antony john

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

I think that possibly I will only write about things that happen at the grocery store from now on because it's kind of more interesting than the things that happen at my house.

My house is like a bat cave:
 You can guess which one I get to be.

Seriously. There is no light in there. It's so bad that sometimes I step out into the driveway and realize that not only do my socks don't match, but my shoes don't match! 

Yes, I do turn on the lights.
No, they don't help.

I think pretty soon I'm going to end up looking like this: 

This might actually be an improvement. He's kind of cute.

But this transformation probably won't go over well on the book tour because instead of talking about my books and characters and how cool it would be if NEED was turned into a movie, I'll just be all, "SCREECHING_BAT NOISE_ SCREECH!"

This may be an improvement too actually.

Anyway, the ATM/CREDIT machine broke today in the grocery store FAST/EXPRESS lane, which made it not so fast/express.

The guy behind me was:
1. Cute
2. Impatient to get to lunch
3. Buying toothpaste.

And the woman in front of me was:
1. Cute
2. Patient
3. Buying $10 worth of things.

I was merely buying this:


Yes, it is that kind of day.
So, I said to the cashier clerk man who JUST had to go through a similar 20 minute ordeal with the machine where everyone in the entire grocery store had to come fix it, "I'll buy her stuff and my Mr. Bubble Bubblebath for sensitive skin and his toothpaste."

Everyone looked at me.

And I said, "I have cash!"



Which I did! Amen! And the cute lady who I love hugged me and the cute man was all, "Thank you, you didn't have to do that." He looked at me like I was this super angel person, which I am not, but it was nice to have someone think that.

And I have decided now that cash is a very good thing.
So is bubble bath.
Bats don't like bubble baths, right? So, I am still human, right?
Just checking.

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

So, since Em is sick and we are not yet vegetarians (I have until 2010) I went to the store to make Em's ultimate in all comfort food, which is the all American chicken dinner:

This is a chicken dinner.

Making chicken dinner required buying an actual chicken.

Since I lack ANY mechanical abilities whatsoever, I did not get a shopping carraige. I tend to knock things over with a cart. These things include:
1. Big displays of stuffing
2. Bigger displays of bread
3. Even bigger displays of discount wine
4. Grandmothers
5. Random hikers

This is a hiker. This is not a hiker I personally injured.

So, fearing injuries and lawsuits due to my lack of grocery cart driving skills, I took a basket.
This is a basket. This is not my basket.

I plopped the chicken in the basket and strode over to the milk section of the store all confident because my phone got a text, which made me feel all loved. This is how I always feel when I get a text and it isn't a PUSH message from ATT trying to make me buy something. I was about to check out my text when I looked down at my foot, which was suddenly wet and covered in pink liquid!!!!!!

Hold on. I have to breathe and not get all grossed out.

It was chicken juice.

These are chickens without the juice.

I do not know what is in chicken juice but I am assuming blood and water and other scary things. Rather than panicking, which I totally wanted to do, I dropped my basket by the eggs and carried the chicken back to the meat section and wrapped it in another plastic bag.

But the damage had been done. There was chicken juice on my leg and foot and arm. There was chicken juice on my reusable bags. I went in line. There was now chicken juice on the little conveyor belt thing you put your groceries on. It was gross and sad and I kept trying to get the clerk's attention so I could start cleaning things up. I figured she had paper towels. I figured wrong.

"My chicken leaked," I told her when she finally looked at me.

She glared.

"I bagged it again, but it still leaked. Do you have paper towels?" I asked.

"Look behind you," she said.

I looked behind me. There were no paper towels. I grabbed a plastic bag and tried to use that to wipe up my reusable bags (this kind of deletes the point of the reusable fabric bags, I think) and it didn't work. Clerk sighed.

Clerk yelled, "Does anyone have paper towels?"

She went in the bathroom and got some there.  We wiped things. She glared at me and I just sort of smiled at her. She did not smile back.

I can NOT wait to be a vegetarian.
 

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

No seriously . . . it is Friday!

When you are sick you sort of lose track of the week, I guess.

So, when I was in Austin, my publisher put me up in a hotel, which I totally didn't have to pay for. YAY!

It was this hotel.....


Turns out that hotel? Haunted. How haunted? Totally haunted.
Here's a link to a documentary about it.



Of course I didn't know any of this coolness at the time. Sigh. Or I would have bought an EMF reader or something.



And in my own hotel room I:

1. Had incidents with my clock radio
2. Experienced my first ever cold spot.
3. Watched as the battery in my computer, phone and camera drained ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
4. Felt someone pet my head over and over again all night long.
5. Opened the hallway door and saw a bride down the corridor turning the corner. Note: this could have been a real bride and not a ghost bride. Actually I assumed it was a real bride until the next morning when I heard about all the ghost bride sightings.

It was so funny because when I checked out, the hotel clerk asked how my stay was and I told her, "Um... It was kind of weird, but in a good way."

She looked at the other person behind the front desk and said, "Oh, you were haunted. Let me give this to you."

She then gave me two stapled sheets about how the hotel was haunted.

I want to go back now.

Do you have any good ghost stories? I adore ghost stories. Or anything even remotely creepy?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN !
 

 

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.