OddballGreg - Ridiculous Pain Remedies

Ah, dentists. Nothing screams out pain and terror like having an automated drill stuck in your mouth.

If you happen to be human, which you probably are, then you are most likely familiar with the unfortunate sensation that is pain. You've probably also gone to some interesting lengths to deal with it. Lets talk about that.

Right now I'm sitting typing with one hand while I attempt to pretend that the right side of my mouth is not driving me crazy as two of my teeth compete to be where my gum is. The sensation is comparable to taking a flap of skin from anywhere on your body between a pair of pliers and applying significant pressure for about half a day at a time. (For added pleasure, chewing on that side of my mouth is comparable to clamping the aforementioned pliers down as hard as possible.)

So as you do in situations like these, I thought it might be humorous to browse the whimsical internet in search of some mystical pain remedy, considering my anti-drugs stance with life. (I don't like the idea of addictions, and thus only take pills as an absolute last resort.) Of course, me being me, I can't think about a single subject, and researched the cures they have for ALL kinds of pain.

What did I find? About everything you'd expect to find on the internet. Hanging magnets from your ears for headaches, botox injections, homeopathy (pffffft. Good for the placebo effect.), meditation, sniffing apples, swearing, dreaming about sex, and probably thousands more ridiculous cures that you can think of. Sure there may be credence to some of these solutions, and perhaps some of the more herbal solutions such as cloves soaked in whiskey have some founding, but for the most part, I found exactly what I expected to find on the internet when googling anything with the term "Ridiculous" in the bar:

Basically, anything anyone decided was funny, worth reading, or effective click-bait to gain view for their website. Too bad my mouth still hurts. I think I'll go back to dulling the pain with measured doses of rum and coke until my next dentist visit. I'm sure he'll understand.

In any case, that's about all that's worth mentioning. If you don't think you've heard enough ridiculous remedies, click this link and wait for your brain cells to start commiting suicide. That should cure you of that. On the other hand, if you happen to have any effective pain rememdies, do be sure to let me know down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter. We here at TCSA love to hear your feedback (And pain cures). And of course, if you enjoy finding out about awesome stuff on the web and world then do please be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left to get all the latest posts as they're published. Also, do be sure to share posts you enjoyed with your friends as it helps us out a great deal. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Rest easy my friends.

Technology Tuesday - Getting the most out an outdated computer

Hello and welcome to Technology Tuesday. The day where I tell you about some nifty tricks to make the most of outdated computers all while expressing my frustration at their inadequacies.

Caution; computers tend to aggravate me on occasion.

If you are one of those individuals who, like me, suffer from an unassailable level of frugality, you probably try to make things last as long as possible at as little cost as possible. No to be confused with being a miser, I'm happy to spend money on a good purchase, but if there is a way to save money or get a better deal, then on your life; you'll get that instead.

Frankenstein. That's this guys name.
 It's also what I call my computer.

How is this related to Technology Tuesday then? Well, a downside to this urge is that computers become very outdated, VERY quickly. And as I'm sure you can guess, technology doesn't wait around for you to catch up. Your computer can stay sitting with it's dinky little dual-core, but software requirements won't.

With that in mind, I've had to do some research on how to make the most of old tech just to get those last few bangs for those stingy bucks I paid all those years ago. While it can be guaranteed that you can't make any hunk of junk last forever, (Something's going to happen to it eventually. Or you're just going to get tired of waiting all your life for Photoshop to apply filters... I know that pain.), it is handy to know some tricks for making the time until your next upgrade more bearable; which is nice if you have more important things to spend the money on. Here's a couple tricks for optimizing parts different parts of your computer:

CPU

The CPU. Basically the brain of your computer, to be simple about it. Maintain this simple train of thought, (See what I did there?), you can say that the brain can only think about so much at a time. Well, Windows allows you to set 2 things with regards to processes, (Those are basically the things your CPU has to think about.), the priority and affinity of the process. Windows automatically assigns every process it runs a "normal" priority, which basically means that the CPU simply deals with processes it recieves on a first-come, first-served basis. By using the Task Manager, (Opened by pressing the Escape, Shift and Control keys simultaneously.), the user can set individual processes to a higher priority to have the CPU deal with it sooner than other things. Word of advice though. Be careful tinkering with the Task Manager as it's a good way to trash your computer if you play with it. Also, never set anything to more than "Above Normal" priority unless you want to starve system processes and cause a BSOD.

