pikuorguk

Notes augmented

We've enhanced and de-bugged Notes. If you haven't tried it yet, now's the time! You can create a private note when you ban multiple users. You can also delete multiple notes at once. Lastly, paid users have the option to add a note (visible only to you) whenever you add or remove a friend (guaranteed to avoid embarrassing social mishaps). If you don't currently have a paid account, you can upgrade now! It only takes a few minutes and costs less than a bad shopping mall haircut (plus, it's way more fashionable)!

Product tweaks and bug kill

1. In another effort to zap spam, comments containing links from domains LiveJournal deems untrustworthy are now automatically screened
2. If you sign up to get notifications of the Writer's Block question of the day, you'll now see the daily question in the email notification, so you'll have a little extra time to ponder before you post. You can subscribe to Writers Block notifications here
3. The issue causing random comments to vanish has been fixed!
4. If you visit a LiveJournal page and get prompted to log in, you'll be returned to the same page after you sign in (Thanks, Dreamwidth)!
5. If you don't edit the timestamp for an entry at all, the entry timestamp will indicate the time the entry was posted instead of the time the Update Journal page was loaded
6. Comments with paddings/backgrounds render correctly within the comment box (and will no longer wrap outside the box and break frames/margins)

New FCK fixes rich text editor!

1. We've updated our RTE (Rich Text Editor) to FCKeditor version 2.6.5
2. When switching from the RTE to HTML editor, links for syndicated feeds are no longer broken
3. RTE now functions properly in Safari 4.0
4. An extra line/space will not be auto-inserted whenever you switch from RTE to HTML editor
5. The insert image link now works correctly in all browsers

LiveJournal Cares

We’re pleased to introduce you to lj_cares, a new LiveJournal community dedicated to raising awareness and funds for U.S. charitable organizations that improve the health and well-being of people around the world. Each month, we’ll spotlight a nonprofit that is making a significant global impact through medical research, public outreach, and/or humanitarian social programs. Charities will be selected in accordance with the U.S. calendar of national health observances based on a high rating (of over 60%) on Charity Navigator and global scope of impact.

In this, our inaugural month of November, we will celebrate national adoption month by offering a charitable virtual gift (priced at $2.99) to support Love Without Boundaries, an organization that saves the lives of orphans with life-threatening diseases and places them in loving homes around the world. LiveJournal will donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of charitable vgifts (we'll cover the cost of credit card transaction fees). To learn more about Love Without Boundaries, please visit lj_cares and read about how they helped save Baby Kang and the Rainbow Twins from fatal illnesses, who are now thriving in nurturing families. You can purchase your Love Without Boundaries gifts in the Virtual Gift shop.

Papered in postcards

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in postcards to surround us with LiveJournal community. Thanks for coming through! We've received postcards all the way from Germany, Finland, and Canada and from all over the US, including Texas, Florida, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Hawaii, and Oklahoma just to name just a handful. We're thrilled with our improved decor.

Please keep the love coming for one more week by writing 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 drawing the names of ten random contributors next Thursday to win paid account credits!

Photos of the week

We have more dazzling images posted by talented LiveJournal photographers from around the world. We're hoping to span the entire globe, so please continue posting and tagging. Of course, you can also sit back and enjoy the view at lj_photophile.

You can see a sample of this week's gorgeous photos and check out spotlight communities and awesome user content after the jump!

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Curtains

We thank you, once again, for joining us. See you next week!

Tuesday evening Danielle and I headed out to Novi, in response to this post on the MMBA forum (PNG mirror). The seller was offering a Motobecane USA 29er mountain bike with a 15″ frame size for $250, and this sounded like a really good deal and an ideal first mountain bike for Danielle. After trying the bike out to see that it fit, we took it home. While there were a few obvious problems with it, everything appeared easy to remedy.

After picking up a new tube I spent a few hours this afternoon working on the bike, adjusting things a bit and fitting a rear light. Having 29″ wheels drilled for Schrader valves made finding tubes a bit complicated, but I was able to locate one at REI. As the rear wheel had a slow leak (emptying once daily) I wanted to get a known-good tube in there. Beyond the slow leak, the bike also had the following problems, all of which were (or should be) easily remedied:

· Bent Saddle: This will be replaced with something more comfortable for Danielle.
· Too-Short Seatpost
· Brake Adjustment Needed
· Wheels Slightly Out Of True
· Rear Wheel Dished Incorrectly
· Brakes Not Bedded In Yet
· Uncomfortable / Small Pedals
· Fork Lockout Non-functional
· Handlebar May Be Bent / Weird

All of these should be easy to fix with just a bit of time, making the bike quite nice; especially for a first mountain bike. Here’s some more photos of the bike:

· Danielle’s new 29er bike, a used Motobecane Fantom 29 that was purchased for $250.
· The rear wheel is not properly dished. I’ll have to fix this.
· Mismatched brake levers because one was broken. They are still good levers, though.
· The seat is a bit bent, which is just fine, as it’s going to be replaced.
· The 350mm seatpost that came with the bike is much too short for Danielle. A longer one will be acquired later.

To celebrate the awesome and historic event of my birth, we're gonna be hitting up Leeds for 4 days of Metal and Mayhem.

