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Second Pres Debate: Who Won?

I've seen McCain tell a joke. The man has a sense of humor, but he lost it somewhere along the campaign trail.

hair plugs? really?
 
Upchurch said:
I've seen McCain tell a joke. The man has a sense of humor, but he lost it somewhere along the campaign trail.

hair plugs? really?
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McCain forgot that jokes in a quiet room rarely go over too well.
 
The Painter said:
Their first look at the stars??? Why didn't they just go outside??

Pssst. they are not really stars. They are little dots of light that represent the stars. In the computer age, aren't planetariums obsolete?
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Do you think a planetarium is just a place to look at a projected 3D imageof the night sky? No, really, I want to know what you think planetariums are used for, because the image you're projecting of yourself isn't very sparkling.
 
In terms of "winning," this is absolutely a case where it is determining by popular opinion. It's not a debate competition, where a single judge declares a winner.

If the popular vote says Obama won the debate, then Obama won it. Because, in the end, the debate is not won or lost by who makes the best argument, but by who gains the most votes from it.

I've not heard anyone suggest that McCain is going to gain votes out of this. It doesn't make his base any more excited (although he has no base), and it doesn't sway many independents. That isn't a win for him.
 
The Painter said:
I see you completely ignored my question about computers making planetariums obsolete.
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Computers have made planetariums obsolete? Computers have made planetariums even more useful as a tool.

Your question indicates to me that you're not well informed on this matter. I suggest you do some research.
 
The Painter said:
Pssst. they are not really stars. They are little dots of light that represent the stars. In the computer age, aren't planetariums obsolete?
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No. A flat-screen representation of the stars is far inferior to a simulated sky. Of course, you could get a dome that was paneled with flat screen monitors and then design software to run the simulation, or even a computer that could do a 3D kind of I-Max sort of thing. Either one would cost orders of maginitude more than the planetarium projector.

Calling the planetarium projector an "overhead projector" is the equivalent of calling an electron microscope a "magnifying glass".
 
The Painter said:
Their first look at the stars??? Why didn't they just go outside??

Pssst. they are not really stars. They are little dots of light that represent the stars. In the computer age, aren't planetariums obsolete?
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Obviously you have never been inside a modern planetarium.

There is a lot more to the Adler planetarium than just a bunch of lights on the ceiling.

Computers? Hah.
 
BenBurch said:
Well, if you lived in Chicago, you'd know that you can never see but a few stars even in the best of circumstances. And very very few of us are favored in this day and age with an absolutely dark sky, so the only way you can appreciate how many stars there are, or that you can see the Milky Way or the Magellanic Clouds or M-31 or the Orion Nebula by eye is in a planetarium.

Only in a planetarium can a teacher be assured a clear "night" for the execution of a planned lecture, and most primary school children simply cannot be gotten to a dark field in the middle of the night for one anyway.

And Planetariums are essential for teaching stellar navigation.

And yes, some people have vision that cannot correct for infinity, and they cannot appreciate the heavens except in a planetarium, or they have defects on night vision such that only in a planetarium, where you can increase the brightness of the objects far beyond what is natural, can they see any of them at all. I have spoken to several.

So, you can argue for luddite ignorance if you want to; it does not reflect well on you or your movement or your candidate.
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I remember seeing the Night Sky show at Adler when I lived in Chicago in 1985. They started out showing what the sky looked like on a clear night from in the city. They pointed out a few of the bright stars that we might recognize. Then they said here's what it would look like on a clear night far from city lights.

Projector: Click.

The entire audience: Gasp!
 
Sasha said:
I thought the same thing - it's not a debate at all, just a stand-up recitation. I fell asleep after 45 minutes. I came here this morning hoping I had missed some inciteful speech or even a well-laid zinger but it sounds like the whole thing was just a yawner.
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Which means it was like 80% of the presendential debates.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
Obviously you have never been inside a modern planetarium.

There is a lot more to the Adler planetarium than just a bunch of lights on the ceiling.

Computers? Hah.
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I am looking forward to the Planterium in San Francisco opening again after being gone for five years while new digs In Golden Gate Park were being built. for it and the other California Academy of Sciences museums.It is supposed to have all the high tech bells and whistles.
 
