(Part 2) Top products from r/nononono

Magpies are incredible birds! They are members of the Corvid family and very intelligent. Magpies are part of a select group of animals with self awareness and recognize themselves in mirrors. They are on a very short list of 10 animals total capable of this. The other 9 are:

• Humans
  
• Orangutans
  
• Chimpanzees
  
• Gorillas
  
• Bottlenose Dolphins
  
• Elephants
  
• Orcas
  
• Bonobos
  
• Rhesus Macaws
  
  There are 15 species of Magpie found throughout the world. In China and Korea they are the symbol of good luck. In England though I've heard a few stories where they probably wouldn't be considered very lucky. For instance, I read that a group of magpies had learned to ring the doorbell of an older couple's house. When they did the woman would come out and feed them. She loved having them around. Her husband, however, would yell at them when they rang the bell and never fed them. In retaliation the Magpies would defecate and drop things on his car (never her car, they knew the difference). There are a lot of great stories out there of Corvids showing just how intelligent they are. A great book recommendation if you are interested in this topic is: In the Company of Crows and Ravens.
  

It isn't that a smaller sensor magnifies the image more. It's that the smaller sensor is capturing and resolving a smaller section of the entire image projected by the lens. This is a good illustration of it. Say the entire circle is the image projected by the lens. The black square would be the 5D's full frame sensor, while the red square is the 7D's crop sensor. It isn't magnifying the image, it's just capturing a smaller portion of the projected image as a whole. It creates the illusion of more magnification, when in reality, it's just resolving a smaller portion of the projected image as a whole.

The concept of a divergent lens between the lens and the camera's sensor is illustrated by teleconverters. I shoot Canon, so I'm going to stick with their equipment for my examples. Canon makes a 1.4x teleconverter, and a 2x teleconverter for their cameras. These apply a multiplicative factor to compatible lenses (usually Canon's L series lenses). So, with a 2x teleconverter, a 300mm lens on a full frame sensor would become a 600mm lens. Unfortunately, these teleconverters reduce a lenses' widest possible aperture. The 1.4x reduces the maximum aperture by 1.5 stops, and the 2x reduces maximum aperture by 2 stops. This becomes really limiting in anything but very bright light, because realistically, your minimum shutter speed should be the reciprocal of your focal length in order to eliminate camera shake. So, if you're using a 600mm lens, you should be shooting at at least 1/600. So, let's expand on this. This is the longest lens I own. It's a 300mm f/4 L, compatible with my 2x teleconverter. With the teleconverter, it becomes a 600mm f/8 lens, on a full frame camera. So, without taking image stabilization into consideration, your minimum settings will be 1/600 at f/8. ISO, or sensor sensitivity, can certainly make up for this. However, it's also important to understand that adding this teleconverter has added distortion, and is degrading overall image quality. Additionally, most modern cameras can only autofocus with a lens that has a widest aperture of f/5.6 or lower. Off the top of my head, the only exception to this that I know of is Canon's 1D-X, their flagship model. So, it isn't that it's impossible to generate fairly long focal lengths on a moderate budget, but image quality and overall capability are going to suffer from doing so. Canon's longest lens that is under $10,000 is the 400mm f/5.6 L. There are versions of the 300mm and 400mm lenses with wider maximum apertures, but those are also extremely expensive. So yes, overall, this is very possible, but to do it effectively, it would be extremely expensive.


As for the idea of adding a close up filter, those don't really magnify an image too much. They really just magnify it in such a way that a plane of critical focus can be achieved at less distance than you would usually be able to achieve it with a lens. Additionally, they add a considerable amount of distortion and degradation of image quality. This is something to consider any time you add an element between the photographic subject and the sensor itself. Every layer of glass will degrade image quality to a certain extent. Some lenses are made and treated in such a way that it reduces image quality significantly less than others. Again though, glass that nice is usually pretty expensive.

I've never tried it and my dad always shudders when i ask him what it tastes like, but, according to the The L.L. Cookbook, bear is really good. I've also heard that the fat is good for cooking and making soap. Either way, it's something I'd like to try one day.

If you're doing anything like this you should have a seatbelt knife attached to your chest somewhere. We were issued them in Iraq and now I try to keep one in the car. Such a simple (in hindsight, obvious.) yet uncommon thing.

EDIT: Something like this would be ideal.

Outliers is a great book. everyone should read it.

Twist of the Wrist, a must read for anyone wanting to learn how to ride better.

Immersion blender. Like this.

Three seconds of searching on amazon later:

https://www.amazon.com/All-Glass-Aquarium-AAG54214-18-Inch/dp/B0002DJH68/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1485738503&sr=8-4&keywords=aquarium

Ouch, he's going to need one of these at the very least.

This is infomercial level stupid/lazy - he needs a pick stick

...and this is why you always use a line dampener.

I keep one by my desk: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001R1RXUG

There's a book about that!

I highly recommend The Complete Far Side. It's a bit pricey but holy crap. I thought I was a Far Side connoisseur and then I got it. I'd say at least half of the cartoons I'd never seen.

i also heard the earplugs are kinda high tech (if that's what you'd call it) because they block out loud noises like gunfire, etc. and let quiet noises like talking come through. but i also heard they don't wear them anyway because they're annoying and don't work that well.

edit: link to earplugs

edit 2: link to manufacturer's site, just in case: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3M-Defense-US/Defense/Products/?N=4294942266+5419565&Nr=AND(hrcy_id%3AG8H3GSXHBSgs_FBZBM9W57N_N2RL3FHWVK_GPD0K8BC31gv)&rt=d

this ass book is cheaper

We avoid all thoughts of death in the west. We just don’t want to think about our loved ones or ourselves dying. That’s why we let funeral services deal with the whole thing and you pay them the big bucks.

A really great book by Ask a Mortician lets you get comfortable with the idea that you’re going to die and everyone around you is going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Surefire makes a set as well that are a bit different. I like the Surefires personally but I haven't tried the Peltor.

When my friend was in Iraq in 2007 they didn't issue them plugs that would let them hear each other talking when guns weren't going off, they just issued the normal ultra cheap foam plugs. So, nobody used them, because as you can imagine, being able to hear your squadmates talking in a combat zone is pretty important. So, he has some hearing problems already at 28.

Imagine how bad it was for the guys back in WWII. Bigger, louder weapons going off, and no hearing protection whatsoever.