Comments on: OH HOLY CRAP THIS IS HORRIB— waaaaaaiiiiiit a minute…

By: sensitive_one

sensitive_one — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 19:52:04 +0000

you silly bugger you!

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 13:55:26 +0000

No, the negatives were burned after developing. And if he enlarged them himself (and not on a 1-hour
photo shop’s printer), then he’d cut them into singles for enlarging, not into strips. Even if he did that
after taking the picture (doubtful — why cut them like a machine, and *then* like a manual darkroom),
I think you’d have a hard time getting those in an enlarger.

And remember, there’s a reason your film comes with a temperature range on the box. :-)

By: marm0t

marm0t — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 13:02:54 +0000

??!?!?!?!??!

By: zhixel

zhixel — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 10:55:45 +0000

Shocking!

By: damned_colonial

damned_colonial — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 10:30:21 +0000

Another thing… “8 march 2003” is the UK/Australia/Canada way of doing dates… a USian would say “March 8”, c.f. “September 11”.

By: citizenx

citizenx — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 08:51:45 +0000

I noticed that too. Wlonk-o must have been too engrossed with the rest of the madness to catch that bit.

Now I’ll say right now that I’ve never developed on my own any piece of film that’s been exposed to significant heat (or any film at all; I’m doing paper now). I do know a bit about the chemistry involved, and I’m thinking an exposed piece of film with the latent image of an adorable puppy sitting on a gorgeous model’s lap could easily become something confusing and horrifying if you burn the camera and throw it off a cliff.

And speaking of which, making a camera body light-tight isn’t a trivial matter, and damaging it like that is a good way to introduce light leaks. If undeveloped film were still in there and it’d been out for quite some time, wouldn’t the pictures be fogged beyond recognition?

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 02:13:27 +0000

Bits that make me think of Australia, or at least of Not American:

"Trekking"
"Holidays" (thanks Substitute)
"forest inferno"
"pieces of the jigsaw"
"my four-wheel drive"
He has separate sites for China/Japan/HK and for Australia. I don't think a North American would think to split those up into separate areas, but if you're in Australia, you know that its connectivity to the rest of the world can leave something to be desired.

(That said, all of the regional domains are pointing at the same machine in the United States, which is also where 8march2003.net points. Cybersquatting crackpots? He missed .org, which is a porn site.)

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 01:57:54 +0000

Another update:

This started showing up on Usenet from “two” people on Oct 16. I say “two” because both happen to be posting to a dozen newsgroups related to conspiracies from the same dialup in Melbourne. One is a hotmail account, Jimbo50055@hotmail.com, which is bogus:

rcpt to:
550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable

The other is gintilas@siginysis.com,
and siginysis.com is registered with the same registrar (godaddy.com) that 8march2003.com
is registered with.

George Gintilas of Melbourne started posting to Usenet about it on the 16th as himself,
and on the same day decided he should post about it from a Hotmail account. George has
never posted to Usenet before from either of the addresses he posted with on the 16th, although
he knows about Usenet, having posted there occasionally in ’97 and ’00.
He’s a new-ager with a “Radix” consultancy. See his website.

My money’s on George.

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 00:04:44 +0000

Update: Not first. Some good observations here:

http://www.drakeconsult.com/don/archives/00000079.html#comments

One of the commenters there notes, "The biggest problem [the hoaxers] have is trying to convey too much information." Ding! The hallmark of Internet hoaxes.

At least this one has a time limit

on it.

By: fimmtiu

fimmtiu — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 00:01:18 +0000

Now wonder to yourself why there were developed negatives in a camera.

Quote: “Overwhelmed with curiosity and excited anticipation, I immediately took the camera to my darkroom… Most of the film was badly damaged, parts of it having disintegrated due to extreme heat. I developed the strips of film that were salvageable.”

Now, I’m not saying that this guy isn’t on the far side of sane by any means, and I’m sure it’s either a hoax or a psychoceramic THIS SMUDGE ON THE LENS LOOKS LIKE A MARTIAN sort of thing. What an odd fellow.