Cellphones, microchips, cars, even iPhones—there's virtually no high-tech Western product that China's cloners can't copy. Pretty soon, you might even prefer their work
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Cellphones, microchips, cars, even iPhones—there's virtually no high-tech Western product that China's cloners can't copy. Pretty soon, you might even prefer their work
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Photographers set their exposure using a combination of shutter speeds and f/stops to get the correct amount of light on the film (or sensor--this all works for digital too). The shutter speed regulates how long the film is exposed to light coming through the lens. The f/stop regulates how much light is allowed through the lens by varying the area of the hole the light comes through. For any given film speed and lighting combination there is one correct amount of light to properly expose the film. This amount of light can be achieved with many different combinations of f/stops and shutter speeds. This page goes over the f/stop and especially its initially-confusing numbering at some length.
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Depth-of-field refers to the amount of the scene that appears to be sharp in your shot. Unlike our eyesight, which compensates for limited depth-of-field by quickly scanning different areas of the scene and focusing on near and distant points, camera lenses must obey some simple physical laws. Chiefly, depth-of-field extends in front of and behind the point you’ve focused the lens on. This zone of sharpness is not distributed evenly, however: it extends twice as far behind the focus point as it does in front of it.
The amount of depth-of-field in your shot is determined by three factors – the focal length of the lens, the aperture used and the distance from the subject.
1. Focal length. The shorter the focal length of the lens the greater the depth-of-field, and the longer the focal length, the smaller it will be. In general, using wide-angle lenses you’ll find that most of the scene is in sharp focus, while telephoto lenses are better for giving shallow depth-of-field, allowing you to throw distracting background elements out of focus, beyond depth-of-field.
2. Aperture. The wider the aperture you use the less depth-of-field you’ll get. So, using a wide aperture of f/4 or f/2.8 will mean that less of the scene will be in sharp focus than if you use a small aperture, such as f/16 or f/22.
3. Distance. The closer you are to the subject the less depth-of-field you’ll have to work with. You’ll find it easier to get greater depth-of-field if you focus on subjects further away from the camera. Conversely, if you want shallow depth-of-field, move closer. This is most apparent when shooting close-ups, where you’ll get very shallow depth-of-field.LINK
TOKYO: In New York or Los Angeles, fans of Japanese cuisine can rattle off orders for uni and o-toro, or urbanely express a preference for soba over udon. But what about "Napolitan," cooked spaghetti that is rinsed in cold water, then stir-fried with vegetables in ketchup? Or "menchi katsu," hamburger covered in bread crumbs and deep-fried? Or "omu rice," an omelet lying over a mound of ketchup-flavored rice?
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History of the website
The idea of Photocritic started in the late 90s: I had a grand idea of starting a photo criticism site, based on the Norwegian foto.no photo critique site, but aimed at an international audience, and on a far greater scale. I started looking into hiring a programmer to do the work, and started learning how to code myself as well. Soon, it turned out that the idea was a bit optimistic, and eventually I stumbled over a site called PhotoSIG, which had all the functionality I wanted from a photo criticism site.
By then, however, I had bought the Photocritic.org domain, and I figured it was too good a domain to just ignore. I used it as my photography portfolio for a while. In 2002, I started out as a freelance photographer, and as it turned out, Photocritic was not used as a company name by anyone, and soon, Photocritic Ltd was born:
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TAIPEI, Taiwan: When Marvin Ho co-founded a Chinese language school in Taiwan in 1957, his only students were a handful of Western missionaries.
Five decades later, it is a different story. Ho's classrooms are packed with scores of people clamoring to learn what they believe is the next global language: Mandarin Chinese.
China, having traded socialism for capitalism, is emerging as an economic power, perhaps the only one that could rival U.S. dominance in the 21st century. For a new generation of students, business people and even artists, the land of opportunity now lies to the East, not the West.
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Here's how it works:
- Search Google News: Pop the headline you want into the Google News and enjoy the link straight to the full and free content. You can alternatively build a Firefox keyword shortcut using this string:
http://news.google.com/news?q=%s+source%3Awall_street_journal - Use The Firefox Extension Refspoof: Step 1: Download the extension here.
Step 2: In the refspoof toolbar's "spoof:" field, type "digg.com.
