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Comments · 182

  1. Re:Insurance on Calif. DMV Back-Pedals On Commercial-Plate Mandate For Ride-Share Drivers · · Score: 1

    There's one very easy way to not get your commercial license yanked for trivial moving violations. It's a very well-kept secret, but I'm going to reveal it here, on Slashdot.

    You have to drive properly. That's it. It's easier than it sounds.

  2. Re:CA requires commercial licenses for pickup truc on Calif. DMV Back-Pedals On Commercial-Plate Mandate For Ride-Share Drivers · · Score: 2

    >For instance: I bought a pickup truck, to use as a tow vehicle for my camper and my wife's boat. Then I discovered that CA requires pickup trucks to be tagged with a (VERY pricey) commercial license, regardless of whether they're used for business.

    What the hell kind of pickup truck are you driving? My father's got an enormous GMC R3500 from the late 80s and it works just fine for hauling and towing a variety of things, and he's got it on a normal license.

    I suspect you're pissed off because you didn't do your research and bought a commercial truck with a GVWR too high for your license, and are trying to shift the blame onto California.

  3. Re:Not Surprising at all on Four Facepalm Bugs In USPS Label-Printing Site · · Score: 1

    the 14-day wait is, I think, to keep people from dropping off a package somewhere with a voided label and making them waste their time on it.

  4. Re:Hey, dummy on Four Facepalm Bugs In USPS Label-Printing Site · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    on the other hand, a child would also spell "this" correctly, so maybe it's harder than I thought

  5. Hey, dummy on Four Facepalm Bugs In USPS Label-Printing Site · · Score: 2

    The package dimensions are the dimension of the package, not its contents. A child would know ths.

  6. wait on Khrushchev's 1959 Visit To IBM · · Score: 3, Insightful

    wouldn't a "thawing" of the cold war be a *bad* thing

  7. Re:Should we jump to conclusions? on Forest Service Wants To Require Permits For Photography · · Score: 1

    so a landscape photographer who wants to take photos in the woods needs a permit? wow.

  8. Re:To little too late. on Improv Project, Vivaldi Tablet Officially Dead · · Score: 1

    It seems to have worked out pretty well for that other big company that makes phones.

  9. Re:The actual appeal on Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom · · Score: 1

    There are commercial solutions called "scanning backs" that do this, these days, but they're not very portable. You can take some very interesting photos of moving subjects with them, though.

  10. Re:The actual appeal on Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom · · Score: 1

    Amen. I had a "good camera" (a Canon Digital Rebel XSi) when I was in high school that I saved up for months to buy, and I used it regularly to take hundreds of pretty crappy photographs. After I graduated, I decided to take a black-and-white photography class in college, which required a film camera. A friend of mine gave me a Mamiya 645 medium format SLR. Having to pay for each photo I took, and only having 15 shots to a roll, changed my way of doing things, and now I take photographs that are pretty decent (at least compared to my earlier days) and only touch my DSLR when I need to sell something on eBay.

  11. Re:It's the chemicals.. on Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom · · Score: 1

    "the developer"? there's more than one kind of developer. HC-110 (and Xtol, IIRC) is non-toxic, but chugging a bottle of Rodinal or D76 or something will probably kill you.

  12. Re:Change the name now instead of later on OpenPandora Design Files Released · · Score: 1

    it's been named that since 2007.

  13. no on Kids With Wheels: Should the Unlicensed Be Allowed To 'Drive' Autonomous Cars? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    no. the idea of an autonomous vehicle with no possible driver to override it is just plain stupid.

  14. Re:bad deal. on WSJ: Prepare To Hang Up the Phone — Forever · · Score: 1

    The Schumann resonance which the earth produces and all life is dependent on is literally being over powered by microwaves and other EMF causing all these different phenomena, including conditions like anxiety and schizophrenia.

    Can I have some of what you're smoking? Whatever it is it sounds like it's good shit

  15. Re:Compromise. on WSJ: Prepare To Hang Up the Phone — Forever · · Score: 1

    wait, what's the connection here? what bands?

  16. Re:Lenovo. on Ask Slashdot: Best Laptops For Fans Of Pre-Retina MacBook Pro? · · Score: 1

    I have a T410 and thought there weren't any compatible ultrabay batteries. Could you link to one?

  17. Some thoughts on film and digital on The Difference Between Film and Digital Photography (Video) · · Score: 0

    Something I've realized in my career as a photographer is that newer isn't always better. I started off doing it as a hobby with a Canon point-and-shoot with CHDK firmware, and eventually I bought an entry-level Canon DSLR when I decided I wanted to focus on photography.

