1. The primary reason for the invasion of Iraq was USA's need to prop it's depleting oil reserves.
Excuses such as:
a) Search for WMD's (They found none)
b) Ousting a tyrant (There are many of those, Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe etc etc, why not pick on a country that actually needs help?)
c) The 'War on Terror'. (There were no connections between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein, even though they desperately tried to find one).
2. Dubya is carrying on where his Father left it incomplete. The man couldn't even find the place on a map.
3. In the first Gulf war, the British lost more servicemen from American 'friendly fire' than they did from the Iraqis. It's about time the US employed trained soldiers instead of Gung-ho idiots that think they are John Wayne. (And even John Wayne didnt rape kids and torture civilians)
4. The usual US military procedure is to carpet bomb an entire area from a great height to minimise casualties. (On their side, of course) - See Bosnia for reference.
5. Often tyrants are the only thing holding disparate factions together, obviously with an iron hand. Remove the lynch-pin and the entire edifice comes tumbling down. They return to hacking each other to pieces. See Romania, Yugoslavia and many African states.
The entire 'Gulf War II - The Sequel' was grossly undermanned from the outset. Look at any major military takeover in history and you will see it requires massive manpower, NOT a reliance in technology and weaponry. One would have thought the US would have figured that out from their failure in Vietnam. I heard USA recently described not as an empire, but an "impire", as most people are going there, rather than leaving. An empire relies on the expansion of it's people in huge numbers to achieve an effect. The fact that less than 20% of US citzens possess a passport explains a lot. Dropping 50,000 men and billions of dollars worth of technology is NOT going to prevent urban terrorism and guerilla warfare. The only way is to come down like a ton of bricks with a huge deployment of manpower and pin them down so hard they cannot sniff without anybody knowing. Then you can slowly release your grip once you have all your 'good guys' in place.
Well that's my view of the world and I've been wanting to say that lot for quite some time.:o)
PS: Oh, and as for the Aircraft sales, we all know that the British/American detente only goes one way. They don't call Blair a poodle for nothing. The sooner UK drops its ridiculous snivelling attitude to America, the sooner it might earn the respect of the rest of the world again.
I use Lithium Polymer batteries in my SLR camera. It's a whacking great lump that bolts on the bottom, and although it's way better than conventional AA's (even NiMH), they are hellishy expensive ($300-£400), and they are bloody heavy!
One further factor is it's a typical Sony ploy. Invent a totally unique accessory that only Sony make, and charge three times the price for it. (ie, $10 power supplies with an oddball connector they sell for £150)
That's why I wont buy anything from those people.
ow many links would you like me to provide on here to view porn? You are one mouse click away from material that children can openly view, with no age restrictions whatsoever. The American public ar quite willing to accept the government coffers being filled from a multi-million dollar industry, but are too prudish to be exposed to it themselves. You can't have it both ways.
It's interesting you define this as hypocrisy, whereas the great nation of USA, who's biggest export is filth and pornography on an astronomical scale can also decry a "wardrobe malfunction" and get apoplectic about someone revealing a nipple in the middle of a football match. Time to get real, I think.
I think that's possibly a misconception. I have had plenty of dodgy rental tapes in my time (usually a bit grunged up at the beginning). The point is, with a tape, it jiggles and drops for a second or two and then it's fine. You get so much as a speck of dirt on a DVD in the wrong place and the entire disc is unplayable. DVD's simply dont tolerate couch potatoes slamming them in when their fingers are covered in chip fat.
Your argument still doesnt hold water. The shutters on P&S cameras are not all mechanical, but they serve their purpose. The main problem is slow lenses. Everyone wants zooms, and the maximum apertures of a lot of these lenses is hopeless in low light situations, so many manufacurers resort to electronic gain amplification which in turn increases noise. Any decent photographer avoids zooms wherever possible and sticks to prime lenses, a) for image quality, and b) for better apertures.
In answer to your comment, I admit my faster shutter speeds are CCD switching, but my camera also has a moving plane shutter capable of 1/1000th/sec
Also, ISO/ASA on a digital camera is essentially a pointless function, emulating film speeds. Again, this is done by gain amplification.
You think a "quick shutter" fixes it all? My camera can acheive 1/16000th sec Is that fast enough?
Virtually all cameras have fast enough shutters. The problem you speak of is down to what all cameras need: Light.
If you increase shutter speed, you reduce light input. Aperture and shutter speed are bound together.
Yor problem is not the cameras, it is simply lack of light.
