Ghost in the Machine
Blog Nation
Things I’ve Learned from the Archives, 2003-04
But, oh well. It’ll be grand once it’s all completed. And to be fair, I’ve also fixed the less post-intensive 2010-2013 period since the last update, so perhaps the next few sections will go faster. (Only five more years to go…) In any case, things I’ve recently (re-)learned:
Things I’ve Learned from the Archives, 2002-03.
Part of the reason for the shift is the good versus bad spending dichotomy I talked about in 2010. But, more to the point, I’ve since read up on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). (See also: Warren Mosler’s Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy.)
Basically, I was parroting the conventional wisdom on “fiscal responsibility” back then, and didn’t know what I was talking about.
Lost in the Archives.
I’m only 200 posts or so in — Hello, summer of 2002. Gee, I wonder if these Harken revelations will bring down Dubya — and it’s already clear this is going to be a slow process. So apologies if you see an interesting topic listed that links to little-to-no content. Hopefully, eventually, it’ll all be up to snuff.
The Blogosphere’s Baby Pics.
Werewolves of Scarfolk.
Strange Tales.
Thir13en Ghosts.
As those few of you who still drop by here now and again know — and thanks much for that — it’s been a pretty grim year ’round these parts, and no mistake. We’re coming up on nine months since, after a year and a half (and on Valentine’s Day to boot), I suddenly got deemed “boring” by the ex I was quite fond of — the same insidious adjective applied to me back in 2006 — and then swiftly unpersoned by both her and a sizable majority of my then-current social scene. (They “went with Cheryl.”) Fortunately, I had a big project to absorb myself in with the old dissertation, but that’s come at the expense of the Ghost. Unlucky Number 13, I guess.
I am fully aware that, in the great scheme of life’s problems, of course, this one is ridiculous. I mean, there are homeless guys living on the street right outside my apartment who are scraping for food in trash cans. All around the world, lousy and/or terrible things happen to decent, undeserving people every single minute of the day, from car crashes and diseases to IEDs, errant drone strikes, and Republican legislatures. But, what can I say? It hit me where I lived. If you’ve had your heart broken — and this isn’t even my first rodeo in this regard, which probably didn’t help — you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then nothing I write here can explain how lousy much of this year has been, or make whining about it seem any less self-absorbed.
But ANYWAYS, we’ve reached the half-the-relationship mark in terms of time passed, and while my interior landscape can still be pretty Gaelic and/or even Russian at times, we’ve hopefully reached the point in the movie where I’ve fixed my own back, done lots and lots and lots of push-ups, climbed out of the pit, and inexplicably shown up in a locked-down Gotham City again in my best suit. (This also means, presumably, that I’m about to run into Alicia Keys. Oh word.) So, notwithstanding the fact that, even on a good day, Bruce Wayne is a pretty damaged dude, here’s hoping for a better Year 14 for the old blog, and for life in general.
In any case, with the dissertation finally done, I’m still figuring out what sort of big writing project and/or life project I want to take on next, and how GitM fits or doesn’t fit in to that. (This won’t be an immediate pivot. For now, I’m spending my new free time just catching up on great shows I’ve kept for this moment, like Treme, and decent shows I can now watch without creeping dissertoral guilt, like Boardwalk Empire.) I may start doing the movie reviews again, which I’ve always enjoyed writing — but they also take a lot of time without much in the way of reward. So we’ll see.
Regardless, whatever comes next in life, I expect the Ghost will move along with me in some fashion — maybe in fits and starts, but forward nonetheless. So thanks for indulging me and, if you’ve been swinging by here since the 20th century or just got lost on the Google today, thanks, as always, for stopping by.
Buy the Ticket, Pitch the Game.
I actually haven’t read this whole piece yet, but the presentation of this article is amazing. Here’s the same curtain.js script from its source — this time involving lorem ipsum and kittehs.
The Ghost, 3.0.
In the meantime, I still have a few more chapters to go on this end, but hopefully things will liven up around here pretty soon thereafter. Until then, thanks, as always for stopping by.
For those in peril on the C://.
On account of recent events, I’m initiating a change of host from (the seemingly dead) Cornerhost to Bluehost, a change of platforms from (the seemingly dead) Movable Type to WordPress, and, a change of domain hosts from (the definitely expensive) NetSol to Namecheap. In other words, there’s a high potentiality for a lot of funky turbulence around here for the next two to three weeks. Hopefully, I’ll see y’all on the other side.
Until then, I’ve put this off for far too long. This is the end, I’m going. I’m leaving now, Goodbye!
