It says so on Wikipedia
My current pet hate is the use of the phrase “it says so on Wikipedia”, in a sarcastic manner. Usually it’s intended to make fun of people who don’t seem to ‘understand’ that anyone and everyone can edit or create Wikipedia articles on any subject (unless, of course, the IWF blocks Internet access to one particular image, and in doing so prevents the whole of your country from editing Wikipedia).
The implication is that, should you wish to, you can edit a Wikipedia article such that it corroborates your argument, no matter how ridiculous. A typical conversation which might seem to justify this belief is as follows.
Fred: What’s that you’re pouring into that saucepan?
Dave: Glue.
Fred: Glue? What are you making?
Dave: Spaghetti Bolognese.
Fred: That’s not made using glue!
Dave: Yes it is, it says so on Wikipedia.
There you go. Dave is the butt of the joke because he apparently doesn’t understand how Wikipedia works, and has foolishly taken its word as gospel. From now until forever, each time Dave makes a factual statement in Fred’s presence, Fred will ask “does it say that on Wikipedia?” in a sarcastic and derisory tone.
Happy Halloween!
Oliver in a dress
There is no point in having a dog if you can’t occassionally dress him or her up.
Ever since Oliver was a puppy, we’ve taken almost every opportunity to stick him in a t-shirt or dress him up as Santa. Seeing as he ‘enjoys’ it so much, we have taken to dressing him up for Halloween every year.
Last year he was Frankenstein’s monster, although no photos exist–probably because I was laughing too hard–and this year he was some kind of witch (or maybe a princess) in a very pretty purple dress and matching hat.
It took a minimal amount of modification with a pair of scissors, and he did keep getting his claws caught in it at first, but at £8 from Tesco you can’t go wrong.
Netgear DG834G and NAT loopback
Yesterday I made the decision (read: mistake) to update my Netgear DG834G router (hardware v4, firmware v5.01.09) to firmware v5.01.14 – and, as is the way with these things, it brought trouble. After the upgrade I couldn’t reach www.nikrivers.com from the LAN side of the router.
The problem is caused by the way the router handles traffic coming from an internal IP address and destined for the WAN (i.e. external) IP address. In this situation it requires that the router first transfers the traffic from the internal network to the external network, and then immediately passes it back whilst applying any firewall or routing rules that are relevant to incoming external traffic.
No surprises
Anyone foolhardy enough to get me into a conversation about DIY will already know the stories about various bodge-jobs and shortcuts I’ve discovered, perpetrated by a past owner of this house.
Yesterday I replaced the ageing heating thermostat (a rotary-style Honeywell) with a nice shiny digital one – a Horstmann Centaurstat 7, in fact. It has quite a sophisticated built-in programmer (more so than our existing programmer, at least) and will hopefully prevent the over-heating problem we’ve had here since we moved in. I found that the old thermostat was calling for heat at a higher temperature than selected (3-4 degrees higher), causing someone (me) to turn the thermostat up in the morning, causing someone else (Charlie) to complain in the evening when it became too hot.
Learning the hard way
A few weeks ago I started seeing software failures on the Linux server. Although they were infrequent they were frustrating, to say the least, and would sometimes require me to find a workaround through configuration.
