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Hey folks.
I am wildly out of the loop here, so I'm not sure who is still around in all. I know things have dwindled to a small core crew at this point. Even though I'm no longer involved here, I want to make sure as long as you guys want this place you have it. So I'm here for now just to make sure that happens and whatever is needed (new admins or otherwise) gets done.
Jizzelbin contacted me this morning and with his generous help we got (several hours later) the site up and running again.
I would definitely like to keep it going. Thanks, Zuul! Great to have you back.
Hey, Zuul. I thought we were done for sure. I'm not up to admin work, but if any financial backing is necessary, let me know.
I think I've found a great (and low cost) option for hosting, so I'm hoping at the end of the month I can get the site moved over to my friend's server and financial backing won't be necessary at all. If it works out, Mello will be able to chug away there for the foreseeable future. I'll keep you all updated!
Just quick update, I got an e-mail from the hosting saying a new invoice just came in.
Based on the new info from Zuul (who is great and surprisingly not at all a typical forum geek chatting in private, more like an actual person :)), I'm going to hold off on this one and knock wood see what happens.
Zuul is pretty cool! Especially considering she doesn't really use the site anymore, that's damned admirable. Me, I just wanted to keep using PMs and maybe save an archive to local disk, so I'm just a selfish bastard.
Thanks for the update. Yeah, Zuul is about as cool as they come.
And keep in mind, if there's a delay in the moving the site thing, I'm prepared to help with the finances.
As am I.
Me, three. There are also offers to basically clone the Dope over to here, if need be. Check Giraffe for details.
Just FYI, I've received e-mail from the hosting company a few times for invoice payment.
I can't cover the current (inexpensive) invoices, so I'd recommend those interested get in touch with Caerie at the Mellophant Facebook page.
I'd do it, but it turns out hiring chicks with dicks....to....detail your car... is more expensive, not less, than the regular kind.
Okay, I have PayPalled Caerie enough to cover for the month. She's still hoping she can get us on a free server in the near future.
I wander in upon occasion. I'd sure like to see us continue. I can't afford much, but I can pitch a couple of bucks in to help on costs if need be.
Likewise. Please PM me Caerie's email address, anyone who knows.
I will not go on a rant here, but let me just say that I would lurve for message boards, or for that matter, anything not connected to, or owned by, Facebook to become dominant on the web again. I will, however, promise to try to pay more attention to this place.
Facebook, mostly harmful.Quote:
Originally posted by Tuckerfan
Bourbaki "dangerous curve" symbol, drawn from a street sign. Amplified elsewhere by Knuth, IIRC.
I keep forgetting to "tag" various surfaces with that instead of the classic anarchy sign.
ETA here's "the page" for it. Trust me, it's really well-known, at least for a certain number of geeks.
And, yes, I got your reference.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?Facebook, mostly harmful.Quote:
Originally posted by Tuckerfan
See: GOTO and also pass go.
The funny thing about that infamous comment (Dijsktra) is that one cannot do anything in assembly language without multiple "jumps."
However, unless you're reverse-engineering something, or trying to do something highly specific, nobody writes Assembly (of whatever stripe).
Compilers for, at least C, are just fine, and even Python/Cython can handle assembly instructions directly. ETA At least gcc outputs legible AS code. I don't know how to measure loop-simplification and all the optimizations, but it makes sense, as a translation.
But, personally, I think the compiler writers are pretty much on the ball.
However, I haven't checked in a methodical manner.
It is, however, an extremely interesting area to be aware of.
I'd go, for computing:
(i) EE analog and digital, basic breadboarding and design with applications. On the level of a hobbyist with a Raspberry Pi or something.
(ii) Data structures + basic algorithm analysis (big-Theta, big-O): foundations, since it's arguably the single area of importance, so it's too big for intro.
(iii) Compiler design
And all the linear algebra, "discrete math," and fluency in the predicate calculus in logic needed for the above.
So, we're back. Anybody got a cool story about what happened?
I understand that the fee was not timely paid to keep it up and running. choie has now done so, bless her, and we are exploring various options as to what comes next.
All hail chole!
Hear, hear!
Two huzzahs and a rhinoceros! Or something.
Seriously, though, although organization is not our strong point, we probably to need to come up with a better system for keeping the bills paid.
In cash? Or in....human sacrifice?
Or perhaps a death race.
I think a garland of human skulls is good payment, but I learned that from my grandfather, who was from a different age.
For example, instead of saying "white Europeans," he insisted on calling them "deformed hair-deprived monkeys with enormous breasts and engorged craniums."
Sad.
He did serve in the Ape War II, though.
TY chole!
Okay, last week of September. Do we have a plan for keeping the lights on in October?
Good question. Didn't notice this until just now.
IIRC the hosting company gives about two months until "past due" becomes "database offline."
It would probably be best to keep on it before it gets to "termination day."
If I had a clue how to do this, I'd suggest maybe some kind of escrow account or something where, as members have some extra funds, we can chip in according to our abilities; but, I wouldn't know how to make some kind of shared paypal account.
Plus, someone would have to be sort of the keymaster, and I doubt anyone wants their specific banking information available to a shared account.
Anyway, just one thought.
The ideal solution would be if we could entrap or lure in some sucker with no life generous person to step in as an administrator or all-around moderator, but, again, I think most people, me included, have indicated they couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't handle the extra work involved on a day-to-day basis.
ETA And, what would be ideal is to lessen the burden on Caerie — I'm grateful for her keeping this site in her mind, but it does seem a bit unfair to offload a lot of duties to her, especially when it becomes a "fail safe zero" situation and everyone's scrambling to contact her and make demands on her time for coordinating.
Hi everyone. Caerie's no longer burdened with the site, fortunately! I paid the arrears (with help from Elendil's Heir, thanks EH!) and paid for this month as well.
We need to get out of the current hosting company, which is charging an absurd rate for what little resources a site/forum with such little activity requires. We don't need cloud hosting at $31/month for what appears to be 15 or so active members. :)
I'm only active in the RPG forum, but I've been here for six years and have interest in maintaining the site mainly for that purpose, while y'all can enjoy the rest of the Mellophant experience.
However, if someone else here really wants an admin who's more active elsewhere, that's fine with me.
As for payment, until (and if) I switch hosts, we can maybe do a Patreon if anyone wants to help with the hosting fee? If there are ten of us, that's just $3 a month--and once we're at my host, it really wouldn't add anything to my hosting bill. So you could just stop donating or if you want to contribute, that's cool too.
Oh, I guess the domain name is an annual purchase, but it's like $15, so not a significant issue.
OTOH if someone wants to take over Mellophant and make some kind of reinvigorated community out of it, I can easily transfer all the stuff to that person.
Mostly what made me take the bull by the horns and get in touch with Caerie was my fear that with the site vanished, we could've lost thousands of posts that make up our RPG. All of us (admittedly it's only four or five players) prefer to have control over that content so if the site one day disappears, we won't phaser ourselves to death. Now at least I have backups of the Star Trek RPG stuff and we can go to a free board. :)
That sounds ideal for right now. If anyone has time to burn making a sticky on how to contribute, that might be helpful.Quote:
Originally posted by choie
I can't see the board expanding much, but it would be nice to have a good plan in place.
And, of course, thanks to choie and The Colonel for getting us past this new hump.
I don't think it's a matter of raw finance, just an organizational thing.
But it's a real show of stepping-up that choie took on the task.
ETA And, one of the nice things is that, being a small board, we're kind of self-moderating. Peer pressure and all that.
Patreon sounds like a good idea, and I'd be happy to make a monthly pledge if someone else would take up the stress of setting up the account.
thanks for all you've done, good citizens.