    My photos taken during the period when I was using the DSLR were generally crappy. I experimented some, learned about aperture and shutter speed, but mostly kept it on program mode. I had a few good photos, and thousands of bad ones.

    In late 2010, I decided to take a black and white photography class at college. It required a film camera, and we would learn to develop our own film and print photos with enlargers. My friend happened to have a camera he wasn't using, which he very graciously gave to me: a Mamiya 645 medium format SLR.

    Being limited to 15 shots a roll helped my skills immensely. I started carefully considering each photo I took, since I could only take a few at a time, and each one cost me money (in film and chemicals). My compositional skills went from "occasionally lucky" to "I can look at and evaluate my own photos and use elements I like later on". I learned how to expose correctly (the camera is manual with a built-in light meter), how to take great landscape photos lit only by the full moon, and (later) how to scan and process my film photos on the computer, so I could put my Photoshop skills to use and show my photos to people.

    One of the most helpful parts of switching to film, though, was the quality. The 645 format (each photo is 6 cm by 4.5 cm on the negative) inherently gave me better resolution than my DSLR. Photos that would have turned out disappointing on the DSLR turned out great with the Mamiya, because film has so much more dynamic range than digital (no matter how hard digital tries with new sensors and HDR gimmicks). I learned to use the grain structure of each kind of film to my benefit, and to create specific effects.

    I now use a Pentax 67 camera for a great deal of my work; an Olympus OM-4Ti and various film point-and-shoot cameras fill in when I don't want to carry around an enormous chunk of steel and glass. Not only are the 35mm film cameras smaller than their digital equivalents, but they cost less (for the cameras and lenses both), and especially with the point-and-shoots, take better photos than equivalent digital cameras.

    I have abandoned digital photography entirely. I have spent, in total, less on my entire ensemble of cameras, lenses, film, chemicals, and equipment than I would have spent to buy a prosumer DSLR and one or two lenses of lesser quality than the ones I own now. I have to spend 45 minutes to an hour to scan each roll of film, much less process each photo, I had to upgrade my computer to hold twelve gigabytes of memory to process the biggest photos comfortably, and 190-megapixel photos occupy most of my hard drive space; my best camera is hard to transport easily without a suspension backpack, and I love it. With Kodak Alaris continuing Kodak's film lines, and with Fujifilm and Ilford still devoted to upholding film photography, I do not think me switching back to digital is in the cards in the foreseeable future.

  18. Re:200$ is fine on The Difference Between Film and Digital Photography (Video) · · Score: 1

    Well, it doesn't take video, but a Pentax 67 medium format film camera can be had for less than $200, and will take shots that come out looking better than those of any DSLR. :P

  19. Re:well doh. keep it cheap and simple. on Nintendo Wii U Teardown Reveals Simple Design · · Score: 1

    Which ways?

  20. Re:Damn! on Blocking Gun Laws With Patents · · Score: 1

    Computers are used in crimes much too often. The best thing, of course, is to just ban computers from the country. Grab them from every household. The computer nerds can easily get a different hobby, such as gardening. And government can train them to not live in constant isolation from humanity, like we luddites do.

  21. Re:Could make sense on Australia's Telstra Requires Fibre Customers To Use Copper Telephone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Should someone really have to buy a very expensive satellite phone + plan, or move somewhere else, because their telephone company wants to replace their (perfectly fine) POTS connection with something that stops working a little while after the power goes out?

  22. Re:Could make sense on Australia's Telstra Requires Fibre Customers To Use Copper Telephone · · Score: 2

    I live in California, in the Bay Area. In 2001, our power went out for a week after a big rainstorm. The telephones worked fine the entire time. We wouldn't have been able to check on my grandparents if we had had one of today's fiber telephones.

  23. Re:wrong comps on Kodak Failing, But Camera Phones Not To Blame · · Score: 1

    It's also useful for anyone who wants a sensor area larger than 35mm without paying thousands and thousands of dollars.

  24. Re:They should have downsized long ago on Kodak Failing, But Camera Phones Not To Blame · · Score: 1

    I don't think Kodak's film division has anything to do with making or repairing film cameras.

  25. Neopan's not discontinued on Kodak Failing, But Camera Phones Not To Blame · · Score: 1

    I shoot Neopan Acros 100 for most of my B&W landscape work. Acros is still available in 135, 120, and 4x5 sheet film, and Neopan 400 is still available in 35mm. From what I recall, Plus-X is garbage compared to Acros.