And Then Bu-by Copper…

   That would be the well proven copper phone land line. Yup our provider has switched to phone over fibre.
Last Monday I received by mail - am I allowed to use that term? - instructions and an adapter. I was instructed to plug the adapter into the ONT box, leave said ONT active overnight on Thursday. ONT? Seems that’s short for Optical Network Terminal. Then after six AM on Friday unplug the phone from the copper line and plug him into the fibre adapter.
   So far so clear, however, the ONT box is mounted on the wall at the back of a bottom bookshelf and entailed this old fellow getting on his knees. No big problem but let’s not type of the getting back up bit.
   Anyhoo, I discovered this box has a row of lights along the top and the actual connection ports are hidden along the bottom. Happily the lights are named in minute print and amongst the off lights I did indeed find a light, right of centre, marked Tel 1. I traced my finger down and on the bottom did indeed find a port.
Thus the adapter was finally fumbled and fiddled into that port.
   Come Friday, I noted the Tel 1 light was all lit-up so made a call. Nothing. Call with mobile? Nothing. Wot to do. Wot I done did, back on knees, was wrestle the ONT off the wall and noted all ports on the bottom were named and guess wot, Tel 1 port was the first port hard left. Yup none of the ports on the bottom correspond to the position of the indicator lights above. How cool is that then eh?
   Moved adapter, gave it a minute, tried phone out and in. Success, with many thanks to the wondrous whizzy kiddy designers for testing my fragile mental fibre. And my knees...
   Out with a bit o' Booty Swing...

Quote; Douglas Adams.

 “We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”

And Then, Technology..

Finding myself with nothing to do of a gainful nature today, it raining an’ all, I did a bit of hard drive cleaning and ran into the piece below that I’d obviously copied, from where I know not, which made me laugh as, indeed, it must have when first spotted and copied.

The only clue I have is that it was composed, according to the copy properties, by Reggie's Dæmons. Usual apologies and thanks to the author.

   “After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago.
   Not to be outdone by the French: in the weeks that followed, American archaeologists dug to a depth of 20 feet before finding traces of copper wire. Shortly afterwards, they published an article in the New York Times saying : "American archaeologists, having found traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the French."
   A few weeks later, ‘The British Archaeological Society of Northern England’ reported the following: "After digging down to a depth of 33 feet in the Skipton area of North Yorkshire in 2011, Charlie Hardcastle, a self-taught local amateur archaeologist, reported that he had found absolutely bugger all. Charlie has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, Britain had already gone wireless."

Quote;  Kammpan Sharma.

“WiFi is the umbilical cord of modern world.”

And Then, Back I Go...

I see that owing to a tech problem – who’d believe that could happen then – that Gatwick Airport was/is having to use whiteboards to post flight information. One can only assume passengers are being directed to the boards locations via the airport PA system.

As I typed that last bit my head went on a voyage backwards. Actually, my head stayed right here, it was the grey, spongy contents of said head wot went backwards in search of a faint jingly bell sound it detected.

I eventually found myself back in 2007 by the dexterous utilisation of  a thing called Google and if you’re lucky, you may find you have Google on your own communication device. If you do have it, try it; it’s quite cleaver.

I’m pretty sure the piece below goes way back further than that YouTube thingy as I seem to remember it as just a sound file that was flying around almost at the birth of the Inter-Web.

Hay, Timidadians! DEFCON warning! Relax that mouse finger NOW and  step away from your keyboards, okay?

         

Quote;  Stewart Brand.

"Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.”

            Warren G. Bennis

"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man, and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment."

And Then Tech Talk...

Over at Head Rambles the other day there was a post regarding those times we have to listen to experts in their fields explaining various technicalities relating to the kit, or whatever, they’re talking about. I usually just concentrate on the bluebird fluttering round in the clear blue sky of my mind and leave ‘em to it.

This reminded me of one of my favourite TubeYou videos from many years ago. I’m quietly confident you’ve seen it before as it’s probably been featured on every Blog since the very first Blog went up on Blog opening day.

