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Skip to comments.Firearm Makers Boycott Anti-Gun City and State Governments
Posted on 02/13/2013 7:53:40 AM PST by EXCH54FE
Liberty-minded firearm companies concerned about recent assaults on the gun rights of law-abiding citizens by Obama and others are taking action to defend the Second Amendment even if it means lost revenue, with several major firms announcing that they would no longer be supplying equipment to hostile state and local governments or their police forces. Both New York and California where out-of-touch politicians continue to trample on citizens constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms have become primary targets. Activists and the companies are urging others to join the effort against more gun control now.
Among the manufacturers that have publicly announced their plans to prohibit sales to anti-Second Amendment authorities so far are LaRue Tactical, Olympic Arms, Extreme Firepower (EFI, LLC), and Barrett Firearms. All four firms, in solidarity with citizens in jurisdictions victimized by a lawless political class that refuses to uphold the Constitution, have expressed strong support for Americans unalienable rights. Gun rights activists nationwide rushed to celebrate the companies valor.
If citizens cannot purchase certain guns or accessories in places such as California, Chicago, or New York, then authorities cannot either, the companies essentially announced. In a press release posted online on Tuesday praising the Constitution and Bill of Rights, Olympic Arms President Brian Schuetz urged all firearm manufacturers to join the boycott effort, saying that they should stand together to repel politicians hostile assaults on the rights of citizens.
Olympic Arms is a staunch believer in and defender of the Constitution of the United States, and with special attention paid to the Bill of Rights that succinctly enumerates the security of our Divinely given Rights. One of those Rights is that to Keep and Bear Arms, Schuetz said in the statement, which was widely lauded by gun rights activists.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
All of those reciprocity deals that allow cops from states that prohibit firearms to lawabiding citizens should be RENOUNCED. Make the cops visit your state totally disarmed.
You really need the ammo manufacturers to follow suit.
Received recently:
February 12, 2013
Dear Mr. -———,
Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about calls for increased federal gun control in the wake of the unspeakable tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I appreciate the time you took to write to me, and while we may not agree completely on this issue, I welcome your thoughts on it.
Like you, I respect the U.S. Constitution as the foundation of our great democracy. The Framers supported the right of colonists to defend themselves against the British Empire, and at the time of the Second Amendment's drafting, they were concerned that the absence of a "well-regulated militia" could jeopardize the entire American democratic experiment.
Our founding fathers never contemplated, however, whether the open availability of modern military hardware would be necessary to ensure individual liberty in the 21st century. High-capacity ammunition magazines, high-powered assault rifles, and even semi-automatic weapons had yet to be invented, so it now falls upon us to determine the place of modern, highly lethal weapons of war in civil society.
The right of responsible citizens to keep and bear arms must be carefully weighed against the right of all Americans to live in a safe societyand as such, responsible steps can and must be taken to protect the latter without infringing upon the former. Closing the "gun show" loophole, banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, and improving the system of background checks for gun purchasers will do nothing to infringe upon the right of citizens to keep and use firearms for recreational, subsistence, or even self-defense purposes.
Please know that while we may not agree on the effectiveness of particular gun control policies, I profoundly respect your views and will keep them in mind as Congress considers these matters.
If you have any other questions or comments, let me hear from you. I value what my constituents say to me, and I always need your thoughts and benefit from your ideas.
Ive created an ongoing e-newsletter to keep constituents informed on a variety of congressional issues and legislation. Many constituents tell me how much they value reading it, and if you would like to as well, you can go to my website at http://eshoo.house.gov and click on Sign Up for ENews. Your email address will never be used by anyone except my office to communicate with you, and your tax dollars will be conserved by using electronic communications rather than traditional mailings.
Most gratefully,
Anna G. Eshoo
Member of Congress
Interesting interpretation of the 2nd. (completely wrong)
I feel your pain. When I lived in California, Tom "Hit 'n Run" Lantos was my Congresscritter. I wrote a letter to him back in '89 or '90 when the first "assault weapon" propaganda push started, and received a similar form letter basically telling me that he didn't care about the 2nd Amendment.
Anna is typical of the walking talking a$$hole POS that passes for a Congresswoman here in CA! She, like her RAT "compatriots" isl a disgrace to this once great state! BTW Anna was born in New Britain, CT. another liberal "transplant" who came here to crap in our nest! Just like Pelosi and many others.
Is there a modern military that is limited to using semi-auto only rifles? There are restrictions on owning "modern military hardware", both in cost and legal approvals.
Please read all of this. Rule #13 is very important. We have to stay on TARGET!
The Power is in the hands of the consumer which is also the taxpayer!
Gun Control; Time to Fight
As consumers and 2nd Amendment advocates, we have to engage an economic boycott of all ammunition and firearms covering the entire State of NY; Citizens & Government while pulling an Alinsky Andrew Cuomo when executing the boycott. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules for Radicals)
The embargo ends when the current NY Government agrees all NY State Citizens have a 2nd Amendment Right to own any quantity and all types firearms, those made 400 years ago and those to be made in the future!
The firearms industry from top to bottom completely terminate sales of a firearms and ammunition to all of NY State, citizens to Government to include the Federal Government offices in NY State till the State of NY recognizes the US Constitution and its own State Constitution starting on 12 February 2013.
To the Citizens aka Serfs in NY State
You will suffer till you elect representatives that respect the Constitutions. You made your bed, now go lie down in it! If you are a gun owner in NY you are a Serf, and it sucks to be you. If you are a believer
in Gun Control, great! Now your Government will have no guns too! NY Government can continue to prosecute the criminals without guns or ammunition.
To all Government in NY State
You want gun control for your Citizens and Taxpayers? Well the rest of us out here think that concept is flawed. The rest of the Country think you, the Government should be just as restricted or more so restricted than the law abiding taxpayer .how do you like not having Assault Rifles, High Capacity Magazines or no Ammunition now? If it sucks for you Mr & Mrs. Government Employee in NY State well it sucks to a NY State Citizen under the current laws too!
Respect your citizens/ taxpayer and Constitutions.
To Industry: Time to break the bullys face
Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren will be running on the 2016 Democrat Presidential ticket. With record sales in other markets, there will be zero impact if all NY sales terminated tomorrow. If the NY State Government along with the SAFE act are not reigned in, this cancer will only spread. Time to fight the bully and make the bully understand in no uncertain terms, the 2nd Amendment is very important, has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with citizens/sovereigns reigning in and eliminating out of control Government, foreign or Domestic.
To the Citizens of the other 56 States
Call every manufacturer of ammunition and firearms and tell them to stand up to Andrew Cuomo and the NY State Government by completely boycotting all sales to NY State till the SAFE Act, Assault weapons ban and any other restrictions to firearms ownership are removed. Respect the 2nd Amendment or pay the consequences. Boycott NY State or we as consumers will boycott your company!
Federal Ammunition, Winchester/OLIN, FN USA, FN Herstal, Remington, Freedom Firearms Group, Colt, S&W, Glock, Lewis Machine Tool, Heckler & Koch, Sig-Sauer etc.
Call the NRA and every other gun rights organization to support the industry boycott of NY State and make sure that Andrew Cuomo owns it!
Contact them all and tell them you support a NY State Firearms and Ammunition Boycott!
Andrew Cuomo
Mr. Cuomo owns this. Every Answer, every utterance about this initiative is his. This will end his chances for President in 2016.
When NY State Government Officials complain: ANSWER Call Andy
. When NYC Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly and NYC Mayor Bloomberg whines ANSWER: Call ANDY! When the UN security teams in
NYC complain .. answer Andrew Cuomo ..When hunters in NY complain: ANSWER: Andrew Cuomo .. when non gun owners fear the cops will not be armed: ANSWER Andrew Cuomo. When any NY State Citizen comments, complains, or utters any thought about their safety: ANSWER Andrew Cuomo.
If it drags on and a NY Citizen or Police Officer is killed due to no training ammunition the answer is: Andrew Cuomo
When the news media runs a story explaining the criminals gangs think this boycott is great cuz the Po
Po aint gots noz bullets . The answer is Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo is your fear, Andrew Cuomo is your pain, and Andrew Cuomo is your lack of security ..your lack of ammunition and firearms.. Governor Cuomo can heal that pain .
When Mr. Cuomo buckles: the left will hate him. The Left will punish him
NO negotiations, NO middle of the road,
Nothing but recognition of the Individual Taxpayers Rights to Firearms Ownership
When NY State Government recognizes the Rights of the Citizens, then and only then will sales resume
MAKE EVERY Gun Grabbing Democrat or Republican politician fear being Coumod by Taxpayers that believe in the Second Amendment.
The Common Sense Solution is already in place: Current NY State Constitution ARTICLE XII*
[Defense; militia]
Section 1. The defense and protection of the state and of the United
States is an obligation of all persons within the state. The legislature
shall provide for the discharge of this obligation and for the maintenance and regulation of an organized.
For clarity and intent here is the original language from 1777
XL. And whereas it is of the utmost importance to the safety of every State that it should always be in a condition of defence; and it is the duty of every man who enjoys the protection of society to be prepared and willing to defend it; this convention therefore, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State, doth ordain, determine, and declare that the militia of this State, at all times hereafter, as well in peace as in war, shall be armed and disciplined, and in readiness for service.
(just a small observation: As read, the citizens of NY State should be fully armed the duty of every man , not the NY State Government or any Employee that takes a pay check from TAX REVENUE. Right now, it is completely backwards! NY State should be more like Switzerland of 2012 and less like Nazi Germany of 1938.)
US Constitution 2nd Amendment, which by the way is now in been affirmed as incorporated and defined to protect the individuals right to own firearms, via the Heller decision
If a citizen and Militia member in NY cannot own it, can neither a NY State Government Agency nor
Employee. That is common sense and that is the current Constitution!
Make Mr. Cuomo recognize that fact. See the rules below and start making Andy Cuomos political life painful or we will be dealing with him and his venal ilk in 2016!
The rules
RULE 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Power is derived from 2 main sources money and people. Have-Nots must build power from flesh and blood.
How: NY State Boycott of all arms and ammunition, starting with NY State Government, local
Government and all NY State Citizens/Taxpayers/Serfs
RULE 2: Never go outside the expertise of your people. It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
We all know firearms and the Second Amendment. Time to say NO to the Bullies in NY State!
RULE 3: Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
NY State Government will be clueless on how to handle a boycott by Industry initiated by Taxpayers from the other 56 States.
RULE 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
No Rights to own Firearms for Citizens = No Rights, exemptions, or any other weasel language to possess
Firearms or ammunition for Government Employees anywhere in NY
If a NY State Citizen cannot buy the firearms/magazines/ammunition
. Nor can a Government Entity or
Government Employee in NY State
RULE 5: Ridicule is mans most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is irrational. It is infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
Call Andrew Cuomo, he owns: your lack of Rights, your lack of security, or lack of ammunition or lack of firearms
RULE 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. Theyll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more.
Theyre doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
For those of us outside of NY State: More product available and we end this gun control issue for a while
For those in NY State: Think of this as Chemo-therapy for gun control cancer; the process is not very enjoyable, but the results of killing off the gun control cancer are worth it.
Enjoy watching the NY State bureaucrats squirm and fuss
Enjoy watching the anti- gun types freak when the Government is not armed either! Que Mike Bloomberg, NY Police Union types and the UN idiots guns for our security now! While leaving the taxpayers un-armed
ENJOY ANDREW COUMO GET POUNDED ON ALL SIDES and watch his 2016 chances go away!
RULE 7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Dont become old news.
Start this MONTH, it wont last long!
Abe Lincoln took on slavery, so let us free taxpayers that enjoy firearms and the 2nd Amendment from being treated like Dred Scott honor Mr. Lincoln and start the BOYCOTT on 12 February 2013!
Call or e-mail every manufacturer of firearms and ammunition and demand they BOYCOTT all sales to NY STATE! Call and/or e-mail the NRA, NSSF, and SAMMI and demand they support a BOYCOTT of all firearms and ammunition to NY State to begin on February 12, 2013 starting with the NY State Government due to ANDREW Cuomo!
RULE 8: Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
The Boycott Ends when LAWS are repealed, not amended, not replaced
REPEALED and Law Abiding
Citizens & Taxpayers RIGHTS are recognized
RULE 9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
NOT A THREAT. DEMAND a total BOYCOTT and make sure Andrew Cuomo owns it!
RULE 10: "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition." It is the unceasing pressure that will result in the reaction of the opposition that is essential for the success of the campaign.
The enraged Parties such as the NY State Police, Local Police, Government Employee Unions and finally
Citizens/Serf will be plenty of pressure on Mr. Cuomo.
RULE 11: If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
Common Sense will prevail
RULE 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Never let the enemy score points because youre caught without a solution to the problem.
No Compromise: The answers & solutions are already in place, the NY State Constitution and the US Constitution
RULE 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
Dear Anna,
In 1787, freedom of speech was shouting at a town meeting or publishing your thoughts on paper or parchment using quill or printing press. The Framers never imagined television and cell phones, let alone texting, Facebook, and Twitter. So you just go ahead and write down your stupidity on dried sheep stomach using mashed berries and a turkey feather and then we will continue this discussion, okay?
The Wiki write up was pretty straightforward and gave this history to recent amendments: "The act was introduced during the 108th Congress as H.R. 218. and enacted as Public Law 108-277.[1] The law was later amended by the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act Improvements Act of 2010 (S. 1132, Public Law 111-272),[2] and Section 1089 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (H.R. 4310, Public Law 112-239).[3] It is currently codified as 18 United States Code 926B and 926C."
Which means out of state cops and retired cops are probably still walking around unconcerned with carrying guns in your state because there's an older separately enacted state reciprocity agreement. To fully engage in this boycott of anti-gun cities and states those laws will need to be FIXED.
As far as the out of state cops/retirees problem, they would carry at risk in states that didn't provide reciprocity.
That is because the founding fathers never contemplated the reality in the 21st century that we have a government tyranny and The People willingly let their government infringe on their rights to pursue individual liberty.
"Modern military hardware" and "high capacity assault magazines" are just there for distractions.
Time to ECHEW Eshoo, among many others.
Time to ESCHEW Eshoo, among many others.
They never contemplated a government as huge and as oppressive as the one we have now, either. They expected us to fight for our freedoms the day first day the politicians tried to rule over us. If they had envisioned the government we have today, the Constitution would have demanded every citizen be fully armed, and those arms would have to be more powerful than those controlled by the officials who are, right mow, trying to deny us our God given rights.
I've written to numerous firearm and ammunition manufacturers on this very issue and requested their boycott of NY state. I've received a few form-type letters in response.
I sweeten the pot with my letters, though. I've explained in every one of them:
"Your assistance in the matter of this boycott would greatly increase your political and financial capital with the gun rights community, and, at least from my household, you will see an increase in the purchase of your weaponry and/or your ammunition as a result of your support."
The wife's given me permission to increase the discretionary budget for firearm and ammo purchases, and I'd have no problem supporting manufacturers of guns and ammo who support this boycott through increased patronage .
There is a federal law that allows LEOs to carry concealed regardless of local or state laws.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