I understand your "elitist" tag, but at the same time, using your analogy, everyone wants a HAM radio with a 50ft mast when all they want is the local radio station. Like anything in this world, anything worth having is not easy. Certainly moving to an SLR is the biggest jump one can make in photography as it requires far more user involvement. They don't call cameras "point and shoot" for nothing, because that's all some people need. However, they come at the cost of flexibility. If you want good photographs, it requires practice and persistence. The fantastic advantage of digitals though is that a) you can see your results immediately, and b) it doesn't cost a fortune in film and processing. If your wife wants photos that look like the ones in magazines, she needs the right tools, but correspondingly the right knowledge and skills to allow her to get the best from them.
Im sorry if I sounded pompous, but it annoys me when people assume that the only difference between an average amateur and a pro is the cost of their equipment. If you had a F1 Ferrari, would that be better than your Ford to drive to the supermarket in, and could you drive like Michael Schumacher?
I am a photographer that makes a living from not using a pencil. Wankers like you only prove the point that amateurs like you should stay at home and pull the duvet over their heads. I also use a $40,000 camera that is half the size of my head, but probably 10,000 times bigger than your brain.
I would also point out that a lot of semi-pro DSLRs are cheap and plasticy (the Nikon D70 is typical, the D50 even worse) They are not true pro cameras. Any decent SLR, digital or film, are built like housebricks. Have a look at a Nikon F3, or a Canon A1. Likewise a D2X Nikky Digi. Cheap SLRs arent worth the bother, either stick with a little P&S, or go for the real thing. There is no point in a halfway measure.
I should first point out I am a professional photographer with two $3000 digital SLR's. I use a little 4mpx view point & shoot (P&S) for when Im out and about, as it is capable of grabbing a shot really quickly without any setting up.
1. DSLR's are considerably more expensive than P&S
2. The functions on a DSLR are way beyond the requirements of an average camera user
3. The Megapixel size is generally way above the average requirement and fill up a hard drive far quicker
4. An average DSLR cannot be slipped into ones pocket on holiday
5. The average Joe Blow user wouldnt know depth of field from a corn field. Way too much info.
6. Most DSLRs, even in program mode are generally far more selective than a P&S. One has to have a reasonable level of understanding to take a half decent snap.
7. Insurance and repair costs are proportionate to the price of the camera
8. Personally having had two DSLRs stolen, they are prime targets for theives
9. You could actually be mistaken for a professional. (Trust me, if people think you are press, they want money)
10. Idiots with big cameras put people like me out of work;o)
Stick with your box brownies and leave the serious stuff to the people that know what they are doing. That said, if you are serious about taking photographs, and not snaps of granny at Christmas, then get a basic DSLR and go from there. (Tip: Pick optic companies not electronics companies, ie: get Nikon, Canon, Olympus, not Sony, Casio, Samsung)
Soryy mate, but you are talkimg out of your backside. We were talking about infecting others while on medication. The drugs prevent AIDS, but you are still HIV positive, and still capable of infecting others. You can even infect another HIV+ person again as there are different strains of the virus. Do not assume everyone has to pay for their drugs. If you are HIV in UK, for one, all medication is freely available. This Thread aamzes me how many people think AIDS is a drugs conspiracy, and how few understand anything about a matter that affects the entire world in a very serious way.
Yes, you can still transmit HIV while on medication. It doesnt destroy it, it merely suppresses it. The single biggest problem though is if you take medication, and then come off it, or even forget a few doses, it becomes ineffective and you gain resistance to the drug treatment. This can then also be passed on. That way you get a double whammy, if you catch the virus, you also catch the resistance to the medication.
Re:A lot more is necessary...
on
AIDS Can Fight AIDS
·
· Score: 4, Informative
These HIV cocktails DO effectively stop AIDS. AIDS is a condition caused by the HIV virus reducing and eventually depleting CD4 cells used in the immune system to nothing. An uninfected person usually has a CD4 count of around 800. When this is reduced to under 100, this is then classified as AIDS. Even if the CD4 count were to rise well above that threshold, they are still considered to have AIDS. Most HIV+ people on combination therapy start once their CD4 drops below 200, and from then on it rises back up at about 100 a year thereafter. The side effects are often not good, but so far, everyone seems to be living pretty normal lives. It's no cure, but its a start. http://www.aidsmap.com/
AIDS is a condition caused by HIV. AIDS doesnt do anything, or kill anyone. I thought this was a scientifically based forum, not just a collection of American fuckwits.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's get a few things straight here:
:o)
1. The primary reason for the invasion of Iraq was USA's need to prop it's depleting oil reserves. Excuses such as:
a) Search for WMD's (They found none)
b) Ousting a tyrant (There are many of those, Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe etc etc, why not pick on a country that actually needs help?)
c) The 'War on Terror'. (There were no connections between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein, even though they desperately tried to find one).
