Scanner Systems Go
Well, my old Xerox printer and my new computer have been having a communications problem. There is nothing wrong with the printer, except that Xerox never created a driver for WindowsXP (also, the ink is getting harder to find; apparently Xerox has gotten out of the home-printer business). So I got a new one yesterday. A rather nice one for the same price as the Xerox, only this one also copies and scans. My one prerequisite was that the ink pigments had to be separately replaceable. Very few things annoy me more than having to replace a tri-color cartridge because it's out of yellow when it's still got cyan and magenta. My Xerox printer is this way, and so is this new Epson.
The copier works (and produces very NICE color results).
The scanner works:
Though on auto-mode, it scanned my replica throwing star as a black and white photograph for some odd reason. I had to change the settings to get it to recognize that it should be in color. As you can tell by the little hole at the left, it's probably intended to be worn as a pendant (real size is about two inches from point to point), but I wear very little jewelry any more.
The printer works... I had to play around with it to figure out how to put in off-size paper and keep it from rotating about random axes. No such problem with standard paper.
This printer/scanner is going to be the major component of my grandma's Christmas present to me (as usual, she's given me money; in her current state, shopping is nearly impossible anyway).
For those who are interested in the picture, at the center is the yin-yang (or taiji) symbol, which stands for constant motion and change (esp. from one extreme to another). Surrounding it are the eight tri-grams of the bagua (they all stand for varying interactions of yin and yang, but I'm more likely to post about that on A Musing Taoist), and the Chinese characters are most likely the names of the trigrams. I haven't checked to verify this, but I would be surprised if they were not. Just as a point of interest, the 64 hexagrams of the Yi-jing (I-Ching) are made by taking all combinations of the 8 trigrams.
5 comments:
What do you mean by combinations of the eight trigrams? I can see that the trigrams consist of all combinations of three vertical bars, where each bar can be either solid or broken in half. Also, the ones on opposite sides are complementary.
Actually, the trigrams are meant to be horizontal combinations of solid and broken lines, but it's hard to tell that from the bagua. :-)
The hexagrams take any two of the trigrams and stack them on top of each other. So 8 choices for each of the 2 slots --> 8*8=64 total
Oh, the solid lines represent yang and the broken lines represent yin. When the hexagrams are cast for divination purposes, there are old/young categories as well (where old yang is about to change into yin; old yin is about to change into yang).
Hmm, I assumed the yin/yang symbol was the center of gravity. :)
I think we may be describing things differently here... By horizontal, I mean the lines are horizontal (so they're stacked vertically).
If you want, you can get an I Ching reading at Facade. I wouldn't expect it to be accurate, but it can be amusing to play with. (the yes/no indicator on the same site is even more fun: is the sky blue? Am I here? Do I have internet access?)
Okay...when I said "vertical bars" I actually meant "bars stacked vertically".
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