Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.

[nomuse]

In the case of the VOX circuits it took days just to get him to concede that 'VOX' means 'voice actuated keying' despite my finding that exact definition in ham radio references as well as NASA's own documents.

I'm intrigued.  What did he think VOX meant?

Puts me in mind of IDW and his arguments that "S-Band" meant sideband.

[Count Zero]

"Wake up, geesle!"

I wish.  The world needs him.

[ka9q]

So many crackpots and cranks compare themselves to the persecuted Galileo that it's almost a standard litmus test for being a crackpot.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said that if you're going to compare yourself with Galileo, it is not sufficient merely to be out of the mainstream. You also have to be right.

The irony of a crank like Hunchbacked comparing himself with Galileo is that he actually behaves much more like the monks who refused to look through his eyepiece at the moons of Jupiter. He refuses to even consider the evidence against his position.

One of Galileo's great contribution to science was the notion that you should never take somebody else's word when you can see the results for yourself. Another was his emphasis on mathematics as an indispensable tool in science; without it you "wander the labyrinth forever in darkness".

[Andromeda]

So many crackpots and cranks compare themselves to the persecuted Galileo that it's almost a standard litmus test for being a crackpot.

http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html

[ka9q]

I'm intrigued.  What did he think VOX meant?

I'm not sure. He simply didn't want to accept that it meant "voice activated", mainly because I had said it did. Admitting that they were VOX-activated removed the "incoherence" that he thought kept it from working. And admitting that it actually worked after all had to be avoided at all costs.

This was a good example of an argument in which I learned quite a bit while researching a rebuttal. I had not understood the finer details of the Apollo voice comm system, mainly because I'd never really studied them. I had wondered, for example, how they avoided interference between the S-band/VHF relays in the LM and on the rover when nobody was in the LM to make the changeover during an EVA.

Turns out that VOX is the key (!) The VHF return-link transmitters in the PLSS have to remain on to send telemetry and biomed data; only the audio paths from the microphones to the transmitters are VOX-keyed, to keep the world from having to continually listen to their breathing and the noise of the suit fans.

But the VHF forward-link transmitters on the LM and on the rover, those that carry Houston's voice to the astronauts, have their carriers VOX-keyed. Houston transmits to the LM and rover on the same S-band frequency but on separate FM voice subcarriers, allowing them to direct uplink voice to the LM, the rover or both. Since the VHF relay transmitter in the LM or rover emits RF only when audio is actually present on its own uplink subcarrier, the two transmitters won't simultaneously transmit and interfere with each other at the PLSS receivers unless the ground were to send uplink voice on both subcarriers. Mystery solved.

[ka9q]

http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegelquack.html

Exactly.

Note that Hunchbacked's avatar is Daffy Duck.

[raven]

Exactly.

Note that Hunchbacked's avatar is Daffy Duck.

How appropriate, considering later, non-screwball, Daffy's characterization is generally of a pitiable braggart who demands attention.

[ka9q]

And who always has to be right: "Duck season!" "No, it's rabbit season!"

[PetersCreek]

To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.

That sounds like a corollary of the Puppy Principle (or vice versa): one puppy, left to his own devices will get into as much trouble as he can.  Two puppies, four times as much.

[Andromeda]

To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.

That sounds like a corollary of the Puppy Principle (or vice versa): one puppy, left to his own devices will get into as much trouble as he can.  Two puppies, four times as much.

The same can be applied to rabbits.  I don't know why.

[gillianren]

And heaven help you if you put a rabbit down next to a duck!

[DataCable]

And heaven help you if you put a rabbit down next to a duck!

They make a wrong turn at albakoikee?

[SolusLupus]

One of Galileo's great contribution to science was the notion that you should never take somebody else's word when you can see the results for yourself. Another was his emphasis on mathematics as an indispensable tool in science; without it you "wander the labyrinth forever in darkness".

Risking getting entirely off topic, I read a rather convincing argument that the printing press was pretty much THE catalyst for scientific progress, because not only could ideas spread so much more easily and without all those nasty errors intrinsic in creating hand-written copies, but also because you could write down and share formulas and "static" ideas, and develop a body of work that was not up to simple interpretation.  Even more advanced scientific instrumentation has a lot to thank the printing press, because you could draw up a plan and then have it copied accurately, so others can rebuild your instrument.

I never really thought about it like that before, myself.

Now, with the internet and libraries granting access to so much material from all across the globe, no one has any good excuse for scientific ignorance -- unless they just can't be bothered, but don't push forth an unscientific opinion.

[gillianren]

When A&E put together a hundred most influential people of the millennium list, Gutenberg was at the top.

[ka9q]

Puts me in mind of IDW and his arguments that "S-Band" meant sideband.

Who's IDW? Must be before my time.

When I began reading Apollo documentation, every time I saw "USB" I kept reading it as "upper sideband" because that is its most common meaning in ham radio. But every scientist and engineer, among others, learns quickly that every one of the 17,576 possible combinations of three English letters in an acronym has at least a half dozen distinct meanings.