But in order to actually fight globalization, we must get rid of the political correctness first.
That rt.com is a Putain-controlled Russian "fake news" website.
So what's your claim here? That what's in that article is false?
No coincidence that the Russia Today (RT) article quotes the statements of a politician from the Sweden Democrats. Thats completely biased, as they do not quote other Swedish politicians or experts – only a politician of a party that hopes to profit from spreading social unrest.
As RealBlackStuff correctly asserted, Russia Today is the Kremlin's propaganda tool. Reading articles there is like reading opinion pieces written by Wladimir Putin himself.
Fine, you wanna close your eyes that's one thing. Problem is that that rt article is a combination of different 4 rt articles. Those 4 different rt articles all link to local (Swedish, UK, French etc) newspapers and reports. So they only gathered what was already publicized by Western entities.
We are facing typical results of the political correctness here. While the RT site is a propaganda tool, you can't deny that some information there are still true but intentionally exaggerated. Some EU representatives lies that there are absolutely no no-go zones in the name of the political correctness, Russian propaganda takes the opportunity. That's typical action and reaction.
If EU representatives stopped to lie, there won't be a room for speculations nor so many cloned propaganda web sites. Unfortunately the result is that you can't trust anyone now (well, it used to be always like that, after all ). If you want to know the truth, you have to go to these areas and see the real situation yourself. A bit sad result considering all the technical development of this century that allows us to watch live news from the other side of the Earth.
@Ibthink: no, things aren't so polarized, there are no clear good and bad ones. Everyone lies on purpose, just have different goals.
If you want to know the truth, you have to go to these areas and see the real situation yourself.
So true. Those politicians live in their own bubble and have no connection with the common people who are suffering under their decisions.
I disagree. There are some obvious good sources of information and some obvious bad ones – and in between both extremes is a lot of grey area. RT is an example for a bad source of information that takes news with a kernel of truth and then twists and spins it to create propaganda.
"Going to the area and see for yourself" is a nice idea, but unrealistic. And even that doesn't truly help you in all cases, because sometimes things are not what they seem to be – you can't truly know unless you investigate and at this point, you have to be an investigative journalist. Add to that that everyone has his own personal bias and humans tend to focus more on information that confirms the views they already have.
In the end, the best option is to select a few sources that are not the obvious bad ones and compare them. If they all report something, chances are that its true.
Last edited by Ibthink on Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RT is an example for a bad source of information that takes news with a kernel of truth and then twists and spins it to create propaganda.
And why it is so successful?
Another reason is that western countries underestimated Russian power. Russia is behind when it comes to new technology development, they aren't able to catch up with latest technologies even in military sector but they're still very good in doing propaganda, so they focused on Internet news and social media. But it wouldn't have been so successful if ... my previous paragraph.
In the end, the best option is to select a view sources that are not the obvious bad ones and compare them. If they all report something, chances are that its true.
just popping in here to say RT is like CNN et al (ex. FOX) here in the USA.. all propaganda all the time..
whether it is soft propaganda or gentle spin or NOT reporting real news or in-your-face propaganda, lies, fake news etc. it is all serving the interests of putin and his cronies..
over here, not to start a war with the never trumpers, trump is doing amazing things in spite of all the DC swamp has arrayed against him..
when i have an hour i'll take a look at this entire thread..
She was the type of person who kept a parrot.
A statement from the Guardia Civil police force in Ceuta said "Some 800 migrants attempted to scale the perimeter fence, attempting to cut through the fence using shears at around 6.45 on Thursday morning. "To prevent officers from approaching the area where the entry attempt was taking place, the migrants used violence including defensive material such as homemade shields and threw tubes and bottles containing excrement and quicklime. The used aerosol cans as flame throwers and sticks and stones as missiles.
Will Merkel invite and accept those? Can I also use violence and bottles containing excrement as an invitation to Germany to get their social security support for years and do no work in return? Which is the only thing those illegal fake migrants are after.
i think this particular issue is spain's problem at least for now..
desperation makes people do desperate things..
if these migrants are desperate..
look at our southern border where people flood in for a good job and sane (more or less) society.. they come for money.. you can't save everyone who needs saving and you can't allow an invasion to go on even if they call it asylum or similar..
if they are only seeking the EU dream (is there one..?) then ship them back..
europe has long been a target for islam since charles martel..
this is only one more skirmish..
as for the EU, i think it is not founded like the USA was in 1776/1789.. we were of a common parentage.. the europeans have been squabbling, or worse, since that roman debacle in a german forest 1800 years ago and 400 years before islam so trying to knit it into a USA-like great nation is going to be troublesome.. just my off-the-cuff thoughts on the matter..
my brother in law, who lives in brighton in a new penthouse apartment is totally unfazed by all the whooo-haw of muslims running amok..
but then he is a socialist so since such craziness as that he deems normal, islamo terrorists will elicit a yawn from him..
when wife was there last month the dinner table became a war zone if she mentioned trump.. hard to fathom how such smart people can be wearing blinders..
AND, that sudanese guy is no immigrant, he is an asylum seeker don't ya know..
On Sunday morning, a woman (28) in the Great Garden was raped by a stranger. The 28-year-old Czech citizen was on his way from Lenné Square through the Great Garden when she first addressed the stranger. He then pushed her to the ground and went to her. The unknown should be about 30 to 40 years old and about 1.90 m tall and strong. He should have a dark complexion and brown eyes. At the time of the crime, the man wore a white shirt and short hair.
When reported by local media they did their best to hide the attacker description, namely the 'dark complexion and brown eyes' part. As usually, as more people in comments pointed out to the original story on the link above they fixed it later. And this is the real danger ... As for 'modus operandi' we can be almost 100% sure who is the attacker.
This is a very interesting topic, and I certainly didn't expect to see one here. It seems most of the ThinkPaders are Thinkers as well. Just want to share my personal experience. I worked for a huge international IT company, had a nice career there, until my boss asked me about my opinion on refugees two years ago. I told him that they are not refugees at all, some of them are economical migrants, most of them are radicals sent here to destroy European societies and values. He called me racist and I lost my job six months after expressing that opinion, followed by extensive backstabbing activities of my boss. And that was about the last time I have thought about working for corporation, as I'm sick and tired of politically correct guys who are trying to make you dumb and blind. Most of the liberals I have met there were just hiding their incompetence behind their mindless liberal views. Others were silent, in order to keep their jobs. I work as an IoT and automation freelancer now, and I'm happy to be - free.
Sure, RT is definitely propaganda, that's written to show Russia's opinion on what's happening... but the thing is that it isn't any more biased than, let's say, the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, France 24 or anything, news outlets have always been political weapons used by whoever's paying, be it a state or a company. I'm not even being critical, it would be like being critical of rain when saying it's wet ; it's just why media exists.
According to police, an initial verbal dispute between people of several nationalities led to the assault. Initial information, according to which men rushed to the aid of a woman who had been sexually harassed, denied the police department Chemnitz on Sunday morning.
As police spokeswoman Jana Ulbricht announced, both the dead and the two injured men have a German nationality. The nationality of the two arrested 22- and 23-year-olds will not be announced because it is not yet clear whether they are even in connection with the incident.
"In Berlin, 70 per cent of newly hired primary school teachers are without any educational background," he told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. He added that a "whole generation" of school pupils will be harmed by the shortage.
The job has become more demanding, with bigger classes being filled with children who are at different levels, Ms Tepe said. Many children also have language difficulties, she said. As a result, a lot of new teachers don't last long in the profession.
No solution until the whole truth is said.
well, you guys let "them" in.. at least here we have a president who can see the danger..
which is why the democrat liberal progressives all hate him..
islam and democrat liberal progressiveism are one and the same.. both insist on total control of everyone except their elites.. islamists call their elites "mullahs" and here our elites are movie actors of limited talent, politicians of extreme belligerence and google employees and owners..
well, you guys let "them" in..
i must say we didn't let them in. this was fostered from way up. try noticing how hard you're being effed by the upper echelons/decision makers or organizing yourselves while working fulltime. it's impossible. and that's by design. you think people had a say in this?
According to Lesvos News, the placement of the cross caused negative reactions from aid organisations and a letter was sent to the Harbour Minister of Lesvos and the Mayor of Lesvos, by a coexistence group in Lesvos, stating the Cross was placed there to prevent migrants from swimming.
So, the cross, which is "a symbol of love and sacrifice", merely by its presence, becomes a symbol of "racism and intolerance". What is the manifestation of racism and intolerance? The presence of the cross itself.
Think about it for half a minute.
In Russian there is a saying, which essentially means "to make something up (fabricate) and then take offense at that". I would say this saying suits the situation well, if I had not not known the situation to be an expression of much more serious, grave issues".
Also notice the island's name: Lesvos with a v.
Not too long ago, and for centuries, if not millennia, it was called: Lesbos with a b.
But I guess that was "too insulting to women..."
Apparently beta ("b" in English) is pronunced with the English sound of "v" so however you spell it in non-Greek characters, it is pronounced as "lesvos". I only know this because my aunt lived in Athens for 35 years and taught English to Greek students. So not really a nepharious reason for multiple spellings. Maybe there is a Greek on board who knows better than I.
Ahem...that very island of Lesbos has its name in the root of the word "lesbian"...so I guess something has changed for reasons unknown.


