I haven’t been able to solve this problem yet, so I’m throwing it out to the world. I’d throw it out to Apple Support forums, but they’re apparently doing something to them (and have been for the last few days) and they won’t let me post – I get a backend-under-renovation notice whenever I try to log in.

100% of the time, I can reproduce this error when I try to edit the timestamp of a comment in WordPress. It happens literally every second time I try to make such an edit:

It also happens when saving or editing posts. Not every time, but enough that I’ve started saving posts in the paste buffer so I don’t lose them. It will also reproduce on other WordPress administrative pages involving post or comment edits – commits, really – enough that it will happen during most sessions. If you search, you’ll find other people are experiencing this as well; it’s been going on since at least Mavericks.

It does not reproduce in Firefox on the same machine, at the same time, under any circumstances. There have been multiple posts to Apple support communities about it, but none of the solutions offered – solutions which did fix it for those posters – fix it here. That includes deleting all saved website data, disabling all (non-Apple) extensions, disabling all plug-ins, deleting add-on input methods and scripting additions (of which I had one of each), everything here.

But the one thing I have found is that it does not reproduce in safe mode. At all. Something specific is causing this.

Ideas, anybody?

Looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominee post? Thank you for listening, and for your consideration.

I’m making little gift packets of candy for Halloween. I also need to whip up a Vault-Tec ID and some business cards, but that’s easy enough. Here’s a picture of the packets:

Happy Halloween from Vault-Tec!

Three variants, so I could see how they looked. The outside is a Vault-Tec “Prepare for the Future” flyer; I’m going with festive orange, of course. Specifically the darker orange, since that’s higher contrast and easier to read. On the inner side? Simple instructions for building your own back-yard nuclear fission reactor. Easy as pie, and wow, will you save on those heating bills!

The way the packages are folded gives them six edges – that’s for the two H³ atoms for the heaviest of heavy water. The candies inside are – of course – Atomic Fireballs. Three per package, for that same H³ symbolism.

And sure, maybe out water purification systems would last longer if we didn’t use such heavy water. But, by gum, that’d be compromise! Won’t have it! Nothing but the best from VAULT-TEC!

eta: Business cards:

Looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominee post? Thank you for listening, and for your consideration.

Wow, SXSW really screwed up.

First, by scheduling a pro-GamerGate panel filled with people who have led harassment campaigns as a “balanced discussion” “counterpoint” to another scheduled panel, on web design that’s built around limiting harassment.

Because you always want to provide time to harassers to counterpoint building web interfaces that encourage civil discussion and discourage harassment.

Even better: SXSW bypassed the normal process for the GamerGate panel. Panels have to go through vetting and public comment, and be submitted by a deadline. None of that was true here. It was apparently thrown in secretly.

Then, when said GamerGate panel’s members started throwing GamerGaters at the web design panel, and the inevitable harassment and threats went out, SXSW cancelled web design panel because that panel’s members were being harassed. SXSW claimed they couldn’t have a “civil discussion,” because the panelists were being targeted. No, really, here’s SXSW’s idiotic statement on the matter.

Blaming the victim much? Blaming the victims they set up as targets? This gets into outright mendaciousness. There is a point of incompetence at which it stops being simple incompetence and becomes malice. Congratulations, SXSW, you hit that point.

SXSW then also cancelled the GamerGate panel, but wow, that does not make it better. The Daily Beast has strong words about this. So does Chris Kluwe at The Cauldron.

What the fuck is wrong with SXSW?

If you’re looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominees, thank you for listening, and for your consideration.

Higher levels of CO₂ – levels commonly found indoors – appear to have substantial impact upon cognitive capability. VOCs have similar effects. This is a follow-up study to a previous study which showed the same effects.

Both are particularly interesting given that the cognitive impairment effects are seen at CO₂ levels similar to the projected no-action-taken general atmospheric levels of CO₂ by 2100.

Actual study here:

Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments
Joseph G. Allen, Piers MacNaughton, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, Jose Vallarino, and John D. Spengler

Article about that study here:

Exclusive: Elevated CO2 Levels Directly Affect Human Cognition, New Harvard Study Shows
Joe Romm

So the applications are obvious, of course. If you need people to be a bit more stupid than usual, and to handle crises badly, pump up the CO₂ and/or VOCs. They’re both pretty invisible to the nose. But the CO₂ – that’s really the handy part, because you don’t even need a generator. The levels already present are meaningful, and all you have to do is block the air-exchanger intakes to make them much worse.

The best part is, it only takes minutes to take effect! Sleeping and paralysis gasses should be so efficient.

But there are obvious concerns for your own lair, as well. NASA has already changed space station scrubbing levels for CO₂. Should you be doing the same for your lair? Clearly, it’s something to consider. Evil is one thing – but stupidity? I think we can all agree – that’s unacceptable.

If you’re looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominees, thank you for listening, and for your consideration.

The new Prime Minister of Canada is Justin Trudeau. He is the leader of the Liberal Party, part of the Rebel Alliance, and a traitor. TAKE HIM AWAY!

photo via GeeksAreSexy

Also, I’m pretty sure there’s some separated-at-birth action between him and Molly Lewis. I am serious, check out that and her Wikipedia photo:

also force-sensitive? perhaps.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

If you’re looking for the Grammy Awards Long List nominees, thank you for listening, and for your consideration.