The task manager also allows those with multiple core CPU's, (Which is most of us these days, even frugal people like me.), to set the Affinity of processes to specific cores, thereby ensuring that only that/those cores deal with the process and allowing other cores to deal with more important tasks. Same warning as earlier applies though. Be careful.

For those who are less at home dealing with computers or would rather a more technical, as averse to my summarized, guide, as well as some ways to make the setting of these affinities and priorities more permanent, head over to this article here by techradar.com for walkthrough of these tricks. They were a huge help in getting things to run noticeably quicker for me. (A godsend for an impatient person like me. Also, they effectively saves me brain damage from repeated facedesking)

GPU

If the CPU is the brain of your computer, then the GPU is it's artistic wife. The GPU, which is situated on your graphics card, handles all the graphics calculations and displaying your computer does. (It's what's letting you read this, if you're not sure.) Of course, today's software and games such as the upcoming The Witcher 3 and Photoshop CC, do a lot of calculations, and for frugal people such as me, our older graphics cards tend to suffer under the strain a little. While to be technical, there's not much I can do for any fellow Photoshop artists since you're looking for quality obviously, gamers will find that with some clever manipulation of the settings in the associated Graphics Control Panels that go with the drivers of Graphics cards, they can get a far smoother performance in their games. This has been invaluable to me by allowing me to play games such as Assassins Creed 3 on a relatively puny Nvidia GT-610 card by forcing the use of minimal settings in the control panel instead of in game settings. 

For a blow by blow of the functionality in the Nvidia and AMD control panels and how precisely they can let you fine tune your use, I suggest checking out this article by pcworld.com. The information is laid out well and will surely have something for even some of the more experienced users. (And if not... well, I'm flattered that you would read through information you already know just because you like me.)

Glary Utilities

Hmmm. You may be wondering why I'm talking about a program instead of RAM in general. Quite simply, because Glary Utilities is a highly effective program for a multitude of reasons ranging from scheduled maintenance of various system components, the fixing of broken registry's which can often cause issues in your computers running, to the removal of temporary files accrued while surfing the web, (which can becoming gigabytes of wasted space), and the optimization of your computers boot-up sequence. It also has some other more unorthodox functions which I personally have never really needed to use, but may be useful to others. But the boot sequence optimization is easily one of the more handy faucets of this program, allowing you to stop irritating programs from starting up unless you want them to, and also allowing you to delay the start-up of specific programs so that your computer can get functional sooner. It even gives you a statistic on your relative boot speed compared to other users.

Basically, this program does a lot for your computer, it does it easily, with almost no chance of wrecking anything, (unless you do a defrag of your system registries and the power goes out... that's happened to me.), and best of all, it does it for free. I highly suggest you go over to glarysoft.com and download it. (Or don't. I'm not forcing you to do anything. But it could help. Actually, it probably will help.)

Game Optimizers and other "Could help" programs

There are many programs out there that claim to be able to optimize computers during the playing of games or for other tasks to improve computer performance. They supposedly do this by disabling unnecessary background processes and other small tricks which are aimed at freeing up resources for whatever you're trying to do. While I cannot provide a definitive answer as to whether these programs are actually effective in their pursuits, it's worth noting that many an article, such as this one by howtogeek.com which discusses the effectiveness of the Razer Game Booster. To summarize what they say and give my opinion on the subject, Windows is a complicated operating system, and it's likely that these game boosters use more resources trying to stop parts of Windows from working than just letting them happen, not to mention the fact that it must use system resources to run itself. So in the case of computer users who run an effectively optimized computer, perhaps by using the aforementioned Glary Utilities, the effects of the game booster are negligible at best; though less experienced computer users with a lot of unnecessary background processes might find these programs to be of use.