text:
Q: C# WinForms: An unhandled exception of type 'System.IO.IOException' occurred We have a project to do a program to add and remove universities and had five universities inside our .txt file to show them in our ComboBox.
But it doesn`t work and shows this error:

An unhandled exception of type 'System.IO.IOException' occurred in mscorlib.dll

Note: It's a Windows Form.
So here's the code:
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    university[] univ = new university[10];
    struct university
    {
      public string uni;
      public string prov;
      public string city;
      public string population;
      public string programs;
      public string tuition;
      public string residence;
    }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void pictureBox4_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("If you want to check the infomation, click on the combo box and then choose the University of your choice.\n- Click the black button to add a university to the list after filling in everything. \n- Click the red button to remove a university after selecting it.");
    }

    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("Universities.txt"); // object
        String line;
        try
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < univ.Length; i++)
            {
                line = sr.ReadLine();
                string[] sPlit = line.Split(',');
                univ[i].uni = sPlit[0];
                univ[i].prov = sPlit[1];
                univ[i].city = sPlit[2];
                univ[i].population = sPlit[3];
                univ[i].programs = sPlit[4];
                univ[i].tuition = sPlit[5];
                univ[i].residence = sPlit[6];
                comboBox1.Items.Add(univ[i].uni);
            }
            sr.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception p)   //catches errors
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Exception: " + p.Message);
        }
        finally               //final statement before closing
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Executing finally block.");
        }
    }

    private void comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (comboBox1.SelectedIndex == 0)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources._1;
            listBox1.Items.Add("Province: " + univ[0].prov);
            listBox1.Items.Add("City: " + univ[0].city);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Population: " + univ[0].population);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Programs: " + univ[0].programs);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuition: $" + univ[0].tuition);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Residence: $" + univ[0].residence);
        }
        else if (comboBox1.SelectedIndex == 1)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources._2;
            listBox1.Items.Add("Province: " + univ[1].prov);
            listBox1.Items.Add("City: " + univ[1].city);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Population: " + univ[1].population);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Programs: " + univ[1].programs);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuition: $" + univ[1].tuition);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Residence: $" + univ[1].residence);
        }
        else if (comboBox1.SelectedIndex == 2)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources._3;
            listBox1.Items.Add("Province: " + univ[2].prov);
            listBox1.Items.Add("City: " + univ[2].city);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Population: " + univ[2].population);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Programs: " + univ[2].programs);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuition: $" + univ[2].tuition);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Residence: $" + univ[2].residence);
        }
        else if (comboBox1.SelectedIndex == 3)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources._4;
            listBox1.Items.Add("Province: " + univ[3].prov);
            listBox1.Items.Add("City: " + univ[3].city);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Population: " + univ[3].population);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Programs: " + univ[3].programs);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuition: $" + univ[3].tuition);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Residence: $" + univ[3].residence);
        }
        else if (comboBox1.SelectedIndex == 4)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources._5;
            listBox1.Items.Add("Province: " + univ[4].prov);
            listBox1.Items.Add("City: " + univ[4].city);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Population: " + univ[4].population);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Programs: " + univ[4].programs);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuition: $" + univ[4].tuition);
            listBox1.Items.Add("Residence: $" + univ[4].residence);
        }
        else
        {
            pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources.noimage;
            listBox1.Items.Clear();
        }
    }

    private void listView1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void listBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label9_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label8_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label7_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label6_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label5_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label4_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void label3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox8_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox7_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox6_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox5_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox4_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox3_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox2_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void textBox1_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }

    private void AddButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        int u = 4;
        int p = 4;
        int c = 4;
        int pop = 4;
        int pro = 4;
        int t = 4;
        int r = 4;
        univ[u+1].uni =  textBox1.Text;
        univ[p + 1].prov = textBox2.Text ;
        univ[c + 1].city =  textBox3.Text ;
        univ[pop + 1].population = textBox4.Text ;
        univ[pro + 1].programs =  textBox5.Text;
        univ[t + 1].tuition = textBox6.Text;
        univ[r + 1].residence = textBox7.Text ;
        StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter("Universities.txt", true);
        String line;
        line = Console.ReadLine();

        sw.WriteLine(univ[u + 1].uni + ", " + univ[p + 1].prov + ", " + univ[c + 1].city + ", " + univ[pop + 1].population + "," + univ[pro + 1].programs
            + ", " + univ[t + 1].tuition + "," + univ[r + 1].residence + ",");
        MessageBox.Show("A University has been added.");
        sw.Close();
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("There are " + comboBox1.Items.Count + " universities.");

    }
}
}

A:     try
            {
                // Create an instance of StreamReader to read from a file.
                // The using statement also closes the StreamReader.
                using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("TestFile.txt"))
                {
                    string line;
                    // Read and display lines from the file until the end of
                    // the file is reached.
                    while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
                    {
                        //your code goes here
                string[] sPlit = line.Split(',');
                univ[i].uni = sPlit[0];
                univ[i].prov = sPlit[1];
                univ[i].city = sPlit[2];
                univ[i].population = sPlit[3];
                univ[i].programs = sPlit[4];
                univ[i].tuition = sPlit[5];
                univ[i].residence = sPlit[6];
                comboBox1.Items.Add(univ[i].uni);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception p) //catches errors
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Exception: " + p.Message);
        }
        finally //final statement before closing
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Executing finally block.");
        }

Hope Helps

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We returned home on Friday and want to thank you for such an amazing trip. Victor, our driver, was superb. He took care of whatever we needed and made sure we were safe and got to our hotels on time. The accommodations were wonderful. We enjoyed the variety, the quaintness, and great service. We truly enjoyed every aspect of our trip. The afternoon tour of Finnesterre was the perfect ending, and we were happy we included it. Our tour guide in Santiago was also terrific. The restaurant in Santiago was also top notch, and the staff was superb, and spoke English.
Thanks again, and please let us know if we can help other prospective clients as we are happy to recommend you and the trip.


text:
Moby Dick (2011) Trailer
Posted at 9:10 AM (PST) on Thursday, December 23, 2010
Release Date: TBA
Gillian becomes an Honorary Associate of LFS
Posted at 8:47 AM (PST) on Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Gillian Anderson, Jack Gold become Honorary Associates of The London Film School
By Wendy Mitchell
Screendaily.com
Mike Leigh and LFS director Ben Gibson to present awards at graduation ceremony on Friday.
Actress Gillian Anderson and director Jack Gold will be named Honorary Associates of The London Film School at the School's annual graduation ceremony at the National Gallery on Friday.
Previous recipients of the honour include Stephen Frears, Lynne Ramsay, Pawel Pawlikowski, Mike Figgis, Abbas Kiarostami, Amma Asante, Jeremy Thomas, Tessa Ross, Samantha Morton and Jim Broadbent.
LFS chairman and Associate Mike Leigh and director Ben Gibson will present the awards. Chrissy Bright, a staff member for 21 years, will also be awarded an Honorary Associateship on her retirement.
Anderson and Gold will then award Associateships to 68 graduates of the School's MA Filmmaking, MA Screenwriting and Fast Forward programmes.
Anderson, whose father attended LFS, said: "I certainly do not feel as if my work thus far has warranted this honour but I can promise that I will do my very best to live up to it in the years ahead."
Jack Gold replied, "What an honour and privilege to become an Honorary Associate of The London Film School. I've been involved with the school for over 40 years and I'm constantly full of admiration for, and excitement about, the accomplishments by its students".
Meanwhile, Gibson was recently honoured with France's Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
To request a place at the LFS Annual Show, email Kate Hughes k.hughes@lfs.org.uk
Much more at The Fan Carpet.
German Fundraiser for Buskaid
The X-Philanthropy group in Germany is having an online auction to raise funds for another one of Gillian's favorite charities, Buskaid.
You may bid on 2 Buskaid Crew T-Shirts which have been signed by Gillian for this fundraiser.
They also have four remaining X-Files "Don't give up" pins. Only 200 of these pins were made. David Duchovny, Gillian, Frank Spotnitz and Dean Haglund each have one. This is your chance to get the last pins!
Click here to view the items and bid.
Auction ends on December 15.
Aussie Fundraiser: ONE more item!
Posted at 6:56 PM (PST) on Sunday, December 5, 2010
It's a "The Break of Noon" Playbill signed by David Duchovny. Gillian surprised him on opening night (see November 23 post below).
All proceeds from this auction will benefit the Alinyiikira Junior School of Uganda.
Aussie X-Files Fans @ Facebook
Thank you very much for your continued support!
Harp and Soul Hosts Fundraiser for NF, Inc.
Posted at 8:52 AM (PST) on Saturday, December 4, 2010
Set the tone from comfort to celebration for your family gathering. These classic Christmas songs offer a relaxing experience that will touch the hearts of all ages.
Harpist Heather Cullins was born with Neurofibromatosis Type 1(NF). She has overcome a host of challenges associated with NF including becoming an accomplished harpist with over 28 years of experience. The proceeds of Heather's first Christmas CD will be donated to NF, Inc. in order to raise awareness, find a treatment, and eventual cure for people that are affected by Neurofibromatosis.
The CD makes a great Christmas gift or stocking stuffer, and is a wonderful inspiration for anyone. To purchase a copy of Heather's CD and to support NF, Inc., click here.
Harp and Soul
OTSK Wristbands Christmas Challenge
Sales of OTSK's charity wristbands for its FSI Christmas Challenge are going well, and they are very grateful to those of you who have already purchased one, or more, Thank you!
However, OTSK still need your help to complete their challenge! For the cost of just £2.50 (the equivalent in your country) you would be showing your support to OTSK by purchasing a wristband and writing a message of hope on the reverse side. By taking just a few minutes out of your busy life to do this, the message of hope you send to OTSK, or one of their Mentee's is sure to leave a lasting impression, so please don't delay and send an email to wristbands@otsk.org.
Thank you so much for your continued support!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
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text:
Local Boy, Girl Scouts collect goods for…
Local Boy, Girl Scouts collect goods for Woodland Food Closet
By Jessica Smith | Special to The Democrfat
PUBLISHED: November 14, 2010 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 30, 2018 at 12:00 a.m.
Woodland area Boy and Girl Scouts were out Saturday collecting non-perishable goods, bags and boxes full of food for the Woodland Food Closet, and help kick-start the 15th Annual Season of Caring campaign.
The campaign will continue through Christmas.
Gaye Nakken, the executive director of the Woodland Food Closet, appreciates the Scout"s efforts every year.
"The donations they collect last us through the spring," she said Saturday morning.
The Food Closest is just beginning its annual "Season of Caring" campaign with a monetary goal of $20,000, the same goal it has made in past years.
The Daily Democrat is assisting the Food Closet in its collection efforts this year, as it has in the past, with insertion of a collection envelope in the Tuesday paper.
On Saturday, 15 troops of Boy and Girl scouts left the Boy Scout Cabin on Lincoln Avenue to start picking up food donations people had left on their doorstep at 9 a.m., hopeful to return with donations.
"It"s a nice day today, and that always helps when we have drives like this," said Thomas Krabcher, one of the leaders of Troop 131.
By 10:30 a.m., the cars were coming back and Scouts picked a spot in the lodge to start organizing their pick-ups by type of food donated, whether dry soup or canned tomatoes, or salad dressing, and everything else in-between. The boxes were then loaded onto pallets and wrapped in plastic for moving.
Everything moved frantically for half an hour before troops left to finish picking up food in their designated precincts, and a lull set in while volunteers loaded up the pallets and moved away empty shopping bags. By 1 p.m., more troops were arriving with their donations.
The Food Closet does not have enough space to accommodate all of the donations received, and space is provided by Pioneer Seed storage during the rest of the year.
Last year the Scouts hoped to gather as many as 10,000 cans, and this year, they reported that they managed to collect at least 11,000 cans of food, possibly more.
The Season of Caring is important to the Food Closet, as the continued downturn in the economy means that people often can afford to give less to charities, but the need for charitable giving continues to grow.
The Daily Democrat will continue to cover the Food Closet"s Season of Caring, to provide for the local families in Woodland in need of food year round.


