Monday, December 8, 2014

Upcoming downtime

I'm considering doing the proposed re-install maybe around new-years, or the following weekend. I'll post a maintenance banner in the site's place when I do, but that will likely be the earliest.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Content

When I do the upcoming blog redesign, the content will temporarily go away as well, as I plan on re-organize some of it into separate blogs with new URL's (for instance, Abuse of Authority and Ghosts of Ohio). LGPedia will also be unavailable during this time as well.

My game plan is as follows:


  • Back up the current LGpedia database and file structure.

  • Back up the current blog database.

  • Export the blog posts.

  • Note the installed Wordpress plugins.

  • Back up the installed Wordpress themes.

  • Save any custom php code.

  • Wipe the entire site.

  • Remove LGpedia's DNS entries and sub-folder.

  • Install Wordpress and enable multi-site.

  • Set up LGpedia in Wordpress multi-site.

  • Restore LGpedia database.

  • Upload LGpedia files.

  • Install WPMW (or similar).

  • Re-upload Wordpress themes.

  • Set up additional blogs.

  • Import specific content to additional blogs.

  • Import the remainder to main blog.

  • Restore any custom php code.

  • Set up previous plugins.

  • Add social-networking plugins.

  • Open up multi-site for user-created blogs.



Some notes regarding LGpedia:

  • I am planning on setting up a "blog" for for any news specific to LGpedia.

  • I am removing the DNS entry for it, as the wildcard DNS required by Wordpress multi-site will handle it.

  • Editing will be enabled, and controlled via Wordpress login.


It will probably be a couple of weeks before I pull the trigger, and can hopefully accomplish everything in one night.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Monday, November 24, 2014

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Removed forums, chat and wiki

I've just started the site redesign, and my first steps have been to remove forums, chat, and the non-LGPedia wiki. It looks like the way things are configured, the Wiki showed up under ever single site, anyhow. Will look at integrating LGPedia into the rest of the site at some point in the future. For now, I'm trying to separate content without breaking things too badly. Since I have used Categories wisely, at least in specific use-cases, this may be simply a matter of exporting specific categories and then importing the results in a new site on the network. I may have to clean up some links afterwards, but that should be simply enough :)

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Site redesign coming (again)

I may have mentioned this previously, but I have decided to do another site redesign. This time around, I'll be keeping all current content, but using the multi-site capabilities of Wordpress to break some items off to their own sub-domain. I also plan on dropping phpBB (and possibly enabling some WP-specific forum plugin, if forums are needed at all), and making LGpedia a more permanent part of the site (but still at its current URL), since it is becoming painfully obvious that the official one is unlikely to ever come back. This will likely involve a re-install of everything, just to clean things up a bit. Hopefully, this will also fix the reported speed issues that only appear to intermittently impact LGpedia.

Some ideas:


  • LGpedia will get a Wordpress blog page for any news or updates, though the wiki will remain exactly where it's at. I'll likely unite the logins between the LGpedia blog and the actual wiki, or investigate converting the content to one of the many WP-Wiki plugins (this is less likely, as that would likely cause major speed issues)



  • Remove chat, as I don't believe it's used at all.



  • Ghosts of Ohio will become its own site, as will Abuse of Authority.


  • Additional subdomains for additional topics that I write at least simi-regularly on


  • The main blog will likely move to blog. instead of www. and www. will be more of a front page to all the sites. Speaking of which,


  • I may open up subdomains for user registration, as long as they follow certain guidelines.





Any other suggestions?

Thursday, September 4, 2014

LGpedia Issues

Picture 2 copyI am receiving reports from a couple of different sources about issues with LGpedia load times. I am unable to reproduce the issue myself (even image-heavy pages are loading within 3 seconds or so for me), and need help tracking down the issue. If you're experiencing problems with LGpedia, are you also experiencing problems with the rest of the site? Who is your ISP? Can you email me a traceroute (or tracert, depending on OS) to lgpedia.nitemarecafe.com while the issue is occuring for you? (wintermute AT nitemarecafe DOT com) This should help me track it down some, and rule out a saturated link or some-such.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Distro upgrades

I have a machine at home running Linux Mint 16 (Petra) that I decided to do an upgrade to 17 (Qiana), and what is it about Ubuntu and its derivatives that make doing an upgrade so difficult?! I've had Ubuntu itself break during upgrades before, and decided to quit using Ubuntu partially as a result. But I've had pretty good luck with Mint in the past, and, well, not so much any more. The networking is completely broken now. Not just wireless, but wired as well. ifconfig shows no network adapters other than loopback.

To be fair, I haven't had much of a chance to investigate to see if it's something incredibly simple, but if stuff like this keeps happening, I'm going back to a monolithic kernel and building everything from source ;)

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Site redesign coming soon

So, I've decided to redesign the website again. This time, I don't plan on removing any content, though I may shuffle it around a bit since I've enabled multi-site. Maybe do some topic-specific subdomains (ie, maybe a ghosts.nitemarecafe.com for the Ghosts of Ohio stuff, abuse.nitemarecafe.com for the Abuse of Authority stuff, etc). I might move the general blog to blog.nitemarecafe.com as well, but I'm not certain. Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone want their own subdomain to blog whatever they want? ;)

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

No, I will not remove your LGPedia entry

Picture 2 copyOK people! Listen up! Before you bother asking, no, I will NOT remove your LGPedia entry, and there are multiple reasons:

I do not run the official version of LGpedia, but simply an unofficial mirror of it. Miles Beckett keeps promising to put the original back online. Removing info from a mirror does not remove it from the original. Also, removing your information revises history, which I am 100% against. Finally, removing the link does not remove it from Google's cache or archive.org.

What I will be happy to do for you, though, is add the URL about you to robots.txt so that Google will drop the page from search results, and also remove it from Google's cache and archive.org's Wayback Machine. That is most likely what you're concerned about anyhow, correct? That a prospective employer will google you and not hire you based on the result found in LGpedia?

To do this, please send me a polite email (wintermute AT nitemarecafe DOT com) requesting that I add your entry to robots.txt, and please include the URL in question in the email so that I can easily locate you. Failure to do so may result in laziness on my part ;)

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.


- Walt Whitman

Monday, August 11, 2014

Multi-site?

So, I've enabled multi-site on Nitemare Cafe, so I can quickly develop additional subdomains using Wordpress without installing a new version for each subdomain. If anyone wants a blog of whatever.nitemarecafe.com, let me know.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Clara visited chat...

