Get a manual Nikon (the FM-3 is REALLY nice, or try for an FM-2 or even an older FG...if you were in Japan, I would offer to sell you my FG as I rarely use it in favor of my FA). There is one main reason why Nikon is better:
Nikon has not significantly changed their lens mount since the F-mount was created.
What does this mean for you? Well...let me tell you my situation. Right now, I have a Nikon FG (ca.1983) and a Nikon FA (ca.1984) as my camera bodies. I have a new auto-focus 50mm Nikon lens from 1999, a 70-300mm Nikon autofocus from 1998, a late 1980s (I think) Promaster 28mm, a 27.5mm extention tube (2000), and a bellows/slide duplicator from the 1960s. They all work with both bodies perfectly well (except of course I cannot take advantage of auto-focus).
The point is that you can use almost any F-mount lens with almost any Nikon camera (though you may have some small problems with early lenses, but then again, maybe not...do your homework). Canon, IIRC, has changed their lens mount a few times, so you don't really have the option of chosing an old body and new lens to start with and then perhaps upgrading the body in the future or using old lenses as well...
What exactly are the alternatives you propose if the current system is so bad? Should we just allow anyone to take the IP of anyone they want? Or just individuals can take the IP of corps and do what they want? Should copyright violation be a criminal charge to avoid the "errors" of civil court?
Well...how about, if someone sues you and takes you to court and then they lose (i.e. the case gets tossed), then they have to pay your legal fees, as well as perhaps compensation for lost time at work, etc.
The problem with the current system is that those being sued can have their lives ruined whether they are guilty or not, simply due to the fees involved in defending themselves. This is what needs to be changed, IMHO. Perhaps if there was a penalty for suing someone and then losing, less people would be inclined to swing the "sue-stick" so quickly.
Infini-D is dead. That was the simplest 3D modeler/animator/renderer that I have ever used. It wasn't full featured by any means, but it would have been perfect for what you need, I think...
Who was that made by, anyway? (I think Meta-Tools bought it at some point) Whatever became of it? That is a program that I wouldn't mind seeing resurface. It was soooo easy to use and you could pull off some pretty impressive and complex texture maps with minimal experience and effort.
Well...IIRC, any adjective that ends in "-y" can be made into a comparitive or a superlative by changing the "-y" to "-ier" or "-iest" respectively.
So, assuming that "weasly" is a word, then "weasliest" is a perfectly acceptable superlative.
Since language is not static, and that we all understand what is meant when someone says "weasly", I think we can safely assume "weasly" to be a word of some sort, though maybe not officially.;-)
Why yes. I do happen to be full of sh!t at times. Why do you ask?;-)
And why not? North and South America are the most significant (talking about size) land masses west of Greenwich (0 degrees) and east of the International Date Line (180 degrees).
Sure there is a bit of western Europe and Africa in there, but the majority of the landmass belongs to the American continents.
TIA: "I'm not dead!"
US Citizen: "Here, he says he's not dead."
US Government: "Yes, he is."
TIA: "I'm NOT!"
US Citizen: "He isn't?"
US Government: "He will be soon. He's very ill."
TIA: "I'm getting better."
US Government: "No you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."
US Citizen: "Look, I can't take him like this."
TIA: "I don't want to go on the cart."
US Government: "Oh don't be such a baby."
US Citizen: "I can't take him."
TIA: "I think I'll go for a walk."
US Government: "You're not fooling anyone you know."
"Because it's there" is not a statement - it is a fundamental law of biology.
I think this is my new favorite quote. In my experience as a biologist, this is quite true. Life is always pushing the limits and trying to spread to wherever it can. Though harsh conditions may kill the first pioneers who venture into a new realm, over time, life finds a way to get there for no other reason that because it is there.
In time, we will be no different. We will move on and broaden our scope, or we will stagnate and die off.
Thank you, jd, for an incredibly enlightening statement (and for the new.sig;) )
None of the reasons given imply that we need a human presence in space. As long as we have to use huge, contained explosions to move things off of the planet there is little reason to put humans in space.
Little reason to put humans into space, huh? Perhaps there is little immediate practical reason to put humans into space, but it is the dream of a good number of humans to go to space. For some of us, it fires our imagination, gives us hope, and helps us find a reason to go through the mundane existance of everyday life. I can only speak for myself, but when I look up at the stars at night, I see hope, unsurpassible(sp?) beauty, wonder, and a dream for the future of (hopefully myself if I ever have the chance and) the human species.