Current plans are:

Friday 20th - Evening - Motörhead @ Academy
Saturday 21st - Daytime - Probably going to the Armouries, general wandering about
Saturday 21st - Evening - Skunk Anansie @ Academy
Sunday 22nd - Recovery
Monday 23rd - Evening - SLAYER @ Academy

Anyone in the area welcome to meet up for beers, food and stuff over the weekend. Curry is a distinct possibility :D

Any recommendations for food/pub/other stuff to do would be handy too - I've not been out in Leeds for years now...

Facebook event page, if you're into that kind of thing

Soft Spoken Change Is Nothing; A View So Cruel

Rather last minute I decided to head out to the Royal Oak Music Theater to see Skinny Puppy perform. Despite Ogre having a 103°F (39.4°C) fever thus cutting the encore a bit short, and the backing video and costumes lacking the religious and political imagery which marked previous shows, I’m glad I went. Unlike years past I also brought earplugs, which were wonderful as I could hear properly both during and after the show.

As expected, the show was almost like a small reunion of Detroit-area industrial folks. While (obviously) not inclusive, I saw a good number of people whom I hadn’t seen for a few years and managed to say hello to most of them. I also ran into a coworker there, which wasn’t wholly unexpected as I’d previously seen him at an Apoptygma Berzerk show, and known his like for VNV Nation.

Due to life being fairly busy recently I made a last minute decision to go to the show, but it worked out well. As I was about to purchase my ticket someone was asking the queue if anyone needed a ticket, as he had a spare. While he was asking $15, I only had $20 bills, but I gladly handed one over in exchange for the ticket, as the result was still $10 less than door price, and no one in the process technically being shortchanged.

Here’s one more image, taken just after the show illustrating most of the stage setup, including the blood sprayed acrylic and metal box where Ogre spent much of the show.

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

Today Erik, Kristi, and I set out with the intention of riding to Imlay City, MI. Starting at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail (Map) this would have been a 45-ish mile ride. Unfortunately, poor trail conditions, culminating in a washed out bridge one mile south of I-69 slowed our progress enough that we decided to turn back. It’s good that we did, as we arrived back at the cars just as darkness was setting in; a particularly dangerous time for us as we were all without lights.

Along the trail we saw a number of interesting things, including a deer, cows, horses (on trail and off), turkeys, cats, squirrels, chipmunks (live and squished), grain being harvested, numerous dogs, and a discarded helmet shell. The surface also ranged from crushed limestone to pavement, single track through grassy areas to railbed ballast, to simple dirt.

At one point we happened across a what appeared to be some in-progress construction to replace an old drainage line under the trail. At the bottom of this 6′ deep ditch was a recently dead deer, looking as if it’d fallen in one night, been too injured to get out, and died. Traversing the ditch involved Erik climbing up the far side first, me passing the bikes to Erik, then Kristi and I climbing up. Unfortunately, for the first go Kristi didn’t want to climb up near the deer, and ended up scraping her leg a bit. The return trip worked a bit more efficiently.

Once past the first major obstacle we had to walk an expansive section of washed out rail bed, as it had become uneven and with leaf cover finding a safe path to ride through it was nearly impossible. One couldn’t tell if a depression in the ground is just a low spot, or something really dangerous. A bit beyond this was much more washed out area, a whole bridge! This article from Google’s cache talks a bit about the storms which washed out the area at the end of August.

Being only about a mile from I-69 we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t reach our goal of Imlay City, but the bridge made a nice place to stop and eat. It looks like only a few thousand dollars and a weekend of trail building crew would be needed to make the bridge passable again, so hopefully that’ll happen soon. We were also able to see the trail surface and know what will be required to do this ride again. Taking Sutton Rd. to Summers Rd., as seen here should easily bypass the washed out bridge and connect us nicely to Imlay City.

Per my bike computer, today’s ride was 38.29 miles, with a moving time of 3:25:55, 11.1 MPH average, and 30.9 MPH maximum speed. We started around 12:30 PM and returned to the parking lot around 5:00 PM.

Here’s today’s photos. Unfortunately I didn’t get any of the actually washed out parts of the bridge, nor the unsafe bits that I climbed across:

· Dead deer in a culvert crossing the Polly Ann Trail.
· My attempt at climbing the ditch. I failed, as this was not the easiest point to climb.
· Erik found a much better way to climb the new ditch in the Polly Ann Trail.
· I then handed the bikes to Erik, who pulled them up.
· Erik helping Kristi climb up, as she didn’t want to climb near the dead deer.
· This helmet shell, with a blob of foam on it, was found on the Polly Ann Trail.
· One part of the trail, about 3 miles before I-69, was washed out and uneven enough (particularly with leaf cover) that we walked it.
· Home-made sign warning that a bridge is out somewhere down the Polly Ann Trail, just south of I-69.
· First sign of the washed out bridge, one mile south of I-69.
· I climbed out on to the bridge. While the approaches were damaged, the main part of the bridge was solid.
· Kristi and Erik disappointed at the washed out bridge.
· Erik and Kristi looking at the washed out bridge on the Polly Ann Trail, showing the loose / unsupported part that I walked across.
· The body of the bridge itself is solid, but the approaches are gone.
· The point where the Polly Ann Trail crosses from Oakland County into Lapeer County is where its surface becomes much less maintained.

