The psychology of conspiracy theorists

[Tedward]

Wondered what those boxes were. No, not mini speakers to give the actors their lines.

Slightly back on topic. These recent past terrible events in the last 12 months have been an eye opener in the way the conspiracy develops. A while ago I watched the story develop in the Windmill having a bad day and how that was a UFO etc etc and that was amusing. These recent events I have had to back off before I signed up to a forum or two only to probably get banned. The outright denial that is was anything other than a set up from some people should not be a surprise but it was still an eye opener.

The feeling I get on the level of research for example as they try to identify an image from a camera or google earth is astounding. The image must fit the theory, it is hammered into place with zeal and woe betide anyone who challenges it. The mob protect protect the image and accept it without query. They are zealots.

What is scary here is watching it in real time rather than trying to second guess someone working on a historic event.

[Glom]

Seriously though, the modern tendency to make the conspiracy theory that it was faked rather than just not what it seemed is a whole new level of illucidity.

Obviously this is leakage from the Apollo Hoax believers. If you can swallow that, then I guess nothing is beyond the pale. According to this worldview, everything the media reports is fake and none of the threats we're told about is real, from terrorism to Global Warming and all the way up to nuclear weapons!

Yes. 9/11 happened just as the Apollohoax conspiracy theory was gaining recognition. The Fox Special had aired that summer.

The trope of looking at photos and footage and crying fake was established just in time for it to be picked up for the 9/11 conspiracy theory. From there it was established as something you just do.

Of course, for all the stupidity of the Apollohoax, it is at least one thing to suggest that photos and footage taken on another celestial body were fake. Saying that fakery for an event that happens in a populated city is a whole other thing.

[gillianren]

What is scary here is watching it in real time rather than trying to second guess someone working on a historic event.

Though fascinating, if you're interested in psychology.  Though I do firmly believe that few of them are suffering from anything clinical, even the psychology of the edges of normality are fascinating to me.  Possibly more so, to see what people can be like and still fit into "normal."

[Noldi400]

The feeling I get on the level of research for example as they try to identify an image from a camera or google earth is astounding. The image must fit the theory, it is hammered into place with zeal and woe betide anyone who challenges it. The mob protect protect the image and accept it without query. They are zealots.

Which also touches on a pet peeve of mine: the evidently innumerable people who cannot or will not accept that images recorded in the chemicals of camera film or, more recently, the pixels of an electronic sensor are not only not reality, they are not even exactly the same thing the human eye sees when looking at the same scene (stars in the sky being a prime example).

[smartcooky]

Which also touches on a pet peeve of mine: the evidently innumerable people who cannot or will not accept that images recorded in the chemicals of camera film or, more recently, the pixels of an electronic sensor are not only not reality, they are not even exactly the same thing the human eye sees when looking at the same scene (stars in the sky being a prime example).

Amen to that.

As the owner of a Photo Lab, I deal with this misconception on a daily basis.

[Tedward]

What is scary here is watching it in real time rather than trying to second guess someone working on a historic event.

Though fascinating, if you're interested in psychology.  Though I do firmly believe that few of them are suffering from anything clinical, even the psychology of the edges of normality are fascinating to me.  Possibly more so, to see what people can be like and still fit into "normal."

Bit that I think I am seeing is that it is the norm. Unless you are going to dig into something for your own needs, if it fits what your stance is, what the heck, go with it. It has already had a mention here, but you are sure of yourself, you are in company with what you hope are like minded and it is reinforced. Tribal if you will. To speak out risks being kicked outside the safety of the fence that surrounds your world. But then you are sure it was an inside job because that is what happens according to the more learned. Where they got their knowledge is not really challenged.

[Tedward]

The feeling I get on the level of research for example as they try to identify an image from a camera or google earth is astounding. The image must fit the theory, it is hammered into place with zeal and woe betide anyone who challenges it. The mob protect protect the image and accept it without query. They are zealots.

Which also touches on a pet peeve of mine: the evidently innumerable people who cannot or will not accept that images recorded in the chemicals of camera film or, more recently, the pixels of an electronic sensor are not only not reality, they are not even exactly the same thing the human eye sees when looking at the same scene (stars in the sky being a prime example).

I just have a basic understanding. I do think I have a reasonable understanding within my first comment in this reply if that makes sense. But some of the comments on the shape of a nose, looks the same as that nose, must be an actor etc etc. Colours are all wrong on the blood and so on.

My Mac has never really been set up correctly and neither has my laptop (windows). I use both for my photo's and neither will show the same image correctly and neither will show them the same, one is a CRT and one a LCD. I am not really bothered as long as I can get them looking what seems to be OK to me. Wonder how much "analysis" has been done and theories concocted on this.

I was watching a small bit rate transmission in MPEG 4:2:0 and saw the process move a bit of scaffold into someone's head as a camera panned around. The MPEG thought that that a bit of colour matched the hat the gentleman was wearing and transposed the scaffold. Looked like Herman Munster with some serious bolt bar minus the nuts. (at least that is what I assumed the mpeg process was doing)

Probably teaching granny to suck eggs here.

[ApolloGnomon]

All I know is, the real reason for all the markings is they are about to dig up the footpaths

Ah, yes, civil engineering. The original weapon of mass destruction. 

[Tedward]

I have this theory. One utility company will dig up the street and then fill it in. The others all come along and dig it up again in the same spot, I reckon its because they are looking for the original utility hole digger treasure that they think they have hidden there. After all, they are all pirates.

[ka9q]

I was watching a small bit rate transmission in MPEG 4:2:0 and saw the process move a bit of scaffold into someone's head as a camera panned around. The MPEG thought that that a bit of colour matched the hat the gentleman was wearing and transposed the scaffold. Looked like Herman Munster with some serious bolt bar minus the nuts. (at least that is what I assumed the mpeg process was doing)

I don't know the video you saw, but I do know how MPEG works. Like all lossy compression, it's about discarding information that you won't miss -- but sometimes you do miss it.

