The past eight and a half months have passed so fast. I remember with such vividity presenting myself on the building site in January and getting odd looks from everyone, the look on my bosses face when I handed him my contract letter telling him that I was stationed on his site.

Back then, it felt as though I had an eternity to wait till September. Now I am just counting down the days. To be fair, the past few weeks have been really hard work. I’ve had very little to offer, all of the structural aspects of the site have died down to nothing and the following two weeks remaining consist of me waiting till 4pm when i finish my day on site.

I have learned and experienced so much whilst working there and I hope I’ll never forget it.

Having said all this, I’m happy it is coming to an end… I’m also looking forward to seeing my uni friends, being back on campus and sitting through long arduous lectures about health and safety or space rocket tragedies that really do not place any interest in my simple little mind.

Since I returned to Windows from Linux I have had a few problems with PHP MySQL the hardest one I’ve found was the following:

#1251 – Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client

To explain this problem as simple as possible: The new MySQL version has a different password authenticating version (or something to that effect) that php struggles to communicate with; the way to get over that is is relatively simple; you simply tell mysql to use the old password system.

Here is a simple example you may wish to use to get over your teething problems:
Load the MySQL commandline client (from your start menu),
or:

Start > Run > cmd [enter]
c:\>mysql -u root -p %root_password%

Once inside the client, create and modify the user accounts that you will be using through php thusly:
The user I’ll be creating will be: phpusr with a password of: 3ncry9t3d

mysql> use mysql
Database changed
mysql> grant all on *.* to ‘phpusr’@’localhost’ identified by ‘3ncry9t3d’;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> set password for ‘phpusr’@’localhost’= old_password(‘3ncry9t3d’);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Try it out and leave a comment if it doesn’t work or is wrong.

Having recently been given the task of contending with a irrate telesales moron; I’ve had this wicked and thoroughly unkind idea, so cruel it put a cheeky smile on my face.
Premise:

1. Cold caller rings about… say windows.
2. Attempt to be interested and invite them round to show you samples and to leg hump you about how much you need their windows
3. Totally miss their appointment.
4. On their, follow up call apologise and continue to sound interested.
5. Book another appointment.
6. Miss it!
7. If you’re lucky enough to receive another follow up call, explain to them that; they should not waste your time by making you answer a call for something you are not interested in… and that it is incredibly rude to encroach on someone’s time in the privacy of their home, as a result of this injustice you’ve repaid the same insult onto them.

Wasting your private time costs you nothing, wasting their time costs them man hours. If they have them to throw away let them do so. I am not anti-capitalist, I am only really interested in what is ethical when it comes to commerce… if they wish to be rude… prove to them that you can be ruder!

Being in the construction industry the words: “price-work” used together as so have become a addition to my vocabulary in a singular manner, having lost the meaning of what the two words have independantly. It just means, get paid to do the job opposed to, paid to come in. Pricework does not take into consideration how long it takes you to do the job, it merely wants you to do the job.

I’ll digress and get to the point. The growing number of scum in this country has become frighteningly large and while I do not like to air my political beliefs too broadly on this website, I would like to share an idea that could solve a great deal of grief in this country.

My idea is rather rudimentary, why not do price-work assassination on the scum that are dirtying this country, whilst costing us billions per year not only to pay for their upkeep but also to clean up their social messes and keep their crime down.

The principle is rather simple; each week these scumsters are granted each £45 (or there abouts) from the government which is out of every brittish citizen’s wages. If contracted hitmen were to be paid a percentage of that for each head they took out, it would save the government thousands a week. Obviously the price on each head would be £45 but then there is a body disposal charge and a transportation charge… so lets say from that £45 we take £30 on the cremation and handling charges. The hit man walks away with £15, granted that isn’t fantastic but if you figure you could kill in 15 minutes in a shopping center about 20 chavs (scum) the hit man has earnt himself (20 x £15 =) £300 that day, and say he did the same every day for a working week the government has saved themselves (20 scum a day for 5 days = 100 scums. 100 x £45 = ) £4500 a week from then onwards, which would be reflected in our taxes just imagine if it were like a bounty.

I was only yesterday contemplating the complete idiotic lack of thought which was put into pop-up lights, which were common in 1980s and early 1990s sporty cars.

Firstly, they spoiled further the already lacking aerodynamics that 1980s vehicles had. Secondly, they were faulty; with two independent motors driving up stupid little light fittings on either side of the vehicle, that faced possible exposure to high-speed debris hitting it.

A car with pop-up lights:

All in all the Spaz-o-meter says: 23edfg45234dds2!

Late part of last year I sat on a train facing a girl with a badge on her bag saying “My karma ran over your dogma”, it amused me but always felt wrong for me.