It still makes me smile out loud. Take a break from wanting to break your TV every time you see or hear hat nice Mr Cummerbund,  or any of his pals, and enjoy the next couple of minutes.

                  

Quote;  John Brunner.

“It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button.”

And Then A Tad More Techno….

While typing in relation to my computer skills yesterday, I remembered something from a little bit after a while ago for another techno post for today. Or, as it was yesterday, tomorrow.  Sadly, the remembering took place yesterday and is now forgotten and lost in the mists of the past twelve hours of the aging process.

Today, while trying to remember what I remembered yesterday and forgot, I thought of this which may, or may not, be the same thought that I remembered and forgot yesterday. Not being able to remember what I forgot yesterday, I have no way of telling but what I can say is I need to type what I've remembered today before I forget it.

Reminds me of Mark Twain – "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." Which begs the deeper question; if you lose your mind, how would you know you'd lost it?

Okay, back on track. You remember those dual landline and Skype phones wot I done got? You do? You're way ahead of me then.

Anyhoo, let me update y'all with how we be getting on with them. All in all, they be very good. However, a couple of days after setting them up, my little nest of vipers reported that the contact list had disappeared. I fiddled for a while and eventually just logged out of Skype, logged back in and the contacts re-loaded. It happened again a couple of days later. Log out – log in, contacts back and thought I, this could become a royal pain.

Then, a couple of mornings later I was sitting at the desk, waiting for the desktop to fire up, coffee to hand and staring at the phone, as you do, when it lit up and I saw it was doing a software update. Since then 'till now, a long time, no disappearing contacts problems at all so it  was probably a known, and fixed, problem.

Then, a couple of mornings later, sitting in the same place, staring at  the same phone but with fresh coffee, I noticed a small flashing blue light on the handset and my rapier sharp intellect instinctively knew exactly what that was. So, what was it?  It was definitely a small flashing blue light on the handset.

Oh, look, there's a message on the phone screen, a screen that's a testament to the marvels of modern miniaturisation by the way, saying I have a missed call! Press a button and all the details are there for you to squint at on the mini screen. Is that ever cleaver or wot? Wot? Well I thought it was jolly cleaver. Ah well; bu-by then.

Quote;  Richard Lerner.

"AT&T to wed T-Mobile. Following the ceremony there will be no reception."

      Bridger Winegar.

"Each time I shut my computer down, I throw my head back in maniacal laughter and scream, 'Fool! I was only using you!'"

And Then, Bitten By IT….

Where have I been? I've been bitten by technology is where I've been. It was one of those inexplicable happenings we've all been subjected to I'm sure. There I was, admiring my just installed semi-transparent desktop calendar and the success of importing entries from elsewhere when I got the spooky sensation I was no longer online.

I shouted at myself and was more than happy and relieved when I shouted back at the precise moment her along the sofa shouted out in shock thus confirming to myself and me that I was, indeed, still online. Upon further investigation, I discovered it was just the laptop that was offline.

Using all my investigative skills, I further discovered that no network connections could be found as network discovery was disabled. Thought me to I, when, in the last minute, did I disable that then? To that question, I have no answer.

Did I do the simple thing and go to Network Settings? You're kidding, right? No; this, my friends, is when my in-built urge to quickly press buttons, any buttons, without engaging my brain, kicked in and took over and I dived right into restore mode. Not only that but my high speed clicking had the beast restoring before I took note and selected a recent restore point to restore from. Damn! That took care of that evening as all I got were those annoying 'Almost done' – 'Just a little longer' messages that bear absolutely no resemblance to the use of the words 'almost' and 'little' as used in the real world.

Eventually it all came to an end and I was presented with nothing but a black screen that no amount of left or right clicking could shift. What to do? I turned him off, counted slowly to one and turned him back on and, viola! The beast is right back to where it was when I took him out o' the box eighteen months or so ago! No, not really, although I wouldn't have been surprised. Annoyed, yes; surprised, no. As it was, it all turned out to be perfect. Perfect is computer speak for, 'it's working okay for now'.