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The two-goal lead has now gone from a sure thing to kryptonite when it comes to the Bruins.
For the second straight night, Boston jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a team far behind them in the standings only to leave the rink in defeat.
Tonight it was the New York Islanders that rallied past the Bruins for a 4-2 win, one night after the Sabres zapped the Bruins, 4-3, in overtime.
The Bruins are now win-less (0-2-2) in their last four outings on the heels of their seven-game winning streak.
Here's a glance at the box score:
•Jack Hillen scored what proved to be the game-winner with a blast from the right point that deflected off Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg with 5:58 elapsed in the third period. Matt Moulson, Michael Grabner and P.A. Parenteau scored the Isles other goals.
•Nathan Horton and Zdeno Chara scored the Bruins' goals.
•After taking a dumb penalty late in the second period, which led to the Isles' first goal just before the second intermission, Brad Marchand officially skated just one more shift. He finished the night with 13 shifts and 9:52 of ice time.
•Chara's goal came on a 5-on-3 power play to end the Bruins' streak of games without a power-play goal at eight.

subset: commoncrawl


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For those who haven't seen this or didn't know. We all know the penalties are severe if you get busted selling/receiving AAS. Well, you should see how much worse they could get, when the goods you're receiving are from an entity that has been designated under the King Pin Statute.
KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 US President Barack Obama has designated a worldwide steroids trafficking operation that is partly managed in Malaysia under Washington DCs Kingpin Statute, which targets large-scale drug traffickers including the notorious Tijuana cartel in Mexico, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported.
The move comes in the wake of Liberty Reserve
- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/m....Mj8Dpt0w.dpuf


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I love that lots of fresh, juicy strawberries will be in their prime soon!
My Uncle named me that because I blushed all the time!
I have family & friends that still call me STRAWBERRY!
They all look delicious, Maryjane! I think I might have to try my hand at making a strawberry tart, too!
What a beautiful, delicious post. Hope you share it on Simple & Sweet Fridays. Love your photos .Love it!!
The recipes sound delicious..Love the photo of the little girl and her mom..Have a wonderful week..
I love that your nickname is Strawberry...how adorable. The best part...your Mom's kitchen...she was so brave to use pink..love it. When the shoe fits wear it!!
Love this colorful post.
All those strawberries look yummy! What a great post.
Love all the strawberry recipes and vintage pictures!!
I just love this post!! It makes me smile because summer is coming and I love strawberries!!
Hi "Strawberry" what a sweet post!!!
: ) Kris
I would have love to have grown up with a pink kitchen! To this day I still detest avocado and harvest gold kitchens with mushroom accessories. When I first married I searched high and low for red for my kitchen. I finally found shiny red canisters with red apples on top. They are still in my kitchen 37 years later. But pink...ah, how lovely!
You lucky, lucky girl! We don't get fresh strawberries here until July! xo Diana
A simply delightful post!!!!!
Your post is so pretty and happy! The recipes sound so yummy and your Mom's pink kitchen would be so in style today! A woman ahead of her time! Love your nick-name, too. xx
what a darling nickname!
I love fresh fruit...however Raspberries are my favorite.
When my daughter was little, 3.....or 4.......she had a little green dress with tiny strawberries on it and it was her favorite.
so she too, was our "strawberry girl".
I think nicknames can be fun when there is a cute meaning behind them.
I always wanted a kitchen decorated in a strawberry design. I love all your strawberry pics, but the one of the pink kitchen is adorable. I would love to have seen your mom's pink kitchen.I'm sure it was wonderful! Happy May to you!
Hi Mary Jane!
What a SWEET post. :) I love both of the vintage prints. So perfect. I hope you are having a great summer.
P.S. I love your new iPad cover! :)
I have a hard time making any thing with fresh strawberries. I have an unfortunate tendency to eat them all first.
Ali x
Oh, they look so delicious! I have to wait for June here in New
England... I do have flowers now though, but it'll take a while for actual berries. Can't wait!
I've always loved strawberries...what a cute and mouth watering post!
What's not to love about Strawberries! I love your nickname!
Delicious shots...indeed. That first image makes my mouth water...mmmm!!!
Hey Maryjane,
just poking my head in to say 'Hi' and that I am thinking of you & sunny warm SO.CAL.
Hi there....
Love your delicious strawberries. Since you were on the topic, thought you might want to see the vintage strawberry apron that I have. It has gorgeous strawberries in baskets.
Here is the link:


