Open Thread
Seven hours is too long to hold it.
***Update***
It seems like a while since my last photo blog, so meet the new lens. A manual-focus Sigma 50mm f2.8 1:1 macro arrived yesterday from KEH.
The compact lens fits nicely on a little E-P1, even attached with a Hong Kong Nikon-m4/3 adapter from kp_store on eBay (the adapter also works well, although it grabs the lens a little tighter than I like). All-metal construction gives the lens some heft and wonderful focus action. Although lens weight makes the camera a bit front-heavy and the light meter goes Galt whenever I put on a manual lens, sharp close-ups call for a tripod and exposure bracketing no matter what so it is not that big a deal.
Some tests will determine whether this becomes my go-to portrait lens; so far all signs point to yes.
Zifnab
Gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.
Lavocat
Um, dear god, what the hell are you holding!?
WyldPiratd
gotta give plug to the best financial crisis rant of all time….rant on my brotha.
Caution NSFW. Lots of f-bombs.
valdivia
so not to return yet again to my grading woes but I just had a student put spain and portugal in this hemisphere when filling out a map of latin america. This is it. I am done. Our children iz not learning.
valdivia
also is Andrew now happy with Obama?
aside from the snark, good on him.
valdivia
bad link
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c.....hp?ref=fpa
Brick Oven Bill
Testing.
SiubhanDuinne
@valdivia: If I recall correctly from our former POTUS, Latin America is where they speak Latin, right?
SiubhanDuinne
Since it’s an open thread . . . did anyone manage to read this unspeakable piece of dreck from Krauthammer this morning? I usually try not to read him at all, but this looked so awful I just had to.
And guess what? It was too awful.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....03920.html
Joey Maloney
Erick son of Erick’s latest stupid-o-gram involves fake dog poop. Really.
valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne:
indeed! so maybe they iz learning?
god. is it too early to start drinking? how the hell am I going to get through the remaining 15 exams?
freelancer
@WyldPiratd:
I loved this when I saw it and even used it as the most appropriate expression of anger in a post about being duped.
I love the incongruity of it, he knows his shit, but he’s a Southern guy in shorts beating a printer in his garage. Just sweet.
valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne:
so I refuse to read him care to tell us what he is on about? I really loathe the man. As I loath mini Cheney who is out castigating Obama for not respecting the troops the way Bush did. Ahem.
GReynoldsCT00
@Brick Oven Bill:
sorry, wrong number
dmsilev
@Brick Oven Bill: Failing
-dms
Demo Woman
@SiubhanDuinne: lol. So you read this really awful opinion piece and you want us to read it why?
freelancer
Cole, now that Sullivan’s been granted a reprieve via the HIV ban being rescinded, expect a hastily written walkback.
Ash
Oh, I see the president formally lifted the HIV ban today.
Why didn’t he do it six months ago?
?
?
?!? Bastard.
cleek
i loves my Sigma macro. (105mm 2.8)
Brick Oven Bill
I have previously been critical of Sheila Bair. I take this back although she should still not seek to sensor blogs (‘the blogs are out of control’). Reviewing the record, Sheila warned us in August, 2008 of unnamed investors taking short positions in the market.
One month later, in September, 2008, someone withdrew $500 billion from the money markets, Lehman was allowed to fail by Geithner and crew, the market tanked, those with short positions made a lot of money, McCain lost his lead, and Obama/Geithner were seated.
Hedge funds are not required to disclose short positions to the SEC. This is wrong.
Name the names of those who withdrew that $500 billion.
Go Sheila go. She knows something. Do not doubt me asI am a better financial analyst than Nouriel Roubini.
Mr Furious
@cleek: Me too. Got mine used on EBay for around $200, and it is awesome.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joey Maloney: Here’s what’s even stupider. In Erick Son-of’s post, he doesn’t seem to know whether Pomeroy is a Representative or a Senator. (Check the mailing address he gives.) The idjit doesn’t know the difference between the two chambers of Congress? And he expects people to take him even remotely seriously?
Mr Furious
@Ash: If he didn’t say “gay” it doesn’t count. Sullivan will still leave the country in protest.
