satori001

What's wrong with the deep end? The water's fine.

There's a website that sells the Sony DSC F828 for about $550. It's a gray market camera, and they say the only drawback is I would need to ship it overseas to be repaired under warranty. Anybody ever buy a gray market (not for American markets) camera and live to tell the story?

Broiler? Sizzler? Too quick. I think a life sentence in general population at Leavenworth would be better. Unless he committed one of the murders after a certain date, there is no death penalty. Kansas didn't have one until relatively recently, and it isn't retroactive.

Paw, this one?

Yeah, the D70 looks nice, but then I'd need a lens. Probably looking at a grand before it's over, right?

socks, There are about 5 different 5.1 MP Cyber-shot models. Which one did you get?

Thanks. I'll look at them. A photo place I just called recommended the Sony V3 too. The terms he mentioned were: 1. time between shots 2. cycle time He said many camera companies were "embarrassed" by their inferior specs so they often don't include them. You'll see phrasing like "better" or "faster" (than what?) rather than actual cycle times measured. The Sony at around $550 street and .5 second cycle time was one of the better ones. A review said that cycle time can vary depending on how many shots are backlogged in the camera's buffer (memory). I took my kid to the park yesterday and had found a beautiful shot, on a foot bridge, with the sun setting in the background, its light reflecting off the trees and local architecture, and the damn camera just sat there and blinked. Miserable piece of #$%#. I'd never have bought the thing if they'd published the cycle-time specs. It's headed for Ebay.

I own 3 digital cameras. Two are point-and-shoot, the other is a 3 megapixel quasi-pro Nikon now about 4 years old. They all have one problem: the inability to take consecutive photos without stalling to process the photos just taken. I've missed countless opportunities for great shots because the memory light was flashing, sometimes for minutes. In all the reviews and lists of features I've read, I can't find the specification that tells me the camera will be able to keep up with the shots I want to take. Cameras offer "burst mode," which means it will take a burst of rapid-fire shots - up to 5 or 10. After those are used up, you sit and wait. I went to a large consumer electronics store where I purchased the camera and they told me I needed high-speed memory. It cost $70 for a postage stamp sized wafer called a Sandisk Ultra II 512 MB SD ram. It made no difference. Apparently the bottleneck is in the camera's own processor, not the memory. The "ultra" memory downloads the photos to the computer a little faster, but not $70 worth. When I ask the sales people, they don't even know the term for rapid-picture taking performance. The only speed they recognize (barely) is shutter speed. Has anyone out there solved this problem? Are there any reasonable digital cameras that can keep up with a $15 disposable point-and-shoot? Yeah, I should probably have gone to a camera store, but they still look down on digitals, except for the very high end.

Congratulations to Mr. Heron. We can never have too many voices of reason!

Nah oenophile, you don't have the cold, beady, close-set eyes. Sorry, you don't fit the prophile.

He looks like just one of the neighbors. How many other Dennis Rader's are out there, who would never dream of hurting someone? What makes this one different? Maybe it's the forehead.

It was on cable news a few hours ago. Not sure if they gave a name though.

Hope they got the right guy.

Paw, Thanks for the info. The "author name" search (with exact checked) brings up posts mostly on threads I didn't start, although it includes both. If it's accurate, less than 10% of my posts are still accessible. Seems low, as you mentioned. A few other posters I checked for comparison have around a third of their posts turn up. I don't mind having posts deleted, especially since you mentioned there's a storage cost involved, but I'm curious about the difference (10% to 33%), which is noticeable. I recall a while back, one of your assistants was a bit over-zealous and deleted some of my posts. You sent me a private topic about it afterward. Fortunately, Cynic had copied some of the posts and they were mostly restored.

Paw, I did a search on my own posts using satori001 in the "author name" window. My post count shows 877 but only 86 are found by the search function. Is that unusual? I'm not particularly worried about it. Just wondering. I also noticed you have ~1670 some posts but less than 300 show up. Are the other posts gone, or beyond the search capability?

TWI was spiritually sharp, as always, but this was natural gas, yes, a trick of the devil.

dmiller, This was the "official" canned description of TWI we were given in case anyone asked. It is quoted on the Family Tables website, suggesting under-the-table ties between Family Tables and official TWI-dom. I don't know its history, but I suspect it had something to do with TWI's tax-exempt status, as much as their desire to control public perception of TWI's nature and identity. Regards...

Processing this one.

The Way [our wonderful meenistry] is a fellowship [kind of like Amway, but without the product line] of the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ [a.k.a., the absent kahuna] for the manifestation of the more abundant life. [which is why Jesus said, "follow me to manifest the more abundant life," or was that Mary Baker Eddy?] A follower of The Way is filled with [slogans, coffee, and an unhealthy fear of "leadership"] and manifests power from on high, [or hears about it now and then, if lucky] holy spirit, [small b, small s] and freely avails himself [or risks being freely availed upon] of fellowship meetings for spiritual nurture and growth. ["spiritual nurture" = caffeine; "growth" = carbs] The Way fellowship is cemented together [like the pages of Vic's old Playboy collection] by the Spirit of God [or in His absence, a spirited MOG] with each individual believer being transformed [pestered and nagged into submission] by the renewing of his mind [endless repetition and sloganeering] according to the Word of God. [according to the administrations of Vic, Craig, and now Rosaleezard)

My "quote," as I wrote it, has nothing to do with your point, johniam. My point was that the just and the unjust alike prosper or suffer, regardless of their virtues and vices. It would seem to contradict the idea of karma. Then again, what they did in their "past lives" is probably the explanation for some. Not for me.

He must have been riding with Obi-wan.

Is there any difference between a miracle and a miraculous event? Sure there is, keeds. I believe in miraculous events, because I've been a witness to them. They may be unique, isolated incidents, and they may be patterns or trends. A "miracle" is the act of God, in my book. I don't know about those. I guess it could be by "supernatural" agents on behalf of God, like angels. I don't know about them either. The things I don't know, I am as equally foolish to deny as I am to affirm them. I simply don't know. So, to call something a miracle is to imply I know what's behind it, regardless of how shallow that "knowledge" might be. To call something "miraculous" however, is to say - "This is just too unlikely to explain away as a fortunate (or unfortunate) bit of randomness." Most often, it is when an unlikely situation or event repeats persistently, and unlike the example of automatic street lights, it isn't so easily explained away. Miraculous means having the character, or appearance of, or resemblance to a miracle. It is decidely and obviously not among the ordinary anomalies we experience now and then. It does not mean it IS a miracle. Only that it is in no way, shape or form "ordinary." How ordinary is this world of ours, anyway?

I dunno. I see plenty of arguments against a "karmic" form of universal justice walking around. There are also plenty of arguments for an unjust universe. That's not to say there is no mechanism to reward good behavior. It's only to say, if there is, there may be other mechanisms too, some amoral, some immoral, some evil. Some take a view that if one life doesn't work out, you'll have plenty of others to even it up. Others believe an afterlife of another kind will even up the score. I can't testify to the truth of either view because I can neither remember past lives nor forsee any to come. I just can't look around and believe in an utterly random universe, just as I can't believe in one which obeys the moral priorities of a benevolent Creator, as defined by any of the popular religions.

laleo, Glad you enjoyed it.

ex10, You could be right.