If your screen is very, very good and your eyes are sharp, maybe you noticed the actual "delete my account" button. Fawkers.

But I don't get to criticize. Because ya know what OPW doesn't have? A "delete my account" button. Shame on me.

I'm publicly shaming myself here because I need a little motivation to release this feature, which is completely coded and ready to go — I just need to test it a little more.

Cue Neil Gaiman quote.

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5/5 '17
 

Look, I don't care where you go, but get off LiveJournal. Today I was presented with this:


"The translation of this User Agreement is not a legally binding document. The original User Agreement, which is valid, is located at" [see document in Russian].

OK, so other sites change their terms... WITHOUT telling you they are NOT BOUND by the English version, that is... But LiveJournal also got rid of HTTPS recently. (Translation: completely sniffable on the wire.)

It's been circling the drain for a long time but COME ON CHILDREN, we need to FIND THE EXITS AND DEPART.

I will have to make time to check my backups and delete my LJ. What a PITA.

Well, it was good while it lasted. And it lasted a long time.

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Just wanted to say that I'm looking into a number of different backup options. One that I found interesting: https://www.blogbooker.com/
(Though I'm more focused on finding one that backs up comments as well...)
Also, some interesting reading if anyone is curious: http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=LiveJournal
I'm looking at that one for something I can save on my own system. It looks pretty slick.
Agreed. I was thinking of it as a 'secondary backup' / easily portable.

Still - so much of why I loved LJ was the conversation with friends - which is all wrapped up in the commenting system...
Update on BlogBooker - the free version only allows 1 year to PDF or 6 months for Word Doc.

I'm considering the $30 for unlimited.
Update: I bought in. Worked perfectly! I now have a PDF book of all my entries, comments, and images.

My only complaint is that the images get crunched to pretty small sizes, but that's really about it.
Nice! Did you have to accept the agreement on LJ first?
Sadly, I did. I tried without it, but received an error message. Dug through that and saw something about 'accept license agreement'.

They've blocked e'erythin.
To answer the question about import to opw: opw allows only one post per day, and I'd need to make some big changes there. Also everybody should leave LJ now, not when I get a round tuit. I think the sensible thing is to move to one of the directly compatible sites folks have mentioned.
Also there's something called BlogBooker that changes LJ/DW/blogger posts into pdfs or Word Docs. It works on Mac (and PC). The service is busy right now (shocker), but I plan to use it in the future so I can get my posts about the kids in a format that I can give to them when they're older.

https://www.blogbooker.com/index.php
This is a thing. Thoughts? Your skills and experience are greatly valued in this regard.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=127
This was super super duper easy to use. I brought over all of my entries, comments, userpics, custom friend groups, etc. with a click or 4. Nothing to it.
I ported my LJ to Dreamwidth awhile back. I forget what exactly the triggering event was, probably either the sale to a Russian company or one of LJ's many outages, and the realization that the platform was starting to die. I've had no complaints; only thing I need to do now is turn off crossposting.
Oh crap. I'm glad you guys mentioned this. I think that _I_ did a dreamwidth account. (How many damn blogs do I have?!)

Anyway - thanks for the reminder.
I'm no expert on Dreamwidth, but Genevieve is pretty smart, and she likes them.

Unfortunately it looks like we'll all have to accept the agreement before that tool can work. (If it somehow works without it, COOL. Let me know.)
The main potential issue with Dreamwidth is that as far as I can tell it's a labor of love for one or a few people, and those can be kind of unstable. But they haven't, for example, sold themselves to Russia, so there's that.
Indeed, it is extremely similar to OPW then, with the same risks, but also the same relatively low likelihood of active jerkery.
Sounds like a good temporary measure, at least.
Also very interesting that their "account management" page where you can discontinue recurring payments for Paid LJ accounts is conveniently 404'd. I can't stop my payments right now. Fuuuuuck thaaaat.

I just backed up my journal and comments using LJArchive, and am currently in queue to have my LJ posts, comments, userpics, tags, and everything else imported into dreamwidth. I imagine their servers are drowning right now under the load since everyone is probably jumping ship, but there you have it.