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Tag Archives: Kevin Love
The Most Entertaining Team in the NBA
By chappy81
At the beginning of the year, I figured a post with this title would be about the Lob City Clips or even perhaps the Miami Heatles, but for some reason that hasn't been the case. Many of you, including myself, probably lost your free preview of the NBA league pass over the weekend. The first thing that popped into my head was, I can't believe I watched at least part of every Timberwolves game for the first two weeks of the season, and might not get to see them again this year since I doubt they have very many nationally televised games. I even watched them over the Warriors on a few occasions, that's how damn entertaining they were. Are they going to be a surprise playoff team? Probably not, but that's not always why I watch hoops. Being a Warriors fan, I usually just want to be entertained since it's not always in the cards that my team will win. Anyways, anytime the Wolves are on nationally, you can bet I'll be watching. The longtime laughing stocks of the league actually have a solid core of players that are fun to watch with lots of story lines to go around.
The Best White Guy in the NBA (Kevin Love). What's not to like about Love and his energy for the game. Even his All-Star pitch last season was funny. Last year for some ungodly reason he didn't even crack the starting lineup while posting double doubles nightly for the first part of the season. Luckily that was quickly corrected, and we got to see this beast do his 110% effort thing from the opening tip.
The Highly Entertaining First Year Euro Player (Ricky Rubio). I remember ripping him pretty good a few times in our e-mail chains dating back through the last couple of years he stayed over in Spain. We've probably had at least 100 e-mails back and forth arguing about whether he'd play here or not. It seemed unfathomable how his game would translate to the NBA when he was sitting at something like 6 PPG and 4 APG last season and only coming off the bench in SPAIN, but after seeing him play these two NBA league pass filled weeks, I'm fully sold on his prospects to be the next Steve Nash. It's been funny to watch him bounce passes off teammates faces when they weren't ready to catch one of his fancy passes. He is truly a wizard with the ball in his hands.
My College Player Mancrush from Last Season (Derrick Williams). I still don't see how this guy doesn't end up being a stud in the league for a long time. He's shown a few flashes here and there already, but hasn't really played a ton of minutes to showcase all his talents. Maybe now that Beasley's hurt he'll earn a spot in the starting rotation. I pretty much fell for him during the Pac-10 tournament last year, and will stick by him until he turns into a bigtime player.
Super Talented Headcases (Anthony Randolph and Michael Beasley). Anyone out there that's played fantasy hoops or been a Warriors fan knows how frustrating it is to watch or have Anthony Randolph on your team. He makes a great block and rebound then dribbles down the court faster than everyone only to throw it out of bounds. You see the good stuff and think this guy could be great, but then he inexplicably does stupid things that he should've learned during High School. Beasley's idiocy has been well chronic(led). You never know what you're going to get from either guy from a production standpoint, but when they seem to care their potential seems limitless.
Major Draft Bust (Darko Milicic). The man infamously picked in front of Melo, Wade, and Bosh. The funny part about him though, is he might actually have a better career than 2007 #1 pick, Greg Oden! After landing on his fifth team in nine seasons, he actually played decent in Minnesota last season, and parlayed that into a 4 year $20M contract that I thought was atrocious at the time, but if there's one thing you can't teach it's 7 feet, and as much as I hated the Warriors signing Kwame, a 7-footer does make a difference in the paint.
Even More White Guys (JJ Barea, Brian Cardinal, Luke Ridnour, and Brad Miller). Honestly, I can't remember a team with seven of it's twelve roster spots going to five white guys and two white Euro guys. Well, at least in my existence I'm sure there were plenty in the peach picker basket days. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a roster with more than three white guys on the team…
16 Comments	| tags: anthony randolph, basketball, darko milicic, Derrick Williams, Entertaining, exciting, good team, Kevin Love, lots of white guys, Michael Beasley, minnesota timberwolves, NBA, Ricky Rubio, solid core	| posted in Sports
Dorell's MIP Case
Nope, Dorell Wright didn't get a minor in possession. He's 25 years old, so there's no way he could even get one at this point. Dorell isn't a household name, and unless you were a Heat or Warriors fan you still might not know that he even exists. The Warriors acquired him over the offseason for the next three years at a fairly cheap $11M. I had no idea what we got when we signed him, and have been in many a texting frenzies with the blog mates on how awesome he is for many of the Dubs games this year. I thought he was more of a defensive guy since all the reports that I read said that's all he really was at the time the Warriors acquired him. Somehow, some way, he's morphed into a knock down shooter (in best Mark Jackson voice). He currently leads the NBA in three pointers made (85), and is making up for the scoring punch to ab offense that lost Morrow, Azubuike, and Maggette this past season. So far this season, Dorell has gone up in every major category making him my hometown bias pick for, the most improved player. As his minutes went from 20 to nearly 39 per game he has doubled up in his averages in every major category. His points have more than doubled (7.1 to 15.7). His rebounds have nearly doubled from (3.3 to 6.2). His assists have more than doubled going from (1.3 to 3.1). His steals have gone up from (0.7 to 1.4). People might knock his field goal % dropping 5 points, but my reasoning for that is he's taking a ton of threes (averaging 6 per game), which would lower anyone's percentages a little. With all those threes he's taking, he is 27th in the league in 3PT percentage, which makes me not care that his FG% overall has taken a little dip. There's no signs of him slowing down since the W's have no bench. Another reason to hand the award to Dorell is that he came out of nowhere to relevance this season. All the other guys I'm about to mention were all at least relatively known at the beginning of the year.
I guess there are some other candidates out there, but in my eyes none of them have improved from last season to this season as much as Dorell, but here are some that I think are in the running. Kevin Love is a beast that should be considered for the award, but at the same time we saw some of what he's doing this year towards the end of last year, so does that really count as improved now that he's getting the minutes and already showed us that he could do this? I say no, but it's arguable. Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose are on the same plane in my book. Rose has had an amazing season, and shown that he is indeed fantasy relevant instead of just a good player he has been boosting his stats in nearly every area. Westbrook developed a jumper this summer and is scoring more, but both of these guys were stars already, and I commend them for their improvement, but it just isn't significant enough of an improvement to earn the MIP award. I'd put Raymond Felton slightly above them, because he is improving tremendously in every category much like Dorell, but being in D'antoni's system jumpstarted that more than anything. We all knew that Felton was solid, just not this good. An honorable mention for a guy on the radar is Paul Millsap. He started off the first month of the season like he was going to win the award, but has fallen back to earth a little now that Al Jefferson has figured out the Utah offense, and mans the post keeping Paul away from this award. Michael Beasley also made the honorable mention list. He was a bust in Miami, and now is a main cog in Minnesota and hasn't had any legal troubles thus far. If he keeps it up he should be on the list with his teammate.
28 Comments	| tags: Awards, basketball, derrick rose, Dorell Wright, golden state warriors, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, MIP, most improved player, NBA, paul millsap, Raymond Felton, Russell Westbrook	| posted in Sports
NBA Fast Break!
By By
Just some quick thoughts on the young NBA season …
Despite getting absolutely destroyed by Chicago tonight, my Golden State Warriors currently hold a 6-3 record going into Saturday's game in Milwaukee. Things to note: Keith Smart appears to be an excellent coach, who seems to understand today's players. Steph Curry has not fallen into the Sophomore slump. David Lee is the right acquisition for this team. Dorrell Wright is the perfect acquisition for this team. And finally, the team chemistry is at an all time high. I love this squad. All praise the "Smart" era!
If the Heat crowd consisted of this 24/7, I might change my tune.
Coming into the season, all the talk was about the Miami Heat, and rightfully so. They assembled a baby "Dream Team". Well, they're currently 5-4 (not as good as the Warriors) and show no signs of being capable of beating Boston. But, the most shocking thing to me about Miami is, well, they're boring to watch. LeBron and Wade are a highlight reel waiting to happen but without a soundtrack. What I mean by that is their crowd is weak. LeBron's posterizing dunks will never quite be the same without the Cleveland crowd behind him. I'm sorry Miami, I'm sure there are some real Heat fans out there, but they're currently not in the stands.
PS – Chris Bosh plays defense like he's still at the beach, just enjoying the view …
Free Kevin Love!
David Kahn is probably the worse President in basketball. I take that back, that's an understatement. David Kahn is absolutely the worse president in basketball. So it's fitting he's hired, and kept the worse coach in basketball in Kurt Rambis, employed. Here's an "NBA Coaching For Dummies" tip for you Rambis, play your best player. I don't know what Kevin Love's done to Rambis behind closed doors, perhaps a Delonte/LeBron situation but involving his daughter, but whatever the case, Rambis can't be limiting Love's minutes due to "lack of defense". If that were the case, Michael Beasley should be riding the pine right next to him. Of course, I wouldn't be concerned about what's going on in Minnesota, had I not drafted Kevin Love as a keeper in my fantasy league.
M.V.Pau!
Could the Lakers be attempting to chase down history? Some people, including myself thought the Heat would be challenging the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls for ultimate team supremacy and bragging rights, by eclipsing Chicago's 72 wins season. Well we got the wrong team. It's the Lakers laying down the foundation towards team immortality. Why didn't I see the signs? Phil's last run. Kobe's competitive nature. I'm sure the moment LeBron announced his plans to hit the W on South Beach, Kobe hit the gym. Plus, Pau Gasol has emerged as the best player on this team, and in the league. Yes I said it. That title has belonged to him ever since the NBA Finals two seasons ago. He was robbed of a Finals' MVP trophy last season. The Lakers are so good, and so deep, they can cut Andrew Bynum and be O.K. Name another team that could do the same.
John Wall and Blake Griffin are fresh, new and exciting! Like seeing Tony Hawk execute the 900 during the first X Games exciting! At this point, I don't see either the Wizards or the Clippers making a playoff push, but the race for Rookie of the Year will only continue to heat up! When it's all said and done, I believe John Wall will edge out Griffin due to the fact that he can do the feminine version of the "Dougie".
Here …
PS – He dances like a girl.
8 Comments	| tags: basketball, blake griffin, David Kahn, golden state warriors, John Wall, Kevin Love, los angeles lakers, Miami Heat, minnesota timberwolves, NBA, rookie of the year, ROY	| posted in Sports
Feelin the FIBA Championship More Than I Thought
I really didn't think I'd get into the FIBA championship this year, but surprisingly I've caught at least a little bit of each game. Either when they decided televise them 12 hours after they happened on NBATV, or on ESPN3 when I'm at work, and not so busy. As much as I was unimpressed with the names on the squad we put together, I was very impressed with how well they've come together over the past month. If you watched their first game and last game, you'd see a dramatic improvement. They finally looked comfortable together against Angola, and sent them back to their country. I was surprised to find that the U.S. was not the favorite to win the title. I guess not winning the tourney since 1994 is a good reason for them to be ranked lower, but still, shouldn't the country that invented the game be the favorite even with the rules being much different than the NBA? I'd think so, and even with the B squad they should beat down the competition. Continue reading
