OT – Too good to be true?

On 24 Jan 2006 19:54:01 -0800, wrote:

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Digital ICE on my Nikon film scanner. I was sure it
was a scam, that it would reduce the sharpness of
the scans, and that I’d never used it.

I was wrong on all counts. It’s nothing short of magic.

rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Photoshop CS2 for $49. Works like a charm.

"rafe b" <rafebATspeakeasy.net> wrote:

On 24 Jan 2006 19:54:01 -0800, wrote:

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Digital ICE on my Nikon film scanner. I was sure it
was a scam, that it would reduce the sharpness of
the scans, and that I’d never used it.

I was wrong on all counts. It’s nothing short of magic.

Bayer digital imaging. You get color essentially for free. And 1.6 times the image quality of film (1.6x cameras compete with 35mm, FF competes with 645).

Seriously amazing. Yet people complain and believe the lying FUD from certain cynical marketers preying on their lack of mathematical and engineering sophistication.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" writes:

Bayer digital imaging. You get color essentially for free.

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

Paul Rubin wrote:

"David J. Littleboy" writes:

Bayer digital imaging. You get color essentially for free.

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

Who told you that?

"Mark²" <mjmorgan(lowest even number here)@cox..net> writes:

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

Who told you that?

They are just r,g,b filters and as such I’d expect them to have the same filter factors as photographic filters of those colors. Actually for R and G it looks much worse than 2/3. For blue, who knows.

http://www.wolfes.com/photo/filters/B&W.html

"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:

"David J. Littleboy" writes:

Bayer digital imaging. You get color essentially for free.

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

No. The red pixels see all the red photons that hit them, the green pixels see all the green photons that hit them, and the blue pixels see all the blue photons that hit them.

So any system that does color with the same size pixel will see the same flux per color sensel. No loss at all.

One might think that a monochrome sensor would be more sensitive, but my experience with low-light work is that a lot of time you see nearly monochromatic light sources, so you’d get more resolution, but not more sensitivity, from a monochrome sensor. (Of course, resolution and sensitivity are, to a certain extent, interchangeable…)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" writes:

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

No. The red pixels see all the red photons that hit them, the green pixels see all the green photons that hit them, and the blue pixels see all the blue photons that hit them.

So any system that does color with the same size pixel will see the same flux per color sensel. No loss at all.

Right, but lots of loss compared to a monochrome sensor. Let’s see a different way. Suppose you have a 1/1.8" Bayer sensor, which is pretty close to sqrt(3)/3". Some photons make it through their respective filters and reach the ccd cells, while others get absorbed.

Compare that to a 3-ccd system (like a fancy video camera) with three 1/3" monochrome ccd’s and a beamsplitting prism separating the incoming light into r/g/b. This system has the same total ccd area as the 1/1.8" Bayer sensor, and if the lens’s f/stop is the same, the photon flux reaching the sensor is the same when imaging the same scene. But wait! Since the ccd’s are smaller but the f/stop is the same, the lens’s focal length must also be smaller. That means the lens aperture diameter is smaller, i.e. fewer photons are entering the system in the first place. The 3-ccd system is capturing more photons per unit of ccd area than the Bayer system, because it’s using all the photons instead of dissipating most of them in filters.

So unless I missed something, the Bayer sensor losses are significant and Bayer filters don’t really give you color for free.

One might think that a monochrome sensor would be more sensitive, but my experience with low-light work is that a lot of time you see nearly monochromatic light sources,

Maybe for extremely low light, but with (say) normal indoor lighting, you can certainly see what color things are. At the same time you still want high sensitivity to shoot without flash.

"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:

"David J. Littleboy" writes:

The Bayer filters don’t lose 2/3 of the incoming light?

No. The red pixels see all the red photons that hit them, the green pixels
see all the green photons that hit them, and the blue pixels see all the blue photons that hit them.

So any system that does color with the same size pixel will see the same flux per color sensel. No loss at all.

Right, but lots of loss compared to a monochrome sensor.

Yes, of course. My "essentially for free" was about luminance resolution, not sensitivity.

