Methinks your understanding of photographic terms is lacking. You're thinking microscopic rather than telescopic: Magnification versus zoom. In macro/micro photography, terms are used like 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 1:4, 1:200 etc. Those are ratios of the physical size of the object to the physical size it takes up on a sensor (as in, magnifying an object that takes up .35mm to take up 35mm on a lens would be a 100x MAGNIFICATION). That is entirely different from the term 2x Zoom lens, which is a ratio of the longest and shortest focal lengths of a lens.

Oh so wrong. A 500mm lens is easy to build (well, 500mm in 35mm equivalence. A 500X lens would be an incredible feat. Lets say it's 10mm on the wide end (VERY close to fisheye). That would be a 10mm-5000mm lens. Hell, you find me a 5000mm lens on any system and I commend you. Technical knowledge, you know not.

Lenses on dSLRs are not special in any sense of the word. The issue is that your caps on pixel count is absurd on small format lenses. Diffraction, the scattering of light passing through an eyelit, as modified by smaller absolute apertures (although equivalent relative apertures), limits the camera's ability to resolve beyond 8-10MP. Even the significantly larger 4/3rd sensor on the Olympus and Panasonic system is diffraction limited to f/6ish. So, your arbitrary limitations would be useless and simply limit a company's ability to market their new 50bajillion megapixel camera to the public. It's as arbitrary as banning dSLR cameras.

"Higher powered lenses" are an arbitrary assignment. Are you saying banning telephoto lenses beyond a certain throw is a good idea? 'cause that MIGHT be more worthwhile. I can find you a 1x lens that can spy a rivet on a bridge across town easily. Again, the multiplier has no bearing.

Issue is, how does anyone enforce that? Smaller sensor cameras use smaller lenses. There are some amazing 300mm+ lenses on P&S cameras that fold up into the body. Do we have all police become considerably more technically sound than yourself?

It all reeks of political stupidity. Are they also banning EVIL cameras (no reflex mirror)? Interchangeable lens systems? Does that include adapters screwed onto the front of fixed lens systems?

Point is, what you propose is nothing more than what they propose. It's all stupidity by those with no technical knowledge on the subject area.

Awwwwww.....did you not comprehend my previous post? Exactly my point. You, and those like you, are sadly the ones making these arbitrary rules.

Annnnnnd.....you know nothing about photography. A 5x lens can be a 8-40mm (35mm equiv), or a 100-500mm lens. The "X" is nothing more than a ratio of the focal length at the widest to telephoto end of the lens. Also, with smaller sensors, aperture is the limiting factor for lens/sensor resolving power due to diffraction issues. Most lenses on compact cameras cannot resolve beyond 8-10MP anyway. And no, you cannot build a 500x zoom on a P&S nor a dSLR. It's impractical and extremely expensive. There's a reason you rarely see beyond 10x zooms on dSLR cameras and 16x on super-zooms. Like those politicians, you should not ever be put in a position to make policy.

I couldn't have survived high school without something to keep my mind occupied. I constantly programmed on my TI-83+, and I couldn't imagine NOT having the ability to script tasks or create random programs for fun. The TI-83 got me into programming, and it's helped me hone many of my logic skills!

This is exactly why I hate tapping on track pads. I keep my fingers on the mouse, on the trackpad, and my keys, depending on what I'm doing. It slows your response time to have to keep your finger hovering above the clickable surface. Virtual keyboards will never work for speed typists. They MAY work for situations on the fly where your only alternative is using the touch-screen on a tablet, but in most situations, a tactile keyboard and mouse provide greater efficiency.

The advantage of the E-330 over other dSLRs is that it has mirror-down live view with a dedicated live-view sensor and a swivel LCD display. This way the primary imaging sensor does not heat up to cause digital noise, and it's much easier to frame. Other consumer live-view implementations before and since use the primary imaging sensors for the image view. These sensors often overheat quickly and cause a degradation in imaging quality.

