Since I’ve been neglecting this blog while work is slowly wearing me down (and Fallout 3 has so much of my attention), please, feel free to consider this a “blank post” so you all can rant to your hearts content.
I’m upgrading WordPress again, as well, so let me know if anything breaks.
820 spams blocked? Jeez. Why do they even keep trying?
Finally, due to this webhost actually knowing what they’re doing and having PHP Safe Mode turned off, I can run my very own Gallery installation and not have to rely on other websites’ picture sharing interfaces and crappy privacy policies. So I installed it here and threw on those pictures from NB from last year. I’ll be adding more galleries as I get time, and as I reacquire them — Carrie, if you’re reading this, I need stuff from TO, I can’t seem to find a single picture anywhere! As I recall, you have them on a Gallery installation somewhere yourself, but I don’t have the faintest clue where.
Also, you can now one-click bookmark articles on your favorite social bookmarking sites (let me know if your favorite is missing, I can add it), you can subscribe to receive e-mail updates when someone posts a new comment on a blog post, and you’ll all have some new toys in spamming my comments threads — an HTML WYSIWYG editor and the ability to edit your posts for a short while after posting them in case you’re a complete fuckup and need to fix your HTML despite the editor I installed for you. (Loser.)
Anyway, enjoy.
Finally all moved in and all settled down. HostPapa is nice and fast, and I’m happy so far with what I see. Soon I will chronicle the hilarity that is my attempt at getting technical support from Webserve, as soon as humanly possible anyway. Boy has a lot of junk happened that I really want to rant about. It’s a damn shame I’m in such a state right now with work, or I might actually have more time to post.
I’m getting an account with HostPapa. Besides them buying green energy, they also have a great plan for the same price I was paying at Webserve, with the option to host unlimited domains and use unlimited space (within reason, whatever that means), and it appears as though I can actually turn off PHP Safe mode (shock of shocks!). Also, their technical support exists, which is a big plus (I checked this out before buying, this time). Sadly, due to all the fees and such, I have absolutely no idea how likely it is that I’m going to get any of my money back from Webserve, and also equally sadly, it’s possible that if something goes wrong with HostPapa I won’t get any money back at all. However, I am holding out for a miracle in that they won’t suck.
As soon as I get my hosting package’s details I’ll move the site, then I’ve got some scientific, political and current event news to rant about.
If you can see this post, then you’re seeing the blog as hosted on the Ubuntu side of my desktop computer. I don’t know how long it’s going to have to stay here, but I’m fed the fuck up with Webserve’s lack of technical support and their particular security measures which, under normal circumstances, I would laud, that in this case have also removed my ability to connect to the site from my work VPN.
That’s right, they’ve blocked my work IP as well.
There’s no reason I should have to connect to my own blog using a proxy server. So, I figure my desktop can handle things for a while. Which it probably can, unless I go and get linked on Slashdot or something. I don’t see how that’d ever happen, so we’re all good for the moment.
The going plan is to get my money back from Webserve, or whatever money I can get back, then find a decent, cheap hosting provider that actually answers technical support requests. It’s not like I call in asking for help setting up an e-mail account in Outlook Express, for fucks sake. I just want to know that if I tell someone that the site is down, they’ll actually give a shit, rather than asking for my IP address, then one e-mail later, ask for it again.
There comes a time where you have to get bitchy to get results.
Folks,
This is my fifth attempt to contact someone on this issue. I have entered 3 e-mails attempting to contact someone via the Live Chat support site, and when I once called 1-888-443-4678 for technical support, the agent who answered informed me that she was in training and couldn’t help me with my problem, but offered to take a message for a callback instead. I refused, and she gave me the technical support line 1-888-446-9932. I have called this line twice and attempted to get to a technical support rep, both times being dumped to a voicemail box after being on hold for twenty minutes. I’m getting extremely irate and will be taking my hosting to another company very soon, and bringing my girlfriend’s site along for the ride as well, since she’s affected by this same issue.