= 00:15:22 --> | camerafriend [ae655549@gateway/web/freenode/ip.174.1
01.85.73] has joined #StillAlive09
= 00:15:27 < camerafrien>| hello?
= 00:15:32 < wntrmute> | Hi!
= 00:15:37 < camerafrien>| hi
= 00:15:45 <-- | boryalic [~chatzilla@unaffiliated/boryalic] has quit
(Ping timeout: 260 seconds)
= 00:15:53 < wntrmute> | How's it going?
= 00:16:07 < camerafrien>| I'm exhausted but i thought i'd come in
= 00:16:38 < camerafrien>| talk to you guys a little bit
= 00:16:47 < camerafrien>| since i don't think PJ's going to for a while
= 00:16:51 < wntrmute> | OK... I'll be here all night.
= 00:17:07 < wntrmute> | Not sure who else is around...
= 00:17:08 < camerafrien>| wait, did you guys see the video?
= 00:17:12 < camerafrien>| it's not been up for very long
= 00:17:20 < wntrmute> | No...
= 00:17:23 < wntrmute> | Checking...
= 00:21:47 < camerafrien>| yeah
= 00:21:48 < camerafrien>| so
= 00:21:51 < camerafrien>| that happened
= 00:23:15 < wntrmute> | They did it?!
= 00:23:23 < camerafrien>| We did it.
= 00:23:30 < camerafrien>| all of you guys helped
= 00:23:33 < camerafrien>| and i was there too
= 00:23:47 < camerafrien>| i was sitting right behind pj, and scooted over for a
nnie
= 00:23:47 < wntrmute> | Glad you're safe!
= 00:23:58 < camerafrien>| I'm kind of in autopilot
= 00:24:04 < wntrmute> | I bet!
= 00:24:32 < wntrmute> | You'll crash once the adreneline is out of your syst
em, though.
= 00:24:48 < camerafrien>| The trailer was in jackson and the bigger building wa
s outside of athens, closer to nelsonville
= 00:24:57 < camerafrien>| i don't know if you have ever heard of any of those
= 00:25:05 < camerafrien>| but they're close to were we live
= 00:25:09 < wntrmute> | Close enough I could have come and helped...
= 00:25:35 < camerafrien>| pj's mom had a cop with her on the scene, and the fbi
showed up immediately after
= 00:25:41 < camerafrien>| they had it
= 00:26:05 < camerafrien>| annie's okay, she got clipped through the ear
= 00:26:18 < wntrmute> | I was about to ask that. Good to hear :)
= 00:26:24 < camerafrien>| and channing is gone
= 00:26:39 < camerafrien>| not like gone as in got away but gone as in blew his
face off
= 00:26:44 < wntrmute> | (very bad pun most definitely NOT intended)
= 00:26:53 < camerafrien>| oh, harhar
= 00:27:10 < wntrmute> | I kinda figured as much about Channing.
= 00:27:21 < wntrmute> | He was gonna "disappear" one way or another.
= 00:27:48 < camerafrien>| apparently he was brilliant
= 00:27:53 < camerafrien>| so it goes, i guess
= 00:27:59 < camerafrien>| driven mad by his own mind
= 00:28:09 * | wntrmute nods
= 00:28:09 < camerafrien>| pj's in shock
= 00:28:19 < camerafrien>| aurora's kind of, i don't know
= 00:28:22 < wntrmute> | I can only imagine...
= 00:28:24 < camerafrien>| maternal I guess
= 00:28:25 < talezine>| hello
= 00:28:29 < talezine>| Sorry, I was away...
= 00:28:32 < camerafrien>| hi
= 00:28:40 < camerafrien>| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-tEicfztc
= 00:28:45 < camerafrien>| in case you missed it
= 00:29:38 * | wntrmute got chills about a minute in.
= 00:29:43 < talezine>| watching
= 00:30:46 < talezine>| guns...
= 00:31:57 < talezine>| sorry, having sound issues
= 00:32:25 < camerafrien>| that might partially be my fault, I tried to hurry
= 00:32:43 < talezine>| nope. bad headphone
= 00:32:47 < talezine>| just changed
= 00:32:54 < wntrmute> | I heard the audio fine.
= 00:34:04 < talezine>| Channing is dead!
= 00:34:07 < talezine>| I want his testicles...
= 00:34:09 < talezine>| in a jar
= 00:34:12 < camerafrien>| Channing is dead.
= 00:34:33 < talezine>| YAY!
= 00:34:56 < talezine>| OMG yay!
= 00:35:27 < camerafrien>| i knew taking that keychain was a good idea
= 00:35:28 < talezine>| CF. thank you for updating us
= 00:35:41 < camerafrien>| yeah, thanks for being here
= 00:35:48 < camerafrien>| I kind of didn't want to be alone for a minute
= 00:35:59 < wntrmute> | Totally understandable.
= 00:36:17 < camerafrien>| I don't really want to be camerafriend anymore
= 00:36:25 < camerafrien>| you can just call me Clara
= 00:36:40 < talezine>| Clara...welcome to the family. :)
= 00:36:50 < wntrmute> | Hi Clara. I'm Rod :)
= 00:36:54 < talezine>| And tell PJ...well...tell him we are proud
= 00:36:54 < talezine>| And tell PJ...well...tell him we are proud
= 00:37:04 < camerafrien>| there's a lot to go over, I guess
= 00:37:16 < ahcapella>| They call me ahca.
= 00:37:22 < camerafrien>| hi ahca
= 00:37:24 < ahcapella>| Hi
= 00:37:26 < camerafrien>| hi everyone
= 00:37:29 < talezine>| :)
= 00:37:38 < talezine>| And I am Patrick, if you didn't remember
= 00:37:46 < camerafrien>| yeah, the guy with the 5 kids
= 00:37:52 < camerafrien>| speaking of which
= 00:37:57 < eeka>| Hiiii!
= 00:38:00 < camerafrien>| they found more than five kids in Texas
= 00:38:01 * | wntrmute was a bit suspicious of that ;)
= 00:38:04 < talezine>| wow...
= 00:38:07 < talezine>| more than five
= 00:38:11 < talezine>| even I'm impressed.
= 00:38:13 < camerafrien>| I don't know the exact number
= 00:38:16 < camerafrien>| but yeah
= 00:38:16 < talezine>| But he is a bastard.
= 00:38:31 < talezine>| I still wan this testicles...in a jar...as a "convers
ation" peice
= 00:38:33 < camerafrien>| he was keeping that one girl with him
= 00:38:35 < ahcapella>| Where in Texas?
= 00:38:36 < camerafrien>| Bethany.
= 00:38:41 < talezine>| why bethany...
= 00:38:43 < camerafrien>| Outside of Houston
= 00:38:49 < camerafrien>| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-tEicfztc
= 00:38:57 < talezine>| Portrait of Bethany....
= 00:38:57 < camerafrien>| here's the video if you missed it
= 00:39:11 < camerafrien>| Bethany's at the hospital
= 00:39:15 < camerafrien>| but she should be fine
= 00:39:18 < talezine>| she's four?
= 00:39:29 < camerafrien>| they say about
= 00:39:33 < camerafrien>| but I have no way of knowing
= 00:39:51 < talezine>| Is PJ ok?
= 00:40:15 < camerafrien>| he's in shock, a little bloody
= 00:40:26 < camerafrien>| but I think he's okay
= 00:42:00 < talezine>| Blood I can deal with.
= 00:42:02 < talezine>| LOL
= 00:42:19 < talezine>| Seriously though...when you can...give him a hug from
me.
= 00:42:30 < talezine>| he did the community a good one.
= 00:42:32 < wntrmute> | From all of us.
= 00:42:40 < camerafrien>| not much of a hugger, but alright
= 00:42:44 < talezine>| :)
= 00:42:50 < talezine>| take one for the team, Clara. ;)
= 00:43:41 < talezine>| Wonder if he would like a video tomorrow.
= 00:43:50 < camerafrien>| haha, maybe
= 00:44:02 < camerafrien>| I don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep th
is up.
= 00:44:32 < talezine>| I meant, from us
= 00:44:48 < camerafrien>| I know what you mean i just meant
= 00:44:59 < camerafrien>| the FBI has been working on this for years
= 00:45:08 < camerafrien>| Channing's dead but there's still a lot for them to d
o
= 00:45:24 < camerafrien>| they'll probably make us take everything down and ask
us not to talk about everything
= 00:45:40 < camerafrien>| and personally, I'm about ready for a good long vacat
ion from the internet
= 00:45:47 < talezine>| :) we understand
= 00:46:27 < talezine>| *hugs* it was a long road.
= 00:47:44 < camerafrien>| what did i say about hugs
= 00:47:55 < talezine>| sorry.. *fist bump*
= 00:47:59 < wntrmute> | Some of us don't listen so well..
= 00:48:04 < wntrmute> | lol
= 00:48:06 < talezine>| I have five kids...sorry...we hug it out
= 00:48:17 < talezine>| ilol
= 00:48:24 < camerafrien>| did eeka and ahcapella fall asleep
= 00:48:33 < ahcapella>| No, we are here.
= 00:48:36 < wntrmute> | I think they're here.
= 00:48:40 < wntrmute> | lol
= 00:48:40 < eeka>| Yeah we are
= 00:48:45 < eeka>| :)
= 00:49:37 < camerafrien>| i'm gonna go in a bit
= 00:49:44 < camerafrien>| was there anything you guys wanted to ask?
= 00:49:59 < camerafrien>| it all happened really fast but i can try to talk abo
ut it
= 00:50:00 < talezine>| Yes, are you all safe?
= 00:50:12 < talezine>| Are we sure Channing didn't have any willign helpers
left?
= 00:50:16 < camerafrien>| yeah, i feel pretty safe
= 00:50:29 < camerafrien>| there wasn't anyone at the building
= 00:50:39 < camerafrien>| and they arrested some people in Texas
= 00:51:04 < camerafrien>| i don't know about any "followers" though
= 00:51:12 < eeka>| Man. So close to home too.
= 00:51:14 < talezine>| followers?
= 00:51:32 < camerafrien>| helpers, whatever you want to call them
= 00:51:39 < talezine>| And..WHY does he always pick such unsanitary places f
or his experiments. UGH
= 00:51:52 < camerafrien>| he takes me as the kind of guy who buys friends
= 00:51:52 < eeka>| Lulz
= 00:52:00 < camerafrien>| without that money i don't know
= 00:52:16 < camerafrien>| no idea
= 00:52:25 < camerafrien>| they did a scope of that trailer we stopped at first
= 00:52:29 < camerafrien>| totally cleaned out
= 00:52:29 < talezine>| I know...just reflecting
= 00:52:35 < camerafrien>| being there, even for a minute though
= 00:52:42 < talezine>| *creepy feelings*
= 00:52:43 < camerafrien>| really, really, really freaked me out
= 00:52:45 < camerafrien>| i don't know why
= 00:52:55 < camerafrien>| but no it was more than creepy
= 00:52:59 < camerafrien>| i was scared i guess
= 00:53:06 < talezine>| I would be too
= 00:54:16 < camerafrien>| i was telling rod earlier that the buildings were clo
se to us too
= 00:54:39 < camerafrien>| the trailer was in jackson and the building was near
nelsonville
= 00:54:50 < camerafrien>| PJ went to college out there, actually and i've been
there a few times
= 00:54:52 < camerafrien>| it's creepy
= 00:55:00 < camerafrien>| they have a huge asylum there
= 00:55:05 < camerafrien>| in athens
= 00:55:14 < camerafrien>| they gutted it and turned it into a museum and tore d
own the TB ward
= 00:55:23 < camerafrien>| but it was still up when i visited a few years ago
= 00:55:28 < camerafrien>| creepy creepy creepy
= 00:55:32 * | wntrmute has been geocaching near that asylum
= 00:55:39 < camerafrien>| then you know
= 00:55:43 < camerafrien>| creepy creepy
= 00:55:43 < wntrmute> | Yes
= 00:56:17 < camerafrien>| and sarah jessica parker was from there
= 00:56:17 < camerafrien>| so
= 00:56:23 < wntrmute> | Didn't know they gutted it though.
= 00:56:31 < talezine>| wow
= 00:56:34 < wntrmute> | Didn't know that, either.
= 00:56:57 < camerafrien>| the museum is really pretty
= 00:57:14 < camerafrien>| but anyway
= 00:57:27 < camerafrien>| the building that channing went to I think used to be
a clinic
= 00:57:35 < camerafrien>| they turned it into a haunted house kind of thing
= 00:57:41 < camerafrien>| the area is REALLY into halloween
= 00:57:59 < talezine>| eek
= 00:58:05 < camerafrien>| so we got there and there was a fucking noose hanging
from the side of the building
= 00:58:24 < camerafrien>| a sign of things to come, i guess
= 00:59:09 < camerafrien>| oh, pj called maddison back btw, I didn't want you gu
ys thinking that she was left hanging
= 00:59:40 < camerafrien>| she was on speaker phone, i got to say hi
= 00:59:58 < camerafrien>| she sounded like she was crying
= 01:00:06 < talezine>| I'm sure she is rellieved
= 01:00:24 < camerafrien>| yeah me too
= 01:01:19 < talezine>| well, I'm heading to bed ladies and gentleman. Glad
all is accoplished
= 01:01:32 < wntrmute> | Goodnight, talezine
= 01:01:32 < eeka>| Nini tale
= 01:01:36 < eeka>| ΓÖí
= 01:01:38 < camerafrien>| night patrick
= 01:01:38 < ahcapella>| Night
= 01:01:47 < ahcapella>| Cassie Dreams.
= 01:02:02 < talezine>| Night Clara, night EEKA, Ahca, and Wntr
== 01:02:25 <-- | talezine [60021ba6@gateway/web/freenode/ip.96.2.27.1
66] has left #StillAlive09 ( )
= 01:02:36 < camerafrien>| i think i'm gonna go to bed soon too
= 01:02:52 < camerafrien>| you guys need anything else or want to know anything
else?
= 01:03:27 < wntrmute> | I'm sure some of the other community members will ha
ve questions tomorrow, but nothing I can think of tonight.
= 01:03:41 < ahcapella>| Yes. Things happened quickly.
= 01:03:45 < wntrmute> | I'm glad all are safe.
= 01:04:04 < camerafrien>| thanks
= 01:04:06 < camerafrien>| me too
= 01:04:10 < camerafrien>| like i get it now
= 01:04:18 < camerafrien>| we were in real trouble
= 01:04:27 < camerafrien>| i was freaked out a week ago but if i'd had any idea.
..
= 01:04:32 * | wntrmute is close enough to drive to Portsmouth, so
has your back if you ever need it...
= 01:04:34 < camerafrien>| ugh, got the creeps again
= 01:04:42 < camerafrien>| thanks rod
= 01:04:46 < camerafrien>| i think we're okay though
= 01:04:48 < wntrmute> | That's a collective "your" for Aurora and PJ as well
.
= 01:04:55 < wntrmute> | I think so too :)
= 01:05:02 < wntrmute> | But if you ever need it.
= 01:05:06 < camerafrien>| thanks
= 01:05:10 < camerafrien>| i'll be hovering around
= 01:05:17 < camerafrien>| pj probably will need a day or two
= 01:05:22 < camerafrien>| so, I'll be on the account
= 01:05:30 < camerafrien>| night everyone
= 01:05:34 < ahcapella>| Night
= 01:05:35 < wntrmute> | Goodnight, Clara
= 01:05:41 <-- | camerafriend [ae655549@gateway/web/freenode/ip.174.1
01.85.73] has quit (Quit: Page closed)

