Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

This blog will pay for itself.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The words do not have to be perfect.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

The lights are all blinking red.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

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Site Updates

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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).

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    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.

  4. 4.

    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.

  5. 5.

    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.

  8. 8.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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.

  10. 10.

    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.

  13. 13.

    different-church-lady

    I’m looking forward to the new iOS 12 feature that prevents everyone from getting through to me.

  16. 16.

    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!!!!

  23. 23.

    ruemara

    I have to laugh that the fucking popout ad comes up fine in all it’s 2018 glory. CAPITALISM WILL NOT BE DENIED!

  28. 28.

    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.

  30. 30.

    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.

  32. 32.

    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.

  34. 34.

    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.

  37. 37.

    piratedan

    nice to see you guys being proactive and up front about this, if only our current government worked in the same fashion…..

  42. 42.

    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.

  43. 43.

    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”.

  47. 47.

    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)

  54. 54.

    Doug R

    @dmsilev:

    Have you tried diverting all power to the main deflector dish? That usually works on Star Trek.

    Nothing you can do now but eject the warpcore and hope the resulting explosion blows you clear.

  56. 56.

    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.

  59. 59.

    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)

    She laid out a goal for Apple to eliminate the need to mine new materials from the Earth.

    She said that to reach that goal Apple will have to do three things:

    1) Sourcing recycled or renewable materials for all products.
    2) Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible.
    3) After a long life of use, ensure that they are recycled properly.

    To emphasize the second point she said Apple now strives to design and build durable products that last as long as possible. That means long-lasting hardware coupled with long-lasting software. She pointed out that iOS 12 runs even on iPhone 5S, now five years old. Because iPhones last longer, you can keep using them or pass them on to someone who will continue to use them after you upgrade.

    She said that “keeping iPhones in use” is the best thing for the planet.

    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.

  65. 65.

    Mary G

    It looks fine to me, which must drive you crazy. Nym not sticking, but Autofill only takes a couple of clicks.

  66. 66.

    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.

  71. 71.

    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.

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    Something is just wrong.

    Get R2D2 to reconnect the hyperdrive motivater back to the main computer.

  76. 76.

    TenguPhule

    @satby:

    Testing
    Yay edit!!!

    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.

  80. 80.

    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.

  81. 81.

    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.

  83. 83.

    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.

  90. 90.

    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.

  92. 92.

    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):

    This server could not prove that it is http://www.balloon-juice.com; its security certificate is from *.ssl.hwcdn.net. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.

    Cheers,
    chet

  93. 93.

    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.

  99. 99.

    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.

Comments are closed.