Technocrat

New and old Technocrat.net software

Bruce Perens
Wed Apr 30 16:35:18 -0700 2008
About+Technocrat.net.
manage

I made a change to the production technocrat.net software that will have logged everyone out. If you have more trouble than just having to log in again, please write bruce at perens dot com. For the rails hackers out there, I changed to the fast_sessions plugin. This will reduce the load from robots, which used to generate session records for every hit.

The new software (at new.technocrat.net, including source code) is progressing. You can test it, if you are interested in rails applications. The big hump to get over is implementing the rest of the user object. Then, I should be able to make it work on the production comment database, so that you can read this blog with your choice of software.

And if you saw story briefly up criticizing the Zogger "more ... lots of comments ... there" style question, I made an editorial decision and asked Zogger to continue to end stories with editorial comments, but not wrap them in "more ... there" any longer. One can assume there is more at the link.

Yay!

Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 16:56:43 -0700 2008
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I guess it's worth saying out loud: thanks for hosting the forum and your good selection of editors.

Are you aware of and do you have any notion about the long-standing problem with the comment-count numbers on the front page being often wrong?

-t
Yay!
Bruce Perens
Wed Apr 30 18:56:00 -0700 2008
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Yes. I will make it work in the new software. Right now, it's not correct there either.
Yay!
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 19:09:44 -0700 2008
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Is there an interesting nature to the bug? It could be more generally enlightening.

One serious problem (really, I do mean serious) with a lot of the web frameworks and the code they presumably inspire is how negligent they are wrt. transactions and integrity. This bug might make an interesting case study. (This is absolutely not to impugn your hacking skills. This site is one of the more tastefully hacked and effective pieces of blogging software I've seen. Oh, sure, there's this and that feature I crave. And there are little bugs like that one. But it is damn sure an impressive and context sensitive bit of engineering in practice so it might be nice to understand how that particular bug evolved. Or, maybe it's just a boring typo somewhere :-) ).

K.I.S.S.
-t
Yay!
Bruce Perens
Wed Apr 30 19:37:22 -0700 2008
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Well, there was supposed to be a rails facility that counted children in a tree, and it's never worked, at least for me. So, there is an increment and decrement to a counter, but not everywhere it belongs, and there's nothing to just count the nodes and fix the value.

There is another rails facility that would put comments adjacent to each other with record inserts, which would make it possible to bring in all of the comments for a story with one database query. And I think that maintains its count correctly. I will put that in, but not until the new software is fully up with the present database schema.

The current software is written for Rails 1.0, and has lots of cruft worth cleaning up. The new version is written for Rails 2.0, and makes use of the newer "REST' design. It makes a number of the features more modular.

Urg!

Alan
Sun May 04 17:45:32 -0700 2008
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Bruce,

Since the Technocrat upgrade I have to reenter my password and login about once per day.
(Account: Alan)

It does persist for a short time, if I return to the site later in the day I am usually logged in.

I use the Opera browser in Windows. Previously I was logged in automatically, indefinitely.

I tried to email you yesterday, but that did not get through: 

                                       ----- Transcript of session follows -----
                                    451 4.4.1 reply: read error from voxrox.perens.com.
                                    ... Deferred: Connection timed out with voxrox.perens.com.
                                    Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
                                    Will keep trying until message is 1 day old
                                    Reporting-MTA: dns; eoemailadmin.pacific.net.hk
                                    Arrival-Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 13:10:58 +0800
New and old Technocrat.net software
SECProto
Wed Apr 30 17:35:39 -0700 2008
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I occasionally found the "more .... there" framing of the comments amusing, and certainly never harmful - although I did not see the story that was up briefly nor the issues it had.

alas, alack and alorn

zogger
Wed Apr 30 18:23:01 -0700 2008
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I certainly liked doing it..but the rules are the rules and I don't make them! Switched to italics for the small quote from the article and no..more, amusing close, will be..there.
alas, alack and alorn
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 19:15:16 -0700 2008
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WHAT?!?!?

Wait, what did I miss?

Are you saying that the "...more" close and excellent editorial contribution is now against the rules? Is that what you are saying?

If so, I would like to try to work something out, though my resources are about as you know they are, to port the blog elsewhere. I mean, that restriction would be wrong.

