This originally started as a FB status, but has become so much more now… I can’t honestly keep it on my status now, and will be cross-posting this to all the relevent places. That said however, I can’t really change the start, but let’s roll with it. I understand you might not agree with what I have to say, but instead of outright disagreeing with it, please tell me why you disagree. I occasionally get things mixed up and will be more than happy to clarify, although I understand that people have expressed disagreement with my comments about people not voting not having “the right” to complain. Note that this is more to do with the situation in the UK right now, but parts may apply to your country. I have a tendenncy to ramble and repeat my points, but that’s how my mind works… hopefully it is coherant enough to be understood; any doubts, please just ask.

You know, given how poor some hourly rates are for where people live, I’m not surprised that people need benefits to supplement their income.

The sad thing is though that with the exception of the ‘bad examples’ you see in the paper, or occasionally hear about, those on benefits are truly getting persecuted, for simply choosing to live, and from that standpoint it’s absolutely sickening! I did some calculations for my average monthly wage, though admittedly I can’t actually do that properly, but the fact is that what I get paid in a month, for what I’m able to do at present (I’m trying to ease myself into a routine) varies from 30-130 quid short in a month. In this instance, those 2 figures I quoted at either end are literally what I’ll be short for next month (plus, there’s the fact my travel costs have tripled past what I would whilst on benefits).

Lastly, as I’m on a Zero Hour contract, my hours aren’t set, so technically, the average doesn’t exist… I’m just basically extrapolating from 2 months of work (both what I have done this month (and will do) and will do the next. When you really think about it, actually experiencing it from this end of the spectrum, you realise why a lot of people stay on benefits. Sure, you could cut them in order to “make work pay”, but then the issue is, how will it affect those already in jobs… will they get their current rate still, or will they get more or less? Either way, no matter how you look at it, whether you work and don’t earn enough from the job (which stands for ‘Just Over Broke’ btw) or simply claim benefits without working, life will get harder for you, especially when the government is insisting on marking everyone on benefits as scroungers!

I have to wonder though, since when in this country has it been okay to demonise people simply for trying to live? Do people have no heart any more? Are people now that greedy as to think that so long as their needs are sorted out, what happens to everyone else is irrelevant, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect them? People are becoming as short-sighted as this government is, standing idly by while these savage cuts are made, while people simply just trying make a living are being negatively affected, people that are otherwise law abiding citizens; people who have to take pay cuts in order to keep their jobs, people who have lost their jobs due to the current economic climate (which is dire, I might add), people who are clearly unable to work yet are being forced to breaking point by the government; people like you and me.

And in light of these cuts, the MPs don’t sit up and say “let us help our country and take a pay cut, just like other civil servants have had to!” No, instead they consider giving themselved (and maybe have even passed through) a 30% pay increase! How is it that we allow this?

How is it that we allow the government to invest the minimal amount (or even below) needed for this country to get back on its feet, thus stifling growth, and will making people worse off in 2015 than anyone ever was in the 2010 recession! How is that right?

How is it we allow the government to paint everyone on benefits (working or not, deserving or not) as scroungers, and telling them they must get a job, despite there being at least 2.5 million people out of work, and only around 500k jobs available? Better yet, what about those who are becoming unemployed due to redundancies made? It’s not only the high profile ones that make the news that are making them. This adds thousands more to the unemployed list, and also lessens the chances of anyone getting a job. It’s now at the stage where those who have a job (no matter how good or bad it is) are lucky to have one! The problem is though, not all of them pay enough, so we go back to the issue at the start.

The point is, we’re in a very vicious cycle here, and with each full revolution, things get progressively worse. This needs to be stopped, or we’re heading towards this ‘”Lost Decade” the papers have mentioned, which means it’ll take a very long time to recover. We all need to stand together and say to the government that we’re sick and tired of being treated like this, rather than just standing by and letting it all happen. This is what they call the Divide and Conquer approach; the bottom line is, no one is safe from the government cuts, and activities, unless you happen to be rich! I haven’t even mentioned what they’re trying to do to DLA or the NHS, but the point is, they’re trying to make it more difficult to live in this country.

