University pays entry fees!*?
Originally posted by wee mouse
to my taxes being used to support 'layabout students' (your words) attending paintball tournaments that I have to pay my own way to.
Cough Student Loans not grants anymore* Cough ;-)
What our Richard (upsupball) needs to do on occaision is engage brain before mouth, and then try to keep his size 16s out of aforementioned mouth.
On behalf of Portsmouth University Paintball Team, Portsmouth University Paintball Club, the University of Portsmouth Students Union, and the University of Portsmouth, I would like to apologise for anything which Richard (upsupball) has said out of turn which may have upset/offended anyone. He generally means well, but sometimes his mouth gets out of control, and way ahead of his brain. ;-)
Sorry.
Back to the original point of this thread, the security arrangements around this credit card thing
seem to be none existant. Please note, I said seem, that doesn't mean that there is no security, just that they haven't let us know about it. I initialy said
Send em by email ya big wimp!!
but at that time I did not realise the method being used to submit the details - I assumed it was through a form on a website that used the post method to submit (sends form fields via email) or similar.
Now that I've seen that it's just an Excel sheet, that will be emailed to someone, and then stored on a pc, which I have no idea about the security of, I think it's a bad idea. Is this machine behind any sort of firewall/bastion host/packet filter/NAT etc? Any encryption being used to hide the details to anyone who isn't supposed to see them?
Have seen no mention anywhere of data protection act stuff either (although as I'm not totally up on that, I don't know how it applies to other countries/if other countries have their own acts etc).
What I would prefer to have seen would be something along the lines of an automated secure website - automated as in, you enter your details, your payment gets processed, end of story. Easy to implement, but uh-oh, it costs! (although probably doesn't cost €30 per player
;-) ) - heck, if Sparklie can manage it for the M25 league , I'm sure the big boys at the Millennium can do it too!
(no disrespect meant Sparklie, M25 league is gonna be the next big thing in the UK, it just came out "not-quite-how-I-wanted-it-to" when I typed it
)
All of the above is a moot point for me - if I can manage to scrape together enought to go play a Millennium this year, and spare time from my final yr project (mostly a money issue tho
) I can't fill out the pre-reg form, as I'm not allowed a credit card
As for the lanyards, FFS, lets all take a chill pill. I think that Richards point was that we ALL have the extra couple of quid to spend. On top of all the cashmoney we already spend entering/travelling/hotelling/eating/making our markers more bling-bling than the next 'ballers ;-)
Can't the Millennium Committee approach a large paintball company to sponsor the lanyards? Someone like Kingman/Raven etc. who have in the past given out freeby lanyards @ millennium events? Just think of the publicity that this company would get - every millennium series photo of a player would have that companies logo around said players neck.
*Yes, I am aware that we
only pay £1100 towards our tuition fees, and our local LEA's pay 4 or 5 thousand on top of that, but I don't care
;-)
The full loan amount is around £4000, take £1100 off that for tuition fees, and £1800 for rent. Oh poop, I've only got £1100 left.
That's £1100 for 9 months worth of food, electricity, gas, TV license, books (I could easily spend over £500 on books if I bought all the recommended texts for my course), clothes, shoes, telephone bill, any travel home for x-mas/easter, and after all that, I might have £2 to rub together for a pint.
It's fun being a student, no, really. I mean that! ;-)
[RANT MODE OFF]
Right, back to the coursework.........
;-)
all "winking" smilies changed to text cos the forum said I had too many images