Let’s see a
different way. Suppose you have a 1/1.8" Bayer sensor, which is pretty close to sqrt(3)/3". Some photons make it through their respective filters and reach the ccd cells, while others get absorbed.

I don’t have a 1/1.8" Bayer sensor, I have a 24x36mm Bayer sensors and it takes images at ISO 400 that my 645 cameras have trouble matching at ISO 100 (and maybe can’t match). Bayer is flipping amazing. Period.

Compare that to a 3-ccd system (like a fancy video camera)

Uh, you want to try to lift a 3-ccd system for 24×36? No thanks Seriously, heroic measures to improve on Bayer _for pictorial still photography_ all seem to be a lot worse. Foveon has 1/3 the well capacity per pixel thus throwing away your expected sensitivity increase and gross raw file data requirements, and 3-ccd systems are heavy, bulky, and probably don’t work in a lot of cases anyway since it’s probably hard to provide the +/- 2 or so micron registration accuracy you’d need.

I do think that interchangeable sensors would be nice: Bayer sensors lose it for IR and for narrow-band monochrome imaging (e.g. landscapes with a red filter). Also, in available light work, you see a lot of grossly unbalanced light; e.g. tungsten light has much lower blue or green, so you really would be better off in monochrome. (But notice that there’s almost no increase in sensitivity<g>.)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
….

I do think that interchangeable sensors would be nice: Bayer sensors lose it for IR and for narrow-band monochrome imaging (e.g. landscapes with a red
filter). Also, in available light work, you see a lot of grossly unbalanced light; e.g. tungsten light has much lower blue or green, so you really would be better off in monochrome. (But notice that there’s almost no increase in sensitivity<g>.)

Once digital designers stop trying to make flat, film-like pixel arrays, the sensor will reside on the rearmost concave element of the lens. There are any number of advantages to this, some of which David touches on. For example, a fast lens with a monochromatic or IR sensor would be useful for low light situations. By the same token, a very dense array of small sensors with more colors could be used for brightly lit subjects to give a polygonal color gamut instead of a triangular one.

A very dense and random arrangement of pixels would have a number of advantages, including lack of anti-aliasing, and the ability to scale the red, green, and blue sensor field to eliminate chromatic aberration, if there is any left once the focus plane no longer needs to be flat. Optics are inherently sharper close to the axis, and pixel density could be denser near the center to reflect this. An anamorphic sensor could take panoramas directly.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"Mike Russell" wrote:

A very dense and random arrangement of pixels would have a number of advantages, including lack of anti-aliasing, and the ability to scale the red, green, and blue sensor field to eliminate chromatic aberration, if there is any left once the focus plane no longer needs to be flat.

Random has the problem that it exhibits inhomogeneities at scales orders of magnitude larger than the size of the light sensitive units. Film "grain" isn’t grain at all: it’s random inhomogeneities in features much smaller than what is visible. Film grain is clearly visible in 10x enlargements, yet I doubt a 100x microscope would resolve the actual grain.

To the best I can tell, you are much better off using a regular array with an appropriate antialiasing filter.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
[re layout of pixels on a sensor]

To the best I can tell, you are much better off using a regular array with an appropriate antialiasing filter.

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Bayer digital imaging. You get color essentially for free. And 1.6 times

the

image quality of film (1.6x cameras compete with 35mm, FF competes with 645).

Seriously amazing. Yet people complain and believe the lying FUD from certain cynical marketers preying on their lack of mathematical and engineering sophistication.

I have to admit that it just doesn’t make any sense to me that a mere couple thousand dots by couple thousand dots can do so much, but it works.

"Dave" wrote in message

Photoshop CS2 for $49. Works like a charm.

You missed the part about it needing to be legit…

wrote in message

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

Well see, that’s just it.. I was thinking along those lines and thought it was too good to be true but things like that had happened before and turned out to be true (although not quite as good as getting something worth $700 for only $20) and I wasn’t sure, but was treated like it was the most obvious thing in the world that is was not legit.
Not sure if this really qualifies, but when I bought my KM 7D I got the vertical grip for half price, whereas I’ve seen it for up to about $300.

