Folks,
Just a quick note. I just updated a bunch of plugins and completed setting up the new CDN. I’m now going to make the change in our DNS entries to support the new CDN configuration. This should be transparent to everyone, but I wanted to mention it now, before I do anything. I will give this post a bit to be read before I pull the trigger.
I re-enabled the inline Edit Comment function, let’s hope it behaves.
On a non-site topic, the new iOS 12 seems much faster on my 6s+ as well as on the family iPads. I haven’t yet loaded it on my old 5s, but I hear tell that it’s zippy even on that ancient hardware. Apparently, Apple’s focus on performance was successful. Huzzah!
Have a good morning, everybody!
ETA: Sorry to hear about the A/C, John. I’ve not yet faced that dreaded event, but had to put a new roof after only three years owning a house (and that after like $2000 on repairs and patching in the prior 8 months which made it hurt even more).
Amir Khalid
I couldn’t see an edit button on the last page. Right now I cn’t even see any formatting at all on the site.
The Dangerman
Oh, THAT’S worth a test.
The Dangerman
Fail.
Alain the site fixer
And all I was turn it on. Now the reply button is doubling and missing. WTF. Come on, world, gimme a bone.
MattF
The ‘Edit’ function doesn’t seem to be quite stable– I’ve seen it and then not seen it.
ETA: And there it is.
Alain the site fixer
Sorry folks edit is going away. Something is just wrong.
Alain the site fixer
I’ll try to find a solution but not right now.
Alain the site fixer
Ok, have to let the cache rebuild because the reply button is still borked. I’m going to step away for a bit, let things settle down, and then if it’s still malfunctioning, start pulling my hair out. This was supposed to be a quick side-task compared to the CDN. Ugh.
Amir Khalid
I remember how the original Star Wars trilogy always had moments where Chewie and Han would be arguing about some problem or other with the Millennium Falcon.
Alain the site fixer
@Amir Khalid: Imagine that happening in one head, with another voice, “the boss”, yelling at both of them to figure the shit out. And that’s all on me, not John, I’m not pointing a finger at all.
Ok, so I’m going to re-enable the Edit Comments, flush and rebuild the cache, step away for 15 minutes, and then switch on the CDN. Hopefully it will all sync and things will be speedier for all and much less taxing on the server.
Another Scott
Thanks for all you do here, Alain.
Testing, testing, testaroo….
Cheers,
Scott.
TomatoQueen
Edit, edit, who wants an edit button. Just type slowly.
different-church-lady
I’m looking forward to the new iOS 12 feature that prevents everyone from getting through to me.
different-church-lady
@Alain the site fixer:
Yeah, tell me about it…
dnfree
On Windows 10, Firefox, I just have the text version of the site.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
The site is really hosed…it’s displaying like a old fashioned text only site (and I checked it in both IE and Chrome).
Alain, I’m a web developer so I understand your pain. We do really appreciate you!!!!
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: while in the background, C3PO talks about how we’re all going to die…
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
These new changes suck ass! I hate them, all of them, even if I can’t even tell what they are! I want this site to go back to what it was like in 2005, God damn it! And get the hell off my grass, you damned hoodlums!
different-church-lady
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Yeah, I never thought I’d miss GWB either…
different-church-lady
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Actually, this is more like what the site would have been like in 1995.
different-church-lady
This is fun: it’s like driving to work while your mechanic is working on the engine!
ruemara
Well, I like the retro look. All we need are autoplay music and Blingee gifs
ruemara
I have to laugh that the fucking popout ad comes up fine in all it’s 2018 glory. CAPITALISM WILL NOT BE DENIED!
different-church-lady
@ruemara: https://media.giphy.com/media/IB9foBA4PVkKA/giphy.gif
gvg
Looks normal on my old android phone. Even has my nym saved and I haven’t commented on my phone in weeks.
Gelfling 545
I put iOS 12 on my old 5s this morning. It’s pretty zippy.
Testing edit.
Ok. That worked.
gvg
I see an edit button too. Nym saved
RobertDSC-iPhone 6
Alain, can you shed some light on my issue with the mobile theme?
Whenever I access this site, the temperature of the phone rises and the battery power drops considerably. This phenomenon only happens with this site. I am using Safari on a iPhone 6 with iOS 11.4.1. Thank you.
PS: there is no way I can tell how to switch to the desktop version of the site.
Gravenstone
@ruemara: Have you always been evil, or are you just upping your game today?
J R in WV
I do not see the photos on the On the Road segment, with neither Crhomium nor Firefox. Plus text only format, a gasp from the past.