Quote;  Douglas Adams.

“I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course-the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.”

And Then, A Breath Of Fresh Air….

You obviously remember I got one of these little dealy-bobs and promised a further post after I'd rum him for a while and I'm betting you've been on the edge of your seats, watching time crawl by, repeatedly checking ol' Foggy waiting for a detailed post regarding wot he be like.

Hello? Damn!! Okay, I'll just practice typing to me then; and thank me for staying. Hay! Am I just resting my eyes then?

In a word? It seems to work. Glad to see I'm awake now and I'm right; that's four words. Well spotted me! That may give me some indication of the technical quality, or lack thereof, I can expect in the following review. In a word, nil. See? I got that bit right.

Anything I say below may give the impression that, prior to trying this bit o' kit, we were two smelly folk living in a smelly, dirty house. Trust me, this was/is not the case and the following is just my findings from before and after.

As previously stated, it took about twenty four hours for the 'new' smell to dissipate and thereafter, there is little to no odour and the slight odour there is, is quite pleasant. It's silent running as there's no fan or other motors involved. Also, no filters to replace just metal plates to wipe clean every so often. We run him through the night, turning him on a couple or three hours before we turn in. We run him on high for this period then on low through the night.

And? Her indoors hint of hay fever stuffy-type symptoms are gone and the room feels fresher upon waking. Okay, for 'feel' you could substitute, 'that slept-in smell'.

Will this fellow replace your hoover and dusters? Well, this old house will collect a patina of dust over all surfaces through the course of very few days which would become easily visible in less than a week from cleaning. This despite wood floors throughout and the only carpet being on the stairs which may, of course, be the dusty reason – no carpet to 'soak the dust up'?

Now? I can honestly say that, after two weeks, surfaces are just starting to produce minute traces of dust to the touch but not yet visible obvious to the naked eye. That boring dusting jobby may well be out to about three week intervals rather than a sub weekly chore.

So would I recommend you rush out and get an air purifier? Not my place to do that but what I will say is I did done went and got another of the same for the sitting room. Or lounge or whatever you call that room with a sofa and a TV in it.

After extended sofa surfing during periods of foul weather, upon leaving the room and re-entering, there's now no sign of that stuffy, stale, overused sort of smell. It also seems to keep right on top of, and eliminate, cooking smells. I hasten to add that I enjoy the smell of cooking but when my little nest of vipers decides to cook one of her local dishes, translated into English, road-kill and rice, the smell, dependant upon the mysterious ingredients involved, would gag a maggot.

In conclusion, it/they do seem to work. For us.

If I was counting, this would be classed as the second use of the word 'conclusion' and this conclusion is on a completely different topic to the first. Here's yet another lovely comment, from I forget where, relating to that referendum thingy:

acorn
Posted June 16

Unfortunately, the UK print and broadcast media, is not the place to learn anything about the EU or economics or finance.  But, the print media will decide the outcome of the EU referendum.  Unless, Coronation Street runs an “IN” story line for several weeks before the event and EastEnders runs an “OUT” storyline resulting in mass confusion.

Quote;  Dan Quayle.

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."

And Then We Come Up For Air....

As her indoors suffers from hay fever, I've recently done a little research and purchasing. She isn't a huge sufferer, it's more an occasional discomfort but you know what they're like. At the slightest sign of any minor ailment, they wring it for all the sympathy they can get and revel in being waited on hand and foot. Wait a minute. I may have got that lot the wrong way round.

Anyhoo, I looked around for something to help get her through the night without any hay fever type nasal or throat irritations and as clean as you can get a house, dust is still lurking, ready to be breathed so clean, dust, pollen free and scrubbed air seemed to be the place to start and from that, I moved forward to air purifiers. 

There's a dizzying array of air purifiers out there with a dizzying range of specifications and prices.

