nudge

After reading both reports, it seems the difference might be due to the methodology. Will wait for the full report on that American trial, but it seems that the control group in the Chinese study was allowed to get other treatments (namely lopinavir–ritonavir, interferons, and corticosteroids) - if the control group in the American study was not given any other meds, then that could be the reason for different findings and would potentially suggest that Remdisivir does work, but no significantly better than other (anti-viral) treatments.

Mixed results coming in from trials. The latest report on clinical trial in China also says it's ineffective: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9/fulltext Meanwhile, the US National Institutes of Health released preliminary data on their trial results saying it's effective: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/nih-clinical-trial-shows-remdesivir-accelerates-recovery-advanced-covid-19

Kawasaki disease?

That article caused an outrage among the local population of British expats in Thailand and neighbouring countries, so I guess it achieved its goal

UK is not the only country with this issue... The same happened in Italy where people were dying at home or in care facilities and weren't included in the official death count. Spain doesn't include unconfirmed deaths in care facilities, and France similarly was recording fatalities in hospitals only. Wuhan also raised its death toll by 50% (additional 1290 cases) recently pretty much for the same reason - deaths outside hospitals have not previously been recorded. I'd say it's not intentional but rather the issue of collecting accurate data being quite challenging, and I'm sure there will be a lot of revisions done to the data retrospectively.

I finished episode 9 last night... Will continue tonight after work

Finished with Timeless already???

I see you're spending your day off work very productively...

An interesting article critical of the UK and USA in the Bangkok Post today. https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1909696/contagion-death-rates-and-doses-of-arrogance

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/05/349131/an-algorithm-that-can-spot-cause-and-effect-could-supercharge-medical-ai/ @Mel81x The title is a bit misleading, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless...

He's already gone, John.

Didn't know where else to put it, but this is quite an interesting little guide on how to read and analyse DNA on a computer using Python. https://biospace.xyz/posts/reading-dna-on-computers/ On a similar topic, I recently discovered Rosalind, a platform to learn bioinformatics, algorithms and programming through problem solving. Quite fun. http://rosalind.info/

I read this post while in bed and then fell asleep again and forgot all about it... Cheers for the heads up. Total War has a bit too much war for my liking, but I think that's right up @Bluewolf's alley!

Audi announced their departure from DTM today... That's the end of DTM then

I'm exactly the same My dad tought me the basics years ago so when I was learning from him, he never missed a chance to mention how including people into your shots supposedly makes them more interesting. Thanks but no thanks, dad. Why ruin a perfectly fine scene by including people in it That said, I also find some portraits absolutely fascinating, usually the ones where you can read different emotions in their faces. I also love street photography, but I don't think I could ever pull it off myself...

Definitely fancy at that time hehe... You don't like the body? The build of it is similar to my EOS 5 (with a battery pack) and it's one of the reasons I love it... I prefer big sturdy cameras, might be a bit of a headache to carry around sometimes but I feel they are better for avoiding camera shake when shooting handheld on slower shutter speeds... What kind of things do you generally like to shoot most? Portraits, I'm guessing, based on your choice of lenses? I think @Viva la FCB is mostly into nature/landscapes/wildlife, if I'm not mistaken?

Personally, I just started by fucking around with the sliders and googling things I didn't know Youtube has a great selection on tutorials. A lot of people swear by Anthony Morganti, you might want to check his videos. This is more specific for travel photography but the basic principles can be applied to anything anyway... https://erinoutdoors.com/editing-photography-lightroom/

Gon O'Rhea?

