Strong arguments versus weak arguments.

[SolusLupus]

Honestly, since half the fun of this site is debating with the CTs, maybe you should be much more lax with the rules.  If they say or do stupid things, it just makes them look that much more foolish.  Real bans should be for if they, like, try to hack the site, do illegal things, interrupt other threads to push their CTs, etc.

[gillianren]

No, I don't like that idea.  Even if it's half the fun, I don't consider the disruptions worth it.

[grmcdorman]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you... Apollo Hoax Bingo!

I would have liked to generate the card as an image but that's difficult to do. Maybe in the next version. In the meantime, you can just take a screenshot. When you get a Bingo upload your card as an attachment to a post.

[snip]

ImageMagick provides command-line tools to do what you want; basically
   convert filename -annotate +x+y "text" outputfilename
See http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/#anno_on

Runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Download from imagemagick.org.

[Luke Pemberton]

No, I don't like that idea.  Even if it's half the fun, I don't consider the disruptions worth it.

Agreed. Their gish gallops and ranting should only be tolerated for so long, enough to expose them and leave a trail of dirt behind that all can see. If they can't provide evidence or answer the questions posed, then they are wasting time, and in my view they are attention seeking wannabees. Why waste time on such people.

[Echnaton]

Honestly, since half the fun of this site is debating with the CTs, maybe you should be much more lax with the rules.  If they say or do stupid things, it just makes them look that much more foolish.  Real bans should be for if they, like, try to hack the site, do illegal things, interrupt other threads to push their CTs, etc.

My ideal purpose for the forum is to provide a record of what hoax believers actually say and to respond with critiques of their reasoning and relevant factual explanations about the Apollo program.  When the HBs have reached a point when it is clear to any reasonable reader that they can no longer say anything new, then it is time to let them go because they have served their purpose.  We are pretty liberal in letting HBs have a say, but if we don't ban them at some point, the place might get overrun.     

[SolusLupus]

Fair points!

[LunarOrbit]

ImageMagick provides command-line tools to do what you want; basically
   convert filename -annotate +x+y "text" outputfilename
See http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/#anno_on

Runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Download from imagemagick.org.

Thanks, I'll look into it. I think I've tried to use Imagemagick before and discovered it wasn't installed on my server. And since I'm on a shared server I can't install it myself. But maybe things have changed since then. I do have access to the GD library which I've used to make captchas before, but positioning text into a 5x5 grid would be somewhat difficult.

[Luke Pemberton]

A previous forum regular here suggested on another site that it was filmed in superfluid helium.

If they had any idea exactly how much superfluid helium costs, the practical difficulties of containing huge quantities of superfluid and the very problem of keeping a man alive while immersed at close to absolute zero, then they would realise it is technically more feasible and cheaper to go to the moon. They really do make themselves look increasingly stupid with such bizarre ideas.

[Obviousman]

A previous forum regular here suggested on another site that it was filmed in superfluid helium.

They really do make themselves look increasingly stupid with such bizarre ideas.

It is something they excel at... really.

[frenat]

A previous forum regular here suggested on another site that it was filmed in superfluid helium.

If they had any idea exactly how much superfluid helium costs, the practical difficulties of containing huge quantities of superfluid and the very problem of keeping a man alive while immersed at close to absolute zero, then they would realise it is technically more feasible and cheaper to go to the moon. They really do make themselves look increasingly stupid with such bizarre ideas.

That is Turbonium.

[twik]

I see on the card that "I"m just asking questions!" is the free square, as it should be. This is a conspiratist's main ploy, because this frees them from any sort of intellectual rigor to defend their own beliefs.

I was recently rereading the VERY long thread from the poster called "stargazer" (ironically), who was arguing that stars weren't put in the photographic record because "any amateur astronomer would be able to tell they weren't real". Jay repeated asked him a rather simple thing - assuming that you have someone assigned the job to put in (physically or as post-process) the stars in photos, why couldn't it have been done? Stargazer did an impressive job of avoiding the question of how an amateur astronomer would have known where the stars should have been, but professional astronomers couldn't have placed them there deliberately. As I read it, I wondered how stargazer could not have realized how intellectually dishonest that stance was, and be able to keep arguing it with a straight face.

[Andromeda]

AdvancedBoy couldn't hold a candle to Moonman for sheer bloody-mindedness though.

[Jason Thompson]

That is Turbonium.

I was thinking of him the other day, after Advancedboy danced a little jig after I met his challenge to provide calculations regarding the apparent size difference between two distant objects. Turbonium once challenged me in a similar fashion. I said the astronauts on the 'infamous' Apollo 11 broadcast where Sibrel insists they had a transparency of Earth stuck on the window would be able to see the whole Earth outside the hatch window wherever they were in the cabin if they were at 100,000 km distance. He expressed disbelief, I provided the simple trig that showed they would need to be over 13 feet away from the window before its angular size reached that of the distant Earth. His response was to acknowledge the simple mathematics of the situation and concede the point. Turbonium may be infuriating and ridiculous at times, but at least he is usually polite and isn't so stupid as to challenge really obvious mathematical proofs. Advancedboy couldn't even bring himself to that standard.

[Luke Pemberton]

Turbonium may be infuriating and ridiculous at times, but at least he is usually polite and isn't so stupid as to challenge really obvious mathematical proofs. Advancedboy couldn't even bring himself to that standard.

Well done you, and well done Turbonium. It's nice to hear that a HB can concede an argument. 

[Echnaton]

Because crank beliefs run in packs, we should also have a box for a HB bringing up another conspiracy topic.  Either within the thread to support the moon hoax or by starting a new thread.  Or one box for each.