What to do? I picked a low price jobby so as to investigate further. The thinking behind this being that if it proves beneficial I can move upwards should the need seem worth it and if there's no noticeable benefit, then I haven't wasted too much kelly.

It's a fine line; expensive work far better than cheap? Go for gold first rattle out of the box? I decided to go with plan A.

If there's absolutely no benefit then of course I'll have wasted the money spent with nothing to show for it other than an empty box and some bubble wrap. Whoa! An empty box and bubble wrap to play with? That's okay then. Really, how good can it get?

Fast frontwards to today; it came and I plugged it in. I let it run for forty-eight hours, on high, in a spare room because, as with any electrical kit, it tends to smell somewhat when new and this proved true of this little thingy.

The smell dissipated and the only slight odour now is, I assume, ozone although I have no idea what ozone smells like if it even does smell and Google isn't that smart yet. Yet. If it is, indeed, ozone, it's a very unobtrusive, quite pleasant, fresh smelling smell.

Two nights of use, low setting, {there's no fan so no noise}and my little nest of vipers says the slight nose congestion sometime suffered through the night is gone and, as an added bonus, it seems she's had two straight nights without being awoken, at some stage, by snoring. When she mentioned this I feigned surprise and said I must sleep deep as I didn't even know she snored. This was met by a rather puzzled look.

This is my starting point and I'll report back in a couple of weeks but, as stated above, it's showing surprising promise.

Quote;  Jarod Kintz.

“I’m going outside to get a breath of fresh air. Anybody got a cigarette I can have?”

And Then A Last Tweet....

Ol’ Foggy’s bowing out of the Twitter wars with this post and I’m only posting this as a lead-up to the tune down below.

I believe a lot of jolly important people chose not to use Twitter for a day - a day? as a protest against the fact some other people don’t like either them or what they Tweet. Thought I to myself, that’ll work. As the day progressed, I wonder who became the more twitchy and irritable? The jolly important people, not being able to communicate, using 140 characters, or the Twitter management sitting round the big boardroom table saying, “Who? And they’re doing what? And we should give a fat rats ass because?”

I hope those jolly important people aren’t too disappointed, upon re-entering the maximum 140 characters, small rectangular world they inhabit, when they discover the same, plus, since their sulky antics, several more folk, still hate them and/or their 140 character chatter.

Okay, that’s me, a none user, all Twittered out. By the way, if you do use it, enjoy it and are big enough to take the odd insult without shedding too many tears or throwing a tantrum at the world, carry on - enjoy.

As for those jolly important people, here’s a song complete with the words, or, if you’re a member of the intelligentsia, the lyrics, although if you are, indeed, a member of the intelligentsia, how’d you end up here buddy?

Where was me. Got ya’. If you send a Tweet I’m assuming the recipient will be the Tweeted thus making the sender the Tweeter, right? Here’s the long awaited song then. Read along and you’ll pick up some parallels to the great Twitter war of August four.

Quote; Dave Barry.

“The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.”

And Then A Nail Head Hitter....

Further to young David’s masterful idea for censoring the Internet, which, it seems, is unravelling faster than a ball of wool that’s being guarded by a kitten, is this lovely conversation which is billed as hypothetical. Come on, I don’t believe that for a minute. Without further ado-dad, over to Another Angry Voice for the fun.

When done there, continue to an ‘in depth’ review of Dopey Dave’s cunning plan so well put together by the same Angry Voice.

Tell you what, you seen that summer time TV advert for a large chain of chemists shops? The one showing an old guy crawling through long grass, with binoculars, who turns to the camera and grinningly whispers, ‘Let’s get closer’ as it cuts to little lad excitedly getting ready to run into the sea. There aint no way that’s going to get past the first filter, never mind through a family friendly firewall. He’s an innocent bird watcher, right? Still aint getting past. All innocence is soon to be lost.

I’ll leave the last words to Mr Hitler. Take it away Adolph......

Quote; Adolph Hitler.

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”

And Then Some Changes….

I remember some time ago Blogger changed their main page.  Happily, they provided the ability to continue using, what software people like to call, the classic view.