Denver said:
The whole "My Friends" thing is an interesting tactic. I don't think it is meant to actually trick anyone into thinking he is our personal friend. As you noted, McCain has an age element. Rather than ignore this, a good strategy would be to play up its strengths. Such as the experience that comes with age.

The whole "my friends" thing hearkens back to earlier times, when politicians made speeches on radio or in black and white news reels, when we didn't have the Internet to discover, analyze, and spread the dirt on the candidates like we can today. There was more trust, even awe (and fear), of the high level politicians, and the belief that it was they and their decisions that guided our nation. Growing up to be president was sometimes seen as the ultimate goal in school.

So I think McCain is using that phrase to try to create a mood that makes people connect him to those earlier times. To "The Good Old Days".

Good luck with that.
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This is actually a VERY good point.

McCain was born in '36. He would have been greatly effected by the way politicians of the 40's and 50's presented themselves in news reels and early TV.

He speaks like he sees politicians speak in his mind's eye. I don't know if he really does this consciously to reflect the good old days as much as he probably does it on instinct.

Back then that was the standard way a politician spoke but today it comes accost as disingenuous and condescending.... at least to me.
 
I was working last night, so I recorded the debate, and I'm listening to it now.

I wonder if McCain is trying to bring up the specter of $5000 toilet seats from the 80's again when saying that Obama asked for $3M for an "overhead" projector for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-fact-check08oct08,0,869491.story

Yes! Let's cut out all of the few tens of millions of dollars in the budget going to educational institutions! That will solve the financial crisis!
 
Tricky said:
Do you think a planetarium is just a place to look at a projected 3D imageof the night sky? No, really, I want to know what you think planetariums are used for, because the image you're projecting of yourself isn't very sparkling.
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EXACTLY. Now, the simple machines of the past did not do a whole lot more than display for you the sky at ANY date in the past or future (within about a 10,000 year window) but the new ones can take you on a space voyage to other planets or other stars as though you had a SciFi space drive. They can show you animations of anything, in fact. And a proper planetarium show is an educational experience where you show people something about the heavens using the planetarium projector as a prop to place the thing you are describing in its context.

You can even do shows about human history. For example, it is very common to do a "Star of Bethlehem" show where you explore what it might have been that the Magi saw which would have lead them to Israel at the time of Christ's birth. Whether you believe in the divinity of Christ, or even if he existed is immaterial to whether you can explore the idea that there was something that would have lead an astrologer of the time to think something might be occurring.

And you can show the stars as they existed when the Pyramids were built, and show that a different star, not Polaris, was the northern star then. And use that to explain precession of the equinoxes.

And you can use it to discuss ancient calendrical systems.

And you can put people AT Stonehenge or any other astronomically-aligned archeological site and show them how those alignments appear.

And of course you can project any film or any slides you want to in the process of your lesson.

I wager our friend here is utterly ignorant of how such theaters are used and how important they are in public education.
 
BenBurch said:
I wager our friend here is utterly ignorant of how such theaters are used and how important they are in public education.
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I agree. I doubt that John McCain ever took any of his kids to a museum, zoo, aquarium or planetatium.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
I agree. I doubt that John McCain ever took any of his kids to a museum, zoo, aquarium or planetatium.
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It also doesn't help McCain appear to be in touch with 21st century technology. These new fangled projectors just aren't worth the money to him. To me, he just sounded ... old.
 
We're building a new digital planetarium theater at Yale right now (we have only about $1M from a private donor, not $3M). Imagine a 30-foot diameter spherical high-resolution computer monitor over your head, onto which you can project anything at all-- a star field with reference lines, a full-dome video showing anything at all, a 3D representation of the molecules undergoing a chemical reaction, etc..

There are many, many concepts which are vastly easier to teach under a dome than on a flat screen. Such as showing how the sun rises and sets in the winter vs. the summer, or how navigators can use the angle of the north star to the horizon to determine latitude.
 
R.Mackey said:
I'd go as far as to call this debate "boring."
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What do you expect when the folks they put in the audience to ask the questions are still undecided at this stage in the election? To be undecided they basically have to be clueless and uninformed. :D

Now I'd like to see an old style debate. Where one candidate gets to ask a question of the other and the other gets a minute or two to respond. Then the other candidate gets a question. And they continue that process for a hour or two. Then we might actually get a picture of who these two are. :)
 
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