I could go on and on like this in all honesty, but at the end of the day, things are happening that can be stopped, we just need to d something about it, even something as simple as signing and sharing an e-petition can help in a lot of cases, especially the ones that the Number 10 website; those that get enough signatures MUST be debated in Parliament! But, not only those petitions work, some of the ones on other sites work too; educating others about what is going on, and even educating yourself about the situation is important, read blog posts, newspaper articles and anything that discusses the current situation.

You may not do politics, but it is about time you started; politics is what this entire mess is about, and the more you distance yourself from it, the less chance you have to change the situation you are (and everyone else is) in. Look, I know you’re likely fed up with politics (at times, I am too)… but apathy towards politics is partly why we’re in this mess in the first place. If we all genuinely want to make this country better, we need to all be politically aware and make sure we make the right decisions; even a basic understanding of politics will help, because then you know what exactly you’re getting into when you vote, and honestly, you should be voting (at least where it matters).

If you didn’t (or don’t) vote, you have absolutely no right to complain about the situation we are in now. Sorry to break it to you, but it’s true. I voted at the last GE and I’ve been rather… vocal with my opinions as of late. Sure, the party I voted for didn’t win (that’s a discussion for another time), but at least I voted. By voting, you have basically ‘purchased’ a stake in the welfare of this country, and therefore have every right to complain about it going downhill. Now granted, I may not agree with your opinion (how would the world be if we all agreed?), but I accept you have one and strongly believe in it; that’s what tolerance is, that is accepting that people are different, have differnent ideas and different opinions, yet still accepting them as a person. Anyway, the bottom line is that in this day and age, it is possible to do life-changing things, simply by sitting down at your computer.

Now granted, not everything can be done this way, but some of the major things are promoting awareness (blogging or telling others, or sharing posts/articles) putting your signature to something or even funding a cause you believe in… changing the world can be that simple at times. Even still, if you want to gather for a protest or other cause, you can find like-minded souls in order to help facilitate that. We’re only as strong as we think we are, and if we think we are strong, and we come together with other strong people, we can use that combined strength to make things a better place. Admittedly, it is very possible for one person to make a difference, but at the same time, there is strength in numbers. And now, this doesn’t mean gather together to cause a riot… we had enough of that last year, but certainly, we need to come together to make things happen… let’s come together and try to make this country great once again.

And in some cases, all you need to do is spend a few minutes (or more if you can spare it) of your time doing it, fancy that… a few minutes of your time, and you can help improve life for yourself and many others.

Surely that is something worth being a part of?

I think it’s about time for another post. Admittedly, I haven’t really been averaging a post a fortnight, but equally, I have been diversifying my blogging topics a little more, which is a trend I hope will continue. I am looking at having categorised blogs though, which I have mentioned before, and I think is best because I ultimately want to have this centred around a select few topics, namely stuff I haven’t  covered elsewhere yet. As far as blogs go, I’m thinking about having the following:

• The Sciences, Technology, Mental Heath/Disability, Business/Entrepreneurship, Projects and general ramblings: This blog.
• Portfolio: Andrew Kennett (this clears up some space pages wise, and also will provide a timeline of sorts with my projects; it is mainly a dynamic CV of sorts).
• Current Affairs & (some) Politics: A Right State!
• Gaming (computer gaming and other sorts): Gamed Up (personal blog for personal stuff and site for reviews, news, previews, etc)
• Travel (Personal): Stormkeeper @ Xeno Storm.
• Travel (Group Projects): Individual dedicated project blog with links to category of personal blog associated with that project.

And that’s just for starters, to be honest…. or maybe it’s the end, I’m not sure. Either way, I’ll be looking at where stuff goes. I did have a site called Geeked Up planned as a sister site to Gamed Up initially, but I’m realising I’m spreading myself a bit thinly now, so therefore Geeked Up will be put on the back burner for now, plus there was very little I could put there, except for maybe stuff on Warhammer (that can go to Gamed Up anyway, maybe Geeked Up later) and Wrestling (the FB group is kinda dead). Ultimately, I’m gonna be spending this year sorting stuff out more, and also trying to make more posts where possible, though there will be some overlap from a couple of the blogs; the SK travel blog however will be dedicated to travel specifically, although I’m 50-50 on where the projects go; either they stay here or go to their own dedicated blog, suppose it depends on the format I make the projects, but for now I lumped them here…. it may just be I separate the project section into a separate blog and do it day by day. It would certainly make a lot more sense in all honesty, so I’ll do that when I move over to the new system I have planned.
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Yeah, random title… but it’s what I got in my mailbox, have a looksee:

Subject: Let’s talk more my bunny!

