Saturday I called my aunt & uncle in Florida.  We're going there in January &  isherempress' mom, sister & family are in the same town.  I asked if we could stay with the aunt & uncle for a night or 2, but they "don't believe in that."  I was too stunned to have more dialog about it.  What is "that" exactly?  We are as married as we can be--by our church, by the state of California (NOT annulled by Prop 8, thank goodness), recognized in a couple of other states & countries....  Well, I responded, "everyone is entitled to their religious convictions."

I really don't want to hang out with anyone who doesn't respect my marriage.  The rest of my family has been ok--if they disapprove, they don't tell me.  They just take my wife as part of the package which=me.  Called my youngest sis on Sunday & she was totally supportive & empathetic. 

The ironic thing is that my aunt's response is really hypocritical.  She had a several-year affair with a married man--brought him to family functions, had her nieces & nephews interacting with that guy's kids....  And I want to spit out all of my beliefs--God is love; Christ is love; we try to live by the command to "love one another."  I don't understand those who call themselves Christian but do not live by "love your neighbor as yourself," extending respect & courtesy to others as it has been extended to them.  "Judge not, lest ye be judged" and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Sermon=off.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/11/the_neuroscienc.html

Fascinating:

The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of THOMAS [The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System], the human brain makes us feel good when we help others--this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. "I need your help" is a potent stimulus for action.

This is interesting. They say that all cons rely on the mark's greed to work. But this short essay implies that greed is only a secondary factor.

I would not have expected to see an ad for StrongBad (fond memories of his email answer pages at HomeStarRunner) at Girl Genius, but that's what there.

At least for the moment. The joy and terror of Project Wonderful is that the ads could suddenly change at any moment. Still a cool ad model.

lion_lamb
Can a movie based on a novel ever be as good as the book? That's the big question for Twilight fans this week, and a sure topic of discussion on this community devoted to all things Bella and Edward.

geocaching
Have a hankering for a high-tech treasure hunt? After you take your GPS for a walk in the woods in search of the latest geocache (i.e. hidden container), you can share your find, get tech tips, and discuss the sport at this geocaching community.

topmodel
Have we really reached the end of another ANTM cycle? The finalist of Cycle 11 is announced on Wednesday, so expect some fierce discussion and model partisanship at this top Top Model community.

Windycon has moved to the Westin in Lombard. This is apparently a new hotel. Quick review: It's great!
( Click here for more details. )
All in all, it's a fabulous hotel, and I hope Windycon manages to stay there a few more years.

I was reading an article about the arrest of a Basque separatist. This has some interest for me, because I didn't get to go into Notre Dame in 1988 because of Basque demonstrations in the square in front of the church.

Anyway, this guy's nickname is "Txeroki".

Is that an appropriate name for a renegade from the mountains of the borderlands of France and Spain? I mean, I thought the Cherokee were from the plains .... and where did they learn to spell? I'm confused....

School
School has been, um, challenging. I budget what I think will be plenty of time for a task, be it writing a paper or absorbing some of the massive amounts of reading, and find that 1) I have no practice or skill at writing and I'm really not that good at it and 2) it is not sufficient to just read the material. Yes, it all makes sense while I'm reading, but when I've finished I don't retain enough particular details to be able to reference points and call out pages. So now I'm reading with highlighter, pencil and Post Its in hand, and I'm getting the job done, but it's taking waaaay longer than I planned for.

House
Between school, commuting to Seattle to work at Studio Foglio, various trips and most recently helping someone move - the house is a wreck. This week is less scheduled than the past month has been, so I expect to be able to make some real progress on that front. But one thing becomes more clear with every shift of stacks: we have far too many books and comics. No, really! And they aren't even ones I want to read again!

Time to take action, and since I can't bear to just landfill or freecycle them I'm starting up a little mini-bookstore to sell them off. I'm getting a Dealer Table at RustyCon and (I hope) Norwescon. I'm going to compile a catalog and take mail orders. And I'm going to start posting lists here on my LJ. You have been warned.

Webcomics
Sheldon is running a poll for Best Caption. This is part of a contest he's running where he solicited entries from the readership, and now we're into the finals. Way worth scrolling down below today's comic (also good).

