much would be required? Who put them there? How were they convinced to do it, bribes, threats, hypnosis? Why has nobody involved spilled the beans?

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[RockDoctor]

Troofers believe in a whole bunch of things [...] that their psychic abilities aren't psychotic episodes,

Very nicely rude. Class insult. Well done.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Troofers believe in a whole bunch of things [...] that their psychic abilities aren't psychotic episodes,

Very nicely rude. Class insult. Well done.

A pleasure to meet you Pot. What a lovely shade of black you are.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[RockDoctor]

Hey - it was a compliment! A good quality insult is a joy to find.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Darinbob]

I heard that pictures of the Earth were faked, even those taken at street level.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Hey - it was a compliment! A good quality insult is a joy to find.

Someone from the USA that understands satire (apart from Randall)? Now that is a joy to find. Maybe I'll remove that satire blocker now. [blinks]
I recently posted to a testosterone filled thread about some dick shooting down a drone 'cause it were looking at his daughter (maybe). I was replying to someone who reasonably pointed out the actual law concerning trespassers and some shrivel dick gun nut who didn't get my comment about "maybe the right to bear arms is a good thing (unless you're an armless bear)" lectured me about how hard law and guns are. [facepalm] Someone flies a drone - someone shoots a drone in area where it's illegal to fire into the air, and then the drone is magically an airborne paedophile after the precious daughter - people want shot drone back, person threatens them with gun. I can see why satire and sarcasm goes down well.

What next someone who's lips didn't get tired midway through an excerpt from Readers Digest and thinks Oscar Wilde said "sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,".

Apologies, if they are necessary. I don't pay much attention to poster's names, I noted yours a couple of days ago.

/. don't judge all the USA by the posters on it - or by the tourists they send us. Economy tourism - the modern American version of the 17th century British convict ships? (except with much wider seats).

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Hey - it was a compliment! A good quality insult is a joy to find.

I actually squinted at it for a while - before "assuming" fuck no - they're probably from the USA. Turns out the pseudonym actually meant Geologist... my bad. (though I feel it's something of a bonus)

I'd also like to take this opportunity to sincerely (no wax, I promise) apologise to all those people I offended when I referred to my computers as "boxen". Your "I don't take myself too seriously" and "GENNIUS" badges are in the mail"

[In a box full of building rubble with no stamps]

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[RockDoctor]

before "assuming" fuck no - they're probably from the USA.

Normally a safe assumption on here. Not true in this case though. Been to America twice - once for a fortnight holiday, and once accidentally because of travel problems. Might go back, if someone pays my fees.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

before "assuming" fuck no - they're probably from the USA.

Normally a safe assumption on here. Not true in this case though. Been to America twice - once for a fortnight holiday, and once accidentally because of travel problems. Might go back, if someone pays my fees.

Accidentally! For some reason that strikes me as hilarious. I spent part of my youth there - and have to travel there for about a month every year. It's a great place, lots of great people - the latter are sadly under-represented on /.

Here's a classic - can you follow his train of thought?

. Someone (several people) marked my posts earlier in the thread as troll, while anonymous got busy, then most of those troll points got removed and he and others popped up - I can understand that, just not what the fuck he's on about. Maybe "he" is just beta software - seriously, is that a bot?

It's like Mattel has come out with "Mr PotatoHead Mark II" - "and this time he's got a com-pute-a". I'm trying to picture the writer but all I can see is a huge spud with one shiny plastic eyebrow, upside down mis-matching ears and a weird hat pinned on his head, propped up against the keyboard.

I couldn't sleep, damn thing gave me nightmares. Of all the things to make me wake in a sweat it's Mr PotatoHead Mark II "You are not everyone and do not speak for everyone, nor have you polled a representative sample". If this keeps up I'm going to need laudanum.

Anyway - happy travels.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[RockDoctor]

I don't see why accidentally ending up in America because transport messed up should be funny. First day's flight was delayed by about 19 hours by snow. Next airport I missed my connection (unsurprisingly) and the office booked me to continue home through America. Had to book one of those ESTER things online in the half-hour between getting the flight details and having to get through the passport control (did the airport have wired network sockets? did they fuck - had to work out how to set up wifi on the laptop!), then got the third degree from the woman on the passports because I was travelling with my work gear and she thought I was an illegal immigrant or something. Totally stupid. Almost caused me another day sweating into the same clothes.

Very un-funny experience.

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I don't see why accidentally ending up in America because transport messed up should be funny. First day's flight was delayed by about 19 hours by snow. Next airport I missed my connection (unsurprisingly) and the office booked me to continue home through America. Had to book one of those ESTER things online in the half-hour between getting the flight details and having to get through the passport control (did the airport have wired network sockets? did they fuck - had to work out how to set up wifi on the laptop!), then got the third degree from the woman on the passports because I was travelling with my work gear and she thought I was an illegal immigrant or something. Totally stupid. Almost caused me another day sweating into the same clothes.

Very un-funny experience.

It's funny in the same way as someone telling you they went to restaurant last night and noticed the fork was dirty. i.e. it's not the experience that's funny as much as the scenarios hearing of the experience brings to mind.

• Q. Have you ever been to the USA?
• A. Yeah - once. Accidentally. (which is pretty funny in itself if delivered just right, and if the tone goes over the head of the person asking the question).
• Q. How did you find it?
• A. (so many possible variations) [perplexed, indignant]
  I didn't find it, it was an accident! What the fuck is wrong with you?
• A. [sarcastic - when you're stuck in a terminal all airports are the same, hell on earth]
  Oh - it was great! (images of people trying to sleep on seats designed to prevent just that, jammed next to overweight missionaries from Bumfuck Kansas who won't shut up, children fighting in the aisles, unable to find a power point that matches any of the adaptors for your laptop, living on overpriced cardboard sandwiches, while loud Hari Khrisnas dance around you, shivering in O'Hare, wearing the only clothing that didn't get rerouted to Hong Kong - a Manchester United jumper and ridiculous hat with Viking horns you paid over the odds for out of desperation in the souvenir shop)
  I especially liked Disney Land (images of a mob of angry stranded passengers surrounding the inquiries desk where the clerks compete to see who can start a riot first)
  I got my picture taken with Goofy (image of the aftermath of a punch up with the chief desk-clerk where a picture of the angry stranded passenger is captured mid-punch, makes the headlines of the New York Times under the headlines "UK football hooligan deported after airport riot").