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

My recent "too good to be true" story is finding out that my 10 year old copy of Channel Chops was worth theoretically worth $150 on eBay Put it up for auction at no reserve, and that’s exactly what I got for it.

Great book, BTW.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

wrote:

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

eye control focussing on the first EOS 5…. knoew it would be a load a crap….. talk about liberal use of description….. must be marketing…. was more than impressed…. maybe it didn’t prove to be usefull…. but I still remember when I first heard about it… and decided to see what it was REALLY about… only to find it worked like a charm

kosh

wrote:

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

I got a few. A Hasselblad 40mm lens for $69. Nikon f5 with a Nikkor 28-70 f2.8 for $500. Two huge Manfrotto tripods off Ebay for $160 including postage to Perth. And a Courtney studio light that hasn’t stopped working since I paid $100 for it.

🙂

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 11:59:05 GMT, "Mike Russell" wrote:

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

My recent "too good to be true" story is finding out that my 10 year old copy of Channel Chops was worth theoretically worth $150 on eBay Put it up for auction at no reserve, and that’s exactly what I got for it.
Great book, BTW.

Interesting. I tried to sell my copy, as part of a package of four or five old PS books (from the PS4 era,) about three years ago, and got zero bids.

It *is* a great book. Kinda glad I still have it.

rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

I live outside of Buffalo, NY. If you don’t know about Buffalo, consider yourself lucky (and probably warm). For the last few weeks, it has been in the 30’s and 40’s (degrees F, ie over 0 C). All of the snow had melted. Some days even had blue skies. It was too good to be true (and probably legit). Now we are back to cold, windy, and snow for the next few days. Nat. Weather Service say:

Rest Of Today…Snow showers. Additional snow accumulation 3 to 5 inches. Very windy and colder with highs in the upper 20s. Temperatures falling into the lower 20s this afternoon. West winds 25 to 35 mph… Becoming northwest.

But is supposed to warm up at the end of the week. This sure beats the -40 and/or LES that we could be having.

See, it’s too good to be true (but only by Buffalo standards). Now if the Bills could just win a Superbowl ….

I once bought a copy of a popular database program from Amazon. It was a secondary reseller (it’s hard to tell where stuff comes from on Amazon these days).

I received the product, installed it, and registered.

I got an email from the developer stating there was a problem with the key, and it was an invalid copy (I forget the exact words).

I wrote the company I bought it from, and a few days later they stated they had worked out the issue with the developer, and here was a new key to use.

Oddly, it said "when you register, use (the developer) for your email address and use the following name for the user".

Tell me THAT ain’t odd!

-Larry

wrote in message

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

Though it isn’t exactly Buffalo, when I was in the Navy I spent 6 months in Syracuse living out of a Hotel Room, and going to a factory equipment school at GE’s Farrell Road plant.

You guys have a phenomena there that is hard to believe until you see it.

Lake-Effect Snow.

Jeez….

Cold, CLEAR skies and snowing at the rate of a foot an hour. Sideways.

It totally blew me away. Almost literally 🙂

-Larry

"Pat" wrote in message

I live outside of Buffalo, NY. If you don’t know about Buffalo, consider yourself lucky (and probably warm). For the last few weeks, it has been in the 30’s and 40’s (degrees F, ie over 0 C). All of the snow had melted. Some days even had blue skies. It was too good to be true (and probably legit). Now we are back to cold, windy, and snow for the next few days. Nat. Weather Service say:

Rest Of Today…Snow showers. Additional snow accumulation 3 to 5 inches. Very windy and colder with highs in the upper 20s. Temperatures falling into the lower 20s this afternoon. West winds 25 to 35 mph… Becoming northwest.

But is supposed to warm up at the end of the week. This sure beats the -40 and/or LES that we could be having.

See, it’s too good to be true (but only by Buffalo standards). Now if the Bills could just win a Superbowl ….

I got a few. A Hasselblad 40mm lens for $69. Nikon f5 with a Nikkor 28-70 f2.8 for $500. Two huge Manfrotto tripods off Ebay for $160 including postage to Perth. And a Courtney studio light that hasn’t stopped working since I paid $100 for it.

