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Post by nomuse on Sept 8, 2006 18:56:16 GMT -4
As an ex-GI, it particular bothers me every time I see the assumption that since the Army is "under orders" it will simply do whatever it is the current administration or bad guy of choice wants. This despite evidence of soldiers refusing orders, speaking out about policies, releasing pictures of atrocities, and otherwise not going along with what they consider are illegal or immoral acts.
Heck, it bugs me every time I see it in a cheap movie. No...we don't "shoot to kill" just because some random officer orders it. We have rules of engagement and chains of command and deadly force is gonna take a bit of effort to arrive at.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 4, 2006 17:16:30 GMT -4
So what is money?
I think of it as faith in a production system. Basically, money says "I think the system that honors this will be capable of producing something I want, when I chose to redeem it." So it relates to the ability to manufacture tangible or intangible goods. By printing more money, you do not increase production capacity, your labor force, the exploitable resources within your purview, or your ability to purchase from foreign markets (well, okay, you do -- but only for a limited time or otherwise in limited ways.)
Or more simply put, the total amount of money determines the purchasing power per unit. Print more Deutschmarks, and you'll need a wheelbarrow worth of them to buy a loaf of bread. Of course in a world market it gets more complicated....and investment is a huge scheme of creating intangible value based entirely on faith about future performance...
Thoughts from someone who never, ever took a course in "The Dismal Science."
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Post by nomuse on Aug 30, 2006 17:31:29 GMT -4
I've seen video of the deployment done on Earth by a bunch of guys in shirt-sleeves. At least that shows what happened when, and how. I'm sorry I can't come up with a link to that video now.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 2, 2006 15:41:22 GMT -4
Country? I've been humming Johnny Mandel every time I read the title to this thread...
"The shadow of the rock, is much, too strong; The colors all are grey, the light, too drawn... Look at these jpegs, my friend, I link them all without an end, They show that there's a light that's wrong; on that you can depend."
"In the skies no stars; it's far too bright......."
With apologies to Paul Francis Webster.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 1, 2006 17:27:46 GMT -4
Au contraire -- it has everything to do with the topic. Your eyes are not a good judge of relative values, even within a single image. So before you can even begin with statements about which is brighter than what, you need to crop and isolate those items to make sure that one is, indeed, brighter than the other.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 1, 2006 16:17:51 GMT -4
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Post by nomuse on Aug 31, 2006 16:18:50 GMT -4
No....even when you compare elements in the SAME picture, you have to make sure these elements are actually comparable. A rock in the corner of the picture is at a different angle to the sun than one in the middle of the picture. A tiny rock low to the ground is getting different light (aka it is a lot more responsive to small details in the surface around it) than a large rock, or an astronaut's knee.
I am not sure where you are going with this. Is your general impression that the astronauts are better lit than the rocks? Are you postulating some extra light source involved? Or are you comparing one photograph to another and wondering why they do not have identical values -- why their illumination exposure development and post-scan processing are not identical?
Please elucidate.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 31, 2006 14:27:19 GMT -4
What?
I really didn't understand the above post.
I must re-iterate, however....you don't expect to see the astronaut lit exactly the same in every shot. Why compare the lit astronaut from one shot with the lit rock from another shot? It is not meaningful.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 30, 2006 17:41:07 GMT -4
images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/AS17-146-22294.jpglook at this version. It shows the gey rock to be dim, and so is the astronaut. A previous version showed the rock's details in the shade. So we are comparing an astronaut next to it, hit at the same angle by sin. When the astronaut showed in shadow, the rock showed, even if it was grey. When the astronaut didn't show due to different version, the rock didn't. This is consistent, not as the seemingly white rock (even if grey like this, it should show since this showed) that acted differently than the astronaut. Maybe because I work with lighting in theater, and I also draw and paint -- I'm used to thinking around shapes, figuring out what angle they present themselves to a light source -- in any case, this image also looks entirely normal to me. That large rock has several sharp and distinct angles in it. It takes very little effort to see parts of another such angle along the shadow line. The lit areas are deeply textured, and though the "pits" are dark the "knobs" are roughly in the same value range as the astronaut. Actually, in this latest pic the Rover's "tire" gives the clearest picture of what value range to expect at different angles. Oh, yes...and in this pic, as compressed as it is, the fact that the astronaut has a lighter surface than either rock or soil is as obvious as the fact that the Rover's fender is bronze or gold.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 29, 2006 16:50:23 GMT -4
You have to think in planes. Believe it or not, I can reconstruct that scene without having to take into account any material differences. To break it down into the simplest parts, those planes of the surface that face the sun are bright. Those that face away from the sun are dim. Those that face the sun at an angle are medium-lit. If you examine the rock, you will find that the dark areas are without exception tilted further away from direct sunlight than is the majority of the astronaut. Furthermore, if you look for areas on the rock that are facing directly out of the picture plane (as are the medium gray tones of the astronaut), you will observe a similar grey.
Use this as a mental model. Astronaut = cylinder. Rock = pyramid, with one corner facing the camera. Funny thing, but everything behind that corner is in shadow -- whereas, the only "corner" the astronaut has to create such a shadow is that of his PLSS.
But don't take my word for it. Take a rock's. Go find yourself some rocks and hold them up to a light...preferably a single light source, like a flashlight.
Of course this last pic is a bit small and over-compressed. A better version _would_ show some differences from the texture and lightness of the suit, and the effects of inter-object illumination.
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Post by nomuse on Sept 1, 2006 16:17:11 GMT -4
Have you asked a question?
Will you consider bullet points?
The Yoda-speak is starting to get to me.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 31, 2006 23:21:23 GMT -4
Someone please bring back HUb'
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Post by nomuse on Aug 31, 2006 6:43:35 GMT -4
That is worth underlining. There are human decisions at almost ever stage of the Apollo photographic record. What to shoot, what exposure settings to use, near an end of a roll, dust the camera again or go without... then into developing, where it would be pushed or pulled to bring out specific details... then the history of the print/negative, as it deteriorates in storage... then the scanner operator working to achieve the best image possible for his purposes... then the final cropping, retouch, compression and web release (for most of the ones under discussion). And that's before other agencies get hold of it!
Sure, there are ways to try and null as many of these factors as possible. The question you have to ask is, on a particular image set, were these ways attempted and how successfully were they applied? You can not make blanket statements; you can only look at specific images and ask specific questions about how they may or may not match up to the expected goals.
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Post by nomuse on Aug 30, 2006 18:55:24 GMT -4
Oh, no. Shakespeare is quite comprehensible. I find the clowns particularly clear. No, I'd go for another playwright -- Shaw, perhaps. Think, perhaps, of those incredible multi-page monologs of Jack Tanner, going on about the "Life force," in the latter parts of that spectacle of exposition that is the second act of "Man and Superman" (aka, "Don Juan in Hell.")
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Post by nomuse on Aug 30, 2006 17:20:10 GMT -4
I hereby welcome Billy to the board. Anyone who can write that that has my admiration. It's still word salad to me, but so lovely to look at!
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