When you register for an account on a particular website, 9 times out of 10 (in fact, more than that), you will be asked to enter a secret question or two, in case you ever forget your credentials. The purpose of these secret questions is to be able to verify that you are you, even if you are entering the incorrect username/password details.

Now, in most cases, if you have forgotten your password, most websites will ask you the secret question you set up, and then send you an e-mail with a unique website address that allows you to reset your password. The security feature here being that even if somebody did answer your secret questions, they wouldn’t be able to change your password because they would have to know the login details for your e-mail account.

However, some services (none come to mind immediately) continue the process on-screen. Once you have entered the answer to your secret question you can carry on and reset your password without having to validate that you are you by clicking a link in your inbox.

The issue here is that, a lot of the typical surveys you see on social networking websites (the ones that ask you if you have any pets, what their names are, and if you’ve ever eaten pizza whilst covering your left eyebrow with a pink thong) ask questions (such as what is the name of your pet fish) that people use as the answers to their secret questions. Imagine the amount of people who use the name of their cat as one of the secret questions, and the amount of people who answer the question “what is the name of your pet?” in a survey. That’s a gold mine of compromised account details, right there.

My online banking service allows me to have a password and a secret key. If someone had my account details and my password, and my secret key was something as stupid as the name of my pet, that would be my bank account compromised just by answering a silly survey on Facebook.

Think about it next time, if you care.

After seeing Night at the Museum 2 at the Odeon last night (don’t see it, it was fairly diabolical), I was sat at the bus stop. A man and a lady pulled up in their car, obviously waiting to collect someone from the cinema. Soon enough, two young girls emerged and got into the car, but the parents continued to stay parked. Eventually another girl arrived. She was about 12 years old, and a couple of years older than the other two girls. Just as she was about to get into the car, the second oldest girl (who was about 10) jumped out of the car, ran to a near by bin to throw something away, and then ran back to the car. Upon attempting to make a speedy entrance into the car, she banged her head on the door frame and began to cry. The older girl stood there looking a bit shocked and worried – she didn’t quite understand what had happened. A few moments later both of the parents were nursing the younger girl’s lumpy head and shouting at the older girl, claiming it was her fault that her sister banged her head, because she was late.

Quite how the older daughter’s late arrival caused her sister to bang her head, I don’t know – but these parents were being unnecessarily horrible to the girl, really blaming her for it. Perhaps it was because the Dad had ludicrously hairless legs, and he had years of repressed anger that was suddenly triggered by the hollow sound of his daughter’s head connecting with the metal door frame.

When they eventually drove off, one of the last things the Elven-skinned man said was “good thing it’s fucking padded” – like his daughter might have crushed her skull had there not been a small amount of rubber in the way.

I honestly couldn’t believe how horrible they were being to their eldest daughter though, who clearly had nothing to do with the whole scene.

I’ve had sleeping issues for a long, long time. During my Mother’s pregnancy, in fact. I’ve never been good at getting to sleep, and always envied people who seemed to drift off to sleep very quickly when they were tired. I used to think they were just fatigued, and that I didn’t actually have a problem. As I progressed in to my teenage years, my sleeping disorder got worse and worse, as the bags under my eyes will show…

Last week was once of the worst weeks I have ever had. Getting to sleep took more than 3 hours, easily. I would get into bed at 1am, which is the time I usually begin to get tired. 4am would often come and go, and on more than 1 occasion I saw the sunrise and had to endure the insufferable tweeting of birds. I was averaging at about 3 hours of broken, unrefreshing sleep. After a couple of days of this, psychosis began to kick in to some degree. Whilst I could concentrate on things I have to think about, things that I do without thought (such as making a cup of coffee) were affected. I frequently had to stop myself from trying to spoon milk into my cup, and putting sugar in the fridge. Seriously.

What’s worse is that, even though I was so tired in the mornings and throughout the day, by the time it got to about 4pm, I crossed the threshold of lassitude and was wide awake – my body clock clearly functioning as it shouldn’t. By the end of the week, getting out of bed was something of a prolonged struggle, divided by narcoleptic attacks. Thankfully I made it through the week, although I did completely lose my appetite and therefore lost some weight.