8 Comments	| tags: championship, elimination, FIBA, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, medals, NBA, Rudy Gay, Stephen Curry, World Basketball	| posted in Sports
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Every ice age had its interstadials, periods when the earth, warmd up, vegetation grew, and animals returned to the land.
As I write this it is snowing, yet a week ago the skylark was silvering the sky with song, and five buzzards were having a game of tag over the oak wood where in the past I have found an eyrie.
Trim mergansers were neck jerking to their dowdy mates that morning while golden eye were busily backheeling water over their backs in time to clownish head movements. Teal were yelping and wigeon by the hundred whistling. Spring, it seemed, had arrived after a week of keen frost, heavy snow and severe floods.
It certainly felt that way when I set off with my wife, bound for Galloway. The warmth of the sun through the car windows, and the velvet sheen on the rolling Ayrshire down lands lulled one into forgetfulness of the black ice still lurking in shadowy places after a night of clear sky.
It was great to see the dark hump of Ailsa Craig and the peaks of Arran softly gleaming with new snow.
I love the atmosphere of South-western Scotland with its attractive villages – St John's Town of Dairy, New Galloway, Gatehouse of Fleet and the rest – and I could have stopped often there was so much to see.
But there was no time to stand and stare at the forest tide of dark green breaking over the foothills of high Galloway, for I was due on the platform at 3.30 p.m. to give a talk at the Annual Week-end Conference of Young Farmers' Clubs, whose theme was "Beyond Our Ken". My job was to present a panoramic view of Scotland to about 300 lads and lassies gathered together from the Clyde area to the Solway.
They were a responsive and cheery crowd, and it would have been grand to stay with them at Gatehouse and join them for dinner and a dance, but we had accepted an invitation from my old climbing pal, Professor Sir Robert Grieve, to spend the night in his new home at Cairnryan, so off we went.
The beginning of that 40-mile drive was memorable for the splendour of Wigtown Bay, dyed crimson in the fire of the west where the sun had set.
The ebony black peninsula blocking the bay was Rurrowhead, near whose tip a Briton by the name of Ninian set up the first Christian church in Scotland in the fourth century, Candida Casa, the white house.
Over there, too, above the gravelly shore, is the cave which was the special retreat of this very first Scottish saint.
The pleasurable part of the drive west ended at Newton Stewart when I was faced with the uncomfortable surprise of one heavy vehicle after another in a constant stream blinding me with their lights. It was traffic from Ireland. I had not realised that Cairnryan is now the main port of entry to Scotland and that a steady shuttle service of ships serves the port night and day.
My instructions were to head north up the Girvan road towards Glen App. And soon there was Bob, happed up in anorak and woolly hat, on the lookout.
Bob, having retired from chairmanship of the Highland Development Board and his Glasgow University job, moved here two years ago to enjoy a bit of sailing, bird watching, hillwalking, and to do some writing.
In the past month he and I had been out on the Loch Lomond lulls when he stayed with us at Gartocharn, and on another week-end in Edinburgh we had scrambled on Arthur's Seat and birdwatched on the Forth. Now he was telling us how much we had missed by not getting here in time for the sunset and the light of Ireland and the Mull of Kintyre seen over pink Loch Ryan.
Well, that was a great night, a fine meal, and grand company which included Robin Grieve (no relation to Sir Robert). He is a local doctor who as a student used to be in the popular BBC radio programme Down at the Mains. He played the part of Tam Scott, Farmer Scott's son.
I learned a lot about the South west that night, aye and in the morning, too, for it was 3 a.m. before I got to bed. So there was no stirring until after nine, and very little point either, for the rain was battering the window of the high, perched house whose garden ends in a virtual cliff.
Sitting above four acres of steeply terraced garden and woodland, the house is just the right size for a retired couple, and there are such spacious views that you don't have to go outside to see what is happening.
By lunch time the rain was slackening and the temperature was dropping as we set off north up the coast.
"It's surprising how quickly you're in the wilds here," said Bob as we crossed the App burn where it entered the sea and climbed up the rocks towards a sheep path edging the cliff-top.
Uncertainly did, as we looked down precipitous cliffs from which rose flocks of rock doves, while above us mountain hares, still in white, scurried over the heather. On one side we had eiders and cormorants and screaming herring gulls, and on the other meadow pipits and redwings. Leaving the sea to climb over the top we passed stone-covered green mounds, forts or burial cairns of ancient man dating long before St Ninian.
Then down into the shelter of Glen App and its woods.
That's the joy of being an outdoor man. Life can never grow stale. Bob loves the Highlands as much as he does Galloway and he could be happy in either place, but he and May like to be near his daughter and grandchildren, so he has opted for here.
He still has a busy public life for he serves on various committees including the Mountaineering Council for Scotland of which he is chairman.
I knew the Council had been objecting to a proposed helicopter service from Aviemore for joy rides into the Cairngorms, and I told Bob I had been glad to know they fought against the proposal. I had written a personal letter to the Highland Regional Council before they approved the application hoping it would help have the application rejected.
Other bodies who objected were the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Association, the Strathspey Conservation Group, the Countryside Commission for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council whose job it is to manage an area of out-standing scenic and wildlife importance. A well-attended meeting of local people voted with a two-thirds majority against the proposal.
The Regional Council chose to ignore these objections and give the all-clear to Travel Centre (Norwich), Ltd. And they did so only a day or so after mountain rescuers brought down a pilot and film cameraman suffering from exposure after their helicopter had been forced down on Loch Avon.
Television film a few days later showed a larger helicopter retrieving the first one in a difficult operation.
Approval of this application is all the more retrograde when you consider that the reason why the summit bothies were removed from the Cairngorms was because they were a temptation to climbers who might go up there depending upon them, and perhaps freeze to death like the six members of an Edinburgh school party who failed to find the Curran bothy.
It is my view that anyone who goes into the heart of the Cairngorms should pay the capital price of foot poundage, which is harder currency than sterling. Consider that skiers with cash could be dumped on the top of Braeriach or Ben Macdhui in a few minutes flying time, irrespective of their ability to cope with the biggest plateau in Scotland. This service could send the accident rate shooting up.
The operators say their helicopters would be available for mountain rescue if required. I would demand that the operating company be made to pay for all searches and rescues occurring as a result of their dropping clients in the wilderness area of the Cairngorms. Unfortunately, it is the ratepayers who have to foot the bill and mountain rescue teams who do all the hard work.
But that is only one side of the story. What about summer-time when thousands of campers and caravanners are enjoying the Glen more Forest Park? They go for the peace of the place, not to endure the noise of helicopters making three and four-minute circuits from 10.30 to 12.30, and from 13.30 to 15.30 five days out of seven. The service is not only against the interests of the majority of Cairngorm lovers, but to my knowledge no one is asking for the service other than the operators.
There is a point of principle at stake. Loneliness and silence are important ingredients in the magic of the Cairngorm plateau and its huge corries where snowfields rarely melt. This is the only fragment of the Arctic in Britain, in its plant and bird associations, with glens of ancient pines where merlin, golden eagle and greenshank are free from disturbance because of remoteness.
Conservation depends upon the balance of accessibility and in-accessibility. Landowners in the Cairngorms have already breached this principle by driving roads over the high tops for deer-stalking. Chair-lifts and ski-tows have brought the northern corries within easy reach of the multitude. I deplore the first, while welcoming the second. It is good that anyone is enabled to enjoy a part of the Cairngorm experience without physical toil which may be beyond them.
But something is lost for ever if the wild is taken out of wilderness. The erosion of the Cairngorms has gone far enough. We have to be firm about these helicopters because the time is coming when a new generation of tracked vehicles will arise, capable of travelling anywhere on snow or on heather. The principle of absolute conservation must be upheld or areas of outstanding landscape value like the Cairngorms could be seriously degraded. Vehicles of any sort should be barred.
The Secretary of State for Scotland is bound to have the final say before the helicopter service can start operating, even for the trial year which has been proposed. He should be left in no doubt as to the strength of feeling. He must be influenced by the fact that the area is protected by a National Park Direction Order, and that the wilderness between the Spey and the Dee is amongst the best wild-life regions in the whole of Europe.
When the melting snow was sending a fine flood down the burns, I went out to Campsie Glen for a scramble up Jacob's Ladder to see again the variety of waterfalls and spouts that made this one of the best-loved places in Scotland, when Campsie had a railway station served by the Kirkintilloch and Aberfoyle lines. For working-class excursionists of my mother's generation, this was the closest Highland scenery to Glasgow.
That day I made it my business to find out something about the Clachan of Campsie at its foot. A native of the place not only put me in the picture but took me to a large, rectangular depression beside the burnside.
"That was a pit which could be filled with water from the burn, and it was used to ferment the tlax when this was a weaving village of about 20 houses. Wee as the Clachan is, it had the parish church for the whole neighbourhood.
"Take a look in the churchyard," he said. "The tradition is that St Clachan settled at Campsie in the 9th century, and founded a kirk which became the parish church for the neighbourhood until it was replaced by one at Lennox town in 1829. So all we have here now is an ivy-covered ruin and a belfry surrounded by ancient tombstones, including one of a murdered minister, the Rev. John Collins, who was waylaid by the Laird of Balglass so that he could take over the parson's beautiful wife.
It was grand to meet such a well- informed man. As I came down to the old road, intending to walk it to Lennoxtown, I saw I was being watched by another man who advised me against it.
"The right of way was closed years ago, and you'll be turned back," he warned me. And having said so, he launched into the story of Lennoxtown.
Those were the days when I first knew Lennoxtown, and then its dereliction was too much like Glasgow for my taste. I saw it as the eyesore of the Campsies. Today I see it differently, for it's a little town with a line setting. Its main source of employment is Lennox Hospital, within the policies of Lennox Castle, the former home of the Kincaid Lennox family, whose connections go back to the 10th century. The hospital provides about 600 jobs, with another 400 in the railworks and pulp container firm.
On the way home I visited, for old times' sake, the former Campsie Glen Railway Station, now a dwelling-house, and behind it I took the grassy track that used to carry the line. It skirts the hospital grounds and follows the "Crooked Strath" past Fin Glen and the Spout of Ballagan to emerge in Strathblane in the country of volcanic necks.
For people in the Glasgow area this wee trip round the Campsies makes a grand and not very strenuous outing, using the bus to Campsie Glen, and returning from Strathblane. Services are good in both directions. If you would like a view stretching from Ailsa Craig and the Loch Lomond hills to Ben More and Stobinian and Ben Vorlich, let me recommend Drumgoyne, easily reached from the Blanefield War Memorial. Just walk up the pipe track, or take in Slackdlru on the way.


