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The BellGab "New Member" Meet and Greet!

Started by GodsEqual, September 24, 2008, 02:13:23 AM

Frys Girl

Welcome SgtRocko!!! You will love it here. Now there's a prediction you can take to the bank and not end up getting investigated by the feds like a Coast to Coast AM guest.

Scully

SgtRocko, you are indeed welcome here.

One thing I should make clear, though, just in case you haven't noticed:

George Noory Sucks!  :-*

Just so I don't forget people's suggestions and my own, I'm bumping this thread after being recommended "Count St. Germain" as a conversational topic for any future show. :)

Let us know if you get your show on the net and where we can listen.  As far as subjects, someone has already mentioned Cryptozoology.  This iste mentions several of the cases that we have heard discussed on C2C:  http://www.cryptozoology.com/articles/articles.php.  Loren Coleman is usually the gueat expert: http://www.lorencoleman.com/ and he covers things like the Loch Ness creature and the balck panthers that are seen in the UK.
Brad Steiger, the famous author, covers practically all aspects of the Paranormal and I always like to hear him: http://www.bradandsherry.com/
Good luck with everything and if possible, keep us up to date!

DietCoke

Hey guys, first post here. I've been lurking the forums a bit and finally decided to sign up. I've been listening to C2C for a little over a year now, and am sad to say I've missed out on the Art Bell days. (The only show I've heard from him (That wasn't an old show I've found online) was his Ghost to Ghost last year) I found few of these old shows and have been listening to them recently, and am really enjoying them. I thought George was an *okay-at-best* host (sorry!) but that was until I heard Art, remember I had nothing to compare it to! Anyway, enough rambling, I'm glad to be a part of the site and hope to be a part of the community as well, thanks.

P.S, Does anyone know a place to get a decent amount of Arts old broadcasts? I found a torrent online of streamlink episodes, that will be give me enough listening for awhile but need more!

Quote from: DietCoke on October 31, 2011, 10:24:21 AM
P.S, Does anyone know a place to get a decent amount of Arts old broadcasts? I found a torrent online of streamlink episodes, that will be give me enough listening for awhile but need more!

Welcome DC!

There seems to be about a million torrents on demonoid as well as the google group called artaudio. I'm sure someone can hook you up with a demonoid invite as well.

DietCoke

thanks orange for the welcome, I've got the torrents from demoniod, but haven't heard of 'artaudio' i'll check it out, thanks again!

Quote from: DietCoke on October 31, 2011, 02:06:05 PM
thanks orange for the welcome, I've got the torrents from demoniod, but haven't heard of 'artaudio' i'll check it out, thanks again!

Cheers

Out of curiosity, what is your avatar a picture of?

DietCoke

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 12:10:10 AM
Cheers

Out of curiosity, what is your avatar a picture of?

its plasma, the 4th state of matter. just a lazy GIS haha

astroguy

Figured I'd intro myself here.  I'm a professional geophysicist with an astrophysics background and I study surface processes on other planets and moons.  The first C2C episode I listened to was way back in the early 2000s when Phil Plait was "debating" Nancy Leider.  Didn't listen for several years, then I "joined" the modern scientific skeptics movement and decided to start listening again to C2C in late 2008 to stay on top of what "the other side" believed.

I started a blog in 2008 and podcast just a few months ago that addresses the actual science behind why almost every guest on C2C is wrong (at least the ones who talk about physics, geology, and astronomy). :D  Well, I talk about other things related to that, like how there is not dark side of the moon and how the last Transformers movie got that wrong, but C2C makes up a good chunk of material.  I also tend to use C2C clips in my podcast to illustrate points of what people actually believe, such as my 8th episode mid-last month on the hollow Earth.  (See sig. for links.)

I found this forum a few days ago I think by searching for something that my blog had indicated someone searched for and found me.  It was about Hoagland, I think.  So I read the last two pages of the Hoagland thread on this site and realized that even though most on here are fans of C2C, most actually seem fairly incredulous towards the crap most of the guests spew.  Like Hoagland, or like a recent episode by Greg Braden.  So I thought I'd join in.

