I shut down my forum today.

That wasn’t an easy thing to do… I spend a lot of time there, but it’s not what it used to be.

Way back in the day when I started it up (3 some odd years ago), it was a fun place. We had a lot of good members who poked each other and laughed.

Now, it’s become a hate machine. People arguing with no intention to back down from their viewpoint no matter how inane has become the standard practice. We’ve lost some good members and every thread seems to break down after a few posts.

So… I pulled the plug.

I’ll probably reinstate it in a week or two, but I’m torn about keeping the current content. There’s a lot of anger in there. I might just wipe the slate clean.

Google is now offering mapping with style. You can do the old school style of vector art goodness, or you can do the fresh new style of color satalite photography (just hit the “satalite” link on the right hand side).

For example: Casa de WWBD

Small issue though…. they marked my house with the little plumb bob looking thing…. and that’s not my house. I actually live 2 houses down (I added the yellow arrow). I guess it’s not as precise as it could be, but wtf… it’s free (and free is a good thing!)

So there you go, all you intraweb psychopaths. Sharpen those axes, adjust the tension on those chain saws, and come on over! (Just make sure you check the Google version of the map instead of mine first) 🙂

We went to the Toyota dealer and test wrecked a 2005 Highlander tonight.

Nice.

Of course, they didn’t have the hybrid version that we want, but it gave us a feel for how it’s going to drive… and it drives pretty nice. The salesman was trying to get us “on the list” by putting money down right now.

On a car that they don’t have.

So we can be 5th in line to take whatever they get.

Um… I’ll wait till you have one, thank you very much.

So…. being that we were already on Auto Row (an area of East Sprague Avenue that is populated nearly completely by car dealers), we stopped at the Ford dealer to look at the Escape.

Well… they had one, but it was in the shop getting ready for customers (apparently it just came off the truck). So we talked to the dealer about it.

He basically said (and I quote): “You don’t want one, they’re not worth it”.

😐

Apparently, the Ford runs on batteries up to 25 mph, then the engine kicks in. If you have the heater or AC turned on, the engine is always running. So… if you live in an area like we do (with extreme cold in the winter and heat in the summer) for your extra $5,000…. you get the same exact mileage as a normal Escape.

Unless, of course, you never turn on the AC or heat, and keep it under 25mph.

Hmmmmm…..

That’s something that never crossed my mind. I’ll be calling the Toyota dealer again tomorrow and asking him about that to see if they do it differently.

Funny thing about the Ford salesman though… he didn’t offer to show us anything else. He did talk about his new ’05 mustang though. I guess he’s pretty proud of it, because that’s all he talked about.

*sigh*

So… unless we find out that Toyota has a different way to heat/cool their vehicle (or that it does it more efficiently), we’re off the hybird shuffle and will pry get something that gets better mileage without all the fancy bits.

The weekend was a little shorter than normal, and while it had something to with Daylight Saving Time, it’s not what you think.

I maintain a number of servers (basically a whole NOC). One of our servers came with a new “feature” after the latest release of it’s software… if DST hits and changes the clock, and you have a scheduled job that was supposed to run but was bypassed because of the clock advancing 1 hour… freak out, do nothing, and don’t say why.

Of course, this is the same server that I spent all day thursday and friday reconfiguring so it will talk to another server (one server is on the internal production network, the other is in the DMZ, and they use a NAT’ed IP to talk… but there are issues), so I figured for sure I broke something.

After hours of going through xml config files, log files, beating my head against the rack, and sifting through the database, I finally got it.

Apparently, if there’s a job buried deep in the database, and this job is scheduled to run during the time period that you skip at the start of DST, everything will run fine, unless, of course, you reboot. Then it will piss you off and ruin your weekend.

Of course, I’ll forget about this by next spring when it all happens again.

Forums are cool, and forums are fun, but they’re also a monumental pain in the ass at times.

As you probobly know, I run a small forum, and we have some very interesting people, but we’ve also had issues as of late.

I’ve decided to limit registration to those who are 18 years of age or older. I’ve also stated that if you’re under 18 and lie on your registration, I’ll get very cranky with you, ban your ip and email address, and notifiy your ISP of online fraud.

Hopefully… this will increase the maturity level, and people won’t be quite so thin skinned (as things often get rather heated… expecially when we discuss religion or politics).

In other news
From the sounds of things, we had a shooting at the end of our block last night. While I don’t have the details yet, there was a lot of police activity around 11:30 last night. The joys of living in this two mule, olive pit of a town abound!