Hello! My name is Tanya , I am lonely russian woman from Ulyanovsk. I hope you will interested in
my letter or in my structure in agency. I have decided to write to you really liked to me. Some more
about me…. I am 25, I have finished medical university in our city and now I work as the
children’s doctor. My free time I spend on a hippodrome, as I 7 years am engaged in equestrian sport.
I think more about my appearance will tell you my photos. If you want to learn more about me you may
write me to RandomEmail@yandex.ru Also if you want to ask me some questoins (if interested in me),
please write me and I promise answer you and also I will send you more of my photos. Bye for now.
I hope it’s letter will not without your reply.

So yeah, I got two of those emails over the past couple of days. You want to know the kicker though? They came from Myspace! I think Myspace likely has some issues with being compromised, which concerns me as I have an account there (albeit semi-inactive), but I do wonder if the security of the site is compromised. Still, it amuses me Igot called a bunny… that’s the last animal that I’d ever consider myself to be; those of you that know me (especially those who were with the old Xeno Storm Forums) have a better idea, plus I’m sure I still have it as an avatar in some places. Anyway, really amusing.

This site will be down for up to 14 days from this cominf Sunday, due to some technical issues, namely the fact my domain comes up for renewal soon and Ihaven’t the cash right now to renew it!

I will soon update to the new domain and alias this one to the new site but for now, I’m staying here until I am able to move. As always, watch this space for developments. You can contact me or get updates during the outage via Twitter (@Stormkeeper_, though I may not actually have many site updates. Either way, I’ll be glad to move over to a new setup, given it’s much cheaper and more efficient!

I can’t help but notice I’m really popular with spammers compared to actual users (as indicated by the comments on my disclaimer, though I may disable comments on that page)… if the spammers were actual users, I think I’d be reasonably popular, lol. That would actually help out the cause I’ve been promoting recently as well, thinking about it… and mentioning that, I have an update on that below which is quite important.

It’s come to my attention that the link for The Mental Health Struggle has been updated and moved to Indiegogo. I’ll be changing the link on my last entry too (read that towards the end if you want to know what I said about it first), but if you get to it before I do, but after reading this, the new link is here. I also tweeted the new link when I made my pledge, so use that link as well. I’ll also be tweeting a new link to be retweeted after I finish this post, using the hashtag #TMHS and also/or #TheMentalHealthStruggle (for tracking purposes; don’t be surprised to see one or the other, or both). The reasons for this change of link are threefold; first of all, the £8,000 goal wasn’t going to be reached in the time given, so the organiser asked for the deadline and goal to be increased and decreased to £5,000 respectively. Secondly, it seems that Kickstarter doesn’t allow causes or charities to be funded, which seems a bit bizarre. It does mean though that I’m gonna have to pester those I told again and remove links to the old address, so if you see this, and then see a Kickstarter link to this project in my blog, don’t click on it!

Lastly, they have a website as well which is here. I do hope to remove all the Kickstarter references by this weekend, but this post is partly in case I’ve either missed some or I’m still working on it when you read this. Unfortunately, they’ve had to start from scratch, so be sure to make a new pledge! There are also some new goodies, so check it out before pledging your original amount, or your original level. I should mention that there’s a possibility that you’ll be paying instantly via the Indiegogo link (through Paypal), so this is unlike Kickstarter where you pay after the goal is met. This is just a heads up, just to make you aware of the difference. I can luckily take the hit, so it won’t be too bad, but still, it’s something you need to know.

Anyway, if you have contributed via this blog post, or even if I directly mentioned it to you, please leave a comment below. Additionally, please do tell your friends if you think they’ll be interested in this project… you know I will be!

P.S.: I’m sorry for harassing people again, but you’d rather be kept informed, right? Especially those of you who made a pledge.

P.P.S.: I’ll soon be making another blog entry, only it will be about my experiences with podcasting. Additionally, I don’t expect my website to move now till at least the middle to the end of February, because I’m a terrible procrastinator, and also need to see what I need to move over, as well as set up the stuff on the new host to be ready to transfer over. In the meantime, please check out this project if you haven’t already, it means a lot to me.