One of a very few resources I have are some people who might be willing to consider hosting.

Please tell me I misunderstood. Please tell me that Bruce is not now going by "Rupert".

-t
alas, alack and alorn
Bruce Perens
Wed Apr 30 19:40:19 -0700 2008
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Zogger is to continue to write his comments, he should just not wrap them in "more ... there". Note that, although his work is worth much more than the money, I do occassionally get together some bucks and send them to him for his trouble. Your friends gotta do that too...
alas, alack and alorn
bi-ker-shi
Thu May 01 03:25:50 -0700 2008
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Yes thanks Zogger, I like your style. Also folks from different places often have different expressions - take the Texans like JR Ewing "And you don't come back now ya hear", he would be so lucky! All very amusing.

what would conan do....

zogger
Wed Apr 30 21:19:37 -0700 2008
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No, it was just that little pseudo sig thing I did at the close of the article quote. It started originally with "more at the link" or "more there", until I decided that was just a little too plain whitebread and wanted to jazz it up a little, so I broke up the more and there and added something either directly topical, or funny, or a few words little minirant, or observation, or... whatever, as long as it had some tangential relevance to the article even if it was strained. It was *very* loosely and shamelessly (or shamefully depending on POV) stolen and forked from the /. idea of "from the ..[whatever].. dept." that they have with most articles.
what would conan do....
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 21:52:04 -0700 2008
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So, I'm formally (not really, but ack the truth in it) red faced. Just to make sure I understand... the new editorial rule is a style thing about phrasing and not a discouragement or censorship of your commentary.

Right?

-t
what would conan do....
zogger
Thu May 01 07:55:20 -0700 2008
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yes, that is all it is
New and old Technocrat.net software
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 19:24:22 -0700 2008
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Bruce,

You have your issues with me and, I suppose, vice versa though I tend to give you large swaths of benefit of the doubt.

I skimmed your article here too quickly and missed your new rule about Zogger's editorializing. Now, after Zogger's comment I've noticed it.

I think you are very foolish in making that decision and I hope that you will reconsider it. Zogger's color here is part of what makes this site something other than Digg or Slashdot. It is a starting point for dialog. It is wonderful in many respects.

When any of us post here, we are giving you gifts. You set I.P. terms that way. And that's fine so long as it seems a good deal. So long as it seems you are respecting the community instead of dog-piling with crowd madness.

What the heck are you thinking?

Also, haven't I had enough front page articles by now that I've earned my $10 or whatever it was you announced a ways back?

-t
New and old Technocrat.net software
Bruce Perens
Wed Apr 30 19:44:25 -0700 2008
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Zogger is to continue his color, just not wrap it in those two words.

So, although the paypal thing didn't really work out, I can send you some dough to close it out, yes.
New and old Technocrat.net software
Thomas Lord
Wed Apr 30 20:06:19 -0700 2008
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Thank you.

My swaths of "benefit of the doubt" are not misplaced.

I hearby decline my free cups of coffee and announce my continuing gratitude for being tolerated as a participant. Put my $10 (or whatever it was) in the general fund from which Zogger get's some pay-out.

You scared me for a minute there.

-t

Firefox 3.x beta on Ubuntu

rubycodez
Thu May 01 12:02:10 -0700 2008
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funny the new Firefox 3.05b (fifth revision of a beta) being put out as standard with Ubuntu 8.04 which I use at work can't get a technocrat login even deleting cookies. So anyone out there trying that almost-fully-baked stuff needs to get back to Firefox 2.x

sudo apt-get remove firefox
sudo apt-get install firefox-2

Cookie problems

phred14
Sun May 04 07:48:16 -0700 2008
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Does technocrat use cookies, or the session login features in order to stay logged in across browser invocations?

I used to stay logged in to technocrat pretty much indefinitely based on cookies.  I generally just don't use session login, because I keep hearing about security problems with it.

But since the new software, I don't stay logged in.  I have to log in again on every browser invocation, even though I have full saving and permission for cookies enabled.

Is this correct behavior?  Can you make suggestions to track it down?
Cookie problems
Alan
Sun May 04 17:49:02 -0700 2008
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Same problem here, with Opera.
 

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