Next Indy BlogMeet - Sunday, March 21

The usual time at the usual place. CU?

(Art and arrangements courtesy of the lovely and talented Roberta X.)

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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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Sidebar additions/Sunday’s Blog•Meet

Presenting, in alphabetical order, the new sidebar additions thanks to Sunday’s Blog•Meet:

Assorted Meanderings, “Politics. Engineering. Science.”, conducted by Jack.  (Would that possibly be “MAD” science?  Guess we’ll find out!)

Pennsylvania Rifles is home of “PA State Cop,” who just got started blogging, but has a host of stories. (Now all  we’ve gotta do is convince him to start writing ’em all up!)

Both gentlemen are welcome additions to the circle, which this time around also included Joanna (“Glad I didn’t order a large!”) Roberta (pictures), Tam, Nathan (fresh from snowy Alexandria), Caleb (fresh from sunny California), Shermlock, Hagbard (hey, I want to know how you get comments where there’s no post), Shootin’ Buddy, and me.  Tchopstix turned out to be all that was promised (and they have Kirin on draft!).  Only one Wayne this time, tho...

The next meeting appears to be coalescing toward March 21 (Indy 1500 weekend).  Discussion underway at Roberta’s place.

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February Blog•Meet - Sunday the 21st

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BlogMeet report - Sunday, January 3

I counted 19 peak attendance (but I also consumed two glasses of Brugge’s “Tripel de Ripple,” so there’s a slight possibility of inaccuracy).  At any rate, we occupied three tables.  Brigid has photos (yes, the Waterzooie tasted as good as it looks), Turk has a video, Roberta has a brief report. Fun, fun, fun.

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Changes make my head spin

The Other McCain moves to new digs here.

The famous Jim Treacher announces he’s really somebody named “Sean,” who is now hanging out with Tucker Carlson here.

And while we were distracted elsewhere, Doctor Zero (of Green Room fame) premiered his new site. (Archives, too!)

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For the benefit of the guys at Daily Pundit

Here’s what I’m seeing. (taken c.a. 1800 est)

UPDATED 091221 23:00:  One too many </p> tags!

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“First” December 2009 BlogMeet - this Sunday

Rob K recalls an appropriate quote:

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We must be cautious.”

(The December Indy BlogMeet that you ARE looking for appears to be set for January 3^rd(!?!) at Brugge.  Go figure.)

Credits: Arrangements by Roberta, art by Shermlock.

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Who are you?

If you scroll way down the sidebar... no, keep scrolling... there!... you’ll find some Monthly Traffic stats that our host kindly makes available to us Mee-Nuvians.

As the goings-on on this page have always been primarily for my own amusement (besides being a device for keeping the old blood pressure under control), I’ve never indulged in any of the fancy traffic analysis tools that the web makes available. The idea of doing so seemed to present a risk taking things entirely too seriously^[1]; not to mention offering the disturbing potential to discover things that might be better left undiscovered^[2].

Still, the reported 52,000+ pages served over the last 30 days is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.

Who are all those people?

For a long time that monthly number has hovered around 30,000... say 1,000/day. And I know from looking at other sites’ information that one-half to two-thirds of that is most likely search engine spiders, botnets, spammers, and other miscellaneous automated rabble.  Deduct a reasonable amount (say 50%) of the remainder to account for obsessive refreshing of the main page by the author, and that still leaves several hundred real-live viewers who drop by on any given day.  Who appear to be a taciturn bunch, given that in just over 2½ years they have made just under 300 comments (by probably 30 unique commenters).

So for these last hours of November, I’m gonna call “ollie ollie oxen free,” and encourage you hitherto silent ones to test Mee-nu’s comment functionality.  Tell a bit about yourself, or just say, “hello.”  No registration or personal info required, just click the “Add Comment” link in the footer below and make yourself known, if only for today.

(But if you’re peddling handbags, athletic shoes, or replica watches... forget it.)


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Blog Meet picture

(Taken with my cheap Polaroid digital


Topics discussed at our end of the table:  Whether Rock Star Beatles Version is cool or creepy, if Climatequiddick will make any difference, how many knives you routinely carry.

See you next month!

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