Re: [photo-3d] Grant's Story

[John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From: "Dr. George A. Themelis" <drt-3d@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [photo-3d] Grant's Story

>>But lurker turned activist, Mr Roberts [is] quick to 
>>rattle off a few bullets on the keyboard! :-) [...] 
>>Why don't you put your writing skills to
>>work crafting a letter for Grant!

>Good idea!  He is the person to do it!  He loves
>debates and he could debate any side of an issue.

OK, I wouldn't care to write the final draft, but I could offer some
suggestions:
 - The best approach for a letter of this type (as contrasted with legal
   proceedings) is to appeal to the person's better nature, without threats
   (of legal proceedings or of anything else) or intimidation, explaining 
   what a nice guy Grant is, and what a personal disaster, and that he can't 
   afford another one, and that the stereo community has benefited greatly 
   from his RBT photos and will suffer without them.
 - The letter shouldn't get into who "owns" the camera (that would be a
   topic for possible future legal proceedings, but shouldn't be mentioned
   here). It could mention something like "while we recognize that you didn't
   do anything wrong in buying the camera from the thrift shop, we would be
   extremely grateful if it could be returned to Grant."
 - It should mention that "the stereo photography community is very tight-knit,
   and its members are always willing to help one another. If you are
   interested in stereo photography, perhaps you could benefit from
   participation in this community of enthusiasts".
 - There could be mention of a reward: "as an example of how stereo 
   photographers can help one another, the following people have pledged
   support for Grant, and have offered a reward of [suitable amount] for
   your generosity if you are willing to return the camera to Grant. The
   members of the stereo photography community would undoubtedly be willing
   to help you find another 3D camera, and provide advice and assistance in
   your involvement in 3D photography." [In other words, if he's interested
   in 3D photography, he stands a lot to benefit from the community if he
   returns the camera.]

The suggested procedure would be for a respected person from P3D [NOT ME!] to
work on the composition of the letter, then post it to P3D for comments.
After it seems to be about right, the people on P3D or elsewhere who
support the letter would send permission by email to a volunteer
[NOT ME!] who would compile all the names. The contact person (not Grant)
would then put together the letter with the attached names of people who
support the statements of the letter (just names, no addresses), and the
letter would be sent by the contact person (with his/her name and address)
to the guy with the camera. Then wait, and see if he responds.

If the content of the letter is fairly non-controversial, then it shouldn't
be too hard to get a hundred people (or maybe even several hundred) to endorse
it, which would make it a pretty impressive document when sent to an 
individual.

>BTW, Mr. Roberts is one of the oldest members of photo-3d.
>Possibly the oldest member still around.  Maybe he
>appears to be a lurker now but he's always been an
>outspoken activist.  Me and him have argued many
>times in the past on various issues but when I met
>him (NSA Virginia) in person I was so impressed by
>his good character that I promised never to argue
>with him again :)

Thanks for the compliments, George. :-)

The reason that I haven't posted much lately is that I've been swamped with
work, including invention of a new Braille display technology
  (<http://www.nist.gov/itl/div895/isis/projects/brailleproject.html>)
  (which is spinning off an effort on tactile graphics, which may have
   applications for stereo VR),
work with electronic books (<http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/ebook2000/>),
digital cinema (<http://digitalcinema.nist.gov/>)
  (which may be of interest here since the digital cinema community
   is becoming interested in stereo),
characterization of 2D and 3D displays, and of course all the other stuff. :-)

The P3D list has so many brilliant and knowledgeable people that I find when
there's an interesting topic to which I could respond, if I don't get around
to it for a day or two, usually someone else covers the topic as well as I
could have or better. :-) So on the average, the only times I generally post
these days are when 1) there's a topic I'd like to respond to, 2) nobody's yet
posted pretty much what I would have said, and 3) I happen to remember the 
topic when I have a few spare moments to post.

So it may *look* like I post infrequently and tending to disagree with others'
comments, but in fact I think very highly of P3D and its members, and find 
it a highly valuable resource for things relating to 3D!

John Roberts


 

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