BTM_Pix

No, I have other gifs The info in this post was definitely a tea sipping shocker though.

This is quite an interesting insight into the sort of shit that walks amongst us all on any form of internet communication platform. Not so long ago, the notion of hordes of actual humans sat in sheds somewhere pushing agendas for whoever it was hiring them seemed plausible but still a bit fanciful to me but no more and at first glance this appears to be one caught with their pants down. But after selecting Sandy28334041's profile and having a look at their tweets (all replies to other tweets of course not a single original one which does scream Troll as well as the username obviously) I have to say that it could be legitimate because the replies are in context and there is a degree of consistency to their agenda so, honestly, I just couldn't tell you definitively one way or the other. And I think that is the problem now in trying to establish if an account is a professional troll or not because they are getting better at appearing to be real people while some real people are simultaneously getting "better" at appearing to be a professional troll.

His claim that he wouldn't feel anything if he was infected due to his background as an athlete immediately put me in mind of Eddie Murphy in Trading Places explaining why he didn't have any bruises despite having a fight with a dozen cops.

Its all gone a bit Lord Of The Flies here so the last thing we were able to do was ask a neighbour if we could tap into their power for a while unfortunately ! I have one of these souped up rechargeable power packs that has an inverter in that we have because we have had the odd earthquake tremor that has taken out power before but I'm buggered if I can find it now when I actually need it. A couple of months ago I came across it when looking for something else and did that mental note of "what the fuck are you doing in there?" when something is in entirely the wrong place but I can't remember where. Not that it would have been charged though ! I've got a horrible feeling that these lockdowns will be re-introduced periodically here over the next few months at least so as soon as this (now extended) one is up I'm going to look at some proper power backup solutions. Solar is the most obvious solution for us here in Spain as we probably could just about eek out enough with a 400w motorhome sized system to get by without turning the upstairs terrace of the apartment into a full on solar farm. I'm thinking of a small petrol generator as well as a last resort but even in the hostile environment we find ourselves in now I'm still too polite to have the noise of it annoy the neighbours. Though the promise to shut the racket off could be a good bargaining tool to get the neighbours to throw us an extension cord ! Having said all that, I probably have enough capacity in the embarrassingly large number of camera batteries that I've got to power the whole street for a few days

If you click this link you can search user names and clicking on their profile will tell you when they last logged in. https://www.eoshd.com/comments/search/?&type=core_members&joinedDate=any&group[4]=1&group[5]=1&group[10]=1&group[3]=1&group[7]=1&group[6]=1&group[9]=1&group[8]=1&group[1]=1

It was a guess but on second thoughts I think he might be in the "absent" category now.

This is bit like trying to remember the "divorced, beheaded, died" rhyme about the fate of Henry VIII's six wives ! I'll have a go at guessing in order with "absent, absent, banned, absent, banned". Although "self isolated" is probably the more appropriate term than "absent" in the present crisis

Day 13 Had very stormy weather here for the past few days. Its weird the mood lowering effect that miserable weather has on you when you can't actually go out anyway as you'd imagine it would be the other way round and it being sunny would piss you off as you couldn't go out and enjoy it! The mood wasn't exactly enhanced late last night by us having repeated power cuts in the apartment and trying to trace what was causing it to trip. Even under normal circumstances, this situation would have you fearing for the contents of your fridge and freezer until you could get an electrician in but these are far from normal circumstances and of course those contents are now absolutely critical. Particularly because there is literally zero chance of getting an electrician until the now extended lockdown is over. Squeaky bum time as the phrase has it. After a couple of hours of isolating every circuit and power drawing source we finally traced it and re-configured the whole house with a mass of extensions and distribution blocks to be able to stably run the house at a minimal level from the one stable circuit that has (2) plug outlets. The big fear though was not knowing if it has tripped again during the night when we are asleep and waking up to a large chunk of our food supply being lost so some improvisation was required ! What I came up with was to use the wifi router as the canary in a coal mine and write some code for a board that enables it to connect to it and then set off a flashing screen and alarm if it loses the connection which, obviously, would mean that the router had lost power and hence the power must have tripped. And this racket would then, theoretically, wake us up although as I had slept through the storm the previous evening that had likely played a part in this then who knows ! Of course sod's law would dictate that the power sockets in the bedroom were not part of the golden sockets so it had to be run on a USB power bank that thankfully we had fully charged the day before. So, it all felt a bit desert island castaway improvisation but it worked and provided a bit of a diversion from the increasingly sapping effect of the confinement.

