neverBlog Collection
A set of articles resurrected from neverBlog
Back to Work
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 4th July, 2005
This weekend last (yesterday, the day before yesterday, and the evening of the day before the day before yesterday) is already over.
Live 8 went off with a bang, lots of stuff happening, as well as the BBC finding a use for their digital TV service, enabling the ability of selecting between 3 concerts, Hyde Park, The Eden Project, and Philadelphia.
It didn't work too well at first. The Hyde Park channel actually took you to BBC News which was on BBC1 at the time. It was supposed to have switched from BBC2 to BBC1 earlier, but due to Wimbledon going on longer than they thought, it hadn't switched. Eventually they got it connected to the correct feed from BBC2. Five minutes later, they switched Live 8 over to BBC1, so the poor engineers must have been struggling after all that time fixing the BBC2 issue, they now had to switch the feed over to BBC1 instead (and update the digital selection box). They managed this quite quickly but in the process feckered up the feed from Philly. I found this incredibly amusing.
They did get it sorted in the end though. I enjoyed Snoop Dogg, with his uncensored 'mother-fuck' this, 'mother-fucking' that, 'bitch', 'ho', the lot came out pre-watershed and unbleeped. Nice job there, Snoop. It seemed that every other artist wanted a piece of the Snoop pie, and they all came on and swore before beginning their set. Even Madonna said "Make some fucking noise!"
I shouted, "You're a talentless old cow, Madonna!" And she began to sing in that I-can't-sing voice of hers. I switched over to the Eden Project and watched ...... Umbata, some African singer woman with a REAL singing voice. She was very good.
Erm, I'm back at work. Time to leave this now.
Attempt at blogginess
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 13th July, 2005
So I met Francesca in town and we went shopping for clothes, it was great! We visited Top Man, Next, and a few more. I bought some lovely red jeans with little devils on the pockets. They are sooo cute! We stopped off for a coffee at the coffee shop in the middle of the indoor market. Not cheap, but nice. At one point, in such joy and love for the world, we skipped through the streets of the town hand in hand, singing "We are the world!"
It was really good fun, but we got some funny looks. I caught the 362 back home, and Francesca went on the 211.
See? That's what these boring arse shit blogs are like. Now tell me this place is a fucking blog!
Site pretty much done
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 22nd October, 2005
At last! This I have been working for, the chance to make the first post of the new site.
As you can probably tell the design for the entire site has changed, you may also notice that The Profane Dog forum has disappeared. The forum has now been replaced with this bloggish-type affair that we imaginatively entitled, neverBlog.
neverBlog
Using modern PHP & MySQL technology, our neverBlog software meets and often exceeds other Blogging software out there. And it's easy to use too! Browse the posts with our Exclusive Calendar Control which you'll find in the left-hand navigation column.
Anonymous users can add comments to existing posts, using a restricted BBCode which will strip out the disallowed codes, except the individual list item code which will remain as it is. I hope you understood that.
Registered users are allowed not only full postal power, but also unrestricted BBCode use! You can also edit or delete your old comments.
There is no signup script, as the system is invite only, and the user is added manually to the system by me.
Status: v1.0 beta
Upcoming features: iNeverBlog Navigation.
nLinks
nLinks are still going strong, subcategories have now been added to help us cope with the over-weighty original category page. With a quick re-ordering of categories, we tipped our hat to the past, and reduced the main category page down to five main categories.
Some dead links have been removed.
Status: 2.0 alpha
Pipe: More dead link removals. Work out how to calculate total links in a category plus all it's subcategories links. The dreaded back-end.
nWritings
This too powerful text-streaming management system has had the expected facelift, including the removal of old articles that no longer exist. The Nearly-Patented Sensibilium In Book Navigation System has finally found it's place in navigation system heaven, and a new automated nWritings Contents Navigation has been created to ease the scrolling finger.
Status: 2.0 Final
Old Content
The old Open Source Writings section of the forum have been be wedged into nWritings.
Unfortunately we lost all of The Land of Thud while dropping the other IBF tables. Yes, I hit the DROP command on ibf_posts. Much apologising to all the contributors to this historic story, may it forever be remembered with fondness.
That's yer lot fer noo then eh? Have a look around.
Redesign Counter
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 20th August, 2005
As you may or may not be aware Sensibilium is up for a redesign. Some may even be thinking that only a few months back I was indicating the complete opposite was about to occur, such that the site was to close for good with some idea formulating in the background. That idea has now formulated itself into oblivion, and even we, the great powers that reside within these virtual walls, cannot retrieve them.
But we are getting a redesign. Some of the not-as-lazy-as-all-the-other-mods mods have seen a preview, but everyone else will just have to wait.
"Yeah, yeah, heard it all before" I hear you say.
It's happening, here's my time counter so far:
Hours spent on redesign: 35hrs and counting…
Dumb Security
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 12th September, 2005
Interesting article regarding the six dumbest ideas in computer security.
I found it interesting anyway.
