Links With Your Coffee - Thursday
The latest xkcd
Perhaps you have heard that the world of astrology is "in a crisis." Some are calling it the "Zodiac crisis" - because "Zodiac" is a cool-sounding word that starts with "z". This is all really a manufactured non-event by Minnesota astronomer Parke Kunkle, who decided to send out a press release informing astrologers and the public that their signs are all wrong.
This is all, of course, old news. Sun-sign astrology is supposed to be based on the constellation that the sun is in at the time of birth. The Babylonians made the 12 signs 2000 years ago. They left out a 13th constellation, Ophiucus, because they wanted there to be only 12. But worse, astrologers at the time did not know about precession.
Anybody 'who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior ... you're not my brother,' the Republican tells a crowd on the day of his swearing-in.
One excellent study this month looked at how people choose a digital camera. This will become relevant in three paragraphs' time. The researchers took a single image, then processed it in Photoshop to make two copies: one where the colours were more vivid, and one where the image was sharper. They told participants that each image came from a different camera, and asked which they wanted to buy. About a quarter chose the one with the more colourful sharper image.
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I don't know if anyone here remembers me, but I started following this blog around the time of the Danish cartoons. I now feel the obligation to come back here and explain myself. I'm six years older and more knowledgable, and I would like to appologize for the way I condemned the cartoons. I've seen the hypochrosy of the left and the rise of the extreme-right(in this country, Sweden, and the rest of Europe) and I can't help feeling like there's a connection. We must fight Islam and those who embraces it and I'm sorry I was so naive before.
However, I still think there's something wrong with politics in Denmark.. and Sweden. We got 'em too now!
Thanks for the return visit PiX. I hope you keep comming back.
I think you share a sentiment we all feel in this but I would say we do need to counter the forces of religios zealotry around the world, but we also must abide by the rules of a free society. We are not looking for a war, but a strong defense of the rights of all people. That means that Islam must accept that public discourse on their religion will abide by the normal rules for public debate, full of respect, disrespect, and peaceful disagreement.
This is a peeve of mine with digital photography. I know at first years ago, everyone was all about megapixels, and very few were concerned about the "megapixel war". Now, every tech nerd will lecture you about how "more pixels, more noise", which I would say is the vast majority's view between even mildly tech-savvy people right now.
But it's not true either. Assuming technology is equivalent (e.g. not comparing a 8-year-old camera with a new one), pretty much the only factor affecting quality, besides lens quality, is how much total light you gather, meaning total area of the sensor (at the same aperture).
That's why cameras like the Canon 5D series and Nikon D700/D3 with their huge "full-frame" sensors make such amazing clean low-light images, and it's their main feature, not because of their "low pixel density".
... and why we'll never have compact cameras offering the same quality, cause if the sensors are big, the lenses will be big.
That is one creepy creep.
I don't even want to be his third cousin, much less his brother.
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