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 01:02:35 PM
Figured I'd intro myself here.  I'm a professional geophysicist with an astrophysics background and I study surface processes on other planets and moons.  The first C2C episode I listened to was way back in the early 2000s when Phil Plait was "debating" Nancy Leider.  Didn't listen for several years, then I "joined" the modern scientific skeptics movement and decided to start listening again to C2C in late 2008 to stay on top of what "the other side" believed.

I started a blog in 2008 and podcast just a few months ago that addresses the actual science behind why almost every guest on C2C is wrong (at least the ones who talk about physics, geology, and astronomy). :D  Well, I talk about other things related to that, like how there is not dark side of the moon and how the last Transformers movie got that wrong, but C2C makes up a good chunk of material.  I also tend to use C2C clips in my podcast to illustrate points of what people actually believe, such as my 8th episode mid-last month on the hollow Earth.  (See sig. for links.)

I found this forum a few days ago I think by searching for something that my blog had indicated someone searched for and found me.  It was about Hoagland, I think.  So I read the last two pages of the Hoagland thread on this site and realized that even though most on here are fans of C2C, most actually seem fairly incredulous towards the crap most of the guests spew.  Like Hoagland, or like a recent episode by Greg Braden.  So I thought I'd join in.

Welcome! What is your area of interest in geophysics?

I'm digging the blog so far and interested in trying out the podcast as well. This board is a lot of fun and you are guaranteed to find all kinds of interesting people around here.

valdez

Quote from: GSD on September 04, 2011, 01:05:08 AM
This site is awesome...
Quote from: BiffWellington on September 04, 2011, 03:12:20 PM
... Hi!
Quote from: EastCoastLady on October 02, 2011, 06:07:15 PM
Apologies for not introducing myself beforehand...
Quote from: SgtRocko on October 08, 2011, 06:30:13 PM
I'm a 47 year old New Yorker stuck living in Cleveland; former member of both the Israeli Army and the US Marines...
Quote from: DietCoke on October 31, 2011, 10:24:21 AM
Hey guys, first post here...
Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 01:02:35 PM
Figured I'd intro myself here.  I'm a professional geophysicist with an astrophysics background and I study surface processes on other planets and moons....
    Welcome new coastgabbers.
FrenchCafe.jpg
     

astroguy

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 02:13:36 PMWelcome! What is your area of interest in geophysics?
Thanks.  I study craters, at the moment on Mars and Moon.

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 02:13:36 PMI'm digging the blog so far and interested in trying out the podcast as well. This board is a lot of fun and you are guaranteed to find all kinds of interesting people around here.
Thanks. :)  I'm actually trying to decide how self-promotive would be acceptable for me to advertise on here when I put a new 'cast out or particular blog post that demolishes a C2C guest.  I think it's perfectly reasonable for something like Hoagland or if there's a thread already started on that person, but starting my own thread to say, "Come listen/read 'bout why this guy's wrong!" could get annoying.

DietCoke

hey astro welcome from one new member to another!

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 05:26:12 PM
Thanks.  I study craters, at the moment on Mars and Moon.
Very cool! I ran into this story the other day about caves on the moon:
http://www.universetoday.com/90031/russia-eyes-caves-on-moon-for-setting-up-a-lunar-base/
You would probably be the right guy to talk to about this then. Any idea on how many there are out there or how deep such caves would be?

FWIW I'm a fellow astroguy myself, I have been working on modeling gravitational lenses and I'm currently in the middle of writing up my PhD thesis, which has been an absolute hellish experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. From what I've heard though, the pain means I'm doing it right.

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 05:26:12 PM
Thanks. :)  I'm actually trying to decide how self-promotive would be acceptable for me to advertise on here when I put a new 'cast out or particular blog post that demolishes a C2C guest.  I think it's perfectly reasonable for something like Hoagland or if there's a thread already started on that person, but starting my own thread to say, "Come listen/read 'bout why this guy's wrong!" could get annoying.
Make your own thread and advertise away. I'm sure you'll find like minded folks that will find your analysis interesting. If someone finds it annoying they don't have to read it ;)

Avi

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 07:29:24 PM
I have been working on modeling gravitational lenses...

My wife wants me to ask if you've ever posted on the POV-Ray News Group? She was speaking to someone there about modeling a material with a varying index of refraction.

