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Night-time in America's small towns

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Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#61

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

empath75 wrote: post #38
oftenwrong wrote: post #28

Many of those charming small town main streets like the ones in some of the photos, and the independently owned businesses along them, are in decline, if not already dead. Wal-mart and other big, chain businesses, often located down the highway, are getting all the business, so the small businesses in town cannot survive. Recently, I saw an incredible video about a main street in Mississippi that was basically dead,…

Yeah I was going to say. All those quaint American towns that look like they came out of a time capsule are that way because they've been in decline since those buildings were built and nobody has invested money into new buildings or businesses.

... or the locals realized that the buildings were beautiful as is and didn't change much. I know a number of towns around here that probably don't look much different than they did 50 years ago and they're thriving.

One of the nice things about small towns is that there's usually available real estate to put up new buildings without tearing down the old ones.

Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#62

Post by JoeAltmaier »

digler999 wrote: post #23
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15

I live in a place like those. Its great photography, but the mundane subjects make it hard to get into. Trying to locate any of those, I settled on one with an unusual street sign - 'Coolbaugh St'. There are 2 in the US, both in Pennsylvania. Neither has that building along it! Strange

It's in iowa https://goo.gl/maps/b8vnAwEndWz

Ok that's why its all so familiar! I'm in Iowa too; have driven by there many times.

Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#63

Post by galdosdi »

rayiner wrote: post #57
threatofrain wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put up a flag, and boom, you're an American? Will that persuade 2017 Americans as they discuss who's an American? Membership into the American group is not obvious, and most certainly not defined by mere citizenship, least of a decorative flag.

In the U.S. right now, we are exploring the limits to the American accommodation of immigrants, but it's important to keep in mind that those accommodations as they exist currently are more generous than pretty much anywhere else in the developed world. The trend in the rest of the world (New Zealand, India) right now is to get rid of birthright citizenship. But here, only the right-wing nuts are even talking about t…

That said (nitpick) English IS a prerequesite for gaining naturalized citizenship, in most cases. IIRC it's required except for old age, disability, probably some other such exceptions, but most people who get naturalized _are_ required to show they know a certain amount of English

Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#64

Post by pizzetta »

vogt wrote: post #25

This was wonderful. I love small town America. I grew up in a town of about 3000 and currently live in one that is population 30k or so. Popular sentiment in a lot of tech circles would have you believe that these places are solely filled with backwards, racist people. That can be true, but often times isn't. Small town life in the US lies on a very big spectrum.

The other belief is that these people live in lost provinces far from the all important metropolises and long for being able to move to a place with meaning-ignoring that most of existence that's how people lived in rural communities.

Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#65

Post by selimthegrim »

pm90 wrote: post #26
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have a really basic need to bond over shared characteristics. Throughout the world, countries are glued together based on ethnicity, religion, or language. E.g. Pakistan separated from India over religion, and Bangladesh separated from Pakistan over language. Americans' proclivity for displaying the flag is a way of expressing unity in a country that doesn't have a common ethnicity, religion, or language. Nati…

> E.g. Pakistan separated from India over religion, and Bangladesh separated from Pakistan over language. Minor nit, it was more "culture" or "ethnicity" than language, although language was perhaps the most defining feature. It seems that the Punjabi Pakistani's looked down upon their (then) countrymen of Bengali heritage.

There's no seems about it. If you speak Urdu the following link will be instructive

https://youtu.be/J-7j6O_whYA?t=1m8s

I transcribe the key part here (1:08-1:48):

Nisar: We had a great bureaucrat, a senior intellectual, Qudratullah Shahab who has a book called Shahabnama (an autobiography). (he relates from the book) In the 1950s, the Americans had given, as was their custom, sanitary goods as charitable donations in bulk. In a few cabinet meetings, Bengali ministers said "Let us have a share from this." The potbellied, large mustachioed (this is a Punjabi stereotype) West Pakistani ministers made fun of them and said "What do you lot need a commode for, you can go behind a banana plant" This was the manner of dealing with them.

Re: Night-time in America's small towns

#66

Post by ska »

Isamu wrote: post #55
ska wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "high dynamic range" refers to the input range, not the output range, so it isn't a misnomer as you suggest. This also what separates it a bit from techniques like masking which don't change the underlying range available, but rather tweaking the exposure in an area. Dodging and burning are dark room techniques, which is a whole different kettle of fish. As you note though, people used to do similar things with e…

> it isn't a misnomer as you suggest Just saying HDR should refer to the process. The output photo, as you say, only has a normal dynamic range, compressed from the inputs.

meh; It's an informative name that absolutely does refer to the process, and gives you some information.

Your preferred approach isn't objectively any better (all kinds of processes could result in higher dynamic range outputs, some of which are arguably "cheating").

So what we have is a reasonable choice between imperfect alternatives that are mostly equivalent - but that choice is made now and far better to get on with it than quibble about it.

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