When Friday evening came I managed to stay awake until I was exhausted, and then managed to grab a good 10-12 hours sleep. Since then my sleep has picked back up. I’ve not had a peak like that for a very long time. I don’t think I’ve ever struggled with it so much, actually – as the last time I was suffering I was unemployed, so staying awake until dawn wasn’t an issue.

Curiously I saw a TV show about a man with insomnia. His insomnia was different to mine in that he had more trouble staying asleep, rather than getting to sleep. Having seen a documentary of a “severe case”, though, I feel I’m entitled to have my own TV show about it.

Well, the blog has been offline for a long time now. I was delaying its relaunch until I finally managed to design a new theme for it, as I have a new perspective on how I want it to look and feel, and what I want to do with it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the motivation, and kept procrastinating. So, in an effort to force myself to get some work done on it, I’ve installed this somewhat monotonous theme.

Since my last post, at the end of March, a few things have happened:

• I didn’t go back to SiTEL. I continued to be signed off by my doctor, got a very small last pay cheque and handed in my notice, because…
• I got a new job, working as a (junior) website developer. It’s the best job I have ever had, and I spend every hour of my time when I’m not at the office looking forward to being back at the office.
• Tallis and I split up, for good this time. I’m still feeling the impact of that, but I’m getting on with my life.
• I’m still at Mum’s, although hopefully a new house is on the horison.
• I bought new shoes.

A fair proportion of my day tends to be tied up with work, which I am very happy with. Other than that, I spend a lot of my time scoping out ideas for projects I want to work on. I’m having a lot of creative ideas at the moment, and all of them need planning and purchasing. Here’s an insight to a few of the things I’ve thought of or wanted to do over the last month or so:

• I was in the kitchen, trying to decide what I would like for dinner. After milling through the cupboards, I thought to myself “I really fancy a steak”, which brought me to the realisation that there really aren’t enough takeaway restaurants that deliver steak. There’s certainly not a dedicated one, and the various fast-food chains that do offer steak don’t do a very good job of it. As the idea played in my head, I said to myself “I want to open a steak takeaway… and call it… STEAKAWAY!”. So there you go – what a fantastic name for a steak takeaway.
• Following my Steakaway idea, I got very annoyed when I knew of a takeaway that I wanted to order from, but couldn’t find their menu. The Internet didn’t provide much information besides their telephone number either, which was incorrect. I realised that the only takeaway restaurants that do have websites are the nation-wide food chains, such as Dominoes and Pizza Hut. This inspired me to not only take on a challenge, but try to promote these businesses. Therefore, I want to collect every takeaway menu in the UK, in a digital format (preferably PDF) and upload them to a website that I have started. The website will enable visitors to search for takeaways in their area, filter by cuisine, and be able to view the menu for that takeaway, allowing them to place their order without having to worry about digging menus out of stacks of paper hidden away in cupboards.
• Two of my favourite music genres are progressive metal and electronic rock (Dream Theater and The Prodigy, for example). However, it’s so very rare that you hear these two genres combined. I’ve not heard a band that combine them to my satisfaction, and therefore I really want to do it myself. I also want to throw in some Daft Punk inspiration along the lines. This is going to involve sorting out a MIDI interface for my guitar, finding plenty of software synthesisers and drum packages, and becoming a master of both genres of music – something which I don’t suppose will be a short journey. One of my dream remixes is “Through the Loop” by Pendulum. The use of Willy Wonka’s voice from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, complete with the musical build up, gives me such an ecstatic feeling. Unfortunately, after the build up, the music that comes in is a bit of an anti-climax. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just invision something much more epic, with screaming guitar sounds, Daft Punk-y synths and progressive/power metal roots. I really can’t wait to start working on this.
• One of my pet hates is how guitarists, especially young guitarists, feel the need to spend (well, get their parents to spend) so much money on new guitars all of the time. It’s as if they think a new,expensive guitar will make them a better player. I have a Squier Stratocaster, but that’s not bold and blatant enough. Therefore, I want to buy one of the Daisy Rock flower guitars, and record videos of myself playing famous songs to publish on YouTube. It’ll be a laugh, and keep my guitar practice on schedule. Unfortunately that line of guitars has been discontinued, so if anyone sees one lying around on eBay, or in a charity shop, do let me know.

I think that’s about everything for now. Soon I’ll (try) to get this website up and running in the way that I want it to. For now though, it’s back, and I’ll try to post from time to time. I hope you are all well, and haven’t forgotten about me.