What do you see when you look up at the stars at night?
Anyway, how about a more concrete reason for humans to go to space? Here's one: Because there are humans who are willing to go. There are people who are perfectly willing to risk there lives for the future of mankind (not to mention to have the most thrilling ride imaginable). I cannot speak for other humans but in my experiences through life, I know that I am not meant to be caged. I cannot help but feel that we, as a species, are not meant to "be caged" on this planet.
Perhaps these people who are willing to go right now only serve as guinea pigs (giving us important information on how the human body reacts in such an environment), but I'm sure they don't mind (and if any of them do, I am more than willing to take their place...).
Or, how about this for a reason: Robots, remotely operated vehicles, and computers lack the physical and mental ability to deal with equipment problems in space. Here's an example: the Hubble telescope. Without humans, we would have a peice of junk floating around with a bad mirror.
Unmanned vehicles lack two very important things that will allow them to deal with emergencies and keep themselves functioning when things go wrong: imagination and a will to survive. Put those two things together, and you have the kind of stuff that brought Apollo 13 home. Take those things away and you have probes that crash themselves uselessly into Mars.
In my opinion, humans are eventually meant to be in space. Maybe some will be afraid to leave the cage when the door is eventually opened for all to pass through if they choose, but others are anxious to get out and move on to the next stage of human existance. And there is no time like the present to start taking the necessary baby steps to do it.
Those pictures were taken by the astronauts on the final mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-107. I can do nothing now but salute and honor those heros who have died while chasing their dreams and the dreams of many of us, just as I can do nothing but salute and honor those heros who are still up there realizing the dream and those who have all returned safely.
Anyway, my apologies for any flamebait that may be in this post, but it kind of bothers me whenever anyone suggests that humans should not be in space.
Charney's also reinforced Microsoft's message to developers and network administrators that they needed to build secure applications and networks "from the ground up".
Perhaps Microsoft should take some of their own advice...I'm thinking with pretty much their entire product line...
3. The Chinese succeed and leave the US behind in the Space Colonization race.
In my opinion, this is a distinct possibility. If they have the willpower to do it, they WILL pull it off without US help or competition. Personally, I hope this or some collaborated(sp?) effort is the case because I really want to see more people in space and the expansion of the human race beyond the thin atmosphere between us and the rest of the universe. Granted the moon is just a baby step (and we're talking a baby atom here) on the cosmic scale of things, but we need to start somewhere, and if the currently most active space program on the planet will not do it, then let someone else. We ARE all human here anyway.
Along these lines, there have been some other posts to this story about the financial problems and the probable lack of commercial return from these ventures. I say to that, Who the hell CARES??? This is the future we are talking about here. This is the possible expansion of the human race. Personally, if I could be around in 20,000 years to see it, I would really like for the Galaxy to be much like Isaac Asimov wrote in his Robot Series and Foundation Series. There is still all of the good and bad of human nature, but we will be free of these earthly bounds and able to go just about anywhere we please.
Not to sound cheesy (and Trek-y) but Space really is the final frontier, and I think we (as a species) need to get off our lazy earth-bound asses and get out there to see what we can find. We really need to work harder to make science fiction into science reality, IMHO.
Of course, I really am just a clueless, idealistic dreamer, but perhaps if there were more people like me and less business-y, money grubbing, power hungry jerks in the world then perhaps we would already be out to Mars and on our way to Jupiter, Saturn, or even Proxima-Centauri...
Sorry for the huge digression and the rant, but whenever I see stories like this and people putting down those who try (not the parent post, but others in this story) it makes me a bit hot-headed (well...the beer helps too).
"Knowledge is power" - Sir Francis Bacon
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
I think the human race needs to take those quotes a bit more to heart. We need both more "small steps for man" and more "giant leaps for mankind".
The name of the game is simply Duke Nukem and is just an upgrade to the previous game w/ the same title (they will change the version number and include new maps).
Since the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second (taken from here), I am roughly 5.67 light nanoseconds tall. Interesting in a useless fact kind of way...
This sounds really freakin' sweet! Granted I don't need this for my phone, it would be great for my mobile internet connection. Currently, I am using DDI Pocket's Air H" system (warning that is a Japanese page) and This little number from Fujitsu plugged into my iBook to get 128kbps access from anywhere in the Yokohama/Tokyo/Chiba area. It is nice, and the speed is decent enough considering I can use it anywhere.