Anyways, I hope that you've found something useful in this post which will be handy in squeezing out as much as you can from your hardware. Got a suggestion for something I missed or another useful trick, feel free to leave a comment below, and maybe even share this with a friend who's been complaining about his old computer. As always, I hope you have/had an AWESOME day.

Keep well mio compadre's.

Storytime Sunday - Why jumping off of things is a stupid idea

Hello and welcome to Storytime Sunday. The day where I tell you about the excessively stupid things I've done, so you don't have to.

Illustration may differ from actual occurrences

Last Sunday I spoke about some of my unintelligent misadventures as an aspiring parkour traceur. This Sunday, I'm talking about my unintelligent misadventures as a stereotypical, bored idiot...

Two years ago during my the amazing adventures of  myself and my good friend Jerome, (Or Canoe, as we occasionally call him.), we found ourselves at school over the mid-year holiday's for the years Major Production (read: play) practice typically held over that period. That years cast was particularly large and as such, there were often periods where parts of the cast did not necessarily need to be there. As such, myself and Mr Canoe were waiting up in the school hall's gallery. (That big place on the second floor where the Matrics usually get to sit.) I've got to say though... Boredom Kills!

This was another fine case of times when proper thought processes must have crashed and not had the opportunity to reboot in my head, since I found myself suffering under the unbearable urge to jump off the gallery. (Might I note that jumping off the second floor of most buildings is a very, very bad idea... Please don't do this...)

I'm fairly certain I will never forget the conversation that led up to the decision. Standing beside Jerome, I suddenly looked over the edge and stated "I'm going to jump off of here.". Wisely, his reply: "Don't." Too bad I simply repeated myself despite his better judgement. Now, Jerome may be my best friend, but I don't think I would have bothered past that to try and stop me either. So he simply said "O.K." and watched me be an idiot. (I got him back for this in other ways though, more on that another time. Teehee )

Climbing up onto the wall that separated the gallery from the slightly more than 6 foot drop to the floor below, I realized how frighteningly scary that height actually was... Did that deter me? Nope... It just made me decide to hang off the edge and drop down rather than jump. Did that help? Nope again... (Stupidity can be unassailable at times it would appear. I think I should start referring to myself as a professional idiot.)

So, in the space of a few seconds, I lowered my legs over the edge and slid slowly to the point where I was just gripping the edge with my fingers, still at no point thinking this was a bad idea. The way I saw it, as long as I landed correctly from the height I was now at, being somewhere about 5 feet off the ground, I would be fine. Of course, there's this thing called Murphy's Law. Knee's bent, landing on the balls of my feet, everything was going well until I realized my weight was too far back in my decent. This meant that I was suddenly falling backwards instead of dropping directly onto my legs. I landed with a hearty thump on my rump, much to the surprise of those in the area around me who immediately asked if I was okay. Which I was... at least until I tried to move. 

Having landed solidly on my behind, I had injured the muscles surrounding the lower few vertebrae of my spine. (In hindsight, I got off rather lightly in terms of injuries.) The pain wasn't unbearable, but I did walk around like I had a carrot stuck somewhere it shouldn't be for a couple days.

So from this experience, we can surmise two things. Darwinism is a legitimate theory because of people like me, and boredom/stupidity kills. (As well as putting the stupid things you do on the internet. If my old principal is reading this... Sorry. Hehe)

Anyways, I think that's enough from me for one day. Don't forget to leave a comment on how much of an idiot you think I am, or a suggestion on how to avoid bodily harm in the future, or maybe just share this with a friend who's prone to hurting themselves. And of course, as always, I hope you have an AWESOME day.

