A few housekeeping matters ....

by von

A few words in light of recent events:

1.  I blog pseudonymously for a variety of selfishly-good reasons.  I would rather keep it that way for the time being.  Thanks in advance.

2.  If you can't figure out the connection between a title of my post and the post itself, be assured that no one else can either.

3.  I'm a lawyer.  I try to avoid blogging on matters that may directly or indirectly affect my clients.  I also don't typically blog about the law, although I might (on occasion) touch on an issue or two relating to patents or intellectual property.  

4.  That is, in the tradition of the internet, I blog on subjects that I know absolutely nothing about.  (I got your Army of David right here, baby.)

5.  If you want to contact me -- and I don't know why you would -- please either email the Death Kitty in the corner or use vonofobsidianwings -at- hotmail -dot- com.

6.  This is an open thread.

UPDATE:  Some fool has decided to spoof commentators and post racist and idiotic comments.  It's affecting all current threads.  We're dealing with the issue as best we can; if we miss a fake comment or inadverently delete or modify your (legitimate) post, you have our apologies.  If you see this fool spouting nonsense in your name, please drop a line to the kitty and we'll do our best to fix the situation.

Comments

[Jon H]

"I blog pseudonymously for a variety of selfishly-good reasons. I would rather keep it that way for the time being. Thanks in advance."

What a let down. I thought you were 'von' the supermarket magnate.

[Eric Martin]

"That is, in the tradition of the internet, I blog on subjects that I know absolutely nothing about. "

I think you mean:

"That is an Internet Tradition that I blog..."

[br]

"That is, in the tradition of the internet, I blog on subjects that I know absolutely nothing about."

Phew, I'm glad we cleared that up.

Moving on...

[kid bitzer]

is it true that "death kitty" is only a pseudonym, and that the kitten has a different name irl?

[cleek]

can we worry about right wing terrorism yet ?

[Warren Terra]

If you can't figure out the connection between a title of my post and the post itself, be assured that no one else can either.

But if I can figure out the connection, then should I worry?

[Jim W]

I don't suppose "von" is short for "von Brunn", by any chance?

[kid bitzer]

von, eric, kitten:

that spoof troll is still at it on the buendia thread and elsewhere.

more deletions needed, more banning needed, clean up on aisle 8.

[von]

Thanks. The troll(s) now appears to be spoofing commentators (I sincerely doubt that Warren Terra created the post at 4:01 p.m.).

[Eric Martin]

KB: I only have power over the threads to posts that I authored. Unfortunately.

[kid bitzer]

yeah, and there's on on the "high heels" post that i sure didn't write.

[Brett Bellmore]

Can you set things up so that, once a name has been used through a typepad account, it can't otherwise be used? I'm using my own name here, being spoofed really annoys me.

[Warren Terra]

My only previous post in this thread is the 3:53 one; the 4:01 is a spoof.
I'm inclined to suspect the (often highly obscene) troll that otherwise styles itself variations on "Christian Weston Chandler", as I've seen it spoof other commenters before, including me, as being the authors of racist comments. This makes me suspicious of both 3:54 posts, as the second may be authored by the aforementioned "CWC" and thus the first, which appears highly inappropriate, may be an attempt to smear commenter "Jim W".

[Eric Martin]

KB: Done.

Brett,

I have no power over Typepad, and pretty much hate Typepad's guts. I'm also basically a tech "moran" so even if Typepad were easy to use, functional, not a complete clusterf*@k of a platform, I probably couldn't help ya.

[Warren Terra]

I just submitted a comment that hasn't appeared - maybe it got filtered? In any case, I doubt that Jim W wrote the 3:54, for reasons that were in my comment.

[von]

I think that you'll need to resubmit your comment, Warren Terra. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Eric Martin]

WT: It did get filtered.

Von: You can "unfilter" it if you look in the spam list.

[von]

Thanks, Eric.

I found and fixed your missing comment, WT. I also deleted the spoof email at 4:01.

[Joe Thomas]

I assumed the Buendia quote was something about the consequences of current actions on future generations. . .

[xanax]

Eric: I'm also basically a tech "moran"...

Any relation to Dylan Moran?

[Cyrus]

This would properly be a reply to a comment in a previous thread, but since I'm way late to that thread and this is an open thread, I'll just do it here...