Step 3: Also in the refspoof toolbar, click the R icon, and select "static referrer."
That's it. Click around the site; the WSJ thinks each click is coming from Digg. The WSJ is now yours for free!
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Scientists try to explain religion
BY THE standards of European scientific collaboration, €2m ($3.1m) is not a huge sum. But it might be the start of something that will challenge human perceptions of reality at least as much as the billions being spent by the European particle-physics laboratory (CERN) at Geneva. The first task of CERN's new machine, the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to open later this year, will be to search for the Higgs boson—an object that has been dubbed, with a certain amount of hyperbole, the God particle. The €2m, by contrast, will be spent on the search for God Himself—or, rather, for the biological reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in general.
“Explaining Religion”, as the project is known, is the largest-ever scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business.
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Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country and constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The distance between the northern and southern parts of Norway is considerable compared to east-west distances. The country's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords.
The Kingdom of Norway also includes the Arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard is based upon the Svalbard Treaty, but that treaty does not apply to Jan Mayen. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land in Antarctica are external dependencies, but those three entities do not form part of the kingdom.
Since World War II, Norway has experienced rapid economic growth, and is now amongst the wealthiest countries in the world,[6][7][8] with a fully developed welfare system. This economic progress is caused in part by the development of oil and gas reserves off its coast. Norway was ranked highest of all countries in human development from 2001 to 2006.[9] It also rated the most peaceful country in the world in a 2007 survey by Global Peace Index.[10] It is a founding member of NATO.
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Tenorio Volcano National Park is a National Park in the central part of Costa Rica, which forms part of the Arenal Tilaran Conservation Area. The jewel of the National Park (Spanish Volcán Turrialba Parque Nacional) is the volcano, from which it receives it's name. The Tenorio Volcano was made part of the National Park in 1995 and is located about 26 miles northeast from the town of in the Guanacaste Province.
Tenorio Volcano consists of four volcanic peaks and two craters. One of the craters is sometimes referred to as the Montezuma Volcano. Tenorio attains a maximum height of 6,287 feet (1,913 m). The awe inspiring Rio Celeste (Light Blue River) is turned literally blue due to the emanation of sulfur from the volcano and precipitation of calcium carbonate. Thermal springs and small geysers dot the area as do rivers, waterfalls, lagoons and panoramic views. The upper area of the park is dominated by primary cloud forest, while the lower regions are carpeted with rain forest. The Tapir and the rarely seen Puma reside in the area.
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Abstract (Summary)
Between Tuesday, when financial markets began turning against Bear Stearns Cos., and Sunday night, when the bank disappeared into the arms of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Washington policy makers, federal regulators and Wall Street bankers struggled to keep the trouble from tanking financial markets and exacerbating the country's deep economic uncertainty. Cutting interest rates -- which the Fed is expected to do again today, by between a half percentage point and a full point -- hasn't yet done much to loosen capital markets gummed up by piles of bad debt.
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JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is one of the oldest financial services firms in the world. The company, headquartered in New York City, is one of the leaders in investment banking, financial services, asset and wealth management and private equity. With assets of $1.6 trillion, JPMorgan Chase is currently the third largest banking institution in the United States,[1] behind Bank of America and Citigroup. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the largest hedge fund in the United States with $34 billion in assets as of 2007.[2] Formed in 2000 when Chase Manhattan Corporation acquired J.P. Morgan & Co., the firm serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and governmental clients.
In 2004, the company acquired Bank One of Chicago, bringing on board Bank One CEO Jamie Dimon as president and COO of the merged firm and designating him as CEO William B. Harrison, Jr.'s future successor. Dimon quickly made his influence felt by embarking on a cost-cutting strategy and placing some former Bank One executives in key ranks at the new company. Dimon became CEO in January 2006, and also became chairman in December 2006.
JPMorgan Chase operates as the brand for the holding company. Chase is used as the brand for credit card services in the United States and Canada and the bank's retail banking activities in the United States.
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The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is the parent company of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The main business areas, based on 2006 net revenue contribution, are: capital markets (equities, fixed income, investment banking; just under 80%), wealth management (under 10%) and global clearing services (12%). Bear Stearns' future remains highly ambiguous.
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