Thanks, that's a very well thought out response and it's spot on from the technical point of view. It's also a big reason why I have issues with digital photography in the first place. As you mentioned, in order to see the end result as real life-like as possible, a high end body combined with high end lenses, a dedicated monitor for both reproduction and more accurate post processing, and a dedicated high end printer for finally producing accurate prints are needed (or at least desirable). For just an amateur hobby photographer, it does come across as quite a bit of an overkill. The gear bit is understandable, it always had a role to play, especially lenses as high end ones make a world of difference in film photography too. However, a huge part of the appeal of analogue photography to me is the fact that when you're shooting film, you pretty much get what you see through your viewfinder at the time you push that shutter release button (I'm generalising here, as obviously there's also room for variations based on the type of film you use, the developing/printing process, even the paper used for prints, etc. but you get what I mean) - or at least you should if you did everything right, and when you don't, you figure out where mistakes were made, regardless if it's exposure, composition, focus, metering mode or whatever else and then you learn to correct them the next time you're shooting a similar scene instead of post-processing the crap out of it. I think in the end it's just two different approaches to photo shooting in general, really. To put it simply, I have an EOS 5 which is almost 30 years old (and which I absolutely love). If I put one of my lenses on it, load the film and take some pictures, then get them developed and printed the old fashioned way, I will see the actual image I took and people looking at it will see exactly the same image too, all without me spending a shitload of money on additional stuff. This is kind of what I expected from digital photography originally, but I realise that there's by far more factors involved here, so the two can't be compared really. Fancy camera there Also nice, the ones in bold are the ones I own as well My all time favourite one is probably the Sigma AF 400mm f/5.6 HSM APO Macro though, an old one and limited use due to its focal length (also only works in manual focus mode on DSLRs), but it's absolutely fantastic. It also becomes a whopping 640mm on a APS-C due to the crop factor haha, so perfect for wildlife and moon photography.

This.

Pretty much the same with me... I don't like editing, and handling images in a digital form is just a bit meh for me. Like you, I still love the actual process of taking photos, but I also took a break for over a year due to lack of overall enjoyment I felt when I transitioned to digital. I have slowly started getting back into it recently (as you said, the time is perfect now haha), and I'm just adjusting my expectations a bit now. I'm still pretty much a Canon person, hehe. I mostly use Canon EOS 450D and Sony α100 for digital (an upgrade is well overdue, but I couldn't justify it in recent years), and Canon EOS 5 for film photography these days. The latter is getting tricky as I have trouble finding a decent lab to develop and process the film. The last one I found made an absolute mess of my negatives and then an even greater mess of scanning them, so I kind of gave up after that. I still have a few B&W rolls so there's a good chance I just develop them myself...

I used to develop film at home in a darkroom many years ago, only B&W though as developing color film is a much more complicated process. The excitement while waiting for the results to start showing up used to be unreal.

Yes, camera phones are truly incredible these days, and while they still definitely have their limitations, the majority are great for what they're good at - namely wide angle shots, good light conditions and close-ups (to a certain degree). The algorithms for balancing the scene for the "best" possible outcome are getting better and better. The whole computational photography thing has taken it into a completely new level in terms of generating a great image with minimal effort required from the user. It surely has pros and cons and in the end it comes to personal views and preferences. I'm not a big fan myself due to many reasons (a big one being the fact that a camera phone simply can't handle certain things that I like to do, e.g. moon shots, wildlife in action, long exposures or any situation where aperture control is required) but I think it's great for actually learning and practising composition, as it having a prime lense means you have to think and move around to frame your shots well. I started shooting film almost 20 years ago and only made full transition to digital photography about 5 years ago, and in all honesty, I still struggle with it despite all the advantages that it has to offer. My biggest gripe is the colours, I just can't come to terms with it. I have used numerous DSRL cameras and numerous lenses throughout those years, I played around with all possible settings and I've still been disappointed with all of them when it comes to reproducing actual natural colours compared to film, it's not even close in terms of colour richness, depth and vibrance that a Velvia or Ektachrome film (as an example) offers. I obviously talk about the images straight out of the camera before any post-processing; as you mentioned, one can do wonders editing RAW files in Lightroom, and the learning curve is literally endless, but are my expectations to have a satisfying end result without having to correct it in post-processing too high?.. I guess I just have to accept that film and digital photography are completely different beasts and stop searching for the "film look" that I'm so accustomed to haha. What kind of gear are you using?

This is a great guide to composition, including main concepts, elements, techniques and examples for actual real-life situations: https://antongorlin.com/blog/photography-composition-definitive-guide/ By far the best I've read throughout the years. The composition decision making flowchart is quite a nice addition too.