Monday, July 14, 2014

Rock Bottom - Highway to Hell

This video was shot awhile back, and was shared on our page on Facebook, but it needed rotated 90 degrees. Finally, I've gotten around to rotating it, and have re-posted it... We were missing our bass player that day, which puts this video from April, I believe. And we STILL don't have a singer. (And please ignore the mistake at the end of the video, which caused us to stop. lol)

[youtube http://youtu.be/RNS_tamluSk&w=450]

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Morse Code?

I hear noise in the background (aside from the music). Could it be morse code?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BepKakhIi_M&w=450]

Monday, June 16, 2014

Editor wanted

I am looking for someone to edit the wiki and possibly moderate the forums for the running Maddison Atkins ARG. Any takers?

Thursday, June 12, 2014

LG15chat: The Clues

Here are the clues that have been posted (in binary, mind you) to the #lg15chat IRC:


    There will always be a day, when the world will end..W@
    There is never a time when @e Bree was alone, yes, Jon@
    Nicely done on @the solving, there is more!
    Lets not worry about the PAST right now. Lets worry ab@
    Lets Worry about the @end.
    Your Clues are @we @the and that should be the @end. F@


Feel free to comment anywhere such things are being discussed (including, but not limited to, this post, WebSeriesToday, Facebook, email, Second Life, chat on this site, or even a private post which needs a password).

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Private LG15Chat discussion

Add comments to this post if a private conversation is required. Let me know if you can't comment here (wintermute@nitemarecafe.com for those who don't have it already). I also thought this might be a good way to keep everything in one place.