Return of the Mack
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 9th October, 2005
Oh, aye, nearly forgot to mention this. I'm getting broadband again on Tuesday or so, depends on the reliability of not only BT (that's bad enough), but also the Post Office (uh-oh). Nah, it'll be reet ahm sure.
As ah were sayin, ahm waitin on the Post Office to deliver ma brand spankin new used second-hand DG814 (that's the Netgear rooter I luv so much) which I won on eBay in a fantastically amazing, quite froody and hoopy even, auction. It was on all week wit no bids ye see, and then 8 hours before t'end ah bidded, max of 17 quid, it were on at 12 quid ye see, so that were ma fust bid. I watched an watched fer like ages, an two minutes before the end, there was my expected second bidder bidding away like a crazy man high on an assortment of drugs. 3 seperate bid in fact he did, a bid of 13 quid, outbid automagically by me, tryed again 14 quid, outbid d00d! 16 quid, outbid d00d! Ah panicked like, as ye do, so attempted to up ma max bid to 22 quid (which were ma max), but i was too late. Returned to page where item were and ahd won! 17 quid, just like that, i leaped in the air and hi-fived ma hoose mate, big fucking grin like.
Paid fer it straight away like, 24 quid inc delivery, dunno if it's bin despatched yet, but it shouldna take too long eh? That were on Friday night at around 11pm, so the seller could have theoretically sent it already, we'll see I spose on Mundi.
And the activation was said by me new ISP, freedom2surf, to be on Tewsday. The ISP sound so cool dunnit? Well as Jack Dee says, "It's not. You're not surfing, you're sitting in your bedroom typing."
As he also says, "I must have missed the episode of Tomorrows World when they told us that 'By the year 2002, we'll all be sitting in front of our computers wanking like safari-park chimps. Goodnight!'"
Empty-headed threats
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 3rd November, 2005
So I'm quite happily going about my usual business on eBay (selling those items I listed in a previous posting), and I received a message from another eBay member, calls himself 'bossman_' plus some numbers (so it's not 'bossman_' if such a user exists).
He obviously seems to think that calling himself 'bossman' gives him an air of authority, doesn't wash with me though, especially when the message in question is a threatening letter talking about extortion, etc. It's not pleasant, and not what you would expect.
He tried to tell me that my postage charges on 10 x Zip disks was too much. Now you do the math, 1st Class Recorded Delivery is £4.30 (i just paid that for 10x Zip disks five minutes ago), then include the cost of the packaging which comes to about £1, then add in a little for packing time and £7.00 postage for 10 x Zip disks doesn't seem too bad after all. How is that extortionate?
I proceeded to search eBay for other Zip Disk sales, and sure enough, there were cheaper postage costs on some auctions, and more expensive postage on others.
I wrote back saying that I was not going to put up with his threats and anger. In his response he started on about how to calculate postage costs, treating me like some stupid little fucking child, and also stated that he would bid on my items if I allowed him to.
I responded to that telling him that I didn't appreciate his attempts to 'educate' me, and I am perfectly happy with the postage charges I had put on the items. I also said that I'd rather not do business with someone who was so quick to call someone a fraudster.
His final response was as simple as "We'll see what ebay has to say about this then."
Fine you knobhead, let's see what eBay has to say, they gonna laugh their tits off and probably threaten to cancel his account for hassling other users for no good reason.
Bulldog nightmare
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 9th December, 2005
No, I'm not having nightmares about bulldogs, I'm having a nightmare with Bulldog, the ISP. I have been for a while now, since signup actually. I haven't reported anything about this on the internet, to friends, etc., but I have spoken twice now to Bulldogs Tech Support people.
The problem lies in the fact that (oh yes, people who have chatted to me on MSN know all about the problem) the connection chooses to drop out completely, not at random, but pretty much every few minutes. This is not good as I can type pretty quickly (and accurately) sometimes, and often I will find myself typing away without looking at the screen for ages (dunno why I look at the keyboard so much, I know where the keys are), and then suddenly I hear the dulcit tones, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, of Windows XP saying, "There is no cursor, d00d!"
Not only that, but usually the previous two messages sent are not actually sent, meaning chatters get a barrage of cut & paste when I get my connection to MSN back.
As I say, I lose connection to MSN. Testing later showed that the entire internet connection itself drops out (inc. HTTP, FTP, bittorrent, SMTP, POP3 - all gone). Now I'm not about to let this get me down (Christ! I have enough of that already, thank you very much), so I determinedly did absolutely nothing about it for about two weeks, I plainly wasn't bothered and could neither be arsed.
Eventually I did ring Bulldog, as I mentioned earlier, this was probably a week back, and they suggested the first thing I knew they would suggest which was, "Have you tried a different DSL filter?"
For crying out loud. No. Of course I hadn't, I paid ten bloody quid for that piece of plastic crap, and there was no way in HELL I would buy another. I mean, for fucks sake! Ten quid! What? !!