The issue is, to wit:
I cannot connect to http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/lousycanuck or http://www.pixelsnake.ca , both of which are on ns66.servepower.com, from my home Eastlink consumer cable internet connection. This is a dynamically assigned IP address connection, and my current IP address is [home IP] . I can, however, connect to both sites just fine from my work internet connection, which is also through Eastlink, at [work IP]. I suspect that somehow my home IP address is banned at the server side, because of the following two traceroutes.
From home:
jthibeault@kent-itmgrlaptop:~$ traceroute the-orbit.net/lousycanuck
traceroute to the-orbit.net/lousycanuck (72.15.144.248), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 2.266 ms 3.781 ms 4.787 ms
2 [home’s gateway] 22.328 ms 23.044 ms 23.637 ms
3 nwmn-asr2.eastlink.ca (24.215.102.101) 23.208 ms 23.840 ms 24.151 ms
4 * hlfx-br2.eastlink.ca (24.215.102.149) 36.263 ms 37.526 ms
5 if-12-1.icore1.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net (206.82.135.5) 62.539 ms 63.062 ms 63.376 ms
6 if-2-0-0-29.mcore4.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net (216.6.115.69) 50.473 ms 44.022 ms 33.149 ms
7 if-3-0.core2.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (216.6.115.22) 47.160 ms 47.940 ms 48.087 ms
8 Vlan13.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (216.6.97.6) 56.070 ms 56.651 ms 57.342 ms
9 ix-13-2.icore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net (209.58.26.22) 43.447 ms 49.637 ms 50.804 ms
10 0.ge-5-1-0.XL4.NYC4.ALTER.NET (152.63.3.121) 49.969 ms 51.006 ms 51.329 ms
11 0.so-0-0-0.XT2.VAN1.ALTER.NET (152.63.138.58) 121.495 ms 121.866 ms 122.107 ms
12 194.ATM7-0.GW2.VAN1.ALTER.NET (152.63.136.253) 109.178 ms 111.076 ms 115.109 ms
13 primus19-gw.customer.alter.net (209.167.46.26) 113.588 ms 113.954 ms 114.480 ms
14 209.90.179.234.gs.unused.primus.ca (209.90.179.234) 115.221 ms 115.654 ms 121.128 ms
15 72.15.159.196 (72.15.159.196) 122.298 ms 123.341 ms 123.640 ms
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *From work:
C:Documents and Settingsjthibeault.[domain]>tracert the-orbit.net/lousycanuckTracing route to lousycanuck.ca [72.15.144.248]
over a maximum of 30 hops:1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms [gateway’s IP address
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms hlfx-br1.eastlink.ca [24.215.101.197]
3 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms hlfx-br2.eastlink.ca [24.222.79.238]
4 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms if-12-1.icore1.mtt-montreal.as6453.net [206.82.1
35.5]
5 18 ms 18 ms 17 ms if-2-0-0-29.mcore4.mtt-montreal.as6453.net [216.
6.115.69]
6 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms if-3-0.core2.nto-newyork.as6453.net [216.6.115.2
2]
7 26 ms 35 ms 35 ms vlan13.icore1.nto-newyork.as6453.net [216.6.97.6
]
8 21 ms 26 ms 21 ms ix-13-2.icore1.nto-newyork.as6453.net [209.58.26
.22]
9 21 ms 21 ms 21 ms 0.ge-5-2-0.XL3.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.3.165]
10 94 ms 94 ms 94 ms 0.so-3-0-0.XT1.VAN1.ALTER.NET [152.63.136.18]
11 94 ms 95 ms 94 ms 195.ATM6-0.GW2.VAN1.ALTER.NET [152.63.136.249]
12 94 ms 94 ms 94 ms primus19-gw.customer.alter.net [209.167.46.26]
13 96 ms 95 ms 95 ms 209.90.179.234.gs.unused.primus.ca [209.90.179.2
34]
14 95 ms 95 ms 95 ms 72.15.159.196
15 96 ms 96 ms 96 ms ns66.servepower.com [72.15.144.248]Trace complete.