Yeah, that was some performance.

It is this aspect that is the most troubling as the toxicity it brings impacts all genuine users on here whether they exercised their democratic right in their own country and voted for/support Trump or not. He would absolutely not have been my choice but I respect people for whom he was their choice. Both sides of the Trump argument about him could likely learn from each other or at least have an honest exchange of opinions but the intervention of these agent provocateurs into any exchange just entrenches positions and makes it impossible to have a reasoned discussion. Which, by the way, is precisely what they want to do.

This will be the scene in the R&D departments of every Japanese camera manufacturer that are currently behind schedule on delivering the numerous unicorn cameras that were going be released "in time for the Tokyo Olympics".

I have just re-purposed my original Lidar prototype into a body worn device with a speaker that barks out "BACK OFF YOU BASTARD" when it detects someone breaking the recommended two metre safety perimeter. Being confined to a small apartment, the novelty off this invention has worn very thin with my other half.

I'm not sure how much this is going to add to the insight regarding the purple/green issue really as its not a particularly controlled test but here are some 8bit and 10bit (8bit on top) frames of mine that I've chosen that I would expect to show the issue as they contain a lot of dark fabric etc. Both of these have been pushed 3 stops and don't show the issue to my eye to any dramatic degree and seem pretty consistent between the two file types. For what its worth, all of my other Sigma cameras (including both the Merrill and Quattro variants of the Foveon sensor) exhibit this problem far, far more dramatically so I was very concerned when I saw it pop up in this thread that it might be carried over to their CMOS cameras ! However, the bottom frame is 8bit, again pushed 3 stops, and it is visible in the top right hand corner but as with the other two frames the whole image is obviously destroyed for all practical purposes anyway at that point so I can live with it.

Very much one of these moments

This is the first Canon camera I've looked forward to in a good few years. Ditto their cinema camera. And the RED Komodo. My favourite film growing up was Gregory's Girl and the last line (if you'll forgive the shortening of your name!) seems particularly apt here "Andy, I think everything's gonna be all right."

I honestly mean this with the greatest of love and respect mate but surely you can see the irony in that complaint when your avatar is a political statement in itself? People gonna people, media gonna media and I'm fairly non-plussed by that as its the same basic behaviour scaled up. However, the concern for me is that one of life's other observable truths throughout my now middle aged life is that Tories gonna Tory has now been utterly blown out of the water. What the Tory government in the UK are doing is not a scaling up of their usual behaviour but a complete and utter sea change. They have more or less nationalised the private sector and have today done the same for the railways. We are talking about them reversing decades and decades of their deeply entrenched ideology in what amounts to an instant. They are also the party that in the past decade in power have relentlessly pursued austerity policies that have been so harmful with such zeal that a UN report stated that that in the UK “poverty is a political choice”. It is also a party that has rabidly pursued the biggest self ball kicking and face punching policy we've ever seen whilst openly declaring that any contrary advice was worthless because they've "had enough of experts". So such a radical change of behaviour is unnerving and its underlying cause should be the discussion point because its certainly not the clickbait, banner headlines and bog roll mania that has caused it. This is not an anti-Tory stance either as I welcome the measures and I'd be equally unnerved by such a radical change from whichever party was in power.

I have to say that this is one of the most cynical and opportunistic threads that I've ever seen on here and I find it morally ambiguous at best. I will of course be checking it regularly to observe the level of decline in public spirit during these dark days so if any of you ghouls see a Leica X Vario in reasonable condition anywhere around or below £500 during these repugnant trawls please make sure you post it here

Again though, its f5.6 so I'm going to feel personally slighted with anything above an f4 particularly on a crop body like the one he was attempting to conceal.

I mean no offence whatsover but there is no way in this or any other lifetime will I be reading anything from that source. Most outlets have some degree of leaning but Breitbart, like several UK outlets, is a bridge too far for me. Sorry.

I have very fond memories of that time there.

This one just reports the company denial and carries none of the counterpoints of the other article. Whether that proves the original feature in Germany's biggest newspaper that carried quotes from government ministers is a hoax or that this is a lightweight re-purposing of a press release without any critical analysis on the part of the author is open to interpretation.