The EXIF on that photo says 13 seconds at ISO 200 and f/2.8 with a Nikon D2Xs. Even though that camera is a 2006 model, I'd think it would have been able to take acceptable ISO800 photos which could chop that exposure down to about 3 seconds or so. I'm going to assume that the camera was modified to remove the Near IR/IR filter, but if not, that would definitely help the reds come through better.

With less motion, the colors would have been able to compound better, and I'm betting that an ISO800 shot would have had better definition as the photon strikes would have a higher likelihood of compounding on top of each other rather than spreading across multiple pixels. Then again, I've never shot from space at an object moving 28,000kph relative to me. I'm guessing they don't have a TON of time to dink around with exposure settings, although 1000 tweets in, they must have a little spare time.

Please cite a court ruling dealing with nothing more than scanning and logging SSIDs. All of the decisions to my knowledge deal with people accessing a unsecured wireless networks, not simply recording the SSIDs. I would be happy (and saddened) for you to prove me wrong if you have evidence that judges have ruled logging the SSIDs of wireless routers to be a criminal offense equal to accessing a computer network without authorization.

You obviously have no clue how wifi works. The routers are broadcasting their identification codes and names. All your computer has to do is listen. It's the same as if you were just tuning into all the local FM bands and listening to what other people were listening to (as most of those devices are unencrypted). He doesn't have to "ping" the other wifi networks to listen to them. He doesn't hack anything or attempt to decrypt anything; he simply listens to routers shouting out their names. Perfectly legal. If you scan for wifi access points with Windows, you're doing the same thing; the only difference: he wrote the names down and put the names online.

* A university email is often used as a verification that a person is affiliated with the place. This is useful for example for site licences.

All university email addresses through Gmail also have .edu addresses.

* Google could change privacy settings in the future. Imagine that external parties could buy lists of "names" or "grades".

As with any contract, if a company decides to change its policies, you can renegotiate or go with another. Other companies (aka Microsoft et al) will have migration solutions.

* Once hooked, it is difficult to switch back. Once, the IT culture has been outsourced, also the IT talent has disappeared and higher education becomes dependent on external companies.

You outsource phone, mail, construction, and other services. Once it is outsourced, it will actually be fairly easy to migrate to another solution. Plus, with the savings from getting rid of parts of the IT staff and infrastructure costs, you'll be able to afford consultations with more money on top.

* There is a lot of research and confidential information going over email. If I were a researcher working in a cutting edge field, I would be worried to have information about the projects safe.

There is a lot of confidential information going through the snail mail system, cell phone towers, and the regular phone system. All in all, seeing incompetence of a lot of university IT staffs, I would trust a company whose core business is to keep your information safe more than the local IT staff.

* Google delivers now. Will it in 10 years? What happens if Sergey and Larry have moved on completely and accountants eying primarily the stock market have taken over? It might become more expensive for a university in the future. Or, due to lack of other possibilities, one is forced to accept a partner which is less careful about privacy settings.

Again, like any utility, there are options.

* A lot of students and faculty already use gmail now. But they do not have to. If somebody wants, it is possible to have all benefits from external email providers. Why force it?

Cost savings that can be applied elsewhere, .edu address associated with your gmail, the ability to migrate seamlessly from your .edu address to a alumni address.

* Some redundancy is nice. Its can be beneficial to have different email addresses and use them for different things. If one provider does not deliver, one can use an other one. Being forced to use an external email provider leave less options and adds more dependencies.

Being forced to have all of your information going through the university mail servers provides the same issue. I've seen outages at the university level that would shame a corporation. Outages do happen, but a company like Google has the expertise and resources to resolve it quickly.

Jews are both a religion and a race, hence killing relatives of religiously Jewish people during WWII. Being Jewish is hereditary passed from the mother, so technically a lineage with daughters in every generation born from the daughters will perpetuate the race for as many generations as they keep it up.