The Stars have been very impressive in the last few games (despite the lackluster 1st period and the "coasting home" 3rd period in Phoenix). Believe it or not, but the loss of Brad Richards for this stretch my end up being what gets the Stars into the second round of the playoffs (assuming they can qualify in the first place). The confidence that comes with winning without your biggest star goes a long way towards helping you be better when that star returns (vs. falling back into old habits).
That's a popular phrase these days on the tips of the tongue's of Dallas Stars fans, and why not? A 4-0-1 stretch including dramatic finishes and big wins over high quality opponents has Dallas fans pumped about what the future may bring: Hopefully a playoff round.
The assumption from everyone in Stars-land these days is that Brad Richards will swoop back in any time now and help lift the enormous weight that now rests on the shoulders of only a few, mainly Jamie Benn, Kari Lehtonen, Alex Goligoski and Stephane Robidas.
Be it Doug Miller or Mark Cuban or Santa Claus. The next few years hang in the balance. An elite player like Brad Richards who actually likes the city he's in and is willing to stay if new ownership comes along… gotta make it happen.
Dallas Stars Sale: Conflicting Reports on Doug Miller Offer – Defending Big D.


text:
We May Have Snakes To Thank For Our Acute Vision
Barbara J. King
Next time you run into an African bush viper like this one, be thankful for your forward-facing eyes. (iStockphoto)
In a new paper published in the journal Primates, author William C. McGrew, a former professor of evolutionary primatology at the University of Cambridge, reports a high rate of venomous snake encounters by his team of primatologists seeking to observe unhabituated wild chimpanzees in Mount Assirik, Senegal, West Africa.
McGrew's snake-encounter analysis in the paper Snakes as hazards: modelling risk by chasing chimpanzees is one test of what's known as the snake-detection theory of primate origins, a set of hypotheses that suggest we (along with other primates) owe certain features of our evolution to the risks posed by death and injury from snakes.
During the 609 days that make up the core period of the analysis, McGrew and his team encountered a snake in Assirik, on average, once every 4.3 days — totaling 132 snake encounters. During the entire study period of four years, 142 snakes of 14 different species were identified. Of these, 64 percent were venomous: 33 cobras, 27 vipers and 24 rear-fanged snakes.
In the mixed habitat of Assirik, snakes were encountered in the forest twice as often by the researchers as expected by chance, at chance rates in the woodland, and half as often as expected in the grassland. The dry season was considerably more risky a time for snake encounters than the wet.
McGrew acknowledges that the sample of identified snakes is "pitiful by herpetological standards," notes that the methodology was non-random because the researchers walked more in habitats preferred by chimpanzees, and specifies that no chimpanzee-snake encounters were witnessed.
So, do these published data matter? I think they do.
"Our encounter rate," McGrew writes in the paper, "seems notably high, as does the proportion of venomous snakes. If anything, our encounter rate may have been lower than that of the apes, if party size is positively correlated with snake detection efficiency, proxied by number of vigilant eyes. Median party size for the chimpanzees was four; for observers it was two."
It's this "notably high" encounter rate that supports the snake-detection theory, developed by anthropologist Lynne Isbell. Isbell, author of the 2009 book The Fruit, The Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well, explained some of her core ideas regarding snake detection to NPR's All Things Considered in 2013:
"We [humans and other primates] have our forward-facing eyes. We have our excellent depth perception. We have very good visual acuity, the best in the mammalian world. We have color vision. So there has to be some sort of explanation for it."
The All Things Considered story notes, "Primates in parts of the world with lots of poisonous snakes evolved better vision than primates elsewhere, Isbell found out. It's no accident that lemurs in Madagascar have the worst vision in the primate world, she says. There are no venomous snakes [in Madagascar]."
Last week by email, Isbell elaborated for me on the two "thrusts" of her snake-detection theory (SDT):
"The first thrust develops the idea that constricting snakes were largely responsible for the origin of primates some 70-90 million years ago. The second develops the idea that venomous snakes helped one lineage of primates evolve into anthropoid primates, the monkeys and apes, about 55-60 million years ago.
"In both cases, snakes would have helped generate changes in the primate visual sense that would enable them to visually detect snakes (which are often still very difficult to see) better than other mammals could. Of course, better vision is clearly helpful in other contexts now but the SDT proposes that the impetus for the evolution of better vision was the need to detect and avoid dangerous snakes that were and still are often difficult to see."
Centrally, then, the SDT posits that the possibility of death or injury from contact with snakes was an evolutionary selection pressure that put our lineage on its path toward visual acuity and highly developed brains.
I asked Isbell why other animal lineages weren't similarly affected, since surely other animals too would have encountered snakes. Ancestral placental mammals, she explained, were probably nocturnal, not active during sunlight hours. By contrast, the lineage leading to primates "would have spent the day in shrubs and trees (because all primates have grasping hands and feet for arboreal living), where sunlight would have penetrated." As a result, that lineage "could take advantage of sunlight to detect their predators visually, which resulted in increased visual improvement over time."
In the past few years, neuroscientists have been at work testing some of Isbell's specific hypotheses. Isbell told me:
"One of the hypotheses predicted that the pulvinar, a visual structure in the subcortical part of the brain, would be important in allowing primates to detect snakes quickly. An international collaboration of Japanese, Vietnamese, and Brazilian neuroscientists decided to test the hypothesis. Sure enough, they found neurons in the pulvinar in monkeys that fired more rapidly and strongly to snakes than to other objects, even monkeys' faces.
"And in another study, they found neurons in the pulvinar that also responded more strongly to snakes that are poised to strike than to snakes in non-threatening postures. So not only can the visual system of primates zero in on snakes specifically, it is also highly sensitive to snakes that are more threatening. These are very exciting results! The heightened sensitivity of the pulvinar to snakes supports the main premise of the SDT that snakes have long been very important to avoid and thus for those in our primate lineage to see, and to see quickly."
More field studies in primate habitats like McGrew's will, Isbell hopes, join with the neuroscience work in further testing the SDT.
Taken together, the findings from primatology and neuroscience regarding the SDT may help explain why many of us react strongly to the sight of a snake. Our response may be deeply ingrained, even when the chances of encountering a poisonous snake are quite low, and when comparatively speaking, the risks to most of us from snakes today just aren't very great.
If you startle or otherwise react strongly and rapidly at a snake sighting, then, just consider yourself a well-evolved primate.
Barbara J. King, an anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary, often writes about human evolution, primate behavior and the cognition and emotion of animals. Barbara's most recent book on animals was released in paperback in April. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape.
Copyright NPR 2021.


