Hi There! My name is Lee Alabaster or Palee for any online usernames. This website will be for any random rambles I wanna do as well as show off whatever cool things I decide to reandomly create. I expect posts to be very inconsistent depending on when I have time ad motivation.

About Me

I am currently a third year MSci Computer Science student studying at the University of Birmingham and from Essex. Funnily enough I’m writing this while on the train back to Birmingham. Last year I was the Secretary of the Computer Science Soceity (CSS), and I was also the PGT Rep for half a year before that, even though I was only a second year at the time. In my free time I am often either playing games on my computer (often Destiny 2), playing darts or spending time with my family. I have an interest in cyber security and low level optimisation, and my favourite language is C due to it’s core simplicity and just how much you can do with it, even if it’s very easy to create insecure code.

Current Setup

My current setup is a 2020 Macbook Air with 16GB RAM which is used mostly for coding and other university work, and I have a desktop computer with a Ryzen 5 7600X, 32GB DDR5 6000MHz, RTX 3060Ti and 2TB of storage which dualboots both Windows 10 (I absolutely hate Windows 11 and will most likely never install it) and Linux Mint. If I’m being honest the linux partition isn’t used much but it has come in handy before and will do in the future. I currently have a 2 monitor setup, with my main one being 1080p 144Hz 23”, and the other being being a cheap VGA monitor I got off a friend for 20 quid. My keyboard is a Keychron K2 (UK Layout) with red switches and black and white keycaps. My mouse is a Logitech G Pro (wired) which has served me really well over the years, and only had a slight issue with pressing down the scroll wheel, which I can more than live with.

I have built many computers in my time for many different people in my life and unfortunately become a bit of a tech support agent for them often, although I don’t mind it too much since I always end up finding some weird quirk and learn something else weird that windows does, or a random unneccesary change from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It’s also a great way of finding out how not to build a computer, like me breaking someones SSD once, and will be a mistake I won’t make again after having to manually hold the cable in to move data off of it onto a seperate drive.

Darts

If you don’t care about darts at all feel free to skip this part.

I have been playig darts for about a year-ish so far and honestly lost track of how many 180s ive hit, but I think it’s about 20, with 3 of those being in a day and 1 in a league match. My highest checkout in a match is 101 and in practice is 121. I currently throw a Bolide Void 04 SP with Black medium no.2 K-Flex and Gold 35mm SLK Points, and I also have a custom wooden case that my Dad made for me from an Oak Tree, which I love.

I play in 2 leagues, the Clacton Men’s Dart League, where I play for Buddies in Division 2, in which we are currently 5th (I think), and the Clacton Thursday Night Friendly Darts League where last season we came second to last and I am the Vice Captain.

Sport

Although I don’t play any sports, I enjoy watching it a lot, and yes Darts is not a sport.

Football

Ever since I was a little kid, I have been a West Ham fan and have been to many games, although I would like to go to more but I have neither the time nor money in order to do so. Luckily I was able to go to Upton Park before it was destroyed, when West Ham played Manchester United in the FA Cup, and annoyingly we left early to beat the traffic in London and missed their equalizer scored by Robin van Persie, which led to an away leg that we lost. Also I can’t talk about West Ham without mentioning winning the Conference League, our first trophy in 40 years, which was amazing and a night where I had way too many beers.

London Stadium

I have been to the London Stadium quite a few times, and while the view isn’t amazing, it isn’t as bad as most people make it out to be. You can see the pitch fine unless if you’re right back in row Z, which I have never had to. The games I remember most are losing 5-1 to Manchester City, drawing 3-3 to Brighton and watching West Ham play European football, which was a wonderful feeling considering how bad we have been most of my life.

Away Games

I haven’t been to many away games but I have done a couple. I have been to friendly games away at Wycombe Wanders, in which I got Sam Allerdyces signature when he was our manager, Fulham Away After the 2022 World Cup and Stevenage. I also went to Derby Away in the FA Cup last season when we won 2-0, which was probably one of the best games I have personally been to.

Formula 1

I was never into Formula 1 as a kid, but that changed when Covid happened and me and my friends started playing the F1 game on the PS4, which was great fun and lead to me starting to watch the races and get interested in the sport, with the 2021 championship being so good being a good push towards me watching it more.

Luckily last year I was able to go to Barcelona and watch the F1 in person, which was absolutely amazing with the speed that those cars move at and how loud theu are. I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t been to it, although it is much better if you can find a space with a screen near you so you can see what is going on in the rest of the track. The best part of the whole weekend was being able to go onto the track after the race ended, which gives you a real perspective of how massive the track is and just how quickly the cars zoom through it. You also get to see the podium and all the cars really close up, as well as some of the team principles talking to the media.

Destiny 2

I feel I need to add a section for this, since it could be a whole post on its own. I started playing Destiny the year it came out when I got it for Christmas in 2014, and then played on and off until around May 2021, when I started playing it a lot more.

In that time I have put countless hours into the game, met many friends and learnt a hell of a lot about the inner workings of the game. To keep it short, I am currently Top 300 for both raids and dungeons, although I was higher before a lot of cheaters started getting better times, and have done quite a few ‘challenges’, some of which are on my YouTube channel.

Future Plans

In the near future (most likely over the summer), I want to make a website with a few darts minigames and whatnot on there which people can play for free, because currently they just don’t exist or you have to pay for a ‘premium’ account in order to play them. I have already made a couple of them which can be played in a terminal, although only single player, using Python so it wouldn’t be too hard ot translate that over to javascript or something similar, then all I would have to do is make it pretty, which is not my strong point.

After this I am thinking about my Final Year Project, which I am thinking about maybe creating a BattlEye bypass in order to be able to cheat in games with a kernel anti-cheat. If I don’t end up doing that it will still most likely be something related to Security and most likely Windows, but I’m not sure what.

That was a lot of rambling and I doubt anyone will read it all, but thank you if you did.