Funny, in the Constitution, it talks about copyright and patent NOT as property rights, but "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Posted by: Nate | June 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM

Nate goes on to argue that that is the correct way to think about IP, which I agree with. But also, I find it interesting that some parts of the Constitution include justification for themselves, but others don't. The bit about copyrights and patents says (almost precognesciently; the founders certainly couldn't have known the problems Mickey Mouse would cause) why it is there, but the part immediately before it doesn't say what its purpose is. The First Amendment is a blanket prohibition, but the Second Amendment isn't. (Maybe, as the NRA would have it, the bit about maintaining militias is just an inkblot, but even if so it must mean something that the framers justify that amendment but not the ones before or after it.)

Are there any other clauses like those two? If so, does it mean anything?

[cleek]

can we worry about right wing terrorism yet ?

well, cleek, funny you should ask. Shep Smith thinks we should start worrying, and even notes that the US Govt recently said we should worry about it. and he does this on Fox News, of all places.

so, yes. i think i agree with me: we should worry.

[Gary Farber]

"if we miss a fake comment"

I don't know if the name is "real" or "fake," but there are several sotomayor-drinker comments on the "high heel" thread.

[Gary Farber]

See also June 10, 2009 at 03:51 PM on von's "Many years later" thread.

Hard to tell about the June 10, 2009 at 04:06 PM comment on the same thread. If it isn't fake, it's still a troll that should get a warning, methinks.

And, to be sure, a whole lot more comments later on on that thread.

Why can't ObWi switch to Blogspot tomorrow? Whatever can't be added immediately can be added subsequently. Typepad has been broken for years now; why can't ObWi switch right now? Today.

What's the problem doing that?

[David Sucher]

Eric Martin:
Why do you "hate" Typepad?

[Warren Terra]

Ever since the last Typepad upgrde about six months ago I haven't been able to comment when I'm browsing using my phone, because the system doesn't recognize that I've entered any text and so the "Post" and "Preview" buttons aren't active. So I'd certainly welcome any platform switch that solves the problem for me.

That being said, I imagine it's work to do the switch, and I don't assume others are bound to exert themselves for my benefit.

[Sebastian]

The main problem with the switch is the hundreds and hundreds of linked articles.

[Gary Farber]

"The main problem with the switch is the hundreds and hundreds of linked articles."

How so? No one is saying take down this site. Just lock it so no more comments can be made, and have prominent pointers to here from the new site, and vice versa.

It's not as if zillions of blogs haven't done exactly that kind of transition for almost as long as there have been blogs. I mean, that's how most blogs transition to new sites.

No one has ever provided any explanation of what all the difficulty is in just starting a new site within a couple of hours of deciding to, let along the now more than a year ya'll keep saying variants of "any day now." Just start the new damn site. Tweak it as you go. What's the problem?

I once started a (very temporary and limited in purpose) new blog on Blogspot and it took ten minutes.

Cut and paste your blogroll and other boilerplate text as desired. Or add it slowly over a few days, or a few weeks, as one has time, if for some reason you can't cut-and-paste (and looking at the page source, I can't see why you can't do that for stuff like the blogroll and sidebar with almost no modifications).

How could it result in a worse, more dysfunctional, situation than ObWi has been in for what's been practically an eternity?

I'm perfectly willing to believe that there's some difficulty I'm not aware of, and god knows you don't owe me or anyone any explanations, but it certainly would be awfully informative if one of y'all might at the least take a moment to explain what the problem is. Because from at least one person's outside view, it seems incomprehensible. Starting a new blog site just isn't all that big a deal; literally tens of thousands of people do it every day. Twelve-year-olds do it.

Jeepers creepers, give me permission, and I'll create a new site for you with all the current sidebar text, and the blogroll, by, say, Friday evening at the latest.

And I don't know any HTML beyond five tags. It's just that freaking simple.

If you just want to pick out a template and go, it should take you exactly as long as you want to spend choosing a template, and adding some basic text, or about ten minutes. Go here.

If you like I can do it for you by half an hour from now.

[Gary Farber]

I apologize, Sebastian, and the rest of the ObWi front-page blog-owners, for ranting; it just seems like this situation has gone on for blog centuries by now.

How long has it been since Typepad eliminated email addresses from posting names, which is when I, at least, first alleged that Typepad was too broken to use any more?

[Gary Farber]

A quick glance at the archives shows that Typepad retroactively stripped out all past email addresses, but here is an example of me complaining about it over a year ago, and I'd be reasonably surprised if I hadn't been complaining about it for at least a year before that.

Not, to reemphasize, that there's any reason for y'all to pay attention to my whining and bitching; it's your blog. I'm just saying that it sure has been a long time.

[Mike Schilling]

If an ObWi upgrade results in using JS-kit for comments, I will out every single one of you, including the damned cat.