Right?
SiubhanDuinne
@valdivia:
No.
I suggest drinking.
SiubhanDuinne
@Demo Woman:
Pain shared is pain halved.
MikeJ
Stand on the sixth step of a staircase.
Throw the stack of papers down the steps.
Assign them grades A-F based on which step they land on.
valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne:
enabler! :-)
thank you.
valdivia dashing off to the kitchen to be +1 in a minute.
Mr Furious
Tim, what does 50mm equate to on your sensor?
I use a 50mm 1.4 as my go to portrait lens. On my D80 that’s about 75mm…
85mm was the standard lens for film
SiubhanDuinne
@valdivia:
Shorter Kraut: Obama has done nothing, absofarkinlutely NOTHING, since he took office but blame Bush. For everything bad. Also too, he is a lot like USSR dictators.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash: You know who else didn’t life the HIV ban six months ago? Hitler.
SiubhanDuinne
life = lift
gnomedad
What’s BOB doing here? Did I miss another memo?
GReynoldsCT00
@SiubhanDuinne:
thank you for the Cliff’s Notes, it being lunchtime and all, who has the stomach for that whole article?
valdivia
@MikeJ:
you people are encouraging very very bad behaviour in yours truly. How can I ever thank you? I am starting with a drink and if that does not work….
Mr Furious
What’s the minimum distance with that bad boy? It looks like you’re only an inch away…
mr. whipple
I’ve got a Sig 50 2.8. Love it, too. Might be a little too sharp for portraits. I think I prefer my Minolta 50 1.7 for that.
Sentient Puddle
So Lieberman is saying that he’ll campaign for Republicans in 2010.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me sixteen times…?
bago
OT: but David Brooks is literally claiming retardation as a virtue.
Literally saying that being a fully convinced idiot ignoring the complexities of the world around him is a good thing. Shorter Bobo: I like my useless idiots good and dumb. It’s almost like the DC power brokers almost value ignorance in their vassals. This might explain the veneration of our last executive.
You know it’s bad when people are complaining “Dude, where’s my idiot?”
Tim F.
@Mr Furious: The 4/3 doubles focal lengths compared with 35mm film. The 50mm 2.8 macro thus becomes a 100mm 2.8 macro and just about perfect for a portrait prime.
I do not know the minimum focal distance exactly. About an inch sounds right. It’s pretty bloody close.
valdivia
@SiubhanDuinne:
thanks for the summary. I guess unless one is bombing shit anything else Obama might do does not count right?
SGEW
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
GReynoldsCT00
@SGEW:
I know, it has been so pleasant over the last day and a half
WyldPiratd
freelancer@12:
Incongruity is the perfect word for this Southern dude’s rant. I’ve had an ongoing yelling match at my TV for years watching the cable crap for 8+years along with the not quite as thick southern accent.
Thankfully, I haven’t broken my monitor yet by throwing things at it. That soft foam rubber ball over-the-door hoops set was the best purchase from WallyWorld ever.
The sad thing is that most of my white Southern brethren are more similar to crazy-assed teabaggers—either deeply stupid, deeply brainwashed or deliberately obtuse; mostly from a deep-seated hatred of brown skinned folks.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Original:
Edited for clarity:
Lavocat
The market is down over 200 points right now.
Which is great news for John McCain!
bago
Seriously. Fucking seriously. David Brooks thinks that tenacious idiots are the kind of people that should be in charge of life or death decisions. Speaking as someone with family in the Military, “Sweet bleeding Christ, what a fucker!”.
cleek
one of my favorite things to do is to take my 50mm 1.8 and stick it on the front of my 105mm macro, reversed (using a male-male filter adapter).
it gives awesome magnification, though almost no DOF.
for example and two of these.
GReynoldsCT00
@cleek:
Cleek! OT, but I finally have PIE
!
moosehockey
@SiubhanDuinne: I’d like to tell CK just exactly where he can stuff his “envelopes”
Randy P
Can some regular fill me in a little on BoB? Here’s my history: I was aware of John Cole and his Republican-to-Democratic transformation. I have occasionally followed a link here, but didn’t read the blog regularly. Till I read through the comments one day. I am completely and totally addicted to you guys and your particular sense of humor. I’ve only been regularly reading for a couple of weeks.