So, soon I'll be xtingu.dreamwidth.org. Weird. End of an era indeed.
"Interesting" in a "Man, you folks are really making me want to punch you in the baby makers" sense.
I think they ended paid accounts. The agreement justifies a lot of its terms by pointing out it's free.
Sure, we're waterboarding you, but we're not charging you for it, so...
Ah. Right.
I'd still like to remove my CC info if I can.
EDIT! I was a paid LJ'er, and I also paid a few teeny bucks extra to have extra storage space and extra userpics. Those payments were STILL sent to be recurring... I just turned that off now. That account management page is no longer 404-ing.

So even if things are "free," there are still some things they were charging for.

This comment has been deleted.

*nods*

What she said.

*pumps fist*
Did anyone tell Jenn Abrevaya? She doesn't read OPW, even though she has an account, and she still uses LJ.
Good call. I'll ping her.
Fuck. Now I have to put my glasses on and figure out how to backup and/or destroy 14 years of LJ.
Jill had a version of an LJ Backup App (the only one I know of that worked) for Windowz.
Tom, how hard would it be to make it possible for us to import our LiveJournals here, in the way that Dreamwidth offers? I tried Dreamwidth briefly, didn't really turn me on, got completely out of the habit of online journaling, and finally landed here. I was just saying to myself that I wanted to start writing more, too.
Wow. Yeah. Guess I know what I'm doing tonight.

Tried to go to the site. Was presented with the same. Tried to use the "Not Now" option and that took me to a page with two options:

1. Log Out
2. Expire All Sessions

Well crap.
So... if you were very clever, you might manage to back up without agreeing.

However, you can't delete your livejournal without agreeing.

Wow.
They blocked the API too until you agree.
Trying to figure out what the best step is. I did read the agreement, which is pretty short and basically says it's free, you don't have any rights, and the whole thing is subject to Russian law. It used to maintain a certain distance, which is definitely gonesville.

I think the best option, which is still a pretty crappy one, is probably to agree, back up, and delete. The agreement does emphasize that delete is still an option. I ain't no lawyer.

I'm doing exactly that: agree, back up, switch off the lights and toss a Molotov cocktail.
Well shit.
Just read this: if you wanna delete your LJ w/out agreeing to the new TOS, install noscript and go straight to the acct status page http://www.livejournal.com/accountstatus/
1. That's excellent - thank you.
2. It makes me think - I'm planning to delete my comments as well, but have all my people pulled them down yet?
 

Pet theory: social media became much more intense and notification-y during the years 2006 to 2016, years when liberals were used to being frustrated or angered but rarely terrified by the news. After all, we were in control of the House, the Senate, the White House or all three. Things got better and worse but rarely took a huge jump for the worse.

So being bombarded with a lot of information about the state of the world was easier to bear for a majority of those who initially liked and adopted it.

Now the habit of bombarding ourselves with maximum input has been locked in... and in the Trump era, all this extra data — meaning all these extra camera angles and echoes of the same thing — has become a curse. "Total situational awareness" of a frightening situation is not good for you.

You need sufficient awareness to assess the problem and decide what you can do about it. More than that is an express train ride to burnout or worse.

Of course I'm posting this to One Post Wonder, which shows I was thinking about this a while ago, but it was a whole lot more theoretical then.

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3/30 '17 1 Comment
TorcanoquakeblizzvalanchefirecaneBEES!
 

Just finished "Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Recommended.

There are things most "white" folks, especially white men, can't really understand if our bodies have never been at risk of being randomly destroyed. On an ordinary day. With little or no connection to our actions.

The book is by no means intended solely as a manual for understanding what that feels like. Still, it succeeds brilliantly on that level.

But it's a mistake to read it as a letter to white Americans. The book is written in the form of a letter to his son, following a model laid down by James Baldwin in "The Fire Next Time." In the end, he tells his son to struggle — to pursue a better, less fearful existence for himself — but not to struggle for "the dreamers," the people who buy into the idea of whiteness. Because our awakening, if it ever happens, will have to come from within. And from his perspective, it's not worth getting shot for that slim hope.

