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You would be wrong. See, no one admits that they're poor here, they're just temporarily not wealthy. They'll eventually be wealthy. Somehow. Have to support the rich to be rich, you see? Plus, it's really hard to grasp just how truly stubbornly ignorant many people are. There's a culture here of owning that ignorance like a badge of honor.

Yes indeed, but mainstream politicians also have their dosis to blame. When they don't do their job, opportunists or radical ones easily pop up... Ideology can be dangerous but no less, ineptitude or lack of competence. André Ventura is very talented as I had the chance to change ideas with Francisco Louçã a week ago... This left-wing politician even agreed with me. We who love a free society we are in big trouble to say the least TBH. Here is his opinion aired on national TV on XIX century Trump's tariffs next day of our long conversation me and him in person of about one hour or so the day before... Louçã is also a reputable economics professor at the university, he explains how these nonsense tariffs have no logic at all... in Portuguese though to those who know the language, you can follow his interesting criticism, pity that White House economists are dumb or too subservient, to not call it 'moron' and 'dumber than a sack of bricks' as even Musk did. Louçã refers how USD is falling despite what could be expected from: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1032490332104272 Former London-based and City University London graduate Catarina Castro (and talented right-wing economist no less) is there too and tries to contradict him but ends to fail the argument that Trump tries to put the dollar down because of the debt. It's just pure markets' fear, folks! And that's actually scaring... When inflation and uncertainty enter the things cannot end well for no one. The orange man is placing that on hold for 90 days for some reason and Musk has called Peter Navarro of those significant gross names definitely not for no reason...

And about Europe...it is not so far away from the USA insanity as it might appear. The Le Pens got very close to govern France. The far-right is making inroads on Germany. @Emanuelcould talk about the Andre's Ventura "Chega" party on Portugal. Orbán is already in charge on Hungary, as Erdogan in Turkey. Millei (an idiot as crazy as Trump, or worse) is in charge of Argentina - with 55% below the poverty line. And I already talked about Brazil. The far-right is a world cancer now.

I wrote a similar post earlier, maybe in this thread, but a hurdle to overcome in the US is that a significant portion of our population believes that the more credentials a person has, the less trustworthy they are. This includes professors, reporters, researchers, and other experts. It applies especially to those in academia or have higher education. If the head of the IRS with 20 years of experience says that more auditors leads to more revenue, and explains how auditors find discrepancies and why it takes time, and shows historical data to back it up, many Americans will automatically believe the opposite. If an anonymous dude in a Dinesh D'Souza doc says that a person he can't identify dumped 20 extra ballots in a mailbox, it's believed--not in spite of lack of rationality, but because of it. This isn't without analogy in the rest of the world. In some way, it's a logical extreme of believing that "street smarts" is better than "book smarts," which is commonly believed in many places, and is true in some situations. However, many Americans are aggressively uneducated, and ideologically see education itself as wrong. ("Education" here means a thought process that uses data and logic to draw conclusions, not knowledge of specific trivia). Personal truths, often derived from religion and specific personalities/influencers, are held to be truer than empiricism, the scientific method, and data, while any appeal to rationality is rejected as part of the deep state conspiracy that every academic is part of. Once a person intentionally rejects objectivity and rationality, their actions cannot be explained as being out of personal interest. They often actively vote against their personal interest, because their worldview rejects data and analysis. And, to be clear, there are still rational people here, including many Republicans and conservatives. But we've reached a critical mass of the voting public that we now have elected officials at every level, from local to president, who also reject rationality.

Hey Everyone, Another hectic week...ugh! Do you ever feel like your life is out of control? Anyhow, I managed to create some new music tracks to share with everyone. They're free to use, as always, with attribution. They are: "BLOB MONSTERS RETURN" (LoFi) "DISCO ANTS GO CLUBBIN" (LoFi) You'll find them here: https://soundimage.org/funnyquirky/ I really like the atmospheric quality of LoFi and I think it works well for these kinds of humorously weird tracks...it seems to heighten their weirdness even more...lol. OGG MUSIC PACKS Please don't forget to check out my Ogg Music Packs. These packs enable you to download all of my tracks at once by genre...a huge time-saver. Plus, Ogg files sound richer than Mp3 files and tend to loop better in game engines. You can also download all of my game music at once with my Game Music Mega Pack. You'll find the packs here: https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ Enjoy, please stay safe and keep creating! 🙂

The OM-1's strength is as a good handling, relatively light weight, handheld run-and-gun camera with very low rolling shutter. and decent AF. I think it's video quality is more than good enough for that kind of use (which is basically what I use it for), but TBH I don't think it's a camera you'd choose to put on a tripod and shoot a feature film with.

I've found that in video C-AF, if a lens is stopped down to a small aperture, the OM-1 (and the E-M1 ii/iii) will sometimes decide it's not quite in focus and pulse it to check. If the lens has low focus breathing it's often not noticeable as the depth-of-field at small apertures hides it. But it means lenses with low focus breathing are a good idea if using C-AF in video. Oly/OMS cameras don't have an AF-lock function, but you can assign the MF (manual focus) function to a button, which basically does the same thing (provided you don't touch the lens focus ring!). Also the AF-ON button can be used to force a re-focus in both C-AF and MF modes. So in MF mode, pushing AF-ON to get initial focus then tweaking it with the lens focus ring if necessary is easy. What video 'IS Level' are you using (-1, 0, +1) and is this in M-IS 1 (with digital) or M-IS 2 (sensor shift only) mode? At the +1 setting it will be jerky if you move it too fast (It's intended for static hand-held situations), but -1 and 0 settings should be OK for normal movement (in my experience).

