Bah. Apparently I need to make my comment-script rotating script a little more robust — if it hangs halfway the whole system gets screwed up. Sorry about that, aspiring commenters. Things are fixed.

Comments were busted for a while there — my epic antispam solution didn’t make the trip to the new server undamaged (I think the cron job fired in the middle of the transfer, leaving the files out of sync). It’s all better now!

Back online! See, the new machine uses CGI and suexec instead of mod_php, and so files with permissions greater than 0755 throw an error, but Movable Type creates files at 0666 by default. It’s obviously all pretty fascinating, but the short version is that everything should now be fixed.

I’m switching servers, which may result in some site downtime — hopefully this entry will weasel its way into your RSS readers before that happens. Just wanted to provide some advance warning, lest a big ugly error message catch you by surprise. I am a competent internet professional, I swear!

To the one or two people who actually use the comment RSS feed: rejoice! I finally fixed it so that entry titles and links work properly within it.

Comment RSS permalinks now actually work. Hurrah! Now you won’t have to go hunting for how to find disc0unt clonazepam or hot young teens.

I’ll turn this into a completed website yet, goddammit. Next up: a comment preview template, tentatively scheduled for completion in 2011.

Courtesy of Perdita and her use of a By-Attribution Creative Commons license.
I still haven’t gotten around to fixing the archives or comment preview form or a bunch of other things. But I did write a semi-ridiculous script that automatically assembles the header graphic (in multiple resolutions!) very easily. All I’ve got to do is upload a photo to my photostream, tag it as “blogheader” and run a password-protected script. It’s kind of slick, if I do say so myself (although I have to admit that, judging by the aspect ratio of this shot, I think some of my image-resizing math is probably a little screwed up).
I’d post the code, but it’s a pain in the ass to install the PEAR libraries that are necessary for talking to Flickr. If anyone’s willing to jump through the necessary hoops, let me know.

Hello, internet people, and welcome to the new blog. I’m making a conscious effort not to bog myself down in introductions and ruminations and other pretensions aimed at making this kind of endeavor seem weightier than it actually is.

So! I’ll just say that I really enjoyed writing the old blog with Catherine. By the time it was done, I’d written 265,971 words’ worth of ecstatic technology evangelism, prejudiced music elitism and feeble attempts at humor. Stand by for more of the same.

Also coming: a completed site. Archives? IE compatibility? Finished templates? I guess some people enjoy those sorts of things. I’ll try to humor them by and by.