A most civil dressing-down

Some passages are joys to read, just for the style of them.  And then there are the ones with substance surpassing their style:  Point of order.

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The Adventure of the Disappearing Archives

Blogspot bloggers - especially those using “classic” templates - will want to be aware of this:

Half of my blog has vanished.

No, really, completely vanished.
Unreadable.  Un-findable.  Invisble.  Gone.

You probably haven’t noticed, because the only bit of the blog you read is fine.  There’s been no effect on my front page, on my most recent posts, the ones you actually read.  But try to delve into my archives and you’ll discover that they’re not all there.  I have 90 monthly archive pages, each of which used to show a complete list of posts published in that month.  Now each stops short, cutting off everything after the middle of the month, with no way to access the remainder.  Half of everything I've written over the last 7½ years has disappeared.  As you might imagine, I’m not best pleased...

The good news is that it turns out the posts in question are not “Gone,” but are presently “Unreadable. Un-findable. Invisible.” thanks to a poorly thought-out (my opinion) “Auto-Pagination” feature rolled out a couple of weeks ago with no prior notice by Google. How much you now see has to do with not the number of posts but their size, along with how many images (even if not hosted on Google’s servers) they include. Needless to say there are a lot of angry comments in Blogger’s help forum, along with the sort of patronizing responses (often non-solutions: “Recode all your posts” - right!) from admins which we’ve encountered before.

So check your archive pages, and always remember:

This mess brings home how fragile the world of online content is.  All it takes is one hosting decision, one hard-drive failure or one corporate takeover, and everything you thought you owned can disappear.  It’s a sobering thought that if I’d died three months ago, my entire online legacy would now be half a blog (thank you Blogger) with no comments (thank you.JS-Kit).  We’re all only one upgrade away from obsolescence.

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Sunbeam-seeking cat

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Best line about the Oscars that’s not about the Oscars

“I’m just happy NBC didn’t carry it because then it would have been tape-delayed for the West Coast.” - â€œformer law student,” in a comment at Althouse

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Clipfile - March 7, 2010

“Even among [our] rulers, only 63 percent -- triple the fraction of the general populace but still less than two-thirds of the political class -- regard the federal government as legitimate by the standards of America’s founding document.  The remainder, presumably, are comfortable being tyrants.” - Glenn Reynolds

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Follow-up: Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Backpedals; IndyStar plays “Name That Party”

For those who tuned in late, this story from March 3:

A Southern Indiana prosecutor has threatened criminal charges unless stores with DVD rental kiosks remove R-rated movies and other material considered harmful to children.

The rollout of hundreds of automated Redbox-style kiosks

(which, by the way, require a charge/debit card to operate...)

to grocery stores, McDonald’s restaurants, Wal-marts and other retailers in Indiana has met resistance in some communities over the perception that they provide children younger than 17 with easier access to adult-rated movies.

Letters sent to retailers in recent weeks by the office of Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stanley Levco may amount to the largest crackdown yet in Indiana...

Needless to say, there’s a lawyer behind this...

“I’m not on a crusade,” said Paul Black, an Evansville attorney who says he suggested the inquiry to Levco’s office on behalf of a client who operates several video store locations.  “We’re just looking for a level playing field here.”

Black, who declined to identify his client, said Levco’s office sent letters to about a dozen stores in Vanderburgh County...  ...One letter -- addressed to the general manager of a Schnuck’s grocery store and dated Jan. 27 -- cites an Indiana law prohibiting dissemination of matter harmful to minors, a Class D felony...

Felonies: Just can’t avoid ’em!

It says that category might include adult-rated videos in that store’s MovieCube kiosk, a Redbox competitor.

“We suggest that the machine or machines dispensing these materials at your location no longer provide access to videos, movies, games” and other material that are unrated or have ratings of R or even PG, the letter [signed by William Roberts, an investigator in Levco’s office] says. - Jon Murray, Indianapolis Star

Today:

A crackdown on Redbox and other DVD kiosks in Evansville is off.

Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stan Levco said Friday that he decided to drop an effort to compel retailers to remove adult-rated movies from the automated kiosks because children might rent them.

Levco said he based his decision on a review of the law, the fact that the kiosks have some procedures to limit children’s access, and the difficulty of convincing a jury, based on negative feedback he received from the community...

Well, good for him.  Too bad he didn’t change his mind before this foolishness attracted national notice.  (Example: Coverage at The Consumerist generated 170-some “stupid Hoosier tricks” comments.  Way to go, Sparky!)

Oh, and notice the one piece of information that’s missing from both Star stories.  Like we don’t deserve to know, or something...  (Although I can’t say I’d be confident that a Republican would do any better.)

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Somebody needs to remind Comcast who their customers are

Instapundit:

OKAY, THE FIRMWARE IS UPGRADED IN MY COMCAST DVR, and now it won’t seem to let me skip commercials.  You can fast forward, but when you go back to play, it jumps back to the commercial you were watching when you started.  Bug?  Or a new “advertiser feature?”  If this sticks, I’m switching to somebody else.

Comcast’s “business services” people have been after my company to switch to their VOIP + internet package.  Stuff like this (along with the seemingly endless stories of the company’s customer service fiascos at Consumerist^[1]) serves to remind me that doing business with sleazeballs only leads to frustration.

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Three stages of regret...

Via:  Mind Numbed Robot, via Moe Lane

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