Here are the links from WebSeriesToday thus far:



And some handy tools:

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

We are here

There will always be a day, when the world will end..W@



OK. So something did happen. Just not sure what it means.

We are here? Who is "we?" Cassie used "I was here..." a lot. Is this a play on that? Is @W the author, or who this is directed at? Is Cassie sending me death threats from the grave, or are the Creators sending me a very creative cease-and-desist for the unofficial LGpedia?

Monday, June 9, 2014

Friday, May 9, 2014

dosemu networking issues.

I have decided to stick with WWIV 4.30 under dosemu for now, as there are a number of annoying bugs under WWIV5 compiled for Linux, and I know C much better than I know C++, so I can do a number of mods in the 4.30 code that I can't in the 5.0 code ;) So I thought I'd set up networking under dosemu, and I noticed something quite peculiar. I decided the easiest method to get things working would be to use bridging on my ethernet card. Keep in mind that I connect to this computer via wlan0. Here is the settings in my dosemu.conf:

$_pktdriver=(on)
$_vnet = "tap
$_netdev = "tap0"


And here is my bridge.sh:

brctl addbr br0
ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
brctl addif br0 eth0
ifconfig br0 192.168.1.13 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
tunctl -u 1000
ifconfig tap0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
brctl addif br0 tap0


And I go into dosemu and set up a basic tcp.cfg for use with mTCP, and I can ping out to Google by both name and IP. Great! So, I exit the emulator and go back into Linux and try to download the Microsoft TCP/IP networking stuff for DOS. No go. I try to ping Google by name. Nope. By IP? Nope. OK. Reboot, since I don't have the bridge coming up on boot. I double check everything, all look good, and I run my script again, but don't go into dosemu. Can't ping Google. I can ping my default gateway, though. Hmmm... Reboot again and lets try this a command at a time:

brctl addbr br0

I can still ping Google.

ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc up

I can no longer ping Google.

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up


I can ping Google again.

So, it appears that putting eth0 into promiscuous mode is causing me to not be able to ping Google via wlan0. But if I run the script and boot into dosemu, I can reach the Internet just fine. So instead of connecting via wlan0, I connect via eth0 and the exact same thing happens. Very strange that I can't get out to the Internet from the my host OS, but can from the guest OS. Maybe if I connect via eth0 and disable wlan0 completely... Doesn't make sense to me that having one nic in promiscuous mode should impact the other at all, unless my router is getting confused...

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

More on WWIV under Linux

Every time I turn around, one bug or another is biting me in my Linux WWIV setup, so I think I've decided to use my knowledge of how to get DOS doors running to run the DOS version of WWIV from back in the day, so it'll be at least fairly stable while I work out some bugs. Since the Linux version is file-compatible, I'll be able to move back to it pretty seamlessly at some point. Since I decided to run the DOS version, I thought I'd check to see availability of the source of the old versions, since it was commercial software. I went to bbs.wwiv.com via telnet (that's the official WSS BBS) and, since I registered back in the day, Trader Jack gave me access to those file areas, so it will be a modded board fairly quickly ;) I'm attempting to do virtual networking between dosemu and Linux as well, but keep managing to drop my network interface while I'm connected from remote ;) I'll sort that out later, though, since it's a minor convenience thing ;)

Friday, April 25, 2014

Doors under WWiV

As promised, here is how to set up doors under WWIV for Linux. It took a lot of trial and error, and pouring over documents and howtos for other BBS packages, but I finally found the solution at Daydream BBS software support. I was going to provide an actual walk-through, but then I realized that I didn't deviate from those instructions. So, follow the directions there to a tee, and you'll have no issues at all. My external maintenance script is run via cron and uses pretty much the exact same setup, except I do not pass -u virtual to dosemu, as it will fail because that script does not run from a vty, and serial { virtual com 1 } assumes that you're running from a vty.

You could also write separate scripts instead of using the door_script that's provided, but that's not really needed except in cased like tedit (for TW), as it runs from the TW folder. So I just modified a copy door_script to hard-code the door name and folder. You could do this for every door if you wished, but I find it just as easy to use the single script.

If anyone needs any specific help, please ask.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Thoughts on WWiV on Linux

Here are some of my thoughts on running WWiV 5 under Linux. First, it's fairly simple, especially if you do your initial 4.30 setup under dosemu instead of DosBox. The difference between the two is that DosBox creates Linux filenames which are all upper case, while dosemu creates them lower case. WWiV 5 under Linux requires them in lower care, in general. Directory names are defined via WWiV's init (or, initlite) so can be either. Some of the menus need to be upper case because they are called that way from other menus, but the extensions should be lower case. The main menu files should be lower case, but the menu editor might choke on them, so ln -s each file to an upper case filename with lower case extension. This might be required to get editing to work on the other menus as well, but I don't recall.

Aside from upper/lower case filename issues, there are a few bugs I've noticed which appear in the current build under Linux, but not Windows. First, the time left always displays as 0, which is a problem primarily for the door dropfiles. The problem appears to be that IsUserOnline() never returns true under Linux for some reason. The fix was to open utility.cpp and, within the function double nsl(), find the first if statement, and add " || 1" to the first if statement so that it always evaluates to true, instead of to false.

The second bug has to do with filenames as well. in printfile.cpp, the function printfile() doesn't build the filename.ext based on the user's ANSI settings, and only displays the filename exactly how it is passed to it. Because filenames are quite often passed without an extension so that non-ansi users will get filename.msg while ansi users will get filename.ans, this causes quite a few menus/help items to be broken by default. My solution for this was to temporarily remove the extensions from those files that are passed to printfile() without one. This means no separate ansi/non-ansi files, unfortunately. But most modern telnet clients should support ansi, so that's not a huge deal. The bigger issue is the telnet client not using the correct upper-ascii character set. FWIW, this is CP437, and is supported in both the Linux and Windows versions of putty.

In a future post, I will detail how I got DOS doors to work. This took a lot of trial and error, but ultimately worked great :)

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

WWiV 5 on Linux

Just thought I'd let everyone know what I've been up to of late - working on WWiV 5 on Linux. So far, it's installed and (somewhat) functional, but, because I am compiling it natively, and not running under DOSbox or dosemu (which I *have* contemplated using 4.24a instead), I am having problems with doors. I have to run them under dosemu, and it doesn't appear that the dosemu autoexec.bat is running. When I telnet in, and go to the doors, I launch a DOS door, and it hangs at "Launching..." until I press CTRL-C, then it drops me back at the door menu. I feel like I'm pretty close to cracking that nut, though, at which point I'll work on some networking (WWiVnet, Fidonet, and Usenet... Maybe Dovenet) and let everyone know how to access it once those are done. Very, very close. :)

Friday, April 4, 2014

JAMMA Cabinet

A friend of mine is giving me a JAMMA cabinet, specifically, a Street Fighter II cabinet (which is actually JAMMA+), but the JAMMA board is dead, as is the CRT. The cabinet itself is presumably in decent enough shape and the remaining hardware presumably works.

I've been wanting to build a MAME cabinet for a long time, so this will save me a ton of work and expense. I already have everything I need to convert it to a functioning MAME cabinet. I have a Raspberry Pi for the brains. It doesn't have enough GPIO pins to wire up all of the Street Fighter II controls without getting a bit fancy (a matrix layout is easy enough, but the software would be a bit more complex), but I can concentrate on player 1's controls initially. I have an LCD monitor that will work nicely with the Pi as well. If I decide I want a CRT, I can pick up an old TV for free off of Craigslist, I'm sure, adding 0 cost, since the Pi can output to that as well ;)

I have a couple of options when it comes to Player 2's controls. I can hack up a USB game pad, or I can hack up a USB keyboard. Either will work, but there are some known issues with hacking keyboards for use in arcade cabinets. I imagine I should be able to find either for fairly cheap, adding very little, if any, cost to the project.

I also plan on loading Quake onto the Pi, as I have been dying to play is with arcade controls forever.

