| LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest |
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| 01:15pm 05/11/2009 |
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The empire strikes backIn 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 againIf you're addicted to , ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) 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!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) 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 postcardsLast 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 weekIf 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!
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Read 152 - Post |
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| My religion |
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| 07:36pm 05/11/2009 |
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My religion: Every morning, think of the tie I want to wear, reach into a dark closet to the rack of fifty(-ish) ties, and pull one out. If it's the one I wanted, it is an Awesome Day and I am the Chosen One. Today is an Awesome Day. Black with gray flowers. Amen. |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| Kaboom! |
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| 04:42pm 05/11/2009 |
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Those of you who checked out my photos from the D-Day beaches in Normandy the other day might recall my mentioning a place called the Pointe du Hoc, and how I didn't take any pictures there because it was pouring rain. Well, Marjorie's dad sent me his pictures from the whole weekend, including some from the Pointe du Hoc, and there's this great, ridiculous one of me, Marjorie, and Jenny in a huge hole left by an Allied bomb in 1944. We're all wearing identical windbreakers; they were promotional items from M's dad's company, which he brought to protect us all against Normandy's notoriously rainy Autumn weather.
Haha, I wish you could feel the wind and rain we were studiously ignoring in order to have fun out there. I'd brought my good umbrella but the second I opened the thing it immediately turned inside out and broke! At least in the bomb hole there was a little less wind. Immediately after this was taken, Marjorie an I climbed out of the hole as fast as we could, stranding Jenny; the sides were a lot steeper than they look here, not to mention slippery with mud. I think she's still there.
In other news, I have a bunch of fun new stuff up on Cool Stuff in Paris:
Recent articles:
Recent blog posts:
I've also created a LiveJournal syndication of the Cool Stuff in Paris blog if you'd like to add it. It's here: coolstuffparis. It's not ideal in that it seems to only update every 24 hours or so, rather than in real time, but it's still a good way to keep up with my Cool Stuff blog if you don't feel like following it on Blogspot or adding it to your rss reader.
How're you? |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| A boy and his (robo-)dog |
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| 12:32pm 03/11/2009 |
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I have a new illustration up on the splash page of the site for FreeMarket, a new game that's in the works at Memento Mori Theatricks.
I've actually done about a half a dozen color illustrations for this project, and I'll post the rest of them here once the game is out; I'm pretty excited about a few of 'em. |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| My weekend at Omaha Beach in Normandy |
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| 01:06pm 02/11/2009 |
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For Halloween weekend, Marjorie's dad happened to be visiting Paris from La Réunion, so he and Marjorie and her two sisters and I rented a car and drove up to Normandy to see a bunch of historic sites from the D-Day invasion. We saw Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery there, slept in a hotel where President Eisenhower himself stayed after WW2, played in some real Nazi bunkers, saw a couple D-Day museums, and enjoyed a tremendous amount of good Normandy food (and drink!): seafood, crepes, cheese, wine, calvados, et cetera. Here are some pictures from the weekend...
A nice Spanish fellow offered to take our picture. That's me, Pascal, Marjorie, Jenny, and Deb.
( Tons of pictures; Omaha Beach, museums, bunkers, etc... ) |
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Read 13 - Post |
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| Network Maintenance - Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 04:00-05:00 GMT/UTC |
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| 05:17pm 30/10/2009 |
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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 ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) 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.
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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 |
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Read 50 - Post |
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| The Halloween Comics That Wouldn't Die |
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| 08:38pm 30/10/2009 |
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Did you know I drew a whole lot of short Halloween comics back in the day? calamityjon wrote about 'em here (be sure to admire his pumpkins, if you know what I mean), and there are links to even more of them on my Comics page on my site.
Happy Halloween some more! |
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! |
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| 10:53am 29/10/2009 |
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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 searchSome 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 edgeSeveral 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 BlockHere 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?- 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.
- 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.
- This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
- 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 ...
- Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
- 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.
- 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.
- I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
- 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...
- 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 weekWe 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 weekWe 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!
CurtainsThanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week. |
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Read 693 - Post |
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| This is (not) Halloween |
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| 12:46pm 29/10/2009 |
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A lot of folks have been asking me what I'll be doing for Halloween this year, and the answer is: not much! And: A lot!
This will actually be the first Halloween I'll be spending in France, believe it or not; I've been pretty good about getting back to the States for Halloween parties and other events in recent years. And it'll be just my second Halloween in Europe; I spent Halloween 2005 in Transylvania, with hopes of visiting Cetatea Poenari — Vlad the Impaler's castle — but ended up getting very sick and having no choice but to cut the trip short (don't worry; I went back and saw the castle the next year). Every other year of my life, I can tell you exactly where I was — and more importantly, what I was wearing! — on Halloween. I'm really sad to miss out on American Halloween this year, and to not be working on a costume right now. But try as I might, I haven't been able to find any decent substitutes in France; they just don't celebrate the holiday at all here, not in any way that seems fun or spooky or worthwhile. I covered all of this in my article about Halloween in Paris on my Cool Stuff in Paris site.
So, completely unrelatedly, Marjorie's dad is visiting Paris right now, and he and his three daughters and I are renting a car and driving up to Normandy this weekend. Marjorie's dad is a huge fan of WWII history, and we're going to visit Omaha Beach and some other sites of the D-Day invasion, and check out a WWII museum or two. I've been up to the D-Day beaches before, but I'm looking forward to being there again, and I'm always up for any excuse for a road trip! I wonder if knowing it's Halloween will lend anything spooky to the atmosphere; I'll definitely keep my eyes open for Nazi ghosts!
I posted a few barely-related Halloween things in my Cool Stuff in Paris site and blog this week:
... And a not at all Halloween-related article about getting the most out of the Louvre.
As you can see, I've been super busy getting the Cool Stuff website up and running in the last couple weeks, and as a result I've been very quiet on LiveJournal. As I'm finally getting enough content into the site now where I no longer feel embarrassed at how empty it is, I'll soon have a lot more time to write here. I'll definitely have some D-Day beach photos to show by early next week, at the very least.
Happy Halloween, everybody! Wish I were there! |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| no subject |
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| 02:55pm 26/10/2009 |
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I think the dead are a vast untapped resource. Haunting a place seems like a much more energy efficient form of air conditioning. |
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Read 11 - Post |
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| Spooky crows at the Cimetière de Montmartre! |
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| 10:51pm 26/10/2009 |
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I was taking some photos at the Cimetière de Montmartre just before sundown this evening, when suddenly a small murder of crows (wow, how often do I get to say that?) alit on some tombs right next to me! Talk about creepy! Finally, there's the Halloween vibe I've been desperately searching for over here. Unfortunately the photo's no good with the sunset in the background, which I realized at the time, but I couldn't resist at least trying. |
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Read 12 - Post |
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| 34 |
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| 07:30pm 24/10/2009 |
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Thanks for all my great jpg-formatted birthday presents yesterday, everybody!
Here's the first picture of me at age 34, last night just before heading out to the Mysteries of Paris Ghost Tour. It was fun! |
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