Going into High Alert

Easter is over, everybody is back again in uni but we have a problem, recently a person tried to hack the network and clone all the available internet protocol addresses (IPs) and knock the rest of the people here off the network. All for the sake of downloading a 300 mb file which is probably some chinese drama video or show which you can directly download of the internet. The culprit has been banned by Spectrum Interactive our dear internet service provider (ISP).

So problem solved? No unfortunately after that the speeds did not recover and lots of users have issues with the net line and are experiencing slow speeds, frequent disconnections and so on. So just what exactly is the cause of all these problems?

I put a call for myself and on behalf of my fellow residents in Lovaine Flat and Lovaine Hall respectively to Spectrum in order to lodge the issues and complains that we have. Thus I was told to wait a few days for a call to come back to me on this matter.

2 days later they called me up and asked and went over some of the issues that we are having. Some statistics to show, there are currently 70 users or more which are connected to the net now and that has taken up nearly the entire bandwidth provided by them. Wait a minute theres at least 400 or more people living in here. Just my block alone has 5 people per flat, and 10 flats which make up 50 people already. There are 5 blocks to the flats and 2 entire blocks of around 20 people per floor in the hall. Each of these buildings are 5 stories high. Thats a lot of people in here running around. Looks like its battle for the net line of the users. Putting that aside its not so much of a problem if everybody shared the line proper and kept the network stable.

Next part apparently seems to be the major cause, we have hackers who are trying the same thing that the initial person started, network hogging yet again. Thus more problems for the rest of and dear Spectrum is trying to find these bunch of selfish idiots and ban their IPs. Well thats not really going to help much unless its banning their user logins and slapping fines for abuse of the network. In a normal case where everybody is using the network normally its stable in general though the line is split in order to accommodate more people using it. However if you add in an equation of a hacker or more then we get an anomaly which knocks the rest off the network and makes it unstable.

So why all the fuss about wanting more bandwidth? 300 mb show episode? I’m fine running my downloads at around 20 – 50 kilobytes a second though its a few hours and worth the wait. Unfortunately some people want it now, I, ME, MYSELF, MY RIGHT, MY… cut the <strike>i</strike> nobody is going to listen to you on this issue, we all need to use the net thats a given and we want you to stop being and idiot and share like the rest of us. If you can’t share the net with us then get out and get ur own line and abuse it however you want.

Other than money, what about water? What about electricity? What about food? If you’re that greedy for the net line why not be greedy for the rest? Its all part of whoever’s personality and nature is. If you’re not then respect that we’re living with 400 over other people here and  not your own home somewhere in Cowgate or elsewhere.

So would you actually pay £15 for a dinner? Good question, depending on what you want to eat when eating out in town here in Newcastle that would be an ideal sum in fact for a proper meal out in town. Yes its expansive but if you’re on a budget and want to go looking for something nice once in a while and £15 is what you have planned in mind for that one night then probably you’ll be more than willing to pay that price for a good meal. Well McDs and KFC wouldn’t be a problem since you would usually spend less than £5 at those places including BK also since the meals there are like under £5 each. So where is this place that I went to?

Nice door eh, interesting place and whats that sign up there??? Well to enter though its an electronic door and not an automatic door, see the green glow on the left of the door, thats the button u have to press in order to get it to open. No sensors here to make it open when you stand there, keeps the cold out. Above it is a small plate telling you to press the button in order to open the door. So what place is this? Sign too small up there? Heres another picture then.

Now this is much better, yes you guessed it its a place called Wagamama (Selfish -　わがまま) here in Eldon Square. Forgive me for the picture but the pillars were blocking so had to take it from an angle. It really is a nifty place to eat at.

Check out the wallpaper, its actually the signature here for Wagamama restaurants where its a guy hogging the bowl all to himself. Heres some of the seating, quite interesting actually how they designed the place. Also they have an area for you to hang your coats at and also baby chairs for any families that come along with the little ones. The main counter where they handle all the transactions is next to it. There is also another similar coat hanging area on the other side of the joint.

Like the wood and bench type of design. Interesting.

They put the chopsticks out in the open, kinda unhygienic though if you ask me since anything can land on to it. The number written on the paper was after I had ordered, its a bit like labeling your order number and table and what you ordered.

Its quite an interesting system as to how your order is taken. If you notice the lady standing who is one of the 4 waitresses that were on duty she is holding a PDA in her right hand. Yes apparently its high tech system where they have 2 computer terminals in the place where they can use them to communicate with the PDAs via a wifi network. She is also writing on the paper mat what this couple’s order is and their order number.

Don’t mind the folks, the kitchen area is purely exposed so you can actually see the cooks in the background making the food and also there is a glass shield with a gap at the bottom where the counter is that enables the food to be passed to the waitresses in order to get your meal to you. So for starters I ordered green tea and my main dish, steak soba.

I was even given a set of fork and spoon to eat. I can’t really say much about the British people who are unable to use chopsticks well there were quite a number who could use chopsticks and surprisingly there were two guys who came in after me and one thought the other how to hold his pair of chopsticks. Pretty nifty. Was good, beef in terriyaki sauce and the soba noodles fried, well due to the nice atmosphere of the place, my soba was not hot and nice as I had originally wished for so its make do with what you got.

As for desert, coconut reika which is coconut ice cream with coconut flakes on it. Really good. As for the bill in the end it amounted to £14.90. Without tips. Surprisingly this particular joint does not include service charges and I could see that quite a number of people were leaving tips and so on behind. Likewise I followed suit and left my tip of £2 behind. I dare say it was a good Japanese meal in a long time for me. Customer service was good, as soon the person who took my order came back later midway and asked if I wanted anything else and that was when I placed my desert order.

Conclusion:

Food – good

Staff – Nice and friendly and they do constant check ups on your to see how you are doing

Price – Pretty standard for a Japanese joint, though it may be over budget for students

Atmosphere – Comfortable and nice probably what you call a grade A place

Overall – In terms of a 1 to 5 scale, I’d give it a 4 out of 5.