Never Mind

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Aug 21, 2018

Filed under: Notices 25 comments

The theme is back to where it was last week. I can’t work on it while the site keeps falling down. We’ll work on this later. In the meantime: Yes, I know a bunch of stuff is broken / missing, including search. No, I don’t know why. And like I said, I can’t do anything about it now. (It all works fine on my test server, if that makes you feel any better.)

 


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25 thoughts on “Never Mind

  1. Blork32 says:

    For some reason, I kept finding times when I wanted to visit the site today. It’s like the fact that it was down just made me want to read it more. In any case, I’m glad it’s back up. Now I need to finish reading the GTA IV post.

  2. I hope the new site will regain some of the stuff from the old one (especially the backgrounds, you don’t miss’em until they are actually gone).

    BTW! No idea how much of a Star Trek fan you are but here’s a guy that does a deep dive into the character arc of the Barclay Character on Star Trek The Next Generation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFKfk0ZfJH8

    It’s really insightful. And it also made me think that you could do something similar (in written form instead), either for your blog or perhaps articles for The Escapist? Focus on a game character(-arc) that resonated or stood out to you in games. It could easily be a series on it’s own.

  3. Hector says:

    I just wanted to mention how WEIRD this would seem from the perspective of just a few years ago. How would you explain this to you several years ago?

    Now!Shamus: “Hey, Young!Shamus, in a few years we’re going to have a popular website with a few million words of video game analysis. Then one day somebody decides to enslaves 500,000 internet-connected thermostats or whatever in order to prevent anybody from seeing the latest review of GTA4 in order to steal the password to a website with no financial information, apparently just so they can deface it for five minutes, because, idk they’re going to elaborate efforts for nuisance trolling.”

    Young!Shamus: “WTFIDK?”

    1. Hector says:

      Dangit, should have added “… but it’s all ok because now everyone stores all their data distributed on five thousand unknown servers scattered randomly around the world because REASONS!”

    2. ElementalAlchemist says:

      apparently just so they can deface it for five minutes, because, idk they’re going to elaborate efforts for nuisance trolling

      It’s not about that, it’s about looking for servers to add to the botnet. It’s not a targeted attack on Shamus, it’s a targeted attack on WordPress sites.

      1. Derjungerludendorff says:

        So they’re using an army of tiny computer slaves to break open access to the bigger computers and enslave them in turn?

        You could make a good zombie movie out of that.

        1. Philadelphus says:

          Especially from the perspective of the computers. Anyone could be infected!

        2. Orillion says:

          If there isn’t an episode about that in the ReBoot, uh, reboot I consider it a failure.

        3. StuHacking says:

          That’s essentially what I, Robot was about.. albeit the affected household appliances where still bipedal. And less shambling.

          Arguably, the terminator films are set against the backdrop of an A.I expanding its network of influence to take over computers around the world.. although the films never really explore that theme.

          And I suppose in the post-singularity future when humans are no longer made of meat (if you go for that sort of thing), all zombie films will be about the mind enslavement of computers?* Maybe that’s starting to approach Ghost in the Shell territory…

          * Except the really old ones that families will watch around Christmas time for nostalgia of the olden days. “Hey, that guy’s eyeball fell out. Remember eyeballs?.. Good times.”

  4. Nick Powell says:

    I can feel the frustration emanating from this post

    I hope your site gets better soon

    (Better as in ‘not broken any more’, not as in ‘higher quality’. It seemed a bit ambiguous when I read it back…)

    1. Syal says:

      It’s holding up a revamp, so both apply.

  5. Simon Oberbrinkmann says:

    Urgh, botnets are a plague.
    I hope it dies down soon, in the meantime just do something else, you don’t owe us anything :)

    1. Karma The Alligator says:

      Patrons might think otherwise (I’m personally fine with it).

  6. Alex Alda says:

    I really don’t care how the site looks as long as it’s there :)
    Hang in there and don’t stop writing.

  7. Daemian Lucifer says:

    (It all works fine on my test server, if that makes you feel any better.)

    So what you are saying is that you want us to come to your house and look how fine it works.Gotcha.Booking the ticket now.

    1. Mephane says:

      And this is how he gets an IRL DDOS, aka flashmob. :D

      1. Nick-B says:

        *Ding-dong*

        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*
        *Ding-dong*

        *Post on shamus’ twitter account:
        “I don’t understand. I removed the welcome mat. They can’t enter my house anymore, they’re just eating up my non-answers.”

        1. Philadelphus says:

          Ok, I laughed out loud at that.

        2. Matt Downie says:

          Were they pressing the bell marked “I am not a robot”?

      2. Joshua says:

        I’m thinking that the only way that could be more horrifying for him is if every single one of them were carrying their (allergy-laden) pets in their arms to greet him. Just imagine 10,000 voices speaking in unison “Want to pet my puppy/kitty?” to Shamus.

        Yeah, I’m in a weird mood this morning.

  8. Liessa says:

    FWIW, I liked the redesign during the few minutes I managed to access the site (though I did miss the backgrounds).

    1. default_ex says:

      That’s what I thought. It wasn’t bad but lacked the fun backgrounds for the site.

  9. OldOak says:

    On the DDoS — I’m not sure to what extent there is a similar tool like “denyhosts” set of python scripts for a more generic type of access (i.e. for apache/php — denyhosts seems to be very SSH specific). I’d guess something similar can actually be scripted quite easily for your firewall package of choice.
    [EDIT:] Oh, and it seems the RSS is bringing duplicates for the articles.

  10. slipshod says:

    Just my personal preference, but this theme is much easier on the eyes. Dark background and the colorful links / tiles at the top included.

  11. Galad says:

    I’m glad the theme is back. Not to belittle your efforts, but the shortly accessible new version of the site looked like the equivalent of a drab and dreary hospital.

    I hope things get better soon with the DDOS attack :(

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