Hello all,

Unfortunately I won't be around for the next week due to technical difficulties. I dropped my computer in for servicing in on the past Saturday, and I'll be getting it back sometime after Christmas.

Anyone who has been following the consoles war knows that Sony has been promoting their console and the one true HD console, assuming your HDTV is fairly new and supports 720p and 1080p. If you're one of those early adopters who has a HDTV that only supports 1080i, well, I guess your just shit out of luck because the best you'll be getting is ED quality.

Turns out Sony forgot to add a analog signal scaler to their unit which would be able to upscale a 720p signal to a 1080i signal. Like the one which can be found in the year old XBox 360.

But don't worry about a thing you early adopters, because Sony fanboyshas provided a solution for you [link]s3&thread.id=747177. Just buy one of these [link]roductId=1002535&navigationPath=33000n32100n32108n46020 It'll upscale a 720p signal to 1080i, and only set you back $1,499.99. That's right, they actually considerings spending $1,499.99 on an upscaler to get a $600 console working on a TV which would have cost several thousand dollars on a viable solution.

Fanboys suck so much...

There are a couple of things I don't talk about much. One of them is religion. As none of you are probably aware, I'm an atheist and skeptic. I don't really talk about that much because I don't consider my atheism to be a defining quality. For example, I could tell you the Earth was warmed by a bunch of invisible pink ponies running on treadmills in the middle of the Earth called Ponyrosin. You SHOULD ask me to prove my point. I naturely can not. Now, if you choose to disbelieve me here (which you should) then that would technically make you an "Aponyrosin". Would you consider that a defining aspect of your being? No, it just means you require extraordinary evidence to believe exceptional claims. The same applies to atheists.

Now, you might be wondering why I choose to speak out now about religion. Even though I am not religious, I believe people are allowed to believe what ever they want. The problem arises when either your beliefs inspire you to commit violent acts, or you attempt to force your beliefs on others. Right now, parents in American high schools are trying to force creationism to be taught in Science classes. A religious President struck down a bill for funding of stem cell research which could potential cure such tragic diseases as Parkinsons. We are seeing bigotry against homosexuals, who are being denied their right to pursue happiness. Athiests are not allowed to run for office in seven states in the US. All of this is been done in the name of religion, and I have simply had enough.

September 11 changed the world in a lot of different ways. It changed the world for atheists in a very distinct way. Before, we looked at religion as a harmless belief system. Sure, if people need religion for support, or consolation, then where's the harm in that? Then we found out that religion is not a harmless belief system. It is a potentially dangerous belief system. Dangerous because it gives people unshakable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labeled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. This has got to stop.

Religion at its very core is made from ideas and such which are considered to be holy, or sacred. Which simply means that "here is a concept which you are not allowed to say anything bad about. Why not? Because you're just not!" Now this is an extremely important point, because I'm sure a lot of you will read this journal and be offended. To you who are offended I only have this to say. Your beliefs do not deserve to be inherently respect. I am free to critize anything I want, just as you are free to critique whatever I believe.

You might be wondering where I'm going with this . Well, I plan on writing a couple of essays on the topic of religion, including but not exclusively, intelligent design vs. evolution, the problem of evil, morality and truth and history in the bible.