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Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

May 22, 2003 02:28 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Is it just me or is Al sucking us dry($)....

Posted By Paul Kammueller
A little historical perspective on Nagler eyepieces:

Price of 13mm in 1986: About $200, that's about $335 in today's dollars.

Price of 13mm type 6 in 2003: About $280.

Price of 20mm type 2 ca. 1988: about $300, that's $466 in today's dollars.

Price of 22mm type 5 in 2003: $460.

So these are premium prices really just to the extent that they have always been.

May 22, 2003 03:08 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Inside Condensation

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Sounds like you just got some overly humid air locked up in there somehow. Next nice dry day open the back end of the tube and let it sit like that all day. The humidity should equilibriate with the surrounding air over a matter of some hours. Plug it up again before evening.

May 22, 2003 08:16 PM Forum: Pictures of Me and My Telescope and........

16" newt-cass with nosy neighbors

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Feels like I'm getting there. Just the mirror box weighs a ton, that 16" mirror is 3 solid inches thick!! A few more tests and I'll have huuuuuuge pectoral muscles!

The reality is I'll probably sell it here on Astromart once it's working properly. I've never owned anything this big and honestly don't know what I was thinking when I embarked on this adventure. Have had the ATM bug pretty bad the last year and a half an may have finally bit off more than I can chew.

May 23, 2003 02:40 PM Forum: Religion

Earth & moon from Mars:86,000,000 miles away

Posted By Paul Kammueller
The UN is the latest incarnation of embryonic attempts at World Government, having of course very mixed results in this context. The League of Nations of the early 20th century might be regarded as an even less successful earlier attempt.

My personal feeling is that it is only a matter of time until effective planetary-scale government is achieved. It may still be a century or two away.

In the long-term flow of history it has been in the nature of things for levels of organization to get larger: families grouped into clans, then clans became tribes, tribes became communities and cities, and those grew into city-states some places and nearly everywhere they grouped into nations. Nations in turn conglomerated into alliances -- one of these alliances, the Allies of WWII, grew dominant on this planet and grew into the United Nations.

What will be interesting is if planetary-scale government manages to maintain any effective reach or control when colonization of the solar system is in full swing...

May 23, 2003 04:41 PM Forum: Religion

re: pictures

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Is it just my imagination, or does every one of us here just look like a geek?! I mean, seriously, we all look like we belong at a Trek convention or something. No offense Brien :-D

May 26, 2003 06:54 AM Forum: Religion

Weapons of Mass Deception?

Posted By Paul Kammueller
It's not about oil. WMD was always a red herring of course in terms of motives, as was Saddam Hussein for that matter. Dictators of his ilk come and go with nauseating frequency.

This is, and always was, about Islamic Fundamentalism, the mother of middle eastern terrorism -- which have little to do with either Iraq or Saddam Hussein, except for their proximity to Teheran. But that is probably reason enough for policy-makers. Saddam Hussein's existence merely made the battle for Iraq convenient and expendient where it would have otherwise been prohitibive.

Iran, the lion's den of Islamic Fundamentalism, now sees U.S. forces to their east, west and south. The real game, and the next stage of saber-rattling, has already begun. Iran's government is currently unpopular and vulnerable to a coup from within and the U.S. is now well-placed to exert pressure.

That's my current theory anyway. Subject to revision as news events dictate!

May 28, 2003 09:25 PM Forum: Religion

Where the $ comes from

Posted By Paul Kammueller
That is, ultimately, the crux of the whole thing isn't it. Trying to increase the 'velocity' of money, while the fed tries to increase the supply of it.

May 30, 2003 07:20 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

S&P500 -- decade-long chart

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Yeah -- "resistance" as opposed to its opposite, "support"

A lower extreme of a move, such as that defined by the 1998 and 2001 low's, is typically described as a "support" level, and, if breached to the downside, traditionally then becomes a "resistance" level against upward movement.

June 2, 2003 11:23 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Just acquired

Posted By Paul Kammueller
"Does anyone out there have any info this, such as who made it; it’s age and any idea of its value?"

Looks similar to mine, which was used to inspect targets on a shooting range at a rifle club. Don't know who made it but mine's French too. It's about 100 yrs old. Used to see them sometimes for about $100 in antique shops, nowadays they go by on auction sites sometimes with no bids, sometimes for $15-$30, turns out these little old spyglasses are all over the place.

June 3, 2003 01:57 PM Forum: Religion

John 3:16

Posted By Paul Kammueller
Apparently the John: 3:16 guy (aka "Rainbow Man") is now serving a life sentence in jail:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971107.html

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