Every comic I read on comicgenesis has been refusing to completely load for weeks, yet there's not even a mention of it at my usual hangouts (Fleen, Websnark, ...). I can't really say I need new webcomics to read (there's a lot already) but I think I may need more hangouts. Any suggestions?

LiveJournal
LJ is going to be doing one of their rare (about once a year) offerings of permanent accounts on Thursday [Edit] 12/04 [was 11/20 but they changed it]. For $175.00 you don't have to fuss about renewal dates ever again, and you get about a million userpics (well, a lot anyway). Sure, I was making the bet that LJ will still be around in six years, and that I'd still be using it, but it doesn't seem to be that big a gamble. And I do get a lot of use out of the thing, even when I don't post myself that often.

The Future
More frequent updates promised! At least for this week, before the schedule crowds up again....

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/11/most_spam_came.html

Really:

Experts say the precipitous drop-off in spam comes from Internet providers unplugging McColo Corp., a hosting provider in Northern California that was the home base for machines responsible for coordinating the sending of roughly 75 percent of all spam each day.

Certainly this won't last:

Bhandari said he expects the spam volume to recover to normal levels in about a week, as the spam operations that were previously hosted at McColo move to a new home.

"We're seeing a slow recovery," Bhandari. "We fully expect this to recover completely, and to go into the highest ever spam period during the upcoming holiday season."

But with all the talk of massive botnets sending spam, it's interesting that most of it still comes from hosting services. You'd think this would make the job of detecting spam a lot easier.

Welcome to a Very Special Edition of LJ News.

Moving Day and What It Means for You

Moving What Where?

The long-awaited server move takes place this Tuesday, November 18, at 8:00 a.m. PST. We're moving the site from servers based in San Francisco to the servers in our new data center in Montana. A massive data move like this takes a lot of heavy lifting, and to haul all that data from San Francisco to Montana, we have to take the site down, starting at 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning. We don't think the move will take more than four hours, but there's always the possibility that it could take longer (the best laid plans and all).

What Does This Mean for You?

During the downtime, nothing on LJ will be available—no posting, no Friends page, no LJ mail, nada. When we bring the site back up, we're going to ease into it rather than open up a floodgate of traffic. Posting might not be immediately available or the site could be slow to load for a while.

New servers mean new IP addresses, so it's possible that LJ mail might not reach your email inbox because your email provider or client doesn't recognize the new IP addresses. We're working with email providers to whitelist the new IPs. There are a few things you can do on your end:

• Add these two IP addresses to your "allowed senders" list (or whitelist) and address book in your email client: 208.93.0.18 and 208.93.0.50. These are the new IPs for sending comments notifications and LJ mail to your email inbox.


• Add lj_notify@livejournal.com and webmaster@livejournal.com to your email address book.

If you can't edit the spam or junk filters in your email client, you may need to disable them entirely. Make these changes just before 8:00 a.m. PST on Tuesday morning or shortly after the site comes back up to ensure that your LJ mail makes it to your inbox.

Those of you who use domain aliasing to forward your domain to your LiveJournal will need to create a CNAME record that maps to livejournal.com. Please note that we're no longer supporting the A record. For more information, check the domain forwarding FAQ.

Before the move, you can check lj_maintenance for complete details about the planned downtime. During the move, you can check status.livejournal.org for updates about the site's status.

Permanent Account Sale Delayed

We regret to inform you that due to the server move, the Permanent Account sale has been pushed back to December 4, rather than November 20 as announced in the last news post. After the virtual dust has settled from the move, we'll be able to turn our attention to the Permanent Account sale. Except for the start date, the details remain the same: You have a limited opportunity to purchase LJ for life for only $175. It's a bummer to delay the sale, but on the bright side, you have more time to save up.

But What About A La Carte Userpics?

We know we promised more information about a la carte userpics, and we're sorry that details have not been forthcoming (blame it on the move). We're still planning on having a la carte userpics, but we don’t have any details yet. When the move is over, we'll have more information. We're sorry for the delay.