Would you rather have a Gulf style Mosler or Ford GT? These were two of the amazing supercars in Palm Beach's Supercar Week in January 2018.
Supercar Saturday on August 12, 2017 was a great show with a full house and lot of exotics and one of the largest crowds of spectators yet!
Widebody Mclaren 650s in KPMF pink starlight overlam to 3M black wrap.
Ferrari Italia 458 at a car meet up in West Palm Beach.
Seen a Ferrari in Palm Beach County? Send us photos!
Reader's Ride- Everything works like new, original with upgrade European suspension like it was mend to be. More attention than a F-40 Ferrari. Winner in Class in the Wheels across the Pond, Jupiter Beach, FL Car show.


SILICON CHIP has just returned from two days at the Sydney Electronex exhibition, where we met a large number of existing readers and also (hopefully!) new readers. On our stand, we displayed several recent – and even a couple of future – projects.
Believe it or not, one project which attracted perhaps the most attention was the 10W LED Floodlight, featured in our February 2012 issue.
This floodlight compared more than favourably with PAR38 incandescent and quartz-halogen floods we all know so well. In fact, few could believe just how bright this was and quite a number wanted the Oatley Electronics phone number so they could order their own kits.
The heart of the project is this 20W LED array. It contains 20 individual LEDs. Like all LEDs, it requires a constant current supply, as described in this article. The light has hit this module "just right" to highlight the "–" and "+" symbols moulded into the plastic – these tell you the polarity of the two metal tabs (as it happens, the top tab, under the finger, is the positive).
As luck would have it, waiting for us back in the office was another kit from Oatley Electronics – this time a 20W version of the LED Floodlight.
We quickly assembled this kit and, despite a few wrinkles (which we'll get to shortly) were very impressed with the light output.
To the naked eye (no mean feat because it was far too bright to look at!) it looked much brighter than the 10W LED version, indeed, much brighter than a 150W QI portable floodlight.
We ran some tests using a Jaycar Lux meter on the original 10W LED floodlight, this 20W LED floodlight, the 150W QI floodlight we originally compared the 10W LED to and finally a 500W QI floodlight.
The results appear on the photograph opposite but you'd have to agree that they are pretty impressive for the LEDs.
Of course, the 500W QI does look a lot brighter in the photos – and it is. But remember, we are comparing this to the 20W LED alongside. That's 500 compared to 20 – 25 times the power. It sure ain't 25 times the brightness – both are far too bright to stare into for more than a brief instant.
Just a note of caution, though: we don't know what wavelength that meter is calibrated to. So there could be a "skew" in the figures if it is more sensitive to the bottom (red) end of the spectrum than the top (blue).
The QIs look very yellow indeed compared to the LEDs – and we all know that QIs have a very much "whiter" light than do standard incandescents.
But as a relative A:B:C:D test, the results are quite telling. And of course, the LED lamps run MUCH cooler than the QIs.


Writing Classes — Let ME Out!!
WRITING FOR SELF-DISCOVERY: MOM EDITION!
Meet weekly with other moms to learn and practice the art of self-discovery through writing. Remember your authentic self underneath all the roles you play, and shape your present and future with your interests and passions. Join local writer and mom, Taslim Jaffer, in this fun and engaging space.
Motherhood can sometimes bring out the social change visionary in us. Have you felt an urge to do your part in shaping the world for your children? Not sure how you can or what impact YOU could have? Join local writer and social change ambassador, Taslim Jaffer, for an in-depth look at your role in social change through writing exercises, discussion and community.
Join local writer, Taslim Jaffer, on a journey in writing the stories of your past. With writing prompts, including your own personal photographs, take a trip down Memory Lane to capture meaningful moments. There are many benefits to writing your legacy, and we will discuss these and more in this short but productive workshop. Please bring 1-2 personal photos.


The record derives from WCSP (data supplied on 2012-03-23 ) which reports it as an accepted name (record 204662) with original publication details: Math. Term. Közlem. 24: 76 1890 .
Full publication details for this name can be found in IPNI: http://ipni.org/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:461086-1.
This name was in version 1 of The Plant List, record kew-204662, and has not been changed.


text:
Q: Entity Framework proxy for an IdentityUser causes PK violation on Save I'm using Entity Framework 6 and I'm writing a Save method to update the details of an existing "Case", as follows:
public void Save(User user, Case @case)
{
    if (@case.Id == 0)
    {
        // deal with new case scenario
    }
    else
    {
        var existing = GetCase(@case.Id);

        // update existing's properties with those in @case

        context.Entity(existing).State = EntityState.Modified;
        context.Entry(existing.SubEntity1).CurrentValues.SetValues(@case.SubEntity1);
        context.Entry(existing.SubEntity2).CurrentValues.SetValues(@case.SubEntity2);
    }

    context.SaveChanges();
}

The Case type has a property named RaisedBy of type User, which derives from ASP.NET Identity's IdentityUser.
When the GetCase call is made, I use IQueryable.Include to load the user attached to the RaisedBy property at the same time. It appears that it loads the User as a proxy, a watch while debugging shows that the type is System.Data.Entity.DynamicProxies.User_ followed by a really long value that looks like a hash.
When context.SaveChanges() is called EF appears to try and re-write the user to the table resulting in a DbUpdateException with message:

Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK_dbo.IdentityUsers'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.IdentityUsers'. The duplicate key value is (0799b4c2-a38e-430c-8031-1c27878f2f43).
  The statement has been terminated.

As far as I can see, the RaisedBy user is exactly the same as that loaded from the context, so I'm struggling to see how the problem has crept in.

