Category Archives: Discourse.net

Big Change Under the Hood

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I’ve just made a big change to the blog’s configuration. In theory this should not be noticeable to anyone (except that the blog will be down less frequently).

If, however, you notice anything different — faster or slower response time, for example — please post a comment letting me know.

For those who may care, what I’ve done is switched from PHP 5.2x with fastCGI to plain vanilla PHP 5.3. Supposedly using fastCGI speeds up WordPress, allowing more pages to be served at once, but I have come to think at least on a Dreamhost VPS it may be the source of random episodes of the server running out of memory. My plan is to run without it for a few days, and then start setting my cache back to more aggressive settings than the very limited ones now in use.

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Big Change Under the Hood

In Which I Plan to Join the Press for an Afternoon

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

President Obama is coming here today. I believe I may have scored a press pass (in my capacity as a local political blogger) to go see him — the email from the White House press office was oddly ambiguous as to whether I actually will get credentials when I turn up and show my ID. Maybe my file is too thick and takes time to read. I will report on his talk if I get in. Maybe even live, if the wifi is able to handle the strain.

The law school’s press office tells me it’s going to be standing room only, in the sense that there won’t be chairs, which is why they didn’t invite faculty. I guess someone somewhere in the University figures we old geezers are not up to it. I was not aware that most of the chairs in what we now are calling the “BankUnited Center Fieldhouse” (it was the “Convocation Center” last time I went in there) were removable. Maybe they just mean we’ll be in some sort of mosh pit in the floor area?

Then again, maybe the press gets chairs. Could be tough to type on my laptop standing up. I might be reduced to phone tweets. That could be comic. (My Twitter handle is @mfroomkin. My brother, the full-time reporter, grabbed @froomkin.)

Whatever we are calling the place this week, I have to walk over there very far in advance of the alleged 2:30 start. If I get in, do I interview my fellow reporters, or bring some work to do?

Posted in 2012 Election, Discourse.net, U.Miami | 1 Comment

Irony

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I am so busy doing interesting things that would be fun to blog about that I do not at present have time to blog about them.

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Irony

Groundhog Day?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

The site seems to be serving up the Dec. 24, 2010 version of itself. But only sometimes.

I can only presume this has something to do with a cache problem of some sort.

Unfortunately, I have a very busy day – a radio interview with David Levine of Hearsay Culture that will air soon on KZSU and then I’m on panel that is part of our Diversity Week program, in which I will take the unpopular position that cyber-bullying laws are (1) heavily constrained by the First Amendment and (2) bad policy — better to regulate “bullying” to whatever extent one can, and have a rule that includes ‘cyber’ behavior to the same extent as telephoned, faxed, and typewritten speech. And, of course, meetings.

So it may be a while before I can get to the bottom of this.

Posted in Discourse.net, Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Groundhog Day?

Migration to New Server

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

The site is migrating to a new sever. Things may be flaky for a while.

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Migration to New Server

New Comments Bug (I Blame WP Super Cache) [Updated]

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Recent comments are not showing up properly for users who have never made a comment. This seems to be a bad interaction between the latest version of WordPress (3.3) and the latest version of WP Super Cache (1.0).

The bug only affects lurkers, and only the more recent comments, but those are probably the ones you want to read. I am hopeful that this will get sorted out in the next bugfix release of the cache, which is due soon. It also think it may get somewhat sorted out as the cached files routinely refresh themselves. I’ve set them to expire on a more aggressive schedule in the hopes of encouraging that process along.

Meanwhile, if you can’t bear to wait until this is sorted out, I can offer the following work-around: point your browser at the Discourse.net comments feed. In most browsers you will be able to read the full text of the comments.

Later Update: I think what is happening now is that I’ve managed to club the cache tuning settings so that unrecognized users (ie those who do not have an ‘I’ve commented’ cookie) will get to see comments 15 or so minutes after they are posted. At least I hope so. I’m going to sleep now.

Posted in Discourse.net | 6 Comments