Uncontrollable Hysterics
Laughing in the face of danger!
Virgin Trains – An experience
Jul 23rd
I think Virgin Trains project their excellence through over-paid advertisers and completely manufactured statistics. They are late, unreliable and usually dirty.
On the 19th, I travelled from Preston, Lancs to Glasgow Central Station on a Virgin Pendolino. The train arrived on time with no expected interruptions. I boarded and was rudely told to sit somewhere else because a seat was “taken” for someone’s hand luggage. I passed it off as just a rude individual, and sat down next to a lovely lady who kindly put her bags on the floor. The train carried on through the principle stations, Lancaster and Oxenholme (Lake District). About half way between Oxenholme and Carlisle, the Train Manager (who we’ll call Dave) put an announcement out that the train would only be stopped about 20 minutes due to an overhead power failure. This was fine, I’d been in train delays on numerous occasions. 20 minutes passed, and Dave put another announcement out stating that it would be another 20 minutes before the train could proceed. This frustrated me, and pretty-much everyone else on board. We couldn’t work out why Dave had told us 20 minutes, for a problem which would clearly take longer than 20 minutes to sort. Eventually, this turned into an hour and 15 minutes.
Due to this stupendous fuck-up, we then got stuck behind a freight train which was moving so slow, it was defying the laws of physics going forwards. This pushed us behind schedule by about 45 minutes, going through the forests around Dumfries. Eventually, the train pulled into Glasgow Central at about 2 hours late. I wasn’t bothered about the delay, but what pissed me off the most, was the fact Dave had fabricated a time, which he, nor Network Rail could confirm.
To make matters worse, on my return journey on the 23rd, I walked into Glasgow Central, and the timetable information boards said the train was delayed. When asking a member of staff if they knew what time the train would be delayed until was like getting a Christian to believe the Big Bang really happened. Eventually the train rolled in at 19:25, forty-five minutes late. Then they had to clean the train (which is can be understood). The train finally departed from Glasgow Central at 19:40, an hour behind schedule.
Seriously, Virgin, if you are going to claim to have consistent services between Glasgow and London, MAKE SURE YOU BLOODY ADHERE TO IT. Either I am incredibly unlucky to be delayed by 3 trains in a week, or Virgin are the culprits. On the outbound journey, they handed out customer comment forms to fill in for some form of compensation. I’m not sure what type of compensation I would get, but not only was I late into Glasgow, my friend was waiting for me in the station for over an hour, because we weren’t given an arrival time.
I think I would rather Drive to Glasgow, and probably end up spending more money on fuel, than arriving late without a proper reason.
Video Blogging
Jul 18th
I have been thinking about this for a long time now, adding Video Blogging (or V-logging) to my repertoire. It’s always something I’ve liked to do, and will boost my confidence when speaking in front of public entities (such as class discussions and demonstrations).
It shouldn’t be too hard to get a set-up going where I pre-record the video’s, edit them, and then upload them to Youtube. Obviously, being an open-source software user, I need to get my hands on some free, open-source video editing software.
Once I have a decent platform set up for vlogging, you’ll be seeing more updates, tutorials and important changes to the services I run. There’s just a couple of pieces of equipment I need to invest in, such as a decent(ish) webcam, and a fairly decent microphone.
Service Updates
Jul 14th
Firstly….
This could be a pretty lengthy update by the time I have finished… depends how much I get interrupted.
IRCWhore’s
There’s major changes happening at IRCWhore’s, including a massive revamp of the system back-end, a new front-end theme, and how the system interfaces with the database, statistics engine, and the chat daemon. As it stands, development is a little slow at the moment, but the features that are being implemented are being put in place securely, and measures are being taken to ensure that the systems insecure.
Another key development is the way the website integrates with an advanced table structure. More tables and stronger relationships mean that data can be accessed quicker, and highly normalised structures result in a superior system. In addition, indexes are being added to increase the performance of the database server, and the server-side back-end. UNIQUE fields are being used to ensure that repetitive data cannot be added, and measures have been put in place on the server-side scripting to ensure that the system doesn’t have to keep checking if the field is unique.
IRCWhore Title and TopNav snapshot
In addition to the back end being optimized for superior performance, the client-side scripts (JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets and Hypertext MarkUp Language) have been optimised to be delivered in the fastest possible way. This is done by adding caching to images, style sheets and scripts, while removing caching from the main content. Also, the scripting is optimised by removing all unnecessary line breaks and white space. This might make the script ugly, but with a 34% decrease in download time, it’s worth it.