🙂

Did you need to wear asbestos gloves for any of this gear?

I got a few. A Hasselblad 40mm lens for $69. Nikon f5 with a Nikkor

28-70 f2.8 for $500. Two huge Manfrotto tripods off Ebay for $160 including postage to Perth. And a Courtney studio light that hasn’t stopped working since I paid $100 for it.

🙂

Seriously…what is the story behind the Blad lens? Someone stuck it on ebay under ‘Hasslebad’?

I managed to pick up a very cheap Canon T90 (man that camera was ahead of it’s time) because someone had it on Ebay under ‘Cannon T90.’

"Mike Russell" wrote in message

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
[re layout of pixels on a sensor]

To the best I can tell, you are much better off using a regular array with an appropriate antialiasing filter.

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.

Presuming intelligent design, eh? Hey, they eye is so far from optimal…

Ahh, the good old days.

I would say that everyone remembers where they were when they experienced their first white-out, but heck, you generally have no idea where you are!

(For those who live in better climates, a white out is just what it sounds like. It is when there is so much snow falling and wind blowing that you can’t see anything. The world goes white. If you are in your car, you just come to a stop and wait it out because you can’t see the road. If you are at home, you stay at home).

So sunny and "warm", I’ll take it. They just upgraded our Winter Storm Watch to a Warning. Ugh. Winter’s back.

In article ,
"ah2" wrote:

Presuming intelligent design, eh? Hey, they eye is so far from optimal…

So is evidence supporting that Monkeys can’t be trained to post to newsgroups, you just blow that theory all to heck.
—
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."–Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

greg_____photo(dot)com

I found a pair of used Yamaha NS-1000 speakers in a hi-fi shop for $175. Turned out that the right price was $250, but that’s still cheap. I bought them right away!

wrote:

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

"Hoo Flung Poo" wrote in message

In article ,
"ah2" wrote:

Presuming intelligent design, eh? Hey, they eye is so far from optimal…

So is evidence supporting that Monkeys can’t be trained to post to newsgroups, you just blow that theory all to heck.

Stupid human pride got you again. My monkey eyes are better than your second-generation ‘improvements’.

Mike Russell wrote:

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

by the same reasoning we must wonder why we don’t perceive infrared despite the obvious advantages for defence against predators at night (and I’d guess that is more important than lack of artefacts in our vision)

Mike Russell wrote:

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
[re layout of pixels on a sensor]

To the best I can tell, you are much better off using a regular array with an appropriate antialiasing filter.

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.

They perhaps would if you believe in ‘intelligent design’, but they wouldn’t necessarily if you believe in evolution. Evolution means that given the choice, the best option will survive. Evolution does NOT mean that all the theoretically possible choices will always occur.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

acl wrote:

Mike Russell wrote:

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

by the same reasoning we must wonder why we don’t perceive infrared despite the obvious advantages for defence against predators at night (and I’d guess that is more important than lack of artefacts in our vision)

Taking that further, why not ultraviolet, as well? Of course, then we’d need three eyelids, one normal and two nictitating to limit current bandwidth to the spectrum appropriate for current conditions.

In article ,
"ah2" wrote:

"Hoo Flung Poo" wrote in message

In article ,
"ah2" wrote:

Presuming intelligent design, eh? Hey, they eye is so far from optimal…

So is evidence supporting that Monkeys can’t be trained to post to newsgroups, you just blow that theory all to heck.

Stupid human pride got you again. My monkey eyes are better than your second-generation ‘improvements’.

Anything you say Stafford.

—
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."–Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

greg_____photo(dot)com

On 24 Jan 2006 19:54:01 -0800, wrote:

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

Dave

wrote in message

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Two good deals.
Getting my new Nikon D50 with kit lens for just over $500. From Dell Catalog Products. They (almost) matched the price of one of the bogus NYC camera store web sites. Then they gave me a full refund on a memory card I ordered (I decided on a bigger one).
They refunded shipping, cost of item, and told me to keep it. Sold it on ebay for $40. I figure I’m up $200 from dumb luck.

wrote:

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Recently had a case of that, and it invovled CS2. Since I’m taking classes in the evenings I qualified for the academic pricing for Photoshop CS2 (something like $290 from academicsuperstore.com). Often, academic versions of software have some special limitations on them, but this one, from what little I could find, didn’t.

