Saturday, May 14, 2011

Foul play... or ill luck?

It appears the infuriating glitch I suffered with Blogger the other day may have been down to random gremlins in the system rather than culpable ineptitude on the part of the Google drones who maintain and update the facilities on the site.

The sudden scrambling of the account settings (changing my online username?! sacrilege!!!) was but the first in a veritable tsunami of anomalies - and Blogger was taken offline for a full 24 hours yesterday, while techies toiled to plug all the leaks. It's rather a relief to learn this. I had been starting to worry that perhaps my account had been individually hacked. (And - call me paranoid, if you will! - I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some of Blogger's problems were the result of malevolent interference by employees of the Chinese government. The CCP really does hate blogging that much!)

It appears the maintenance/repair job involved the ("temporary") loss of some data, as Blogger/Blogspot was rolled back to its Wednesday state, removing posts I'd put up on Thursday or Friday. I'm relieved to have got them back now. However, there have been a number of other irksome bugs: timestamps have been changed all over the place, some category tags have been strangely scrambled, 'scheduled' future posts (i.e., yesterday's haiku) did not appear at the specified time, and some recent comments have been deleted (and not yet restored).  Ggrrrr.

Still, at least we're back.

8 comments:

Cedra Wood said...

Yes! I've been discovering the odd little retrofits and starts on my own blog this morning. Perhaps most disappointing loss is that of my friends' recent comments (not many, but still!).

JES said...

I know you still resist the Twitter and Facebook plagues. But on Friday, in my welcome-back there to friends who use Blogger I mentioned that their return to blogging called to mind the scene at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when all the Bermuda-Triangled "lost" pilots, missing children, probably Judge Crater and others walk out of the Mother Ship -- mumbling their names, saluting, and trying to figure out how to fit into a world changed since (and by) their absence. A little moving, really.

Not that that could have been more than slender consolation!

Froog said...

Now, let's keep a sense of perspective here, JES. We were 'gone' for a couple of days, not decades. Or are you suggesting there's some kind of time dilation effect, where minutes spent online (or failing to get online) can represent hours, days, years of time elapsed in the real world? It could be so...

Froog said...

Cedra, did I just hear the thwap of a surreptitiously ruler-flicked spitball of guilt smacking into me just behind the ear?

Such is the imagery my conscience-stricken imagination conjures, anyway.

I have been dropping by your blog (blogs) quite often, and have been on the brink of leaving a comment several times, but somehow...

It seems there is a critical threshold to be passed, and I haven't quite made it yet. I am not one of nature's commenters, I fear. (JES rolls his eyes disbelievingly at this point! Yes, once I've started, I may become prolific, unstoppable; but I seldom start.) And your own high standards increase that hesitation: with such a thoughtful and formidably well-written blog, one feels that comments ought to be of some substance, you know; not just "Hey, nice picture!"

Have patience. I am whittling down my inhibitions. Soon, soon.

Cedra Wood said...

I love JES's CEot3K reference, because I think it sums up the outside of the experience, succinctly and successfully relating the story of those who stood on terra firma and watched the lost stumble back into civilization. But for those of us passing time (or not) inside the ship, the blind rudderless panic might be better reflected by another movie--the Titanic. We were laughing, clinking glasses, doling out cards, when suddenly: a horrible scraping shudder, then.....What?......WHAT just happened? What do you mean, the site is going down? But it can't be, this is BLOGGER--unsinkable! Even Censors couldn't sink this site! But--still--if it is true.....if it is true.....there are life boats left, yes? Soon we must be rescued, surely? Our distress signal will reach a nearby vessel, and they will speed to us where we huddle trembling in our rafts, and everything will be as it was. Only a few minutes now, anytime; lift your head, scan the horizon again, strain your eyes for an approaching light. Try to remain calm; someone strike up the band, play merry songs, log us onto Facebook, drive away the terror--drown out the slowly dawning possibility that perhaps--perhaps....perhaps..........no one is coming. That we are about to be lost forever. That all those kindred souls we met on those once-glowing decks (O! it seems like years ago, now!)--are scattered in the freezing, interminable night; shivering, alone, bobbing numbly in the waters, until we finally close our eyes and drop off into obscurity forever.

Too dramatic, Froog? :)

But in other news, F--you should check the weather report. If guilt-balls are falling, I suggest you take cover immediately, as it's by far one of the more destructive natural forces in the universe. I don't perpetuate it if I can help it! My comments-comment was a subconscious defensive maneuver to put off the imaginary sneer that I imagine is waiting around every corner, ready to pop out the minute I get cocky ("comments, pssssht, yeah, dream on") than to bemoan any lack of external participation, or infer any neglect on your part. (One keeps one's house neat because it makes it a more comfortable place to be--one does not curse one's friends for not dropping by just because one has gotten it good and clean. You know?) Besides--I'd by far rather have someone reading and not commenting than not looking in at all. I'm flattered to have you as a reader!

JES said...

Egad. That fairly loopy analogy seems to have uncorked in Cedra a whole bottle of byzantine free association.

Froog said...

Cedra, that was a rather wonderful fantasia on Titanic - morbid and over-the-top, perhaps, but much more entertaining than James Cameron's take on the disaster.

I never got to feeling anything like that level of isolation or despair. (Though, perhaps it helped that the outage occurred during my hellishly busy end-of-the-week: I currently have two back-to-back teaching engagements in remote locations, on Thursday evening and all day Friday. Between mid-afternoon Thursday and early evening Friday, I have barely enough time at home to cook dinner and sleep! So, I didn't have much opportunity to notice the interruption of service on Blogger. If I'd had an idle day at home and wanted to do some work on the blogs, I might have found the situation much more oppressive.)

I think the apposite metaphor for my experience of the interruption of service would be the painfully extended period of radio blackout suffered by Apollo 13 upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Yes, it went on a bit too long, and I was sorry for the anxiety this might possibly cause to others who wanted to hear from me (ha! some chance!). But I was always robustly confident that the problem would only be temporary, and was able to view the inconvenience with a fair degree of equanimity.

Froog said...

You also remind me, Cedra, that the English writer John Mortimer (creator of the Rumpole of the Bailey series of books, later a long-running TV series, about a lovably eccentric criminal barrister - probably one of the influences on my own rash decision to attempt to enter that profession) once observed that he had read that in boating accidents, even if you sink within sight of land, it is very unwise to try to swim ashore; people who attempt this almost invariably exhaust themselves and drown. Hence, he chose to call his autobiography Clinging to the Wreckage. Good advice in many a situation!