A shame, in my memory, they are pretty good pictures.
Major Major Major Major
@RobertDSC-iPhone 6: there is only the desktop version of the site. Your phone probably heats up due to… ads?
@ruemara: maybe a spinning globe
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: When I use Safari, it frequently gives me the “too much energy” warning, and when I use Firefox the loading wheel never stops spinning. Been like this forever. I’m holding hope it resolves itself when you’re done with all the modernization.
dmsilev
@Alain the site fixer:
Have you tried diverting all power to the main deflector dish? That usually works on Star Trek.
Aleta
@J R in WV:
Your photos are still up on macbook safari os sierra. Thank you for what you wrote btw. Love your writing.
Alain,
Everything seems fine.
(In case it helps: 1.6 GHz Intel, 8 Gb, Intel graphics 6000)
Thanks.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: “Never tell me the odds!”
Yay! I can fix shit now!
Aleta
@Aleta: OS Sierra 10.12.4
piratedan
nice to see you guys being proactive and up front about this, if only our current government worked in the same fashion…..
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: I do prefer reversing the polarity of the neutron flow myself.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: You know, of course, why neutrons are called neutrons.
Alain the site fixer
@RobertDSC-iPhone 6: send me an email and let’s do some private testing. [email protected]
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: you know, of course, that it’s a classic piece of sci-fi technobabble going back to the Third Doctor… for a reason.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
Test
***
Edit seems to work. Now let’s see if it will remember my nym and email for more than 30 minutes.
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: it shouldn’t because the video ads don’t show on the sidebar. It is strange. I’ve found no hint of a miner or something and I’ve seen it take over machine in Edge browser. I opened one tab, left it for approx 1.5 hours and pc was unusable crazy cpu and memory usage, loud fan cooling, until I closed it from Task Manager.
ETA: I was not logged in, so I was a “normal user”.
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: Anything in the javascript console?
I mean, it literally has to be the ads or a rogue plugin.
TEL
testing
scav
Never can resist these sort of events . . .
ETA: let alone test out all the features!
ETAETA: wheeeeee!!!
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: One of the perks of my line of work is that I have, no fooling, actually reversed the polarity of a neutron flow.
(spin polarization of a neutron beam. Easy enough to do with the right sort of magnet, and useful for certain types of magnetic measurements on some materials)
scav
@dmsilev: You are totally sonicked.
chris
Seems fine on my Android 8.1 phone. Text only on Linux/Chrome desktop.
ETA edit. Yay! (On phone)
hafabee
text only win10 chrome
hafabee
@hafabee: no edit available, but did remember nym/email.
chris
@chris: Desktop test.
Seeing two comment numbers, i.e. 49.49, and Reply Reply. no clue…
Doug R
…so I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days?
Doug R
@dmsilev:
Nothing you can do now but eject the warpcore and hope the resulting explosion blows you clear.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@chris: Same here, phone is fine. Desktop is text only.
J R in WV
Wahhhh!!!!
I really wanted to see those epics!!!
Glad some of us got to see them, expect I will be able to — some day over the rainbow.
The Lodger
@scav: He’s a hedgehog?
Major Major Major Major
Yep, after a hard reload, no static files for me–403 on cdn content.
Martin
Regarding iOS 12, Apple had an interesting announcement regarding that (from an analyst I follow) from Lisa Jackson (Obama’s EPA chief who is Apple’s Vice President Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives)
Obviously the proof is in the pudding here, but iOS 12 seems like a good start. I’ll also add that while I’m confident Jackson is laying this out as a social imperative for Apple, Apple has other motives as well. In the smartphone space, you have a handful of models across vendors at the high end (>$500) and a shit-ton of models below that. Apple pretty much owns the high end, with Galaxy S holding a sizable minority share, at least in the US. Apple doesn’t even play in the <$500 category, nor can they really compete with $30 phones coming out of China or India. So Apple is looking to change the rules of the game – price per day of use. For at least the last 10 years, Apple has priced their flagship products at about $1/day. Assuming 2 years for iPhone puts it at $700. Same for iPad up to 3 years for the Pro. Macs should last 3 years. Of course you can spend more, but those are convenience choices, not cost to entry. This looks to me like a deliberate plan to go for higher average selling prices in exchange for longer lifespan (a 3 year default for iPhone would allow Apple to price it at $1000) and use the higher base price as way to push the capabilities of the phone – better materials, components, etc. The new phone lineup reflects that.