I felt that blow — he is saying to us, in effect: "don't wait for your victims to come save you from your own history. We can't and won't. If you're going to change, change yourselves. But I won't wait up nights." There is little to suggest that he should.

The most beautiful parts of the book concern his own coming of age, the awakening of a sense of possibility at Howard University, tasting what it means to blend into the crowd and be invisible while visiting Paris. But also the shooting death of a friend at the hands of the police, and a conversation with his friend's mother. And his son, heartbreakingly certain that Michael Brown's killer would be indicted. And... how little has changed.

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2/17 '17 3 Comments
I think the most important thing he said was that "race" is an artificial construct ... "white" people are a conglomeration of ethnicities as are people with darker skin ("colored", "asian", "black"), and all of this discrimination and suffering comes from a construct that the oppressor created to keep other people down and to stay in power, to maintain privilege. He's right. And it's dizzying to think of the world as it would be if our parents told us that when we were small and our teachers taught it in school. Dizzying to think of that world and sad to think of this one ... though if it were not race, it would be something else, I suppose. Humans are shitbirds that way.
Indeed. It was really excellent.
 

Gather your spoons
Our trip to the moon
Is on hold today

Gather yourself
We’re sharing the wealth
Hey it’s on display

Finding the means to say
If you’re suffering in this present emergency
Come home with me
We’ll watch TV

A weekend march
You’re doing your part
Ineffectually (or so it seems)

Just stick to the job
And Peter will rob
Paul eventually

Rome wasn’t sacked in a day
The rot took time to set in
We’re going to win
Wear your flag pin

Your bubble blew up
And you don’t know what
That’s supposed to mean

The sky isn’t blue
And one equals two
Counterfactually

And every cow has a voice
If you’re living in flyover country
You must be pleased
Wave up to me

Well some of us should move to Missoula
And some of us to Cedar Falls
And some of us will settle in Asheville
That won’t be hard to sell at all

And then we’ll teach our cats to pray
We’re not a very disciplined bunch we do things our own way
I guess we’ll stay

Snowflakes falling by the ton
And you know they can’t drive in snow
In Washington
They’ll come undone

Let’s walk together
We’ve such pleasant weather
Look who’s arrived

Wear a pink hat
Well how about that
We’re organized

And hope will always be a place
Even if it’s in a solid red state
We’re still alive

And let that be our battle cry

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2/15 '17 4 Comments
Nice! I particularly like the verse about the snowflakes.
Thanks Linds! I was pleased with that too.
A Lai?
I'm not in a place where I can listen (yet), but these lyrics are FREAKIN' WONDERFUL. My memory is crap so I'm likely forgetting something, but my sieve-like skull says this my favorite thing of yours I've ever read.

Thank you!!
 

A friend wants to know how performers can "discriminate" against the inauguration and still expect the proverbial wedding cake baker to make a cake for two people with the same junk if they think that's an abomination.

First, yes, antidiscrimination laws do take away a freedom. It's a shitty little freedom, a vigorously poop-coated freedom. But it's a freedom nonetheless. And so they aren't passed lightly.

They are passed when there's a longstanding history of bigotry, of disenfranchisement, of suffering and discrimination vastly out of proportion to the "suffering" imposed by being forced to carry out your customary business for anybody with the dollars. We limit the freedom to refuse someone's custom only in certain very narrow circumstances.

That's good, right? You don't want any more government interference than necessary, right?

Now you may argue that the United States has a long and proud history of discrimination against racist, sexist, narcissistic, habitually lying sacks of human excrement which needs to be remedied. And I would argue that, sadly, you are wrong about the first four, all five are self-imposed and nothing has ever been denied to people in any of these categories. Nothing. Sadly. Ever. So what remedy would you make?

But even supposing you're right: starting Friday, we have one hell of an affirmative action program for human sacks of excrement. So there's that settled.

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1/18 '17 3 Comments
My point indeed.
the right to discriminate isn't a legitimate right, yo, and those that argue that it is- or even that it is what this country was founded on (freakin' Puritains)- may have a point, but we can grow up and cease to be stupid going forward, methinks.
When the gay people start trying to take away the baker's rights or his family's civil rights, the baker has a legitimate reason to refuse service. Note that "being an asshole in the name of religion" is not a right. If the baker were so concerned about doing what the bible said, he better not be eating bacon cheeseburgers, wearing polyester or working on the Sabbath Day.
 