That article reports the denial by the CureVac deputy CEO Franz-Werner Haas. The rest of the article then raises such points as : "But Haas, in a one-hour news conference carried out by telephone, failed to explain why senior German ministers had confirmed — and strongly condemned — such a bid, and why even the company's main investor, Dietmar Hopp, said Monday that he had been informed about a U.S. offer which he then rejected." They then quote Dietmar Hopp as saying "..it is not possible that a German company develops the vaccine and that it is used exclusively in the U.S. That was not an option for me." He added, "[Trump] spoke to the company and they immediately told me and asked me what I thought about it, and I knew immediately that this was out of the question." It then quotes Angela Merkel "Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on Monday that the German government "has dealt very early on" with Trump's reported takeover attempt. She said, in reference to Hopp's statement, that the issue had now been "resolved." And then concludes with this "There are open questions about CureVac's leadership. CEO Daniel Menichella, a U.S. citizen, had to abruptly leave the company after he participated earlier this month in a White House meeting where Trump reportedly approached him with his offer." On balance then, with that sort of input from the main investor and attributable quotes from the actual elected leader of the country, would you not be more inclined to say that that article is more weighted towards casting doubt on the company's denial rather than supporting the idea of it being some sort of hoax? Welcome to the forum by the way.

I can only comment from when I was there but from the moment we stepped off the plane on the way in to the moment we got on the plane home ten days later, every single worker in every single establishment from the airport to restaurants to shops to the railways was wearing a mask. As per the picture I took above, hand santiser was at the entrance/exit to almost every establishment we went to. All events that we were set to go to in Tokyo (the primary one being the CP+ photo show) were cancelled from gigs to sporting events as well as exhibitions/museums and pretty much any place with large enclosed gatherings such as the Skytree etc were closed. When we checked into the hotel, we had our temperature taken, the place was plastered with information in numerous languages and there were unlimited facemasks handed out at reception free of charge as well as the sanitiser outside and inside every elevator. I'd estimate that easily 85-90% of the local population were wearing masks and this rose to more or less 100% on the subway. When we initially arrived, I'd say that probably 75% of western visitors were wearing masks as well but about three days after we arrived this dropped very dramatically over a two day period and was more like 20% or even less by the time we left. I don't think this was through 'concern fatigue' or whatever you want to classify it but was more linked to reports I'd seen in the western media including from the UK government pretty much saying that masks were useless which presumably were then made into concise little info pictures and circulated on social media. It was like every single one of these people had seen this pop up on their social media on the same evening and abandoned their masks immediately. To say I was annoyed about it would be an understatement not least because even in the spirit of unity and support with the local people you'd think people would carry on wearing them but alas not. So in terms of the sort of lockdowns we have in the west now, there was nothing like that at all but what there was in abundance was the government taking decisive action to limit communal gathering opportunities (and closing schools) and the whole population supporting the effort to maintain distance where possible without totally stopping day to day life and all taking responsibility to take the prescribed precautions to avoid contaminating themselves and others. Companies also introduced home working but also slightly staggered shifts to ease the numbers travelling at peak periods. The staggering thing is the low infection rate in Tokyo considering how this virus is spreading everywhere else. Just the 8.5 million subway rides alone that are taken every day in Tokyo would lead you to predict a significantly higher number of cases than the 136 that they have, particularly considering how much longer they have been exposed to the virus there. For context, a single church in a small town in the UK appears to have emerged as a hotspot with around 15% of the same number as the whole of Tokyo has. By the way, the contrast when we arrived back at Madrid airport was stark and very, very frightening where absolutely NO ONE in the airport either official or member of the public was wearing a mask apart from us or employing any kind of distancing. In point of fact up until the point we got locked down here in Spain over a week ago, the only people we saw wearing a mask was each other. As odd as it may seem, that kind of gives me some hope in a way because it can explain the runaway nature of it here versus Japan and how it was contained there as either Japan is lying about its figures or that bouquet of measures and a public that bought into it from day one has proven to be a very effective balance between containment and total reactive lockdown. OK, it would mean that we have missed the boat in terms of doing it by consent if you like but it does offer hope that it can be contained. Because if the reason it has been arrested in Japan isn't due to the actions they took then it throws up something that I don't want to even consider which is that the virus has mutated somehow when it has reached Europe and we are facing something different and, looking at the figures, far worse.

Well its true golden era would probably have been when it was hosting the inaugural Oscars in 1929 so I'm not sure what you are implying about my age there mate I frequented it during 1995 to 2001 so not sure what era that would count as. Doubt it would count as either "golden" or "hip" to have had me staying there. Probably known as its "wilderness era".