So, I was tickled to receive it and discover that the only difference between the academic and the normal commercial version was 1) the price, and 2) the work Academic in the about box. Otherwise, the feature and license are identical, and I’m fully eligible for upgrades to future versions. I am able to continue using the Academic version, even for commercial projects, when I’m no longer a student.

Academic offers like that are pretty rare, so even if Adobe hadn’t won me over on the technical excellence of the program, they’d have me just on the good treatment alone.

"ah2" wrote in message

"Hoo Flung Poo" wrote in message

In article ,
"ah2" wrote:

Presuming intelligent design, eh? Hey, they eye is so far from optimal…

So is evidence supporting that Monkeys can’t be trained to post to newsgroups, you just blow that theory all to heck.

Stupid human pride got you again. My monkey eyes are better than your second-generation ‘improvements’.

If the evolution argument doesn’t grab you, check out Rob Cook’s paper on distributed resampling. It starts out with a diagram of – you got it – a monkey retina.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"Scott Glasgow" wrote in message
[re vision and evolution]

Taking that further, why not ultraviolet, as well? Of course, then we’d need three eyelids, one normal and two nictitating to limit current bandwidth to the spectrum appropriate for current conditions.

You got it, and in fact, birds and insects use ultra violet. Turns out the shorter wavelength is very useful if you’re bug-sized. Mallards have five different rhodopsin molecules, including one for UV. Birds do generally have a nictitating membrane, though I’m not sure it has anything to do with UV.

I like your idea of spectrographic vision. With three eyelids it would be possible to support 8 combinations of filters.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message
[re evolution and the "ideal" eye structure]

They perhaps would if you believe in ‘intelligent design’, but they wouldn’t necessarily if you believe in evolution. Evolution means that given the choice, the best option will survive. Evolution does NOT mean that all the theoretically possible choices will always occur.

Faith in evolution is not the same as intelligent design. Form follows function. There are any number of regularized structures in nature, and if a perfectly tiled retinal layout were an aid to resolution, they would be present in the eyes of larger animals. I think this supports the contention that a random layout of sensors is superior to a geometric one.

Evolution aside, there are other arguments that eventually camera sensor, and our display devices, will use tremendously large numbers of randomly located pixels, instead of the relatively tiny number of rectangular pixels we use now.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

"acl" wrote in message

Mike Russell wrote:

If that were the case, our own cones and rods would be arranged in neat rectangular or hexagonal arrays.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

by the same reasoning we must wonder why we don’t perceive infrared despite the obvious advantages for defence against predators at night (and I’d guess that is more important than lack of artefacts in our vision)

Great question. The reasons for that lie in physics. For long infra-red, such as is used to see warm bodies in the dark, an IR sensor must be cooler than the object it is viewing. The eye, for obvious reasons, is kept at a warm temperature and therefore is not in a position to see other warm bodies in the dark.

There are adaptations for night vision that have a penalty during the day. An example is the tapetum lucidum, a reflective layer that improves night vision, but probably causes flare in brighter conditions. http://dogs.about.com/cs/generalcare/a/tapetum.htm
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

good point, it’s basically blackbody radiation so you couldn’t distinguish who is emitting it (your eye or the predator). although they could be kept slightly cooler (like men’s testicles), but this would bring with it obvious problems. And although I admit a change of a few degrees seems too small (to me) to shift the spectrum too much to the left, snakes do it so obviously it works to some extend.

Mike Russell wrote:

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message
[re evolution and the "ideal" eye structure]

They perhaps would if you believe in ‘intelligent design’, but they wouldn’t necessarily if you believe in evolution. Evolution means that given the choice, the best option will survive. Evolution does NOT mean that all the theoretically possible choices will always occur.

