NAZI NASA!11!1!

[realisticphish]

this site is hilarious. It looks like someone threw up a box of crayolas, and is psychotically obsessed with "NAZI NASA!" to boot.

http://www.sibology.com/HP1.HTM

[Random_Australian]

1. I'm suprised there is no link to that timecube simultaneous creation guy,

or at the very least FreeRepublic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I can't remember if it was serious or not,

but someone did suggest that the website design used by a lot of nutters showed a real difference in their brains - they like lots of bright colours, and have no feeling for layout at all - just putting more and more text on a page, with no guide to it, and an ever-increasing arms race of colours to draw attention to it.

[Codeine]

3. Interesting

I'd like to see somebody actually make a study of that someday. Certainly if one compares the websites of skeptics with those of PCTers there appears, at least superficially, to be an entirely different aesthetic at work.

[salvorhardin]

4. I wonder if this could easily be done

In an automated way by looking at the average number of HTML tags used on a site's pages? The more tag soup, the greater the probability that a site is of the reality challenged variety.

It also occurs to me that it would be useful to have a database of links to sites human ranked on some arbitrary scale according to their degree of nuttiness, with say '0' being a perfectly respectable mainstream site like cnn.com or even newamericancentury.org and '5' being, well, this site. Such a database would be useful as a foundation for a whole host of comparative analyses.

[realisticphish]

5. That's an interesting point

you do get the idea that there is a difference in perception. The fact that writing like that is painstaking (think about it; you would have to change html tags every few words), yet they do it on EVERY page of the site, definately leads you to something different about their brains.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Doe the US have the concept of "green ink" letters to newspapers?

(Actually, a quick search on the web seems to show it's restricted to the UK). Journalists in Britain sometimes talk about "green ink letters", or "the green ink brigade". Letters sent in to newspapers written in green ink almost always turned out to be from obsessives who, correctly or not, thought a journalist had seen the light on their particular hobby horse. In these days of word processing and email, it probably doesn't happen much, but I can believe it used to - I had a letter to the editor published in The Times, when I was a student (it consisted of one paragraph, saying a court case where a man was suing himself for child maintenance for tax reasons showed reform was needed, and what the reform ought to be), and got a multi-page reply in the mail from someone detailing the injustices of the entire English divorce system, and their proposed solution, complete with graphs. It was written on a computer, but they'd made up for that by highlighting large parts in multiple highlight colours. Obviously they felt hard done by, and wanted anyone who vaguely mentioned the subject to know exactly how much they had been screwed by the system.

Has the green ink tendency just migrated to the web, and now avails itself of 16 different colours, but still pontificates just as much as before?

[salvorhardin]

7. Fascinating

Why green ink, do you suppose? Were green ink pens used for some purpose in British society that gave them some special purpose? I mean, why not red ink?

[vino]

8. There doesn't seem to be

a complete explanation. This page http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre5.htm

has a good summary.

... know immediately what you mean by a green-ink letter, or one written by a member of the green-ink brigade. Since they are terms largely restricted to Britain (though I have come across a couple of isolated references in American publications) some background would seem to be a good idea.

The term refers to a particular kind of letter writer, who claims that he is the victim of some injustice, or who composes long and vehement complaints against a person or an organisation, or who believes that a numerical calculation based on the name of the Prime Minister shows he’s an agent of the devil, or who is sure that invisible rays are being beamed into his house by his next-door neighbour to cause him injury, or who puts forward a thesis which, if adopted, will lead inevitably to world peace.

... The earliest example I know of (many thanks to Fred Shapiro of Yale Law School for his help in finding it; he would like me to mention that he’s Editor of the forthcoming Yale Dictionary of Quotations) is dated 8 March 1985 and is once again from the Guardian: “Our elected legislature was taken over lock, stock and barrel by the green ink brigade”. ...Subscriber Anelie Walsh e-mailed from Australia following the first appearance of this piece to mention that it turns up in Carl Sagan’s book The Cosmic Connection (1973):

“There came in the post an eighty-five-page handwritten letter, written in green ball-point ink, from a gentleman in a mental hospital in Ottawa. He had read a report in a local newspaper that I had thought it possible that life exists on other planets; he wished to reassure me that I was entirely correct in this supposition, as he knew from his own personal knowledge”. ...

