06/07/2003-07/07/2003 @01:33:23 ^03:03:49

Analysis of bisc's last-seen database

I asked Peter to send me the contents of bisc's seen database so that I could poke at it, and today he did.

The main reason for this was to determine how much of an increase in size various people's apparently never-ending stream of nick changes was causing. I think all the nick changes are pretty stupid but since it's not really doing that much damage I'm going to stop caring. Apart from the first time I used IRC I have only used about half a dozen nicks.

Indeed, I could use the database to discover that initial collection of nicks, before I knew about bisc, before I knew that talking using an ever-increasing number of nicks was wasting resources. These were BobDeath, MrPriapic, HornyGuy, VHornyGuy, MrErect, LargeTits, BallsHurt, Huge_Cock, Porn_King, and DrLurve. This was the 20th of July, 2001; still back in the days when my "lewd, suggestive and disgusting" gimmick still worked. It's a well-publicised fact that I've largely had to give this up since FDave came along and basically did it better. I have yet to find a new gimmick, and until I do, I have no mental script to follow in social situations, so I am quiet and boring and for me socialising becomes unpleasant. Now, as I spend more time on SA, I pick up more of its catchphrases, so I find it very natural to use them in a new social gimmick; however, it fails badly, as I know only one other person who can reasonably be expected to get the references (Nelis) Anyway I seem to have totally digressed, so before I start explaining other reasons why I'm no longer doing the social thing or indeed talking at all to quite a few people I had better move on.

I was able to discover the date when the format of the database changed from nick->time\message to nick->time\channel\message. This change makes the output of the function break for nicks that haven't been seen for a very long time; I'd always wondered when the cutoff point was. Turns out it was sometime in the first week of July, 2001, around the time #warwick moved onto Astrolink. Makes sense I guess, upgrades performed, etc. I think the code probably should expire nicks that haven't been seen for over a year or two, but I doubt I'll be arsed to write it and so why should anyone else?

I made a couple of text files showing the contents of the database sorted into various orderings, and put the urls in the channel, but from the lack of change to the last-access time of each of the files other than those which I know I've caused myself, it seems no-one else is interested. Nevertheless I'll leave them there for a couple of days.

I guess the fact that I haven't published any solid results here makes this entire update completely pointless, but really I'm only writing it because I'm streaming audio to disc, and can't do the other stuff I was doing before Dreem Teem Presents finishes (I was fooling around ripping audio CDs, oh no RIAA don't arrest me please! Hey that rhymes, maybe I should be a rapper...)