Not funny to you. But I laughed (which is what counts, right?).

Re:"Truthers" don't believe in *air*

[Demonoid-Penguin]

My guess has nothing to do with the facts of building 7. I was simply speculating as to why they would bring building 7 down in a controlled demolition when it never got hit by a plane (which is the official sorry by the way... It's only the "why" that's under debate). Exactly three planes were hijaked, only two made it to the target, and yet, all three buildings went down in a similar fashion. I definitely don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, in fact I'm quite a skeptic usually. The problem is that the official story isn't logically consistent with reality, which is bothersome to me. I always feel unease with things don't add up. If buying into the official story helps you sleep at night, then more power to ya!

Speculate away. While you're at it calculate the number of charges required, how long that would take, and how difficult that would be - unless all those security guards and explosive sniffing dogs that normally patrolled were part of the plot too.

Don't forget to count all the engineers and architects in the USA when you estimate the significance of the number (who never visted the sites) who claim it couldn't have collapsed because of heat weaking the high tensile steel in the support beams.

Car manufacturers can't build shit without having to do recalls - but a conspiracy that large, and complicated goes off without a hitch. Then looks at those troofer "video proofs" again. Take the White House for example - compare the "evidence of conspiracy" with the press photos - notice how the troofers only show you selective images?

It never pays to not test what you believe. It only takes one minute to check - how hard is that?

slashdot outage just before this post

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty sure this post was faked due to the slashdot outage today, it's too much of a coincidence

Re:slashdot outage just before this post

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful m80s, the Illuminati and the NSA secretly p0sted this comment to k33p you off the1r sc3nt.

SLASHDOT HACKED!

[Anonymous Coward]

And brought to its knees. Then got pissed on.

Truther?

[Sideshow Mark]

At what point did Americans substitute the word "truther" for "crackpot"?

Re:Truther?

[YrWrstNtmr]

At what point did Americans substitute the word "truther" for "crackpot"?

Sept 12, 2001.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point did Americans substitute the word "truther" for "crackpot"?

We did it because it sounds even stupider. The word "truth" doesn't mean much to us anymore anyways. "Fact" only has a semblance of what it should mean left, so it can still be used for a time.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

Around 9/11, IIRC.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny because it's true.

Re:Truther?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

At what point did Americans substitute the word "truther" for "crackpot"?

About the same time geeks became a "good thing" and we stopped paying a nickel to see them at side shows?

And it's troofer, not "truther". [sigh] Just shows you're part of the conspiracy, or a sheeple.

Re:Truther?

[rahvin112]

It's a self applied name. Someone called them crackpots and they called themselves 9/11 truthers. Now truther is an anachronism for crackpot by their own doing.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point did Americans substitute the word "truther" for "crackpot"?

Sept 12, 2001.

100% correct. a tried and true tactic of the mainstream media and those who cling to it is to denigrate the handful of legitimate issues and questions being raised by diluting the discussion with tons of nonsense, highlighting the most ridiculous people, organizations, and theories, offering them up to all get viewed as being one and the same, coming from the same crowd of people, and possessing the same level of veracity.

on 9/11 3 steel-framed skyscrapers demolished themselves in mid-air, coming down through themselves, through the path of greatest resistance, near the acceleration of gravity, leaving little in their wake but pyroclastic clouds of pulverized dust and pools of molten steel. those such as the architects & engineers for 9/11 truth, professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, and physics, who for the last 14 years have sought scientific peer review not only of NIST's official analysis of what happened to the 3 wtc buildings, but also of their own scientific analysis of what happened to the 3 wtc buildings, and who ultimately call for a new investigation into what happened, have been commonly referred to as "truthers."

ever since then the mainstream media, which of course refuses to fairly cover that issue, jumps at any and every chance to hold up some crackpot here or some crackpot there who supposedly thinks pluto doesnt exist or the holocaust never happened or the government is really shape shifting aliens or any other stupid thing, and say look here! it's another TRUTHER !!! AREN'T THEY SO RIDICULOUS AND STUPID !!! and all of those whose world views would be uncomfortably compromised if they were to take an honest look at an issue like 9/11 cant eat this nonsense up fast enough.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

The great / terrible thing about the USAian language. (has nothing in common with english anymore) is that any word can be used to mean anything. Alternatively every word can be used to mean nothing Good means bad, and bad means good. There are no standards. Just misuse a world frequently and loudly enough and the meaning gets redefined again and again.

What I really want to know is why the fuck people insist on calling the United States. ' America' As I proud USAian, I don't want to be lumped in with those inferior people in Canada and Mexico. Those guys in Suriname are OK though.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

anachronism

You don't understand what that word means. The word your feeble mind was desperately scrambling for is "synonym".

Re: Truther?

[fermion]

When celebrities bacame a large part of the problem. After all we can't call Trump a crackpot, so we call him a truther.

I like the name because many of the problems in this world come from people thinking they know the truth when all they know is what they were taught to believe.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an ironic name. Sorta like calling the 7 foot bloke 'shorty' or the 300 pound man 'slim'. ;-)

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word you look for is acronym,

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise your account is factually inaccurate, right? No of course you don't. Why should people listen to you when your account of 9/11 doesn't even mention the planes?

you only highlight your own ignorance with a comment like that. if you actually took a look at the material presented by the architects & engineers group, you would know what information they do or do not present and you would know what their analysis of it is. since you are obviously interested enough in this issue to comment on it, and also interested enough in what material the architects & engineers group makes available to write disparaging things about it, what better way to add weapons to your arsenal than to actually familiarize yourself with their material to some degree?

http://youtu.be/YW6mJOqRDI4
http://youtu.be/OQgVCj7q49o

Re:Truther?