The main difference between MPEG (for video) and JPEG (for stills) is inter-frame coding; since each frame of a movie usually resembles the previous frame rather closely, a lot of data can be dropped by simply describing the changes to the previous frame instead of sending the entire new frame. If those differences are judged to be "small enough" then they might not even be sent at all. What's considered "small enough" is the main thing that gets adjusted when you vary the compression ratio, so you're much more likely to see these kinds of artifacts on video that has been very heavily compressed.

[cjameshuff]

Modern compression methods use both I-frames ("image frames") and P-frames ("predicted frames"), and sometimes B-frames (bidirectionally predicted frames, using data from following frames as well as previous ones). I-frames are basically just standalone images, and are used to provide periodic starting points for decoding.

If you for some reason miss an I-frame due to corruption or other issues, you can end up with the decoder out of sync, decoding using differences from a substantially different image than intended. And the compression works better with groups of frames that are similar to each other, so a smart decoder will tend to put an I-frame at scene changes and other places with sudden shifts in the image. Losing one of those can result in the effects described.

[JayUtah]

Modern compression methods use both I-frames ("image frames") and P-frames ("predicted frames"), and sometimes B-frames (bidirectionally predicted frames, using data from following frames as well as previous ones).

Which means in order to interpret B-frames you need to send the relevant P-frames first.  So a stream intended to be played back as IBBBPBBBPBBB must be encoded and sent in the order IPBBBPBBBPBBB.  I.e., out of order.  Software encoders to do this are dime-a-dozen.  However, when you're doing it in real time, and combining one MPEG stream with another, adaptively, to achieve a steady bit rate, it requires some impressive hardware.  Back when we were diddling with the Boeing 601HP and 701 chassis and assorted upgrades and operational checkouts, we had just such equipment.  The 601HP broad-beam transponders operating in the Ku band on the spacecraft achieved a downlink peak bit rate of about 32 Mbps.  The 601X chassis, which was a Hughes design being upgraded by Boeing, would accommodate around 24 such transponders, and then additional narrow-beam transponders on the 701.  It was the job of the stream injectors on the ground to take a set of around 8 NTSC video and audio signals and build the MPEG-2 transport stream that would achieve near perfect use of the bit rate with minimal loss of quality on any one set of packetized elementary streams before sending them to the uplink modulator.  The dropped-frame phenomenon where you interpret B-frames from stale I- and P-frames was deemed unacceptable.  The stream injectors were $200K 4U rack-mounted units that you could only get from Motorola on an ARO basis, because they hand-built each of them.  That's the difference between broadcast quality and web quality.

I think where this became relevant was having the three monitors side-by-side so that you could watch Program, Uplink, and Downlink together and catch artifacts.  Program taps into the NTSC stream prior to stream injection.  Uplink puts a consumer MPEG decoder on the pre-modulation stream, and it's 2-3 seconds behind due to the balancing effect of the stream injector and the store-ahead requirements of P-before-B encoding.  And the downlink is several seconds behind because, well, "it's going to space so give it a second."

[Tedward]

Been a few years now since I did a course on MPEG. They started to mess with the IPBBP etc to see what would happen and how far could you go. Interesting stuff though I am an abuser of the kit rather than an expert in what goes on inside, still try to keep my hand in though (in what is the question....)

Interesting stuff there JayUtah.

[JayUtah]

I still have all the standards docs somewhere.  We had to know the whole data path from ground to spacecraft to ground and duplicate it, so we ended up building what amounted to our own TV station.  Part of what we really had to do, however, was achieve higher-grain pointing constraints to keep the narrow-beam transponders from wandering off axis.  That means holding something perfectly still that's the size of a delivery fan, with 70-foot solar wings.  And it's 22,280 miles away from your desk.

[ka9q]

Modern compression methods use both I-frames ("image frames") and P-frames ("predicted frames"), and sometimes B-frames (bidirectionally predicted frames, using data from following frames as well as previous ones). I-frames are basically just standalone images, and are used to provide periodic starting points for decoding.

Right, and this is why channel-changing is so annoyingly slow on most digital TV systems (cable, broadcast and satellite). The RF tuners, demodulators and error correctors usually change very quickly, but the MPEG decoder has to wait for those I frames before it can start producing decoded video. They're big, so getting a good compression ratio may limit them to once every few seconds.

AT&T U-verse, which uses Microsoft's IPTV system, has an interesting way around this problem. Although the video channels are sent using Internet multicast, which is much like broadcasting with everyone getting a copy of a single data stream, for the first couple seconds after you change the channel you are sent your own unicast (private) version of the new channel structured such that the decoder can almost immediately start producing video. If you stay on the channel, the set-top box joins the appropriate multicast group and switches seamlessly to it.

You can often tell by looking how often I frames are sent. Watch the compression artifacts in a solid area, preferably black. They're usually fairly static with just a few random changes between frames, but then the artifacts will suddenly change to a different pattern that again remains fairly static for a few seconds. Each of those sudden changes corresponds to an I frame where the whole scene is re-encoded from scratch, with the slight amount of noise generating a different set of random compression artifacts. The smaller changes that occur on every video frame are the result of modifications by the in-between frames modifying only a few parts of the image at any time.

If you for some reason miss an I-frame due to corruption or other issues, you can end up with the decoder out of sync, decoding using differences from a substantially different image than intended.

Yes, but this usually produces very dramatic and obvious artifacts, and I assumed that's not what Tedward was seeing. It sounds like he was seeing the ordinary compression artifacts.