Golem.

Earlier this year I did a bit of tinkering with the blog in hopes of resolving two problems. First, the random-post function broke, and would simply reload the home page instead of sending the reader to a random post. Second, the archives page displayed some broken shortcode instead of displaying a chronological list of all the posts that Legal allows me to leave up.

I couldn’t figure out how these problems happened, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix them. So I downloaded all the posts, pages, comments, media, etc. Then I created a backup blog. Then I uploaded everything to the backup. The backup worked perfectly. All the content was there, the random-post function worked, and the archives looked right. I figured that meant I could reset the main blog, reupload everything, and have a perfectly functioning main blog.

That was incorrect. The main blog had the same problems as before, plus a couple of new ones. There were duplicate posts. About a dozen comments were un-published and awaiting approval, several dozen comments were completely missing, and about 700 comments were duplicated. Some commenters disappeared, even if their comments didn’t, which meant those comments would now be attributed to the blog– i.e., to me, so it looked like I was talking to myself. It all made for an even more disjointed and incomprehensible reading experience than usual.

At least I could work around the problem with the archive by using the old version of my archive. The old version was called “Every post on one big page.” I typed the date and title of every post, hyperlinked them, and put them one on big page. It was a lot of work to set up originally, and it was a moderate amount of work to update for the first time in years, and it would mean a little bit extra work after publishing every post going forward… but it was a functioning, up-to-date archives page. That said, I still preferred the speed and cleanliness of using a teensy bit of shortcode instead of maintaining a list of seven-hundred-something posts. And I still missed my damn random-post button.

So today I thought I’d take another crack at it by turning the clean, functional backup copy into the main blog. Once the backup was up and running properly, I could nuke the original version from orbit to eradicate whatever code, setting, plugin, etc., was causing all these errors.

So I activated the backup, made it the main, and took down the original version. The backup worked flawlessly.

For about an hour.

The good news is that the newer set of problems virtually disappeared. There was (I think) only one duplicate post. The problems with the comments seemed resolved. But the original problems– the broken random-post link and the broken archives– returned.

Thankfully, after spending a few minutes with tech support– the aptly named “Happiness Engineers”– the problem was discovered. Turns out that earlier this year, back at the beginning of this wildly entertaining saga, I made an upgrade that, ironically, just plain didn’t include the random-post function or the right archive shortcode. Not sure why that is, but here we are. And when I reactivated that upgrade today, on the backup-turned-new-main-version-of-the-blog, the random-post and archive functions broke down.

The Happiness Engineers saved the day, and solved the problems, fast and gratis. The “Random” button once again sends the reader to a randomly chosen post. The Archives page works cleanly, and updates automatically. And the comments no longer make me look like a deranged lunatic who talks to himself half the time and to imaginary commenters the other half.

But it occurs to me, however meaninglessly, that this is the teleporter problem. In the past, when I screwed up the blog nearly beyond repair, the proper software updates would save the day, and the blog would lumber on. This is different, because right now I’m typing an entry on a properly functioning, on-line blog, and I can open a separate window, go behind the scenes and see the old, dead blog at the same time. Actually, since the ones and zeroes that made up the original blog itself have certainly been overwritten, and rewritten, and reallocated, and rewhatevered to different hosts and servers and machines several times since aught-five, this is the teleporter problem exponentiated.

Welp. This is what I write about instead of commenting on anything substantial. Oh well. Here begins the blog again again again again… again.

Posted on by VDV 2

Happy 116th!

Time for Gram’s digital birthday card, as today marks her 116th birthday. Here she is with her daughters, at what is presumably my older aunt’s first communion:

This might have been some other religious occasion– I’d know better if I attended Mass more than every third C&E– but it’s still a great photo.

Happy birthday!

Posted on by VDV 0

Happy 126th!

