[Leica] OT: Why God made UV filters - to reduce emissions and downforce and make passing easier at Monaco and the Hungaroring

[sethrosner at nycap.rr.com (Seth Rosner)]

Well hello Frank! and all!

Bin aweigh & bizzy (oh dear, I recall we're not all crazy USA'ers - that 
translates - been away and busy!) and just now found a bit of time to rejoin 
you my gangster friends. Reminds me of the terminal curiosities of the 
English language. Was it G.B. Shaw who made fun of our mother tongue with 
this riddle:

pronouce: GHOTI

the great one's answer: 'gh' as in laugh, 'o' as in women and 'ti' as in 
nation; waddaya got? FISH, that's what. ;-)

First, tell me marc hasn't returned.

Then, has anyone noticed that Leica Camera AG shares that were 2 Euros 60 
just 14 months ago were 10 today? I haven't followed anything relating to 
Leica, the M9, the S2 or anything but I assume that despite the certainty of 
some  here that Leica had really screwed up so collosally that they'd be out 
of business in a year, it looks like Andreas Kaufmann's strategy and 
financing has the Company on a sound footing and in the right direction, 
neh?

I'm sure that one of the LHSA members who's on the LUG has informed that 
LHSA's annual meeting this autumn will be in Wetzlar once again. Would love 
to meet as many of you as can come. When I proposed to the LHSA Board that 
we have our 2006 meeting there, many thought it too expensive, not enough 
members would make the trip, etc, etc. but it became one of the best 
attended meetings we ever had, and not too dear. Leica Wetzlar were 
fantastic with arrangements that included of course a factory tour, motor 
coaches up to Koln for a day at Photokina, a luncheon cruise on the Rhine, 
dinner in a castle, altogether quite wonderful. Please consider joining LHSA 
and coming to Wetzlar for the meeting.

Nice to be back, if just for a while.

Seth

> Message: 12
> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 13:32:21 +0100
> From: Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Why God Made UV Filters
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Message-ID: <E343E0DD-A0B5-4F01-AD12-A8F5BB0B72E9 at btinternet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> I have worked in motor racing all my life, F1 mostly. During the last fuel 
> crisis there was much heart searching about whether it was appropriate to 
> race cars. A quick calculation showed that all the cars in all the races 
> of the World Championship in a year consumed a touch more fuel than -one- 
> transatlantic Boeing 747 flight...
> It turns out that sport using the biggest amount of fuel, amongst those 
> checked, was Soccer, and it is the fan's cars driving to a huge number of 
> matches per week worldwide which consume it, not the participants.
> BTW you perhaps unwittingly made an interesting point about the 
> demographic of sports fans. In the USA motor sport is a "blue-collar" 
> sport, NASCAR and Drag racing, in other countries it is a "white-collar" 
> sport, and means Karts followed by single-seaters. This is -very- 
> noticeable when you travel worldwide in the business, and is the main 
> reason for only sporadic World Championship events being held in the USA. 
> It is too expensive for most US racing fans to stomach, and too 
> "low-class" for Americans who can afford it to consider. Having said that 
> there is a tiny but very knowledgeable and enthusiastic core of F1 
> supporters in the US!
> cheers,
> Frank
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 09:06:17 -0400
> From: "Robert Clark" <rclark01 at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: Why God Made UV Filters
> To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
> Message-ID: <92EAED0FE3CD4BCBB15E73D0471E5000 at DesktopRC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> I can attest to Frank's observation regarding motor sport in the USA.
> Mostly, higher income consumers of sport attend National Football League
> games, collegiate football games, with smaller numbers attending baseball,
> basketball events. While many of the NASCAR events attract large crowds,
> they are mostly blue collar. As a personal example - I follow NASCAR on TV
> periodically...when they race on road courses and the big super speedway
> races. Mostly, motor sport fans here do not "get" F1. There's no banging, 
> no
> low tech restrictor plate type races that generates collisions, and the
> technology is not of interest. For me (an unusual American in this 
> regard),
> F1 is worth the effort of traveling to Indy or Montreal for the races. F1
> has the internationsl flavor of multiple cultures...like the Colombian
> contingent shouting "Montoya, Montoya, Montoya for two straight hours!"
> While it is expensive (one F1 weekend ticket in Canada can be $500), it is
> worth it to a small number of us! We watch the races compulsively whenever
> SPEEDTV broadcasts them (two am from China, four am from Kuala Lumpur, or
> 8:00am from Monaco) and have our live timing on the computer so we know
> who's in the pits while SPEEDTV breaks away for advertisements. Count me 
> as
> one of the "tiny but knowledgeable and enthusiatic core of F1 supporters 
> in
> the US" and its great to pick up inteesting stories from our own Frank
> Dernie from time to time!!
>
> Robert Clark
> Lancaster, PA