A: Given the code that I omitted from the question, behind the comment
// update existing's properties with those in @case

I'm not surprised no one could answer.
The problem was that, in that block of omitted code:
existing.Events.Add(new Event
{
    CaseId = @case.Id,
    Author = user,
    Text = existing.GetChangeDescription(@case),
    DateTime = now,
    EventType = EventType.Update
});

I am setting up an association to the User object, Entity Framework will subsequently set it's state to added, which is fair enough as there is no trace of this user loaded in the context at this stage, and even if there was, I'd get a different "cannot track object of same type with same key" error. The best approach would be to either:

*

*Load the user from the database using DbSet.Find, setting the passed in user to this loaded user

*Don't set the navigation property, leaving it null and set the AuthorId on the Event object instead

*Do something smart whereby the context is queried to see if the user already is loaded and if not attaches the passed user to the context with State = EntityState.Unchanged (similar to the first option only avoiding the database hit)

I have gone for option 1 because it fits best with my current architecture, however I'm looking at refactoring to make option 3 possible.


Douglas County farmer Scott Thellman traveled three hours, despite forecasts of snow and sleet, to be at the meeting.
And, on a cold, late February morning, he wasn't alone. More than 300 others from all corners of Kansas and surrounding states gathered at the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson—all with visions of a new source of green growing on their farms in the next year or two.
The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper. At one time, Kansas was among the nation's top hemp producers, said Peter Andreone, a cannabis business attorney from Overland Park.
But the industry began to disappear in the 20th century, he said. Hemp was doomed by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp. During World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture campaigned with "Hemp for Victory" and allowed farmers to grow it with a permit.
Yet by 1958 there were no U.S. hemp fields. Rigid restrictions in the Controlled Substances Act brought the industry to a halt around 1970.
"Farming hemp was outright banned," Andreone said.
With millions of dollars of industrial hemp imported from countries like Canada, a momentum to legalize industrial hemp began to grow in the early 2000s. The biggest development happened in 2014 when the farm bill carved out a definition that separated industrial hemp from marijuana, Andreone said.


Imagine a spectrum of nature-based and world-famous attractions, mixed with an array of shopping and dining where the weather is balmy and the fun, non-stop. Imagine Kissimmee, the No. 1 family destination in the world.
Just minutes from the most famous attractions in the world—Walt Disney World Resort, SeaWorld Orlando, Discovery Cove, Universal Orlando Resort and Gatorland—Kissimmee is the quintessential vacation location. And on a smaller scale, but just as entertaining, Kissimmee's Old Town, Fun Spot America, Fantasy Surf and Chocolate Kingdom eagerly await your visit.
Beyond theme parks, Kissimmee's natural environment reconnects you with nature. Zip line through the treetops at Forever Florida—Ziplines & Adventures in the Wild, or safely above hungry alligators at Gatorland. Speed through wetlands on an airboat tour with Boggy Creek Airboat Rides, Wild Florida Airboats & Wildlife Park or Spirit of the Swamp. Catch a rodeo at the Silver Spurs Arena, or drop a line into Lake Toho, world-famous for record-setting bass catches.
Like to golf? Kissimmee has 397 holes on more than a dozen courses, some designed by the game's legends, Jack Nicklaus (Grand Cypress Golf Club) and Greg Norman (ChampionsGate Golf Resort).
With more than 50,000 accommodation choices in the area, you can choose from luxury resorts, vacation home rentals, campgrounds and national chain hotels and motels to rest up and recharge before your next Kissimmee adventure.
Explore all there is to do in Kissimmee at experiencekissimmee.com.


