Thursday, July 24, 2008

Cynicism

When I reached fifteen years of age, two perplexing questions began to niggle me and try as I might, I couldn't find the answers to them. Nobody seemed to care when I asked; others merely shrugged their shoulders and the rest just passed my observations off as mere coincidences. However, even at that young age, I was no "coincidence theorist" and at the back of my mind I was inherently aware that something was not right.
I know the answers now. I burrowed right into that forbidden rabbit-hole, possibly far deeper than I should have done and came out top-side with my eyes well and truly opened. The down-side was that a dormant cynicism was pushed to the fore and it gushed out like the contents of a vigorously shaken can of coke. Cynicism may be an acceptable trait in it's natural home but can become a deplorable human tenet when it overtakes one's whole being. The excitement which is the human spirit is soon replaced with dark clouds of drudgery, where once nested an ignorance which shimmered beneath a colourful rainbow of sublime bliss. That rabbit-warren is a dangerous place for the unwary and a definite no-go area for angels who prefer to tread with more deliberate feet.
Henry Ford was once attributed with the infamous line, "History is bunk". Have you ever wondered why he uttered such a remark? And if so, what qualified him to say it? Do you think he was privvy to information that most others weren't?
Take his 1908 Model T Ford. How many people know, for instance, that this car could run on alcohol? A knob mounted on the driver's side acted as the fuel-mixture setting with the standard options of "gas" or "ethanol". Check it out. It's all there in Wikepedia. After a further bit of digging, Thorolf has discovered the possible reason why this alternative fuel ceased to be used.
Prohibition.
Cue one J.D. Rockefeller. He gave a bunch of old ladies FOUR MILLION dollars under the guise of "Temperance" to lobby the American Congress for a ban on alcohol. This money was used to buy Senators off and in came the Act Of Prohibition.
Heavens, you may exclaim, what has Rockefeller got to do with the Model T Ford and Temperance and all things alcohol? What are you getting at Thorolf?
Call me cynical if you wish, but J.D. Rockefeller owned the biggest oil company in the United States at the time, Standard Oil.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Headaches

Trying to explain to "newbies" how an ADSL Router works and what it does is rather like trying to teach a chimp to drive a motor-car. The chimp manages to get into the driver's seat and anything else that follows is either pure chance or a downright miracle. Unfortunately, some people just haven't got it, bless 'em.
Thorolf has just spent four frustrating days off-line due to the technical inadequacies of one such "noob". Unfortunately, to my chagrin, the "noob" has sole access to the host computer responsible for our internet enjoyment and what he knows about default gateways and WiFi, DHCP, together with the intricate workings of a Netgear DG834 could be written on the back of a postage stamp with three letters - NIL. Still, all has been resolved and we are back on line. It took a mere five minutes to fix the problem after I had been finally consulted but it is not my place to intervene without being asked. To certain individuals, this can be misconstrued as interference and it dents their pride.
Don't misunderstand me, Thorolf is no expert but what he does know, he has taught himself in a short space of time. The hardest thing in trying to get through to the noob's limited grasp of WiFi was the need for an encrypted wireless signal. Even this was all double-dutch and it took approximately half an hour for the penny to eventually drop. Explaining how the hexadecimal key was generated from the secret passphrase entered in the Router Wireless Settings was simply asking too much. I wanted to scream. ARRRRGGHHHH!

Have you noticed that the temperatures so far this summer have been below "average"? That's because sun-spot activity is at a minimum right now and high temperatures are caused by the SUN - NOT by man-made carbon emissions. When are some people going to get this through their thick bloody skulls? This carbon thing is a huge scam, run and introduced by the New World Order. It is designed to bring about the economic conditions which they want in order to further their secret agenda. The idea is to tax you beyond what is currently imaginable and to put you in your mental prison. It amazes me how people fall for this wicked nonsense but they will continue to be hoodwinked until they learn to think for themselves, by which time it will probably be too late. I have the extreme misfortune to know a Jehovas Witness who is a self-employed odd-job man. Odd is just about right for this character, who insists on using hand-shears instead of an electric trimmer for cutting hedges - to avoid leaving his "carbon-footprint". Talk about being conditioned! But then, we are talking Jehovas Witnesses. I wouldn't expect anything else.

Friday, July 4, 2008

I've found a cute solution for signal loss on my WiFi connection and I chanced upon it purely through a hunch. Regular readers of this blog will know how fed up I became with the Windows O/S and how I changed to Linux. I cannot fault Linux, I think it's brilliant but it comes shipped with the Firefox browser. Yesterday, I decided to try another type of browser called OPERA to see if it loaded my web pages any faster and I struck gold! It's magnificent and only a pity I hadn't tried it sooner. I've suffered months of frustration - Internet Explorer was no better than Firefox when I had Windows - so Thorolf is truly happy. Thankyou Opera. You're the best.