I have a Minolta X-700 and a Minolta SRT-100. Both are exceptional camera bodies. The X-700 allows various combinations of manual and automatic aperture and exposure from full manual to full auto. Focusing is manual, but that's a plus in my opinion. There are some very useful features in this camera (make sure you get the manual with it). Accessories that you can get include a time/date imprinter, an aperture/exposure imprinter (I think), an auto-winder (supports up to 5 fps, I think), and some others I don't remember. This camera has an excellent reputation and it has served me very well.
The SRT-100 is an older one (early 1970's tech) but it takes great pictures. If you can find one, make sure that the light meter/exposure system is working properly--I've heard that some cameras out there have malfunctioning ones and are mainly good for parts. The exposure system on this camera takes into account horizons and backlighting to a fine degree.
Both of these cameras will produce extremely high quality images.
The answer is not to require water saving measures through legislation but to make people respect the water they have through prices. It's the perfect incentive for people to consider just how important water is to them.
I work in the water treatment business, and I've visited water treatment plants all over North America. The thing that is common to all water supplies is that the customers think they have some sort of a "right" to unlimited clean water without sacrifice. They grumble and complain and write woefully misinformed letters to their newspapers when the local water company attempts to raise rates to cover infrastructure improvements or cost-of-living salary increases.
What people don't see is that treating water to make it drinkable costs money. If you could see the way water infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada is degrading and how the water industry (especially production and distribution companies) are being forced to ignore staffing and capital improvement needs just because their customers vote for the government to force low rates, you'd understand.
If water prices were allowed to fluctuate more realistically, people wouldn't waste so much of it. Really, in the U.S. and Canada, people pay over US$1.00 for a silly little bottle of water that isn't even guaranteed to have as good quality as tapwater, and then they balk at rate increases of a few pennies per thousand gallons!
If water prices more accurately reflected the true costs of production and distribution, people would think twice about watering their desert lawns. They'd go out and buy water saving appliances on their own, since it would directly translate into savings on their next water bill.
The only thing compulsory water conservation accomplishes is building a bloated bureaucracy of bill checkers, house inspectors and intrusions into the private lives of citizens.
Realistic water rates encourage conservation, reduce the load on local governments who have to redirect resources from fire departments, roads, etc., to enforcement of water use regulations, and above all, give consumers more respect for the vital natural resource they've been pouring down the drain ever since Roman times.
Come on, it's not like reservoir operators haven't been dealing with this sort of thing forever, you know. Most reservoirs used for drinking water have multiple intakes (to a water plant or distribution system) at various depths. This is so that operators can avoid sucking subsurface layers of algae or iron and manganese that change position with the seasons. Nobody sucks the wter off the top of a reservoir, because that's usually on of the dirtiest parts of a lake.
D'OH! I guess you forgot to mention that most of the costs of R&D for medicines are not spread evenly over consumers the world over, but concentrated in the U.S. market. In other words, U.S. customers are shouldering the majority of the costs for development of the prescription drugs that the rest of the world enjoys.
Americans are not "pushing profit margins up," we're paying for R&D for future drugs.
It's nice to talk about allowing third-world countries to produce cheap generic copies because of "heartless, cold" manufacturers who are "only in it for the money," but take a look at the reality. Pharmaceutical company profits are largely reinvested in further R&D.
Unfortunately, as some friends of mine in the pharm. industry will attest, R&D and hiring in these companies have been severly curtailed in recent years as lawsuits and complaints about "excess profits" have forced prices in many markets downward.
How exactly does stagnation of innovation help people to get the drugs they need? Maybe today's cholesterol medicine could be a little cheaper now, but what about the future that is financed by the present?
Um, note that that's _minus_ the tragically exposed engine bell of the Farscape Module. I still haven't figured out how Crichton manages to re-enter atmosphere without burning the engine off.
Good point, but when we WEREN'T invading other countries (unless you count Kosovo, Somalia, etc.) the Clinton administration had even less vision for the space program (and cut the budget without question for seven or eight years). I guess you could say:
"Let's imagine how much more money there would be for building a new shuttle if we weren't busy redistributing wealth in a welfare society."
But it's better to be completely honest with ourselves and note that neither Democrats nor Republicans are really willing to spend money on programs that aren't buying votes for themselves. The best hope for space exploration is the private sector. Maybe once some smart corporations start setting up to mine the asteroids for rare metals or Luna for fusible He 3 we'll have a real exploration program and not a political boondoggle.
