BTW, the hijack was MUCH more interesting than the original OP. Carry on. 
-XT
I did some playing around, and discovered that they have some javascript on their site to disable highlighting with the mouse. I didn’t see that because I surf with javascript turned off, and enable it only on sites that where it’s necessary, and where I trust them. Same with cookies (as an example, I let boards.straightdope.com set cookies but not run javascript). I’m using Firefox and the NoScipt add-on; I have no idea whether Safari gives you this capability.
I seem to remember a “mama flodnak” or something similar from my Ancient Net History days - 'zat you?
No surprise he brought it up. I’m sure he’s had to explain many times that the sign only points one direction, and that people have wondered why that would be. But it’s really understandable why the sign would be one-sided when you look at the google map.
Good job contacting Mr. Shook.
(On topic, sort of… I wonder why Snopes didn’t ask about the sign?)
Thanks, CurtC.
It would be very handy to be able to pick and choose which sites you want to give cookies to, and which ones you don’t. I haven’t seen the option in Safari. I assume I can turn javascript off though. I’ll try it later. (I came into the office today, so I’m on a PC.)
My naughty reputation precedes me!
I helped debunk the lobster UL. Do they call me tdn the lobster UL debunker? Hell no!
I helped debunk the schizophrenia UL. Do they call me tdn the schizophrenia UL debunker? Hell no!
But ya flirt with 106 poolsluts…
While this is true, this has nothing to do with Javascript. Your browser can handle cookies even if Javascript is completely disabled, and can run Javascript even if cookies are completely disabled.
Yes. The statements were separate.
It would be handy to be able to pick and choose which sites you want to give cookies to, and which ones you don’t.
Also, I assume I can turn javascript off [so that I can see if doing that allows me to copy text from snopes to make them easier to use as a cite].
If you use Firefox, the NoScript gives you per-site control of javascript.
I assume you’re on a Mac if you’re using Safari, although I could be wrong in this. Firefox is available on a Mac, and the add-ons CookieSafe and NoScript give you site-specific control of cookies and javascript, respectively.
On a PC, IE lets you have different trust zones, for which you can enable or disable cookies and javascript. There’s a way to move a site between the zones, although the one I’m familiar with is not that simple.
On Safari, I just looked and I don’t see any way to have different settings for different sites. I’ve barely used it, though, so I could be missing something.
I’d recommend you try Firefox for Mac with the two add-ons I mentioned.
In IE you can choose enable / disable / prompt for every thing. If you choose prompt you will be asked each time. I generally do not allow scripts and that gets rid of all sorts of annoyances.
An easy way to prevent highlight and copy is to use
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFEED" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#804020" oncontextmenu=“return false” ondragstart=“return false” onselectstart=“return false”>
oncontextmenu=“return false” ondragstart=“return false” onselectstart=“return false” do the trick
Obviously it only works with those who do not know how to see the source code but it is simple and better than nothing. I had some asshole email me once asking me how he could copy my text for something he was doing which just shows many internet users are much stupider than you could ever imagine.
Oh, please. Substitute the words “web site” for “email” in my post and it’s still the same thing. The difference between the two is night and day: an unsubstantiated assertion which may and or may not be true, versus an assertion that is supported by facts that show that it’s much more probably true than not. :rolleyes:
So let’s be clear here. Being persuaded by what a particular website says is “exactly the sort of gullibility that leads to erroneous “facts” being established as true.” On the other hand, being persuaded by an email from the guy who runs the exact same website is reasonable, as it’s “much more probably true than not.” (Keep in mind any “assertions” here are from the same person, and the additional facts are also asserted by the same person.) Are you really taking that position?
And, by the way, you might want to dial the snark back just a tad. It makes it harder to take you seriously.
Those comments fall again into the same category of assertions that I’ve critiqued in this thread for being too hasty. As such, they nicely illustrate the distinction between my view of proper skepticism and your current view (apparently).
Now, here’s a poster with a lot on the ball, and who has the right of it: The poster’s handle is squeegee, I believe, and this is what he wrote when someone told him he should ignore his doubts, turn off his skepticism, and just take some anonymous (as in totally unnamed and unidentified) person’s word on the web that the image had been manipulated:
Hey, that’s damn good thinking there!