[Warren Terra]

I am with Mike on the JS-Kit. LGM is a great blog, but their commenting system is an abomination.

[CTS]

Ok, I will ask the naively obvious question: WHY, does anyone engage in this sort of ... behavior? (I'm assuming that 'conduct' is marginally rational.)

[kid bitzer]

could you be more specific, cts?

on a day like today, that question could be directed to too many different examples of behavior around the world.

[russell]

"WHY, does anyone engage in this sort of ... behavior?"

I have to recuse myself on this one, because I engage in behavior every single day.

[wonkie]

Well I am going to change the subject.

I'll tell you guys about this because my poor husband has to listen to dog stories every day and this is a sad one.

Not a total tragedy, just a small tragedy. Poor old Mr. Jack, the enormous elderly German Shepard mix that nobody wanted finally passed away. I've been walking him three or four days a week for about a year. He lived in a kennel at a dog rescue.

He liked people but he hated all other forms of life. Since its an all volunteer shelter that means he got about half an hour a day of attention on the days I walked him, half an hour on Fridays when Micheal volunteers and maybe ten minutes of attention on the other days.

Every now and then, since he was sort of the pet of the shelter, he'd get invited into the breeak room to hang out with the kennnel cleaners while they ate their lunches.

On his last day Micheal went out ino the play field with him and sat with him. Old Jack lay his head on Micheal's lap.

He passed away in his sleep at the vet's last night. I'm sorry that no one was with him.

I wish every dog had a home. Sometimes I can hardly stand volunteering down there because all the dogs are barking "Love me, love me" and I just feel panicky because I can respond to them all. I wish I didn't have to have a job so I could go down there every day.

[wonkie]

I mean't "can't".

[Sebastian]

I'm very much against nested comments. Just for the record.

[JanieM]

Sebastian @ 11:48 -- seconded.

[Gary Farber]

Thirded. Hate that.

(If it was a matter of using a Usenet newreader of your own choice, so you have all the options you want as to how to manipulate how posts are presented to you, that would be great; but in blog form, where someone else is making that choice for you, I hate it, and would always go with simple linearity, myself.)

Sorry about Mr. Jack, Wonkie.

I'm going to sleep now, I think, or will try to. Ta for the evening.

[hilzoy]

Oh, wonkie: that's really sad. I'm glad you were there to walk him.

[Jesurgislac]

Wonkie, I'm so sorry about Mr Jack.

[wonkie]

Well thanks for the sympathy. I just thought some way his life should be redcognized ans his death mourned. He was a nice old boy.

[CTS]

The 'sort of behavior' I meant was "Some fool has decided to spoof commentators and post racist and idiotic comments."

[Murali]

Since this is open thread and since we brought up commenting, what d you guys think about this brought to you by Positive Liberty and IOZ

If you use blogspot, you dont have to use the JS-Kit commenting system. Note my own blog which uses blogspot's native commenting system. Posts appear immediately, yet I have power to delete abusive posts. Plus I can also require users to type in a word that appears in the box if I wish to

[bedtimeforbonzo]

"On his last day Micheal went out ino the play field with him and sat with him. Old Jack lay his head on Micheal's lap."

Damn you, Wonkie. Here I am at work and you got me tearing up once I got to that point in your lovely, sad story.

The work you do is truly wonderful and I know it must break your heart every time you hear your furry friends' shouts of "love me, love me."

Mr. Jack sounds like the kind of dog I would fall for -- of course, that covers most any dog. (The time and attention you and Micheal showed him is, unfortunately, more than a lot of dogs get. You're right: I wish every dog had a home.)

---

My little old man, as I call Hamilton, our 14-year-old Beagle, is finally showing signs of his advanced age.

Some of it is pretty normal. He used to get up with the first person in the household, normally my wife and then son. Now it's not until I start stirring in the kitchen around 8 o'clock, making tea, and gently calling out his name a few times, does Hamilton rise, slowly, from the basement den, where he sleeps on the cushy sofa every night. Then he hobbles up the steps and greets me with what is still a fairly persistent wagging tail -- it used to go nonstop.

It's weird now that he has gotten old. Hamilton used to be the most reliable dog I have ever had in terms of simply opening the backdoor and letting him out to do his business rain or shine (yes, I guess this is some Inside Dog stuff, sorry guys). But now I have to encourage him a little and stand on the porch as he mills about in the yard, turning his head back and looking at "Dad" from time to time.