One of the things that was the most fun for me was resident troll BoB, his little slices of wingnuttery and the responses from the community. That’s about as far as I can stand to go into wingnut territory. So I was catching up this morning and read a comment from yesterday that “BoB was recently banned, but apparently has spare IP addresses”. Is this true? What did he do beyond the usual, er, discourse to earn bannedness?
My first reaction was “awww, too bad. Those exchanges were always fun.” And just when I came in here to ask this question, I see him back. So that would be the spare IP thing?
Is this a repeating pattern?
Joey Maloney
What Erick Son Of Thinks About When Mommy’s Not Home.
bago
Sweet Fucking Hockey Hole! The stupid is LEGION!
moosehockey
@Joey Maloney: How very, pathetically sad. What a loser.
bago
Titties on the Poop Deck McGibbons! Colbert can’t even muster this level of willful ignorance!
Demo Woman
@Randy P: B O B normally gets a time out for his racist comments. John shows tremendous patience for allowing him back in. IMO
SiubhanDuinne
@moosehockey: lulz
Demo Woman
@Sentient Puddle: Booman is calling for Lieberman to be kicked out of the party. I have to admit that I think Joe would love that because then he could whine on TV 24/7. I’m not saying that he should keep his chairmanship but I do think that the timing is not right. Let’s pass health care and then show him the door.
Quicksand
A slow macro lens for portraits? Are you MAD?
What you want is one of these.
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
@Randy P:
Transforming oneself from simpleton wingnut to full on misogynist, racist, pro-rape scumbag tends to get one banned.
Crashman06
@Randy P:
I used to think that way about BOB too, and I still do for the most part, but he can be mind-blowingly offensive sometimes so I can understand the occasional banning.
Haven’t been lurking around the comments too much for the last couple weeks though, so I missed whatever comment prompted the most recent ban.
Mark S.
@Randy P:
This thread.
The village has spoken. All we need is a heavy footprint and an extra dose of stick-to-it-ness to succeed in Afghanistan. No analysis of who the hell we’re even fighting over there, or why Afghanistan has no functioning state after eight years of nation-building.
Why can’t we just send the Village over there?
Randy P
@Mark S.:
I see. I didn’t read comments on that one at the time. The story enough was enough to depress me and I wasn’t up to discussing it.
Yeah, I agree. Pretty awful stuff.
moosehockey
@Mark S.: I would also like to see a projected cost analysis from these MF’s. Why do they only care what health care reform costs? 3000 people died on 911, we are still in Afghanistan after 8 years, and 45,000 die each year from inadequate health care coverage.
moosehockey
Oh, and I’ve lost count of just the American dead from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but we could factor those in as well. (Since we only care about Americans, of course) How hard is it to do some sort of “is it worth it” analysis for these folks?
licensed to kill time
@Bob (Not B.o.B.): Looks like you’re stuck with the (Not B.o.B.) handle for a while longer. sigh.
Mark S.
@moosehockey:
And in another year, we will have been in Afghanistan just as long as the dreaded Soviets were.
I haven’t had time recently, but I’m going to read this article on who’s who in Afghanistan.
Third Eye Open
There is something just a little, umm, slanted about this poll, but I can’t put my finger on it
Zuzu's Petals
@WyldPiratd:
Well he kinda lost me at “Barack Hussein Obama…do you really think a m-f’er named that is gonna save us?!”
BretH
KEH rocks.
kilkee
I think I might be crazy, but I just put in a big Ebay bid on a Pentax 67, i.e., a 6×7 FILM camera that weighs about 75 pounds, can barely be used w/o a tripod, and takes about 10 pics per 120 roll. Midlife crisis? Beautiful, though—nothing digiatl matches the beauty of medium format film.
Steeplejack
@Randy P:
The circumstances of Brick Oven Bill’s latest banning.