If I do this right, maybe spending a few bucks on connectors, I should be able to do these mods and make them completely reversible, should I later decide to restore the cabinet to its former glory. Regardless, once I have the cabinet (in a couple of weeks), I'll post pictures, along with a progress report on my conversion.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Jupiter Ascending

The trailer for the new sci-fi movie Jupiter Ascending looks pretty good:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOvITFK98gg&w=450]

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Secret Cryptogram Notes

There have been Secret Cryptogram Notes found in D.B. Weldon Library Stacks, which I have just discovered via one of the RSS feeds I follow, and I am quite intrigued. I haven't had a chance to really dig in to any of them (yet), but I wonder if anyone has done a number analysis to see how many times each symbol occurs in each note. I know that there are more symbols than letters in the alphabet, but this seems like it should be the first step in any cryptanalysis attempt. If no one beats me to it, I may just try that to see what the results are.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Cyberspace

Does anyone remember an old door game back in the BBS days called Cyberspace? It was almost more of an engine than an actual door, because once you set it up, it was up to you and your users to /dig new rooms, /describe them, define exits, create objects to populate them, etc. There were commands to make objects move from room to room, give them classic RPG character attributes, etc, so you could, essentially, create a game within the door of Cyberspace. I was considering finding the user docs for this door and recreating it in PHP. What does everyone think? Could be kind of interesting?

Monday, March 24, 2014

lonelygirl15: We will not be stopped.

From webseriestoday.com, lonelygirl15: We will not be stopped.



lg15chat: Knock knock.
lg15chat: We are here..
lg15chat: We are everyhere.
lg15chat: We will not be stopped. lg15chat: 6/9/14


Wonder what time, and what timezone? Regardless, very exciting stuff :)

[countdown]

Friday, March 21, 2014

Broken Links

Broken Links
I have started using a plugin to clean up some of the broken links on the site. Many of the links that were found are quite old, and some merely needed updated from http to https. Others had .com when they should have had .org. Still others are long gone from the internet. And some were just fine, and I have no idea why they were marked as broken. Once I complete this cleanup of broken links, I will likely point the ones that are gone forever to the Wayback Machine, if available, or turn the plugin's CSS back on so that broken links are apparent.

On a related note, I removed the Links page, as all it was getting was the occasional spam that needed moderated. I originally set the page up as part of doing strictly "Ghosts of Ohio" with the site, when it sorta made a good idea.

Cleaning up the sidebar is my next priority. What should go? What should stay? Should any of it be moved to the footer instead? Let me know in comments!

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Analytics

Pro-tip: when playing around with Wordpress plugins, trying to decide on whether or not to change which Google Analytics plugin to use, don't forget to re-install the one you started with if you don't find one you like better ;)

On a (somewhat) related note, this:

GoogleAnalyticsPlatformPrinciples

https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/platform-principles

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Abuse of Authority

You may have noticed the new page on the site called "Abuse of Authority." This page will link to my posts on the many abuses of authority which occur daily, many focused on the TSA. Some other TSA-related posts may wind up there as well, because, when talking about the TSA, it usually is about their abuses, or their lack of actual security, or some such. Easier just to keep everything in one place ;)

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Linux CLI tricks

tuxOne of the reasons I enjoy Linux so much, I think, is because I've always been a fan of the command line, even after the GUI came into its own. So here are a couple of articles that I've recently bookmarked showing a couple of cool Linux CLI tricks.

The first is how to look up the geographic location of an IP address from the command line, which could come in especially handy during an ARG ;)

Second is how to use Google Translate from the terminal.

Finally, here's 20 great terminal replacements for GUI applications.

Just wanted to share :)

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Friday, March 7, 2014

Errors in LGPedia

ahcapella pointed out some errors in LGPedia, or at least my version of it, the other day, and I noticed that the entries for the CiW Clues is missing information, so my question is: how long do I give Miles before I open up my version for editing? Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Time Travel

It would seem I traveled back in time before filling my tank last night ;)

0305142122[1]

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

phpBB Scraper

Just as an FYI, I have a phpBB scraper ready to go, and have tested it with cassieiswatching.myfreeforum.org, which I now have an XML dump of, should something ever happen to it ;) I'll work on making that XML dump usable (and searchable) in an effort to gather as much CiW-related information in one place. Once usable, I'll make a download available as well. If someone wants the raw files in the meantime, just ask :)

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Come and get it!

Come and get it! Or, go and get it! The content I used to get LGPedia back online is an XML dump at archive.org. Download it so you have a copy. I guarantee I don't plan on letting it ever go offline again, but plans sometimes change. The only way to make sure LGPedia survives forever is to make sure as many people as possible have a copy.

That said, I plan an scraping any remaining CiW-related content I can find online, and have even considered writing a custom web crawler that simply searches the web for Cassie-related content and indexes it for us. The scraper I plan on unleashing will grab content from phpBB forums (I'll add more forum types later) and create either static pages or XML files of the results. I'm thinking XML files, as I can more easily style the results as well as make them searchable.

If you run any type of CiW-related website, especially if it's database-driven in any way, please consider sending a copy of the content my way. If your site is still active, I can do as I've done with LGPedia, at Miles Becket's request, and make it read-only. Or, as I plan on doing with LGPedia once the official is back up, make it inaccessible and just redirect the traffic to the original site.

At any rate, if you want a copy of LGPedia, come and get it! I can help you get a local copy of it accessible, should you so desire, or, just grab it in case something happens to my copy and/or the archive.org copy.

Monday, March 3, 2014

See you in Second Life

Late night Saturday, early Sunday, I met up with modelmotion and Ahcapella in Second Life for a little while. I'm led to believe that this has been a regular Saturday ritual for some time, but this was the first time I made it on. Had a great time, even though we didn't get much discussed before 6am rolled around, but it sets the stage for me being on more often. So, see you in Second Life ;) Another thing that come of it is that I realize how much my CassieIsWatching theories seem to focus on who the PM was. That was not my intent, and, quite honestly, that's not important. What is important is solving that last anagram, figuring out what Helter Skelter has to do with anything, and what other clues we missed. The only real bearing who the PM was has on any of this is it might give insight into their thinking. At the same time, knowing it was a specific person may cause us to think one way and ignore clues that point another. Overall, I don't think their identity matters and having them unknown to us helps keep the mystery alive.

On a related side note, I find it very interesting that Cassie managed to be very careful not to reveal her identity, but was careless enough to leave the default PIN on her voice mail set to 1234#. A possible explanation is that the PM was well aware of the sleuthing that went into revealing the Creators' identities, so put energy into keeping that secret at the expense of a bit of carelessness elsewhere.

Regardless, I hope to see everyone in Second Life. Join us there for some CiW sleuthing.

Friday, February 28, 2014

CassieIsWatching theory

codes into serapisIt wasn't intentional, but recovering LGPedia has managed to turn this into CassieIsWatching week. I'm sure I've shared at least part of what follow, but I'm also sure I haven't shared other parts. Regardless, below is my CassieIsWatching theory, most of it fairly random thoughts:

My CassieIsWatching Theory - The End


First, let me start with the end. The Anagram From Hell. For all the other anagrams, Cassie helped us out with additional clues, such as blurred-out images of the solved anagram, so we could tell word count and get a general idea of the length of each word of the poem. I believe our failure in Second Life caused Cassie to disappear, and that anagram was her farewell. I'm sure everyone would likely agree with that overall conclusion. If not, I'd love to hear other ideas in comments.

The Beginning


I believe that The Creators, despite their denials, were somehow involved, at least in the beginning. How involved, I do not know, but I suspect the original puppet master at least had their blessing, if they weren't outright running it to begin with.

Swimming!


I think Swimming! contained a clue that should have launched the ARG. I think This Is My Story Now was an explicit invitation to play.

