fake
oracknows | September 4, 2014Orac post-publication note: There is reason to believe that one point I made below could well be incorrect. However, even leaving that point out, there are still many reasons to doubt the authenticity of the text exchange I discuss below. See the first 10 comments for a discussion. Unlike AoA and other antivaccine groups, if I am wrong about something, I will admit it and discuss what might have led me to an incorrect conclusion. Oh, and I missed something obvious (see comment #11). D'oh!
There’s something that’s been bothering me the last couple of days. I tried not to blog about it, but the…
esiegel | September 14, 2013"Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?" -Samuel Goldwyn
There are few experiences that we can share together -- no matter the great distances in space or time -- like a good movie. Encapsulating a great variety of aspects of the human experience in just a couple of hours, a movie can take us to places we've never been and inside the minds of people we've never known, as Janove Ottesen reminds us in his song,
Black And White Movie.
This weekend, I'd like to highlight for you three of my favorite fake film…
rallain | June 4, 2010I got tired of attacking ESPN Sport Science. Well, tired of attacking might not be the best term. How about, attack in a new way (here are my older Sport Science attacks).
Check out episode 1 of Spoof Science:
A couple of notes:
Watch it youtube if you want the HD version
Making videos takes WAY longer than a blog post
If you hate hearing your own voice, you will really hate hearing your own voice AND seeing yourself while you are editing
rallain | August 18, 2009I wrote two letters (for two different classes). These are letters from the students of the near future to themselves in the present. this first one is for a non-majors lab. In this lab, I let them turn in "informal" lab reports that they can then use on the midterm and the final exam. The thing is that a lot of students don't even turn this in. Here is the letter:
Dear Past Me,
How are you? I know how you are because I am you and I remember this day. Really, you should be asking how I am.
I am not doing so well. I just took the midterm for the physics lab and it didn't go too well.…
rallain | August 17, 2009This is amazing. I can't believe that power companies are paying Blacklight Power money, but they are. I guess Blacklight Power must have great advertising. Ok, so what is this whole Blacklight-hyrdino thing? Honestly, I am not fully familiar with it, but basically this guy says that you can get energy by getting the electron in hydrogen to go to a lower energy level than ground state. Here are a few good links regarding this hydrino stuff.
Six Tiny Utilities Buy "Scientifically Impossible" Energy: CleanTechnica
Blacklight Power claims nearly-free energy from water - is this for real…
rallain | August 12, 2009This Giant water slide video is extremely popular on the internets. Maybe you have not seen it (doubtful), then here it is:
This is such an incredible stunt that the very first question that comes up is - fake? or not fake? From my previous analysis, I can say:
Even though there is some slight perspective issues, the vertical acceleration seems to be constant and has a reasonable scale to give the acceleration of -9.8 m/s2
The horizontal motion is essentially constant (as a real jump would be)
The launch speed is about 19 m/s
The launch angle is 32.8 degrees
If the guy had no friction on…
rallain | July 15, 2009Note: This is a repost from my old site. Time to move it over.
First, what is different about motion on the moon and on Earth? Since the moon has a smaller mass in spite of its smaller size*, the moon has a smaller gravitational field. The gravitational field on the surface of the moon is 1/6th the field on the surface of the Earth. This means that the acceleration of a free falling on the object would be 1/6th the acceleration on Earth. So the question is: how would you change the time scale of a movie so that it looks like its acceleration is 1/6th of 9.8 m/s2?
*If you make the size of…
rallain | December 10, 2008A commenter (Joe) suggested I look at vehicles powered by the wind that can move faster than the wind. This also came up on Swans on Tea. One of Joe's points was that I should do this BEFORE MythBuster's gets to it. And so I shall. I know this is one of those topics that can never really be won - like "the moon landings were fake" or "you can run your car on water". I will try anyway. If you are not sure what this "faster than wind" thing is all about, check the Swans on Tea link or this boing boing link.
There has been a ton of stuff posted about DWFTTW vehicles. Literally a ton. If…
rallain | November 24, 2008This is an old video, but still interesting. In this video clip, Kobe Bryant jumps over a pool of snakes.
You are probably thinking what I thought when I see that - this doesn't look real. Really, it must be fake. Why would Kobe jump over a pool of snakes? Isn't that dangerous (even if there were no snakes in there he could hurt himself). Video analysis is needed. Is this fake or is it real?
Start with my favorite video analysis tool (tracker). Use this to get position time data.
Step 1: Get the movie. I used Mpeg Streamclip to get the movie in quicktime format from the flash video…
rallain | November 18, 2008Big trucks are not as popular as they used to be, but gas prices are going down so maybe this commercial for the ford F-150 will start showing up again:
They say its a real demonstration, but it has seemed odd to me. (they also say this is a professional driver on a closed course and don't try this at home - damn! I was SO going to do that this weekend). Here is my analysis:
Here is the important data I have gathered from the Internets.
The truck (a Ford F-150) stops a plane C-123 Provider
The curb weight of the F-150 is around 5,000 lbs - depending on options and stuff.
The empty weight…
rallain | October 7, 2008In this post, I am going to talk about real and not real forces as well as the fake centrifugal force (if you don't like the word "fake" you could replace that with "fictitious")
First, an example: suppose you are in a car at rest and press the gas pedal all the way down causing the car to accelerate. What does this feel like? If I weren't skilled in the art of physics, I might draw a diagram something like this:
Yes, maybe someone would add gravity and the chair pushing up, but this shows the…
rallain | September 14, 2008Can you believe it? Have you seen this video?
Are you thinking what I am thinking? WOW. How could these people not follow my rules for cool internet video. Once again, here they are:
1Keep the camera stationary. This way I don't have to keep moving the origin in the movie.
2Don't Zoom. Same reason, this video followed that rule.
3Include a clear and obvious calibration object. A meter stick would work, or even a Kobe Bryant (I can look up his height). Maybe it could be a Ford F-150 that has a known length. Something!
4Include the mass and height of all people involved.
5Use high…
rallain | September 6, 2008Here is the video in question:
Looks too incredible to be real for me. That is when I start to question things. Is this fake or not? To answer this, I took a clip that showed a person launching a grocery item over the isle. This was a good shot to look at because it was *mostly* perpendicular to the camera view. I then used [Tracker video analysis (free) tool](http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/) to get x-y-time data for the flying projectile grocery. The scale was difficult, so I just guessed that the guy on the left was 5 foot 10 inches. Here is the vertical position data for…