Some things are new on One Post Wonder today:

  1. Follow Fridays! This is very simple: on Friday, the "suggested topic" is always "who else should your friends follow on One Post Wonder?" and there's a little "Follow Friday" indicator. When posting, consider using the little-person icon, which is a handy way to mention someone in your post. It is my hope that this will help people who show up with just one or two connections and never really get "plugged in" beyond that. 
  2. By popular request, the header bar now stays with you as you scroll, even on phones. But I am interested in feedback from folks who may have been happier the other way. Let's see how this goes.
  3. Numbered lists (as you may be noticing).
  4. Strikethrough (as you may be noticing).
  5. The plaintext versions of important emails like account confirmation emails have working URLs in them. This is important to my fellow nerds people who for various valid reasons loathe HTML email, and possibly other corner cases.
  6. When you paste a URL into your text and OPW makes a nice little presentation block out of it, the URL field gets populated right away.
  7. The "bug report" icon is only available to logged-in users now. Which means no more spam for me to sort through. Which means I will pay better attention to your bug reports. w00t.

What would you like to see? What do you think would help the platform reach more people for the right reasons?

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I would like it if when I made posts "public" to OPW, I could also keep them "private" from showing up in search engines. That was one LJ feature I truly miss. It was a way for Journal users to find and add me, without random google searches splashing me and all my thoughts on the wall. Does that make any sense? Or should I just be resigned to such things?
Well, a flag to make it a "noindex" post is possible, but I'm concerned about the people who will expect this to be more than it is, in terms of blocking tools that don't care about such niceties, or people who are already stalking their journal for public posts.
I guess I'm saying I'm open to suggestions on the wording.
Wouldn't the simple solution be to give it a link to more information and just explain briefly what it does and doesn't do? Or is that going overboard?
These sound great! Looking forward to testing everything out. :)
I like numbered lists, strikethrough, the top bar staying on mobile, and I don't know if it's iOS or OPW, but the photos are easier to enlarge on mobile too!
Interesting! I don't *think* I changed anything re: photos.
Does your iOS stay logged in for you as you go on with your life and then click in another day? Had some trouble with that on Carrie's phone last night.
Yes iOS stays logged in - I use Safari, not the app because I had
Memory issues on a previous phone and never bothered to switch when I got the new phone.
App? I ain't got no app
I thought there was one but I didn't have it. Ok, I am not as backward as I thought.
Nah - Tom's clever enough to realize that apps seem pointless at times, so he makes his web apps work for mobile. Reason number 8540778052 I'm a fan.
If I'd had the time and money when OPW launched I would have done an app. Today though...

On desktop and on Android, websites can now have their own notifications if the user opts in, even if you're not on that website or in that browser right now. And the feature is coming to iOS, folks suspect this year.

With notifications added there is precious little reason to write an app unless you need the zero-friction cash flow of in-app purchases. (Yes, yes, they take a huge bite, but does the user want to give your rando app their credit card number? By finger typing it? No they do not.)
I am reminded I need to send in a bug report re: some Notifications wonkiness. I will try to do that today.
 
  • 2 cups white flour
  • ½ cup whole wheat flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ⅔ can coconut milk
  • Italian seasoning to taste
  • ¼ cup coarsely chopped walnuts (I just crush a handful of pre-shelled walnuts in my fist as I’m dropping them in)
  • Enough almond milk

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the coconut milk, then enough almond milk to get to a slightly sticky but rollable consistency. Roll out with a rolling pin, not too thin, keep it maybe half an inch even. If there's leftover dough, you can roll it out again who am I kidding you ate it.

Use a small glass as a biscuit cutter, who has biscuit cutters?

Bake for 12 minutes at 350. Awesome as-is or with your spreadable fat of choice.

This recipe happens to be vegan. I would have put in an egg if I'd had one. Glad I didn't, I think they are perfect as-is.

They are on the salty side, but these are biscuits. Biscuits are not health food. They are snowy-day warm belly food.