I’m finding that getting someone to replicate 150 CDs with colour labels costs more than buying A WHOLE NEW PRINTER+EXTRA INK+200 blanks and doing it myself. That’s kind of goofy. Capital expenditures what.

This is relevant to anything at all because Lightscribe (which is how I printed Dick Tracy Must Die, as a DIY project) is very much a legacy technology now, and I can’t get green lightscribe blanks anymore. The closest I can find are what I suspect are remaindered five-colour Memorex multipacks, which makes my per-disc cost $4. Yeah, no.

So yeah, I dunno. I was just going to farm out this mini-run, but now I’m weighing whether just to get a whole new printer just for this. Because then I could use it for other things. Which I likely would. And also, I wouldn’t have to worry about the printing technology going away – at least, not before CDs go away entirely, if they do.

(There are, yes, still some advantages of physical media. Most notably, people like having something you can sign. Also, while less of a problem: no DRM, no subject-to-surprise-licensing-changes. And finally, physical data durability. That’s a pretty decent combination right there.)

Downsides: 1) wtf will I do with this extra device other than this? Nothing? 2) where will I put it? 3) it seems like a waste because wow, a whole printer? (see nr. 1) and 4) um… not sure about four but four sounded better than three for some reason.

I mean, I guess I can say, “my time is worth money” and have it come closer to balancing that way, but the next time I need/want some short-run CDs… yeah.

I dunno. Anybody got opinions?

I had two very interesting meetings yesterday. One is about a new fan-run event; I’m providing advice and information and possibly some other involvement. They’re very ambitions, and I worry that they’re overreaching, but their numbers are sane. It looks promising.

They’re also looking for some people for various positions – webmaster, music track lead, publications lead (they have multiple promotions people), programming co-ordinator (they have most track leads already), stuff like that. Their web presence at the moment is just Facebook, but give it a look.

The other one… the other one… yeah. The other one is more in I-would-be-setting-fires territory. But it’s early days, and I provided a lot of data, and a lot of advice, and I’m throwing some people who need to be together at each other, and hopefully that’ll work. Because I do not want to start that particular riot.

On the way back from that second meeting, this happened. I was not involved with the accident, but nonetheless ended up directing traffic for three hours on a side street after an articulated Sound Transit bus got directed by police down a lane-and-a-half road with oncoming traffic, inadequate guard rails, and hairpin curves. That was… a bad decision. And my reaction was… weird. I guess superhero instincts still kick in sometimes. Ah, well, I guess I’ll get over it.

(Spoiler: I will never get over it.)

Anyway, eventually police came by and I thought they were going to take over – I had asked a previous traffic cop a couple of hours before for somebody to do this because goddamn – but they said “yes, helping, but stop it, liability.” And I was all “really? good samaritan law?” and they were all “NOT FOR YOU” and I went “oh.” So I quit.

I guess the best part of that was the road traffic worker who I helped get through the traffic and offered me his reflective safety vest. He thought I was doing it just fine. But I guess that wasn’t the point, anyway.

Yeah! Weird day. Very weird.

INBOX. ZERO.

I have no idea the last time this happened, or when it will happen again, but here it is. This is not the same as TODO zero, gods know, but it’s inbox zero, and that’s the closest I’ve come in living memory.

INBOX ZERO! IT CAN BE DONE! o/

I wonder how many seconds minutes it will last?

…well, okay, there are a bunch of problems with it. But one is that you don’t have much to talk about the next Monday, because nobody other than maybe Egon is interested in your mucus and phlegm. But I am feeling much more back to my normal now, and just in time for First Thanksgiving, about which I’m thankful for not being so full of either phlegm or mucus.

The experiments on it, however, are very promising.

Anna and I have been going through the very last of the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcasts, which is sadness, because we aren’t even 100% done because we’ve been rationing them, and I’m already missing that show. One of the strangest things is that I’ve done the Sparks Nevada theme song several times at SF conventions, and only as of VCON last week had anyone heard of it.

How was this not the biggest thing in fandom? Seriously, I don’t understand that. It was so amazing.

All of you were Thrilling Adventure Hour Podcast fans, right? Surely?

“Obama has pledged to make the TPP public but only after the legislation has passed.”

Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes ‘freedom of expression’ fears
Intellectual property rights chapter appears to give Trans-Pacific Partnership countries’ countries greater power to stop information from going public

Wikileaks has released what it claims is the full intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial agreement between 12 countries that was signed off on Monday.

TPP was negotiated in secret and details have yet to be published. But critics including Democrat presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, unions and privacy activists have lined up to attack what they have seen of it. Wikileaks’ latest disclosures are unlikely to reassure them.

One chapter appears to give the signatory countries (referred to as “parties”) greater power to stop embarrassing information going public. The treaty would give signatories the ability to curtail legal proceedings if the theft of information is “detrimental to a party’s economic interests, international relations, or national defense or national security” – in other words, presumably, if a trial would cause the information to spread.

…

“The text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter confirms advocates warnings that this deal poses a grave threat to global freedom of expression and basic access to things like medicine and information,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of internet activist group Fight for the Future. “But the sad part is that no one should be surprised by this. It should have been obvious to anyone observing the process, where appointed government bureaucrats and monopolistic companies were given more access to the text than elected officials and journalists, that this would be the result.”