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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 32 total)
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  • #4961
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    why?

    like this song needs a reason.

    just chill out and get with it…

    until you use me up!

    #2837
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    no, it is not because of Lionel’s hair in the video, or the awesome glittery threads

    this song is legit a masterpiece

    #1042
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    So tonight i worked a somewhat private party, and the entertainer had been on American Idol.

    Yeah, I mocked her because of that until she showed up for soundcheck and floored me substantially on a multitude of levels.

    She is Legit.

    She is the real deal.

    Her vocal talent is absolutely INSANE (especially combined with advanced mastery of stagecraft). I wish I could show you the raw stuff I was privy to tonight with her 3 piece band, that completely impressed a jaded vet like myself, but there were no records rolling! She performed tonight as a favor to, i shit you not, her grandmother!

    Katharine McPhee is 100% the real deal. No doubt. I can’t find ANY of the mind blowing things I witnessed her do live tonight from 15 feet away online.

    So i will have to share with you this performance, that while OK, wasnt even close to as good as i got to see tonight in a private party setting

    I can’t explain her control of not only her voice, but of her control of the room.

    I can’t share my personal experience with her interacting with a variety of people of different classes of people offstage either, and being distinctly human as in not under a delusion that because she is a celebrity that she is better than anyone else. In fact, I found her pretty humble and somewhat less egotistical than some of my delusional colleagues.

    as much as i hate to admit something good came out of american idol, Katharine McPhee is proof that even in the worst cesspools on the planet, mind blowing talent can emerge.

    if you havent caught this yet, i dont know how to put into words how awesome i think she is, as a performer and as a human!

    i dont think recorded media can do her stage talent justice. go see (or more precisely, hear) her live ASAP.

    support her. she is a good human

    #1019
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    I was reading an article on Charlie Parker and this particular track was mentioned in that Parker showed up late strung out on heroin, 22 choruses into the song and killed it to the point that 70 years later people were still talking about it.

    I had to hear it. While I am not sure who is who in this collection of assembled greats as I am unfamiliar with thier “voices” (whereas I can pick Maynard out in an instant), it is outstanding in every sense of the word, start to finish. I generally prefer post bop, but this bebop is truly spectacular.

    If anyone can break down the solos by minute, I would be interested in putting a name to a sound.

    Musicians are thought to be Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Buck Clayton, Willie Smith, Jack Kersey, and Buddy Rich.

    #849
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    Was reading a list of under-reported celebrity deaths of 2016 and found out that Bernie Worrell, keyboardist for Parliament/Funkadelic and Talking Heads had died. The article linked this track and it smokes!

    #845
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    Wow Moxie, great job. I love the color scheme!

    #787
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    #682
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    further testing has shown that the activity update of private groups is broken and and comments and activity posts are broken, in terms of privacy.

    This actually seems minimal, as private group forums are still 100% private. There are very specific, esoteric, places in the functions where privacy checks seem to be ignored. Thankfully, only 1 has been found that relates to private groups.

    It can be isolated. We still are in beta (open beta, but still beta), so either will will fix it or remove certain functionality

    i just heard the phrase “it is easier to add functionality than to remove it.”

    if you think in technical terms (which i might have done many years ago), that seems the opposite of my experience; integrating new technology into old is difficult.

    but that phrase isnt’t about tech, its about social reaction to losing functionality.

    I am loathe to remove awesome functionality, but if it can’t be reasonably secured, I can’t, in good conscience, deploy it, at least without full disclosure to certain bugs.

    stay tuned. working on it. solutions aren’t easy so far.

    #670
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    OK, the previous bug is a bigger deal than I realized. Be very careful about the first few words in a post in a feed in a private group. There seems to be a bug in privacy as it relates to private group feeds and the activity feed of even non logged in visitors.

    I made a post tonight, in a private group feed. That post is partially available in the global activity feed of a logged out user. This permission issue is a MAJOR concern of mine, so please be wary of information posted to private group feeds at this time. I will be working on a fix. If no fix is available, I guess I will disable private group feeds. I can’t promise something that I cannot deliver.

    If you need anything censored or removed that is visible that you thought was private, contact me immediately and let me know.

    I sincerely want to make sure that everyone has the level of security that I promise and that you expect, which is, by admission, while ambitious, is somewhat minimal. I take every precaution and more to protect your privacy and your shit.

    In our world and current reality, look at who has been hacked.

    I can do my best, but I don’t have 10% of the expertise that those that have already been hacked have. Be smart and don’t use this venue if something is life or death TRULY private. I will do my best, but be aware of my limitations.

    That being said, I am pretty sure we can reach a decent understanding of privacy on this forum. I am watching your back and hope and expect that you are watching ours as well and will report any vulnerability, exploit, privacy violation, or weakness that you find in the interest of the community.

    I pledge to fix it or remove the code that is responsible for the violation, even if it means loss of functionality.

    I was investigating the issue contained in my last post when i discovered this new issue, and I had to share it with you.

    Oddly, the issues that led me to this discovery were the exact opposite. I was logged in and didn’t see something that I expected to see. I logged out & I saw something I shouldn’t be seeing.

    That being said, there is a way to minimize the issue on the short term. Post song lyrics or something before your actual post in a private group feed, The excerpt will only show the first few lines of a post (I think).

    I have tested the links in the excerpt on the activity feed from a logged out account, and it was 404’s consistently.