Edit: It appears that I had a lot less links made than I actually thought… I think they’re on Facebook more though probably.

Edit: I’ve amended the The Mental Health Struggle link because the project has been moved. See next entry for details.

Well, it looks like we’re back to once a month posting again. On the plus side, at least I’m updating, and on that subject I have many updates, which is where the “going forward” comes in. As for the first part, it’s relating to the fact that I’m looking at getting 2 new hard external drives to back some important stuff up I realised just now that there’s certain rare, irreplaceable things I cannot afford to lose so I thought it best to get a 2TB HDD, mostly for software… but then I realised that given I’m getting more into multimedia, such as podcasting and recording videos, in addition to my regular photography, I need a safe place to store my media stuff too (especially the stuff that will either have a delayed release or never released). Thing is though, I’ve realised that the hard drive would fill up quite fast, given the volume of my downloads lately, and with the move to HD video (and also pending a few other videos I want to do that’ll take up a lot of space), I need to get 2 hard drives. In addition to that, I need to keep copies of the original video, and also copies of the edited and/or converted videos. So, I decided that 2 hard drives are best.

Granted, I may not fill them up right away, but it’s best to have all the extra space there just in case. With this in mind, I expect to be a little more prolific with recording, both with the DiggerFeast and other projects I have yet to organised, such as my Let’s Play series which I’ll discuss another time. Ultimately, I have a lot of ideas I’m considering at the moment, although I’m holding off on them for now as I need to flesh them out first. One thing that really struck me though (and why I’m even looking seriously now at backing up) is how easily data can be lost. Most notably, I’m thinking of older versions of games, such as development/pre-release versions of games, although I do also mean when developers EOL their products and make them available for free download, a lot of which can just disappear after a while. My own experiences in trying to get a copy of X-Com: Alliance have been mixed. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but the bottom line is I have a dud copy of one of the 2 files I download (also the biggest ones), and now it’s a pain to find! This makes it important to keep priceless files backed up in a very safe place, or rather in 3 diferent places!
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…before my main post.

For those of you aware of the issues with the West Coast train franchise here in the UK, a toy train company submitted a bid for the franchise below:

http://blog.bigjigstoys.co.uk/our-wcml-bid-has-been-accepted-almost/

Proof that not everything on my blog is dull or depressing, nor is every civil servant/government official lacking a sense of humour

It’s been ages, plus I still haven’t finished part 3, though I think when I finally get into it, it’ll still be a hot topic; the repercussions of Jimmy’s past acts are starting to come thick and fast, with more people being caught. This is huge, goven how many people are being caught in the net (and those yet to be), plus the BBC has suffered as a result. Anyway, I will stop here on this topic for now (as a post will eventually come) and mention that I’m pretty busy so posts will be a while in coming, or will be short. I’m presently working on a few courses which I hope to finish on the 21st, which fits in quite nicely with the Apocalypse

Anyway, after this course, I should be able to catch up a little with things, but do expect some changes, most notably with this site, as this will no longer be Stormkeeper dot Net! Instead, I’ll be switching to stormkeeper.me,uk, meaning I’ve gotta change the name of the site too. Secondly, my portfolio will now be moving to another blog, andrewkennett.me.uk, although I will be keeping my blogging here, as the AK site will be for everything I do and when I do it (in some cases), meaning that this blog will be a few pages less. Also, given I have dedicated blogs for gaming and current affairs/politics in the pipeline, I’ll be posting less about those sibjects here, though I will be posting extracts from those posts here for a bit of exposure. As for Xeno Storm’s domain, that too will have a change to xenostorm.org.uk, although I’m debating keeping that domain and sk.net too, seeing as they’ve been in my possession a very long time.

Lastly, other domains of mine will be at the very least converted into UK domains, maybe even changed completely in some cases. The reason for all of this is simple,it’s because it wotks out cheaper for me! On that note too, I have shunted my IRC server to a cheaper host and also changed its name, but more on that later. My next changes will be to split off my personal and business sites from each other, and also sort out an Adsense for business too, as my current one is personal.

