stem cell fun

“…just as I am in favor of mandatory abortions (and, of course, recreational abortions), I am in favor of mandatory embryo harvesting. Actually, that doesn’t go far enough I want to create embryos, develop them in a lab, wait until they become fully-formed 14-year-olds (which they absolutely, positively will do in the lab), then steal their organs to give to gay people as wedding presents.”
—SeesThroughIt, commenter on Balloon Juice

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A series of tubes

DJ Ted Stevens and a “Series of Tubes”

Ted Stevens gives us his “wisdom” on the issue of network neutrality:

“They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material…

Ten movies streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet? I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
—Senator Ted Stevens (R. AK) describing the internet in support of ISP content segmentation

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50mm luck

The 50mm group has a bi-monthly contest. I threw a photo in and won. My lucky day!

yellow flower backlit

Yellow flower backlit
Point Lobos, California

Nikon D70, Lensbaby 2.0, Tokina macro adapter
DxO (lighting, noise), Adobe RAW, nik (pro contast), Photoshop (flipped)
1/800sec @ f/5.4, iso 200, 50mm (75mm)

The key to this shot was a simple vertical flip. I used a small aperture on my Lenbaby to get a little blurring on the edges of the shot. Besides when you are focused this close, you really need as much depth of field as possible.

Unfortuantely, according to new rules I can no longer submit my Lensbaby shots. Whew! Just under the wire. 🙂
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The middle

“When the President wants to dismantle our Constitutional system of checks and balances, what’s the moderate position? To dismantle HALF the system?”
—pericles, a comment on ”The Radical Middle”

…it is not that the “middle” has been forsaken. It is that the vast majority of the American public has been forsaken, left, right and middle…We are all held hostage to system institutionalized bribery of the worst sort…”
—MSheppard, a comment on ”The Radical Middle”

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More white lens madness

“The problem solved by a white lens casing is exactly the one you mock. A black lens heats up at a different rate from the lens elements and other mechanical parts. There are little motors in there, and plastic and rubber parts that can melt. White adds longevity. Every long lens worth owning is a pale color for this reason.

Tamron made a ‘cammo’ color 300mm. It’s still pale green.”
—commenter on a previous blog entry

I understand where he is coming from but my mocking is the purpose of this blog: it is designed to make you think about the reason for things and to back it up with facts.Continue reading