    I am using 3 different types of cache (which I did clear & test before posting this), so it may be my doing that did this. I need to test this on the sandbox server, but due to certain factors, that is a very involved process that I won’t have the time or focus to dedicate to for a week or 2.

    I am also using a large variety of anti spam and anti bot measures, traps, and honeypots, as well as firewalls and security solutions. This is an involved process that will require significant attention to figure out the cause and mitigate it. In other words, it might take awhile, and I apologize.

    This is why we are still in beta (open beta, but STILL, beta). I apologize for the risk. I will either fix it or remove the option for a private group feeds. There really isn’t a long term in-between decision, in my opinion (please let me know if you disagree, please).

    The attached image shows a post I made in a private group feed, appearing to a logged out user in private browsing mode. The links don’t function, but the excerpt (and post) should have been 100% private.

    This seems to be a complicated bug, but one that MUST be resolved. It is possible my caching solutions, or my theme, or our security, might be responsible.

    It is also possible I may not be able to resolve this bug, and if that is the case, I may have to remove some functionality from the site to do so and maintain privacy.

    The long story short, is that this will possibly delay the launch and keep us in open beta for a bit longer. Privacy issues and permissions are something that I take very seriously, so I want to either sort the issue out, or eliminate the “features” than violate trust in any way.

    Thank you all for the help in testing this. Anything you do, any post you make, any comment on anyone else’s post, any private message or email or group, or anything that you do is critical right now. If something doesn’t work as expected, post here immediately.

    Thank You

    #667
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    Current Bug (possibly not resolvable)

    Posts in private group forums do not show up on activity streams of those logged in users who are a member of the group.

    #653
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    In the further hardening of security, before official “launch” (hahaha), several additional security precautions were put in place with the specific goal of weeding out bots.

    Now, my friends, the most vulnerable aspect of this space is you.

    What I am saying is very soon, just before “launch,” I will force a password reset with more stringent password requirements on all members. This is legit. This is not a hack or a phishing expedition.

    Thanks again for every ones support during closed and now open beta. I hope that you enjoy the results of these efforts.

    #649
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    Current Bug

    Activity stream is spammed when editing a post AGAIN. Old fix no longer works. Will investigate, but it will possibly persist for a couple weeks if the solution isn’t fairly easy.

    #648
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    LAMP vs FAMP Stack

    Getting the CMS up and running was pretty trivial once the LAMP stack was installed, including the database. Actually, to be fair, it should be called a FAMP stack since instead of being a Linux web server, is is a FreeBSD web server, with apache, MySQL, and PHP.

    FAMP server it is to me then, fine.

    Install was pretty painless, but after HOURS of trying to get the apache Webmin module to link with the apache install on the FreeBSD web server, I finally figured out the problem.

    I kept looking at the path Webmin said apache couldn’t be found in, and then looking up my CLI VI ssh session, and there was indeed an httpd.conf file that I had been happily commenting out and configuring. I could not figure out what the problem was, so I went to bed.

    What happened was, the path that it was looking for included the directory apache22, when in fact, I had installed apache24. Once that was discovered, it instantly linked (didn’t even need a restart) and is apparently working splendidly. PHP was already linked, and so was the MySQL db. I just had to enter a user and password and all good.

    FreeBSD Web Server Development

    Now it is time to configure directives, mods, security, then check logs for errors and stability test. Once that is done, I can move to the layout and functions I want the site to encompass, before finally going into content, optimization, marketing, and testing.

    So far, all I have spent is the price of 1 domain name. Obviously when my $10 referral credit from Digital Ocean runs out, that will increase. For that credit, I now have a FreeBSD web server installed, that I can tinker with, as well as a FAMP stack serving my CMS to my new domain name.

    It’s not done, but for the price and speed of this deployment, I imagine I could quickly and easily deploy many sites with this snapshot template, either for clients, or as self supported niche adwords, affiliate, or sales microsites.

     

    FreeBSD web server

     

    My Future with FreeBSD

    Thinking about it, I am kinda stoked that this little adventure into FreeBSD might produce small revenue streams, and has been so successful. I can’t say it hasn’t been frustrating, but that was part of the learning process. I am certain to parse lines of error code much more closely as decoding the 22 vs 24 thing wasted a lot of time. Otherwise, I am quite happy with this experiment.

    So far my suspicions seem to be correct, although obviously further testing is in order. I think a FreeBSD web server may be preferable in a production environment over Linux.

    This server runs on a specific flavor of Linux. That choice was made with an eye for stability and compatibility. It wasn’t a bad choice and I do still love that Linux flavor very much.

    Cuz it Feels Good

    FreeBSD just seems more intuitive to me for whatever reason. It also feels more stable and responsive. I don’t have evidence to back it up. It is a “feel.”

    The Handbook is the most amazing manual anyone has ever made for anything, and you still have man pages. The ports system works like a dream, and things are in logical places. They are on the suspicious side, when it comes to security.

    I usually use virtual private servers, but having a dedicated OS on a droplet may be a more interesting and flexible way of doing things. I must experiment, although I likely wont journal any of that testing, tho.

    So does anyone else in this universe play with FreeBSD web servers in production environments or as droplets on Digital Ocean? I would be curious as to what your experiences are.

    #592
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    out of debug mode, and almost where we need to be with speed and stability. Please keep bug reports coming. Thanks

    #537
    Mulch
    Keymaster

    redis has become the process using the most resources on the machine, HOWEVER, the entire load on the machine has gone down overall, and the site seems snappier when logged in, with no weirdness.

    it looks like progress!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 32 total)
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