Return NASA to an R&D role and let private companies do the hard, rubber-meets-the-road work where true cost effectiveness and business acumen are really necessary. An overbloated bureaucracy should not be looked to as the primary developer of high tech, high risk ventures. Imagine where we'd be if the gov't still held the reins of the computer industry.
note that lifting bodies have been around for a while; that the X-38 was a lifting body craft intended to serve as the ISS lifeboat; that after X-38 cancellation, the OSP project was started; and that the Farscape module looks an awful lot like the X-38. I got a chance to see the X-38 test article at Johnson Space Center in Houston a few years ago (before it was cancelled) and it looked just like Farscape-1.
The X-38 was intended to do the parachute thing and land on skids. The X-38 was the design picked up and used as the basis of the Farscape module. The X-38 has been cancelled. Yet another of the great ideas that Congress asked NASA to research and then denied funding for before the program could produce a flight article.
"Has anyone else experienced shorter-than-average battery life using these laptops? Were you able to do anything to improve the battery life?"
Um, shouldn't at least 49% of all users of a particular type of laptop experience "shorter-than-average" battery life? Assuming a normal distribution of battery lives, that is.
Try taking up a real-world engineering major, like chemical engineering. Find out how to produce the world's next wonder-drug. Or Mechanical engineering. There you can actually design equipment that produces goods, not services. Try Civil, and build bridges. Or even Electrical engineering--where you can get involved in *making* the computers that others program. Many may laugh at the "old economy" engineers and their products, but no one can reject the fact that there's something satisfying in designing *real* products that do *real* things. Leave computer science to the gamers and join in the wonderful world of the real.
(I feel the heat of the flames already, but I know how to build an air conditioner powered by the fire--can you?)
Yes, I agree that there are very serious potential conflicts of interest in privately funded research. However, we need to consider the extreme costs involved with much scientific research today. It's not like programming, where you can buy a cheap used pentium box, slap linux on it, and create the next wonder drug or super-nano-wonderplex machine. You need to buy facilities, scientific equipment, feedstocks, raw materials, labor, and a whole bunch of stuff that isn't free.
We as scientists and engineers must ensure that unbiased peer review continues to be the self-policing that we need.
Also, how long is it going to take before people start realizing that companies go into business to make money? Companies need to be able to protect their innovations with patents so that they can make at least some money before the first wave of almost-copies comes out.
I agree that privately patenting ideas that came about through public funding is a little questionable, but we have to allow some of it so that these companies will have some impetus to do the research and development in the first place. How far do we go, is the question: can you imagine every company that got the first money to make its killer product from some small business loans subsequently having to surrender its IP to the public domain? You might as well work for some huge conglomerate with R&D might rather than scramble to start a small company and get nothing in the end.
However, there _are_ serious questions that need to be asked and answered regarding such use of public funds. Also, scientific journals need to have very strict criteria for publication. Peer review and full disclosure of interests may be a good start, but journals must stop short of rejecting all privately funded research or run the risk of censoring some very good research.
Scientists need to solve this problem themselves, since if it's left to the legislators (read: lawyers) the policing of scientific research will become a stifling bureacracy.
This is a problem I've been thinking about for a while. Say I want to write a program using gtk+/Gnome and sell it, keeping my code closed. I link my code to unmodified versions of glib, gtk+, libgnome, etc., and distribute binaries which include only my code, but dynamically link to the libs on the user's machine.
What assurance do I have, as a developer or company, that MY code will remain mine? Will it be possible for someone to claim that I've violated the GPL by not releasing my code, even though I've modified no GPL'd code?
Also, say I've licensed the HW spec from a company to produce a driver for a device. I am not permitted to release source that discloses details about comunicating with the HW. How can I be assured that linking my driver code with a GPL'd or LGPL'd library will not endanger my responsibility to keep the spec/code secret?
It seems pretty straighforward that with the LGPL I may be pretty safe, but linking to GPL'd libs is a different story.
Hey, maybe we should check our facts. Anybody read any real space news recently? http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/02/02a.html check out spacenews.com too. don't believe every piece of propaganda you believe. carcass
And _why_, pray tell, do you think the U.S. capitalistic system would "kick [y]our ass?" Maybe because capitalism wins because it is a more efficient, better system because it allows the maximum amount of freedom while encouraging merit-based advancement? maybe? just a little?
