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Wednesday 30 December 2015

Center Parcs Wifi

So here I am at Center Parc, blogging via their wifi.

Unlike the Eurodisney wifi, it's a good one. I just fired up my browser, their system welcomed me, and then got out of the way. I can use http and ssh, which is all I need.

Unlike Eurodisney.

When we went to Eurodisney, they decided to censor their guests, so I couldn't reach the servers I needed to log into. I complained, to no avail, so I worked out a workaround.

Disney censors on the basis of domain names. So I set up a domain name on my hosts file, with the translation to the IP address I needed. The Disney censor let that through - what a puny censor. A proper censor would also censor on the basis of IP addresses. It's easy to do that if you're already censoring via domain name.

It reminded me of the time I tested censoring software for PCs. I installed it, and tried to use my computer as normal. But when I needed to buy some nuts and bolts, I went to my usual supplier for such things, and the censoring software blocked access. My usual supplier is "Screwfix". The software decided, on the basis of the word "screw" that it must be a porn site.

So, back to Center Parcs. We just competed in a "pub quiz". 90% of the questions were either sport or popular culture, and if the answer isn't 1966 or Britney Spears, I'm lost.

But one of the rounds was called "Maths" and great things were expected of me, as two of my degrees are in maths, and the other two are maths-related. The reality was disappointing for four reasons.

The first disappointment was that the questions were simple arithmetic, such as you can do in your head in a couple of seconds.

The second disappointment was a puzzle where the setter hadn't heard of BEDMAS which made the apparent answer nonsensical. Fortunately, there was someone there who said he was a maths teacher and pointed out that it was nonsense. Unfortunately, I realised it was a BEDMAS failure and was able to work out the right answer.

The third disappointment was another BEDMAS failure. Again, the maths teacher pointed out the failure; again I was able to work out what the puzzle setter should have doe, and got the right answer.

The fourth, and worst disappointment was that the quizmaster decided to award ten points for that series to everyone, whether they got it right (as we did) or not (a everyone else did). And so defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory and we got a very pathetic average score.

Oh well. It's only a game.

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