Odd sayings #1

The World is My Oyster

It seems simple enough to understand such a phrase, after all, worlds are just like oysters.  Even a person who was severly short-sighted and looked through beer bottles to see oysters could see the similarities.  However, some still insist on questioning the true meaning of this phrase, and thus here are a small list of interpretations.

• It’s only natural to exploit.
• To take full advantage of something, it is usually necessary to kill it.
• Superficial beauty hides the true gem - it’s alright to remove all the flesh to get to it.
• A heavy chisel and an even heavier sledgehammer will solve ANYTHING.
• Just because it’s alive doesn’t mean it has rights.
• Some things in life are born to be killed and robbed.

Vista scores, XP fails

I never thought I’d say this.

Vista actually has some major improvements over XP, namely in setting up shared devices.  In my case, it was a hulking mass of a printer, a manager and a router.

Just for future reference (or anyone who happens to have this problem), here’s a little guide to setting up a stand-alone shared printer with both Vista and XP computers and a router.  Vista’s not essential (well, in this guide it more or less is), but if you had only Vista, you wouldn’t be looking for answers here, would you?

So to make a long story short:

1. Make sure your printer is capable of standing alone so that it doesn’t need to be connected to a computer.  For other shared printers where one computer is connected directly and all others to that one, use google.  There’s plenty of guides for that.
2. Set up connections, linking printer directly to router.  (You should have had a network on the router before this, so I won’t cover it).
3. For Vista, connect to the router network, go to START, type PRINTERS in the little search bar and press enter.  Then click ADD A PRINTER, click ADD A WIRELESS/BLUETOOTH NETWORK PRINTER (second option), let Vista search for it and with any luck (most of the time) it will appear there.  Congrats, that’s the end.
4. If you don’t see the printer or you use XP, keep looking down.
5. For XP, go to control panel, click printers and faxes and click add a printer.  Follow the dialogue until you get one with 3 options.  Click the first option and then click next.  If the printer appears there, congrats again, end.  If it doesn’t, keep going.
6. For XP, take the cord of the printer (when off and disconnected) and plug and install it on the XP computer (depending on plug-and-play capability, you might need to use your manufacturer’s CD.
7. For XP, reconnect the cord back to the manager/hub thingy that goes to the router (or straight to the router).
8. For Vista and XP:  If you’ve come this far, then doing it manually will save more time than digging around in settings.  EITHER go to the computer with Vista (or XP if you’ve managed to get it working on one) and printer already set up on it, type printers and press enter again, then select the printer from the list and right-click then go to properties.  For XP you’ll need to go through the control panel again, as shown in a above step.  Once there, click the Ports tab and look at the list shown.  Ideally there will be one with a checked box, and one only.  If there’s more, then nevermind, find the one where the port is an IP address and the description something like Standard TCP/IP Port. OR if your printer prints out a test page after you set up the hardware or if there’s a little diagnostics button on the manager, look at the page.  It should list TCP/IP and underneath something like IP ADDRESS followed by an IP.
9. Take the IP found above and go to the computer which refuses to detect the printer over the network.  Go to the printers folder again and open the properties of the printer (which will be there since you plugged it directly before to install it).  Go to the Ports tab again and click add port.  Select Standard TCP/IP Port, click new port, enter that IP found in step 8 in Printer name or IP address and call it anything you want in port name (though the default IP_whatever is a good choice).  Click next until it finishes.
10. Go back to the general tab and print a test page.  The printer should then proceed to spit out a page covered in lots of letters which don’t mean much to most people.

Eh, nothing much to say.

Rocketdock is a handy piece of software I use to keep my desktop clear - and when I say clear, I mean completely empty.  Even without a rubbish bin (though I don’t recommend actually deleting the rubbish bin as that can lead to…problems).  In short, it’s like a mac bar, and shame on me.

http://rocketdock.com/

Because offensive language really is quite tasty.

Well, we’ve all heard the word faggot bandied around by various insecure groups trying to make a point about someone or a group’s sexuality, appearance or general personality, most likely in an attempt to distance themselves from the other group lest they risk the horror of realising that there exists a special spot for them in said group.

However, this is not the reason that I looked at the word faggot in slightly more detail. No, my interest in the word transcends this muck of humanity, preferring to search in the rubbish tip next to it. Specifically, with the offal.