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Will Kenya keep rising?
The post-election violence from Kenya's December 2007 election is still haunting the country, with high-level suspects named yesterday by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor.
Three prominent members of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) have been accused planning violence as early as a year before the election, and three Party of National Unity (PNU) and/or members of the government are accused of plotting response attacks on ODM supporters through excessive police force and stoking retaliation.
That high-level politicians and businesspeople encouraged the violence that took more than 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands is not news. Many told me this on my trip there with Cross International Catholic Outreach in 2008, and it was confirmed in the official reports. In the article I wrote about Kenya, I wrote how those reports and the Catholic Church asked that the international community hold the Kenyan government accountable.
But now that real names have finally been made public, two years shy of another presidential election, Kenyan officials aren't so sure they want the outside interference, with one PM claiming that the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo "is more political than a Kenyan politician."
Ocampo's announcement was perhaps a blow to Kenya's sense of pride and came in the wake of Wikileak revelations that the U.S. government was critical of Kenyan leadership. Kenya and many other countries has said that Wikileaks threatens their national sovereignty. A history of colonialism does not help the ICC either. "We've heard our problems, but why we fought for independence, is because our forefathers believed that we have the capacity to solve our own problems," another PM said in debating whether the country should opt out of the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC.
Those arguing for cooperating with the ICC say that those innocent don't have anything to worry about (some suspects have said they are willing to cooperate), and that a special tribunal held within Kenya could not be trusted.
While I wouldn't presume to know what's the best way for the country to proceed based on my week stay in Kenya and some research from afar, what strikes me is that this new development only further supports the conclusion I came to in writing "Kenya rising": that the church's work in Kenya and other young, developing democracies is crucial to those countries' success.
With politicians who seem willing to fight to stay in power, Kenyans must be able to make informed decisions and to see past mere rhetoric. Education, which the church provides to many in Kenya, is key not only for developing the country's next leaders, but for developing intelligent, critical, and active voters.
According to Fides, which reports news from the missionary agency of the church, church leaders feared violence following the release of the names. The quality education, along with the spiritual development, of the church, however, will help the country turn to words rather than weapons to solve their problems.


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I have recently completed the framing of an upstairs addition. I am in the process of getting hvac estimates. So far, two installers have recommended Ruud and one has recommended Goodman. This is for a 2.5 ton hvac, using gas heat.
I do not know anything about either of these companies or their products. Only that both contractors claim that the warranties on these two brands are very good, and having work done on them is reasonable.
When I installed the new system downstairs, I chose a Trane XL1200 and have been pleased with it and no problems. One of the contractors will use Trane, it is just slightly more expensive ($350 more than an equivalent Ruud system).
Can anyone recommend the Trane vs Ruud vs Goodman? Are there any substantial arguements to NOT use one of these brands? Are there any substantial arguments TO use one of these brands over the other?
My second question is regarding the ductwork. I chose metal ductwork for my downstains due to its installation being under my house (I have replaced forced air heat and window units in a house built in 1909). My new unit and ductwork will be installed in the attic space over the new addition. Is there any reason or benefit to use metal over the flex duct, or vice versa?
Thanks for any and all of your advice!


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The lights are on
A group made for the Nintendo fans to talk about the 3DS. Share your thoughts, opinions, and all around love for Nintendo's handheld.
Now with Nintendo's first update of the 3DS console coming soon, what
are your opinions of it. What do you like or dislike about it. Are you
going to upgrade to it or will it be your first 3DS purchase? Tell your
overall thoughts of it here.
Personally I think it's okay for people who don't have a 3DS already, but it isn't worth the upgrade. And it looks just like a 3D DSi XL.
I think its stupid, but I saw it coming. It like Nintendo is really trying to make those who bought the 3ds on launch day (me) regret their purchase even more.
So how do people feel about the Pikachu edition? I hate that the inside is white. It was such a deal breaker for me. I'm really hoping on the Charizard on coming out with X and Y but that most likely won't ever happen.


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Submission + - How Would You Use An Arduino Compatible Flashlight? (deviceguru.com) 1
__aajbyc7391 writes: After its highly successful Kickstarter project and a year of development, HexBright, claimed as the world's first open source flashlight, has reached production and will ship in time for the holidays. The device's 500 Lumen LED module is controlled by an Atmel AVR ATmega168PA microcontroller, and can be programmed to do cool stuff using standard Arduino development tools. Several sample custom programs have already been posted to the HexBright GitHub. What would you make one do?


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Mall name:
Billings Bridge Shopping Centre
2277 Riverside Drive #208, Ottawa, Ontario - ON K1H 7X6, Canada
Phone number to Billings Bridge Shopping Centre mall
613 733 2595
Hours (mall)
Monday - Friday 9:30 am – 9:00 pm, Saturday 9:30 am – 6:00 pm, Sunday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm.
Driving directions
Other stores in Billings Bridge Shopping Centre:
Looking for another location of A Dollar and More store?
Go to A Dollar and More store locator to see all A Dollar and More stores


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PBS will show the story of the Texas State School Board's assault on facts
Some of the most important decisions that influence the public's knowledge aren't made by scientific societies and they don't take place in Washington DC. For the most part, they're made in the capitals of each state, as each has its own standards for what students leaving its public schools should know. Those standards set lesson plans and help decide which textbooks are acceptable.


text: freistatt Mo. village offers free water to fight grass fires By Associated Press • Jul 26, 2012 Jenn Durfey / flickr Farmers and other property owners in a southwestern Missouri village are being offered free water to fight grass fires amid continuing heat and drought. KOLR-TV reports the Lawrence County village of Freistatt announced plans Wednesday to provide water to anyone living within a three-mile radius. Those taking advantage of the offer must have a portable tank to hold 3,000 to 5,000 gallons. The water can be used only to prevent or fight grass fires.


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The Americans 10 p.m., FX
FX continues to be on a roll, with dramas and comedies (except "Anger Management") that are both vital and different from anything on the networks. From "Archer" and "Wilfred" to "Justified" and "Louie," the lineup moves from strength to strength. "The Americans" fits right in, as a pair of Soviet spies live undercover in 1981 suburbia. Wednesday's episode of the series shows the uglier side of Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys). Despite their wholesome image, they're a pair of thugs.
Savage Family Diggers 10 p.m., Spike
Ric Savage and his company continue to comb America for missing or buried historical artifacts, landing on Wednesday night in South Boston at Whitey's Bar. Turns out the bartender pawned a gold pin that Ric thinks might be part of "Boston Strong Boy" John L. Sullivan's championship belt. Will the owner let him search the bar's basement for other bare-knuckle boxing artifacts?
Fried Chicken Paradise 11 p.m., Travel Channel
Grease is the word.
Nashville 10 p.m., Channel 5
Call them Deacon Blues.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 10 p.m., Channel 4
Mac Taylor comes to town. CS-Oy.Matthew Gilbert can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.


