Replies – Page 3

Open All Night

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Matt R wrote:

Guys, I really need your support here and I know that it’s very last minute.

There’s a comedy open mic night tomorrow in The Angel and, not only am I performing in one of the slots, I’m also the MC. This is a big thing for me so if you could all come along I could at least be guarnateed some laughs. Well, that’s not entirely true; I’m worried about failing in front of my friends and possibly even worse that you’ll only laugh because you know me and I’ll carry on with this dellusion that I’m funny but if tomorrow isn’t a success (for the bar, I mean) then we may not get to do anymore at The Angel and then I’m certainly scuppered. I know that some of you already have plans and again I’m sorry that this is so last minute but if you could make it to The Angel at 20:00 tomorrow (Sunday) and pay £2 on the door then that would be fabulous. Had I more money I’d bribe you all with drink. Also it is open miic so if you’ve got a great anecdote or a good impression feel free to step up and give me some respite.

Please please come.

I really hope I’m good.

Ooh. Open mic. I’ll give that a go, if I can think of something to say.

See you there.

scan.co.uk

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Ruth wrote:

We are in the process of ordering a new computer. Most of the bits are coming from Scan. Now, their range is lovely, and their postage policy is reasonably sensible, but they have a dumb policy on debit cards.

If you pay with a debit card (instead of a credit card), you can only have the goods delivered to your registered home address. Now, that might seem ok, because where else are you going to want stuff delivered, right? Wrong. You might want thehardware delivered to your place of work because you’re never home during the day. It might be something your buying for a technologically inept relative and you might want it to go to their home, not yours.

Or, like me, you might be a lazy student who uses their mother’s address in far-off North Yorkshire as their home address so they don’t have to change it twice a year.

Things like this which penalise people who don’t use credit cards make me cross. If anyone knows otherwise, please say, but to me it seems that it’s all just a big conspiracy by the banks to make us all use a really, really inferior product.

Anyway. Out of a desire not to have the computer bits go to Yorkshire, we’ve given the money to Dan who’ll be placing the prder with his credit card and getting it sent to our new house in PJM.
—-
On the subject of the post, my mother called me last night to ask for my new address so she could re-direct some letters from the university. So the items in question will have travelled from the campus to PJM (that is, over the road) via North Yorkshire. How very, very silly.

Anyhoo folks, I’ve got to go to work. Oh yeah, and house-warming party tonight, number 72 PJM. Punch and cake provided; if you want anything else, bring it with you.

Forcing people to have deliveries sent to their registered address cuts down on card fraud, which is moderately freqent at mail order computer hardware stores on account of the high value, discreetness, and availability of the goods. It’s not possible to accurately perform such checks on credit cards, but it’s easy to with debit cards.

Many banks give special dispensation on their student accounts; allowing them to – for example – submit two addresses which they will automatically switch between throughout the year – or allow two registered addresses to function for card checks (while still delivering the statements to one). Ask your bank if they can do this, and, if they can’t, write a letter to inform them that there are banks that can. If you’re not willing to let your feet do the talking, there’s no way to let these large organisations listen to you.

There’s no reason not to own a credit card unless you feel you cannot trust yourself to do so – or the banks won’t give you one! For many such cards, there is no interest if you pay them off immediately each month (which can be automated thanks to wonderful schemes like Direct Debit): this increases the flexibility of your purchasing power (particularly when purchasing from overseas) without costing you a penny. On a side note, owning one that you only ever use in this fashion increases your credit rating (which is checked when buying a contract mobile phone, getting a mortgage, applying for credit on a car, or whatever). Just for examples’ sake; if you owned an unused credit card, you could have ordered these computer parts and – odds are – immediately transferred the money from the bank account to the card, thereby giving you the bits sooner.

All of that said, I think I’ve quite aptly (and almost entirely) undermined the sense in preventing expensive goods being delivered only to the registered cardholder’s address, because as we’ve just seen there’s always a way to circumvent such checks by routing the money other ways: this leaves a longer paper-trail (banks and credit companies are, by law, required to keep better records for longer than companies that happen to process card transactions), but is otherwise a sensible way to commit fraud without triggering the little alarm bells that debit cards have hanging from them. So yeah; perhaps Scan should be a little less draconian.