Faith in evolution is not the same as intelligent design. Form follows function. There are any number of regularized structures in nature, and if a perfectly tiled retinal layout were an aid to resolution, they would be present in the eyes of larger animals. I think this supports the contention that a random layout of sensors is superior to a geometric one.

Yes, there are regular patterns in nature. Yes, form follows function. Does that mean that evolution will produce just anything providing it’s functional? No, it doesn’t. If it did, why don’t some animals have a third eye in the back of their heads to protect them from attacks from behind? That would be better than any layout of two eyes we find today. I agree that a random pattern is superior to a geometric one, but the fact that our eyes have a random pattern is not the absolute proof of that, so you cannot say we would have a geometric pattern if that was superior. It would be likely, but not more than that.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

In article ,
"acl" wrote:

good point, it’s basically blackbody radiation so you couldn’t distinguish who is emitting it (your eye or the predator). although they could be kept slightly cooler (like men’s testicles), but this would bring with it obvious problems. And although I admit a change of a few degrees seems too small (to me) to shift the spectrum too much to the left, snakes do it so obviously it works to some extend.

Snakes don’t "see" infrared with their eyes. Their infrared sense is crude, and relies on the rows of pits along the outsides of the snake’s mouth (not all snakes have these receptors; pythons, boas, and pit vipers do). The pits are exposed to cool air and contain infrared-sensitive sensory cells, but have no lenses or other focusing mechanism.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Nanohazard, Geek shirts, and more: http://www.villaintees.com

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

You mean when she stepped off the sidewalk
amd walked up to your car window?

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Probably this week when I broke the battery cover on my 20D. I found one and ordered it online over the weekend and got it in the mail today (Wednesday).
$15 + shipping. Popped it right on in 5 seconds. I’m back, baby!

"UC" writes:

I found a pair of used Yamaha NS-1000 speakers in a hi-fi shop for $175. Turned out that the right price was $250, but that’s still cheap. I bought them right away!

NS1000? As in NS1000M, the Yamaha monitors that can easily go for an order of magnitude more than what you paid?

That’s as bad as those lucky sods getting old Leicas for $5 at garage sales.

Saso

"Annika1980" wrote in message

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

You mean when she stepped off the sidewalk
amd walked up to your car window?

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

classic!!

On 2006-01-25 09:48:18 -0500, "Larry \(The Other Larry\)" said:

Don’t try to get an upgrade. Fishy.

I once bought a copy of a popular database program from Amazon. It was a secondary reseller (it’s hard to tell where stuff comes from on Amazon these days).

I received the product, installed it, and registered.

I got an email from the developer stating there was a problem with the key, and it was an invalid copy (I forget the exact words).
I wrote the company I bought it from, and a few days later they stated they had worked out the issue with the developer, and here was a new key to use.

Oddly, it said "when you register, use (the
developer) for your email address and use the following name for the user".

Tell me THAT ain’t odd!

-Larry

wrote in message

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

—
Jim <

VS wrote:

"UC" writes:

I found a pair of used Yamaha NS-1000 speakers in a hi-fi shop for $175. Turned out that the right price was $250, but that’s still cheap. I bought them right away!

NS1000? As in NS1000M, the Yamaha monitors that can easily go for an order of magnitude more than what you paid?

YES! I have seen them going for as much as $1400 on e-bay.

That’s as bad as those lucky sods getting old Leicas for $5 at garage sales.

Saso

Ok, now THAT’s funny 🙂

-Larry

"Annika1980" wrote in message

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I know, that’s why I said it works to some extend. But thanks for pointing it out

wrote in news:1138161241.644448.225870
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

When the wife wanted a divorce – yipeee

—
24 hours in a day … 24 beers in a case … coincidence?

wrote in message

Jasens question over the CS2 activation key got me thinking about the question of ‘If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is’ and I wondered.

When was last time was any of you found something that seemed too good to be true – but turned out to be legit?

Something that actually turned out for the best and you couldn’t believe your luck?

Anyone?