This will help keep my personal affairs separate from my business, but will also take time, so expect things under my control to fluctuate in terms of uptime till things settle. As for why all my sites got knocked offline for a few days some time ago? Well, the simple fact of the matter is that my VPS ran out of space, due to misconfiguration. which is prompting the move now… I don’t want to spend ages configuring a VPS as I have to manage everything! With my moving, I can spend time on what is important, which is naturally business and to an extent here as well.

I’ll explain more about this later too, but I may not be able to post more for another couple of weeks. Either way, I hope this will explain a few things. As for me in the immediate future, I need to rest myself up as I’ve got a cold and have an exam tomorrow morning, joy of joys. Oh, two final things… the DiggerFeast will eventually be relaunching, and also I gope to get something done with A Right State! soon, even if in either or both cases I have to do it solo!

I’ll keep you all posted as best as I can.

There’s something interesting about having your disclaimer page become a spam catcher of sorts. Still though, at least it makes things easy to manage!

The stats for spam catching are interesting too:

Akismet has protected your site from 33,646 spam comments already.
There are 2 comments in your spam queue right now.

WP-SpamFree has blocked 3,692 spam comments.

That’s a lot of spam I’ve been protected from!

I just thought I should also mention that I’m soon changing my site address, as it’ll be cheaper to maintain. As always, it’ll be stormkeeper, but instead it’ll be me.uk. That said though, I may need to keep this one now as it’s built up a bit of a reputation now.. I’ll have to see what happens over time. Just to let you guys know, part 3 of my 3 part series will be blogged sometime this week. I did part 2 directly after part 1 because I wanted to get it out of the way, and if I didn’t blog then (even though upon reflection it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was), I may have copped out. That said though, I did at least highlight an excellent article that shows the dangers of the internet for kids (and even adults). There are also dangers in real life too, as we know, but awareness of these things is over half the battle. I’m not saying these things happen all the time, indeed they thankfully are rare relatively speaking… but it still happens a bit too often. At least some of these cases were relatively easy to prevent, which makes them all the more tragic. While I am going by 2 cases, namely April and Madeline, statistically over the past 10 years, there has to be instances like that where the parents weren’t watching (though were close by) because they thought they’d be safe, which is an understandable, if rather naive assumption to make.
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I guess the last paragraph of the first post can be seen slightly as scaremongering of sorts, but in actual fact it is a suitable lead-in to this next post, especially considering as I really don’t like talking about this topic at all, seeing as just thinking about it usually makes me feel extremely unclean at best, and basically makes my blood boil. Admittedly though, most people are going to be like that, though not everyone will be. The reason why this is second in sequence is because it links in to the first post, especially given it’s also related to parenting, although when I think about it there’s also a timeline thing going on, as in from pre-birth to birth (kinda), to 4 elements of post birth, namely infancy, childhood, adolescence and finally teenage years, though I only just thought about this now. When I said part of this was going to be the hardest post I ever wrote, I was specifically referring to this, to the extent I can’t even use the word right now past the title. Now, I’ve always been aware of these things (as have many others), but I’ve always avoided thinking about them, because honestly, there’s not really much I can do about it, but a fellow by the name of Tommy Jordan (yes, the one now famous for shooting up a laptop) tackled the subject partly as part of an article for a parenting site (which you can read here, but be warned, what you see may disturb you… it certainly did that to me). The article was eventually taken down off the parenting site for various reasons, I imagine the main reason was because it was so disturbing for people; I myself felt unclean while reading it and it served to remind me how many sick people there are out there. I had had that article at the back of my mind until today, seeing as I really don’t want to be reminded that people like that exist.

I’m not going to go into that level of detail, as Tommy has already done that and hats off to him, he really drove the point through. I’m going to basically just skim the surface of this massive iceberg, purely because there’s people far more experienced than me able to discuss this in far greater detail. The only reason why it’s even coming up is because it features indirectly in the story I read recently, mainly down to the accusations levelled against the suspect in the case; I’m choosing to focus more on the mindset of people regarding this topic, and also ones that elicit similar reactions. There was another news story that is kind of related to this which will also get mentioned as well. And for the purposes of getting this out of the way, I’m going to make sure I do so as soon as possible… the less time I spend on this topic, the better! As it stands, I’m feeling nauseous at even thinking about what I’ve read in the past, and the funny thing is, I’m not even going to write that much about the articles!

Let’s get this one out of the way as quickly as possible.

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