Walk in peace my friends. (and preferably with more intelligence than I typically display)

Storytime Sunday - Parkour and Muscle Damage

And it is time for the first ever... Storytime Sunday! Complete with memories of pain and stupidity and advisories to would-be Traceurs.

Ahh parkour, a much loved ex-hobby of mine. Before I continue, I would like to preface the particular story I'm about to tell, I should mention, as I've said a few times in the past, that I am an idiot and prone to stupidty occasionally. That said... lets begin.

For those of you who have yet to hear about Parkour (Or it's related, but actually different cousin, Free Running), it is something of a mindset and method of movement. To use a cliched style of speech, it's "A way of life." To describe it in a very simple and easy to understand way; Parkour is the basis of efficient movement. It's getting from place A to place B as quickly as possible. It's the "Through instead of around" argument. For comparisons sake, (and because I'm likely to get annoyed with you if you do a flip and call it Parkour), Free Running is something of an offshoot from Parkour. The objective with Free Running no longer being the fastest traversal of space, but the most stylish. Free Runners do flips and arbitrary movements that are visually appealing and obviously difficult to pull off, but the their objective is different. Anyways, now that you know what Parkour is, lets get back to how young people (AKA me) can be stupid and hurt themselves.

Once upon a time some young (well.... young-er) version of myself stumbled upon this wonderful new "sport" known as parkour. I say "sport" because it is not, in technicality, an competitive activity, but rather a method of movement. So being the bright and happy go lucky, devil may care lad that I was, I pulled on my track-pants and running shoes and went at it. As I'm sure you can guess, a relatively unfit and untrained person jumping and hanging off of things, or jumping off of them, is not a particularly safe nor intelligent thing to be doing. (In hindsight, at least I didn't jump off a building.)

This guy... is better than I was...

So where's the issue then you ask? Well, one day somewhere along my 11th grade I decided to hang off of some metal bars and was rebuffed by the searing pain of torn muscle in my left shoulder. Much to my luck, my injury was not especially serious to any degree, however it did serve as an effective wake up call to stop behaving like a brainless monkey hanging from metal trees (Nobody ever threw peanuts at me though...) The tear was not especially severe, although it hurt like hell, and while I still have full control of my arm in all capacities, I do have a patch of skin that is near completely dead to the touch over my shoulder blade. (oooh, Poke it!)

So what can I tell you that you should do if you would like to do Parkour. Well... I would say "Don't"... but that's crap, we both know Parkour is awesome. So what I will advise is that you don't just put on some sneakers and start climbing things. Joke's aside, it's a good way to hurt and even kill yourself as many a news report over the years has since told. (And I always say, if you're gonna kill yourself, do it with style. Splattered bodies are unsightly.)

Rather, go do some research. The internet is, I find, your friend in many a case. There are tons of resources on the internet to help you get on track towards becoming a Traceur (Or Free Runner) and taking part in this awesome activity. (Or breaking your face accidentally.)  Wikihow has tons of tutorials of varying quality on subjects such as this one on doing the Safety Roll: http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Parkour-Safety-Rolls
Please learn how to do the roll... Like... seriously. That can save your life.
Youtube also has a veritable mass of similarly themed tutorials as always for those like myself who need a bit more visual information to figure things out. 

And lastly, there are probably hundreds of Parkour and Free Running groups across the world who are more than willing to show newbies the ropes so they don't end up dead or maimed. Being a resident of South Africa, I know of the local group for my South African; ParkourSA, who maintain an active Facebook and Twitter following and regularly help would be runners in organizing to train with others. I highly recommend you check them out, either on their Facebook Page or by dropping them a Tweet on @ParkourSA. For my international readers, a quick Google will likely have you where you need to be in no time.

Anyways, hopefully you have been amused or educated by this lengthy lament about the necessity for research. Or at least become less likely to accidentally commit suicide.

Don't forget to leave a comment or suggestion and share this with anyone you think might injure themselves without this information.

Have an AWESOME day, and I bid you adieu.