Now Chip-And-PIN in the UK: there’s a flawed, insecure, badly-implemented system.

Reply #13108

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Sian wrote:

Going to be registering a website thingy tonight to mess around with. Any hints/tips/advice from all you people who know about this stuff would be gratefully received. I am, after all, officially computer illiterate.

Register your domain name with somebody respectable (won’t rip you off or otherwise fuck up) like Easily, who’ll give you a domain name (whateveryoulike.co.uk) for as little as £9.99/2 years.

As far as hosting is concerned, I can’t say a bad word about the fantastic DreamHost, who now provide hosting for me, Paul, Claire, Matt (from SmartData), JTA & Ruth, Statto… etc. etc.

I’m not sure if it still works, but if you sign up for their Crazy Domain Insane offer ($9.95/month), paying for the first year up-front, and use the promo code “777”, they’ll give you the first YEAR for the price of the first month. Which is nice. And as it includes a free .com domain name of your choice, that’s pretty fab, too (saves you heaps of cash, no commitment to stay with them more than a year anyway, etc.). They’re pretty damn good.

Drop me an e-mail if you want any specific help/advice on such geekibits. Will see what I can do.

Reflections

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Ruth wrote:

Something surprised me today. I was looking through the various blog-posts relating to the nastiness with the Union, and I was quite shocked to realise how many of the people that I (certainly now, probably always) think of as nightliners are now, in fact, ex-nightliners.

And I thought about the influence that those people had had on me, on who I am and how I answer that phone, and I realised something that hadn’t really occured to me before: even though we have a high turnover, and people aren’t normally with us for more than three or four years, that doesn’t mean that the org ‘loses’ them. Each successive generation of nightliners is built on the last.

And whilst, to the people answering the phones in ten years time, our current struggles may seem distant (if they aren’t forgotten entirely), hopefully we can achieve the kind of changes in our relationship with the Union which will mean that they are free to get on with doing what we’re here to do.

Aye. I still think of myself (and other ex-‘s) as still being “Nightliners”.

Yay, my underwear from Figleaves turned up today, I have new bras…

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Ruth wrote:

Yay, my underwear from Figleaves turned up today, I have new bras which fit. Now my breasts look enormous, which is a bit scary…

Let me see, let me see!

(awaits slap)

Reply #13106

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Sian wrote:

People are funny. I get to look at the accounts of people who have signed up for Children First newsletter updates, and their passwords make me laugh. The number of people who’s password question is just their password is scary.
I also worry for the person who put their password question as ‘opposite of goodbye’.
Guess the password guys! Yes, it’s Hello!
Password Question: Mums Name. Password: Councillor (What?? The cruelty!)
Password Question: favourite game. Password: Boggle (yay!)
Password Question: Fish. Password: Dolphin (…?)

Most popular theme is pets name, so I’m glad pets have a purpose in this day and age. Another popular theme is the Magic Roundabout which worries me somewhat.

Anyways, I’m sure this is against some sort of rule but I found it funny.

The passwords should be one-way encrypted. Your system is insecure. This is evident by the fact that you can read everybody’s passwords. =o)

Wattafu?

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Sian wrote:

Amazon book recommendations have just recommended me the book ‘A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting’. Their reasoning for this is that I have ‘Amelie’ on my WishList. There is a prize for anyone who can explain to me the logic behind this.

It’s at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890159026/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-9579525-7588416, for those of you who want to read the reviews etc.