But, 14.4Mbps?!?!?! AWESOME! That is faster than my AirPort card! Unfortunately, if DoCoMo follows the same pricing methods as it did for FOMA (their 3G service), then this is something I will never be able to afford. They don't have a flat rate unlimited connection plan, but rather charge based on the amount of data you download (I pay DDI Pocket 10,000 yen per month for unlimited access and I probably abuse it...expensive but worth it for the mobility IMO).
PLEASE, DoCoMo, give us a decently priced flat rate unlimited connection plan. I would seriously consider paying around 15,000 yen per month for something like that at this speed.
BTW, I am currently a DoCoMo customer for my phone service. It isn't too expensive and my only complaints are the 500 character mail limit and the slow connection for iMode (my phone is 2 years old and only connects at 9600bps). But the coverage is AWESOME...and good thing for me since I will be spending a few months travelling around Japan by bicycle and I don't want to be caught without a signal in an emergency situation (speaking of which, any/.ers in Japan want to give a poor American traveler a place to crash for a night? email me).
Keep that Anole!
on
Ant Farm PC
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I lived in FL for 5 years (4 years of university and then one year of work in Melbourne). All I can say is that the anoles (and any geckos that you may have around the house) are a blessing in the war on fire ants and other insect life.
My room had a door to the outside, so I would leave it open to let the anoles in and probably had a good 4 or 5 living in my room at any given time. Since they were there, the ants were not (nor were the cockroaches/palmetto bugs). They took good care of me and they stayed away from the photography chemicals (my room doubled as a darkroom...guess they didn't like the smell...this was another reason why I would leave my door open).
However, sometimes they did there job a little too well. Though I would rarely find any insect life in my room, there were the sad occasions when I would find a dead and mummified anole when cleaning.:-(
Never found one in my computer case though. I wonder what attracted one to yours (heat? electric field? curiosity?)
Anyway, in the war on bugs (hehe), natures defense turned out to be the best defense in my experience. Especially the geckos. If you have an insect problem and can effectively seal off your house/apartment/room, catch or buy a gecko and set it loose in there. Don't forget to catch it after a few days, because it will probably eat everything and you need to keep it from starving. Then you can either set it free, or keep it in an aquarium and feed it crickets and stuff until you need it to be out and around again.
"We had to get up every morning at 10:30 at night, half an hour before we'd gone to bed, drink a cup of hot sulfuric acid and go work at the mill for 29 hours a day, 74 days a week, AND we had to pay the mill owner to work there, and when we came home, our father would kill us and dance about on our graves singing hallelujah!
and if you tell the young people of today that, they'll never believe you..."
And wouldn't you know it...I'm on the wrong side of the planet for this one.
Anyone in East Asia (I'm in Japan) is SOL according to that link. No eclipse visible here.
Those of you in Europe will get to see it around Moon-set. That sounds pretty cool, as long as the sunrise doesn't drown it out (and I guess it wouldn't). Anyone out there w/ a camera and a long lens (spotting scope, or telescope) care to wake up early and snap a few pictures?
You folks on the west coast of the States will get to see it at Moon-rise (read, sun-set), so grab your girlfriend (or at least a camera and long lens), head out and watch the sun-set and then turn around.
Slashdot Mirror
Get a manual Nikon (the FM-3 is REALLY nice, or try for an FM-2 or even an older FG...if you were in Japan, I would offer to sell you my FG as I rarely use it in favor of my FA). There is one main reason why Nikon is better:
Nikon has not significantly changed their lens mount since the F-mount was created.
What does this mean for you? Well...let me tell you my situation. Right now, I have a Nikon FG (ca.1983) and a Nikon FA (ca.1984) as my camera bodies. I have a new auto-focus 50mm Nikon lens from 1999, a 70-300mm Nikon autofocus from 1998, a late 1980s (I think) Promaster 28mm, a 27.5mm extention tube (2000), and a bellows/slide duplicator from the 1960s. They all work with both bodies perfectly well (except of course I cannot take advantage of auto-focus).
The point is that you can use almost any F-mount lens with almost any Nikon camera (though you may have some small problems with early lenses, but then again, maybe not...do your homework). Canon, IIRC, has changed their lens mount a few times, so you don't really have the option of chosing an old body and new lens to start with and then perhaps upgrading the body in the future or using old lenses as well...
