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November 2013

E=mc² and Star Trek

Mon, 2013/11/25 - 11:52pm

Ever noticed that when people walk into their quarters on the Enterprise (ST:NG) they first thing they usually say is "Computer: lights". Why are they off in the first place? Does it matter at all if they just leave them on all the time (except to sleep, of course)? They are constantly converting matter to energy and back (replicators, transporters, etc.) On the Enterprise-D there are 400-odd people eating three replicated meals a day, not to mention all the other energy consumption... and yet they turn the lights out when they leave the room.


[Gothic BC] Upcoming Events on the Home Page

Sat, 2013/11/23 - 4:21pm

I'm not sure if I will keep this or not, but for now I'm trying out having events upcoming in the next couple of days float to the top of the list on the home page. This is a little redundant to the "Upcoming Events" block at the bottom of every page, but not entirely. Any opinions?

[ Reposted from my blog on Gothic BC #GothicBC ]


[Gothic BC] New Features for the Photo Gallery

Fri, 2013/11/22 - 2:01pm
  • There are share buttons available in both the full-screen / phone view and the image rate/tag/comment pages. 
  • Rating buttons are prettier and easier to use on a phone
  • On the photo gallery thumbnail pages a shift-click will take you directly to the rate/tag/comment page, bypassing the full screen view.
  • The rate/comment/tag link in the full-screen view opens in a new tab so you don't lose your place in the gallery when you want to comment on, rate or tag a picture.

Perspective on having whooping cough

Wed, 2013/11/13 - 8:23pm

So what is it like when I have a coughing fit and my throat closes up? Yesterday as I finished off a lolly-pop I decided it would be fun to annoy my cat Tharsis for a bit by blowing air through the hollow plastic lolly-pop stick. Then I realised it is actually **EASIER** to breathe though this tiny tube than the first few breaths after a coughing fit. That's an opening of about 1.5 mm. And those are the coughing jags where I *don't* pass out. Fortunately they are starting to get a little less frequent now and it has been a few days now since I've passed out.


[Gothic BC] Latest Fixes and Updates for November 13

Wed, 2013/11/13 - 3:37pm
  • At the bottom of every page there are now three boxes showing pending friend requests, upcoming events in the calendar and recent comments throughout the site.
  • A default user picture has been configured for users that don't have one set up.
  • The wysiwyg editors work show the colours and fonts the post will actually be in (white sans-serif on black) rather than the default white backgrounds and serif font. 
  • Filters have been put in place to make the really old forum posts from before 2008 readable without the obsolete markup code showing. 

[Gothic BC] Latest Fixes and Updates

Sun, 2013/11/10 - 10:14am

I've brought back the ability for Confirmed Adult Users to set their default NSFW filter state in the user profile and for users to be notified of tags in the public gallery. Go to "My Account" in the user menu on the left side of the page and click the "edit" button. You'll see the check boxes on the page. The user profiles are still a work-in-progress and still a bit of a mess, bear with me. I've also made some more tweaks to the user photo album upload and promoting user albums to the public photo gallery.


i sing of Olaf glad and big

Sat, 2013/11/09 - 1:59pm
i sing of Olaf glad and big
-- e.e. cummings
 
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand; 
but--though an host of overjoyed 
noncoms(first knocking on the head 
him)do through icy waters roll 
that helplessness which others stroke

[Gothic BC] Latest Fixes and Updates

Fri, 2013/11/08 - 5:02pm

Just some minor changes today:

  • Changed the menu link "Content Feeds" to "All Content" to make it clearer what is there.
  • Cleaned up the venue listing in the photo gallery to remove duplicates like "The Media Club" and "Media Club"
  • Changed the sorting for events and venues from reverse alphabetical to alphabetical with smart handling of names that start with "The" (i.e. "The Fall" sorts under "F", not "T")
  • Tweaked the database performance to make everything a little faster
  • Fixed the purchase of Paid and Confirmed accounts
  • Died a little because I wonder if anyone even notices these things.


Whooping Cough Fun

Fri, 2013/11/08 - 3:22pm
gribbled wood

Bloody fucking whooping cough... I finished off a ten-day course of antibiotics Monday. The bacteria that caused this is quite dead and gone, so I am not contagious, and technically I am not so much "sick" at this point as "injured." Random cells in my trachea and principal bronchi have been killed. I imagine my throat looks like a piece of gribbled wood at this point and I've got to heal from that.


[Gothic BC] Latest Fixes and Updates

Sun, 2013/11/03 - 4:47pm

I've repaired a few problems with the new site

  • Replies to forum posts and comments on images and other pages are showing now. 
  • Early Adopters and Paid Users can make blog posts again
  • Some glitches with the new Album/Upload feature have been fixed (still need to write instructions for this, though)
  • The feed aggregator is back - lots of eye-candy, reviews from ID:UD and more
  • Ads are hidden for Early Adopters and Paid Users

And on the "new" side of things:


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