Interestingly, I’ve also had this book recommended to me. Not by Amazon, I don’t think, but instead by this page on sexuality.org. Look about half-way down where there’s a section on fisting, and I quote:

Some women enjoy vaginal fisting (having all or most of their lover’s hand in their vagina). This is DEFINITELY a case where you should proceed only with your partner’s active and ongoing encouragement and within her comfort level. If you two would like to give vaginal fisting a try, then I’d recommend first reading Deborah Addington’s book A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting. However, the basic technique is as follows: with your hand palm up (and your lover on her back or on all fours) bring your fingers and thumb together to form something that looks like a duck bill. With massaging, and possibly gentle twisting motions, slowly tease your hand into her vagina. If your anatomies allows it, once you get past the third knuckles your fingers will start to gently and naturally curve back to form a fist. The whole procedure takes time and plenty of trust, but the women and men who can take a whole hand vaginally or anally often claim that it leads them to transcendent, ecstatic altered states (read TRUST/The Hand Book by Bert Herrman for a discussion of anal fisting, if that is your area of interest).

Even if safer sex issues are not a concern, many women find that it is more physically comfortable to be fisted when their partner is wearing (possibly powder-free) latex gloves.

Also some good tips on G-Spot hunting on that page. Sexuality.org is a damn good site.

Ship sizes and Pillaging / Flag-o-poly

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Nemo wrote:

Ursela is her own, walking, talking, swashbuckling example of the monopoly flag argument. I see the flag distribution happening along almost the same lines as the current crew situation.

Example:

A new player logs on. We’ll call him Steve. Steve is quickly greeted by a member of the largest, most aggressively expansionist flag/crew. We’ll call her Ursela. Ursela seems nice, her politics look good, and she is certainly persistent, so Steve joins the Dastards. Steve, as a new player, quickly sees the advantages of having such powerful crewmates. Many ships to job on, knowledge to be shared, a snappy in-house trade system.
Steve puzzles away happily with the Dastards.
Steve gets pretty good and wants more power and renown. Steve soon realizes that the sort of fame and riches he can get through the Dastards is only in keeping with the Dastard heirarchy. Much as he likes the Dastards, Steve thinks he can make it on his own, with his own ship, and this time… as Captain!

Fin.

Ta-daa.

Or, Steve stays with the Dastards and they live happily ever after. Or there’s a terrible row and Steve’s new crew and the Dastards become lifelong foes and their rivalry and animosity are legendary. Or Steve never joined because he’s a distrustful paranoid and starts his own Crew of fellow misanthropes and they never amount to much because they’re always afraid of everybody stealing their maps.

People in this game are governed by their personalities just like in the real world. In the real world there are many different groups to be part of. And no one group gets everybody. And don’t forget, there are ooo-run flags too. So, we’ll have some in-game influence of what’s going on too. If the need for some sort of anti-trust activity arises, we’ll confront it, but until then, I think the system is working out pretty well.

-Nemo
(Who will likely have his own renegade flag of anti-imperialists, operating out of a volcano near the Canary Islands. Then all we’ll need is a giant submersible war machine…. mmmm)

Steve? Why didn’t you just call him Ava and be done with it.

Gender Balance

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Rengor wrote:

…

Also an interesting group are the developers, not the ringers, but all the other game developers playing this game, and there’s quite a few of them. Im curious if they can say why they chose this game instead of Sims or Everquest etc?

…

…

I’m a dev. (not a PP dev., of course), and you’ll probably laugh, Rengor, when you hear how I discovered the game…

I’m currently spending way too much of what little free time I have developing a secure online database system, which I’ll be selling at cost price to a network of charities in the UK providing night-time telephone listening and information to students. This system will help these voluntary organisations find and manage volunteers for specific nights of the week, send text messages to them to remind them when they’re due to be ‘on duty’, provide a secure forum, and (eventually) a host of other features.

While the selection of organisations which this system will serve are… somewhat diverse in their policies (much to my horror as the system I develop has to cope with all of them), one thing they all have in common is the amount of time the telephone has to ring before they will answer it: three rings. As a result, my system is called Three Rings.

So; I looked for a domain name for it… threerings.com was already gone. Oh, I thought, I wonder who owns that? So I hopped to the web site and thus found Three Rings Design Inc., and, being a fan of MMORPGs and all things MUD and puzzle games, I signed up for Yohoho!

But what about the rest of you dev’s? I know there’re more tech’s out there than just me, arr!