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Not that I know of; but it may go back 50 years or more

There are hints of a much older association of eccentricity with green ink, however. Subscriber Anelie Walsh e-mailed from Australia following the first appearance of this piece to mention that it turns up in Carl Sagan’s book The Cosmic Connection (1973):

“There came in the post an eighty-five-page handwritten letter, written in green ball-point ink, from a gentleman in a mental hospital in Ottawa. He had read a report in a local newspaper that I had thought it possible that life exists on other planets; he wished to reassure me that I was entirely correct in this supposition, as he knew from his own personal knowledge”.

An earlier reference, less direct, is from Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (1953), mentioned by several subscribers, among them Jane Halsey. The hero gets letters from a person purporting to be an editor of a learned journal, “ill-written in green ink”. The implication seems to be that the green ink is a sign of some abnormality (the writer turns out to be an academic thief) but whether Amis invented it, or was drawing on an existing folk belief about letters written in green ink is impossible to say.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre5.htm

And there's a tantalising New Scientist article from 1989: What makes people expound theories of the Universe in green ink on lightweight notepaper?, but it's subscription only.

[moggie]

15. Memories of school?

When I was at school, all coursework was written in blue ink (fountain pens only: no ballpoints allowed), and teachers used red ink for marking, to stand out. I suppose it's possible that a kook would regard red ink as off-limits because of this, or associate it with unpleasant memories ("1/10. Time is NOT a cube! See me after class!").

[moggie]

11. Lots of use of the 'CENTER' tag, too

I've seen that on kook sites before. That suggests that the writer is concerned about layout; it's just that their concept of good layout is as skewed as the rest of their ideas. Or perhaps it's just a question of degree: while a 'normal' person might use various typographic techniques sparingly, the kook has no concept of restraint. MORE must be BETTER.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. So this word below must be the most important of all:

CONSPIRACY

I think that proves it all, just as it is.

Maybe there's a paper clip that pops up after you've use 4 HTML styles on a single word and says "you appear to be writing a conspiracy theory website; would you like some help?"

[Taxloss]

14. LOL! n/t

[realisticphish]

18. hey

that's a thought! That would make choosing the rainbow of colors for your text a LOT easier.

A little paper clip in a tin foil hat pops up, and says "Don't forget to add something about the UN!"

[salvorhardin]

19. I think the < blink > tag

Was a conspiracy by Marc Andreessen, J. Jovan Philyaw and Karl Rove to hypnotize us all into getting CueCats and hooking them up to our computers. The CueCats were then used to steal the 2000 election.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Another sighting - the webpage of this guy in GD

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1498052

http://www.newbookforanewworld.com/

It might be interesting to get this guy, who is sure he understands what he calls 'evolutionary science' and human behaviour better than 99% of other people, to consider the hypothesis of different colour aesthetics among people with, um, 'way out' theories.

[moggie]

27. Would we understand his answer?

After all, he says:

I guess I should point out that the only difference between genius and paranoia is that geniuses figure out how to prove the things no one else can perceive about the world are real. My intellectual peers number a few tenths of one percent of the human race.

Well, that's certainly possible. But I've noticed that, in science, most of the people with genuine insight who choose to write for a mass audience tend to do so with humility.

Is this guy just pushing evo psych?

[Random_Australian]

28. Not evo psych. I have worked out a lot of evo psych, and the

difference between the two of us is that I do not think I am a genius, and that I can back it all up easy and quick, even things like "we should all have the opportunity to do lalalalala"

:) Just his interpretation, not the real deal.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. It's possible; on reflection, I'm being hard on the guy

What he's saying isn't really 'out there' (what I've seen of it, anyway); it's just his claims for how earth shattering it all is that set alarm bells ringing. As you say, humility is sorely missing from his writing, while, if you take someone like Carl Sagan, or Jared Diamond (who the guy likes), they just explain things, without claiming to be special.

He keeps on using the words 'evolution' and 'science', but from what I can see, he's just making hand-waving observations on sociology and psychology, with no connection to evolution (apart from saying "we're all the same species, with the same potential" - hardly a revolutionary idea), or, indeed, a concept of what 'science' really is (I think he may have a chip on his shoulder about that - with no training, or research, peer reviewed or otherwise, he still thinks he's a 'scientist'). If he just made them as normal posts, to, say, DU, they might fit in quite nicely. It might be worth enduring the colour scheme of the website sometime, when I'm at a loose end.

[Random_Australian]

30. There is no line but a continuum, but there are always times when we

believe and find evidence t support what we want to believe.

[WoodrowFan]

31. cue twilight zone music

I may be physic cause I sense some treatment for mental illness in his past....