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1/7 '17 2 Comments
Sounds delicious!
Sounds yummy to me too!
 

My current no-knead recipe, boiled down to even less effort than the official New York Times version, which includes some unnecessary steps on baking day IMHO:

3 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt (*)
1/2 teaspoon active dry bread yeast (I use Red Star from the supermarket)
2 cups water, and a splash more

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the water. With a fork just combine it well; don't knead; this takes less than a minute. It should be a little too wet to knead.

Cover the bowl and allow to sit for 18-24 hours.

Shove an empty pyrex casserole pan (or similar) in the oven, with the lid on, and preheat to 450 degrees.

Remove pan carefully. Toss a little corn meal in the bottom. Take the dough out of the pan; it'll be sticky but manageable. Fold it over on itself (*). Drop it in the pan.

Shove your sticky hands back in your oven mitts and stick the pan in the oven for 30 minutes with the lid on.

Remove the lid and bake another 15 minutes. (**)

Remove and allow to cool a few minutes before devouring.

I was a latecomer to the no-knead party but I think I've got this down.

(*) Salt is a leavening agent and does add a little air to the bread which is nice when there's whole wheat in there. This was a key improvement for me.

(**) This step is optional. The results are a little prettier, but it does take a whole second, and I did say this was zero-effort bread.

(***) If you bake it in an uncovered loaf pan, you'll get a very hard crust. You can cover a loaf pan with aluminum foil if you haven't got a nice pyrex with a lid. The latter is worth finding because you get a very pretty peasant loaf.

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12/19 '16 17 Comments
By "Pyrex casserole pan," do you mean one of the round ones? What size?
Mine is round, yes, but not hemispherical. I'm sure that yields cute results too.
LOL--yes. Cylindrical, but squat.
I mean a thing with a lid that can go in the oven. 4 quarts is a good size.
Photo? I'm having a hard time envisioning the shape of the final cooked loaf. A picture is worth a thousand words, dontcha know.*

Also, I love bread and you have inspired me to make some damn bread. BREAD!


*SEE WHAT I DID THERE HOLY CRAP

It is months later and I would just like to say that I rarely RARELY find myself funny, but that "SEE WHAT I DID THERE" made me laugh my ass off. BECAUSE BREAD! Get it? Bread? The "picture is worth 1000 words" guys? HOLY SHIT I'm HIIIIIILARIOUS.

I'll see myself out.
Picture added.
Thanks! Imma make this bread tomorrow (which is to say: today. Yay!)
Attempting. With no wheat flour. And "old fashioned" oats. And going to have to improvise a baking dish. I'll let ya know.
I have no idea how that will turn out without wheat but am curious to hear!
Ahhh, I thought you were literally using NO WHEAT flour, as in something gluten-free. White flour should be fine.
Aluminium foil over a regular loaf pan will do in a pinch.
YUUUUMMMM. Maybe we should have a bread baking party.
I am tempted to try to make that bread.
Soooo easy
 

Insane day. A yadda yadda decided that everybody had to have a floopy blawnox 2016 because they didn't feel like maintaining floopy blawnox 2012's anymore even though they sort of promised but not really? And suddenly I had to cope with all the fallout because the floopy blawnox 2016 doesn't quite fit into the floobistan. Quite. Almost but not quite. You can make it work, but it takes all day and then you have to use a replicator to fix all the other floobistans but some of them are slightly irregular and you have to use the replicator AGAIN, and pretty soon it's 6pm.

In addition to my day job, this also impacted One Post Wonder, just now, as some of you who saw my test comments will likely have guessed. So here's hoping you can read this.

❤️,

#1 floopy blawnox herder

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10/6 '16 10 Comments
But why'd you have to write the post in perl?
My life is a Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish List.
I suggest applying Runge Kutta
Runge Kutta is my new MC name
Today I had no plinths to garble, so I garbled blawnoxes instead. Which is weird, because this time last year I was garbling blawnoxes. I think a lot of people need blaw.
Every time I think you're getting a grip, I catch you garbling blawnoxes behing the shimmenhaus. Tsk
They're not gonna shaw themselves.
Said that right.
You're the floopiest.