2. Dubya is carrying on where his Father left it incomplete. The man couldn't even find the place on a map.
3. In the first Gulf war, the British lost more servicemen from American 'friendly fire' than they did from the Iraqis. It's about time the US employed trained soldiers instead of Gung-ho idiots that think they are John Wayne. (And even John Wayne didnt rape kids and torture civilians)
4. The usual US military procedure is to carpet bomb an entire area from a great height to minimise casualties. (On their side, of course) - See Bosnia for reference.
5. Often tyrants are the only thing holding disparate factions together, obviously with an iron hand. Remove the lynch-pin and the entire edifice comes tumbling down. They return to hacking each other to pieces. See Romania, Yugoslavia and many African states.
The entire 'Gulf War II - The Sequel' was grossly undermanned from the outset. Look at any major military takeover in history and you will see it requires massive manpower, NOT a reliance in technology and weaponry. One would have thought the US would have figured that out from their failure in Vietnam. I heard USA recently described not as an empire, but an "impire", as most people are going there, rather than leaving. An empire relies on the expansion of it's people in huge numbers to achieve an effect. The fact that less than 20% of US citzens possess a passport explains a lot. Dropping 50,000 men and billions of dollars worth of technology is NOT going to prevent urban terrorism and guerilla warfare. The only way is to come down like a ton of bricks with a huge deployment of manpower and pin them down so hard they cannot sniff without anybody knowing. Then you can slowly release your grip once you have all your 'good guys' in place.
Well that's my view of the world and I've been wanting to say that lot for quite some time.
PS: Oh, and as for the Aircraft sales, we all know that the British/American detente only goes one way. They don't call Blair a poodle for nothing. The sooner UK drops its ridiculous snivelling attitude to America, the sooner it might earn the respect of the rest of the world again.
I use Lithium Polymer batteries in my SLR camera. It's a whacking great lump that bolts on the bottom, and although it's way better than conventional AA's (even NiMH), they are hellishy expensive ($300-£400), and they are bloody heavy! One further factor is it's a typical Sony ploy. Invent a totally unique accessory that only Sony make, and charge three times the price for it. (ie, $10 power supplies with an oddball connector they sell for £150) That's why I wont buy anything from those people.
"There is no dark side of Thailand. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."
ow many links would you like me to provide on here to view porn? You are one mouse click away from material that children can openly view, with no age restrictions whatsoever. The American public ar quite willing to accept the government coffers being filled from a multi-million dollar industry, but are too prudish to be exposed to it themselves. You can't have it both ways.
What if you are a right wing athiest?
It's interesting you define this as hypocrisy, whereas the great nation of USA, who's biggest export is filth and pornography on an astronomical scale can also decry a "wardrobe malfunction" and get apoplectic about someone revealing a nipple in the middle of a football match. Time to get real, I think.
I think that's possibly a misconception. I have had plenty of dodgy rental tapes in my time (usually a bit grunged up at the beginning). The point is, with a tape, it jiggles and drops for a second or two and then it's fine. You get so much as a speck of dirt on a DVD in the wrong place and the entire disc is unplayable. DVD's simply dont tolerate couch potatoes slamming them in when their fingers are covered in chip fat.
Your argument still doesnt hold water. The shutters on P&S cameras are not all mechanical, but they serve their purpose. The main problem is slow lenses. Everyone wants zooms, and the maximum apertures of a lot of these lenses is hopeless in low light situations, so many manufacurers resort to electronic gain amplification which in turn increases noise. Any decent photographer avoids zooms wherever possible and sticks to prime lenses, a) for image quality, and b) for better apertures.
/sec
In answer to your comment, I admit my faster shutter speeds are CCD switching, but my camera also has a moving plane shutter capable of 1/1000th
Also, ISO/ASA on a digital camera is essentially a pointless function, emulating film speeds. Again, this is done by gain amplification.
You think a "quick shutter" fixes it all? My camera can acheive 1/16000th sec Is that fast enough?
Virtually all cameras have fast enough shutters. The problem you speak of is down to what all cameras need: Light.
If you increase shutter speed, you reduce light input. Aperture and shutter speed are bound together.