I arrived home just now and it occurred why it felt wrong… I believe it is because I am dogmatic and believe in the fight for perfection to the extent that defeat is not an option. The karma principle, that people wrongly use to excuse themselves for being philosophical slobs; having no moral standing or scruples for their lack of principles in life, bothers me and yet it is an approach adopted by everyone I can think of. Granted, most of them wont have even given it that much thought to have even named it thusly but nonetheless are categorized into that same stereotype.

So my point is, why is my one man fight for goodness, purity, perfection, very pretty promiscuous women and not to forget to mention: world domination such a sin? Also, why must I be put down for it, when in essence it is a good principle?

For the past month or so, I have found myself drawn to sloth on the weekends. Where I could quite simply go to the allotment for a couple of hours tend to the vegetables and keep things sociable with Bernard (my grandfather’s gardening friend).

I find myself sat in my pyjamas at 9pm having spent all day at the computer. Hold tight though; I’m not at the computer chatting; I’m not at the computer working and I’m not even at the computer watching films. In fact I’m at the computer sitting at the computer… looking at the computer… moseying to the fridge and grabbing things to feed idly on… and returning to the computer listening to music which passes by without a single memory of what I may have heard and allowing time to pass by.

The problem with this is; I cannot really help myself from it. I am quite concious of the fact that I am doing the nothing but I cannot help from doing it, in fact I quite enjoy it somewhere deep down inside but then; I punish myself when I stop and think about it and feel bad about the fact that I am doing it. I’ll lay in bed tonight pulling fists at myself when looking back on what I have achieved today.

To digress a little, I’d like to pontificate and say this is me meditating in my own special way; or even I am appreciating my personal space. When thinking about it in this way it makes me bitter and ungratefull to all the guilt driven ideas we have built in our heads about doing nothing thus being useless. Granted, I have spent a lot of my later life sitting at home contemplating life, the universe and everything… and whilst doing so, felt utterly rotten about it. Especially when family members arrive home and make you feel utterly worthless and totally incompetent and it is then that I have to remind myself that the space we’re given is too tight.

Perhaps, my lapses on the weekend reflect that I am merely trying to catch up with my own identity; which I allow myself to loose during the week, whenI hide myself behind a thousand different personas that are not myself, just to get through the day.

Am I a bad person?

Whilst turning over in my mind how all bad things are generally chosen over good things, it occurs to me the only reason that is, is due to the fact that the bad things knowing they’re bad undercut the better thing so that it is chosen.

When I say good vs bad, I am refering such instances such as an option that is ecological vs an option that is not ecological. This could be also put as, something well designed vs something badly designed. Essentially in most instances they both took the same amount of designing effort and cost, the only reason the bad option would recieve “thumbs up” is due to the cost to the buyer.

Many examples jump to mind when writing this article such as:

• Fossil Fuel vs Green Energy
• CD/DVD vs MiniDisc
• VHS vs BetaMax
• PC vs Mac

Well it goes on really, but there seems little point in listing too many as it may detract from the point. The message I am trying to get across here kidlets is the following:

Should you ever produce or develop a good idea and by that I mean I have to tell you it is good… undercut the competition so much so that they cannot possibly compete, this way your buyer has no choice but to be chose your’s. Later on users will realize why your design was better and thank you for it in more than just wealth, but also in fond memories.

One other thing comes to mind when thinking about cost effective and well designed things. There seems to be a slight anomaly in the same comparrisons as above:

• Women vs Men

Clearly, men are cheaper, better designed and far easier to maintain than women… curious fact isn’t it? 😛

Just wondering if there was such a site named MAKESTUPIDITYHISTORY I did a basic search on the googlemeister and found there is such a site.. and run by similar minded genii as myself…of course.

Go check it out by click on name for the link!

Having just rang Natti and having her mother explain to me that they were eating made me consider writting this article. Allow me to demonstrate what was said firstly then I shall explain.

Mother: Hello?
Myself: Hello, is Natalie there?
Mother: We are eating?
Myself: Alright, I’m sorry.
Mother: Ok, bye.

Obviously, the being disturbed whilst eating is an understandable reason for me to not speak to her, but this is not what I’m going to rant about. What I would like to emphasize on, is the fact that the mother asked me a question as a statement. I reflected upon this after speaking to her and considered; about all the times people ask questions when we are making statements or orders. Thusly: “Please, could you do something-something?” (as if questioning your capability of doing the task in hand), “p1: What is your name? -> p2: Mary?”.

It makes me wonder if we live in a time in which everyone is insecure and have to ask questions for statements, out of fear that what is said is not to the pleasing of others; or perhaps, it is a form of arrogance in which everyone expects the other person to already know the answer and make the statement to appear as a question to be condescending to the fact that you should have already known their statement.

Eitherway, people should be more considerate to what they say and how the say it. Keep true to your word and give everyone else a true reading of what you want to say. Less wars would occur if you took my advice… well, less domestic wars would occur if people knew what they were saying and controlled it to not miscommunicate themselves.