[spacepimp]

They had to switch from conspiracy theorist when so many horrible things turned out to be true... CT came after crackpot and was then followed by truther...

Re:Truther?

[meta-monkey]

Geeks are too mainstream now. I'm a nerd, thank you very much.

Re:Truther?

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

They didn't come down near the acceleration of gravity. I see this stupid claim all the time, but you can clearly see debris falling significantly faster than the buildings themselves.

Oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole story is so obviously fake. There are no Pluto truthers. I've never seen one and I don't know anyone who has.

Re:Oh please

[Mogster]

So you can't feel, hear, see or touch them then their existence must be a lie? http://idle.slashdot.org/comme...

By that logic you don't exist either :-)

Re:Oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't dissuade me, I've made up my mind. There are no Pluto truthers. If NASA can fake that whole moon landing thing then how hard would it be to fake a handful of morons?

Re:Oh please

[narcc]

That makes sense. NASA is faking the Pluto Truther movement to discredit anyone who points out the huge flaws in their fake Pluto photos.

Follow the money, sheeple!

Re:Oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think the money isn't fake, too?

Who cares one way or another?

[Anonymous Coward]

We shouldn't. This is just more Republican corporate welfare in order to take money out of the pockets of the poor to give to corporations. There is no real science here. It's just a Republican scam.

good

[frovingslosh]

It is good that people don't believe anything and everything the government tells them. Oh, wait, I don't want to be modded down. What's wrong with these jerks? Why can't they believe that I've accepted without questioning or thought?

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

It is good that people don't believe anything and everything the government tells them. Oh, wait, I don't want to be modded down. What's wrong with these jerks? Why can't they believe that I've accepted without questioning or thought?

Common sense?

Re:good

[Travis Mansbridge]

Hmm, do you believe that Pluto could potentially be imaged? That is, that it is visible at all? If so, do you doubt that we had the technology around a decade ago to launch a camera at it accurately enough to snap a few pics? If you do, when do you think this technology might exist? Don't you think it will be terribly embarrassing for NASA whenever that time comes (surely can't be far off ;) and ESA, China or India show us all that Pluto actually looks completely different?

Skepticism is good, but this is just stupid.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not believing anything and everything the government tells them" is NOT the same as disbelieving everything the government (or anyone?) tells you.

Re:good

[KGIII]

I sincerely hope Allen Stern personally sneaks up on you and punches you in the nuts hard enough to ensure you are incapable of breeding. I have only the best intentions in mind, really, I do.

Republicans don't believe in other planets...

[Anonymous Coward]

so of course they think this was fake! That is the only logical thing their kind could possibly believe. This is a nonstory. Of course Republicans think it is a fake.

Slashdot Truthers

[Anonymous Coward]

are pretty sure this Anonymous Coward post was faked.

Boy you can use that for any topic! Must be fun to be a crackpot.

Take some antipsychotic medications, truthers

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a borderline schizophrenia-spectrum condition; They're all associated with difficulty distinguishing truth from reality. And that goes for everyone: Pluto troofers, 9/11 troofers, Apollo troofers, Clinton troofers, GMO troofers, Jade Helm, Kennedy, Chemtrails, Fukushima, any of that made-up woo-woo (I hope I did an equitable job skewering lefty and righty idiotic causes).

Take. Some. Mild. Antipsychotics! You'll be amazed. The imagined conspiracies, the nonexistent "connections", they'll go away.

Note that this is entirely different from the contemptible bullshit that is "audiophiles." They're nothing but an offshoot of people who drink $1000 glasses of wine in order to verbally wank over how they spent $1000 on a glass of wine.

Re:Take some antipsychotic medications, truthers

[GrahamCox]

Take. Some. Mild. Antipsychotics

That's what THEY want you to do. Medicate so that you can no longer sense what they're up to. Big Pharma is in on this as well.

(Yes of course I am kidding. Or am I?)

Fund raising

[fkodama]

True to the matter, it may be a fake. But why risk future fundings? Immediate bankrupcy is on the way? I don't think so. Some things are more difficult to raise human capital than others, and those things use to have a huge queue of people wanting to get in. Maybe chip manufacturers could fake the efficiency, but again, why risk it?

My favorite are the jupiter comparisons

[gurps_npc]

They compare a clear photo of Jupiter at 400 million miles vs a pixelated photo of Pluto at 9 million miles.

Of course they fail to mention that Jupiter is 250 million times larger than Pluto.

Playstation 3D graphics

[BenJeremy]

As reported, the probe sent had the same processor as the PlayStation. They used the 3D graphics capability to create images of Pluto and Charon in CGI.

Q.E.D.

Study it out, sheeple!

Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Mostly a lurker]

The video criticizes the lack of definition in a high res shot taken of Pluto from 9 million miles away on July 3. Seriously, let's see how much detail we could get of our moon using a small telescope from that kind of distance.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[tysonedwards]

The claim is that using a modern day 20mp SLR imaging a planet the size of Jupiter, he can resolve better details using the same size telescope (which is itself false as the picture in question was taken with a 2in telescope, not the 8in telescope, but whatever!) and ignoring the fact that the image sensor on the probe is a decade old and only capable of 1024x1024 images... The guy wants advertising revenue and is getting it! Don't feed the trolls!

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Bing Tsher E]

Why are we paying any attention to these people at all? To do so only encourages.

On that note I am done reading this discussion, a few comments in. I advise the same to everybody else.

Slashdot: there are more interesting stories to post than junk like this.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[redcliffe]

I Imagine the probe also only would have a limit range of zoom and would be optimised for shots during the flyby, not from far far away.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[rahvin112]

It got you to give Dice clicks now didn't it.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[nikkipolya]

I am going there. I have ad blockers.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[ClickOnThis]

Why are we paying any attention to these people at all? To do so only encourages.

Leaving their claims unchallenged encourages them as well. Or worse, it encourages others to be deceived and to embrace their crackpot theories.

Sadly, somebody needs to address the unsustainable claims made by these nutters. It's tedious, but essential. Refute the error, assert the truth. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[ShanghaiBill]

On that note I am done reading this discussion, a few comments in. I advise the same to everybody else.