So it took me until today to steal the warehouse DSL filter (after borrowing a mates which didn't seem to work at all, but we'll not get into that as it's another story and this one is already long enough as it is, and it is going to carry on for quite a while, so you'll forgive me if I skip it), to try out at home. Got home plugged her in... waited... waited... net connection light w00t! Booted up this monster (which is actually no longer a monster as it can barely run X3, and you can forget about it running that new HL2 thingimibob) and waited... waited... waited... Logged in. Waited... waited... "Cable Unplugged!" XP reported. It was unplugged. Plugged it in and waited...
Started up MSN, got into a little test chat with a mate, and just as I said, "I think this is alright actually", BANG! It drops out. Hrmph. I rang Bulldog a second time. Waited... waited... waited... (at least it's an 0800 (free) number) tech support answered, wnet through everything again and he says, "Okay, I'll just get you a reference number" waiting, waiting, "Can I have you mobile number?", "I don't have a mobile" (white lie - I don't like to give out my mobile to just anyone you know! Even though it is publically available on one of my other websites, but Bulldog don't know this) waited, waited "Okay, here's yer ref num, blah blah, they'll ring in 24-48 hours". Great.
So I don't really know who is gonna ring me in 24-48 hours to be honest, I think it's gonna be the line engineers, as he did say something about something being wrong with the line. Nevertheless from the start of this debacle I have come to the conclusion that BT did it. They did it because I've changed my line over to Bulldog, so when they came to the box down the road, they did a sloppy job. I can see the BT workers now re-wiring my line to Bulldog saying, "Bastard!" I only think this of course, because I've never (read that again, never) had a problem with the line until I switched to Bulldog.
I could be right, I could be... well, you know what I'm getting at. But I'd rather blame BT.
Not that I'm bothered really, but it makes for an interesting story.
It's Snowing!
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 28th December, 2005
It's fecking snowing! I look out my front window and I see snow. I look out the back window and see snow. Great stuff, now that's what Christmas is about, it's about snow. If you don't get snow, it ain't Christmas if you ask me. So hurray! Dance in the snow like an innocent child, chuck snowballs at your neighbours cars, spell out your name. Ah.
So then I feel outwards of myself with my super heat sensing, tendrils of energy swirling and massing around the warmer parts of the room, and drawing them forth to be utilised by my typing fingers. You can almost hear the electrical crackling as each finger movement is carefully tapped into the keyboard. A union exists, man and machine in almost perfect harmony. Perfection being as an impossible state to achieve even with the most dedicated of minds.
And that's where we'll leave it I think, I need to to put the central heating on.
Happy New Year eh!
Hey wow, Bulldog sucks
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 12th January, 2006
Another week goes by without a post here.
So what's been happenin'? Various stuff.
I have discovered that even though I followed Bulldog's cancellation service on the 10th of December 2005, my connection and phone line is still with Bulldog. I called them to find out what was happening, and I was told that I have to get BT to sort it out. They refused to answer why I wasn't made aware of this during my original cancellation process. But I've told them that I won't be paying any more bills as they have already ripped me off once by charging me full price for their 8MB service, when I only ever received 1/10th of that!
I spoke to my credit card company to see if they could stop any future payments to Bulldog, but they have said that they can't do that, they can only raise a dispute and take the money back.
Spoke to BT to sort this out at their end, and I was told that they have to send an engineer out to my home to set it up (dunno why, I didn't need an engineer to transfer to Bulldog). Nevertheless, the engineer won't be making an appearance until the 23rd January, so I expect that I may well be offline at home from now until 2 weeks after the 23rd January (ADSL Re-Activation).
Get in Debunker
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 14th January, 2006
News Myth 1: Watch out for bird flu!
News Fact 1: Without sufficient hygiene in place while rearing animals, you are at risk of catching the diseases of the animals which you rear. That's the way nature works. It's not as bad as they try to make out. They say, "It hasn't jumped from human to human yet, but it could." Well, yes, it could, but who cares unless it does?
News Myth 2: Let's have a British Day like the Americans have with the 4th of July!
News Fact 2: We need a war of independence first people, we cannot celebrate independence until we have it, so what on earth would we be celebrating? The fact that I live on an island called Britain, is a cause for celebration? You're having a laugh aren't you Gorden Brown (aka Golden Brown), or is he appealing to the Nationalist vote for his impending election farce?
News Myth 3: We went to war for freedom.
News Fact 3:: We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. We went to war on a lie. Needs more attention.Bye bye, Bulldog
by ahdkaw
Originally published: 25th January, 2006
Almost 13 days after my official cancellation, my telephone line returns to BT.
I still have big arguments with Bulldog regarding the charges they feel they can charge me for a very shoddy service at only 1/10th of the speed charged for.
I'm just going to wait and see what happens, I've already written my email to finance@bulldog as directed to by their not-so-helpful telephone staff, telling them that I will raise a dispute with my credit card company if they take my money, which will cost them far more than it will me.
Fuck Bulldog Communications! OFCOM needs to go back in and tear the place apart.
Never mind eh?