Last night the classic view wuzz gone to be replaced by, what the young bucks like to call, a slick, clean, minimalist user interface.  And what us old sods would call; Where's everything gone then?  True, nothing stays the same but I wish there was some way of making it so once you reach a certain age.  A sort of opt in or opt out of change sort of thing.

No wonder the hospitals are full of poor old folk who've supposedly lost the plot.  Have they actually lost the plot or where they really still playing the game of life but it's just that they needed longer to get a grip of the plot, sort out their next move, ran out of time, the other players moved on and so they missed their move.  As any gamer knows, there's only so many times you can miss a move before you're thrown off the board, right?

Never mind, back to Blogger.  If Foggy formatting frequently falls flat on its face 'till I get the hang, again, of the new user interface, I apologise.   See? There I go again, presumptuously assuming there's someone at the other end of this keyboard to apologise to.

While on the subject of Blogger, there seems to be a bit of religious stuff going down just now, with some folk kicking off 'couse of cartoons an' movies an' such, so I thought I'd briefly join in.  Then I thought, nah, the quote at the end says it all for me.

Hope you enjoy the song this Saturday.  You could almost make the link {pun} between the words and life in this country of ours, or theirs, couldn't you?

I almost forgot. If you haven't, unlikely, you really must read this.  There follows a taster;
"This sort of condescending claptrap is, I suspect, merely a step on from those notices one sees everywhere that clearly assume we all have the mental age of a three-week old kangaroo joey. ‘Warning very hot water may contain nuts use extreme care not tripping over yellow cone that says warning wet floor but beware automatic door containing see-through glass made in factory next door to Nabisco may contain wheat allergen traces’."

How true is that then?

Quote;  Douglas Adams.

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

And Then They Found Him….

This starts a long, long time ago with a tale recounted to me by a friend.

The tale begins almost at the first day of school, age five, and a friend of his. They started and stayed together through school days and as time passed my friends friend, at every opportunity, expressed to one and all who would listen to him, his one and true intent to become an explorer. I was told this kid proved to be, as most of us, to be academically average but, sadly, common-sensically dumber 'un a brick and quickly earned the nick-name Hopeless Higgy.

Hopeless Higgy was continually informed, whenever the explorer thingy came up, that he would make a rubbish explorer as, even on day four of starting school, when the last grown-up had stopped escorting even the dumbest kid to and from school, assuming that any five year old who needed showing something more than three times and would be daft enough to fall for the old guy at the school gate asking if anyone'd like to see some puppies, wasn't worth the effort, he still needed directional assistance.

At the end of the school day when all the kids turned out, and after varying periods of play and exploring, when hunger finally took hold and home was the place to be, Hopeless Higgy never made it home without help.

Time passed yet more so until came the fateful day when Hopeless Higgy informed his folks that he was going to test his exploring prowess by attempting to find the source of the bindweed in the much neglected back garden.

With some trepidation his folks watched as Hopeless Higgy set off on his quest, armed only with a pocket knife, complete with horses hoof stone extractor (It was a long time ago), a bag of plain potato crisps with the salt folded into a little blue paper wrap and a Dan Dare pretend cardboard compass.

And that, not totally surprisingly, was the last time Hopeless Higgy was seen. After several hours fruitless searching it was assumed he'd taken a wrong turn in the undergrowth, wandered into a neighbouring garden and become hopelessly lost. As usual.

The search was scaled down shortly after dark, then, over the next few days scaled back further to the occasional call from the back door, "Higgy!! Time to come in now! Your tea's getting cold!!"

And then, lo and behold, after almost fifty years, I turn on the news and, unbelievably, he's been found!! At least they're ninety nine point lots more nines recurringly, sure it's him. It seems Hopeless Higgy had only made it four gardens down from his starting point and had survived all this time by foraging for berries, raw vegetables and old tea bags.

