I have a couple of suggestions regarding the commenting infrastructure.
First of all, I would like to see ongoing support for cuneiform, just like the good old days.
Also, having a requirement for comments to be sent with SASE could give the stamp collecting subject matter a big boost.
DaveC
Hallelujah! So many thanks to Michael, lj, Janie and anybody else who was involved. Days without a check in to ObWi felt weird - I'm so very glad it's back!
Hey Hartmut, glad you made it! If you can find that post in the wayback machine ( http://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/obsidianwings.blogs.com ) and take a screenshot, I can see if it didn't get transferred over or what.
According to Gemini, the default allowed tags are usually the following:
anchor, blockquote, strong or b for bold, em or i for italic and a couple of others.
I noticed that in the archive the post on proving citizenship when faced with ICE seems to be missing.
I wanted to post this from maddowblog there but found all comments sections closed before thw whole site got reduced to just the blog header.
* A U.S. citizen detained by ICE for three days tells his story: “George Retes is a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served a tour in Iraq. On July 10, while on his way to work as a security guard at a Southern California cannabis farm, he was detained by federal immigration agents, despite telling them that he is an American citizen and that his wallet and identification were in his nearby car, Retes told me. While arresting him, the agents knelt on his back and his neck, he said, making it difficult for him to breathe. Held in a jail cell for three days and nights, he was not allowed to make a phone call, see an attorney, appear before a judge, or take a shower to wash off pepper spray and tear gas that the agents had used, according to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that is representing Retes.”
We really need to bring GIGO back into daily conversation and peoples' general awareness.
Not just the concept that original premises shape the reliability of output from the very start, but a concept of being extremely skeptical about the reliability of any information that really turns your crank.
I just watched a video where the watchlist was referenced. Since I hadn't paid much attention to him before, I may be influenced by some post-death whitewashing.
Hollywood star or celebrity (Robin Williams seemed to have been a favorite) took time out of their schedule and ‘outside the glare of the spotlights’, carried out some profoundly charitable action.
I've encountered such "just so" stories on YouTube. Recently, there's been a spate of AI-narrated videos on the Axis prisoners of war experiences in POW camps in the U.S. during and after WWII.
I hadn't paid much attention to Charlie Kirk. While I didn't agree with many of his ideas and policies, he seemed to be an open and honest advocate for them. He appeared to be all in on freedom of speech, unlike the many freedom of speech hypocrites on the Right.
I've been seeing stories of people using local electric grids being overwhelmed because someone set up an AI (LLM) data center in the area. They are incredible users of electricity. "HighYield x SemiAnalysis deep-dive into AI Datacenters, Gigawatt Megaclusters and the Hyperscaler race to AGI. How AI Datacenters Eat the World." How AI Datacenters Eat the World
By the way, I should have said: I very strongly support the continued front-paging of the Andrew Olmsted stuff. Even though I first started reading after his time (probably 2008 - hilzoy was still around for quite a while) I read every single thread about him that the front page memorialises, and it seemed (and seems) to me that he, what he represented and the relationship that e.g. hilzoy in particular had with him, was a clue to the intrinsic character of the best of ObWi. So that would be my vote, FWIW.
Spam filters are part of each hosting service's "secret sauce". Wherever we end up, I can pretty much guarantee that legitimate comments will still go into spam, but for a different set of unknown reasons.
lj: thanks for the update. Sounds good.
Michael: thanks! Also, buckwheat pillow arriving tomorrow - here's hoping.
wj: whenever anything of mine goes into spam, if it's important I always post a request for retrieval here, so no need for apology to me!
Barely on topic:
I have been remiss. I just went and discovered that we had stuff in the Spam folder dating back to June! I have, for what little it is worth, cleared that up. Apologies to Charles, russell, Hartmut, GftNC, etc.
Hoping to do better going forward (wherever we go)
GftNC, updating my archive takes minutes and can be done right up until Typepad shuts the servers down. No real reason to stop posting and/or commenting yet. Most convenient timing might be when lj decides he's ready to move the last several posts and comments to the new site; I can update my archive and provide him with a file with those posts/comments that WP will import.
Just a thought, that if the archive site is also WordPress, all WP sites require some amount of ongoing maintenance even if the content doesn't. That's just the way WP has set things up. At some point, one or more of the WP version, the PHP version, the theme version, or the widgets version will get out of whack and the site will just stop running.