Mine was a complaint to Optus about the cost of my first bill from prepaid to post paid. To cut a long story short Optus upgraded me from a 49 cap to a 79 cap with a $30 credit each month for 12 months. No contract. So I pay $49 still but get all the benefits of the $79 cap for one year for nothing.

Some guy on ebay was selling a 1D Mk1 with a bunch of lenses. He listed them up for a friend of his and put some pictures of the stuff up. Well, it looked like a decent purchase but he was a newbie with 0 feedback and very little description. I emailed him and asked if he’d do COD and he said no but after emailing back and forth with him 4 or 5 times I felt I had enough trust to send him $2400 for the stuff. When I got the stuff it all included:

Canon 1D mk1
Canon 70-200 2.8L
Canon 17-35 2.8L
2 Canon 550Ex
Canon 1.4x and 2x teleconverters
Canon 12 and 25mm extention tubes
Quantum Turbo battery pack with cables
a bunch of miscellaneous stuff

All in decent condition.

$2400 for the stuff

Mate…that is sweeeeet.

You gotta be happy with that.

"Bruce Chang" wrote:

When I got the stuff it all

included:

<snipped list of great stuff>

I’ve had a couple of similar experiences on EBay, although not quite such bargains as yours:

D70, kit lens (the 18-55 AF-S), two extra batteries, battery pack (the one that you can put three over-the-counter batteries in), Lowepro case, software & cable, and a three-year warranty, for $1000 (this was prior to D70s and D50; would be worth less now, I think) – some college kid had bought it with his dad’s credit card, used it twice, decided it was too much camera for him, then asked his girlfriend to sell it on EBay.

70-200 Sigma constant f/2.8 EX APO HSM, used once, $500 Buy It Now – the owner, who apparently has lots of money to play with, had decided to get the Nikon VR AF-S instead. What made the deal so good was that when I got the lens, he’d thrown in the 1.4 teleconverter, still in retail box. Lens retails for more than $700, the teleconveter for about $170. And of course I can sell my older 70-200 to offset the cost. <G>

"Steve Franklin" wrote in message

$2400 for the stuff

Mate…that is sweeeeet.

You gotta be happy with that.

Happy hardly begins to describe it. Amazed was more like it. I thought I was getting a good deal but it turned out to be a *great* deal. After all was said and done, I upgraded from a D60 to a 1D for just $400. If you can’t be happy about that, I don’t know what you can. Perhaps if it were free.

Kibo informs me that "Annika1980" stated that:

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

You mean when she stepped off the sidewalk
amd walked up to your car window?

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I can see that you have considerable experience in this area. 😉 —
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est —^—-^————————————————— ————

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I can see that you have considerable experience in this area. 😉

I can neither confirm nor deny those spurious allegations! Nowadays, if someone walks up to my window it usually is a cop.

http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864876
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864875

Annika1980 wrote:

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

You mean when she stepped off the sidewalk
amd walked up to your car window?

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

Hmmmmm……
Someone once said: "the first sign you’re getting old is when you look at a cop and he looks younger than you". ..
..
..

Annika1980 wrote:

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I can see that you have considerable experience in this area. 😉

I can neither confirm nor deny those spurious allegations! Nowadays, if someone walks up to my window it usually is a cop.
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864876
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864875

"I hate Illinois Nazis…"

Annika1980 wrote:

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I can see that you have considerable experience in this area. 😉

I can neither confirm nor deny those spurious allegations! Nowadays, if someone walks up to my window it usually is a cop.
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864876
http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/29864875

Obviously a fake photo, the glasses aren’t ‘mirror’ Raybans.

good

"Lionel" wrote in message

Kibo informs me that "Annika1980" stated that:

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

You mean when she stepped off the sidewalk
amd walked up to your car window?

Let me guess …. her big blue eyes met yours for what seemed liked an eternity before she uttered those words that still live in your heart today …… "You a cop?"

I can see that you have considerable experience in this area. 😉 —
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est —^—-^————————————————— ————

….

yep…! Nearly twenty years younger than me:-)
And she made the first move!

…. and you were only 24 years old at the time.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com