120p photo is still the best in terms of sharpness. colorwise, although good enough, neither art filter 1 nor hlg 10 bit is as good as the 14 bit ml raw or f3.

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions. I did live in the US for two years, but things weren't then how they are now. And it was in Massachusetts, so that may not count. I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich, nor can I see any benefit in voting in favor of policies of the current US government (including stock manipulation but also in general, high tariffs).

Trump did tell people on his social media platform before the reduction of the tariffs for most countries that now is a good time to buy. People who had invested in the stock market but also had debt were in some cases forced to sell their stock (since their loan was going to be greater than the value of their stock) and lost money at the worst moment, but those people with spare money could sell stock before trump announced the tariffs and buy at the moment just before the tariffs were reduced. I bet many of Trump's billionaire friends did just that. It's a way of swindling the majority of what they had into the hands of the few who already had a lot.

Fair enough. Who knows what will happen? But I always thought MAGA covered a whole range of people from hardcore nutjobs to others caught up in the moment who upon seeing the results of a MAGA world in reality, might not be so keen on it. Then what do I know? What does anyone know?

Not quite sure of the reference as I’m not from NY at all. Chuck S. should have added more friction, but that would slow Potus down. My point was more about when you see your adversary is making mistake after mistake, you let them continue doing so. Potus is making so many hard moves, the risk will contue to be high.

it is not only Democrats incompetence, a big part goes to Fox News, these people watch this tv network 24/7 365 days, they are brainwashed, fox news is a propaganda network, they do not live by standards, is like the russians have a US channel and spit their lies and propaganda everyday....they know how to manipulate them by hate and fear....hate the immigrants, hate color people, hate the rich peopel living in democrat states like California, NY, you are poor because of them, you are a loser because of them, we are screwed here in the US with this idi0t as president...

No shrinks to see in the States? : ) I don't realize how people don't get all this is insanity at best or worst ; ) Before, people were smarter when their king was crazy, they were used to put the guy off, now the majority elects the wildest... So, this is not only a problem of one sole guy : P I consider myself half liberal half conservative no less, but as even Pope Francis said, Kamala with her pro choice policy had been much safer no matter what we think about the woke agenda -- what such a stratagedy! Even with no particular end result in mind... Definitely much mooooore healthy than a basis who has no clue what actually is going on in this same planet ready for extinction nowadays. Let's not forget the climate change, ok? March was the warmest month ever in Europe as far as records hint. Guess it's never late or enough to recall this one once again when art is far to be distant from reality... The society is sick as whole. The same. The situation now seems a way worse than in that January 6... Never thought to have to arrive here. Humankind is hard to learn... North Americans from Washington DC rule, the new Romans as someone called them, as our species flagship, follow. What expects us all yet?

Thanks, I actually just got a really nice biotar with super minty late type coatings and nothing in the 35-40mm range can match that look so I was hoping the ff38 adapter might.

Cool! I hope you get a response somewhere! They don't come up for sale too often - it's really a niche product and the people who have them tend to love them and hold onto them. Last time RG released them? The only reason I remember is because I ordered a second DSO - the first one was with the oval fixed faux aperture, no tint, and a black exterior (which makes it around a T2 lens). For the one I ordered in December, this is what was on the receipt: Anti-Reflective Coating Removal: Remove Edge Tinting: Amber Aperture: Fixed Q1.5 (Ultra Low Contrast) External Finish: Rat (Rusty) Qty: 1 £275.00 / Item If you can get them from RGO when he decides to do a run, it'll be a lot better price. I paid about $2k for first one with the 38 and 88 converters. Kits tend to sell for about that much when they come available. Oh, and FWIW, I don't think any converters were being sold during the December run. But also keep in mind that the converters will severely limit the coverage when used with an anamorphic adapter. One other thing - if your goal in getting DSO is to get a wider anamorphic look when using a 1.3x anamorphic adapter, you might also consider looking at the new Blazar anamorphics that they announced at NAB. They're 1.3x with a variable oval aperture which should put them in a similar anamorphic/anamorfake category.

@eatstoomuchjam thanks, I did shoot him a message but he of course did not reply. I already have posted on facebook as well, but I appreciate your advice regardless! What was the price on it during the last run if you don't mind me asking?

Are you a senator from New York?

That hasn't been my experience.

Nope. Are you an American? I feel anyone with a grasp of the culture here wouldn't be quite so obtuse. Then again, weird times.

Stock market had a massive surge after most of the tariffs were paused. Imagine how much money you could make if you knew that would happen 30 minutes before it did. It's generally fascinating how much wealth is created or destroyed with no change in goods or services produced.

I think it’s only polite that you disclose your affiliation to the Jehovah’s Witnesses before posting blind links to their religious material. Unless it’s just a massive coincidence that your profile contact details on here link to their jw.org domain.

A 2 minute Preview of Episodes 2 and 3 of "The Good News according to Jesus" is now available to stream or download for free, no reg required. available in English, Venezuelan Sign Language and others...

To me the idea that an armed uprising/protest would cause any real impediment to Trump's plans is just wishful thinking. Even if you could somehow get a substantial number of gun owners to act violently against their beloved leader's government (which you couldn't), their effectiveness against our military, or hell even most of our police departments, would be laughable. Would there be property destruction, deaths on both sides, suffering? Of course. But there would be no real threat to Trump's agenda. Reminds me of this Neal Brennan bit:

The level of condescension in regards to other countries, their leaders and their people, is off the charts. His behaviour and speech is surreal.