Clearly you are a shill, hired by NASA, as part of the conspiracy to silence those of us not afraid to speak the truth. Pluto IS a **PLANET**, and this probe didn't go there. Look how bright the images are. There is no way a **PLANET** 7.5B km from the sun could be so bright. And the shadows are all wrong.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[CaptQuark]

I'd mod you down if I wasn't so sure you were trying to be funny!!

You were trying to be funny, right? Your comment about how bright the images are is a joke on those that don't understand exposures and apertures... correct?

--

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anne Thwacks]

I would go there too, but my adblocker only has 1024x1024 resolution.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anonymous Coward]

You heard it here first: truthism

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anonymous Coward]

The shadows being all wrong is copy/pasted from the moon hoax believers.

I'm pretty sure it was put there just to make clear who he's making fun of. He might as well have ended with "clearly Photoshopped".

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not as simple as you make it out to be.

Do you honestly think that a denial from NASA is going to convince these fucked up retards that the conspiracy is false?

You CANNOT reason with a crackpot. Their mental capacity is so damaged that they cannot be swayed by ANYTHING that you or anybody will ever say.

Ignore the scumbags and leave it at that. They do not deserve a response.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, definitely photoshopped :)

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Flavianoep]

Thank you!

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Registered Coward v2]

On that note I am done reading this discussion, a few comments in. I advise the same to everybody else.

Clearly you are a shill, hired by NASA, as part of the conspiracy to silence those of us not afraid to speak the truth. Pluto IS a **PLANET**, and this probe didn't go there. Look how bright the images are. There is no way a **PLANET** 7.5B km from the sun could be so bright. And the shadows are all wrong.

Exactly. Yo bring up a good point. The The probe is in the vacuum of space and you don't get shadows in a vacuum. Clearly it's faked. Just like NASA faked Star Trek and made the same mistake of having the shuttlecraft cast a shadow on the Enterprise whenever it passed by; as AFU pointed out years ago.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory xkcd

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[fyngyrz]

Leaving their claims unchallenged encourages them as well.

We can't cure stupid. Yet.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[RenderSeven]

We can't cure stupid. Yet.

Oh, sure we can! Why, the cure was just posted yesterday!

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[ClickOnThis]

Leaving their claims unchallenged encourages them as well.

We can't cure stupid. Yet.

No. But I'm not talking about curing stupid. Primarily, I'm talking about innoculating others from their nonsense.

For them, it's not about the facts. It's about a struggle to control the narrative. Refuting their claims makes it harder for them to do that.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[fyngyrz]

I'm not talking about curing stupid. Primarily, I'm talking about inoculating others from their nonsense.

It is not legitimate for me to do this by muzzling the people who are saying things, or drawing things, or writing things, etc., that I don't like. The proper way to do this by making information available, or supporting making information available, to those whom I think need it.

It's not up to me to tell others what they must say, or not say. The facts are what set truth and reason apart from lies and unreason; to the extent that I can get the facts to my desired audience, I'm doing a good thing. But any time I attempt to muzzle another, it is a foregone conclusion that I have made a severe mistake.

Education is the inoculation you seem to be looking for. Not suppression of speech.

When you elect to repress speech, you need a lot better reason than "I don't like / agree with what this person is saying" or "I think someone might believe this, but I don't."

And why is this so important? Because there will, rest assured, (again) come a day when someone is trying to educate with the actual truth, and someone given the power to repress will shut them down. That path is a path far worse than having to tolerate the things we disagree with or are convinced are factually inaccurate.

To the extent that it is the government doing educating under coercion of law, only the facts as best we can ascertain them are acceptable. That is speech to the citizens from the government, our servant in the matter.

In other words, it is legitimate that we require the government to adhere to a very particular standard of speech. The other way around, however, with the government limiting our speech -- that's a very bad idea.

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[fyngyrz]

Hey, I apologize. I was in a particular mindset due to another conversion, and I applied it to you in a completely unjustified manner. You were talking about educating in the first place. You have my sincere apologies for going off on you. Sigh. I should have more coffee. :/

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[ClickOnThis]

Don't worry about it. :)

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[swamp_ig]

Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[cthulhu11]

There's also the factor of light levels, it's like what EV1 out there?

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[gzuckier]

On that note I am done reading this discussion, a few comments in. I advise the same to everybody else.

Clearly you are a shill, hired by NASA, as part of the conspiracy to silence those of us not afraid to speak the truth. Pluto IS a **PLANET**, and this probe didn't go there. Look how bright the images are. There is no way a **PLANET** 7.5B km from the sun could be so bright. And the shadows are all wrong.

If Pluto is a planet, then what is Goofy?

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[outlander]

goofy = left foot forward

Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance

[gzuckier]

goofy = left foot forward

the silver surfer can do it.

Truthers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are never happy.

It's real...

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody who spent months with it during I&T in Maryland and several days with it in the cleanroom in Florida, I can say that it is real.

Re:It's real...

[KGIII]

You have no idea what really happened to it after you were no longer able to physically see the probe. For all you know they launched a dummy into space or, alternatively, faked the launch entirely! They gave you just enough information so that you will believe the whole lie and then help propagate that lie.

No, no I believe it is real. However, I suspect there are deluded folks who would actually think like that.

Conspiring the Conspiracy Theory

[s.petry]

Hey, look over there! SHINY STUFF!

Sure, there are some dipshits in the world but that percentage is so small that they should never every get any coverage by anyone.. Yet here we have 4 different (semi) reputable sources repeating someone's nonsense.

My theory is as good as theirs by the way, and historically more plausible.

Me, I'm a Pluto Truthers Truther

[tentative]

I'm pretty sure that Pluto Truthers don't exist. I have a theory why slashdot would fake them, but I can't tell you here.

Re:Me, I'm a "Pluto Truthers are just an AI"

[willworkforbeer]

Isn't it more likely that the Pluto Truther statements are just some AI stunt? Some AI lab is showing off its capabilities.