The Tea Fire was in the news this weekend. Here is a first person report from my Aunt Sue. (Her husband John is my Mom's brother). It is a far cry from the early days when the fire hoses from the many fire departments had different sized connectors on the end. -chris

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Reported+Start+tea+Fire
Emergency Command Post - Lower Manning Park

Tea Fire.kmz‎ - maps.google.com
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=113022420691920912386.00045b9ef1712164139a6

John and I belong to MERRAG (Montecito Emergency Response and Recovery Group), a volunteer group attached to the Montecito Fire Department. We were called for a full activation on Thursday right after the fire broke out. We responded to the Montecito Fire Dept. where we helped set-up the ICS (Incident Command System....this is the system used by fire and law enforcement agencies throughout the country to manage emergency operations). This location is where the Incident Commander was established to manage the "Tea Fire (so called because it started somewhere near the historic 1900's "Tea House" located around the area North of Mountain Drive/Coyote Road. From there, John and I spent all Thursday night on traffic control at the intersection of San Ysidro Road/Santa Rosa Road right in front of Montecito Union School) bringing in the "strike teams" to the staging area. Since the fire began in Montecito, Montecito Fire Department was the Incident Command Center (@ the Fire Dept); so the "staging area" had to be set up somewhere close by with a big enough parking lot to bring in fire trucks and all the staging equipment, which was designated as the parking lot of Lower Manning Park. It was really awesome how quickly the strike teams began to arrive.....a "strike team" is made up of five engines and one pick-up, or some type of all-terrain vehicle, with the "Strike Team Leader" and his driver. By 10 pm there were "strike teams" lined up all the way down San Ysidro Road to the freeway entrance, so we had to start lining them up double file on San Ysidro Road. The Strike Team Leader then heads down to the staging area and gets his team's assignment, they go over maps (because all of them were from out of the area....I don't remember all of the names even though I was going to try...Hermosa Beach, Orange County, Ventura City and County, Glendale Fire, Office of Emergency Services Fire, City and County of L.A. Fire, Federal City...and the list went on and on), then the leader and the five engines head off to their assigned area to begin work. As the strike teams were coming in, the hand crews began to arrive...trucks bearing 10-12 men/women began coming in around midnight and we had them "bed down" in the grassy areas of Montecito Union School and the YMCA parking lot so they could get some sleep before they began going on foot through all the burn areas to put out smoldering embers. At 2 am, we still had trucks lined up along San Ysidro, but we were down to single file by this time (much to the relief of the CHP!) The "staging area" was really amazing to see. Our (MERRAG's) van was centered there as a command center for all of the MERRAG volunteers who were assigned around the Montecito area. Also, the "Staging Manager" from Montecito Fire Department was assigned there with a Battalion Chief as they were assigning the strike teams to their various locations. As the winds suddenly swept the fire over toward Santa Barbara (and Marian's area), it swept it away from our area. If the winds had continued the direction where they originally started, we were on evacuation orders (in fact, while we were working @ the staging area....we had our dogs "duffle bags" and our papers packed and told our renter his only "job" was to pack the dogs in his van and "get out"; so, all of Montecito toward the ocean might have been evacuated. (In fact, when the wind changed the fire's direction....it completely went the opposite direction from Oprah's house....no matter what you hear on the news!) As the winds swept toward Santa Barbara, the strike teams were sent up to Santa Barbara to assigned positions.
I know that I have seen fire information on the news before and they have shown pictures of a "staging area"; however, until you see one and are involved in the staging process, it is really it is completely unimaginable how it works. But, because it is a uniform system throughout the country, everyone knows how the system operates and knows what their part is in the process. When the strike teams began to leave here as the winds died down, they headed down toward Western Ventura and L.A. counties to start the process all over again down there.