Yor problem is not the cameras, it is simply lack of light.
I understand your "elitist" tag, but at the same time, using your analogy, everyone wants a HAM radio with a 50ft mast when all they want is the local radio station. Like anything in this world, anything worth having is not easy. Certainly moving to an SLR is the biggest jump one can make in photography as it requires far more user involvement. They don't call cameras "point and shoot" for nothing, because that's all some people need. However, they come at the cost of flexibility. If you want good photographs, it requires practice and persistence. The fantastic advantage of digitals though is that a) you can see your results immediately, and b) it doesn't cost a fortune in film and processing. If your wife wants photos that look like the ones in magazines, she needs the right tools, but correspondingly the right knowledge and skills to allow her to get the best from them. Im sorry if I sounded pompous, but it annoys me when people assume that the only difference between an average amateur and a pro is the cost of their equipment. If you had a F1 Ferrari, would that be better than your Ford to drive to the supermarket in, and could you drive like Michael Schumacher?
I am a photographer that makes a living from not using a pencil. Wankers like you only prove the point that amateurs like you should stay at home and pull the duvet over their heads. I also use a $40,000 camera that is half the size of my head, but probably 10,000 times bigger than your brain.
I would also point out that a lot of semi-pro DSLRs are cheap and plasticy (the Nikon D70 is typical, the D50 even worse) They are not true pro cameras. Any decent SLR, digital or film, are built like housebricks. Have a look at a Nikon F3, or a Canon A1. Likewise a D2X Nikky Digi. Cheap SLRs arent worth the bother, either stick with a little P&S, or go for the real thing. There is no point in a halfway measure.
I should first point out I am a professional photographer with two $3000 digital SLR's. I use a little 4mpx view point & shoot (P&S) for when Im out and about, as it is capable of grabbing a shot really quickly without any setting up.
;o)
1. DSLR's are considerably more expensive than P&S
2. The functions on a DSLR are way beyond the requirements of an average camera user
3. The Megapixel size is generally way above the average requirement and fill up a hard drive far quicker
4. An average DSLR cannot be slipped into ones pocket on holiday
5. The average Joe Blow user wouldnt know depth of field from a corn field. Way too much info.
6. Most DSLRs, even in program mode are generally far more selective than a P&S. One has to have a reasonable level of understanding to take a half decent snap.
7. Insurance and repair costs are proportionate to the price of the camera
8. Personally having had two DSLRs stolen, they are prime targets for theives
9. You could actually be mistaken for a professional. (Trust me, if people think you are press, they want money)
10. Idiots with big cameras put people like me out of work
Stick with your box brownies and leave the serious stuff to the people that know what they are doing. That said, if you are serious about taking photographs, and not snaps of granny at Christmas, then get a basic DSLR and go from there. (Tip: Pick optic companies not electronics companies, ie: get Nikon, Canon, Olympus, not Sony, Casio, Samsung)
Soryy mate, but you are talkimg out of your backside. We were talking about infecting others while on medication. The drugs prevent AIDS, but you are still HIV positive, and still capable of infecting others. You can even infect another HIV+ person again as there are different strains of the virus. Do not assume everyone has to pay for their drugs. If you are HIV in UK, for one, all medication is freely available. This Thread aamzes me how many people think AIDS is a drugs conspiracy, and how few understand anything about a matter that affects the entire world in a very serious way.
Respectable Americans? I thought they were called "Canadians"?
Yes, you can still transmit HIV while on medication. It doesnt destroy it, it merely suppresses it. The single biggest problem though is if you take medication, and then come off it, or even forget a few doses, it becomes ineffective and you gain resistance to the drug treatment. This can then also be passed on. That way you get a double whammy, if you catch the virus, you also catch the resistance to the medication.
These HIV cocktails DO effectively stop AIDS. AIDS is a condition caused by the HIV virus reducing and eventually depleting CD4 cells used in the immune system to nothing. An uninfected person usually has a CD4 count of around 800. When this is reduced to under 100, this is then classified as AIDS. Even if the CD4 count were to rise well above that threshold, they are still considered to have AIDS. Most HIV+ people on combination therapy start once their CD4 drops below 200, and from then on it rises back up at about 100 a year thereafter. The side effects are often not good, but so far, everyone seems to be living pretty normal lives. It's no cure, but its a start. http://www.aidsmap.com/
AIDS is a condition caused by HIV. AIDS doesnt do anything, or kill anyone. I thought this was a scientifically based forum, not just a collection of American fuckwits.