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Yankees opening route to China
Bombers making inroads in world's most populous country
By Jonathan Mayo / MLB.com
- Chinese provisional roster
- Read Jonathan Mayo's blog
- Get tickets for the Classic
- Complete Classic coverage
That being said, there are no players from China knocking on big league doors. A quick scan of the Chinese provisional roster for this year's World Baseball Classic -- the team went 0-3 and was outscored 40-6 in the 2006 Classic -- shows just three players affiliated with Major League organizations.
Two of them -- pitcher Liu Kai and catcher Zhang Zhenwang -- are in the Yankees system. (The third is Ray Chang, a Pirates Minor Leaguer who was born in Kansas City). The pair signed with the Yankees in June 2007, and it looked like the start of a very interesting relationship between the Yankees and the world's most populous nation. The signings stemmed from a visit by a group of Yankees executives -- including Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations Mark Newman, Assistant General Manager Jean Afterman and now special Assistant to the GM Gordon Blakely -- to see the national junior championships in China.
"It was our intention to be engaged actively over there from a scouting standpoint and just in general baseball development," Newman said. "We haven't done much lately. I think Major League Baseball is trying to figure out how to approach [China] from a global standpoint. We certainly have interest and want to be involved in the future."
Since signing the Chinese battery -- the first players born in the People's Republic of China to sign with a Major League club with prior permission from the Chinese Baseball Association -- the two have yet to play any regular-season ball for a Yankees affiliate. Liu, 21, and Zhenwang, 20, have participated in instructional league play as they adjust to the game in the United States.
"They're behind kids in the United States and Latino kids because they haven't played as much," Newman said. "We understood that going in. The game is not as developed there. We want to see how they can catch up and what we can do to help them catch up."
International competition certainly doesn't hurt. Zhenwang was on the Chinese Classic roster at age 18 in 2006, though he barely saw action. Liu was on the Chinese Olympic team, where he undoubtedly benefited from having manager Jim Lefebvre and pitching coach Steve Ontiveros to mentor him. China went 1-6 in the tournament, beating Chinese Taipei. Liu appeared in two games and allowed four earned runs in 2 1/3 innings.
Liu's biggest plus is his breaking ball. He knows how to spin a curve. How his other pitches develop will determine what kind of future he may have. Zhenwang is a defensive-oriented backstop, a good catch-and-throw guy who puts the ball in play offensively.
"They've got a ways to go," Newman said. "They have a lot of work to do. They're working out, so we'll see."
The Yankees are likely to see how they fare in the upcoming Classic. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which the Chinese Baseball Association wouldn't want two players who have been learning the game in the United States to help the national team improve its standing in the international game. From the Yankees standpoint, it would be a bonus for their players get the chance to compete on such a stage.
"It gives them a sense of where they want to get," Newman said. "The higher levels of competition will be difficult. It will be a challenge, but they can learn from it."
C Francisco Cervelli was born in Venezuela, but is on the Italian provisional roster thanks to his lineage. The 22-year-old missed much of the 2008 season with a broken wrist, but managed to make his big league debut, appearing in three games at the end of the season.
1B/OF Jahdiel Santamaria, 21, made his United States debut last summer with Staten Island in the short-season New York-Penn League. The Panamanian spent three seasons in the Dominican Summer League and has hit a combined .300 (.250 last summer with Staten Island) over 646 at-bats.
1B Jorge Vazquez is a veteran of the Mexican League who signed with the Yankees this past winter. The 26-year-old has hit .321 to go along with a .593 slugging percentage over his career in that league. He's on Team Mexico's provisional roster.
Jonathan Mayo is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
Right now, it seems like the majority of Lytro pictures are technology demos, a fire hydrant in the foreground and a building in the background, or some equivalent, which just invites you to click both and move on. You can just hear the enthusiastic early adopter in the background of these pictures saying "OK, _now_ click the building! Whoa! Cool, huh?!". These shots are, to my mind, the photographic equivalent of arrows or spears coming out towards the audience in early 3D movies. Gimmicks which break the fourth wall, saying "Hey, remember, you're looking at a Lytro (tm) image, not just anything!".
I can't wait for real photographers and artists to actually find situations, styles and aesthetics where Lytro sorts of cameras can be used in a way that both effectively uses the new capabilities of the format _and_ produces something artistically and aesthetically wonderful. I think the technology has a ways to go, but right now, the biggest problem facing Lytro (and light field photography) is that it's a new medium that nobody has a clue how to use effectively.
Until we reach that point where people see a great Lytro picture and actually feel inspired, it's going to be tough to sell what is currently a low-spec camera with one big gimmick. So, if you want Lytro to take off, buy one for the craziest artist you know.
My first thought was that it could be great for video; no need to bother with precise focus while shooting if you can refocus when you edit. However, I'm guessing that it would require a huge data rate.
My first thought was that it could be great for video; no need to bother with precise focus while shooting if you can refocus when you edit. However, I'm guessing that it would require a huge data rate
My thought as well
I am curious to know if there is a site that can tell us how big the data rate we are looking at
Anyone ?
IIRC, it's an 11 megapixel sensor, to get a 1 megapixel image.
So, not TOO far off from 4k video, to get a low HD quality Lytro video.
My understanding is that this was used (the concept, not the camera) to film some of the 'bullet time' like scenes we see in movies now.
It might be one of those technologies that is just now coming into prosumer and consumer levels of affordability.
The absence of a SD card slot is a huge drawback. Who's gonna fit a light field video stream of decent quality on 8gb of memory?
The Lytro takes still pictures, and can take 350 pictures in the 8 GB model, and 750 pictures in the 16 GB model.
Video would be prohibitively large. Aside from storage, it's probably not possible for the camera to take and store 30 FPS of data at 10 M rays per image, which I would guess would be about 10x typical video data rates. They'd need faster sensors, faster RAM, etc., which would push up the complexity and price quite a bit. In comparison, look how much more HD camcorders cost than SD camcorders, a
The Lytro takes still pictures, and can take 350 pictures in the 8 GB model, and 750 pictures in the 16 GB model.
Yes. It's kind of ridiculous. Most consumer cameras on the market allow a user-supplied CF or SD card, and the differentiating factor between cameras is normally photographic capabilities/image quality, storage is cheap, and 8gb of flash memory is not $100; the "amount of storage is built into the camera" being fixed is highly irregular; it also means I can't use a card reader to easily transfer data -- hooking up USB cables and trying to figure out any driver requirements is quite inconvenient.
The minimum I use these days are 32 gigabyte cards; with only 16gb, it would actually be necessary to frequently delete pictures to make room for more, instead of just swapping flash cards.
Also, flash cards have limited program-erase cycles... which means the camera has a limited lifetime if used heavily. I suppose warranty will cover for some time storage failure due to heavy picture taking activity wearing out the flash?
I'd imagine a big part of that is that there aren't any standard compression schemes available for the format so it probably has to store them raw or close to it. If you were storing 11MP pictures in raw format, you'd have approximately the same capacity.
no need to bother with precise focus while shooting if you can refocus when you edit.
Why do we need "focus" at all? Why not have photographs where everything is in focus? Depth of field is an artifact of lenses, whether they're in your eye or in your camera. A light field could change the entire notion of a photograph, away from trying to imitate the eye to creating a visual record of a scene that actually records everything that is there. No need for depth of field at all.
As usual, when the artists ge
Why do we need "focus" at all? Why not have photographs where everything is in focus? Depth of field is an artifact of lenses, whether they're in your eye or in your camera.
Focus can be used in composition to guide the viewer to the important elements in the story. Just as "left", "up","down", etc. define the field of view, so does focus.
Depth of field effects are considered part of the art of photography, much like amplifier distortion is part of the art of playing electric guitar. People pay a great deal for the capacity to get *narrower* depth of field: compare the price of Canon's 85mm f/1.8 and f/1.2 lenses. People most often buy the f/1.2 as a very very narrow depth of field portrait lens, rather than a very very low-light lens. Other lenses are known for the particular way that they throw backgrounds out of focus -- Nikon will even sell you one where you can choose exactly how the background is defocuses.
I think this trend in photography is overblown (I don't see the appeal of portraits where half of one eye is out of focus), but there's no doubt that artistic manipulation of depth of field is a big part of the art.
No technique ever becomes archaic; it becomes an artistic choice, like black-and-white photography. Same with focus, which probably won't ever go away since it's so intrinsic to how our eyes work. I agree that this could be a huge development once artists figure out what to do with it.
This camera seems to go midway with many lenses for groups of pixels, the smaller those groups, the closer you get to your idea.
What I like about this concept is that the software allows for refocussing, they might very well already have a mode for maximum depth of field, i.e. all in focus.
Because images where everything is sharp look just like the ones you take with a cheap cell phone.
The have demoed this capability, though it won't be in the initial software. But I'd expect the effect to be unpleasant, for the same reason that photos taking with long "depth of focus" lenses, where everything is in focus, tend to be irritating - everything being equally in focus is distracting.
It's a single photosensor. The lens array and maths are doing the hard work. Therefore, although the data processing requirements may be very data intensive, the actual image should be the same, or very close to the same, as an image taken without the lens array. The maths should be implementable fully in hardware such that all processing can be done on camera at video speeds, so there is no reason that this couldn't be done. The issue would be making a cohesive focal point between frames. Having to focus a film frame-by-frame would take a lot of time and would be something only film studios might be willing to do, but would be too annoying for consumers.
It would absolutely rule for news and performance photography I guess (or insect macros
The real problem with this technology is that there is no problem. For the most part portable compact cameras have sensors so small that your average happy snap is sharp across the range anyway. As for the other end of the spectrum, DSLRs have 50+ AF points and memory cards are so spacious that there's no reason not to re-shoot if you think the focus may be off slightly.
The technology is revolutionary, but it isn't solving any problem. People have been taking tac sharp photos for hundreds of years so why sh
Seems Xconomy can't decide whether they like it or not:
The original title seems to have been "The Lytro Camera is no iPhone but it's revolutionary anyway".
going by the URL fragment:
The current title is the less positive "The Lytro Camera Is Revolutionary, But Itâ(TM)s No iPhone" (Note: Not being an iPhone is a negative in a Stevebot's eyes.)
but I said that Lytro needs to make some changes such as enlarging the screen before the value of the device will be completely obvious to consumers.
Or they could use a smaller screen and put an eyepiece on it, making it look more or less like a spotter scope. That even gives them legitimate reason to ditch the touchscreen and replace it with a couple of buttons.
The iPhone isn't an iPhone either
Unfortunately, though, the move to release it at a (barely) 'consumer toy' price point really led to a product slightly too compromised to be useful: The optics you need for the light field capture eat so much of the sensor's available resolution that the resolution of the images you can get out of the thing is hovering slightly below 1 megapixel.
I'd love to see the same technology applied at a price point and form factor where the sheer sacrifice of available pixels wouldn't be so keenly felt.
The reason the camera is only 1 megapixel has nothing to do with the optics. The technology requires many pixels in the imager for each pixel in the resulting image. So, the CCD (or CMOS imager, I don't which it uses) probably has at least 10MP, despite the output of only 1MP.
It's a fundamental limit of the technology, and it'll be a while until we see more than 2 MP using it.
but the microlens optics are the operational location where that reduction happens...
No it isn't. The reduction happens when the software generates the image for the viewer.
Yes, right now it is limited by the technology (a full frame sized sensor with 2 micron pixels would be really sweet for this, but I suppose process would be really expensive), but eventually it will be limited by physics itself. For example, if you were to somehow be able to make a sensor array whose pixel pitch dipped way below half the wavelength of the light you are capturing and if you used microlenses at the wavelength of light, you wouldn't really be able to capture any more three-dimensional/refocu
I bet I could take a blurry 12-megapixel picture, resize it to 1-megapixel and sharpen it, and it will look just as good.
No you can't. You just think that because you don't understand how an aperture works.
Camera lenses focus by directing light through a small hole. At the point of focus, any light which bounces off an object then hits the lens will be directed in such a way that it hits the sensor in exactly the same place as it would have if it had bounced exactly at the center of that hole to begin with, meaning all light from that position hits the same place, giving a sharp image. Away from the point of focus, light bounces off the object, then when it hits the lens, it bends either too far, or too little, giving a soft edge. Thus when an image is out of focus, then the light projecting onto the sensor is actually wrong, no amount of sensitivity will fix that. This is why optics and focus have always been the most important part of getting a nice image out of any digital camera.
A light field camera fixes this by capturing the direction of the light and reconstructing an image of where the light actually came from, not just where it hits the sensor. Thus it can calculate a 100% in focus image covering the entire depth range without having to focus. Previously, only a relatively small range of distances could be kept in focus, and for that it was required to have a small apature and either a long exposure or a grainy image (cellphone style). Now you can have a sharp image with a wide range of focus without motion blur or grain and that's fantastic.
Resizing a 12 megapixel image into 1 megapixel will give you the same image, with less grain, exactly the same image as if you had stuck a 1 megapixel sensor in to begin with (lower resolution sensors of the same size format give less grain because of larger size per pixel and lower photosensitivity). It will never be any better than the image projected on the sensor to begin with, so it doesn't get you anywhere.
Yes, the ability to spit out that paltry image at all sorts of focuses, after the fact, is damn cool; but for $500, you could get a high end P&S that could iterate through a series of 10MP shots at different focus points, at time of shooting in a few seconds, netting much of the benefit along with resolutions that wouldn't be ashamed to show up on a $20 webcam.
Do remember that the Lytro captures its image at one instance (okay, technically integrated over a short period of contiguous time), so while for static scenes your approach would work, it wouldn't work all that well with dynamic scenes. Personally, I'd like see more artistic photos such as say a black balloon covered in starry speckles bursting with a figurine of the baby from the end of 2001 inside.
> that the impressive-but-evolutionary spec bumps of markedly superior conventional digital cameras don't
