I’ve recently returned from another stint in India and decided to revamp this long ailing website. I’m going to transfer any material from this site’s previous incarnation (as time allows) so if there is something in particular that you’re looking for, and it’s not currently here, then send me an email and I’ll see what I can do. Alternatively, you can head over to the archived version of this site but be warned, since it’s the archived version most features have been disabled.
April 6th, 2009 in
Miscellaneous |
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I wrote a tutorial a while ago that documented how to use a Linux application called ‘GetLive’ to access your Hotmail/Live Mail accounts from a desktop email client. I never moved that tutorial over to this new site but I’m continuing to receive a number of hits from users looking for configuration help (specifically help for the “/usr/bin/getlive line 731″ configuration error). Keep reading if this is you or if you want Hotmail/Live Mail’s new POP3/SMTP details.
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May 27th, 2009 in
Miscellaneous | tags:
Email |
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Driven by the need for accessibility and more storage space, many home computer users are now incorporating file servers and NFS systems into their home computing environment. Using a Linux based NFS system or File Server (Ubuntu Server Edition for example) allows for a huge range of personalisation and customisation options. One of these is the ability to automate the downloading of bit-torrent files, with a very low overhead, into a shared directory, and spreading the bandwidth load throughout the day. The following tutorial will use Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 as the example although the applications and configuration options are uniform across Linux distributions.
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ANZAC Day is one of those days that usually passes by and I never really notice. I’ve been a student for so long that any holiday, and consequent piss-up, that I may have received was never much incentive to get excited (aren’t we students always on holidays? HAHA). But this year’s been different – my daughter’s school teacher was in the Aussie Defence Forces for over a decade and she has a very different perspective on this most morbid of days.
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People with delusions experience some very weird and distorted things. Just what role experience plays in the formation of delusions, however, is a topic overlooked by many commentators. Stone and Young (1997, p. 346) claim the following for people experiencing the Capgras delusion:
First, the patient experiences a perceptual disorder. The world looks different to them, and this difference demands explanation… [But] in addition to the perceptual deficit, we need to understand the second factor, the reasoning style of people who experience these delusions, in order to see why they arrive at and are satisfied with explanations that others find so bizarre.
This statement alludes to two distinct levels of experience necessary in the formation and understanding of delusions, namely whether experience is the substance of the delusion itself or whether the delusion is employed as an explanatory tool to account for a bizarre experience. In the following essay I explore the relationship between these two positions and how they relate to our understanding of delusions.
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In the following paper I analyse the relationships between meditation and everyday life as it applies to Buddhism. I provide a brief analysis and definition of the three complicated terms this paper depends upon, ‘Buddhism’, ‘meditation’, and ‘everyday life’, and I examine how the relationships between these concepts relate to Buddhism. I argue that meditation and everyday life are both necessary aspects of Nirvana and must, therefore, not be considered as two separate sides of Buddhism.
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The following paper is concerned with the relationships between Buddhism and meditation, and further, between Buddhist meditation, prayer and ritual. The nature and application of Buddhist meditation is what is at issue here therefore I locate the English term ‘meditation’ within a Buddhist context and explain how it relates to its consequent Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit terms. I argue that both the phenomenology of Buddhist meditation and the varied non-phenomenological and scriptural depictions must be combined to gain an adequate understanding of Buddhist meditation. The relationship between Buddhist meditation and prayer and ritual in general are also explored. I look at a contrast between these three phenomena and also examine their similarities, arguing that through these relationships Buddhist meditation, therefore, becomes a superior vehicle than prayer and ritual.
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Dick Hebdige’s ‘Subculture: The Unnatural Break’ explores the ways in which subcultures represent challenges to the established social order and examines how subcultures are incorporated into ‘mainstream’ society (Hebdige 1979, p. 92). In the following paper I provide a brief summary of Hebdige’s thesis and analyse his main supporting arguments.
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April 21st, 2009 in
Philosophy | tags:
Subculture |
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In the following essay I explore a discussion between Andy Clark and Paul Churchland published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. This discussion centres around the concept of moral cognition as it relates to a connectionist theory of mind. Clark’s and Churchland’s positions share a lot in common but their seemingly minor differences result in vastly different conclusions. In comparing Clark’s and Churchland’s positions I argue that the important question to be asked is not who’s position is correct, but how either of the two positions relate to moral theory.
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The concept of ‘open source’ is centred around the use of the word ‘free’. Open source products are free, as in freedom. Every person involved with the open source product, from its inception through to its use and marketing, has the freedom to interact with it as they see fit. Further, this freedom extends to ownership for the individual interacting with the open source product truly owns this interaction and anything resulting from this interaction. Individuals can keep their ‘property’ or they can give it away, they can even sell it. This property is truly theirs. Other uses of the word ‘free’ are often mentioned in relation to open source, particularly the use of free as in cost. It is true that many open source products are cost free but I will be focusing solely upon the use of ‘free’ as in freedom. I want to explore the implications of freedom, specifically relating to open source software, as it relates to the active externalism view of the extended mind thesis proffered by Clark and Chalmers.
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Emerging from within the dark, heavy and psychotic music of the opening, the camera travels in reverse through a disorienting maze like structure that slowly becomes apparent as the internal structures of a brain. The combination of the intense music and the furious firing of neurons, enhanced as each of the opening credits appears as if a thought, originating as a neural firing, in a flash of light, and disappearing in much the same manner, illustrates to the viewer the state of mental anxiety that the person who’s brain it is must be in. As the camera continues through its reverse progression through the brain it emerges through a pore in the skin, following a bead of sweat down an oily face, further enhancing the state of anxiety, onto a gun barrel where the viewer first sees the main character, the Narrator1, with the gun barrel in his mouth. At this point the furious music stops, freeing up the sound-scape to open, ambient sounds of a vacant office space. Tyler Durden, holding the gun in the Narrator’s mouth, is heard asking if the Narrator has any final words, bringing the state of anxiety to a climax. This instant switch from extreme mental anguish, illustrated by the Narrator, to a calm and arrogant demeanor, Illustrated by Tyler, sets the pace for the remainder of the film.
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April 20th, 2009 in
Film,
Philosophy | tags:
Ethics |
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