Category: Miscellaneous

The changing face of VinceH(.com)

VinceH

This post has been prompted by an email I’ve received – I’ve replied directly, but it’s worth commenting here as well in case anybody else is wondering the same thing. The question was what on Earth is going on with this site, because it keeps changing appearance? It’s been happening a lot over the last week or two – sometimes quite a few times in rapid succession in a short space of time, then staying as is for ages, then another round of changes, and so on. And the short…

Read More

Some adventure gaming nostalgia

VinceH

TL;DR: Two rubbish text adventures I wrote as a teenager are online My business, Soft Rock Software, has existed for just over thirty years, but my programming – and my very first games – date back further still; all the way to my school days. Two games from that period before Soft Rock Software, and which for reasons below I consider my first two games, are now available to play in your favourite BBC Micro emulator. I therefore thought it might be fun to look at the history of those…

Read More

Desecration of a grave

VinceH

A couple of weeks ago, the statue of Edward Colston in central Bristol was pulled down and it reminded me of a local grave – that of (possibly freed) slave Scipio Africanus, which I first learnt about at school. I couldn’t remember very much about it, so I paid it a visit to grab a photograph, and then set about a little armchair research to remind myself of the detail and/or improve on what I may have been taught at school. I then wrote about it on this blog.

Read More

Ryanair: a website and telephone support FAIL

VinceH

This morning, I booked some flights with Ryanair on behalf of my parents, who don’t feel confident enough with computers and the internet to do this sort of thing themselves. This is something I’ve done many, many times for them (and I’ve occasionally booked flights for myself with Ryanair, as well) so I’ve been using their website for donkey’s years. I’ve seen it change from time to time, and I’ve often cursed at it (and the company themselves) for making it so damned annoying, insisting that I say at the…

Read More

You can blog about it all you like – we’ll allow you to do that

VinceH

This post is a follow up to the first, second and third rules of the Virgin Media forum moderators. The title of this post are the words spoken to me today towards the end of a twenty three minute call I received from a chap called Pete, from Virgin Media‘s complaints department: You can blog about it all you like, we’ll allow you to do that. The call was the result of a convergence of my complaints, sent in multiple directions, concerning the two main issues I’ve been having with…

Read More

The third rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators…

VinceH

…is don’t piss off the Virgin Media forum moderators. This post follows up the first and second rules of the Virgin Media forum moderators, was updated on 1st May, 2011 and followed up in You can blog about it all you like – we’ll allow you to do that. The story so far: I questioned a moderator’s behaviour on the Virgin Media forum, and that thread got deleted. Amused, I wrote about it, and referred to it in my signature file on the forum. This wasn’t received very well: I…

Read More

The second rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators

VinceH
Virgin Media 2nd Ban Notificiation

…is DON’T talk about the Virgin Media forum moderators. This post follows up the first rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators, and is followed up in the third rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators and you can blog about it all you like – we’ll allow you to do that. It also received a minor update on 30th April 2011. Last night, I was banned from the Virgin Media forums for doing exactly that. The history that led up to this can be found in the item I…

Read More

The first rule of the Virgin Media forum moderators…

VinceH

…is don’t talk about the Virgin Media forum moderators. Updated 30th April 2011 and followed up in the second and third rules of the Virgin Media forum moderators…, and you can blog about it all you like – we’ll allow you to do that. At this moment, I have an unfinished post regarding my ISP, Virgin Media, and a newly introduced traffic management policy – which only applies to upstream traffic for two protocols, NNTP (usenet, newsgroups) and P2P (peer to peer, file sharing). I’m holding back on finishing that…

Read More