Posts Made By: James Brown

I like it a lot!

Jim

Congressmen stand up and swear to uphold the Constitution as a group. I don't believe there are Bibles present. If the Congressman wants to swear in holding his privates "Michael Jackson" style that is his prerogative and perfectly legal since there is no requirement that a Bible be used.

Supreme Court Judges often use a Bible for their individual swearing in ceremonies. I have attached a photo of C.J. Roberts. Chris Ferrous might argue that this is unconstitutional, but he would be wrong. There is no Constitutional or legal mandate that the Justices be sworn in using a Bible. Without a government requirement to use the Bible, there is nothing which would invoke the Establishment Clause. In other words it was Robert's choice alone to use the Bible in his ceremony.

Back in the day witnesses in court were required to swear on a Bible to tell the truth..."so help me God" or some variation of that. This enforced statement of religious belief is clearly unconstitutional and has been eliminated.

Now, witnesses are sworn in promising to tell the truth under "penalty of perjury." I would be surprised, but not amazed, if any courts still have Bibles available for witnesses, even if the witnesses requested one.

Jim

Doug Peterson said:

A recent ad for a Takahashi "figured to an almost perfect strehl ratio of .992" and a similar spec for the TEC140 reminds me that nominal design specs extracted from a Zemax CAD model (which these are) and actual results in the real world (which would require an interferometric test report, NOT a zonal focal length smoothing type test used by some mirror makers) are not the same thing.

I hate to see the TEC crew lumped into some "almost perfect Strehl" marketing hyperbole crowd. Yuri goes out of his way to be underspoken regarding his telescopes. His web page is minimalist. I am not aware that he does any marketing. The actual text TEC uses to describe the APO 140 lens is:

[COLOR="Blue"]"Design: Aplanatic oiled triplet APO, ED glass with two other ones. Optimized for e-line 546nm - Strehl 0.99, PV 1/20 (calculated)"[/COLOR]

http://www.telescopengineering.com/

This text makes it clear that we are talking about a calculated design value for the e line. My guess is that this is an accurate description of the target design. It certainly does not read like "perfect Strehl" marketing hype.

Jim

Danny Vettoretti said:

Interesting footnote on the Ceragioli refractor ad......


8O

Interesting indeed.

I guess I'll be watching this forum with redoubled care for a few days...

Jim

Lee Spain said:

Is it right for insurance companies to charge higher rates for male drivers under the age of 25?

Of course. Male drivers under the age of 25 are demographically a high risk bunch.

Jim

p.s. If anyone is inclined to dispute my conclusion, I would recommend that you spend a bit of time with the Darwin Awards. There are some pretty darned funny stories recounted there, and not so many involve mature females.

http://www.darwinawards.com

p.s.s. I know you all know of a stone cold serious and sober 20 year old male. Insurance rates are about demographics though...

Jim

Floyd Blue said:

It was explained that marketing decided to call it a Fluorite because others were calling FPL53 a Fluorite. :S

I hesitate to get involved here because I will be the one killing this thread if it degenerates into wholesale supplier bashing without factual basis. So far everything is fair and above board. Good job.

My 2 cents:

William Optics' explanation itself is also a little bit empty.

Is WO really big enough to have a separate division called "marketing" making these decisions? It's not like we are talking about Meade.

Also, who are these "others" calling FPL53 fluorite? I personally am confident that Tak, TEC and AP are shooting straight regarding the use of real fluorite crystal in certain selected telescope models. TEC's prices reflect this, the f7 160 mm CaF2 model is several thousand dollars more expensive than the 160 mm f8 ED model for example.

StellarVue is advertising a few CaF2 models, and they certainly seem priced high enough to contain the genuine crystal. Also Vic Marris is very specific in his descriptions that some lenses are ED and others are CaF2. I trust him.

Is WO taking a swipe at TMB and/or APM? Am I missing something? If all of these 80 mm triplets are sourced in Russia, and others are calling them fluorites, I can see the box WO is in, but I sure would have handled it differently. By all accounts they are great lenses whatever material the center element is made of.

Jim

Floyd Blue quoted someone as saying:

[COLOR="Red"]The only pure fluorite lenses now made come out of China where the labor rate is still very low. [/COLOR]

I think that this is incorrect. TEC makes a very expensive and very very nice line of APOs with crystalline fluorite center elements in Golden Colorado. I do not know where Yuri sources the crystalline fluorite, but I suspect that it is from the semi-conductor industry where (I think) fluorite is grown to produce ultra-low scatter optics for nano-scale optical lithography. TEC's fluorite line features relatively shorter focal lengths than their ED models, which is an advantage Roland mentioned this morning in the other thread.

Stellarvue is offering a few crystalline fluorite models as well. I am confident that Vic Maris knows the difference between ED glass and crystalline fluorite.

Astro-Physics used genuine crystalline fluorite in the Stowaway if memory serves.

I hear that Tak is moving away from crystalline fluorite, but I really don't know.

I might have missed others.

Jim

David Pitre said:

I'm assuming most people who have Tak refractors and a Teegul use the Tak tube holder mounted directly to the Teegul.
I'm wanting to use saddle/plate/ring system for mounting my FS102 to my Teegul.
Is a Losmandy G11 saddle and plate overkill?
I really want it solid, but don't want to spend money where I don't have to.

Hi David:

I do use the Tak ring to hold my Sky 90 to a Teegul.

Astro-Physics however makes a nice machined adapter that will bolt between the Teegul and a typical saddle. I have one of these. It is a very nice solution.

http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=&pid=6044&m=5

Jim

Jim Babcock said:

The reason that I think Obama will be the next President is as follows:

- He is the only candidate that I have heard speak on the left (except Lieberman and the left has already given him a thumbs down) that is not primarily hate speech against the current President and all of the right.

- He speaks positively of the future and of a new way.

- He has no significant paper trail to latch on negatively.

- I continue to hear the young (military) folk who tend to be on the right speak positively of him.

- The Repubs only have old school white folk who offer nothing new and exciting.

- The press love him. He is a political and cultural phenomenon.

- He is articulate and presentable.

- The American people are tired of old political fighting and want something (anything) new.

So by my calculation, if he can convince the left that he is electable, then it will be a contest against a Repub with a strong military resume. It will be a close contest between a positive and different vision for the future, against a security candidate. With Iraq fatigue, Obama wins slightly because of help from young voters.

I agree. There is plenty of time left for Hillary or Dean to derail Obama's campaign though.

Jim

Lee Spain said:

Is anybody really comfortable with this?

Yes.