As you can see, both traceroutes make it all the way to the gateway immediately before the server on which I’m hosted, being 72.15.159.196. Any attempt to connect to my own site from home simply times out. It has been this way for almost two weeks now, having happened shortly after some apparently legitimate downtime. I suspect that you may have put in some security measures to block a DoS attack or something along those lines, which is understandable. However, by no means should I be paying for a service that I cannot access from my own home. If you have blanket-banned all Eastlink cable accounts please let me know so that I can cancel my service with you and move to another hosting provider. If somehow only my own IP address is affected and I am compromised, please inform me so I can take steps to rectify the situation. At no time has anyone bothered to inform myself or my girlfriend that we were being banned for any legitimate reason, so I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me why this issue is ongoing.
I hope this will automatically generate a ticket for this issue like the IVR on the technical support line has claimed, because if so, I will be calling immediately and repeatedly because two weeks is far too long for this issue to be ongoing.
Thank you for your time and have a good day.
Sir, with respect, get a god damn life.
Five minutes of Googling has revealed to me that you are either a composite of dozens or hundreds of like-minded individuals building a body of work over the past year, in an effort to build a persona the likes of which has not been seen since Usenet, or you are easily the most dedicated forum troll in history. You have posted almost literally everywhere there is the merest mention of the letters L, H and C together, as JTankers (5080 results), James Jr (363 results), James / James Jr / James Jr C Tankersley (362 results, though in fairness this overlaps somewhat with James Jr).
You even founded your very own site, whose very domain name is steeped in partisanship by proclaiming to host “facts” about the LHC, as though you were going to populate it with nothing but figures about the size and dimensions of the various parts — you know, actual facts. And in every post you ignore rebuttals, post links to discredited articles repeatedly (including those that you have posted in my blog), and generally look like the very picture of someone nursing a serious anxiety disorder after having gotten your head rattled by an IED on your last tour.
Therefore, I have determined that rebutting you is impossible, as others have tried and failed, and I have neither the time nor the patience to try my hand at a Sisyphean task. Jodi gave me some advice when I first started researching a real rebuttal — that is, to let it go. And with this parting shot, I am.
You are a hypocrite and a bully, and I have no time for you or your ilk. Any further posts by you will be summarily replaced with ridiculous nonsense and any attempts at linking your site to mine (which is the real reason you post on even backwater Canadian blogs with a readership of 5) will be removed. Goodbye.
It looks like my home internet connection is blocked somehow from connecting to this server (either my site or Jodi’s), but when I’m logged into my work VPN, I can connect to it fine. I have to wonder about this — how many other home consumer-class cable or DSL accounts are blocked? How many people out there tried to get to my site but couldn’t, because of this blacklisting? And how would they, or I, know?
I’m on hold with Webserve’s technical support now, while waiting for supper to cook. Hopefully the answer will be forthcoming.
First up folks, my apologies for the ridiculous amount of downtime over the weekend, and this immediately after I close my Facebook account and direct people here. Murphy’s law and all that. Needless to say I’m irritated at my hosting provider, and while I’m only paying for the lowest package available, I could probably get more reliable uptime out of hosting on my own computer at home (if I weren’t so concerned about power usage, given that NS Power just jumped power costs another 9.4%).
Secondly, my last post,while it only peripherally involved mention of the Large Hadron Collider, somehow managed to attract one of those concern trolls that frequent internet forums and Wikipedia articles doomsaying about the LHC and pointing to mostly-discredited articles as their proof. It got caught in the Akismet spam filter, but I’m rescuing it just for posterity. I post it in its entirety below:
JTankers | [email protected] | shrillinternetklaxon.org | IP: <redacted>Your prophecy is fullfilled.
Good blog jthibeault, you argue logically, but your Large Hadron Collider analogy relies on disputed “facts” from partisans.
You are correct that popular consensus among scientists with a similar level of understanding as your’s is to believe CERN’s and CERN’s friends’ arguments that danger is not possible.
But CERN did something similar to what the believers you reference do, start with the answer (in this case safety) and promise to prove their conclusion. Any talk of danger was heresy. According to news accounts, CERN even directed their employees not to represent risk as other than zero to the media, regardless of any concerns they might have.