I know, I’ll make two phone calls: One to the pilot and one to the Meadow Lake Airport to ask them. The answer would be the only thing that would settle the issue.
… time passes as these tasks are carried out …
Well, I got the pilot’s answering machine, but I left a message with my email address and with luck, the pilot will get into email contact with me and we can learn the answer about the sign.
Then I tried calling Meadow Lake Airport, but no one answered any of the numbers I could obtain. But this wasn’t very surprising since I called them quite late. So I send an email to the general-purpose “info” email address, explaining in a non-biased manner that I wish to know more about the incident and the photograph.
The next day, I’m very busy, but when I finally get back to my computer to check my email, I’ve received one from an airport board member and webmaster named Mark Shook, who explains in great detail what he knows from first-hand, direct experience, how he knows it, and why I should accept his word as authoritative. He writes:
Okay, then. Let’s take stock:
(1): A poster named squeegee in post #51 says “[S]omeone should just call Meadow Lake Airport and ask them, and the answer would be the only thing that would settle the issue.”
(2): Although Meadow Lake Airport’s answer arrives via email instead of by phone, I post it in this thread, with a big blue surrender sign reading: “I Concede!” It includes my statement: That settles that!, just as the squeegee of post #51 declared was the only way to settle the issue.
(3): A poster named squeegee now says: “Hold the phone… you believed some guy on the internet ?!? Um… isn’t this pretty much what you accused me of, and scoffed at my gullibility? I wasn’t a “true skeptic” since I believed the same guy’s web site, right?”
(4): I’d insert a smilie here, but my choice might be considered controversial, which we don’t want in GQ, right?
To briefly summarize, DSYoungEsq’s comments are far more valid and probative than either your or zut’s insufficiently rational and insufficiently fair criticism of myself and DSYoungEsq (but I’ll respond to zut in more depth later).
Your and zut’s comments are also anachronistic and thus not at all fair: Until I receieved my email reply with all the information needed to establish the identity of the author and the provenance of the “photo shop” statement, we had nothing but a bald assertion from an unnamed, unknown, truly anonymous person on the Internet. That is precisely the kind of assertion that warrants full skepticism and should prevent any properly skeptical person from moving their “bead” more than a fraction of an inch towards belief, if that.
I eagerly await the return of the wisely skeptical author of post #51. Come back, squeegee! We need your guidance!
Sorry, zut, but the logic and facts, when taken in proper chronological order, don’t support your claims. What DSYoungEsq said is completely true, and you’re the one adding erroneous facts. And regrettably, you (most likely) inadvertently quoted a key response of mine with much too little surrounding discussion and context.
Here’s the corrected post (he linked the wrong URL, which I’ve repaired here) from squeegee that you cite as what I’ll call Exhibit A:
Note that even though squeegee reports he’s no longer skeptical concerning the issue, he still quite correctly noted that: “If someone here wishes to visit that lonely place and look at the sign, it would be even better proof.” Although I did it by proxy, that’s exactly what I did, because even while he was saying we shouldn’t remain skeptical, the more skeptical part of his mind was strong enough to correctly state that we needed evidence of considerably higher quality.
You went on to post much too little of my reply to squeegee, but instead of quoting it in full again, I’ll quote my own shorter version of my fuller reply (I trimmed some boring stuff and changed some of the emphasis):
To explicate what I’m getting at, let’s start with the fact that my counter-argument to squeegee is much more rich and extensive than what you made it appear! You (I’m not claiming it was deliberate; them’d be fightin’ words) trivialized me and my position when you characterized my counter-argument as follows:
(As a side note, I must say I find it curious that after that, you go on to accuse DSYoungEsq of snarkiness…)
What’s wrong with your trivialization and your rather crude arguments? Let me count the logical errors:
(1): The available photographic and geometric evidence was internally consistent, or at least it revealed no readily discernible evidence of manipulation. The sign post was never shown anywhere other than exactly the same place in all known photos that included the sign, and some of those photos were known to have been taken by a different individual whose name and the provenance of his claim were known, while the identity and provenance of the photos on Snopes remains completely and totally unknown. The one single datum I was able to obtain about them is that there was admittedly inconclusive evidence that Snopes Photo 1 and Photo 2 were taken by different photographers. This meant that any shadow or similar discrepancy between the two photos had zero probity. It was also logically consistent with the idea that a typical business would choose to use a two-sided sign if it was to be placed perpendicular to the highway in order to maximize the number of eyes who might see it. Combined, all this evidence outweighs any bald, unattributed assertion from a completely anonymous, unnamed typist – whose source is insufficiently detailed or documented and for which zero provenance has been cited – even if that typist’s text appears on the airport’s web site.
