Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Mock exams coming up
Well, our mock GCSE examinations are coming up and I am actually going to have to do some revision. I’ve been very studious and got a timetable ready plus brief words on what I intend to do for each subject. We have some study leave which makes the xmas holiday period longer so I have plenty of time to get things done. Because I can’t read the rubbish I’ve scribbled down over the years I intend to use online revision for almost everything. Wish me luck.
On the subject of this blog, I’ve realised that I really am not going to get anywhere with posting real comments like all these hip blogs nowadays, simply because I don’t have enough time to read through everything in the newspaper. This is partly because I don’t have enough time in the library and also due to competition from others for accessing it. This is a serious disadvantage. Ah well, looks like my dream for this blog is far away :\ Additionally, I’ve been considering the possibility of once again expanding this site to contain things other than the blog. But, what? It’s difficult as I don’t want to break links so I think I’d have to make a new design and incorporate the blog into that, as I’ve had before. Or, I could dig out one of the old designs and use that. This time, I’ll go with a simple design that will actually work – right hand navbar, header, text or something. Usual CSS system, I suppose. It’ll be v3!
Google accounts and the like
As I have gone on about before I presently use hosted gmail for all my webmail and gtalk needs. It’s absolutely excellent however I get annoyed about having e-mails in more than one place, as for a long period of time I used spwhitton(AT)gmail as my only address. However, I discovered recently that my SilentFlame webmail is linked to my original Google account with spwhitton as the latter created the former. Make sense? Somehow this seems more complete for me.
I recently started using a new mail signature on my e-mails, as opposed to my old one:
old-- —Xyrael / Sean Whitton ~ Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty sean@silentflame.com (PGP: 0x25F4EAB7) | xyrael.netnew
--—Sean Whitton (Xyrael) [sean at silentflame dot com]Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
So, which one do you prefer? I think there are advantages and disadvantages to each but I’m sticking with the latter primarily because it doesn’t require me to type my name at the bottom of less important e-mails anymore and I think this looks neater, especially to mailing lists.
We’re started to put together our Records of Achievement at school which is an interesting thing to do. I’ve composed my personal statement and have filled in the usual default information, but I’ve also got Christel (I need to get round to blogrolling her) of freenode to write me a reference for my work over there. This is quite nice as it is something unusual that lists a variety of qualities. Otherwise, I’ve got to fill it with photocopyed certificates.
Trip to London
On Monday of this week myself and my grandfather set off early in the morning for London. Travelling on a relatively new Pendolino train, we arrived in Euston at around midday, and proceeded to the British museum after checking in at the nearby Travel Inn. After looking around there we went to some bookshops and then met Annie (sister) and my mother for tea followed by Blood Brothers. The next day we met a lawyer, talked, and then left that afternoon.
That’s the heavily condensed version, of course. What we did was actually far more detailed, but as I know this will start to ramble very quickly I need to be sure that the important stuff is here for people who just want a quick going over. Unfortuantely, photographs show me too much to be displayed. So, we set off at about seven thirty for the train, got it, and sat back for the three hour journey. It was ridiculusly busy, but we were lucky enough to have reserved seats. On arrival we checked in to the Travel Inn much earlier than we expected, fortunately, and were able to leave our bags. However, the room was just a double when we wanted a twin and so we had to ask to be moved, getting the correct one shortly afterwards. Then we headed to the British Museum.
There was a lot to see there. It really is a facinating place, with the new glass roof over a large part of the building and a very interesting library in the middle. After that we got on the tube and headed for the bookshops. I always find the Underground so much fun, it’s very exciting. It’s one of the best parts of going to London 
After wandering around said shops, we met up with Annie and Mummy for tea at a nice restaurant called med kitchen, and then we set off to see Blood Brothers at the very nearby Pheonix Theatre. It was a good play, and the music was well done, but I had heard it before. I notice that there was a rather big effect on Annie rather than me.
The next day we had arranged to meet up with Patrick Lewis, a barrister my grandparents know through friends of their family. He took us to the Central Criminal Court, and then to the Court of Appeal, and we realised how inaccurate the TV series really are. Barristers are calm in their cross-examination which is great. After this we travelled to the Middle Temple Inn of Court for lunch, which was a site to behold. The prices were reasonable and the staff were friendly (despite the fact I needed a tie – we had great fun trying to put it on), and the food was good. It was in an ornate pannelled dining hall. After that we saw the other Inns and Patrick’s chambers.
The main aspect here was the asking of many, many questions about a possible career in law for me. The main thing that came out of it was that in Patrick’s opinion it is far better for me to do a degree in something that I am interested in rather than law and then convert it with an additional one year course. All of this, of course, costs money – especially with the introduction of tuition fees for University, which I believe should be free as it’s not fair to bar people from education. I would use the Computer Science degree to earn the said money. So, there we are. I learned a heck of a lot about his job which is difficult to document here, but I still feel that it is something I want to do. The other issue is that I would need to have an area to specialise in, although obviously that’s not something that I need to think about yet. I’d want something where I could do the most socialist good.
So, a very successful trip. I’m glad that we took it.
Sudden rush of power
I have noticed that over the past few weeks (since the beginning of September) I have been promoted to more and more positions on the Internet, particularly on freenode. I’m happy to take these roles and use the abilities only when necessary, but realise that I must be careful not to use the power unwisely. But then, would I have the access if I didn’t deserve it/would abuse it? No.
This also means that I ought to rethink my security policy. At the moment, I use secure passwords (note the plural), but I’m starting to think about where I am typing them in. I have decided to try and use host recognition over passwords on my Wikimedia shell, but still there is an issue. I have to trust *someone* somewhere along the line. Luckily, a freenode staffer has been kind enough to offer me a virtual machine with which I can run my IRC client off and can trust significantly more because he has no want or reason of my access, as he has a lot of it himself.
The aforementioned shell on a Wikimedia server has let me run a new IRC bot that is linked to a web pastebin. When someone makes a paste, a link is broadcaster onto IRC and the paste is then accesable. Unfortunately, there is a lot of potential for abuse at the moment, and the method for tracking IP addresses is rather flaky. This means that I’m having to hope it will be used properly, and trusting channel ops to be friendly when removing it when it is being flooded. So far I’ve only had communication attempts through the bot, which isn’t too bad. Otherwise, it has remained idle for days at a time.
I’ve also started an initiative to try and make Wiki*edia chanops more friendly and kinder when invoking their powers – and perhaps doing so less, too. It is my hope that I can encourage people to be catalysts and improve the user experience in the channels. Obviously, trolls will always have to be dealt with but I think there are better ways of doing it. I’m attempting to open up discussion so that improvements can be made on what I suggested, but so far I’ve had little success.