Come on, at least try not to shoot yourself in the foot.
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I have a Minolta X-700 and a Minolta SRT-100. Both are exceptional camera bodies. The X-700 allows various combinations of manual and automatic aperture and exposure from full manual to full auto. Focusing is manual, but that's a plus in my opinion. There are some very useful features in this camera (make sure you get the manual with it). Accessories that you can get include a time/date imprinter, an aperture/exposure imprinter (I think), an auto-winder (supports up to 5 fps, I think), and some others I don't remember. This camera has an excellent reputation and it has served me very well.
The SRT-100 is an older one (early 1970's tech) but it takes great pictures. If you can find one, make sure that the light meter/exposure system is working properly--I've heard that some cameras out there have malfunctioning ones and are mainly good for parts. The exposure system on this camera takes into account horizons and backlighting to a fine degree.
Both of these cameras will produce extremely high quality images.
I work in the water treatment business, and I've visited water treatment plants all over North America. The thing that is common to all water supplies is that the customers think they have some sort of a "right" to unlimited clean water without sacrifice. They grumble and complain and write woefully misinformed letters to their newspapers when the local water company attempts to raise rates to cover infrastructure improvements or cost-of-living salary increases.
What people don't see is that treating water to make it drinkable costs money. If you could see the way water infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada is degrading and how the water industry (especially production and distribution companies) are being forced to ignore staffing and capital improvement needs just because their customers vote for the government to force low rates, you'd understand.
If water prices were allowed to fluctuate more realistically, people wouldn't waste so much of it. Really, in the U.S. and Canada, people pay over US$1.00 for a silly little bottle of water that isn't even guaranteed to have as good quality as tapwater, and then they balk at rate increases of a few pennies per thousand gallons!
If water prices more accurately reflected the true costs of production and distribution, people would think twice about watering their desert lawns. They'd go out and buy water saving appliances on their own, since it would directly translate into savings on their next water bill.
The only thing compulsory water conservation accomplishes is building a bloated bureaucracy of bill checkers, house inspectors and intrusions into the private lives of citizens. Realistic water rates encourage conservation, reduce the load on local governments who have to redirect resources from fire departments, roads, etc., to enforcement of water use regulations, and above all, give consumers more respect for the vital natural resource they've been pouring down the drain ever since Roman times.
Come on, it's not like reservoir operators haven't been dealing with this sort of thing forever, you know. Most reservoirs used for drinking water have multiple intakes (to a water plant or distribution system) at various depths. This is so that operators can avoid sucking subsurface layers of algae or iron and manganese that change position with the seasons. Nobody sucks the wter off the top of a reservoir, because that's usually on of the dirtiest parts of a lake.
D'OH! I guess you forgot to mention that most of the costs of R&D for medicines are not spread evenly over consumers the world over, but concentrated in the U.S. market. In other words, U.S. customers are shouldering the majority of the costs for development of the prescription drugs that the rest of the world enjoys.
Americans are not "pushing profit margins up," we're paying for R&D for future drugs.
It's nice to talk about allowing third-world countries to produce cheap generic copies because of "heartless, cold" manufacturers who are "only in it for the money," but take a look at the reality. Pharmaceutical company profits are largely reinvested in further R&D.
Unfortunately, as some friends of mine in the pharm. industry will attest, R&D and hiring in these companies have been severly curtailed in recent years as lawsuits and complaints about "excess profits" have forced prices in many markets downward.
How exactly does stagnation of innovation help people to get the drugs they need? Maybe today's cholesterol medicine could be a little cheaper now, but what about the future that is financed by the present?
Um, note that that's _minus_ the tragically exposed engine bell of the Farscape Module. I still haven't figured out how Crichton manages to re-enter atmosphere without burning the engine off.
Good point, but when we WEREN'T invading other countries (unless you count Kosovo, Somalia, etc.) the Clinton administration had even less vision for the space program (and cut the budget without question for seven or eight years). I guess you could say:
"Let's imagine how much more money there would be for building a new shuttle if we weren't busy redistributing wealth in a welfare society."
But it's better to be completely honest with ourselves and note that neither Democrats nor Republicans are really willing to spend money on programs that aren't buying votes for themselves. The best hope for space exploration is the private sector. Maybe once some smart corporations start setting up to mine the asteroids for rare metals or Luna for fusible He 3 we'll have a real exploration program and not a political boondoggle.