That is an excellent point. Specs are getting better, but cameras are not, as you can see in make expert reviews. In fact many of the latest generation cameras make worse pictures than the generation before. The specs are lies served to us for marketing purposes, but the functionality suffers.
The Lytra can't compete on specs or image quality (actually the images are pretty bad, if you look closely). B
DP Review [dpreview.com] has a review of this camera. It sounds like it has a long way to go. Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024. I don't know if there's really a way around it, since they're substituting resolution for the depth of field focus feature.
DP Review [dpreview.com] has a review of this camera. It sounds like it has a long way to go. Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024. I don't know if there's really a way around it, since they're substituting resolution for the depth of field focus feature.
But that's still high enough for the vast majority of people's snapshots. 1024x1024 yields a 5"x5" print at 200dpi, while most people seem to be satisfied with 4x6" prints.
It's certainly not going to satisfy a pro or serious amateur, but for everyday snapshots, even the current level of the technology is a big step forward since it can eliminate every out of focus shot (though camera shake is still an issue)
it's worse; there's also a lot of noise if the subject is not very well lit. since they claim this will be (partially) fixed in firmware, maybe they haven't gotten dark-frame subtraction [wikipedia.org] to work yet?
Dark frame subtraction is only useful (and used) for shutter speeds above one second -- this is true for cameras from the cheapest 1/3.2" sensor on my old Panasonic FZ3 to the rather nice Four Thirds sensor in my DSLR.
More likely, each output pixel requires taking only part of the information from the input pixels (since you've got to do something other than "average them" to get the light field information), exacerbating the noise.
But that's still high enough for the vast majority of people's snapshots. 1024x1024 yields a 5"x5" print at 200dpi, while most people seem to be satisfied with 4x6" prints.
With no ability to crop or zoom, though. Consumers don't frame their shots very well - so having tons of excess resolution helps pull a decent print out of a crap image. With the current Lytro it's hard to frame shots well.
The Lytro can't fix camera shake, either, and (a) the camera is an unusual, hard-to-hold shape with (b) a crappy LCD. If they took the lightfield guts, and packaged it inside a traditional SLR-style body, they could both make it easier to hold the camera steady, and add a large LCD and real viewfinder.
But that's where Lytro misses the bus... It's priced above the average consumer's price range, requires more fiddling and diddling, and requires Lytro's proprietary web based software - all to produce a picture that would be the pride of 2002.
It ends up being a solution in search of a problem. Too much for consumers, too little for prosumers and professionals.
I think the article had it right, sort of: these are bound to be embedded in certain specialty devices. They're great for 3D capture, for example. It's not going to make it as a camera on it's own. People who pay a lot for cameras generally lust after shallow depth of field for it's artistic effects. People who don't use whatever camera is at hand, usually the one in their cell phones.
DP Review [dpreview.com] has a review of this camera. It sounds like it has a long way to go. Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024.
Low res? No worries, just use the ENHANCE button. Problem solved.
David Benton
Crime Scene Investigations, Miami PD
Low res? No worries, just use the ENHANCE button. Problem solved.
I'm assuming the Enhance button actually replaces the original 1024x1024 image with a 4096x4096 goatse pic. Which would be a good reason for people to call the Lytro a toy camera.
Due to the way lightfield works, the final resolution is fairly low, in this case only 1024x1024. I don't know if there's really a way around it, since they're substituting resolution for the depth of field focus feature.
Well, it's the first generation consumer lightfield camera. The first-gen digital cameras weren't that great either - they were overpriced and underperformed (you were lucky if you got VGA images).
It's a New Kind Of Camera(tm). There's a lot of refinement that can be done, but the first gen
Due to the way it works, light field cameras will always have a fraction of the resolution of regular cameras and/or poorer low light performance. Really, poor focus isn't usually a problem with modern cameras. Most of the shots people think are poorly focused are probably actually motion blurred because the camera had to use too slow a shutter speed in order to make up for it's crappy low light performance. And this camera is worse.
...that's going to change the way consumers think about pictures.
You're overestimating the average consumer: You believe they think prior to taking a picture. Having gone through enough cell phones left abandoned and dropped off at the lost in found before finally pressing 'm' in the phone book and calling their mom to say they lost their phone at my workplace... I can say with a fair degree of confidence most people take pictures of themselves, themselves with friends, more pictures of themselves and... (guys only)... pictures of inanimate objects that they never share or send to anyone. Ever. They're usually things like sign posts, car wheels (not actual cars, this would be too obvious), or random corners of buildings. From this, I can deduce that no actual thinking occurs for at least 95% of your everyday consumer's use of a camera.
there might be a high correlation between people not thinking before using their cell to take a pic and those who lose their cells. just saying.
anyways, there's not much need to think now with digital photography. each incremental photo costs nothing.
back when i had a film camera, i'd think before each photo i took. they were precious resources.
Given the resolution tradeoffs that are inherent in the design, I can see this theoretically "revolutionizing" camera phones or cheap point-and-shoots... perhaps. But I'm not sure I believe even that, given that people won't take a few seconds even now to crop their photos, sharpen them (even automatically), or adjust the white balance. Most people just seem to throw whatever photos they've taken up online - no editing, no triage, no nothing.
I can't see this making a difference with the higher-end market, i
Nokia announce a phone with a camera sensor that's 41 Megapixels. -If- you can combine that sensor with the Lytro lens in a small camera assembly you'll get sufficient resolution to be used for more than just gimmicks.
Nokia is already using all those pixels for their own gimmicks... and getting a 5 MP image out.
If you used that sensor with a light field lens array you'd end up with a camera that had truly horrible low light performance. And low light performance is probably THE thing that makes the biggest difference for typical snapshots.
For those more interested in the technology, Ren Ng's thesis is available on Lytro's website (at the bottom of the "Science Inside" page). I read much of the thesis at it the other day after reading an article about the camera in the New York Times. It's a well written thesis and explains the technology in a few simple ways and more rigoroursly.
The best explaination to me was that the microlens array is effectively reimaging the lens onto a small array of pixels under each microlens. (The micolens is placed at the usual focal plane of the camera and the # of microlenses is what determines the resolution). Each pixel therefore sees only a small aperture of the lens. A small aperture gives a very large depth of field. You could just use one pixel under each microlens to create an image with a large depth of field, but you'd be throwing away a lot of light. You can be more clever, however, and reconstruct from all those small aperture images the image at any focus. At different focuses, the light from any location is shared among multiple microlenses. (i.e, it's out of focus - so it's blurred at the focal plane). However, it's not out of focus at the pixels, since remember each pixel only sees a small aperture and has a large depth of field. It's then just a matter of adding the right pixels together to create an in-focus image at any effective focal plane.
Many people have noticed in the online samples that you can't focus clearly on far-away objects; they sorta get sharper, but not anywhere as sharp as foreground details. So that awesome picture of you on top of a mountain? You'll be nice and sharp, but the background never will be. Kind of spoils it, when the whole point is to be able to click and have one or the other be super sharp, right?
Also, it needs absurd amounts of light according to Gizmodo, or image noise becomes horrendous. Which is not surprising, given how hard Nikon and Canon are pushing the edge of what's possible in their sensors + image processors, and how small the individual lenses are. Great for sunny places. Not so much for indoors.
When will we get a light field display? It's only logical that you'd need both to truly leverage this invention. And seeing as you can get displays with >300 dpi resolution today, it's only a matter of time before displays have enough resolution, and computers have enough processing power to display light field images.
It would project a light field, rather than a flat image.
All screens project a light field -- it's just the light field of a flat surface.
As to recreating the original light-field, in theory it's not an impossible task, but it's faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar beyond current technology, as it would involve a near infinitive array of light-producing elements firing light in very specific directions. Photography and vision is the summation of light from particular sources following various paths -- you need to recreate a near-infinity of paths to create an accurate recreatio
That's great for real fake 3D
I think there's a point where it's fair to start calling it "real" 3D, since the projected image would be indistinguishable an actual 3D object.
A light field display would construct an actual light field like the one your eyes normally interact with. It wold have depth of field, and the projected image would appear to change as to move around it, and as you move closer to it. You have to remember that in the physical world, there is only a light field, your eyes intercept it and process it to generate those other effects (excepting depth of field, which is generated physically by the lens in your eye).
Part of what makes 3d movies look fake is that the viewer cannot focus on anything other than what is "in focus" as per the Director. I imagine it would be possible to use this technology paired with some sort of eye tracking tech (which also exists). This would move us a step closer toward a more realistic immersion.
Ok, but then you have to watch it alone because while I'm focusing on the tree in the background, you're focusing on the foreground...
Yeah. That crossed my mind. I might be more compelling for gaming, then. I could also envision a room where a bunch of people watch the same movie, each wearing a personal set of glasses with internal screens.
how is that different from 2d? you cant ignore what the director wants you to see and actually focus in on the distant object in the background, its a basic principal of camera optics
It isn't different. That's my point. This camera would allow whatever you are looking at to be in focus.
Let's list some of the significant drawbacks of this first version which we can realistically chalk up as a technology demo:
* Camera is shaped weird and appears awkward to use. If form follows function, I'm not sure what the function is.
* Cheap last-gen LCD display.
* Output is only 1MP (1024x1024).
* Sensor is really small
* Lens is cheap
* Limited depth of field
* Raw light fields have to be sent to Lytro server for processing
* Only a handful of focus points can be chosen
* In focus range is limited
* Photos are converted into lame Flash animations
Now, let's re-imagine this as a serious photographers tool a few years down the road:
* It's a DSLR with real interchanegable lenses and huge hi-rez LCD display
* Let's say the camera can even magically switch from "classic" to light field mode with a toggle switch.
* Huge full frame sensor allowing light field output at 6+MP with high dynamic range and low noise at high ISOs
* Depth of field choices much broader and limited only by lens chosen
* Effective focus range is much improved
* Raw lightfield processing can be done on your local computer, allowing precise control over number and position of focus layers. Alternately, assuming processing speed is available, perhaps focusing points can be chosen in real-time within the finished image blob.
* Output as multiple jpegs, flash or HTML5, etc.
Now what?
Well, you still have these limitations if you use light fields:
* You're basically giving up some amount of image resolution for the ability to focus after the fact. DSLRs and even consumer cameras already have excellent auto-focus modes that when used properly generally nail focus in decent light. It's not the biggest or even second biggest problem I see in photos online. Bad composition and inadequate lighting are generally much bigger problems.
* If you chose the wrong focus point when shooting, sure you can fix your mistake, but if focus is off due to camera shake or motion blur, you're SOL.
* It's basically useless in images with large depths of field (think large landscapes where everything is essentially in focus)
* Makes no difference on a printed page, except you have one more tweak available during editing.
* Still gimmicky. After everyone has played around with a few of these photos interactively, they're bored and move on.
"* Huge full frame sensor allowing light field output at 6+MP with high dynamic range and low noise at high ISOs"
Or I can get a regular huge full frame SLR with higher resolution and much better low noise performance. And no, switching the sensor into regular or light field mode isn't going to be easy.
As a hobbyist photographer (you know the kind that has spent an inordinate amount of money of equipment, can take some decent pictures but has found out that he has no real talent) I concur completely. A really nice gimmick but I hardly see any practical value.
The Lytro camera has special optics that basically separates the light entering the lens from different angles. Knowing the rough angle of the light rays allows you to combine them in different ways to change the focal length of the image, as opposed to a traditional camera, in which they are permanently combined as the CCD captures the light at a set focal length. This comes with a trade-offs as light from each set of angles is essentially captured as a separate image, giving you say 12x12 sub images on the CCD, so the resolution of each sub-image is much lower than you would get using the full CCD for an image.
Since Ren Ng published his seminal paper making the connection between refocusing a light-feild and Fourier Slice theory, there has been additional work which shows that you can achieve the same thing using a simple filter, rather than a whole new set of optics. The benefit of this is that it is cheaper to manufacture, and you can easily switch out the filter to adjust the trade-off between image resolution and depth of field, but come with an additional cost of a slight loss of total light (due to the filter). Here is one of those papers [umd.edu].
There are two basic approaches. The first heterodynes the light (a filter acts as multiplication) such that light that enters at different angles is shifted to different frequencies. So with this approach you get "subimages" in the frequency domain rather than the spacial domain, which can be seperated and recombined in software. The result and trade-offs are essentially the same but with simpler hardware.
The other is based on refocusing as a deconvolution operation, but the filter modifies the point-spread-function of the camera, such that it's frequency response doesn't have any zeros, so you don't loose data at those frequencies like you would with a simple rectangular aperture.
Linky to that Ren Ng paper on Fourier Slice theory?
Thanks a lot in advance.
So, perfect for capturing images of stuff like textures for games.
It's now possible to make imagers with so many pixels that finding some way to use them is a problem. This is one way. Another way is to have more colors. There's a camera with around 100 different color filters, which is interesting for some scientific applications and for machine vision. 3 color sensing is a human eye thing. Some birds have 22 different spectral sensors, which is useful in picking targets through foliage. There's also interest in having more dynamic range, so that you don't have to worry about exposure or lighting as much.
The next thing may be image polarization, by having multiple polarizers per picture. This would be useful in eliminating glare after the fact.
An alternative technique that could be done with a regular DSLR (with appropriate firmware, of course) could use the full range of focus at a wide aperture to generate a depth map for the image (not necessarily an easy thing to do accurately, but possible with a few tricks). You then take the image with a small aperture to maximize depth of field. Then you could focus the image however you like in post production.
Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident.