(2): Your trivialization fails to take into account that even authoritative sources of information may contain errors or even reflect deliberate hoaxing.
(3): Your trivialization baldly equates webmasters to inerrant sources of full and perfect knowledge.
(4): Your trivialized formula: “Anonymous person’s bald assertion = bad, even when anonymous person runs the airport’s website” also contains another logical error; the anachronistic error I spoke of elsewhere. Before I received my highly detailed email reply with all that rich evidentiary provenance, no one had any idea that the author of Exhibit A was the “person [who] runs the airport’s website”. In fact, we still don’t know that! All we know is that the current webmaster is Mark Shook. We still do not know if he is the author of Exhibit A!
Your next trivialization meets the same standards you set with the first one (I can only hope you’re not proud of that). To wit:
WTF? (Okay, don’t be snarky, don’t be snarky, don’t be…)
Oh, my! I think I see where you might have erred in your reasoning, if you will permit me. It was not the mere name of the webmaster that added even the tiniest bit of probative value in resolving this question, if you’ll allow me to explain. It was this, the colored portion of the email in question:
Do you see how little importance should properly be ascribed to the webmaster’s name? That is to say, none at all?
There’s a three-letter word the young people like to use for this kind of thing… What is it again? Starts with a “D”, I think.
I understand, your grace. You were sleepy and needed a little rest first. You’ll come 'round once you look upon your work with fresher eyes…
So let me boil your post down.
-
A public website can have authoritative signs asserting things that are flatly false and contain the occasional erroneous statement as if it were the final, authoritative factual truth, and therefore you should not take some anonymous person’s bald assertion as the final, incontrovertible truth of a claim, even when it seems that the person in question should probably know the accurate facts.
-
On the other hand, a private email from the same person who runs the same website is convincing enough for you to concede the argument, precisely because it includes statements asserting certain facts and a bald assertion.
Do you truly not see the inconsistancy here?
I brought this up in a thread a while back. I agree…I get virtually NO glurge from the left-wingers. It is 99.9% from the redneck wealthy BILs and I have disproven 99.99% of their emails using Snopes, FactCheck, Wiki, and mainstream news sites. They’re a bunch of whiney bitches who invent outrage (as if there’s not enough wrong in the world already). I just bitched out my BIL for this last week. His pussy-boy response to my annoyance over the inaccurate, endless stream of crap he sends me?
“Gotchya.”
Fuckin’ lazy lying bastids.
I think this is key. It’s projection. These right wing bullshitters know that most of what they’re saying is just made up. So they figure that most of what everyone is saying is just made up. And they figure they’re actually more honest than everyone else because they’re willing to admit they make up their “facts” - it’s all the rest of us who insist our facts are true that are the real liars. Why won’t we just admit we’re making things up like they are?
The reality that some things really are true and some are not seems to elude them. They act like there is no truth - everything is a lie and it all comes down to who makes up the best lies and the only “honest” people are admitted liars.
Except that the photographic evidence wasn’t consistent. I did point out the mottling on the white sign more than once, and in my last response I explained how they could come to be and the reasons were not consistent with an unmanipulated photo. I also explained why it would not be logical for the sign to have been two-sided, and mentioned its poor placement for westbound traffic.
In his case, he likes to stir the shit because republican diversion tactic is all they have left now that they have no voice, no direction, and no credibility. He WANTS to believe the shit he spews because he has a black heart.
I also think he thinks everyone is a liar. But the fact that he doesn’t do any research on his own tells me that he has no interest in facts at all.
My very right-wing uncle is now checking snopes on the many right-wing emails he receives.