When I Get To The Bottom Where I Stop


I believe the backlash from the images in the second video was unexpected, so The Creators publicly distanced themselves in order keep that backlash from impacting LG15 itself. I do not know if there was someone else involved with the production in the very beginning that is still unknown to us, who maybe took over the reins of CiW once The Creators distanced themselves, or if they continued to run it in the background.

Frank. Poor Frank


I think when we finally failed Frank a couple of days before the ceremony, Kaye's message contained another clue that we had missed. I think from Kaye's phrasing, that clue may still be out there. What good would it do us now? Who knows? Closure for those of us still obsessed after all this time?

The Ceremony


If The Creators continued to run things, then why did the story lines of CiW and LG15 diverge? Quite possibly, our failure caused The Creators to face a choice. Either Bree died, or they diverged the story lines, leading to the fake ceremony Daniel witnessed in LG15. If Bree had died that early on, due to our failure at CiW, LG15 would have come to an untimely end. While the series survived Bree's eventual death, I'm not sure it would have had it occurred that early. I'm not 100% convinced The Creators were involved after the backlash, but it is a possibility.

Glenn Rubenstein


Even though it's been speculated that Glenn was the PM despite his denials, I do not believe this to be the case. I believe his gamejacking attempts frustrated the PM, though. What impact that had on the game itself is anyone's guess.

Final Thoughts


I believe our failure to solve early clues within LG15 led to the creation of CiW. I believe the backlash caused The Creators to want to end their association with CiW, but ending the ARG abruptly at that point would have outed them as the PMs, even if they were merely collaborating with the PM. I believe our failure gave them the perfect out from CiW, while allowing the main project, LG15, to continue.

I know some of these theories are a bit out there, and some cover old ground. I'm still not 100% convinced of anything related to CiW at this point, so I'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Brute force anagram solver

Quite some time ago, I had posted the source code to a brute force anagram solver I had written. And by quite some time, I mean May 3, 2011. Unfortunately that post is long gone, as it the source code. :( Did anyone happen to grab it? I would love to get it going again to solve the Anagram from Hell. Unfortunately, my old standby, archive.org, didn't archive it. I may start working on a new version, since that version was a bit of a hack ;)

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Did we miss a huge CassieIsWatching clue?

ciwDid we miss a huge CassieIsWatching clue? I do not know for sure, but I suspect we may have. What drives me to this conclusion? Well, I was plunking around the CassieIsWatching page of LGPedia, and decided to check to see if Frank's blog was still up. Yes, his blog, A Voice Within is, indeed, still there. As I'm sure everyone recalls, the last entry was from his wife, Kaye, telling us of his passing. It was posted on October 10, 2006. If I recall correctly, the ceremony was to occur October 12. (Is that also when the SecondLife event took place?) This gave us two days until endgame, which may have been plenty of time to discuss what I just noticed, and realized may have been a clue:

Per Frank's wishes, there will be no memorial service or grave marker. I will be spreading Frank's ashes througout the East Fork trail in the San Gabriel Mountains, so he will always be there.


Was that a clue? I believe this is the area of Swimming! and This Is My Story Now and the same area Cu Roi found at least one other clue related to Frank, but did we miss something? Or was there another drop in the area at that time? Was it something that would still be there, given ...so he will always be there? Or am I full of wishful thinking? Please discuss in comments...

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

CassieIsWatching

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fyaugtbov tn ihalwp e T osaer iseh
nskvseYe adep euiaw d nhetdroe o
m hsddo yAeh n sodadu lewy aobec lnwdi
ud ieosih tuyrla svtuI tlvty glgje he
I oef gyaun laild ltd ay, esvKui o
fu 'oye o el oomlte enmomlYy dvt
wo ddooeeyTh oteth re- ehm r oine
ehr' st ceTsit o tri aoenbei t,mu s
ltnsIolB ruseur uyufft'o o e e
,lewab ooLk ownov oe dnad bpu
k oahw emtu y Tslng i onaliso'
eT we'ttae dsrho thos,ieat nl b n
o i 'tbeko Yneohpo tuo ug ehdvtzny rwou
oruu t e tw'o mloeiflYt ernt osabi
,cler oIre rmit ttii ur lknte ltwhu
hdoltau ey e tm i awwaIoh imr g
e y to h ad eiau oIhraet glrnteml
w oho lgiw'sne tsre ahaeer Im l
eeao siaC epnesrAto dns d nestc i
esnnCsietpsre eea o dios at c

Monday, February 24, 2014

LGPedia

Picture 2 copyAn unofficial version of LGPedia is now live at http://lgpedia.nitemarecafe.com/wiki/. I will take it down if/when the official one goes back up and redirect my URL to the official one at that time. Until then, this version is up for the community to enjoy. I'm sure I'm not the only person who would rather see the official version running, along with the phpBB forums, but I hope this version has the community's support until then.

Friday, February 21, 2014

A couple of DIY cpu / computer links

Here are a couple of links to homebrew cpu and computers that I thought my readers might finder interesting. The first is a homebrew CPU that I found on Hacked Gadgets. The Nibbler is a 4-bit CPU, hence the name (a nibble is half a byte).

The second link is a 3-chip retrocomputer via Hack A Day. It uses a 6502 CPU, much like the early Apple computers. I wonder if something similar could be done for the beloved 6809, as used in the Tandy CoCo...

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Questions about LGPedia and mediawiki extensions

I was considering importing all the old CassieIsWatching stuff from the Wayback Machine version of LGPedia, but ran into a bit of a snag. I don't know what mediawiki extensions The Creators had installed. One, in particular, is going to really cause issues. It's used to link to articles in wikipedia itself, with a tag such as "{{wikipedia|MMORG|MMORPG}}" (minus the quotes). I don't know what extension they used to do this. Anyone have any ideas? I'm aware that the current version has inter-wiki linking built in, but it uses a more standard wiki tag, and {{ }} is used to indicate a template is used. So, in my version, it looks as if I am trying to use a non-existent template, which is not at all what I wanted.

edit: Actually, after further research, it does appear that they had used a template to link out to wikipedia articles. Problem solved :)

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Spam user registration solution

One of the problems that drove me away from Wordpress to begin with was the number of spam user registrations. It was getting downright insane. To combat that, I thought installing WP-United, and integrating user accounts, might stem the flow if I installed anti-spam measures in phpBB. That didn't really happen. It just meant that I had to remove these spam accounts from two places now instead of just one, as, even though users should be registering through phpBB in general, they can still register via Wordpress as well. So I installed WanGuard to see if that helps.

Let me know in comments if you have any other solutions you've tried, or have any experience with WanGuard.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Hannahs Attic And Place

Apparently, Hannahs Attic And Place has never heard of the Streisand Effect, or they wouldn't have gone so crazy over a negative review on Amazon.com. (I think that's the review in question. If so, they have deleted their storefront and changed their name. Maybe because the other 18 reviews that aren't negative appear, at first glance, to be shills? Hmmm...)

Anyhow, here's the feedback, followed by the seller's response:

"Order was canceled for some error in the pricing. Very unprofessional seller if they can't keep their orders on track they should honor their price. WILL NEVER BUY FROM THIS DISORGANIZED SELLER AGAIN. Real waste of my time. F+"
G., February 6, 2014



v0GFq2g

Monday, February 17, 2014

AV Linux

Over the weekend, I had a little bit of time to play around with AV Linux a little bit. Unfortunately, I did not have a ton of time to play with it, but was able to use this guide with a live USB stick to play a little guitar, using my netbook as an effects pedal/amp. Worked great, but what I'm really looking forward to playing with is using my netbook as a DAW (digital audio workstation). The live environment ran incredibly smooth for the limited resources of the netbook, and I'm guessing an actual install might run a little better yet. Screen real estate is a bit tight, but that's OK. The inverter in my LCD screen is going out, so I can't use the netbook for much without an external monitor anyhow.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to the love of my life! I love you, Kim!

Comcast buyout of TWC

There is a lot of talk about the purchase of TWC by Comcast the past couple of days. I have no inside knowledge because I'm too far down the food chain, but I have two thoughts on the matter.