Enough with the supposition. What do the experts who independently of CERN conclude in their respected papers?
Scientists predict possible creation of micro black holes possibly at a rate of 1 per second.[1]
Steven Hawking estimates a 1% chance[2] and evaporation is disputed by multiple papers[3][4]. (Dr. Hawking’s scientific credibility was also recently disputed by Professor Higgs[5]).
Cosmic ray safety arguments are disputed by multiple papers by PHD’ed theoretical scientists[6][7].
Senior German Astrophysicist PHD Dr. Rainer Plaga politely attempted to correct CERN’s apparent possible theoretical flaws in the field of astrophysics which CERN was delving into, but he was ignored apparently.[6]
Inventor of Chaos Theory’s Rössler Attractor and founder of Endophysics Professor Dr. Otto Rössler also theorizes that micro black hole creation would likely be catastrophic, he calculates exponential growth of micro black holes in years, decades or centuries.[7]
If micro black holes are created by Head-On particle colliders some will travel too slowly to escape Earth’s gravity.
CERN’s LHC Safety Assessment Group believed in March of 2008 that micro black holes created by cosmic rays would all travel through Earth at nearly the speed of light[8].Large Hadron Collider safety is currently under challenge and review in American and European courts.[9][10]. CERN is also alleged to censor information on risks involved.[11]
[1] cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29199 The case for mini black holes, CERN Courier (2004)
[2] http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2008/September/9/93181.aspx Threats Won’t Stop Collider, photonics.com Sep 9, 2008
[3] xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0304042 Do black holes radiate?. Dr. Adam Helfer (2003)
[4] arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0607137, On the existence of black hole evaporationyet again, Prof. VA Belinski (2006)
[5] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4727894.ece Peter Higgs launches attack against Nobel rival Stephen Hawking, TimesOnLine, Sep 11, 2008
[6] arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0808/0808.1415v1.pdf On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders – Rainer Plaga Rebuttal (2008)
[7] http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/OTTOROESSLERMINIBLACKHOLE.pdf Abraham-Solution to Schwarzschild Metric Implies That CERN Miniblack Holes Pose a Planetary Risk, Prof. Dr. Otto Rossler (2008)
[8] http://www.lhcconcerns.com/LHCConcerns/Forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10 LHC Safety Assessment Group, 16 Mar 2008
[9] http://www.lhcdefense.org/lhc_legal.php US Federal Lawsuit Filings – Walter L. Wagner (2008)
[10] lhc-concern.info/?page_id=28 European Legal Action (2008)
[11] http://www.lhcdefense.org/pdf/Sancho%20v%20Doe%20-%20Affidavit%20of%20Luis%20Sancho.pdf AFFIDAVIT OF LUIS SANCHO IN UPPORT OF TRO AND PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
I will need time to prepare an adequate rebuttal to this, and while I understand his legitimate concerns (I mean, it would really really suck if the world were destroyed, because, you know, that’s where I keep all my stuff too!), I don’t think there’s any cause for fearmongering at all here, because as Professor Brian Cox so eloquently stated, “anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.” There are people who think the turning on of the LHC will also mark year zero for time travellers but there’s nothing that says that every wild-eyed crazy needs to get equal airtime. This blog does not act as anything remotely resembling Fox News (or at least what they claim to be — “fair and balanced”) — I do not report both the sane and insane sides of the story as though they have equal weight. Go sell crazy someplace else.
I don’t have a lot of time today, as I just found out my counterpart at a nearby centre has walked out of the job (yes, the one who was just hired), so I’m right back in Shoulders-of-Atlas mode. For now, enjoy this fantastic talk by Brian Cox.
Losing the Internet sometime today, and we won’t have it hooked up until mid-afternoon on moving day, not that I’ll have any time to blog about the experience right away anyway. The site will be understandably quiet until I’m settled. (And probably quiet in the comments too, being that the loudest commentator ends up invariably in my spam filter because he insists on putting in a fake e-mail address where none would suffice.)
Wish me luck, folks.