Today would have been my grandfather’s 126th birthday, so I hereby post this year’s edition of the digital birthday card. Here he is with the family:

Based on the front axle and the bolts in the exterior dashboard, I’d say this was taken at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry in the early-to-mid-50s. The exhibit, “Yesterday’s Main Street,” depicted a 1910-ish city street scene, including a bunch of storefronts that would have been the bee’s knees back then. Grampa was old enough to comment on the veracity of the exhibit, though I don’t know if he would’ve been in downtown Chicago in 1910. Either way, it would’ve been neat to hear the commentary.

Don’t know for sure what kind of car that is, but while digging around online I learned that Sears used to sell cars manufactured by Lincoln. That shouldn’t be surprising; they used to sell houses, so why not cars?

Happy birthday!

Posted on by VDV 0

A far, far better observance.

Marxists, socialists, communists, etc. have celebrated May Day for ages. More specifically, they celebrate “International Workers Day” on May 1st because that was the beginning of the 1886 general strike that sought the eight-hour workday, and led to the Haymarket bombing a few days later.

The eight-hour day might be reasonable, but beware the motte-and-bailey: the comrades gloss over how poorly the international workers fared wherever the comrades took over. Genocide? Meh. Holodomor? As Walter Duranty once said about his commie pals, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

(Not that there were eggs, but you get the idea.)

Well, today’s May 1st, and I’d rather spend the month celebrating some folks who actually manage to feed people, even if those dirty filthy capitalist pigs make a little money doing so.

A few decades ago, the cattle industry began to celebrate May as “National Beef Month.” In 2017, Buona Beef announced that the fourth Saturday in May would henceforth mark “National Italian Beef Day.” A few years later, Portillo’s escalated matters further by declaring all of May “National Italian Beef Month.” Which, again, begins today. And by happy coincidence, these vastly superior celebrations originate from the same town as the aforementioned commie holiday.

I shall honor the holimonth and holiday with trips to as many Florida-based Portillo’ses as possible, where I shall feast on Italian roast beef sandwiches. Giardinera, gravy, mozzarella. As long as I’m there, I may throw in some Chicago-style dogs even though Hot Dog Month is July, which will warrant additional trips, and maybe a bite of the chocolate cake. Or a sip of the chocolate cake shake.

Driving 150-200 miles for an Italian beef sandwich and a single sip of a shake might strike some as wasteful, and maybe it is. But it’s not “secret police scour villages for hidden grain seeds so nobody illegally grows food during a famine” wasteful. Done ranting for now.

…

No, I’m not. Turns out the new Animal Farm movie– the one that completely inverts Orwell– comes out today, of all days. How genuinely revolting.

Posted on by VDV 0

The whole thing into the stars.

I’m grateful that Artemis II has gone pretty smoothly so far. Not perfectly, of course; there were some problems with the toilet and Microsoft Outlook, and I’ll refrain from making the jokes that are already running through Outlook users’ minds.

The public communications– the announcements, the dialogues, the speeches– have generally been beautifully scripted. I don’t mean scripted in the paranoid and conspiratorial sense that some flat Earther might, I mean in the sense of conveying thoughtful sentiments and callbacks to past missions.

The line that has struck me most so far came just after the Orion capsule Integrity broke Apollo 13’s old record for greatest distance from Earth. The Canadian mission specialist Hansen spoke for the crew:

From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration. We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.

“Make sure this record is not long-lived.” I heard that and flashed back to a certain few lines from President Reagan’s Challenger speech, which of course were in a completely different context:

We’ve grown used to wonders in this [the 20th] century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun.

May the new wonders come soon enough and often enough that we grow used to seeing these records broken, and may we keep appreciating them.

I pray that the Integrity crew and capsule come home safely.

I hope that Artemis III and IV go to plan, which will mean humans walking on the Moon in 2028.

And of course, I hope the whole thing speeds up enough that when the time comes for me to slip the surly bonds of this Earth– later this century or early in the next– it’ll be because I’m blasting off towards retirement on Mars. Luxury suite, caveside resort, daily bridge.

…

I was going to title this “A great gig in the sky,” but then I heard the President’s phone call to the capsule and changed it up.

Posted on by VDV 1