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Search maintenance

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.

Protagonist has just met up with his estranged mother, who left him as a baby

and her excuse is "Your father and I both agreed that it was best to raise you away from my wealthy-but-toxic family, whom I was returning to". And having met the protagonist's half-siblings, I can't say that this was wrong - but what, she just loved him so much more than her younger two that she had with her new, richer, more socially acceptable husband? No matter how you look at it, she's not exactly winning the mother of the year award.

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The ACLU sent me a text

About their fight against the racist War on Drugs.

It includes what looks like a tea leaf emoji? Whatever sort of leaf this is, it’s not marijuana, even I know that. Maybe no emoji at all would’ve been the better call….

So I saw this nifty video on harp music notation

OMG, but ignore the dipshit in the comments.

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I saw a red-winged blackbird!

I didn't get a good look, seeing it as I did out a bus window, but did I have to? They're not that hard to identify.

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This person is looking for English-language poems and poetry collection recs

The important thing is they have to be accessible, beginner-level poems for people who don't "get" poetry in English (or, perhaps, in any language).

Though I will say now what I only sort of suggested then, which is that I've never thought the point of reading anything is to understand it all. Sometimes it's enough to enjoy it, even if you miss a thing or ten. (This may be why I know so many Shakespeare quotes - from the age of six onwards I made repeated dives into our big copy of his collected works, and you know for sure I did not understand Elizabethan English at that age!)

A Fairly Sad Tale by Dorothy Parker

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire.
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me—I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were—shall we say?—born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic—
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?

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Link

(no subject)

Poll #34495 Ideal calendar behavior

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48

View Respondents

When should one cross dates off the calendar?

View Answers

You cross off the current date at the start of the day
2 (4.2%)

You cross off the current date at the end of the day
30 (62.5%)

You cross off tomorrow's date at the end of the day
1 (2.1%)

You never cross anything off, ever
15 (31.2%)

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What's really dismaying

is that none of this was made up. Truly, I hate this timeline.

(no subject)

Watch on YouTube

Jesus

Just went to the store, spent over $90 for half a week's groceries just for me.

This is not sustainable, but it's not going to get better any time soon.

I could eat at work, but let's be clear, I don't much like the housekeeper's cooking, they rarely have in stock what I'd need to make my own food the way I like it (other than eggs), and also I have some weird food issues around... I don't really know. Eating other people's food? But not at a restaurant where it's okay? Maybe it's smelling the food? I honestly do not know, that's what makes these issues weird. (But even if I didn't, she boils the poor vegetables to death.)

At a different residence tonight

One of the staff has the same name as one of the residents, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out.

Late Bird by Angela Narciso Torres

Count me among the noon risers who stumble,
dazed and bad-haired, from the nest midday,
pecking the crazed dirt for half-torn moth,
pear’s white core, severed worm. I’ve never
been one to trill at chink of dawn, to hop,
skip, chirrup before full sun. I’m better
at picking over crumbs, stitching a quilt
from what’s left, remaindered, given up
for gone. Better at betting the careless
will miss the best. Count me among
the nightbirds who sip starlight, a guitar’s
fading strains. Find me where moondust
swirls in streetlamp glow and stray dogs sleep.
What clings to the bone is most sweet.

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Link

Welp, it's allergy season

Yay.

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Entry tags:

The Friday Five on a Sunday

What was the last book you read (or are currently reading)?

Jan Morris’ Trieste and the meaning of nowhere, for what I feel are obvious reasons. It is a very romantic, forgiving view of the city.
What was the last movie you watched?

We caught a bit of the Minions movie dubbed into Italian last night. It was (perhaps unsurprisingly?) easy to follow in another language.
What television series are you currently watching?

Nothing at the moment. We finished a few things before the Easter holiday (new series of Death in Paradise, Small Prophets).
What are some of your favorite blogs or communities online?

I really only read DW and LJ these days. That's enough for me.
What social media do you belong to and check often?