Nuke the Site from Orbit…
(It’s the only way to be sure.) Hello again — So the problem around here has been some kind of malware injecting tiny iframes that link to suspect sites when people visited through Google. This is a relatively common hack, but I’ve been having serious trouble figuring out the vector. (It didn’t help that my soon-to-be-ex-host is AWOL, the Movable Type forums are a dead zone, and that I’m very much of the n00b persuasion when it comes to coding and server-side issues, although I’m considerably savvier now than I was this time last week.)
Anyway, after rolling back everything and reinstalling MT (twice), a lucky scan using this White Fir tool uncovered this nasty bit of work lurking in my mt.js file:
// document.w***e(‘
(I say lucky, but I have a suspicion this code is only visible on the first scan from a given source. The reason I started suspecting mt.js is because it was considered an additional link on the first Sucuri Sitecheck scan I did…but only that first scan, not on subsequent ones.)
Anyway, even with my changing that first “write” above, this code still looks scrambled to all hell. But, whatever it does, unlike Mr. Pibb and Red Vines, it’s also clearly crazy malicious, and thus has been swiftly airlocked.
To be honest, I’m not still not sure what the original vector of infection was — I’m hoping it was some sort of cross-scripting vulnerability of an earlier version of MT. But I also feel like I deleted this mt.js file and rebuilt it from scratch using an all-new MT 5.14 default template a few days ago, and the problem was still extant. (I’ve also scoured my MySQL database for tricksy scripts like “eval,” “unescape,” “basecode64″ etc. Nothing there.)
So, at the moment, Google’s given GitM a clean bill of health again. Let’s hope it holds. In the meantime, everything I said in the last post stands — I’ll need to find a new host for GitM at some point. But, for now, I’m trying to knock out these last few chapters, so I’d best get back to it. Hope everyone out there is well.
P.S. I’m aware comments have been acting funky as well and that the comment box comes and goes. Apologies if you are a real human being who has tried to leave one in recent days. I think it’s fixed now — the comment spam seems to be getting through, in any event.
The Ghost Rises?
Actually, no, not yet. But I wanted to quickly explain the reason for the retro-look around here, and since tonight is also the movie event of the summer, it seemed like a good time for a brief update regardless. (All apologies to The Avengers, of course. If it’s any consolation to Whedon’s fine film, the “movie event of the year” will be The Hobbit in December. And at least you were great fun and not a half-assed disappointment like Prometheus.)
Anyway, life continues much as it has this past age. I work, Berk — fully recovered, minus one toe — barks at things. We’re leading a pretty solitary existence these days — hello, 2007 again — and it has its depressing moments, to be sure. But we’re getting by.
The good news is, and the reason why I won’t be returning to GitM for now, is that I’ve spent pretty much all my free time these past few months cracking out my long-neglected dissertation. At this point, I’ve got ten chapters and 800 pages written, which, I’ve been informed, is more than enough to defend for the degree. (I defend this fall.) But since I’ve finally come this far, I want to push through until I complete the project in its intended scope — which means four more chapters and, assuming a productive August recess, probably at least two-to-three more months of working evenings and weekends to go. When that’s finally done, I’ll be more inclined to reconnect with the world at large and take up the Ghost once more.
(And, yes, I know that nobody wants to read 800+ pages on progressives in the Twenties, or for that matter, 800+ pages on anything. I also know that all the time I’ve spent on this would probably have been better served just writing bondage-y Twilight fan fiction. Oh well.)
The bad news is, along with a gunfight breaking out above my head last weekend, the forces of entropy have conspired to infect the old blog here with some sort of google-hit-stealing malware. This has made the Google wrathful, and it has banished this poor, lowly Ghost to the unclicked shadowlands with the other leprous websites. It’s my fault — MT was way out-of-date. I was going to have it updated this past winter, along with a general overhaul of the look of the site. But the old blog-”friend” I hired to do the job took my money and then disappeared with it. (That turned out to be the opening salvo of the frozen-run-of-luck that precipitated this whole “interregnum of despair” around here.)
Anyway, in order to root out the infection, I’ve upgraded to MT 5, rolled back to the default templates, and rebuilt the site — Hopefully this finally does the trick and Google takes us back. If it does, and when I have the time, I’ll work on gradually fixing up the look of the Ghost again. (That is, presuming I learn to master all the intricacies of the non-coder-unfriendly new Movable Type. (Zemanta? What the?)) Until then, thanks for the patience and understanding, have fun in Gotham this weekend, and thanks, as always, for stopping by.