Casio Japan has announced the EX-10 - a flagship high-end compact with a 1/1.7" type sensor and a fast 28-112mm equivalent lens. The model, which the company says it will be launching in other markets, features magnesium alloy construction and, like the existing EX-ZR1000, an LCD that flips all the way up, for shooting self-portraits. As usual for Casio, the EX-10 features a range of innovative shooting modes, in this case including a dual bracketing mode that will adjust two variables for each sequence (e.g. exposure brightness and white balance). It also has built-in Wi-Fi and the ability to shoot Raw, and upholds Casio's tradition of offering really good battery life (at 455 shots-per-charge, it's around twice as good as most of its rivals).
We got the chance to shoot with several Casio models earlier this year and found them to be pretty enjoyable to use - especially the range-topping EX-ZR1000, which combined enthusiast-compact levels of control with some pretty sophisticated, automated high-speed shooting modes. The only thing that really counted against it, from a DPReview perspective, was its use of a 1/2.3" sensor, which limited its appeal, when some pretty good enthusiast models with larger sensors exist. The move to a 1/1.7" BSI CMOS sensor makes the EX-10 seem much more attractive. The lens, with its associated control ring looks an awful lot like the excellent unit used in Olympus's XZ-1 and 2, and the Pentax MX-1 (the likelihood of there being multiple 6.0-24mm F1.8-2.5 lenses, all featuring the same two-barrel construction, is extremely small), which bodes well for image quality.
Beyond this, magnesium alloy build, built-in Wi-Fi and a customizable front-plate shutter button that Casio says is for waist-level shooting make the EX-10 a pretty interesting prospect. The existence of several cameras coming towards the end of their product life-cycles (with the consequent price drops that this brings), could make life difficult for this latest Exilim, but we're still pleased to see Casio making a move into making the type of camera we like.
Casio Computer Co., Ltd. announced today that it will release its new flagship EXILIM compact digital camera, the EX-10, on November 29. The newest addition to the EXILIM family boasts the world's first dual-combination bracketing function. With a single touch of the shutter button, nine photos are captured in a high-speed burst for a unique pair of parameter values for focus, aperture, white balance, exposure, among others. Now anyone can take high-quality photographs just like the professionals without complicated adjustments.
The world's first dual-combination bracketing function. The "Auto Bracketing" function automatically varies a pair of shooting parameters over three steps, producing a matrix of nine images to choose from. The "Manual Bracketing" function enables users to explore the settings of each parameter manually.
28mm wide angle zoom lens with a maximum aperture of f1.8 (wide-end): This powerful lens is able to maintain a high resolution even at its peripheries.
1/1.7-inch Back-lit CMOS image sensor: The expanded size of the image sensor is optimized for high-speed burst photography. The improved sensitivity increases the amount of light that can be received, while the back-lit system more effectively directs light to the sensor's surface.
The new model will be open-priced.
Thats a trend camera, people buy them and use them. They don´t want to know anything about sensor size nor understand white balance. Look at the body color, it targets people who have fun taking photographs,,,no Geargeeeeeks.
Raw capability and slightly larger sensor nice, but sRGB without AdobeRGB?
What we need is about 700 more cameras on the market.
My first little compact DC was a Casio QV-R3 back in 2003. It was handy, innovative, kept promise and I loved it.
I never liked or even thought of a Sony because they simply tried to make things different and ended up worse.
I am still enthusiastic about my S95 and also like my SX240but all that came later was a step back as well or say something different in a similar box producing inferior results.
Times are changing - now I am starting to think there is only one way to go ahead and the signs say that the next compact or bridge DC will become a Sony.
In other news, Casio will soon announce their entry into the home video market with the introduction of a HiFi VHS machine.
Ehh really ...I've been waiting for that.
I suppose I could go on but that's just a taster for those of you who are spouting off and haven't a clue of the history behind CASIO. Those that are too young to know these facts, fair enough, but to those that are, you need to learn respect and appreciate that CASIO are still prepared to produce cameras in a market whitewashed with gullible iThing users.
I can appreciate Casio's past innovations and successes but unfortunately that doesn't mean much in assuring future success, esp in today's fast-paced industry. Here's a list of other companies which have had very successful and innovative products: Xerox, Kodak, Nokia, Microsoft, Blackberry, Novell, and Borland.
Nice to see a level-headed response to my rant, Horshack.
You missed the point I was making though, those aren't in the past, those are all right here, right now. The F-W91 is so popular and even notorious it has a wiki article, the XW-P1 and XW-G1 synthesizers totally decimate EVERYTHING in their class. The same goes for the current range of CTK and WK keyboards they manufacture, the CASIO models absolutely slaughter the Yamaha equivalent (and I'm a big fan of Yamaha).
Well I certainly wish them success. I actually have a soft spot for Casio - I've been to one of their design centers in Japan while working on software for a product they were using.
The F-91W is popular ... with TERRORISTS!
That's true, but it's the notoriety and "connection" to danger that makes it cool and badass, not the fact that such people chose it as a weapon. It's free marketing even though I'm sure they would rather it was not related in that way. It's impossible to know for sure but I reckon at least two in every ten people who read the Wiki article on the F-91W will buy one.
People are a sucker for danger, but you need to remeber the watch was already the most popular in the world even before they discovered that heavy stuff.
Well I finally broke my Casio Fx-39 calculator this year. It was bought around 1978 so I think I got my money's worth.
This looks a nice camera to carry around (I own an Oly XZ-1 with VF-2) but I wouldn't consider any camera going forward without a built in viewfinder/EVF.
Why do manufacturers insist on making the LCD screens only tiltable in the vertical direction?! These are not camcorders, they are still photography tools first! What will you do when you're taking a vertically oriented picture??? Isn't it a 101 of photography to force to prevent yourself from taking "horizontal" pictures all the time? Sony started this with their NEX bodies which was shocking to me. Most everyone seems to follow suit now. Apparently the people designing these are not enthusiastic about photography.
Still photography is the only thing I do with a camera. I own a camera with a display that tilts in all directions but I'd rather have a display like this. First, the camera strap always gets in the way of the display. Second, I tilt vertically much more often than horizontally but I have to move the display out horizontally before I can do that.
Casio, if you read this, you have no idea how big the smile was on my face when I saw this announcement. Haven't posted here for ages but had to log in just to congratulate you. Until today I thought Casio had given-up on the camera market due to all the touchscreen nonsense people are brainwashed into lately, but no, you're still here and I'm seriously pleased you are.
As you can see from some of the comments here, your marketing team need to work hard on making the doubters look like the misinformed loonies they are. I'm a designer myself and would say the camera in these shots is probably the best designed on the market in it's class.
There's the Sony RX100 with it's slippery coating and no swivel screen, or the better designed Casio with a substantial thumbrest, substantial finger grip, grippy knurling on controls, more versatile and capable lens, and a flip screen.
I'll take the Casio, looks the part, like a mans camera rather than a toy. Hope it's got manual video mode!
I'd take SONY's far bigger sensor any time, even in a slippery body.
I like the Sony too but I'd still rather have this Casio (providing it has manual video mode). The only thing I don't like about it is the curvature to the front, but that's just a personal thing.
I think it's a very nice piece of kit but they will ignore video users at their peril, I think it will effect sales massively if this camera, classed as an "expert" model does not allow manual control over video mode.
The latest RX100(2) that retails for less than this $800 rumored price has a tilt screen just like this camera, and the 'slippery coating' is pretty much mitigated by a $15 Sony rubber grip.
What's 'a man's camera' look..? Because it's blue?
I'll have to take a better look into the RX100II. I never bothered reading-up on the second model due to the pathetic lens speed at zoom. It seems to be rigged to look like something you would assume you'd get a resonably shallow DOF out of, when in fact I can get more bokeh out of a small sensor Sony HX5v compact at 10x zoom. Impressive camera, but I think they were playing manipulation games with the speed; there's no excuse for an aperture as slow as that on a lens with such a short reach. They basically made the camera seductive by giving it a larger sensor, but the design ensured you wouldn't feel the true benefit of it, I'm guessing to protect their SLT cameras.
Regards the CASIO looking like a mans camera, I mean it looks substantial for it's size, well built, lots of hard edges instead of those yucky round-edged girly designs we've been bombarded with from clueless designers lately. A lot of big brand stuff looks like cheap Chinese backstreet-designs (and probably are).
Much like the Olympus XZ-1/XZ-2. One thing I like about Samsung EX and Panasonic LX series' is the 24mm widest angle focal length.
I have always liked my Casio cameras (EX F1 & ZR100). The EX F1 was just really special. Not so great IQ but cool features. The ZR100 really impressed me on one of my holiday's. Really good IQ and a well functioning HDR function to give me actually quite lifelike pictures. Not overdone. Also good performance and great battery life! If was was in the market for this type of camera my choice would be the Casio. And I've had the Oly XZ-1 and was a Pentax user in general.
Very nearly a reskinned XZ-2, with the same lens and a very similar control layout.
Some how CASIO managed to make the camera even heavier and bigger!
Possibly the bigger battery, that offers a much greater span between charges?
EX-10 has 0.5" larger screen than XZ-2.
This is where most of that additional weight coming from.
You could say this is great news for consumers as more companies compete to divide up a market that isn't there to begin with. As Thom Hogan points out (and this is where measurement numbers really do tell the story) just 3 companies are profitable from cameras. Since Leica's situation is unique, that leaves two.
Thom Hogan should work for Bloomberg.
wow, that's heavy for a compact. GM1 with lens, etc. is about 270g!
As usual when we have a camera announcement on here that features a certain sensor size, noses get turned up in the air pretty much in unison.
What people are missing is that the average person doesn't buy a camera based on sensor size. Besides tons of people have been making great images with the same sensor and even smaller for years. And this will continue for the foreseeable future. And any one here who has used the X-Z1 or MX-1 knows how extremely capable those cameras are.
More cameras, different styles, designs and capabilities means more competition, innovation and in turn lower prices for all of us. And that's a bad thing how?
Hi, I don't agree with your "What people are missing.." theory. I don't believe the "average person" even buys an enthusiast type camera to begin with meaning the target audience is set a bit higher. It would seem they want to tap into the RX100 market. The key here is price..sell it from $300 to $450 and they just MIGHT draw some Canon S series buyers their way. If this model sells for $550+ to $650 I think it will tank because it is basically the old same old-same old while being a notch below the RX100. Price is the key here. I and probably many others would have preferred that Casio had gone with a larger sensor and take it to the next level. I believe most "enthusiasts" are no longer blown away by 1/1.7 sensor cameras. The RX100 was a game changer for many.
If few of the other big players except Fujifilm and Canon are offering enthusiast compacts with larger sensors, did you really think Casio would?
This new camera won't be anywhere near the 600-750 USD price of either the RX100 or RX100 II. It's really in a different class than the Sony and will be $399 at most.
You will be way off on the price. If you check the internet the rumored price is 80000 yen which is about $800 these days. That would make me think it will be $650 easy.
The title ought to say "re-enters" as Casio has made enthusiast compacts before. Their last was the EX-F1 nearly six years ago.
All of these nice little advanced P&S cameras are about 2-3 years too late. For me I won't get anything with a smaller sensor than the Sony RX100, which is still in a camera almost as small and only really loses out with the slow f/4.9 aperture at the long end, but still has about the same DOF as this 1/1.7" sensor at f/2.5.
The RX100 (II)'s sensor is being exposed to around half the light, wide-open at the long end of the zoom, during the same exposure time.
Errm, Sony sensor is a 2.7x crop factor, the Ricoh sensor has a 4.84x crop factor, so 2.7*4.9 = 13.2 and 2.5*4.84 = 12.1. That small difference in DoF would not be visible to in the real world, so I stand by what I said, almost no difference in DoF at the tele end. Also the 1" sensor has 3x the area of the 1/1.7" sensor so if the aperture which corresponds to 1.59 stops. The difference in speed of f/2.5 and f/4.9 is 1.94 stops, so sensor is not being exposed to only half the light, it's a lot closer. It would only be half the light if the Sony sensor was 2x as large, not 3x as large.
In the real world people do not use their cameras jammed at max telephoto all the time. I my world it didn't take long to notice the difference in depth of field between a Nikon J1 and a Canon S100. In my photography I like context and depth of field, so for me the J1, with it's 1" sensor, performed worse in depth of field in P mode than the S100, with the smaller sensor. Yes I know about aperture priority mode! :-) Night photography images are much cleaner with the J1, but I can make do with the S100 using RAW.
So the 1" sensor is better in some ways, and worse in some ways. Certainly the smaller sensor is good enough for many people in many situations. With the 1" sensor you don't have to work as hard to get a lot of IQ, but you have to work harder to get a lot of depth of focus.
Sorry, my mistake - it's nearer half a stop advantage to the Olympus/Pentax/Casio.
Yes, It's a camera. Who was waiting for it? Who has been saving money for this under the X-mas tree? Nobody, I'm afraid. Casio could have well been releasing their own interpretation of the iPad or a new clock-radio, nobody would have noticed it.
Pentax MX-1 has a serious competitor here.
As long as it has not have a hot shue & filter thread , its not threating XZ-1 or XZ-2.... and XZ-10 has so small sensor that, it only can sceares some old keyboard phones!
Hopefully, it will be a usefull & affordable tool for beginners. XZ-1 was very capable, hoepfully this caiso will b as well.
It is not a bad camera. It is just that everyone who would want this camera already has it from another company. I hope it comes out at half the price. That is the only way they will sell it.
Excellent post. I could not agree more.
Casio needs to get OUT of the game for their own good. There are frankly too many cameras chasing dwindling consumers. Good for us, but if I cared about Casio, I'd have to ask them what in the world they are doing.
This is not an Enthusiast class cam. This is a Soccer Mom purse cam. Does it come in pink?
It's got a 1/1.7" sensor, an F1.8-2.5 lens, a control dial around the lens and shoots Raw.
Well, it sure does have enthusiast price tag!
All those cams are for people who have not graduated to "Enthusiast" class. These might have been that category 2 years ago. Now it is "Meh" catagory.
Seriously? All big manufacturer axes it's p&s divisions and now this!?
I love this lens...funny to see it now on FOUR different cameras! I wonder which body is best?
Yeap, this does seem to be an OEM lens (though as everyone is using the same Sony BSI sensor even if they designed their own 4x lens it would look similar). I wonder how long this has been in the pipeline?
Like others here I agree the pricing is well off (as pricing generally seems to be for a lot of camera products now).
Late and overpirced is not a good position to be in.
It was the first Olympus compact camera lens that got the Olympus 'Zuiko' designation, so it was probably designed by them.
They certainly made a fuss about it when it first appeared on the XZ-1.
Another 1/1.7" sensor for what will probably be $399. No thanks. Too little too late. It's also a near direct copy of several cameras already available.
I still have a 4mp Sony S85, circa 2001, with an 1/1.8 sensor... the enthusiast cameras back then used 2/3 sensors.
Back when basic digital cameras were selling for $750+, they could afford to put larger sensors in. You still get a LOT more for your money today.
Casio needs to get back in the game, but releasing an XZ-1 clone 3 years late doesn't impress anyone.
They should have gone with a big sensor or crazy fast prime or something unique.
It is more of an XZ-2 clone. 12MP BSI CMOS sensor and flip screen.
Too late to the party.


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