Not sure if it'll work or not, but they have a number of things working in its favor. Hopefully they can extend the longevity of their devices, and it'd be nice to see their recycle program expand significantly. That they're investing in robotics to do disassembly is pretty cool. I certainly wouldn’t mind a national policy that companies that deploy robots for assembly be required to deploy robots for disassembly and recycle where appropriate.
The Lodger
@The Lodger: Referring to dmsilev. No edit for me. Also no nym/email but Chrome will fill in the empty boxes properly if I click them.
Keith P.
@Doug R: Or just separate the dish entirely and go build a new ship.
TomatoQueen
The last ad at the bottom of the screen is for a giant wad of money.
scav
@The Lodger: That regeneration would indeed get some fans in a tizzy.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Style sheets and images aren’t coming down. Getting 403 errors.
Mary G
It looks fine to me, which must drive you crazy. Nym not sticking, but Autofill only takes a couple of clicks.
Aleta
Readability just improved a lot.
Some squirrelly-ness, + maybe it’s not here to stay, but it’s very attractive and easy on the brain.
tybee
text only but it is snappy. :)
Aleta
@Martin: Hey thanks for this.
Timurid
I’m just here waiting for the mushroom/Mario Kart thread…
Gelfling 545
@Timurid: Jusr remember, what has been seen/read cannot be unseen.
Uncle Cosmo
Well,isn’t this interesting – font is now TNR, all the Taboola boolashitta is at the end full page wide, no navigation buttons.
Martin
@Timurid: Yeah, who knew Toad’s backstory was that he’s Trump’s ambulatory dick?
satby
Testing
Yay edit!!!
Cheryl Rofer
Looks good from my desktop Chrome browser.
TenguPhule
Get R2D2 to reconnect the hyperdrive motivater back to the main computer.
TenguPhule
@satby:
Great, you released the weasels who were powering the site and now they’re running loose and now the site doesn’t have lightspeed again.
catclub
also text only on my linux firefox desktop
terrible
catclub
bloomberg also appears as text only for me.
I can check on windows and it is fine. WTF
Leto
@Amir Khalid: @Yutsano: “It’s not my fault!” – Alain and M4 (I’ll let them figure out who’s the walking carpet)
WhatsMyNym
Text only with Firefox on windows 7 pro.
On Chrome images show up, but it wants to load every post ever done, with ads and images. So it will never complete loading.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Alain, I assume you prioritize bug reports. This one is probably a Category 4 (Cat 1 being “Red Alert! Battle Stations!’ and Cat 3 being “I’ll do that after I feed the cat, if I still feel like it”). I have no left margin on Safari on the desktop computer (Mac mini). Not losing any content on the left, so it’s not even causing any problem. Just looks weird.
Just checked Safari on the MacAir laptop, same no-margin issue.
Safari on the mobile site is fine.
Aleta
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Same, also Safari. Macbook.
(Generally squirrely for now.)
Origuy
I was seeing the doubled Reply button, on Chrome. I just pressed CTRL-F5, which refreshed the page but was missing the CSS. I closed the tab and reopened BJ. Now it looks ok. Didn’t save my nym, though.
catclub
@catclub: replacing adblock plus with uBlock origin seemed to fix the problem
WhatsMyNym
Much better with Firefox on windows 7 pro.
Aleta
Wow nice. Testing
Aleta
testing 1 2
Aleta
testing 1
Aleta
x
Princess
FWIW when I clicked to the site, Safari gave me a warning that the site I was going to might be fake and trying to imitate balloon-juice.com and would steal all my data and my first born and my cats and made me swear in blood that I really, really wanted to ere anyway before it would let me through.
Princess
I am using Safari on a MacBook Pro.
Chetan Murthy
Alain,
There seems to be something borked in the security setup. Here’s what I get on my Chromebook (unmodified, working 100% as Google desires):
Cheers,
chet
waratah
I just updated iOS 12 on my iPhone 6plus and safari does not like BJ. I had to go through there warning before I was able to access the site. That is how much I trust you Alain.
Elie
My laptop is giving me a message that this site is not secure. What gives?
debbie
@Elie:
Me too. It’s scary — Make it stop!
BKinNC
I got that security warning on my Kindle Silk browser too.
Haroldo
@Chetan Murthy: Ditto, but that now seems to be a thing of the past, thank heavens.
trnc
@Chetan Murthy: Yup, I get the cert warning, too.
suezboo
Oh, Princess et al, I was just coming to whinge about the same thing. Earlier, on my desktop Windows7/Chrome setup. the security system would not let me in at all. I did all the suggestions to fix it but to no avail. Nevertheless, I persisted and here I am hours later.
suezboo
Aw, rats, no edit. I wanted to add Thanks, Alain, you are my hero.