Quote from: Avi on November 01, 2011, 07:42:43 PM
My wife wants me to ask if you've ever posted on the POV-Ray News Group? She was speaking to someone there about modeling a material with a varying index of refraction.

Nope, not me. But the methods are very similar. The lenses I play with are made out of the curved spacetime around massive objects. You can describe the phenomenon with an effective index of refraction that varies with the gravitational potential.

BobGrau

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 08:03:45 PM
You can describe the phenomenon with an effective index of refraction that varies with the gravitational potential.

this is why I like coastgab. fuck noory.

astroguy

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 07:29:24 PM
Very cool! I ran into this story the other day about caves on the moon:
http://www.universetoday.com/90031/russia-eyes-caves-on-moon-for-setting-up-a-lunar-base/
You would probably be the right guy to talk to about this then. Any idea on how many there are out there or how deep such caves would be?

FWIW I'm a fellow astroguy myself, I have been working on modeling gravitational lenses and I'm currently in the middle of writing up my PhD thesis, which has been an absolute hellish experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. From what I've heard though, the pain means I'm doing it right.

I don't know much about lunar (nor martian) caves other than a few dozen or so are known, generally I think on the order of 10s of meters across/deep but we don't know how far they may extend under the openings that can be seen.

My 80 hrs work/week on thesis was December-April of last year, defended April 5, first in my class (by 27 hrs).  It's a marathon.  And after you turn in the thesis, you have two weeks (here at least) until you defend, and you lose ALL motivation to actually write and defend your talk.  And then there's always that areshole on your committee who 2 minutes into questioning states absolutely, "You clearly have no idea what's going on with [this]."  Fun stuff.  It's a hazing.


Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 09:22:47 PM
I don't know much about lunar (nor martian) caves other than a few dozen or so are known, generally I think on the order of 10s of meters across/deep but we don't know how far they may extend under the openings that can be seen.
Very interesting. Are they basically the lunar equivalent of lava tubes?

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 09:22:47 PM
Fun stuff.  It's a hazing.
Can't wait to get pantsed. :\

astroguy

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 10:23:52 PM
Very interesting. Are they basically the lunar equivalent of lava tubes?
I think that's what most people think, that you've broken through a thin crust region into a lava tube.  But I'm not really sure, I've only seen pretty pictures in press releases, haven't actually read the papers.

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 05:26:12 PM
Thanks.  I study craters, at the moment on Mars and Moon.

Well, I'm genuinely curious. What does this entail? What kind of problems are geophysicists interested in when it comes to craters?

Avi

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 08:03:45 PM
Nope, not me. But the methods are very similar. The lenses I play with are made out of the curved spacetime around massive objects. You can describe the phenomenon with an effective index of refraction that varies with the gravitational potential.

She did convey to me that gravitational fields were some part of the question posed to the news group, but I have told her to get on here to convey her own word salad directly. Going through me is dangerous. I asked her, while typing, about indices of refraction. The look she gave me could be loosely translated as, "Is there a frying pan handy?" She is very involved in the mathematical/theoretical end of mechanical engineering (oh yes, she also wanted me to mention that some mechanical devices on earth do make use of relativity - GPS uses an atomic clock, so I believe the ante has been raised on your OCD). She does a lot of modeling (I call it animating) of strange objects. Here is an example:

Powers of the Mandelbulb, Boldly Glowing

I told her that CoastGab had collected a geophysicist who studies craters, and she said, "Ooh! Topology!" But I am just a dumb musician. I fail to be as excited by topology as I should.

As astroguy says, I have often thought of many university programs as hazing rituals. My advice is just to slog through it. Half the time, you're just doing someone else's research, anyway, even if it is paying for your classes. Give them no more and no less than what they ask. Try to get some few papers published, so your CV carries some data. The hiring committee, in the university world, won't even look at your transcripts the nicer and more complete the CV on top of the stack appears to be. If you go into research, the gnomes are only interested in your transcript insofar as it applies to their area of concern. And then, it just comes down to the intangibles, like whether they like you or not. No worries.