Each of the long-running blogs I follow that run on WP eventually puts up a post saying, "We have to upgrade. Sh*t will be broken."
WP's current import function appears to be robust enough that loading the old content is just tedious, not difficult. And can be done after the new site is running.
Here's the current rough plan
-Going to set up a new site with wordpress after I finish a conference presentation next weekend.
-We will make a second archive site with all the old content, but not be interactive in anyway.
After the new site is up, I'll copy any posts that we make at either site to both sites. The posts here will have the comments closed and a note to go to the new site, so anything going up in the last half of sept will be here, but you'll need to go to the new site to comment.
This way, we can get the site up and not rush migrating the old data, as well as avoiding the problems of integrating everything. This means that we might lose the last few comments here, but this seems like the least fuss. We could also go back and import some key posts or link to them on the front page. I'm thinking particularly of Andrew's last post, but there may be other important ones we want to bring forward.
Also, thanks for all the generous offers of financial support, but it is more of a pain dealing with the problems of international money transfer (along with the added scrutiny, believe it or not), but when I get the site up, I will ask regular commenters to consider making a post with their favorite topic or their introduction/interesting story to populate the blog with some content and discussion. It's not required, but it will be helpful.
Should we be commenting as little as possible to keep your newest version up to date before we find out where we are migrating to, Michael? (Or does this make zero sense, which would be unsurprising given my ignorance of this whole subject?)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Excelsior!”
Iirc it was the post right before "What to do?" but the wayback machine's last entry is for Aug 23, and it was later than that
"
I have a couple of suggestions regarding the commenting infrastructure.
First of all, I would like to see ongoing support for cuneiform, just like the good old days.
Also, having a requirement for comments to be sent with SASE could give the stamp collecting subject matter a big boost.
DaveC
On “What to do?”
Hallelujah! So many thanks to Michael, lj, Janie and anybody else who was involved. Days without a check in to ObWi felt weird - I'm so very glad it's back!
On “Excelsior!”
Hey Hartmut, glad you made it! If you can find that post in the wayback machine ( http://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/obsidianwings.blogs.com ) and take a screenshot, I can see if it didn't get transferred over or what.
According to Gemini, the default allowed tags are usually the following:
anchor, blockquote, strong or b for bold, em or i for italic and a couple of others.
"
Hi!
Fortunately lj still had my email adress.
I noticed that in the archive the post on proving citizenship when faced with ICE seems to be missing.
I wanted to post this from maddowblog there but found all comments sections closed before thw whole site got reduced to just the blog header.
* A U.S. citizen detained by ICE for three days tells his story: “George Retes is a 25-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served a tour in Iraq. On July 10, while on his way to work as a security guard at a Southern California cannabis farm, he was detained by federal immigration agents, despite telling them that he is an American citizen and that his wallet and identification were in his nearby car, Retes told me. While arresting him, the agents knelt on his back and his neck, he said, making it difficult for him to breathe. Held in a jail cell for three days and nights, he was not allowed to make a phone call, see an attorney, appear before a judge, or take a shower to wash off pepper spray and tear gas that the agents had used, according to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that is representing Retes.”
Btw, how do tags work here? Still >/>?
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
We really need to bring GIGO back into daily conversation and peoples' general awareness.
Not just the concept that original premises shape the reliability of output from the very start, but a concept of being extremely skeptical about the reliability of any information that really turns your crank.
On “Excelsior!”
Hi, lj!
I just got your email with the links to the archive and this new site.
Many, many - oh, a googolplex! - of thanks for preserving and continuing ObWi!
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
I just watched a video where the watchlist was referenced. Since I hadn't paid much attention to him before, I may be influenced by some post-death whitewashing.
"
I'm not so sure about that Charles. He got his start with a watchlist against university professors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Watchlist
The watchlist is still up.
"
Hollywood star or celebrity (Robin Williams seemed to have been a favorite) took time out of their schedule and ‘outside the glare of the spotlights’, carried out some profoundly charitable action.
I've encountered such "just so" stories on YouTube. Recently, there's been a spate of AI-narrated videos on the Axis prisoners of war experiences in POW camps in the U.S. during and after WWII.