Yesterday all afternoon and until about 8:30 pm, John and I worked the information center where MERRAG had set up the van. We had a large scale map showing the perimeter of the fire and a "prediction" of the Sundowner winds for last night. They were predicted to blow north in the Los Padres National Forest toward Ventura and west L.A. County (which they did because winds were heavy in Ventura all day yesterday....and then fires started in Sylmar, Porter Ranch, again, and in that area.) We had crowds of people all day coming to the van to find out when they could go back to their homes, if we knew of the addresses of homes which had been burned (I am almost glad we didn't...we knew streets and areas, but not addresses....as I wouldn't have wanted to been the one to tell someone their home had burned), the possibility of more evacuations that night; and we had those coming in who knew their homes were burned and wanted to know when they could go back in the area to see how bad it was. It was a good place for people to congregate, talk to neighbors, meet new neighbors and feel they had more of a "handle" on their lives because they had somewhere to go for information. The van/information center will be open all day Saturday (John and I get the day off for a rest) and then on Sunday, so we will be there Sunday afternoon.

Of course John has been involved before (as a Capt. in the Montecito Fire Dept. for 33 years...but even he said how so much has changed after he retired.) The organization throughout the country is so interesting as any Fire Dept. can go anywhere in the country and use the ICS (Incident Command System) and know that incoming strike teams and engine companies will know exactly how the system work, and what their job will be in that emergency. This system is not only for fires, but earthquakes, terrorist attacks, hazardous materials spills, any kind of emergency.

I was sorry to hear about our organist's (Steve H) home. Westmont did lose some of their buildings and damage to some of their dorms. The Emergency Coordinator for Westmont College is also in MERRAG, in fact he was President last year. We learned then that Westmont has a gymnasium which is a total fire proof/safety building. So, at the threat of a fire, they don't have to evacuate students and staff, they are all evacuated to the gym. This eliminates two problems for Montecito (at least during a fire), (1) they are not among the many who would be trying to evacuate on the small winding roads in Montecito and (2) It means that the emergency resources are not "tied" up with trying to evacuate a college when there are a lot of other areas to evacuate. Montecito is an emergency worker's nightmare because of the small winding roads and everyone has to head down to the ocean to go either East or West on 101. It really is a traffic nightmare, and all emergency agencies recognize that is the situation.

Hope the above narrative has been informative.

Love,
Sue

Windy City vs. Rat City - 157 - 63!

Windy City vs. Texecutioners - 110 - 97!

I was not present, nor (as I was at a party) could I stay glued to the DerbyNewsNetwork.com running on wifi in the corner of the party, but there was much rejoicing and animal cries of glee when we heard the news.

Next up to taste the steel of the slaughterhouse city--Gotham Girls--I THINK.  I can't find the score anywhere online.  Certainly it's time to set right a few little misunderstandings from Madison.  Thank goodness there's nothing on my plate today to get in the way of me watching the final boutcast!

Well, I still haven't heard whether, or when, Windycon might schedule it this weekend, but Todd Johnson is prepared to give a demonstration of zapping Lichtenberg figures in acrylic, or, in his elegant coinage, "shock fossils."

(Note to self: ask Todd whether "shock fossils" is one word or two.)

From Shockfossils Holiday

Todd has a big slab cooled to dry-ice temperature, and presumably most of the electrons we pumped in at the Ohio accelerator last Friday are still very anxious to get out.

If you haven't seen it, a short video of a previous demonstration is here.

If you're attending Windycon, keep alert for announcements. Or ask a General Technics person. You don't want to miss the flash.

From Shockfossils Holiday

We're pulling the plug! And putting it back in a different location! Ok, that was bad.

Seriously though, our data center move -- from San Francisco to Montana -- is scheduled for THIS TUESDAY, November 18, 2008 at 16:00 UTC (this equates to 8AM Pacific timezone) and will last for 4 hours. Unfortunately it'll be total downtime for all our sites and services -- no posting, no reading, no email.

Another news announcement will be posted on Monday November 17, including links to updated FAQs that you'll want to check out before the move.

As always, status.livejournal.org will have any updates during the move so bookmark it and check it out for the latest news.

All of us at LiveJournal have been eagerly looking forward to this move and I want to thank you for your patience and understanding as we put the finishing touches on something that will allow us to bring you an even better product in the future.
Though for us in the Ops and Engineering teams, we'll be REALLY happy if, on Tuesday, everything just works the same way it did on Monday.  Heh.

bt