One has to admire the tenacity of the searchers{?} who never gave up hope on the Hopeless Higgy mystery but one must also wonder what his surviving family are going through away from the usual on-camera stuff of, "It's wonderful that Higgy's been found. We never gave up hope!" to the more likely, "Damn! Who's going to have to look after the hopeless old dribbling loony now then?"

Me? All I wonder is, when Higgy was found, how did it go down? I hope and assume it followed in the time honored explorer finding manner of a handshake and, "Ah, Higgs Boson I presume?"

Quote; Albert Einstein.

"If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist."

And Then There Were Comments….

Rather than answering the commenter's via commenting, I thought I’d pop ‘em in here.

Firstly off, something for those of you with a finger poised over the ‘BUY’ button for the electrical saving thingy. Just a wild guess here, but probably not you, my good Caratacus.

Although this guy isn’t the one I linked to, it’s close enough for jazz, so please check this out. It’s a tad technical for me but I did understand the very last line - It still doesn't reduce your power bill though.

And after that, ‘that’ being firstly so this must be secondly, Anonymous pointed me to what I thought would be a regular dehumidifier. Sadly the link didn’t work, but a heart beat with Mr. Google and I was here. Drinking water from thin air? It sent shivers through my wallet. What can I say? NEEEEEEED one, is what I said. But. But there seem to be an awful lot of ‘em being re-sold.

This set alarm bells ringing in my head and I gotta tell ya’, those bells were frightening the little singy bird in the clear blue sky which is my usual head filling. Sometimes with a gentle wind chime sort of sound in the background.

Anonymous, please let me know if you use, or have used one of these doodads. Just out of interest you understand, just out of interest. No, really, just out of interest.

As for the dehumidifier, he still be sucking in water like the water sucker-in he be.

What are my indicators for how he be doing? Well, the contents of the water tank of course, but the kicker for me is that, shortly after turning him on, I noticed the humidifier had started to run all the ti…… Haaaay, waaaaiit a minute!!

Quote; ?

“I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.”

And Then I Dehumidified….

The weekend was spent researching condensation and the control thereof. I kind of knew what the answer would be but after all these years I needed to check there were no new, ridiculously simple, cheap answers out there. Something like, ‘Putting a seagull feather, wrapped in a pair of old cotton ‘Y’ fronts, in a centrally located bottom draw will completely eradicate condensation and all risk of mould’, sort of thing. Sadly, but not surprisingly, nothing.

As I expected, the condensation solver{?} is ventilation. I honestly can’t see the percentage in heating the house only to then let it out just to stop wiping watery windows.

Since being here, I have spent the past few winters tracing and stopping all draught and air leaking areas, as you do. Something like; Me to keep the warm side inside, for to keep the cold side outside. That’s why I filled the cracks in, inside, loaded the loft with fluffy stuff, deep stuff. Me to make an air-tight box, right? Haay! Hi-ya Watha, how ya’ doin’?

The other suggestion, from all around the Web-a-Net, was the use of a dehumidifier. This led to further research through Sunday and, as a by-the-by, kept me amused as ‘her indoors’ attempted to add two new words to her English vocabulary, ‘condensation’ and ‘dehumidifier’.

Part of the dehumidifier, or ‘machine’ as ‘her indoors’ settled for, research obviously entailed checking out the green credentials of the dozens of units on offer. To give you some idea of the time spent laboriously checking this out to find the perfect green machine, try this simple comparison experiment. Close your eyes tight shut and count from one to two really, really fast.

Monday morning, crack of cock crow, after choosing the machine and reserving on ol’ Mr. Webby, it’s excitedly off to collect the machine. Excited? For my younger reader, you’ll be surprised at the simple little things that cause excitement as you get older.

Home; remove machine from box, put box to one side for playing in later, back to box to check for instructions. No instructions. Never mind, lets go! Check water tank is in place, find instructions in water tank, read and stop everything. He must stand up-right for two hours for the fiddly, electrickery bits to re-set after transit and before operation.

He is now upstairs, happily humming away and at the time of posting this post via the posting program, has been running for about four hours and, surprisingly and scarily, collected three litres of water.