Just goes to show ...

[thephydes]

... there's no cure for stupidity

Dealing with deniers objectively

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite a good secondary aim for scientists and other rational professions to provide an objective, fact-based counter to the denier's denials.

After all, "Trust us" is about as distant from science and rationality as is the denier's "That is faked". I'm certain we can do better than the belief-based responses which are so common and yet so lacking in core scientific values and methods.

Re:Dealing with deniers objectively

[TMB]

I agree, but the problem with arguing against conspiracy theory is that "a vast conspiracy is hiding all the truth so no one can find it" is inherently unfalsifiable, which makes scientific argument (i.e. presenting evidence that falsifies the proposition) pretty useless.

[TMB]

Re:Dealing with deniers objectively

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, there's no hope of convincing them, since they're not rational. It would go in one ear and out the other.

But there are many people who are not such deniers, but are rational people with a logical mind but no significant exposure to science. Their minds will be open to logical, fact-based argument. For their benefit, we should have a rational counter to the irrational arguments of the deniers.

Also, to some extent, it's for our own benefit too. We do not want to be in the position of non-scientists having to trust us. That's not how science works. Indeed, it's not even a logically valid form of argument.

Re:Dealing with deniers objectively

[Anonymous Coward]

No one except for 1000s of people who get together to talk a load of rubbish to each other on the net.

Re:Dealing with deniers objectively

[Anonymous Coward]

Those few thousand wouldn't normally be a problem, but when the huge majority of non-scientists in the population see that the scientists do not answer the denier's irrational arguments with clear logic and evidence then they start to wonder if there is any substance to the denial.

It's inevitable, because a non-scientist isn't always able to distinguish a loonie argument from a sensible one. They need guidance through well reasoned and commonsense responses. It's not enough just to respond that deniers are all nutters and "trust us", because that makes scientists appear no more rational than their critics.

For those who think that this isn't important, consider that the vast majority of politicians do not have a science background, and they pass laws that affect science and engineering very strongly. If we want laws that are beneficial to science, we cannot afford to ignore those without scientific training and just hope that the critics will go away. It doesn't work like that. The deniers may not matter, but they have the ear of those who do.

If our gov wouldnt lie about so much other stuff..

[Anonymous Coward]

Its sad that our government has given these truthers a small amount of legitimacy.

Stupid is as stupid does

[Snotnose]

There's a certain level of stupidity you just can't deal with. Don't bother trying.

Re:Stupid is as stupid does

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like this?

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7701019&cid=50125665

Follow the signals

[speedlaw]

The whole "X was faked" theory misses one key point. If the moon landings were bogus, the Russians, Chinese, and a few others, all of whom had/have the technical ability would have blown the whistle on us. How would you fake a radio signal going behind the moon and coming back ? Not so simple. Likewise, you'd have to fake the data coming in. Seems like a lot of work to get a radio signal from outside Neptune's orbit....... The real tragedy is we can't currently go BACK to the moon....

Re:Follow the signals

[PopeRatzo]

The real tragedy is we can't currently go BACK to the moon...

We can in fact go back, but we don't because of the Nazi base up there.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades....

Re:Follow the signals

[R3d M3rcury]

How would you fake a radio signal going behind the moon and coming back ?

Uh...how about you put it in a rocket going around the Moon?

One thing I've never really heard from the Moon landing conspiracy theorists is what missions were faked? There were plenty of missions to the Moon, both manned and unmanned. The Apollo program did some manned missions in Earth orbit (Apollo 7 and 9, I believe). Were those faked? Apollo 8 and 10 actually went to the Moon. Were those faked? What about the Surveyor missions, which landed probes on the Moon?

Assuming we could actually get rockets to the Moon, it would be fairly simple to have a rocket which took the transmissions on one channel coming from Earth and rebroadcast them back on another channel. So fake astronauts on Earth could appear to be broadcasting from the craft in orbit around the Moon.

As an aside, what to me is entertaining about this whole thing is not whether the Moon landings were faked--they weren't--but how could you fake it?

Re:Follow the signals

[coofercat]

Faking the moon landings would (arguably) achieved the same political benefits as actually going there, and, so long as it wasn't found out, would have asserted US superiority over the USSR, and would have stopped the USSR's programme of moon exploration and kept people talking about it for years. So one can at least argue that there may have been motivation to fake the whole thing - even if technically difficult to do without being found out.

Faking some pictures of a small celestial body far too far away for any of us to have seen it (even with a telescope) seems like it would achieve almost nothing of any use. It's interesting to scientists and the like, but that's about it. It's hardly going to change world politics.

Re:Follow the signals

[painandgreed]

The whole "X was faked" theory misses one key point. If the moon landings were bogus, the Russians, Chinese, and a few others, all of whom had/have the technical ability would have blown the whistle on us.

OMG! You're right!

They're in on it! There must be a conspiracy involving all the major nations of the Earth. If that's true, then they aren't really at odds. The Cold War was also faked, and this is all part of their grand plan. What is their real goal?

Re:Follow the signals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to build a massive rocket capable of going to the moon in order to convince people you went to the moon... why not fake the footage right there on the moon? :)

Pluto is Illuminati confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you're reading this with a fresh cup of coffee because, shit is a bout to get broiled.
Space.
Space rhymes with the word 'Melrose Place'.
Place.
Pluto is a place.
Pluto has 5 letters.
Do you know what else has 5 letters?
That's Right! Obama!
But I bet your wondering what does Obama have to do with Pluto?
well m8s, thats the scary part!
Obama is the president.
There are 3 letters in the first 3 letters of the word President.
3
A triangle has 3 sides.
Pluto has 3 moons.
Do you see the connection yet m8?
New Horizons's Body forms a triangle.
Triangles = Illuminati

Pluto is Illuminati confirmed.

Re:Pluto is Illuminati confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, We're through the looking glass here, people.

Subject

[TinyTheBrontosaurus]

I don't believe Pluto truthers actually exist. it's all part of a conspiracy to make us argue about something other than Benghazi

Re:Subject

[tinkerton]

Actually it's a preemptive operation from NASA to discredit the real Pluto-truthers before they rise up.