Quote from: Avi on November 02, 2011, 02:40:04 AM
She did convey to me that gravitational fields were some part of the question posed to the news group, but I have told her to get on here to convey her own word salad directly. Going through me is dangerous. I asked her, while typing, about indices of refraction. The look she gave me could be loosely translated as, "Is there a frying pan handy?" She is very involved in the mathematical/theoretical end of mechanical engineering
haha
I don't know if I could be of help, and this thesis really is crushing me right now. But I'd be glad to throw in my $0.02 for what it's worth. The video you linked to is gorgeous!

Quote from: Avi on November 02, 2011, 02:40:04 AM
(oh yes, she also wanted me to mention that some mechanical devices on earth do make use of relativity - GPS uses an atomic clock, so I believe the ante has been raised on your OCD).
She is absolutely correct. The GPS system needs to take into account both special and general relativity to keep the clocks synchronized between satellites, though the time correction from special relativity is much larger than the gravitational part. Anyway there are a few other examples that she could throw back at me as well, including nuclear bombs and power plants for conversion of matter to energy. The repercussions of General Relativity can be observed in the precession of Mercury's orbit, the apparent positions of background stars during solar eclipses, cosmic ray timing experiments and radar ranging in the solar system.

Aside from GPS, which is by now available to nearly everyone I suppose, I stand by my previous statements. The average man that isn't doing cosmic ray timing experiments can get along just fine on the Earth using Newtonian mechanics. It really doesn't affect us very much in *day to day* dealings because of low speed and the weak gravity of the Earth. Once you start noticing things like I mentioned above do relativistic effects become important.

I suspect I'll have to be more precise from now on when in earshot of Mrs. Avi! :)

Quote from: Avi on November 02, 2011, 02:40:04 AM
As astroguy says, I have often thought of many university programs as hazing rituals. My advice is just to slog through it. Half the time, you're just doing someone else's research, anyway, even if it is paying for your classes. Give them no more and no less than what they ask. Try to get some few papers published, so your CV carries some data. The hiring committee, in the university world, won't even look at your transcripts the nicer and more complete the CV on top of the stack appears to be. If you go into research, the gnomes are only interested in your transcript insofar as it applies to their area of concern. And then, it just comes down to the intangibles, like whether they like you or not. No worries.

Gah. Well, the most I'll say at this point is I'll keep my fingers crossed.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: astroguy on November 01, 2011, 05:26:12 PM
I'm actually trying to decide how self-promotive would be acceptable for me to advertise on here...


plug away.

astroguy

Quote from: Agent : Orange on November 01, 2011, 10:39:31 PM
Well, I'm genuinely curious. What does this entail? What kind of problems are geophysicists interested in when it comes to craters?

Lots o' t'ings.  Right now I'm working on age-dating the largest craters on Mars to explore implications for the solar system's hypothetical Late Heavy Bombardment.

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on November 02, 2011, 10:16:41 AMplug away.

:)  I actually have an interview coming up with the guy who called Mike Bara out on his idiocy with orbits last November 10.  He's the guy George cut off and a later caller told him he shouldn't've.  But George explained that he was just protecting Mike from science and common sense.

(For those who don't remember, Mike was saying that the planet Mars has a hugely eccentric orbit because it goes from 0.5 AU to 2.5 AU from Earth.  The caller (my interviewee on Monday) was trying to tell him that that simply doesn't make any sense because you have to measure the ellipse from one of the foci, in this case the sun, and his claim is like me saying that Earth is about 13,000 km in radius because that's my distance from the other side.  Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.)

DietCoke

hey astroguy just thought i would say i listened to your 'hollow earth' podcast, and have to say i really enjoyed it. Don't know if you've already answered this but how did you get into podcasting? I can guess coast to coast and your educational background played a big factor. I think a lot of people would like to do podcasts, etc but a lot of them don't bother to make them -  at least with a decent amount of effort. So props to you for that.

martinol

Hi everyone, greetings from Austria!

Listening to C2C on/off for about 3 years now, always fascinated about the spectrum of guests and topics. We don't have anything comparable over here.

I just found this board searching for the 'guy with the deep voice', was lurking a bit and was intrigued how unpopular Noory is! I registered to add my 2c about him.