The reason for this is that Faggots are in fact food. According to wikipedia:

A faggot is a kind of meatball, a traditional dish in the UK, especially the southwest of England and Wales. It is made from meat off-cuts and offal, especially pork. A faggot is traditionally made from pig heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and sometimes breadcrumbs. The mixture is shaped in the hand into balls, wrapped round with caul (a membrane from the pig’s abdomen), and baked. A similar dish, almôndega, is traditional in Portugal.

Fair enough, we all eat unusual things, including heart, liver, bacon and “fatty belly meat”.

Just not at the same time. Also from wikipedia:

The dish saw its greatest popularity with the rationing during World War II but has become less popular in recent years. Faggots are usually homemade and are to be found in traditional butchers’ shops and market stalls.

That’s understandable. In wartime one eats what one gets. This may be various poultries killed by shrapnel, preserved meats that expired a week ago, or preserved vegetables pickled eons ago. However, after the war the majority of people turn back to normal food. Most of us don’t eat rock hard crackers anymore, and especially not as a traditional dish. In actuality, it seems quite puzzling why these prized possessions wouldn’t be dished up and served with pride of homeland and countrymen on every table on a regular basis.

Ah, that’s right. We don’t have to eat our refuse now.

(Oh, and that “possibly related post” that wordpress so kindly provided actually leads to a gay community blog. It has nothing to do with me whatsoever, and I rather suggest that you steer clear of it altogether.)

Suggestions

I’ve rather run out of philosophical ideas to play around with, so feel free to bring anything up for debate.

And yes, this isn’t dead.  Yet.

Another failed attempt to bypass the spam filter.

Tom Humes | email@whyoutsource.com |wealthbuildingworld.com | IP: 74.53.95.194

Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.

Tom Humes

Some people must really take me for an idiot. Firstly, the email, and secondly, the website. If that’s not blatantly trying to get me to approve the comment for ad spam, I don’t know what is.

In response, this is what I have to say:

It seems that the above image has run out of bandwidth. Ah well.

And congrats to Richaod for realising I just needed an reason to post the picture.

Fail, or “failage” thereof of humans and concepts

You know that something interesting is actually happening in life when I don’t have to recount the monotony on a pathetic blog.  That said, life is equally pathetic and so to liven things up, here’s something to think about.

What makes a person?  From a very detached, clinical perspective, I shall list the following:

• Personality
• Culture
• Wealth
• Status
• Influence and connections
• Appearance
• “Identity” consisting of name and relations with others; similar to connections

So if one communicates with a person, one communicates with the aggregate of a personality, culture, wealth, status, influence and so forth.

Now, a concept has none of the above, indeed, has no physical properties and thus cannot possess the above, which of many are concepts in themselves.  So feelings are concepts.  Theories are often concepts.  Speculation about something is a concept.

So if I choose a person to think about, in this case, I have arbitrarily chosen a man somewhere in France, if I do not know the person’s personality, appearance, wealth, etc, I am essentially dealing with a concept.  I have no idea if this man even exists, or is only in my mind.  So to me, all people unknown to me are concepts and not people, or even objects.

Now, what about the internet, television, documentaries, etc?  Indeed, they show people, but all they show is appearance.  Even so, this is a little of what constitutes a human, and thus they are considered human.  That said, all people I have never seen do not exist for me, for the simple reason that if they did exist, then every sort of conceivable person would exist, and that would create a paradox in itself.

So really, what is a person?  A person is a fragment of knowledge possessed by another person, in order that the person thought about in fact does exist.

Also, I’m tempted to remove comments or make them have to be approved beforehand.  I’m reasonably sure no one wants to know about your idiotic ad-ridden websites geared towards making money for yourself, so go hit yourself with something heavy.

You get useless gimmicks. And then you get *USELESS* GIMMICKS.

There are few really pointless things in life. That pair of socks you never used. That garden gnome that hides at the back of your shed. Various….things that lurk under your bed or in your closet.

And then you get the Picture to Ascii Converter. It takes any picture you care to choose and makes a fairly faithful rendition.

I’d give an example, but I tried and the computer almost crashed on account of the state of internet in Australia. Go ahead and try, just don’t upload the ASCII to some blog.

Proletarian, eh?

I vaguely remember researching and doing a detailed satirical report on communism, but I’ve largely forgotten all of it.

However, if they’ll give me free jackets to pose for posters, I’ll gladly do it. It also has the rare distinction of being around the same rank as Kevin Rudd.

The picture has been removed, and is henceforth available for “friends” over Facebook, in my photo album.

The Things we Look For

Seriously, what was that search meant to find?