I hadn't paid much attention to Charlie Kirk. While I didn't agree with many of his ideas and policies, he seemed to be an open and honest advocate for them. He appeared to be all in on freedom of speech, unlike the many freedom of speech hypocrites on the Right.
On “What to do?”
Woot!!! We made it!!
Huge props to Michael Cain especially, also to wj, LJ, and Janie for making this happen.
Thank you all!!
"
Looks like most of Andrew's stuff can at least be found on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Maybe change the links to Archive permalinks?
"
GftNC, most of the Olmsted links are dead, or will be come Sep 30. Some maintenance will be required.
On “I’m forever blowing bubbles”
I've been seeing stories of people using local electric grids being overwhelmed because someone set up an AI (LLM) data center in the area. They are incredible users of electricity.
"HighYield x SemiAnalysis deep-dive into AI Datacenters, Gigawatt Megaclusters and the Hyperscaler race to AGI. How AI Datacenters Eat the World."
How AI Datacenters Eat the World
On “What to do?”
By the way, I should have said: I very strongly support the continued front-paging of the Andrew Olmsted stuff. Even though I first started reading after his time (probably 2008 - hilzoy was still around for quite a while) I read every single thread about him that the front page memorialises, and it seemed (and seems) to me that he, what he represented and the relationship that e.g. hilzoy in particular had with him, was a clue to the intrinsic character of the best of ObWi. So that would be my vote, FWIW.
"
So, adversarial AI training, out in the wild. What could possibly go wrong?
"
If AI was real and ready for prime time, 95% of the spam would come from AI.
You know it's true.
"
If AI was real and ready for prime time, spam filters would work a whole lot better than they demonstrably do.
"
Spam filters are part of each hosting service's "secret sauce". Wherever we end up, I can pretty much guarantee that legitimate comments will still go into spam, but for a different set of unknown reasons.
"
lj: thanks for the update. Sounds good.
Michael: thanks! Also, buckwheat pillow arriving tomorrow - here's hoping.
wj: whenever anything of mine goes into spam, if it's important I always post a request for retrieval here, so no need for apology to me!
"
Barely on topic:
I have been remiss. I just went and discovered that we had stuff in the Spam folder dating back to June! I have, for what little it is worth, cleared that up. Apologies to Charles, russell, Hartmut, GftNC, etc.
Hoping to do better going forward (wherever we go)
"
GftNC, updating my archive takes minutes and can be done right up until Typepad shuts the servers down. No real reason to stop posting and/or commenting yet. Most convenient timing might be when lj decides he's ready to move the last several posts and comments to the new site; I can update my archive and provide him with a file with those posts/comments that WP will import.
"
Just a thought, that if the archive site is also WordPress, all WP sites require some amount of ongoing maintenance even if the content doesn't. That's just the way WP has set things up. At some point, one or more of the WP version, the PHP version, the theme version, or the widgets version will get out of whack and the site will just stop running.
Each of the long-running blogs I follow that run on WP eventually puts up a post saying, "We have to upgrade. Sh*t will be broken."
WP's current import function appears to be robust enough that loading the old content is just tedious, not difficult. And can be done after the new site is running.
"
Here's the current rough plan
-Going to set up a new site with wordpress after I finish a conference presentation next weekend.
-We will make a second archive site with all the old content, but not be interactive in anyway.
After the new site is up, I'll copy any posts that we make at either site to both sites. The posts here will have the comments closed and a note to go to the new site, so anything going up in the last half of sept will be here, but you'll need to go to the new site to comment.
This way, we can get the site up and not rush migrating the old data, as well as avoiding the problems of integrating everything. This means that we might lose the last few comments here, but this seems like the least fuss. We could also go back and import some key posts or link to them on the front page. I'm thinking particularly of Andrew's last post, but there may be other important ones we want to bring forward.
Also, thanks for all the generous offers of financial support, but it is more of a pain dealing with the problems of international money transfer (along with the added scrutiny, believe it or not), but when I get the site up, I will ask regular commenters to consider making a post with their favorite topic or their introduction/interesting story to populate the blog with some content and discussion. It's not required, but it will be helpful.
"
Should we be commenting as little as possible to keep your newest version up to date before we find out where we are migrating to, Michael? (Or does this make zero sense, which would be unsurprising given my ignorance of this whole subject?)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.