Wednesday, October 17, 2007

where oh where is my camera?

OK, so when I moved out of Harrow in August, I packed everything up and hit the road. I am certain that I had the camera before packing up, and I am nearly certain I packed it somewhere.

I thought it was in my suitcase or backpack that I was bringing to the States, but when I got to the US, it wasn't there. Then I thought "well, I must have left it in the bag in the office or in my desk", since I had stored some things there to pick up in September when I was to pick up the cats. So I wasn't too worried, until I got to London in September, and the camera was not in the office.

At this point, I'm wondering if it was posssible that I left it in the flat when I left. But I really don't think I did. I was throwing everything of value in bags, and leaving the camera out? Doesn't seem possible.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm fairly certain I threw the camera in the suitcase that was going with me to the States.

So now my theory is that it was stolen from my suitcase. But maybe it was stolen from the office?

Or maybe I was absent-minded and left it on the Tube? Nah - I never carried the camera around outside of the backpack.

So, if anybody has seen my camera, let me know. It's fairly obsolete as digital cameras go, seeing as it was made in 2000 and features a whopping 2.3 megapixels! I am pretty sure I could get a more powerful camera these days for $100 or possibly less.

I would include a photo of the camera, so you would be able to recognize it, but curiously, I do not have a photo of my camera.

(Yes, that last little bit was my entire motivation for this boring post.)

13 comments:

Jolene said...

Maybe your camera is in the same place as my box of stuff from drugstore.com, which got stolen from in front of my door a few days ago. (At least the thief will be clean - most of what was in there was soap.)

mary steyr said...

regarding your 10/17 comment on salon.com...faith says only "I believe."

Whispers said...

jhn: no, "faith" is something quite beyond "belief". I suggest reading the Book of Job. Or perhaps researching all the real-life evidence for resurrection and/or life after death.

You belittle faith when you say it only implies belief. Faith is belief combined with a willing disregard for contrary evidence.

You are falling into the trap of conflating the soft theology of academics with how faith exists in the real world.

mary steyr said...

Denying things that threaten faith is not faith per se. Although I suppose you would say that it is.

Whispers said...

I would disagree with the word choice "threaten", preferrin "contradict". And it certainly is true that "people of faith" actively seek to discredit arguments that contradict their faith, usually often without giving said ideas any serious inquiry.

The opposite of "denying things that threaten faith" would be "affirming things that threaten faith", and I certainly don't see anybody doing that. To the contrary, the entire creationist/ID movement consists of people denying science because it threatens their faith.

mary steyr said...

I wouldn't argue with your characterization of the behavior of some (maybe most) people of faith. My original point (probably not expressed very clearly) was only that faith is a private, subjective, and utimately irrational process for arriving at belief.

There is no chain of logic for you to parse when confromted by true faith...and while the religious mobs might scream for blood, the real message truly is only "I believe."

Those behaviors that defend faith by attacking and denying science are just that: defenses of faith. They aren't faith itself. Language can be precise...your idea that I'm belittling faith by using a narrow definition is a weak rhetorical ploy.

Whispers said...

You are belittling faith by saying that faith is as you describe it, rather than how it is for the "religious mob" who experience it a different why. Your notion that faith is "private" is itself an idea that is not universally held. So already, we are taking the general concept of faith and translating it to "faith as experienced by jhn". That's not a very interesting argument for me, and it has nothing to do with what I was saying.

I said you belittled faith by equating it with belief. Now you are simultaneously saying that you did not express yourself clearly and that I was using a "cheap, rhetorical ploy" to point out that this equivalence belittled faith. Which is it? If we can agree that faith is more than just "belief", then your accusation is out of order.

mary steyr said...

faith - noun (dictionary.com)
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

I don't see "faith is belief combined with a willing disregard for contrary evidence" here anywhere. Is this "faith as experienced by Whispers?"

Whispers said...

I offer the book of Job and you offer the dictionary.

I'll stick with the book of Job, thank you very much.

Here's a hint: if you are ever in a discussion trying to decide what the definition of a word is, and you pull out a dictionary, you've lost.

If I put a bottle of soda in the fridge, and I close the door, is it common usage of the word "faith" to say that I have "faith" that the soda is in the fridge? OTOH, is it typical to say "I believe I have some soda in the fridge"?

I'm sorry, but "faith" means more than a simple affirmation of belief. That is what I'm saying when I say that you belitte the word "faith" to equate it with belief.

It is quite possible for a word to imply a property that is not included in its dictionary definition.

Whispers said...

Finally, please stop adding extra comments to this post about my camera. It's really completely inappropriate. You're WAY off topic.

mary steyr said...

So this blog entry is ostensibly about a lost camera...specifically, whether or not the camera was lost while packing for travel, or whether the camera was stolen from a bag already packed.

Then (and this is the "twist"), the writer goes on to say that the whole point of the post is to be able to make some sort of "truth claim" about the existence (or rather, the lack of existence) of a PICTURE OF HIS CAMERA. Oh.

In answer to the rhetorical question "have you seen my camera", I have to answer "no." Of course, you might then say "I wasn't talking to you." To which I might reply, well who the h*ll ARE you talking to, anyway?

To gain further insight into this puzzle, I went to my handy dictionary to look up "expat canadian mathematician." Unfortunately, I was not able to locate a definition.

Jolene said...

Wait wait wait. Whispers is Canadian now?

Here's what I know - all this talk of faith is distracting you all from my brilliant comment way up above. That is the travesty here.

Whispers said...

I'm also wondering when I became Canadian.

(And yes, Jolene, I thought the drugstore.com comment was brilliant. )