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Did you miss the PETA demo in Harvard Square on Saturday? Alas, I did, too. Organizer Laura Ray told me that about 25 PETA-niks (supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) showed up to pressure Harvard into finding homes for the 2,000 animals at its soon-to-be-closed New England Primate Research Center.
"We're trying to persuade them not to send these monkeys to other labs, but to retire them," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a separate conversation. "That would require a mammoth effort, but Harvard should damn well fund a sanctuary for those animals; they owe it to them. Right now it's up in the air what will happen to these primates — fellow primates, I mean."
Classic PETA. It's not enough that Harvard agrees to shut down its massive medical research facility. Newkirk & Co. want the World's Greatest University to build a first-class monkey hotel! This is why everybody hates PETA. This is why I love PETA, why I always have, and why I suspect I always will.
What do I like about PETA? It's all in Revelations 3:15; "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot . . . So then, because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth." Lukewarm PETA is not. I love its zeal, passion, and energy. I love its sense of humor and willingness — nay, eagerness — to take on all comers. Big Pharma, the fashion industry, heck, the Department of Defense hold no terror for PETA. "PETA Video Expose Reveals the U.S. Military's War on Goats," screams a headline from its publication "Animal Times."
A smiling Joaquin Phoenix graces the cover of the most recent issue, next to the headline, "Try to Relate to Fish." Phoenix stars in a brief PETA video, which shows him drowning underwater. "We [suffocate] more than 1 trillion fish every year," intones the vegan actor. "Put yourself in their place. Try to relate."
Ridiculously over the top? Of course. But extremism in defense of the furred and finny is never a vice where PETA is concerned. The organization gleefully exploits "good" celebrities such as Jessica Chastain and Woody Harrelson ("Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities"), tireless animal-lover Bob Barker, a rotating bevy of supermodels clad in lettuce bikinis, and Alec Baldwin, who has inveighed against circuses and factory farming on their behalf.
Ex-"Baywatch" babe Pamela Anderson has been fanatically loyal to PETA, most recently narrating a four-minute long anti-KFC rant on a website called Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com. Anderson loves to participate in soft-porn PETA-mercials that are quickly banned by institutional bluenoses, e.g, the city of Montreal and CNN. The censorship hoo-ha generates a viral publicity windfall; score another round for the animal people.
Know them by their ham-handed enemies. In May, the Globe's Michael Kranish profiled influence-peddler Richard Berman, head of the Center for Consumer Freedom. Flush with cash from anonymous donors, the Center operates the anti-PETA website petakillsanimals.com, which correctly reported that "the world's most notorious animal liberation group kills large numbers of dogs and cats in its Virginia animal shelter."
"Yes, we euthanize some animals in our shelters,'' Newkirk says, "but we save more animals than most shelters do. Sheltering isn't our primary business." Newkirk says Berman's strategy is to "kill the messenger" on behalf of his food and drug industry clients: "He works for people like Philip Morris, Outback Steak House, and KFC, but he doesn't have to report any of that.''
Anonymous attacks are hardly PETA's style. Favored targets includes medical schools (vivisection), New York City's Central Park horse carriages, the notorious Canadian seal hunt, and even the Children's Television Workshop, whom it accused of shilling for the corporate egg industry.
SeaWorld is a favorite PETA target, in part for "enslaving" killer whales to perform for crowds in San Diego and Orlando. PETA even filed a lawsuit arguing that SeaWorld's captivity of named plaintiffs, the orcas Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises, violated the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery.
"We did not prevail but neither did any of the first human slavery cases," Newkirk said. The defense never rests. SeaWorld recently went public, and PETA bought a few thousand dollars' worth of shares. Would you like to guess who's going to show up at the annual meeting in a Shamu costume, draped in padlocks and chains? Perhaps Pamela Anderson herself. I can hardly wait.Alex Beam's column appears regularly in the Globe. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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ivotuk wrote:Ive been searching these for some info or hints on who we might be looking at, and apparently, it is no one. Well I did find a mention of EJ Manuel... Schneider playing it close to the vest. There must be a lot of players there that our scouts like.
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OP I completely understand, my MIL is the same. She gives DD something I thank her, DH thanks her and now DD is old enough she thanks her. Then MIL tells everyone she meets what she did and expects more thanks you. Bonus points if a week later you get told off because you didn't thank her because she's 'forgotten' you did Thankfully she lives in another state and we usually talk via skype so I can fake connection issues when it comes up again
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"During the evaluation period it became clear that these ties accept our tie plate and screw spike consistently, do not break down and road salts seem to have no effect on their longevity," said Keith Hiatt, Calgary Transit's track and way coordinator.
ECOTRAX composite ties are made from 100-percent recycled plastic. In manufacturing ties for this purchase order, more than 100,000 pounds of plastic were taken out of the landfill stream and converted crossties.
AXION currently sells its ECOTRAX ties to railroads and transit systems, as well as a Class 1 railroad in the U.S.