First, assuming is passes FCC muster, it will take time for any potential impact to trickle down, so things are BAU for now.

Second, when can I transfer to Seattle? I wasn't out there long, but fell in love with it when I lived out there. I would love it if this gives me the opportunity to move back out there.

New theme

I found a theme similar to the one I was already using, but which had already been converted to a mediawiki style, so I installed it. I'll tweak the mediawiki version of it a bit, and tweak the phpBB style as well, to get everything even closer in appearance. There is still the issue of having to create the account in phpBB, but having to log in to the wiki separately, but that's not a show-stopper. At least they use the same user database :)

Content on the forums and wiki are forthcoming :)

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Wiki

I am currently working on installing mediawiki and integrating users with phpBB3 and WordPress. I have them somewhat integrated, in that you cannot create a new user under the wiki, just under the forum, but logging in to one does not automatically log you into the other. I had this working years ago, but much has changed since then and many of the mods/extensions haven't been updated. There's one more phpBB3/mediawiki SSO extension I need to try. If it works, I'll use it, as it is MUCH better, but if not, I'll use what I have for now. At least it gives me a starting point.

Also, I need to integrate the themes. The phpBB3 theme integrates fairly well, but I still need to tweak it just a little bit. The wiki is close as well, but still needs considerable tweaking to make it fully integrated. I'll work on that once I get the functionality finished.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Integration

Some of the improvement are coming along, the first two of which are a better theme (that I've used in the past) and phpBB integration using WP-United. I've already got Chat, and I'll likely throw in a Wiki soon as well. Updates to come...

Friday, February 7, 2014

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Improvements Coming

I am working on some improvements to the blog. One major overhaul is visual. Despite everything else about Blogger, I certainly liked how my blog looked under that platform. In that vein, I plan on doing a complete overhaul of the look-and-feel, perhaps building a new WordPress theme from scratch (or, as a child-theme to an existing one).

The other planned improvement is content. I've been all over the place content-wise, from a quick link elsewhere with no commentary, to full-blown essays (which were much more rare), over the past year or so. I plan on finding a nice balance between the two. When I post a link, even without commentary, it's something I want to share and I think people who read this blog might enjoy or otherwise find useful. The problem of posting them without commentary is that I'm giving up an opportunity to add value, simply by explaining why the link might be useful. I plan on changing that...

As a result, posting frequency, such as it is, might change. My goal has always been one post a weekday, even though I've often fell short. I'm still working on a strategy for posting frequency. I may experiment with it a bit. It certainly won't be more than once a day. It might be every other. Or it may be a set type of post on any given day of the week. We'll see what works :)

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Back to WordPress

I am back to Wordpress, with a bonus of lots of old content being imported back in! Some items might not work quite right, and some might work fine. I'll fine-tune everything over the coming days, but it's good to be back :) Also note, I've integrated the posts of my old running blog here, too, and will be decommissioning that blog completely soon.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Silence

Sorry for the week long silence. I moved, but my internet took a week to follow me ;) I should be as noisy as every going forward...

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Working on Wordpress

FYI, I'm working on bringing Wordpress back, and have discovered an old database dump of old posts, so I may be able to import them as well. I'll wait until I've ported the theme over, so the process is as invisible as possible.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Singer Wanted!

I posted this on our Facebook page yesterday, but Rock Bottom is looking for a lead singer. We all grew up in the 80's and are heavily influenced by 80's hair metal, but plan on doing original stuff eventually and not remaining a cover band forever ;) We're mostly a group of beginners (except the lead guitarist) who enjoy hanging out and jamming on the weekend, so if you or someone you know is available to practice most Saturday evenings in Columbus, let one of us know on Facebook, or email rock.bottom@nitemarecafe.com. Skill level isn't as important as having fun doing it. We're not looking to gig just yet, but once we have a singer and we're comfortable with a set list, we might be ;)

Monday, January 13, 2014

Blogger is frustrating

I love Blogger. Really, I do. But I find that I bump up against its limitations quite often. The first one I ran across when I turned on Google+ integration. Actually, that one kinda pissed me off. It's not so bad that it linked everything to my real name, because a little CSS and a custom About page easily fixed that. But it totally linked my Blogger account to my Google+ account, which means that I comment on other blogger-driver blogs under my real name, now, or have to use another log-in method to comment. Very frustrating.

Another limitation that I'm starting to see more of is with widgets. When I powered the blog with Blogger before, it was via ftp to my webhost. This allowed me to use custom PHP in my widgets, and I took advantage of that. I might be able to create a sub-domain on a host and create php-powered widgets that way, but it's still not ideal.

Finally, the commenting system, again. I hate that it displays the default Blogger page when commenting, instead of having it themed like the rest of the blog.

So, I'm second-guessing going back to Blogger. Maybe I'll move back to self-hosted Wordpress yet again. If so, I'll try WP-United again and see if I can get that going. That was the most powerful overall platform I think I've used. I had chat, phpBB, Wordpress, and a wiki all using a single sign-on. It was glorious. If I can get that working again, I'm definitely going back.

edit: I found an option to allow embedding comments, which I think may fix the one issue. But the settings on when a comment needs moderated is way too restrictive as well. If I approve someone's comments, I should have the ability to allow that person to bypass the moderation system.

Friday, January 10, 2014

One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.

Anyone have a review of The Geek Dad's Guide to Weekend Fun [affiliate link]? Seems like something I might need soon, seeing as the wife and I are expecting our first in August ;)

Thursday, January 9, 2014

fbcmd - Facebook via Command Line

There's a great tutorial for setting up fbcmd, which allows you to access Facebook via the command line in Linux. I've used this little utility before, and highly recommend it for a minimalist approach to Facebook.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Grapefruit Grapefruit. Unchain the hot petunia.

The other day, Donald Trump made a comment about global warming. So I, naturally, questioned his authority to speak on that matter. I also noticed that someone else stated he was a great business man in reply to another person questioning him. While that may be arguably true (I withhold judgement on that point), what does one have to do with the other? The person I was debating decided to stoop to personal attacks when I pointed out that I was not agreeing or disagreeing with climate scientists who insist on global warming, but questioning Mr. Trump's authority on the matter. Is that the modus operandi of deniers these days? Or just the ones who cannot argue without committing obvious logical fallacies?

Anyhow, here's the tread on twitter, near as I can piece it together (I'm sure it's missing a post or two, and out of order here and there), with commentary:

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump - This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @realDonaldTrump Really? And you can back this up with what science, exactly?

[Obviously, Mr. Trump needs educated that "global warming" is a misnomer, and doesn't actually mean an end to record lows. To my layman's understanding, it means upward trending over time, and worse extremes on both ends.]

George Reese ‏@GeorgeReese - @realDonaldTrump You have reached a level of dumbass the world has never seen.

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - You >>@GeorgeReese

[OK, so he wasn't polite about it, but it is what it is.]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @GeorgeReese And another thing @realDonaldTrump is a smart businessman and it would be an honor to be around such brilliance.

[My reply to this logical fallacy should be obvious, but here it comes...]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx @GeorgeReese @realDonaldTrump How does being a smart businessman make him an authority on global warming? (hint, it don't)

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 @GeorgeReese HA HA Like the Activists that got stuck in Antarctica proving it? HA HA Hoax that it is.

[And there's another logical fallacy, not to mention blatant ignorance of how global warming actually works. So I ask again...]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx how does that qualify Trump to talk about science again? (Another hint: it don't, which was my point.)

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 What qualities you? Nothing, your just a loud mouth, shove off creeper.

[Aside from the logical fallacies, does she know what "creeper" even means? creeper: (n) A person who does weird things, like stares at you while you sleep, or looks at you for hours through a window.]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @ElishaNEWS @wintermute740 It's another hoax by the government to take taxpayers money and fund it. #ClimateChangeHoax

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx @ElishaNEWS I never said otherwise. I simply said Mr Trump isn't qualified to speak with any authority about it.