"Never heard of you."

[westlake]

These people are only after attention, and by putting this story on slashdot, we've given them exactly what they wanted.

If you aren't a card-carrying geek Slashdot isn't even a blip on your radar.

These guys are after bigger game.

Re:"Never heard of you."

[Dutch Gun]

Slashdot is barely a blip on anyone's radar these days.

Re:"Never heard of you."

[Anomalyst]

and it's all the fault of the beta.

The Pluto mission is a diversion

[david.emery]

to distract us from the Invasion of Texas now going on ("Jade Helm 15")

Re:The Pluto mission is a diversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Infowars and the like remind me of doomsday religious sects (or, to some degree, most any other religious sect). They make a claim, it's shown to be false, they push the goal post and their followers are somehow never any the wiser.

we prefer Little Planet

[si3n4]

"f you define "planet" (the non-dwarf kind) to include Pluto, then you need to also call Vesta and a bunch of other objects "planets", so instead of 9 planets, it'll be somewhere in the teens, and growing as we discover more Kuiper Belt objects." and that's bad because..... In the end a rose by any other name is still a rose, but the idea we knew the mass and approximate size of this body for so long and called it a planet and then decided it had to have a modifier because we found more is sort of dull. The whole concept of a planet having enough mass to pull itself into a spherical shape seemed to be a reasonable dividing line because it seems silly to call every chunk of matter in orbit around the sun a planet. Having to have enough mass to toss all other bodes out of it's path just seems arbitrary.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Grishnakh]

Of course it's arbitrary, it's a definition, all definitions are arbitrary. No one really wants to memorize dozens of names of mostly tiny objects when they're in science class learning about the solar system, especially when a bunch of them don't even have decent names, but some alphanumeric designation. So we limit the list to the ones that are large enough to be of real interest. Before, we thought it was sufficient to make the cutoff line be whether they had enough gravity to become mostly spherical. Now we find out that there's a bunch of bodies that meet that definition. So we change the definition to exclude those, and call those merely "dwarf planets". But Pluto isn't big enough to make the cut, so it gets grouped in with the other dwarfs.

So take your pick, do you want 8 "planets" and a bunch of "dwarf planets", or do you want dozens of "planets" to memorize the names of, most of them being little more than big asteroids?

And stop complaining about it being arbitrary. If you defined "planet" to be anything that orbits the Sun, there's countless objects that do that, including who knows how many in the asteroid belt, plus far more in the Kuiper Belt. So the previous definition was arbitrary too, because no one wanted to group Saturn, Jupiter, or even Earth in with a bunch of asteroids just because of their orbits.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[lgw]

Regardless, Pluto remains a planet.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that it's not. The definition changed, it lost planetary status.

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a third option: we declare these nine to be the planets and no others.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[lgw]

Except for the fact that it's not. The definition changed, it lost planetary status.

Even so, Pluto is still a planet.

It cannot be unplaneted.

"And yet it planets." - Galileo

"Madness? This! Is! Planet!" - Leonidas I

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[Mr.CRC]

This is the correct answer. Since we can "define" whatever the fuck we want, we could have simply let Pluto stay defined as one of the 9 "original" or "classical" planets and been done with it. I don't buy the argument that keeping Pluto a planet means a whole bunch of other junk in space must now be taught in schools as the "list of planets." Just mention, "there's now known to be a whole lot of other dwarf planets like Pluto. Scientists spend endless years mentally masturbating about which to categorize as planets, vs. dwarf planets. If such pedantics interests you, a career in science might be your future!"

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Will.Woodhull]

There are, and always have been, only seven planets: Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These are the Wanderers, known from the times before astronomy, before science, before even written history. Redefining "planet" in any other way is a corruption of the original concept: that some visible celestial bodies wander through the sky in predictable ways.

Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus did not make the cut: they are invisible without telescopes. Earth didn't make the cut either, since this one is unique for other reasons. Moon comes before Sun since its effects are much greater: look at the tides.

And that's the truth. Blpphlt.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[dryeo]

The size of Pluto has been continuously revised downwards since it was discovered and considered the same size as Mercury (it's bright for its size). Just like Ceres lost its planet designation when it was better measured and it was realized it was one of many objects orbiting in the asteroid belt, so has Pluto.
I really don't understand why it matters, Pluto is still Pluto and lots of things we learned in school turned out to be different then we were taught.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Henning Rogge]

The best jokes are the one that are true... Relevant link from CGP Grey: "Is Pluto a planet?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling pluto a dwarf planet is abritary and silly. The International Astronomical Union can also only change their own definition. They also voted on this. You don't vote in science, that's simply not science.

The current definition of planet gives us a total of 8 planets in the whole universe.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth: Uranus is (sometimes) visible with the naked eye.

Source: http://www.space.com/22983-see-planet-uranus-night-sky.html

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

And any other definitions leave us with billions just orbiting our star. At one point in time, Ceres and Vesta where planets at one point in time. The same way nobody considers them planets anymore, in a few years, when all of you stubborn whiny ass bitches are dead, this nonsense will be over. Pluto's formation was different from the formation of the other 8 planets, as it was the case of Ceres and Vesta. Don't let tradition get in the way of science. A taxonomy where everything orbiting a star is considered the same is completely useless. We have gas giants, small rocky planets and dwarf planets. I'm quite confident that, sooner or later, even this last category will be divided into dwarf rocky planets and dwarf icy planets (Ceres belonging the former and Pluto to the later).

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem being, the "original" or "classical" planets where: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun and the Moon. So... yeah, you have a problem there. Actually, you have a problem every time you mix science and tradition.

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you are the only one masturbating about Pluto being a planet. Everyone else has agreed it's not.
There is no "argument" that Pluto should be kept a "planet" except by conservatives who can't stand anything changing or different from their childhood.
If Pluto's a planet then so is Eris. No matter what, you can never have 9 planets again. Sucks to be you.