Now that we have been reduced to a one-dog household -- Hamilton's passing won't be traumatic like last summer's sudden deaths of my pretty girl, CoCo, and my big boy, Bowser, since, at least, he has had a long and happy life -- the little man gets a generous walk every single night I return from work at 9. This is the one thing he looks forward to more than table food, and has done as much good for me as it has for him.

(I was always closest to CoCo and Bowser, especially CoCo, and Hammels was my boy's favorite and vice versa, but we've developed a special bond that now makes me look forward to our nightly walkabouts.)

Old age is a b!tch. Now the little man's hind legs cramp up from time to time. Worse is the hacking cough he has developed. But noisy, endearing Hamilton and his big heart has surprised me before so I could still be blogging about him this time next year.

---

I have a favorite customer, old man Milton S who appeared out of nowhere Monday wanting an everyday rider to go with the Dodge minivan he purchased a couple of years ago. Milton is 92, a WWII vet and his mind is alert. I pick his brain for plenty of old-time stories.

He tells me his patience was legendary among his friends and co-workers at the Chrysler plant where he worked for 30 years and I believe it: His passion was fixing -- and making -- clocks. When I first went to his home two years ago I was amazed at the ornate and intricate CooCoo clocks and grandfather clocks that filled his home in which he made from scratch, a hobby old age has finally forced him to give up.

The deal Milton and I worked Monday on our 2000 Ford Focus went down just like the last one did. I found the best least-expensive car we had, he trusted me and we went to show it to Elizabeth, his wife of 68 years. Mrs. Milton reacted it just like last time, like her husband was crazy and did nothing but complain during our half-hour visit. Milton said this is all she has ever done for 68 years, that his patience has come in handy, that Elizabeth's own brother said any other man would have dumped her long ago.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed our slice-of-life visit and unsuccessfully try to find a soft spot in Elizabeth's icy heart. Instead, I find true love in Benji, their chubby 14-year-old poodle mix. Normally I'm not one for poodles. But Benji jumps on my lap and licks away at the stranger's face. My heart melts.

Milton tells me he has to put Benji down soon because of a heart problem. Benji seems pretty spry to me, later devouring a chew toy, so I encourage him to hold off. "I love that old dog," Milton says, and I shut up.

---

I've been catching up yesterday and this morning on the past two week's of blogs on the Kitty and this whole mess of outing front-pagers and imposters writing under familiar names. You'd think people would have better things to do with their time.

I've been distracted by real life and my ongoing personal financial crisis. Still haven't paid June's mortgage, the latest I have been since things got really hard more than a year ago.

I joked to the assistant manager and my friend, Kevin, that I did not feel like getting out of bed this morning and wanted to make up some bullsh!t excuse abouting being sick, but I was guilted out of bed by unpaid bills.

And so it goes.

[Gary Farber]

"Since this is open thread and since we brought up commenting, what d you guys think about this...."

It seems well done. Kudos to them.

When I first went online, it was many years after many of my friends, many of whom had long been on ARPANET, and some of whom had been on mainframe sharing long years before that. By the time I got online in 1995, all the netiquette of USENEt and ARPANET and FIDO, and the RFCs had long been set.

And I'd picked up on most of them before I got online, just from conversation with longtime netizens.

And the ISP I finally got online with, Panix, had a been a place for clueful net users since 1989; the idea that mutual community responsibility was absolutely essential to the internet's health was an an absolute given. The idea that it was every individual's responsibility to speak up to help maintain the health and viability of the community, both overall on the internet, and whereever one "was" locally, be it a USENET newsgroup, a mailing list, a local newsgroup, or whever, was simply inherent in the idea of being a responsible person on the net.

To be sure, after Eternal September, this became a never-ending battle. But that only made it more important for everyone who was clueful to use their clue-by-fours whenever they could.

Those are the internet values I found when I found the internet, and those are the internet values I hope and expect to go out on.

And my dream would be to, when it's time to go, hear a chorus of so say we all.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

Been thinking about Mr. Jack all day. Wonkie really pulled at my heartstrings with such a simple story.

Leaving work now. No point in staying late on my one 9-5 day when we are d-e-a-d.

When I take my brother home -- he watches the boy while the wife and I are both at work on Fridays -- I'll think of Mr. Jack and let Hamilton relive his youth and take a ride in the bed of the pick-up truck. He really enjoys riding in the '01 S10 that replaced the '92 F150 a few months back -- it's smaller and allows his Beagleness to peer out and actually take in the sights. I love watching dogs rejoice in the freedom of going for a ride and taking in, for them, what must be an overwhelmingly delightful dose of smells.

Thank you, wonkie.