I still have accounts on the usual platforms but I haven't checked any of them since January 2025 when I removed all the apps from my phone. I vaguely miss contact with a few people but it has generally been a good move. I spend more time communicating directly through messaging or email, or more diffusely but in greater depth here on DW & LJ.

The case of the missing notifications

I keep forgetting to post about this: we've been troubleshooting the "missing notifications" problem for the past few days. (Well, I say "we", really I mean Mark and Robby; I'm just the amanuensis.) It's been one of those annoying loops of "find a logical explanation for what could be causing the problem, fix that thing, observe that the problem gets better for some people but doesn't go away completely, go back to step one and start again", sigh.

Mark is hauling out the heavy debugging ordinance to try to find the root cause. Once he's done building all the extra logging tools he needs, he'll comment to this entry. After he does, if you find a comment that should have gone to your inbox and sent an email notification but didn't, leave him a link to the comment that should have sent the notification, as long as the comment itself was made after Mark says he's collecting them. (I'd wait and post this after he gets the debug code in but I need to go to sleep and he's not sure how long it will take!)

We're sorry about the hassle! Irregular/sporadic issues like this are really hard to troubleshoot because it's impossible to know if they're fixed or if they're just not happening while you're looking. With luck, this will give us enough information to figure out the root cause for real this time.

Entry tags:

Day 2: Risiera di San Sabba and walking through Trieste

After breakfast, we got on the bus to the museum at San Sabba, the rice factory that served as a concentration camp in WWII. As expected, it was quite harrowing, especially walking into the middle square where the Nazis had torched the crematorium before fleeing. The hole where the chimney had been ripped out has a small plaque and flower vase in front of it. I am not at all superstitious. However, the feeling you get walking in from the entrance is one of tremendously bad juju. The dank cells with the wooden doors and too-small bunks may be the only physical remains of the instruments of torment, but the walls are permeated with it. We did not take any photos. We read through all the exhibition materials in the museum. Keiki insisted we leave a donation to ensure all is preserved so no one forgets.

Our bus ride back to town was quiet, and at the end of the journey we walked to a gelateria. Everyone practiced ordering in Italian. We must have done reasonably well as the server smiled at us a great deal and our single scoop cones wobbled under the weight of gelato piled in.

Much of the rest of the day was spent walking, punctuated by stops for refreshments and a bit of shopping. We visited the Cattedrale di San Giusto Martire (photos in a separate post), and we watched the sunset from the harbour’s edge.

Random garden with large wisteria vines in full flower.

The drive leading up to the castle.

WWI monument.

Aperol, crisps and beer. Very acceptable.

Triestian sunset.

Given E's predeliction for 1990s - 2000s tv, what is she going to watch next?

Edit: fuck, I forgot to include Smallville! Uh, vote for that as the last option I guess.

1. Results will be non-binding

2. I will not watch anything starring anybody who then went on to perform in the God's Not Dead franchise. This isn't even about their abhorrent beliefs, it's about their apparently low artistic standards. I only am barely including Xena on this list because we can just skip crossover episodes. Please do let me know if I accidentally listed a Big Mistake in that regard

Poll #34464 Old TV

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46

View Respondents

What are we gonna watch together?

View Answers

Teen Wolf
4 (8.7%)

Stargate (any)
20 (43.5%)

Xena
15 (32.6%)

X-Files
12 (26.1%)

Scrubs
7 (15.2%)

Something else that you'll put in the comments
4 (8.7%)

Well, we looked under every last couch cushion

and despite the fact that this is coming out to more than projected we didn't need to ask them to split it into two bills and I still have enough money for groceries!

We have our water heater replacement first thing tomorrow

And we can barely pay it if we don't pay for a few other things. Maybe they'll let us write two checks.

On the other hand, if the USA decides drop nukes during the installation, probably the company won't trouble themselves too much about payment. We'll be home free! Well, assuming nobody retaliates on NYC specifically....

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