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[Registered Coward v2]

This is the correct answer. Since we can "define" whatever the fuck we want, we could have simply let Pluto stay defined as one of the 9 "original" or "classical" planets and been done with it.

I think it's really a classical rock planet...

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible! Uranus is defined as "where the sun don't shine".

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Cro Magnon]

Truth: Uranus is (sometimes) visible with the naked eye.

Source: http://www.space.com/22983-see-planet-uranus-night-sky.html

Yes, I've read that it's sometimes visible. However, few people will admit to staring at Uranus.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you might have missed the point. If any of "our" 8 planets orbited any other star they would per the definition no longer be planets.

8 planet's in the entire universe. That's simply a faulty definition.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[LWATCDR]

The scientist that runs the Pluto mission disagrees with you.
Pluto is a planet. As he put it The Astronomers should not decide what is and is a planet. They Planetary geologists should.
Pluto is large enough that it has been pulled into a spherical shape. It has moons that orbit it, and it has the most mass of the bodies in the planet moon system it occupies.Pluto has an atmosphere.
Ceres could also qualify but it does not have a moon and is much smaller than Pluto.
I also have no problem with Eris being called a planet if it's orbit remains within the heliopause.
Now the moons of Mars should not be called moons IMHO since they are really just captured asteroids.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

A planet (from Ancient Greek , astr plants, or , pláns astr, meaning "wandering star") is an astronomical object orbiting a star or stellar remnant that

is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity,
is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and
has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[kellymcdonald78]

Venus and Mercury don't have moons, so are they not planets?

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Moon comes before Sun since its effects are much greater: look at the tides.

LOL. The Sun comes before the moon since its effects are much greater. See all the green growing stuff? That was made possible through the effects of the sun. :)

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[ZombieBraintrust]

They would of been better off adding an adjective in front of the 8 planets that clear their orbits. Primary Planets or some such.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the sun shines out of it.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

such ignorance you demonstrate!

Moon causes tides, tides are the stirring rods that change strange soup into life, without that you wouldn't be here and your post wouldn't be here either. Thusly Moon is dominant. Whether the universe is enriched by your contribution to the slashdot conversation is another question.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[CanadianMacFan]

While that may be true we still don't want to see Uranus with our naked eye at any time.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[evilbessie]

Using the definition there are only 8 planets in the entire UNIVERSE as you can have no idea if a body has 'cleared it's orbit' so they by definition cannot be planets. Also Neptune hasn't cleared it's orbit, Pluto crosses it, and there are 100000 trojans on Jupiter's orbit. The definition is stupid and wrong. Pluto (and Eris, Ceres etc.) are planets, they are not Uberplanets but those are weird, rare, things, they are Unterplanets they are also weird but really not rare in the slightest.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[evilbessie]

That first bit is about Extra-solar planetoids.

Re: we prefer Little Planet

[david_thornley]

How classical do you think Pluto is? It was discovered in 1930, only 85 years ago.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[LWATCDR]

I would say yes. Having moons is not a requirement but if you have other object in your planetary moon system the planet is the one with the most mass. Titan is not a planet but it could be if it had an independant orbit as could our moon.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[shutdown -p now]

The part that deals with factual data (like size and orbit) is science. Categorization based on that data, though, is strictly a matter of convenience. Earth, Mars etc don't actually have a sticky label that says "planet" on them. We chose to define that category because it is somehow useful to us. We chose to redefine it now because that redefinition is again more useful.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[dryeo]

Well considering that there is only one Moon, which is the name of the natural satellite of the Earth, obviously Mars and Pluto don't have the Moon, and I'm pretty sure that there is a case of an asteroid having a satellite which itself has a satellite. As for the satellites of Mars being captured asteroids, that is very unlikely as they are in equatorial orbits. Which is another point against Pluto being a planet, the rest are in the equatorial plane of the Sun and don't have irregular orbits that cross a planets orbit. There are also satellites such as Titan that have a atmosphere, yet no one argues that Titan is a planet and then there is Mercury, no satellite nor any atmosphere to speak off.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[kellymcdonald78]

So you've just created your own definition, one that is'nt in consensus with the astronomical community. Since definitions are not scientific "truths" they require consensus, as fields of study require common terminology in order to effectively communicate. In this case, the consensus is that planets need to clear their orbit, which means Pluto doesn't qualify

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking idiot. Our entire solar system exists because of our sun. That "strange soup" would not exist if there were no liquid water. The planets themselves wouldn't exist if the sun hadn't formed.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[LWATCDR]

Then Neptune and Earth do not.
Neptune has not cleared it's orbit of Pluto and many comets and apollo bodies cross earth's orbit.

Re:we prefer Little Planet

[Anonymous Coward]

I am impressed that you know how to spell "fucking". A lot of assholes don't know that.

The REAL mystery

[leftover]

The real mystery is why these few drooling idiots get any attention whatsoever. FFS go cover a high school science fair or even a rural county fair -- they would be more interesting and the people far more appealing.

Truth in EXIF

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not check the GPS coordinates in the EXIF data from all those Pluto JPEGs; that should settle it.

Re:Truth in EXIF

[jisom]

What we need is Solar Positioning System or SPS for short. With that we'd be able to track where those pictures were taken, as long as it is not outside the system.

Well After All

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Barak Hussein Obama is not an African-American.

No.

Barak Hussein Obama is just a half-breed Kenyan to a Caucasian Mother.

Now what is so wrong with that?

Is because he is half-breed mean that he is also Transgender ... Gay ... Homoerotic .... Mary-Jane bong sucking ignoramus?

Ha ha

Well ... yes.

For the U.S. Federal Government. Transgender IS the new Nigger on the hiring block.

Ha ha

Nuts

[pcjunky]

Why would anyone give this any attention. They best deserve to be ignored and forgotten.

Re:Nuts

[ClickOnThis]

Alas, they need to be refuted first. Then ignored and (hopefully) forgotten.

These people won't go away. The counter-argument to their nonsense needs to be on the record.