[Did I say climate change was a hoax, or was real? I don't think I said either way.]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 Your showing your ignorance creeper.

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx haha... can't win an argument, so stoop to insults. Classy.

[Not to mention, you still don't know what "creeper" means and don't know the difference between "your" and "you're."]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740

[Did I say you had to? Only asked for Mr. Trumps credentials, if I recall.]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx like I said... can't argue, so stoop to insults. You're proving all that needs proven. Thanks.

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 So why don't you shove off Creeper.

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx because, the world can see your ignorance in your replies.

[If you want me to "shove off." then why did you reply to my legitimate question with insults?]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 Wow, the "World"? Go stick your head back in the sand Creeper.

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx it won't fit with yours already buried there.

[OK. The closest I've come to an an insult, and a reference to her denial of global warming in the face of the years of science establishing it as fact.]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 Have a nice cold day Creeper. pic.twitter.com/Ebd2GwWj1I

[She doesn't understand global warming. At all.]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx what, exactly, makes me a "creeper?" Or is that your go-to insult when you can't win an argument?

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 I already won, just making you out to be the fool you are.

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx whose looking the fool by stooping to insults again?

[Damnit. Typo! She didn't catch it. Thank goodness!]

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 You can tweet back, when you get some followers Creeper.

[Interesting. Who's the creeper again? I not once looked at your profile during all of this. You were obviously creeping mine. Oh, and another logical fallacy, which I'm happy to point out...]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx my ability to tweet is not predicated on my number of followers.

[It looks like it's over, so I jokingly post this...]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - I don't always troll people on twitter, but when I do, they REALLY take the bait...

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 No originality Creeper.

[It appears she's still creeping me.]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - @christineinsatx oh, so I'm not the only one you stoop to insults with.

[And I finish with...]

Wintermute ‏@wintermute740 - Well, that was entertaining. I should call out global warming deniers more often ;)

Christine Love ‏@christineinsatx - @wintermute740 #polarvortex

[Still don't understand global warming, does she?]

[Finally, bonus points if you got the reference in the title of this post.]

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Modem emulation

Ever since I got my Raspberry Pi*, I've been kicking around the idea of running a BBS on it, and have had a couple of working configs going for short periods of time, but I've never been entirely happy with them. Then a moment of genius struck - why not obtain an old external modem, and stuff the entire BBS into it? Nothing, really, as long as the modem is large enough to contain the Pi, I'm good. So I set out to find a suitable modem, and I found this Zoom external modem* at a thrift store. The modem number is 3048, and I chose it for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first one I found that would easily contain the Pi, and second, it's got a ton of LEDs on the front panel that I can re-purpose via the GPIO header.

After kicking around what BBS software to install and such, an idea struck me. Why not revisit my CoCo project? My original thought was to emulate the CoCo to get it going (which I might, but only as proof-of-concept, as I need to re-obtain the real hardware at some point. Mine has all been lost.), but then another thought struck me. Why not, instead of putting the entire BBS in the modem, emulate a modem via tcpser and a USB<->RS232 adapter*? This would allow me to use my modem with any old-school BBS system I wanted. So that's what I'm setting out to do. I'll post updates as I go, but I'm excited about this project and wanted to share the idea with the world.

*affiliate link

Monday, January 6, 2014

Is the NFL making up rules as they go?

Let me start by saying I'm not a huge football fan, and couldn't really tell you the last time I watched a full game, so it may be that the rules have changed since the last time I watched, but there was a play in yesterday's playoff game that bothered me. Cincinnati had just completed a pass with 13 seconds to go in the first half, and the player was pushed out of bounds. The QB took a quick snap and spiked the ball, leaving 2 seconds on the clock. The referees then reviewed the previous play. Even though Cincinnati scored a field goal, and the end result is likely to have not changed, my issue is three-fold. First, should the receiver going out of bounds have stopped the clock? Last time I watched a full game, it would have. Second, barring that, shouldn't have the clock stopped, at least momentarily, while the chains were moved? And finally, and, I think, most importantly, the last time I checked, a play could not be reviewed if another play was run in the interim. Did the referees review the play in violation of NFL rules? Or did that rule only pertain to challenges, and not reviews initiated by the officials?

The end result of this is that the play stood, Cincinnati scored, but lost the game, and nothing would have likely changed. Just curious as to whether I missed a rule change since the last time I watched or not...

Update: According to the 2013 NFL rules posted online (Section 9, Article 2, Note 2) "The Replay Official must initiate a review before the ball is next legally put in play," so it does, indeed, appear that the officials were making stuff up as they went.

Friday, January 3, 2014

And now for something completely different...

I've decided that 2014 is the year that I finally really embrace some of my hobbies, and one of my greatest hobbies - the one I've turned into a career, in fact - is computing. I used to do it for fun, and I still do to some extent. But I'm not really talking social media and the like, I'm talking experimenting with operating systems, running a BBS, programming, retro-computing etc... So, among all the other things I'd like to tinker with in 2014, I'm considering digging out the CDs and installing OS/2 Warp 4.0 on one of my netbooks, and using that fairly exclusively for at least 30 days during 2014. I'm likely to cheat a little bit, as I have multiple Android devices that I'm not likely to give up, and I have to use Windows 7 on my work computer. Also, I may just set it up under a virtual machine in order to keep things fairly simple, and allow me to switch back to Linux after my experiment is over. Even if I don't use it exclusively, the plan is to find software to use for the things I do daily, so that I could make the switch if I had to. This could be fun, and I'll post my progress once I decide when to start.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Open source guitar pedal

Both Hacked Gadgets and Hack A Day have recently featured this awesome open-source Arduino-powered guitar pedal. I've been thinking of doing something similar since I got my Arduino, but never seemed to get around to it. Now, I might finally be able to.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Blogtipping for January 2014

With the new year, I'd like to re-introduce an old tradition that I discovered long ago known as blogtipping.

What is "blogtipping?"

At the first of the month (or, in my case, the first weekday of the month), you pick three blogs to link to. For each of these these blogs, you point out three things you like. You then find provide a tip for something you feel could be improved upon. A little constructive criticism never hurt anyone, and may make that favorite blog of yours even better.

It's also a great way to share the blogs you love with the rest of the world, showing them some link-love in the process, and may actually result you getting some of that love back. The best way to illustrate blogtipping may be by example, so without further ado:

The Blogs:

Nerdly Pleasures

  • I love the color scheme. For a blog that covers retro computing, it really works.

  • You are the master of the long-form post, and the content is always extremely informative.

  • Finally, I love that you're using a tag cloud, making all of that wonderful content easy to find.

Tip: I have to do a little bit of horizontal scrolling with my resolution set to 1440x900 because one of your widgets is wider than the rest. Not a huge issue, as content is king and I don't have to horizontally scroll for that.

8-BIT RETRO COMPUTING

  • I love the simplicity of the design. It's something we should all remember.

  • I also love the fluid width, so I never have to horizontally scroll.

  • Finally, I love that you've got blog membership tied to a LinkedIn group's membership, even if it is a manual process. Great concept.

Tip: Could you darken the background of the sidebar just a bit? I'm not sure if it's already got a slight hue to it or not (it appears to, but that could be my eyes playing tricks on me), but darkening it slightly would separate the sidebar from the content a little better.

Hack A Day

  • The green-on-black gives the site a very retro feel. I love it!

  • The entire design seems to scream "Here's how to find the content!"

  • You make it easy to follow via other social media sites without hitting your readers over the head with the links to those sites.

Tip: Speaking of following, some of us still use RSS, so adding a link to the feed would make things slightly easier on us. (Then again, most RSS readers with find the feed given the site's main URL, so that's not a huge deal.)


There it is. Nothing too critical to say about any of the three blogs I chose this month, and three things I love about each. If you publish a blog, my challenge to you is to join in next month. And remember, the first falls on a Saturday, so I will be publishing my Feb 2014 blogtipping post on the third, instead.