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Via Jon Samuelson, Enid Baines, Kathleen Cercone, R.Conrath, Ed.D., Elena Elliniadou, Carola Brunnbauer
Rescooped by
Jack Patterson
from Technology Enhanced Learning in Teacher Education
onto Social media and education
Blogging is a really important tool to help with literacy skills. Give it a try.
Writing for the web, in all forms, is an essential communication skill. All languages should teach the techniques and rules that apply to writing for the web.


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Elisa Parsons was wearing a white Wellesley High basketball fleece over her purple Stonehill College T-shirt at Bentley University's Dana Center in Waltham.
The attire reflected her Saturday afternoon itinerary and her team loyalties.
First, Parsons took in the Northeast-10 Conference matchup between the Stonehill women and archrival Bentley. Then it was on to Wellesley to watch the Raider girls in their 53-50 season-opening victory over visiting Longmeadow High.
The 90-year-old Parsons is affectionately called "Aunt Lisa" by the Wellesley players, who are coached by her great-niece, Kristin Cieri, and by the Stonehill team, including junior captain Mary Louise Dixon, who starred at Wellesley High.
Dixon's parents, Tom and Pauline, provide rides for Parsons, who lives near the Stonehill campus in Easton, so she can follow both teams.
"Aunt Lisa has such a wonderful spirit that draws you to her,'' said Stonehill coach Trisha Brown, a member of Norwood High's Athletic Hall of Fame who has guided the Skyhawks to an 8-1 start this season. Their only loss, 66-50, was to unbeaten Bentley, ranked second nationally in Division 2.
"When I first met her, I couldn't believe her age. She's a great fan and a special part of the Skyhawk family. We should all have Aunt Lisas in our lives.''
Girls' basketball was vastly different when Parsons, nee Carrara, starred on the court, and for the field hockey team, seven-plus decades ago at Stoughton High.
"The court was divided in half and the guards couldn't cross that line," recalled Parsons, who was voted "Most Athletic" in the Stoughton High class of 1940. "You could take just one dribble, but once I had 30 points in a game even though I'm 5-foot-1. Imagine that! 5-1 and I was a forward, but I used to play basketball with the boys and that made me a better player," she said.
"We didn't have much of a gym back then compared to today, but to me, it was wonderful. I started playing basketball in junior high and I loved it right away,'' added Parsons, who coached CYO basketball in Stoughton when Harry Truman was president, and was hale enough to play basketball with her grandsons when she was in her 70s.
"Just some shooting, dribbling and passing,'' she said modestly. "I was trying to give them a feel for the game.''
Parsons received her Wellesley High warm-up top after last season's last game, as a gift from senior captain Shannon Magpiong, whose father, Glen, coaches the Wellesley boys' varsity.
When Wellesley scrimmages Oliver Ames High in Easton, Parsons rides the team bus to the game. She is also a guest at the squad's annual banquet.
Cieri, who has coached the varsity at Wellesley since 1996, said her great-aunt still goes to Red Sox and Celtics games, and when she talks about the Celtics she brings up names like Red Auerbach and Bob Cousy.
'To have someone like Aunt Lisa in our lives is such a blessing.'
"It's amazing how well she still analyzes the game,'' said Cieri. "After every game, I ask her opinion and I value it. She loved watching [Mary Louise Dixon] and that's when she became Aunt Lisa to our team.''
Parsons has been a loyal supporter of her family's, and extended family's, athletic endeavors for decades.
Her nephew, Cieri's father, John, coached basketball, football, and track at Westwood High and was the first athletic director and men's basketball coach at Massachusetts Bay Community College.
In September, John and Kristin Cieri were inducted into the Norwood High Athletic Hall of Fame, with Parsons in attendance.
Denise Carrara, Parsons' niece, coached girls' basketball at Stoughton High, and is in the school's Athletic Hall of Fame. Carrara is the junior varsity softball coach at East Bridgewater High.
When she turned 90 on Oct. 11, Parsons was given an elaborate photo and memorabilia album designed by her daughter, Lisa Caudle of Foxborough, entitled "90 Pages for 90 Years.''
On Oct. 2, 1954, Parsons was at Harvard Stadium to watch John Cieri and his University of Massachusetts Amherst football teammates upset the Crimson, 13-7.
"I remember that Ted Kennedy played for Harvard that day,'' said Parsons, a field hockey captain in high school who designed a pattern for a new and more comfortable two-piece uniform that each team member used.
When Wellesley High — with Dixon and her older sister Eleni starting in the backcourt — defeated Millbury for the state girls' title in 2008 at the DCU Center in Worcester, she joined in the celebration.
On the night Mary Louise Dixon and Wellesley teammate Blake Dietrick each scored their 1,000th career points, Parsons posed for a photo with them.
"To have someone like Aunt Lisa in our lives is such a blessing. We love her,'' said Pauline Dixon.
"She's just amazing,'' added daughter Mary Louise, who is leading the Skyhawks in points (13.3), assists (5.0) and steals (1.3 per game) and is Stonehill's second leading rebounder. "And she definitely knows her basketball.''
Parsons is the youngest of seven children.
"The others are gone,'' she said. "So I'm their matriarch in spirit.''
Her father, Joseph, was a steamfitter at Springdale Finishing Co. in Canton. Her mother, Annie, worked as a stitcher at Nasher Manufacturing in Stoughton.
"In the winter, we used to store apples and pears from our trees in the basement, and we had chickens in the back yard,'' she recalled. "It was the Depression and we had to take care of ourselves. Dad even chopped wood to help our family.''
Kristin Cieri said her great-aunt is a family link to the past and an inspiration for the present.
When Parsons was being picked up en route to Oliver Ames, the Wellesley players began cheering from the bus as she waved to them.
"The smile on Aunt Lisa's face that day,'' said Cieri, "meant it was the start of a new season for all of us.''Marvin Pave can be reached at email@example.com.


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Stoke almost threw away a 3-0 half-time lead against Fulham but eventually clung on to end a run of six Barclays Premier League matches without victory.
The Cottagers were stunned as Tuncay Sanli nodded in a close-range header from a 12th-minute corner and the Potters then scored twice within three minutes of each other just after the half-hour through Abdoulaye Faye and Mamady Sidibe.
Damien Duff pulled one back in the 61st minute before a stunning Clint Dempsey volley five minutes from time set up a rousing finale.
The win was the Potters' first in the league since November 22, while Fulham have now gone nine away matches without victory.
It was also the first time Stoke had scored three in the Premier League since August 23, 2008 - their second game back in the top flight.
There was certainly nothing in their current form to suggest they were due a few as the team had failed to score in five of their last six league matches and prior to kick-off had registered just 15 goals in 19 matches.
If losing goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen in the warm-up with a recurrence of a finger injury sustained in Saturday's FA Cup tie against York caused any disruption to the home side it did not show.
In only the second minute Matt Etherington had the ball in the net but was at least two yards offside when Sidibe released the pass.
Faye's foul on Bobby Zamora gave Danny Murphy a 28-yard free-kick which he hit low, sending stand-in goalkeeper Steve Simonsen the wrong way only for it to roll just past the post.
The Fulham captain was then robbed of possession by Tuncay 10 yards inside his own half and it was to prove costly as the Turkey international ran into the area to force a corner.
Robert Huth nodded on Etherington's inswinging delivery to the far post where Tuncay headed past Mark Schwarzer from close range.
Sidibe almost doubled the lead four minutes later after some neat control and a shot on the turn from Danny Higginbotham's left-wing cross but his effort was too close to the goalkeeper.
Fulham came close to an equaliser when Zoltan Gera's effort went just wide from Duff's corner but Paul Konchesky's needless obstruction on Liam Lawrence as the pair chased a ball to the byline on the right gave Etherington another chance to whip in a dangerous cross and once again he delivered perfectly.
The ball dipped over the crowd in the centre of the penalty area and dropped to the far post where Faye slid in to score in the 34th minute.
Three minutes later Stoke were 3-0 up after a flowing move down their left when Tuncay and Etherington combined for the latter to cross to Danny Higginbotham in the penalty area.
He headed it to the far post where Sidibe smashed in a half-volley for his first goal of the season.
Tuncay limped off just before the interval to be replaced by Ricardo Fuller, who had a header in first half added time scrambled off the line and a close-range shot deflected over by Schwarzer.
Brede Hangeland, who had returned from a groin injury but had not looked comfortable against Sidibe, was replaced by Chris Smalling after the break.
Fulham suffered another blow when Zamora went off with a shoulder injury after a foul by Faye, who was booked.
However, his replacement Dempsey provided the assist for Fulham's goal in the 61st minute when he played the ball across the 18-yard line and Duff hit a left-footed shot which deflected off Ryan Shawcross and past Simonsen.
Stoke's best chance of the second half came in the 74th minute when Fuller cut in from the right but saw his deflected shot off Smalling palmed around the near post by Schwarzer.
Erik Nevland was sent on for Andy Johnson with seven minutes remaining and it was his flick-on which picked out Dempsey to smash in a dipping volley from 35 yards in the 85th minute.
The closing stages were frantic but Stoke just held on.
Copyright (c) PA Sport 2009, All Rights Reserved.
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text: There are essentially five major players on the market today when it comes to mattresses. Each one represents its own set of strengths and weaknesses. While you're exploring your options, it's a good idea to look at a few of the pros and cons of each mattress type so that you can make a more informed purchasing decision.