Re:Nuts

[Mantrid42]

It's not about convincing them (because you can't), it's about the people reading. Remember the idea that lurkers outnumber commenters by ~10:1. It's better to engage for as long as your patience permits, lest readers who don't know any better fall for the truther's nonsense.

Re:Nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about convincing them (because you can't), it's about the people reading. Remember the idea that lurkers outnumber commenters by ~10:1. It's better to engage for as long as your patience permits, lest readers who don't know any better fall for the truther's nonsense.

While I agree with you Mantrid42 , it can be said that paying any attention to conspiracy theorists of the more ridiculous types, is that any attention is in essence "feeding the trolls" or lending some sort of legitimacy to what they are saying. We are not tasked with disproving what they are saying, the burden of proof is upon them and they rarely give anything other than crummy evidence.

On another note, Perhaps you could send an army of flying robot arms to their general vicinity to deal with them .. more .. personally? Just don't move so many so quickly that you cause the fabric of the space time continuum to collapse.. Right?

OOhhh Weyyyy Rahh Brunon Geee!

Ignorance is bliss

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't mind being seen as an ignorant fool by your peers then you can create nonsensical conspiracy to garner a great deal of attention for your self gratification. Then just create a meme and drive your peers insane and get the intelligent folk to shut up and leave the room so you can shout your ignorance to the heavens.

Wow. That's almost as crazy

[Barlo_Mung_42]

as the 911 truthers.

Aliens? we'll need to send astronauts to verify

[Anonymous Coward]

prep the Libermann triplets

There's only one planet in the solar system.

[Ihlosi]

Jupiter. Everything else is "assorted debris that didn't quite make it.".

Society is turning nasty

[MrL0G1C]

I swear society is moving to the extreme right, there is no tolerance these days, don't go with mainstream belief? Then you're obviously a nutjob, a loser.

We're moving backwards, misogyny and racism all to often get a free pass, look at gamer-gate or Ellen Pao, look at the hatred of all Greek people because a few people didn't run the country well enough and austerity finished them off.

Apparently now if you don't believe the US gov'ts absurd conspiracy theory of how 9/11 went down then you're a crazy, never mind that the gov't story really doesn't hold water - not believing what the gov't says makes you a conspiracy theorist, and that means you're crazy!!

All prejudices are equally bad in my eyes, so why doesn't saying 'you're prejudiced' sound as bad as 'you're racist'? It should.

Re:Society is turning nasty

[MrL0G1C]

Shitty mods, if you disagree with my post then say why, don't just down-mod because you can't formulate a fucking argument.

Pluto is really a Space McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Pluto/Charon is really just a Giant Space McDonalds and gas station put there per the 1956 International accord with the Greys in order to service the needs of all alien craft dropping out of warp at the edge of our system.

this guy doesn't understand physics

[Anonymous Coward]

Pluto (39 au, 5.83431696 Ã-- 109 kilometers) is over 6 times the distance away than Jupiter (5.5 au, 822 788 289 kilometers) .... I feel like he doesn't understand the scale of our solar system.
  Of couse you're going to get grainy pics at those distances. It's impressive that you can get a picture of the gas giants from your backyard with such light polution though.

Just Guessing!

[zakeria]

Americans right?

That might be fine, if not for Ceres

[foreverdisillusioned]

It's complete bullshit that Pluto got to be a planet for so long while Ceres (which is in the inner solar system and has an orbit that matches the other planets) was denied. I was saying this years before the dwarf planet debacle happened. "Why the hell is this not a planet? It looks like a planet. It's round. It's right next door. And why does Pluto get to be planet, when it's nearly as tiny and is at the edge of the solar system and has this weird orbit that doesn't match the other planets?"

The status quo may be arbitrary and kinda dumb, but it's not nearly as dumb as it was before. You can mock the process all you want, but this at least showed kids that things change and that many of our scientific classifications are just convenient shorthands, not eternal truths.

Such hypocrisy!

[wardrich86]

Why are the truthers all about falsifying everything? Shouldn't we be calling them the falsers?

the 8 % rule... applies

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an 8% rule, which seems to apply to the general population quite well...
ANY particular thing, fact or person.... will be followed obsessively or refuted obsessively by about 8% of the population...

Check on 'Elvis is alive', 'Moon landing conspiracy', 'Past lives' to see what percentage believe...
Also, check on 'Illuminati', 'Han shot first', and 'Antivirus injections cause autism'

Re:Troofer?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Geeks are too mainstream now.

That's why no one will pay a nickel to see them.

I'm a nerd, thank you very much.

It's relative.
Your distant relatives are waiting to evolve thumbs. You aren't, therefore you are a nerd. A label to wear with pride.

It wasn't faked

[WallyL]

Only, it's a 3d-printed model of the dwarf planet, screenshotted in the Oculus Rift and saved as a lowly jpg for sharing on Facebook, which explains the jpeg plumes. Oh, so yeah, it was faked.

Re:But....Dah

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were to fake a mission like this I would have taken the time to make the planetlet look like a paradise not the sad looking little orb with the smudge from Charon.
"I think the Martians are behind this one".

Where are the dwarves?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is a dwarf planet, where are the dwarves? Where is their tiny civilization, miniature roads, and pint-sized livestock? DAmmit, we were promised some little peeple here!! Clearly there is some kind of coverup going on here and I demand to know the truth!

How is this worthy of Slashdot?

[Wokan]

This isn't news for nerds and anything close to stuff that matters. This is tin foil hat bulls%$# plain and simple.

Re:How is this worthy of Slashdot?

[MoarSauce123]

Apparently interesting enough for you to read it and comment on it.

I'm a Pluto Truther...

[whitroth]

Pluto's a planet, and that's the truth.

Or, as the 9-yr-old Plutonian in the junior category at Worldcon in Denver in '08 had us chanting, EQUAL RIGHTS FOR PLUTO!

                  mark "nine planets in *my* solar system, buddy"

Standards are slipping.

[gzuckier]

Couldn't even be bothered to fake a manned landing on Pluto this time. I'm so disappointed.

Pluto Truthers are fake

[MoarSauce123]

They are an invention of the media to generate more page clicks and magazine buys.