IMNSHO, that is why Nikon is better. ;-)
Of course, they dropped the suit, but said they would still be keeping an eye on her...
The problem with the current system is that those being sued can have their lives ruined whether they are guilty or not, simply due to the fees involved in defending themselves. This is what needs to be changed, IMHO. Perhaps if there was a penalty for suing someone and then losing, less people would be inclined to swing the "sue-stick" so quickly.
IMHO.
Or the Mafia guy hanging around outside (or even working at the polls) says to you "vote for 'so-and-so' or else! We'll be watching."
You know...there are some reasons for anonymous voting...
Who was that made by, anyway? (I think Meta-Tools bought it at some point) Whatever became of it? That is a program that I wouldn't mind seeing resurface. It was soooo easy to use and you could pull off some pretty impressive and complex texture maps with minimal experience and effort.
IMHO and all that... :-)
So, assuming that "weasly" is a word, then "weasliest" is a perfectly acceptable superlative.
Since language is not static, and that we all understand what is meant when someone says "weasly", I think we can safely assume "weasly" to be a word of some sort, though maybe not officially. ;-)
Why yes. I do happen to be full of sh!t at times. Why do you ask? ;-)
Sure there is a bit of western Europe and Africa in there, but the majority of the landmass belongs to the American continents.
TIA: "I'm not dead!"
US Citizen: "Here, he says he's not dead."
US Government: "Yes, he is."
TIA: "I'm NOT!"
US Citizen: "He isn't?"
US Government: "He will be soon. He's very ill."
TIA: "I'm getting better."
US Government: "No you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."
US Citizen: "Look, I can't take him like this."
TIA: "I don't want to go on the cart."
US Government: "Oh don't be such a baby."
US Citizen: "I can't take him."
TIA: "I think I'll go for a walk."
US Government: "You're not fooling anyone you know."
yada yada yada...
;-p
I think this is my new favorite quote. In my experience as a biologist, this is quite true. Life is always pushing the limits and trying to spread to wherever it can. Though harsh conditions may kill the first pioneers who venture into a new realm, over time, life finds a way to get there for no other reason that because it is there.
In time, we will be no different. We will move on and broaden our scope, or we will stagnate and die off.
Thank you, jd, for an incredibly enlightening statement (and for the new .sig ;) )
What do you see when you look up at the stars at night?
Anyway, how about a more concrete reason for humans to go to space? Here's one: Because there are humans who are willing to go. There are people who are perfectly willing to risk there lives for the future of mankind (not to mention to have the most thrilling ride imaginable). I cannot speak for other humans but in my experiences through life, I know that I am not meant to be caged. I cannot help but feel that we, as a species, are not meant to "be caged" on this planet.
Perhaps these people who are willing to go right now only serve as guinea pigs (giving us important information on how the human body reacts in such an environment), but I'm sure they don't mind (and if any of them do, I am more than willing to take their place...).
Or, how about this for a reason: Robots, remotely operated vehicles, and computers lack the physical and mental ability to deal with equipment problems in space. Here's an example: the Hubble telescope. Without humans, we would have a peice of junk floating around with a bad mirror.
Unmanned vehicles lack two very important things that will allow them to deal with emergencies and keep themselves functioning when things go wrong: imagination and a will to survive. Put those two things together, and you have the kind of stuff that brought Apollo 13 home. Take those things away and you have probes that crash themselves uselessly into Mars.
In my opinion, humans are eventually meant to be in space. Maybe some will be afraid to leave the cage when the door is eventually opened for all to pass through if they choose, but others are anxious to get out and move on to the next stage of human existance. And there is no time like the present to start taking the necessary baby steps to do it.
Sorry for the rant, but views like these are all the reason I personally need.
Those pictures were taken by the astronauts on the final mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-107. I can do nothing now but salute and honor those heros who have died while chasing their dreams and the dreams of many of us, just as I can do nothing but salute and honor those heros who are still up there realizing the dream and those who have all returned safely.
Anyway, my apologies for any flamebait that may be in this post, but it kind of bothers me whenever anyone suggests that humans should not be in space.
In my opinion, this is a distinct possibility. If they have the willpower to do it, they WILL pull it off without US help or competition. Personally, I hope this or some collaborated(sp?) effort is the case because I really want to see more people in space and the expansion of the human race beyond the thin atmosphere between us and the rest of the universe. Granted the moon is just a baby step (and we're talking a baby atom here) on the cosmic scale of things, but we need to start somewhere, and if the currently most active space program on the planet will not do it, then let someone else. We ARE all human here anyway.