What can I say? I’ll say what I can say later after the initial ‘drying out period’, suggested to be about two weeks, has completed and he, hopefully, switches to automatic moisture control.

Later, ‘her indoors’ asked what I was thinking about. She knows that look of mine.
”What? Oh, just wondering if I could pipe the water from the machine to the coffee maker, is all.”
I could tell she thought that was a crazy idea. I know that look of hers.

While doing my ‘blink of an eye’ greenery research I ran into this little bit of stuff. You think I’m tempted with this? You think I could be fooled by this? Come on, ‘course not. But, all the same………

Quote; Larry Wall.

“The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.”

And Then There Was An Update….

Through forces I don’t yet fully understand, my copy of Windows Live Writer has automatically updated to version 2011. Time travelling laptop perchance?

Contrary to what some of you may believe, I don’t immediately embrace all new technology. If I’d been around way back then, and the guy in the cave next to mine recommended I go down to the mad guys cave and get a set of his new stuff, wheels, for my cart, I would most likely of stuck with my trusty set of oblongs.

Ribbons is a case like that. Live Writer, it being a bit of Microsoft stuff, now has that ribbon thingy along the top instead of drop-down menus. I’m sure I’ll get a grip of the ribbon, one day, but for the life of me I can’t see wot wuzz wrong with the ol’ droppy downers.

At the end of the day, as long as the font, font size and spell chequer work okay, I’ll be hoppy. Oh…

Quote; Jeff Casario.

“I shop at a computer store called, ‘Your Crap’s Already Obsolete’.”

And Then There Were Clouds….

Popped into the garden late this afternoon, as you do, looked up, as you do, and saw the most amazing could formation. I thought to myself, ‘That’s an amazing cloud formation, that is, and well worth photographing.’

Dived back into the house, grabbed the camera, dived back into the garden and – damn! Flat battery.

Dived back into the house, found charger, did the charging thing for a minute and managed a couple of shots although the formation was, by then, breaking up. Wind you know. Breaking up the clouds.

Shouting, ‘Hay clouds! Your breaking up!’ did nothing.

It’s a techno thing again isn’t it? Back in the day that wouldn’t have happened would it? No batteries to worry about. Just grab the camera, dive outside, point and – damn! No film.

The pictures? Can’t get ‘em out of the camera right now ‘couse of the battery thing but I’ll see if they’re worth showing you tomorrow. Excited? You shouldn’t be.

Quote; Anonymous.

“If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event... what kind of film would you use?”

And Then There Was An End To Techno….

Owing to the tremendous response to the post relating to the remote pluggy-in thingies I’ve decided to make this the last techno type post. I seem to be on my own with this, but I still like the pluggy-in jobbies all the same. Okay, that’s it – that’s the last word.

Apart from this; seems I now have a remote for the TV, one for the stereo, another for the DVD, one for the fire, yup, the fire, and now the pluggy thingy. Is this remotely sensible?

Could I have just one more please? One I could point at ‘her indoors’ for the times I get one of my hair brained ideas and head off round the house on another voyage of destruction, with just the one big button marked, ‘Zip It’.

Blow me down, there’s yet another I was forgetfully forgetting. Guess wot ‘my little nest of vipers’ came back from the shops with a few days back. Go on, guess. A what? No. No, I got her a new iron for her birthday. What she came home with wuzz an indoor, remote controlled helicopter! I mean, is she totally nuts or what? Where does she get these gooney ideas from? Say what? Oh. Never mind, it’s most annoying having the bloody thing hovering over your beans on toast of an evening.

But you know what’s driving me absolutely wild? The cost? Well, yea, but there’s something else even worser and more wilder making than that. She refuses to let me have a go.

By the way, the electric toaster just stopped toasting stuff. On the bright side, Christmas present sorted…

Quote; Robert Benchley.

“The pencil sharpener is about as far as I’ve got in operating a complicated piece of machinery with any success.”