Well, the Avery 5160 labels arrived today from Amazon, together with a box of file folders, so, very excited, I undertook to print out the first thirty labels. They came out beautifully, but they were misaligned. The text of each label slopped over to the next label. When I test printed a sheet on regular paper, they came out exactly right. How could this happen? I was using Avery labels and an Avery template.
Many wasted sheets later, I realized the problem. The labels are of course ever so slightly raised above the sheet to which they are attached. My stupid printer "thinks" the sheet of labels begins at the raised labels, because its roller cannot sense the underlying sheet. After deep thought and careful calculation, I concluded that if I cut off 2.5 centimeters from the top of the label sheet, it would print correctly, except that I would lose the last row of three.
I was right! I am deeply and absurdly proud of having solved this problem. It is, I am embarrassed to say, far and away the most complex real world problem that has been presented to me in sixty years of high level philosophical enterprise. Would anyone like to know how to reload a stapler?
I am a non-white woman from India and I have been reading your blog for more than two years. As a mother pursuing PhD in her early 40s, I could perhaps be the least noteworthy of all your readers. I decided to post a comment because in your previous post you mentioned that your blogs have very low female/non-white readership. Let me point out, I have finished watching your Youtube lecture series on Kant, ideological critique and Marx. Currently, I am on the third part of the Freud series. I can’t thank you enough for taking the effort and putting those videos out in the public domain. As a person, without any training or knowledge of philosophy and with very limited resources at hand, your lecture series, blogs and even the discussions on comments section have helped me immensely. In fact, I have recommended your lecture series to some of my friends and fellow students. So, I hope you will soon see a spurt in your non-white readership.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I can’t help but mention one point. Maybe it is cultural. I know capitalism is not the most rational form of production. But sometimes, in a caste-ridden society like India, where some people (due to their birth status) are condemned to do certain jobs like picking up garbage and cleaning sewage (with no escape at all for generations), money can help transcend barriers. In that case, a man making millions from trash (as you mentioned in your Marx series) is something to be celebrated. For millions of people out there, it gives hope and a modicum of dignity – the dignity of labour, which is hard to come by. Just a thought.