As I live on the other side of the planet, I rarely hear the show live.
Thanks to Insider I grab the mp3's which spare me the commercial breaks. However, first time I heard Noory start about the damn E-Food stuff I thought it was a joke, but WTH, he does it more and more. Some poster wrote about the Radio Network losing money and I do understand the need for financing other than subscriptions, but this is just ridiculous!

Browsing through this forum it seems that I missed the best of C2C when Art Bell was still on. I actually never thought about Noory as the King of Bad before above mentioned ad-crap. Maybe I'm a little shallow, but I focused more on the guests I guess. Last couple of weeks I too got the feeling that the show is going south.

Grabbing the 1994 Art Bell torrent right now to catch up, with blazing 25k/s :D

Thx for reading, have a good time! Back to lurking mode :)

astroguy

Quote from: DietCoke on November 03, 2011, 05:54:06 PM
hey astroguy just thought i would say i listened to your 'hollow earth' podcast, and have to say i really enjoyed it. Don't know if you've already answered this but how did you get into podcasting? I can guess coast to coast and your educational background played a big factor. I think a lot of people would like to do podcasts, etc but a lot of them don't bother to make them -  at least with a decent amount of effort. So props to you for that.

Thanks!  Glad you liked it.  It's typical of what I see this podcast being -- having clips of crazies make their claims and then explain why they're wrong.  It's fun :).

I actually wrote this up on another forum a few weeks ago, so here 'tis:

I recorded my first episode in February 2008, and my second one the same month.  I asked for feedback from my parents.  My dad never responded, and my mom gave a polite, "You realize that radio hosts have teams of people writing for them" response.  So I didn't pursue it.  I revived the idea this past summer where (another guy on that board) really was some of the inspiration.  Well, not for doing the podcast in the first place, but for getting me over the hump.  I liked his attitude in his second podcast that he didn't care how many people listened to it, he just liked doing it.

While I've adopted that attitude and released my first episode on August 1, 2011 (after re-recording), I secretly of course hope that more people listen to it.  I think that's just something we want -- we put time and energy into this and we hope to get recognition and appreciation and acceptance from our peers.

I got that a bit with my fourth episode, a "bonus" one, on Comet Elenin.  I had been getting around 100-200 downloads/episode after a week or two of it being out.  Then the owner of 2012hoax.org - who has used my blog a lot in the past as source material for his site - posted about my Elenin episode in the forum on that site and to the twitter feed.  Frasier Cain, publisher of Universe Today which ranks around 13,000-14,000 in popularity of websites IN THE WORLD, posted about my episode.  I went up to 5000+ downloads in a week and a request that it be re-broadcast on a radio show.  I didn't actually gain 5000 subscribers; I'd estimate my subscribers somewhere around 500 now based upon the number of downloads per episode after about a week of it being out.

I'm still trying to figure out how to publicize it more, and I think once I get up to about a dozen episodes out, I'm going to start to contact other people in the astronomy/skeptical/education community and invite them for an interview.  That'll get them free publicity (not that they need it) and get me free publicity when they tell their followers they were on it.  I plan on contacting Phil Plait (who knows me well), Pamela Gay (who I work with on another project), as well as Bob Novella since he's the most astronomy-interested SGU person.  We'll see if my evil plan works.*

I really like listener feedback, and I also wish more people would write reviews on iTunes or just send me e-mails.  I actually have responded to EVERY e-mail written so far, and there were about a dozen that came in the few days after Frasier posted.  The main request I've gotten is to do longer episodes (my length now is around 20-30 minutes).  My initial promise was 10-20 minutes twice a month.  I'd rather under-promise and over-deliver right now rather than the opposite, and I'm over-delivering these days by releasing "bonus" episodes as extras each month now.

In terms of topics, my idea is kinda like Skeptoid but for astronomy.  Targeted, single issues to explore in-depth.  I have NO shortage of topics, though I still encourage people to send in requests, and I'll add them to the schedule.  Right now, I'm planned out through March 2012 with numerous ideas for more that are just not scheduled yet.

*I've followed up on this since I wrote that explanation and I have two guys planned for this month (November), a Mayan expert for December for my "Intro to 2012" month, and both Phil Plait and Pamela Gay have agreed to come on for an interview/discussion at some point in the next few month (Pamela probably in late January after we co-launch a project).

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