Originally published at Dom's Blog. You can comment here or there.

Inspired by pages such as this one and this one, I decided to implement this as a one-liner which I can execute as a script:

while true ; do l2ping -c 4 00:12:D2:BA:B3:12 || gnome-screensaver-command -l ; sleep 10 ; done

Clearly it’s not a daemon, and it probably drains the battery of my phone by pinging it every ten seconds, but it works if I walk to the other end of the apartment. I guess it needs a bit of work, such as implementing my phone’s MAC address as a variable or stored in a file, but it’s nice and simple and demonstrates how it works quite nicely without all the surrounding script.

This morning’s breakfast is eggs from the CSA, a Bays English Muffin, Trader Joe’s Cheddar Cheese, Niman Ranch bacon, and harissa. Along side I’m drinking some low cost (but surprisingly good) IKEA espresso, made in a moka and served with heavy cream.

iPhone fun from Jeff Minter on Vimeo.

More of my little engine taking shape. Here I show it doing a little scrolling Time Pilot style shooting, then a bit of a Defendery thing (still using the Starforce tile set which looks a bit rubbish in this context but serves to show the various parallax layers).

Today my NiteRider TriNewt headlight was returned after being sent out for repair. NiteRider actually replaced the cable which had a short, replaced the switch, and sent a new helmet mount; all under warranty and free of charge. I was a bit surprised at the switch replacement, although in retrospect I had noticed that it felt a bit odd. I’d previously thought that I simply wasn’t familiar with its operation, but it turned out to be faulty as well.

As can be seen above it was also tested, with the battery illuminating the light for 3:16:00. I presume this to be on high, and this is plenty of time for my uses. Now I can get back to riding more at night. I’ve was loaned an HID which I’ve used from time to time, but being prone to fall damage and not being my light, I was hesitant to take it out very many places. Hopefully tomorrow evening when the weather is a bit nicer I’ll be able to head out for another ride.

The empire strikes back

In 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 again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, 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!

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 postcards

Last 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 week

If 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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As part of rewiring my office I purchased this seven-port USB hub from Firefold for $22.99, part number USB-7P-HUBSP. It turns out that this hub is actually two Genesys Logic GL852G hub chips, with one cascaded off of the other. The three ports shown above on the left are connected to the first hub, then the other four are connected to the second hub chip. Thus when the case is closed up (as seen here) ports 1-4 are on one hub which is connected to the hub that ports 5-7 are on. This shouldn’t cause a problem, but it’s a much cheaper design than using a seven port hub chip and having everything at the same level.

The hub also ships with a 5V 2.5A switching power supply. Having seven ports which can supply a maximum of 500mA each, this power supply cannot fully power the hub. That said, most devices never pull anywhere near 500mA, so this shouldn’t be a problem either.

Danielle received a celeriac from the CSA, but we’ve yet to use it. It’s been stored in a bowl of water for a while, but the large amount of dirt in the roots was rotting and smelling very bad while changing the water, so tonight I washed it off and changed the water. On the upside it now smells like only celeriac, but unfortunately my hands also smell like celeriac. No amount of washing with Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps seem to cover it up. Oh well.

Hopefully we’ll use the celeriac in soup. Perhaps I’ll make some up this week, or maybe there will be time this weekend. Or maybe this particularly great looking recipe for celeriac and mascarpone puree. Mmm!

Over the weekend I moved the printer into the closet. It’s much happier in there as there isn’t much dust, and it’s much more out of the way. After the Mac Pro is gone I can remove the rack, freeing up even more space. I’d originally had some network cable issues where things would link but not work, but a quick test tonight showed that one end wasn’t as well crimped as it should have been, so redoing that end sorted out the network.

Time was also spent on more mundane around the house chores, with some dishes being done, dead plants being removed from planters, patio furniture put away, and glass put in the storm doors. I’m hoping to clean some every day up until I leave on vacation. With the forecast of rain and snow for this week I don’t think I’ll be doing much biking, so there should be plenty of time. There’s something very nice about coming back from vacation to a clean house.

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

Through the Daily Deal at Alfred E. Bike I was able to get a set of Nokian Hakka WXC300 studded mountain bike tires for just under $150. This is far cheaper than normal, and so low that should I not like / need / want the tires I will be able to sell them for what I paid.

When the tires are brand new, Nokian recommends that one ride for 30 miles on paved surfaces to finish setting the studs in the tires. I intend to do this, but only after looking over the tires and fixing the not-quite-seated ones, as shown above. I’m hoping that the tread of these, combined with the spikes, will make for nice winter riding on the mixed ice/snow that ends up covering local paths. Normally the ice isn’t an issue, but there were quite a few times where I flopped over quickly as the front wheel slid out from under me.

Here is a photo of the Nokian Hakka WXC300 tire in the package showing the general tread pattern and the terrible “Deserve Them” company slogan. I expect that the large well-spaced, abstract edge knobs will work nicely in snow.