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"It's a pleasure to be here to celebrate multiculturalism," Mark-Viverito said. "I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and I came to New York City at the age of 18, and I'm very proud of who I am. We live in such a beautifully diverse city where we can learn so much of all the cultures that are represented."
Decorating the walls above the gymnasium on the main floor of the settlement house were displays designed by the children who rely on the center's resources. The night also featured several performances from groups of all ages, as well as craft displays by local vendors.
After taking in the displays and performances, Van Bramer said, "Nights like tonight are everything that is right about our city and about our neighborhood."
Jacob Riis executive director Christopher Hanway couldn't have agreed more.
"It's one of our most anticipated events of the year," Hanway said. "It gives the opportunity to showcase all the great work being done by our young people."
Among the activities celebrated was the launch of a new Read-a-thon program, a pledge system-based reading program for youngsters.
In its 125th year, the organization has been operating out of its current location at the Queensbridge Houses since the 1950s.
While he is grateful for all of the support his organization receives from the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), Hanway said one of the biggest challenges facing the settlement is getting the authority to approve maintenance work.
"In many ways, in most ways, NYCHA is a very good partner; they do a lot of good work for the community," Hanway said. "The problem with NYCHA is that they are heavily subsidized by a lot of sources, including the city, state and the federal government, and those funds have been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking."
Van Bramer last year set aside $300,000 to ensure a new air conditioning system for the Jacob Riis gymnasium and bathroom repairs in the basement of the structure for use by the elderly and disabled. There have been delays, however, in approval for work orders by NYCHA that have slowed the process significantly, according to Hanway.
"NYCHA has this huge backlog of repairs, capital work that needs to be done, and after the council member worked really hard to allocate $300,000 for the A/C and the downstairs bathroom, NYCHA wasn't able to move on it," Hanway said.
The good news is, while the much-needed air-conditioning may not be ready by this summer, it is in the works and will be installed soon, according to Hanway.
"We actually have a timeline to get it fixed by next winter at the latest," he said.


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With some of you guys b*tching up a storm about getting a Top 15 pick and a 3rd rounder, I can only imagine the fuss you'd be making if we kept Revis this season then watched him walk for a 3rd round comp pick next year.
Let's see...
- We have 8 picks as of right now in the 2013 draft, including two Top 15 picks
- We could have as many as 12 picks in the 2014 draft with the Bucs 3rd rounder and comp picks taken into consideration. Not to mention around $40 million in cap space to play with if we get rid of Sanchez and Holmes
Yet you guys are ready to throw Idzik out of a window?
You guys b*tched your lungs out over the past 9 months about how Tannenbaum ran things, but it seems like you miss him already.


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New Jersey Won't Let You Smile in Your Driver's License Photo
Hoping to liven up your driver's license photo with a toothy grin? Not in New Jersey, you don't. In fact, the state's Motor Vehicle Commission has recently begun a crackdown on people who flash their pearly whites while being photographed.


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The lights are on
As a current Xbox 360 owner, I have recently been contemplating picking up a PS3. I am really just looking to round out this generation (already have a wii). The only problem, is I'm not sure what a PS3 has to offer. I already have a bluray player, so that perk is gone. And any game that isn't exclusive to the PS3 I can just pick up for my 360.
So my question to you PS3 owners is what am I missing out on? What are your favorite exclusives and why? The only two that I know of that interest me are LittleBigPlanet and Modnation Racers (which I know isn't out yet, but has an interesting premise.
Also.. the guy who said the PS3 is a Ferrari.. what is your basis of this? Facts, boyo, and don't claim the red ring - it hasn't happened to me once owning since launch day.
The online community is ROWDY!! I'm not trying to push the site cause I'm a moderator there but you can see how rowdy they are at www.REDYUP.com. It's crazy on xbox but when you give a bunch of kids young and old a free online community like PS3, they take full advantage of demoralizing a wonderful technological innovation. Lol. With that said....You'll Love It! lol
"I Don't Need To Get A Life. I'm A Gamer. I Have Plenty of Lives!"
Also the PS3 may not be a ferrari but the Sony people know how to make the gaming console appealing to the average consumer...blu ray, free online and more bang for your buck with the 120 gig hard drive blu ray and free online for 299.00 Did I say that multiple times? Why yes I did. Just throwing some positives out there. Point Blank those who love Xbox are similar to people who use MACs. They will live and die by them. They have nothing great to say about a PS3 just like a MAC user has nothing great to say about a PC. Hope this helps further
I think ended up buying a 360 first but I don't think I could give it up. Here lately since the release of Uncharted 2 demo and some other things my 360 has got some dust on on it. I hear Demon Soul's is going to be a really good action RPG. From what i've seen and read from others.
First and foremost, before buying a ps3 slim, try to find an old 60 gb model. It has more USB ports, which I use all 4 of mine, and from what I've heard, the new ps3 isn't backwards compatible which there are a lot of ps2 rpgs you probably want to check out. Don't worry too much about the smaller hard drive because sony was smart enough to make it easy to put bigger hdd's in. My 60 gig ps3 is running with a 500gb hdd right now. As for PS3 RPG's, Cross Edge is a really good one, Disgaea 3 is so-so, and FFXIII is just over the horizon.
Vae Victus
And just as a quick note to you XBox guys, stats suggest the reason 360 still outsells PS3 is because a lot of people have to keep re-buying their 360. Red Ring of Death anyone?
The online community is completely underrated and growing everyday. LittleBigPlanet and MGS are awesome. Get Valkyria Chronicles and Uncharted. Uncharted is something special that you DO NOT want to miss out on. You may want to check out Demon's Souls. Havent tried it but I hear great things about and Dragons Age Origins looks pretty good.
Cheers to your purchase and WELCOME.
PSN: zenitram_27
hey i'm trying buy a ps3 and i really like it but i also like the xbox 360 bu i dont want RROD (red ring of death)
and i like the ps3 slim what should i buy?
Well you just said you like the PS3 two different ways and one good and bad about 360, I think you know this answer.
Basically, the games are what matters most, if you have a game that interests you, get it for that console with a console.
If ur asking what you should buy between a ps3 or 360 then deff get the ps3,
I was in the same spot and all my friends have 360 but i got a ps3 and im LOVING it. online is free too that was the biggest catch for me. i don't have to deal with all those *** Microsoft points. And the community on PS3 seems alot better. I realy dont have to use my computer as much anymore cause i can access the internet threw a browser. Basically Ps3>360
You cant believe everything you hear on the Internet, that's how World War 1 started.
Get it and great exclusives are Resistance 1 and 2, infamous, metal gear solid 4, uncharted 1 and 2, and god of war 3
i suppose it depends on what you are looking for. it looks like the PS3 has a lot of action and shooting games to me and a little RPGs( maybe mostly JRPGs)
i do not have a PS3 but i am thinking about getting one too, but i want it Ratchet and maybe god of war 3
In life we will have a chance to show the world how amazing we are. Do not wait for that day. Live as if that day to prove or push yourself as if it is everyday. i love the 80s(Michael,Madonna,and Prince) but was not born there Long live the King
Totally get one. I have a 360 and there are some things that are better on the PS3. First and foremost is Blu-Ray you can't pass it up. Second this system seems to have better exclusives on the way for the next year, obviously one of them is God of War 3. The community is more tolerant to say the least. But yeah if you can get a game on the 360 get it on that system, that's what I'm doing. Oh and their PSN is better than live marketplace where you can use real people money. Always a plus I guess.
i think that you should get a ps3 because, yes a lot of the games that come out for the ps3 can be bought for the xbox 360, but there are tons of games only for ps3, for instance: metal gear solid 4, god of war, uncharted,littlebigplanet, modnation racers, and mucch more. also the internet is free.
Plus the built in wifi and free online service


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Downtown streets closed First Night
The City of Pittsburgh is planning to close a number of streets in Downtown to accommodate crowds during First Night activities.
All requested Street Closings listed will begin at 10 a.m., Monday, Dec. 31 and reopen at 1 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013 unless stated otherwise. All street closures will be handled by First Night event staff and/or off-duty officer:
• Stanwix St from Liberty to Penn Ave – 9 p.m. – 1 a.m. only.
• Stanwix St from Gateway Garage Entrance to Penn Ave – 9 p.m. – 1 a.m. only.
• Penn Avenue from Stanwix Street up until, but not including, Tenth Street.
• Fifth Avenue/CLO Way from entrance of the Highmark Garage to Fort Duquesne Blvd.
• Sixth Street from Liberty Avenue to Fort Duquesne will remain open with the exception of from 8:15-8:45 to allow parade to return to the staging area.
• The parking garage on Penn at 6th St. will remain open until 3 p.m. Police will staff the barricade on Penn Avenue from 10 a.m. – midnight to allow garage lease holders to enter and exit through the closed section of Penn Avenue.
• Seventh St.t from Liberty Ave. to the entrance of Theater Square Parking Garage.
• Seventh St. and Ft Duquesne Blvd. – garage access only.
• Eighth St. from Liberty Avenue (Tito Way) to parking lot entrances near Penn Avenue.
• Eighth St. and Ft. Duquesne Blvd. – garage access only.
• Ninth Street from Liberty Avenue to entrance of 9th St. Parking Garage near Penn Avenue.
• Ninth St. and Ft Duquesne Blvd. – garage access only.
• All alleys leading into the foot print.
• Maddock Place located next to 709 Penn Ave., which runs parallel to Seventh St. and Eighth St. needs to remain open for access to parking lots from Fort Duquesne Blvd. (Parking lot located behind Tambellini's Restaurant on Seventh St. and parking lot located off of Eighth St.)
The Seventh Street Bridge will be closed from 10 a.m. on December 31, 2012 until 1 a.m. on January 1, 2013 for fireworks setup and firing.
There will be rolling closures from 8–10 p.m. for the parade as needed. The parade will start at 8 p.m. beginning at Tenth St. and Ft. Duquesne Blvd., making a right onto Penn Ave., a right on Sixth St., a right on Ft. Duquesne Blvd. and making a right back onto Tenth St. to disperse.