Archive for July 27th, 2006

Ebay Sandisk Ultra IIs – Caveat Emptor

I read on the DSLR Blog about fake Sandisk Ultra II compact flash cards, which are, apparently, rampant on Ebay.

I bought three Ultra IIs off their a few months ago, for a decent price, undercutting other online stores by over £30. Bargain!

Guided by information on this page, I checked them out.

They’re fake.

They’re probably cheap nasty generic compact flash cards with pretty Sandisk logos stuck to them, put in fake packaging. I thought they didn’t feel particularly fast when I was using them, but the type of shooting I do doesn’t normally require fast writes, so I was prepared to put the blame on my 20D and the fact I always use RAW + JPEG, which produces two files per picture taken. They haven't failed in any way, yet, but I will no longer entrust my most important shoots to them.

From now on, I’m spending the extra cash.

Caveat emptor indeed.

July 27th, 2006

More End Times Wackiness

Over the years I’ve known a few fundamentalist Christians, those who take the vast majority of the bible as being literally true. I’ve debated them a few times and they always have one trump card – they know they’re right, always. There is no point of logic that you can make them concede that will change their view. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, since they have ‘faith’, that logic-sapping state of mind that lets them believe 10 impossible things before breakfast. You can argue around the edges all you like, show them discrepancies in the bible, even outright contradictions, but they ‘know’ it’s the divine words of their god so logic plays no part of the equation. The bible is right, therefore anyone who shows them that it’s not is obviously wrong. Simple. Cut and dried.

It’s that kind of thinking that makes people blow themselves up in crowded bars.

However, I digress. Via Harpers, ultimately from the Rapture Ready Bulletin Board, quotes from various fundies who believe that the current conflict in the Middle East are the final, definitive, not-to-be-mistaken signs of the end times.

A few choice quotes:

A question just popped in my head. Do you think children of around say 7 or 8 (but before the age of accountability) that have been indoctrinated up until that time by their parents religious beliefs will be raptured? . . . For example, would a 7 year old muslim be raptured? I know G-d will do right but I was just wondering everyone's thoughts. I hate to think of kids being left here.

I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what's going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, oh happy day, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!

I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

Revelling in death and suffering, presumably in a means to an end, the end being the physical transportation of a select few thousand into heaven, aka the Rapture, followed by decades of suffering on earth for the rest of us sinners before the final battle between god and satan.

Yes, it does sound like a bad Steven King novel, it doesn’t stop millions of fundies believing it.

Naturally, there is little in the way of verifiable facts involved here – after all, everything from the Catholic church, the European Union, Stalin and Arthur Scargill have been candidates for the anti-christ, so they’re following a long tradition of making shit up to fit their desire to get up into heaven with all the other pixies.

Ok, Arthur Scargill isn’t really on their list of anti-christs, I made that one up in the 1980’s when I heard one fundy explain how the beast would come from a city on seven hills. He assumed it was Rome, but I knew that Sheffield is also built on seven hills, and at the time that was where the NUM were based, so my logic was just as inescapable as his.

The one major difference between then and now is that we currently have an American president who actually believes all this rot (Ronald Reagan also did, but his antichrist was the USSR, and that, somewhat inconveniently for the rapture groupies, disappeared). The USA’s (and, naturally, lap dog Blair’s) failure to demand that Israel stop blowing up unrelated bits of the Lebanon to stop Hezbollah launching rockets only gives the fundies more joy. It’s akin to Spain blowing up bits of the Basque region to stop ETA, or the UK blowing up bits of Ireland to stop the IRA, or indeed the UK blowing up bits of Palestine to stop the pro-Israeli terrorists trying to form the state of Israel in the 1940’s (oh how people forget that Israel was formed by, what can only be described as, terrorists).

Of course, no rapture will occur, it’s a silly fiction beloved by simple-minded biblical literalists who want to smirk at the rest of us when they go up to heaven and we’re left in a living hell. It’s a kind of holier-than-thou attitude based upon enjoying the suffering of others. It’s inevitable really, when their religion revolves around holding sacred the image of a gallows, going so far as to decorate their houses with it, or wearing it as an item of jewellery.

Thank god I’m an atheist…

[edited for some typos]

July 27th, 2006


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