Along these lines, there have been some other posts to this story about the financial problems and the probable lack of commercial return from these ventures. I say to that, Who the hell CARES??? This is the future we are talking about here. This is the possible expansion of the human race. Personally, if I could be around in 20,000 years to see it, I would really like for the Galaxy to be much like Isaac Asimov wrote in his Robot Series and Foundation Series. There is still all of the good and bad of human nature, but we will be free of these earthly bounds and able to go just about anywhere we please.
Not to sound cheesy (and Trek-y) but Space really is the final frontier, and I think we (as a species) need to get off our lazy earth-bound asses and get out there to see what we can find. We really need to work harder to make science fiction into science reality, IMHO.
Of course, I really am just a clueless, idealistic dreamer, but perhaps if there were more people like me and less business-y, money grubbing, power hungry jerks in the world then perhaps we would already be out to Mars and on our way to Jupiter, Saturn, or even Proxima-Centauri...
Sorry for the huge digression and the rant, but whenever I see stories like this and people putting down those who try (not the parent post, but others in this story) it makes me a bit hot-headed (well...the beer helps too).
"Knowledge is power" - Sir Francis Bacon
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein
I think the human race needs to take those quotes a bit more to heart. We need both more "small steps for man" and more "giant leaps for mankind".
Again, sorry for the rant. Goodbye Karma.
Forever is the release date.
;-)
Since the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second (taken from here), I am roughly 5.67 light nanoseconds tall. Interesting in a useless fact kind of way...
But, 14.4Mbps?!?!?! AWESOME! That is faster than my AirPort card! Unfortunately, if DoCoMo follows the same pricing methods as it did for FOMA (their 3G service), then this is something I will never be able to afford. They don't have a flat rate unlimited connection plan, but rather charge based on the amount of data you download (I pay DDI Pocket 10,000 yen per month for unlimited access and I probably abuse it...expensive but worth it for the mobility IMO).
PLEASE, DoCoMo, give us a decently priced flat rate unlimited connection plan. I would seriously consider paying around 15,000 yen per month for something like that at this speed.
BTW, I am currently a DoCoMo customer for my phone service. It isn't too expensive and my only complaints are the 500 character mail limit and the slow connection for iMode (my phone is 2 years old and only connects at 9600bps). But the coverage is AWESOME...and good thing for me since I will be spending a few months travelling around Japan by bicycle and I don't want to be caught without a signal in an emergency situation (speaking of which, any /.ers in Japan want to give a poor American traveler a place to crash for a night? email me).
;-)
ok...so my pathetic attempts at 1337 really suck.
My room had a door to the outside, so I would leave it open to let the anoles in and probably had a good 4 or 5 living in my room at any given time. Since they were there, the ants were not (nor were the cockroaches/palmetto bugs). They took good care of me and they stayed away from the photography chemicals (my room doubled as a darkroom...guess they didn't like the smell...this was another reason why I would leave my door open).
However, sometimes they did there job a little too well. Though I would rarely find any insect life in my room, there were the sad occasions when I would find a dead and mummified anole when cleaning. :-(
Never found one in my computer case though. I wonder what attracted one to yours (heat? electric field? curiosity?)
Anyway, in the war on bugs (hehe), natures defense turned out to be the best defense in my experience. Especially the geckos. If you have an insect problem and can effectively seal off your house/apartment/room, catch or buy a gecko and set it loose in there. Don't forget to catch it after a few days, because it will probably eat everything and you need to keep it from starving. Then you can either set it free, or keep it in an aquarium and feed it crickets and stuff until you need it to be out and around again.
At least, these were my experiences. YMMV.
or something like that...
and if you tell the young people of today that, they'll never believe you..."
time to program games??? sheeesh!.
duh! ;-P
ok...so I'm not funny.
Anyone in East Asia (I'm in Japan) is SOL according to that link. No eclipse visible here.
Those of you in Europe will get to see it around Moon-set. That sounds pretty cool, as long as the sunrise doesn't drown it out (and I guess it wouldn't). Anyone out there w/ a camera and a long lens (spotting scope, or telescope) care to wake up early and snap a few pictures?
You folks on the west coast of the States will get to see it at Moon-rise (read, sun-set), so grab your girlfriend (or at least a camera and long lens), head out and watch the sun-set and then turn around.
I'm jealous.