In addition to performance, security is another key area of the development. The main security protocols installed in the system are automatic reporting of break-in/injection attacks, and the automatic banning/suspending of users should they be detected performing a break-in attempt. In addition to the security protocols being developed, various child safety policies and protocols are being developed. These include:
- Child-Parent Profile Linking – This allows parents to take control over their child’s account with limited permissions. This could be use to see who the child is making contact with via the online messaging system, and to see who the child has made friends with online. Obviously, ethics and morals will restrict what features we do implement here, and we are still working on a way to enforce parent-child relationships without people adding them to any account they wish. All relationships will expire once the younger of the relationship reaches 18.
- Restricted Access to Minors – The amount of access an under 16 year old will get determines on the parent-child relationship being made. The most basic restriction (with no relationships) potentially prevent the child from making friends with people older than 16, not messaging anyone that’s not in their friends list, restricting how the user interacts with certain features on the website (including the personal weblog, forum and the personals section).
- Strict Profile/Image/Post Screening – While moderating images and profiles can often be a laborious task, we think that it is a critical feature of our systems. The moderators will obviously be trained to the highest possible standard in what to allow and of course, disallow. They will have a full set of tools to either delete, report, suspend or ban based on the content of the image. This feature will not be abusable, as all actions across the site are logged into the Administration Control Panel. If a picture is regarded as illegal, IRCWhore and its regulatory board will report the user to the respective authority.
IRCWhore is solely based around security and safety, and this is taken into consideration while coding the core features of the website. As we are ensuring we are not promoting illegal activities, or allowing them to take place on our server, we are proud to report that we have been awarded ICRA certification as a child-friendly website. We are also going to work with other Child Protection Agencies to ensure that we are recognised as the first, and only child-friendly webchat website.
While protecting the children, we also thought about what we can do for adults. Ever been lonely and needed someone to talk to? Ever wanted someone that is like you? That’s where IRCWhore’s Singles comes into play. We will implement the most significant features of the leading singles websites, while adding some of our own random spice to give you a list of people we think you will like. Unfortunately, due to the implementation of the features mentioned above, parents will NOT be able to apply as a single. In addition to the previous restriction, we also regret we can only provide the singles service to our premium customers which are genuine members who have verified their authenticity by donating via PayPal or Google Checkout.
More and more features will be implemented over the coming months, and yes, we will keep you up-to-date. Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/ircwhorestatus.
What are Google thinking??
Jun 10th
Seriously, what are Google thinking? My idea of a Google search page is a clean white background, with blue text, and a great big Google logo at the top of the page. That’s not what I see today, I see a plethora of eyesores, making my “Google Time” somewhat dis-pleasurable. I want my Google back, I don’t want some crackpot images from National Geographic every time I go to the search page, I want my white background, and blue text back. ITS HOW I LIKE GOOGLE…
The worst image possible, is when you click “Remove background image“, and you get this.. It’s disgusting.
I mean look at the image first of all. Its silver and a dull brass on a black background, which is okay, but the image is not flat. It has a 3rd dimension added to it which makes text hard to read. I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of the images work with the rather generic text, such as the image of the sand-dunes, you can still see the text. But when you’ve got white backgrounds with white images, and then white text with a bit of a shadow, it doesn’t work Google…
Secondly, the Google logo is somewhat ugly. What happened to the blue, red, yellow and green we’ve all grown to love? Why do they have to bastardize our beloved ones?
Thirdly, what happened to the text, we all know white text on a black and white background makes the text hard to read?
Next, when you do select a background image, you have this bright-white atrocity stuck at the top of the page, which is the navigation bar. Its ugly when you have your own background. If you’re going to have a background image, at least change the image at the top as well, so that it all blends in.
All I am asking for, is for you to give me back the Google I remember from the very first time I went onto your Search Engine. Mesmerized by the colours and the simplicity, it became the ONLY search Engine I used. And yes, that’s how much I like Google! But I think I may stray away from using the home page to search from now on, and just stick to using the URL bar in Chrome to search, at least my eyes won’t implode when they try to read the text!
If you’d like to read more information about these homepage changes, view: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/art-of-homepage.html
Rebranding
May 6th
After long and careful considerations, I have come to the conclusion that IRCWhore will require re-branding before it can become a popular website, which has gained Excellent WOT (Web of Trust) status. I’ve owned the domain for several years, and will continue to hold the domain, but I am looking into purchasing another domain purely to give the website a friendlier name. It’s pretty apparent that IRC and Whore can’t give a child-friendly image, so that’s why the change is going to be made.
I have a number of names that I would like to use, but I’m at a bit of a mental block at the moment. Hopefully, before the end of the week, I should have some idea’s for what I wish to call it. Obviously, any idea’s are welcome, but if the idea’s get stupid or comments get abusive, either comments will be closed, or if the IP’s are alike then bans will be enforced.