[moggie]

32. And another

PZ at Pharyngula has been receiving woo-mail from a creationist nutjob, discussed here:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/07/creationist_email.php

Typographically, it's comparatively mild: somewhat less of the "angry fruit-salad" effect, except the parts where he alternates colours within words (I was going to do that myself here, but couldn't bring myself to do something so heinous). But definitely, errm, eccentric in its presentation.

[salvorhardin]

33. Angry fruit salad

I love that phrase. It puts me in mind of Chomsky's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". :-)

[moggie]

34. Can't remember where I first heard it

I agree, it has a nice ring to it, but I can't take credit for coining the phrase.

[NMMNG]

10. That site is proof

That people shouldn't create websites while stoned. :smoke:

[Taxloss]

13. Actually, this guy makes a lot of sense.

BUT SUPER DUMB FLUBBER-DUBBER NASA, IN THEIR PLANNING FOR THEIR NEXT ABORTIVE TRIP TO THE MOON, ARE VERY CONCERNED AS TO HOW THEY WILL BE ABLE TO CONTEND WITH THE VOLUMONOUS DUST ON THE MOON. AS DUMB AS THEY ARE THEY HAVE NO IDEA OF THE SOURCE OF THE DUST -- ANSWER::: WHICH THEY SHOULD BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND AFTER SEVEN YEARS, IS FROM EARTH ITSELF AND FROM EGG CELL GENERATORS ON THE MOON.

There's no arguing with that. I've got an Egg Cell Generator in the utility room, and it's murder to hoover around. But I get cross if I don't get my scrambled egg cells in the morning. They're great on wholemeal nazi toast.

[moggie]

16. Ah, creative punctuation!

Three colons together? Kooks often use punctuation in highly unusual ways. Then again, so do greengrocer's, I suppose.

[realisticphish]

17. Super Dumb Flubber Dubber

is actually part of NASA's name (or should I say SDFDNASA). Something to do with the author of a bill, some tequila, and a bet.

[Random_Australian]

24. LMAO, something about that insult is just getting me laughing,

Super Dumb Flubber Dubber! Fucken Super Dumb Flubber Dubber! That is FARKEN HILARIOUS.

I love this guy.

One day I will get a shirt with that printed on it.

[salvorhardin]

25. Funny story

I don't know if it ever aired in Australia, but on the Nickelodeon cable network there used to be this kids' game show called Double Dare hosted by a guy, Mark Summers, who probably made a second living selling used cars. His smile and face were that plastic and fake.



Anyway, back in college I was working at this place that provided private tutoring for kids who were having difficulty in school. If you're familiar with Sylvan Learning Centers it was like that, but this was a private place owned and ran by a retired professor of education and our kids actually learned.

So one day I was working with this kid who IIRC was in third or fourth grade and was having a difficult time multiplying large numbers. All of a sudden in a fit of frustration the kid screams out at me, "You know what you are!? Double Dare host! You're a Double Dare host!"

I thought that was the best insult ever and to this day I still smile every time I think about it and Super Dumb Flubber Dubber just puts me in mind of this kid and his improvised insults.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

20. It's like a cliché of a conspiracy site

With all the conventions you'd expect. Black background, block caps, a sense of the author's incredulity, centred text, colourful lettering.

When I first looked at it, I was sure it was satire until I realised that there was not anything really funny about it.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

21. This is great stuff...

" THE ABOVE IS THE SKY PORTION OF THE PHOTOGRAPH WHERE "I WAS SUBCONSCIOUSLY LED TO TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF AN AREA OF THE SKY WHERE THERE APPEARED TO BE NOTHING BUT A FEW CLOUDS " "



" "--- BUT UPON VIEWING IN A COMPUTER, DISCOVERED A MASSIVE SPACE SHIP FABRICATION AREA STRETCHING ACROSS THE SKY FOR NEARLY 3 MILES FROM THE HORIZON UP TO AN ALTITUDE OF 3,000 FEET -- ALL OF WHICH OTHERWISE WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE TO THE HUMAN EYE AND APPARENTLY ALL IMMUNE TO EARTH'S GRAVITY" "

:rofl:

http://www.sibology.com/00.HTM

[moggie]

22. Those aliens!

Who'd have thought they'd be so influenced by sideways-scrolling arcade games of the 1980s?

[realisticphish]

23. it looks like someone

threw up their froot loops :rofl:

and speaking of froot loops, this is basically the exact method that Icke uses to see reptiods