Return NASA to an R&D role and let private companies do the hard, rubber-meets-the-road work where true cost effectiveness and business acumen are really necessary. An overbloated bureaucracy should not be looked to as the primary developer of high tech, high risk ventures. Imagine where we'd be if the gov't still held the reins of the computer industry.
note that lifting bodies have been around for a while; that the X-38 was a lifting body craft intended to serve as the ISS lifeboat; that after X-38 cancellation, the OSP project was started; and that the Farscape module looks an awful lot like the X-38. I got a chance to see the X-38 test article at Johnson Space Center in Houston a few years ago (before it was cancelled) and it looked just like Farscape-1.
The X-38 was intended to do the parachute thing and land on skids. The X-38 was the design picked up and used as the basis of the Farscape module. The X-38 has been cancelled. Yet another of the great ideas that Congress asked NASA to research and then denied funding for before the program could produce a flight article.
Um, shouldn't at least 49% of all users of a particular type of laptop experience "shorter-than-average" battery life? Assuming a normal distribution of battery lives, that is.
Try taking up a real-world engineering major, like chemical engineering. Find out how to produce the world's next wonder-drug. Or Mechanical engineering. There you can actually design equipment that produces goods, not services. Try Civil, and build bridges. Or even Electrical engineering--where you can get involved in *making* the computers that others program. Many may laugh at the "old economy" engineers and their products, but no one can reject the fact that there's something satisfying in designing *real* products that do *real* things. Leave computer science to the gamers and join in the wonderful world of the real.
(I feel the heat of the flames already, but I know how to build an air conditioner powered by the fire--can you?)
We as scientists and engineers must ensure that unbiased peer review continues to be the self-policing that we need.
Also, how long is it going to take before people start realizing that companies go into business to make money? Companies need to be able to protect their innovations with patents so that they can make at least some money before the first wave of almost-copies comes out.
I agree that privately patenting ideas that came about through public funding is a little questionable, but we have to allow some of it so that these companies will have some impetus to do the research and development in the first place. How far do we go, is the question: can you imagine every company that got the first money to make its killer product from some small business loans subsequently having to surrender its IP to the public domain? You might as well work for some huge conglomerate with R&D might rather than scramble to start a small company and get nothing in the end.
However, there _are_ serious questions that need to be asked and answered regarding such use of public funds. Also, scientific journals need to have very strict criteria for publication. Peer review and full disclosure of interests may be a good start, but journals must stop short of rejecting all privately funded research or run the risk of censoring some very good research.
Scientists need to solve this problem themselves, since if it's left to the legislators (read: lawyers) the policing of scientific research will become a stifling bureacracy.
carcassAlso check out the source for GNU fileutils-4.1. (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/fileutils/fileutils-4.1.tar .gz). The src dir contains "shred.c" which more or less implements the contnent of the paper.
carcassI think this is a little different because GNU libc is LGPL'd, not GPL'd.
My earilier post regarded linking "my" code to GPL'd code and retaining the right to keep my source to myself.
carcass
This is a problem I've been thinking about for a while. Say I want to write a program using gtk+/Gnome and sell it, keeping my code closed. I link my code to unmodified versions of glib, gtk+, libgnome, etc., and distribute binaries which include only my code, but dynamically link to the libs on the user's machine.
What assurance do I have, as a developer or company, that MY code will remain mine? Will it be possible for someone to claim that I've violated the GPL by not releasing my code, even though I've modified no GPL'd code?
Also, say I've licensed the HW spec from a company to produce a driver for a device. I am not permitted to release source that discloses details about comunicating with the HW. How can I be assured that linking my driver code with a GPL'd or LGPL'd library will not endanger my responsibility to keep the spec/code secret?
It seems pretty straighforward that with the LGPL I may be pretty safe, but linking to GPL'd libs is a different story.
carcass
Hey, maybe we should check our facts. Anybody read any real space news recently? http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/02/02a.html check out spacenews.com too. don't believe every piece of propaganda you believe. carcass
Bingo! The other guy is right about Gay being told three times, though. I wish I had a car like her! carcass
And _why_, pray tell, do you think the U.S. capitalistic system would "kick [y]our ass?" Maybe because capitalism wins because it is a more efficient, better system because it allows the maximum amount of freedom while encouraging merit-based advancement? maybe? just a little?
Come on, at least try not to shoot yourself in the foot.