Update: Still on the wrong side of Google, and running out of ideas at this point. And my host — the once reliable Cornerhost — appears to have fallen off the Earth. So I guess, first things first, I’ll have to move everything to a more reliable host. If anyone has any keen infection-fighting ideas, please do pass them along. Otherwise, I’ll see ya when I have time to sort all this out.
On Walkabout.
Hey all. I know it’s been quiet ’round these parts — sorry about that. It’s been a tough year so far. Berk has had to deal with a nasty dog bite back in February and, now, what looks to be cancer. (He’s getting his toe amputated tomorrow — Hopefully, that’ll contain the bug.) Also in February, I had an 18-month romance implode rather disastrously. I thought we’d be going the distance…but, before disappearing, the ex made sure to convey she never actually took the relationship seriously in the first place. Er…good to know. (Yes, I know this sort of thing has happened to me before. What can I say? Either I’m too sensitive, or else I’m getting soft.)
Anyway, the upshot is there’s not much joy in Mudville these days, and I’m just not feeling very inclined to post here. I can’t really talk about politics because (1) it interferes with my current employ and (2) when you get right down to it, I find it hard to take presidential politics seriously as a vehicle for (hope-and-)change these days (although I’m sure it’s a great way to get your name on a NASCAR car.) I can’t really talk about personal matters because that’s just plain unsightly, and the Internet really doesn’t need any more TMI kvetching about first world problems. Nor, quite frankly, does it need to know what I thought of 21 Jump Street and Mass Effect 3 and the new Prometheus viral campaign and the like.
I’m not saying the Ghost is dead and buried, but I don’t see it coming back online regularly anytime soon: With the exception of the occasional comment-spam clear, the old hound and I are on walkabout for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the archives are here and here, and all the old movie reviews are here. If you’ve been swinging by the site at any time for the past 12+ years, apologies for the service outage and thanks, as always, for stopping by.
Update: Thanks for all the well-wishes in the comments. As a follow-up, Berk has lost the toe, but the offending infection has, per the lab report, been “completely excised.” Meanwhile, after several weeks in the cone, the old hound is back to moving around normally and otherwise seems in good health. Squirrels and skateboarders, beware.
Dozing at the Dozen.
As of today, Ghost in the Machine is 12 years old. [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 11] Like its venerable ombudsdog, this site is mostly characterized these days by short bursts of frenetic activity followed by long periods of slumber. But, in its own way, the ghost is still keep-on-keepin’-on. If you’ve been here for awhile or just got lost on Google today, thanks, as always, for stopping by.
Silence of the Hares.
Apologies for the recent quiet ’round these parts — work has been kicking mighty hard of late. I feel bad about not keeping up-to-date here on recent events in the Middle East and Middle West. I feel bad about being several reviews behind on the movie front. But, more than anything, I just feel bad about letting down the bunnies.
Sigh…anyway, I hope to rectify in the days and weeks ahead. (Besides, after the under-reported fiasco that happened here last week, I may well find myself with more time than usual on my hands come March.) In any case, thanks, as always for coming by. (Disapproving rabbit via Cute Overload and, um, Disapproving Rabbits.)
Microphone Check, Micro-Microphone Checka…
Another long stretch of quiet ’round these parts, I know, and in terms of post count, this September has been the quietest month in nearly 11 years of blogging. (Hopefully the handful of remaining regular readers are checking the Twitter feed.) But, busy workdays notwithstanding, the Ghost lives! So if you’re still swinging by these parts, pardon the interruption, and thanks, as always, for dropping by.
Whither the Ghost?
Hey everyone — sorry about the lack of updates ’round here the past fortnight. Between work, not seeing any movies since Inception (Salt has been right on the cusp — I’ll get to it eventually), and not wanting to comment too much on recent politics to maintain some degree of discretionary work-life divide, I’ve been neglecting the long-form format here at GitM. But, if you’re not following already, I am still maintaining a steady Twitter presence, and I expect posts will pick up here too as we move deeper into the recess period. That’s the plan, anyway!
Retreat to Advance.
Sorry about the radio silence over the past week. I’ve been ensconced away at the yearly office retreat, which coupled with family in town and a very busy work week regardless, cut deeply into the GitM time. There’s been quite a lot of big doings over the past week, and I’m four movie reviews behind at the moment, but hopefully I’ll catch up over the next several days.
Farewell, Bradlands.
Via @anildash, some sad news today: Brad Graham, one of the blogger old-school and an all-around friendly, funny guy, has apparently passed away. (1968-2010.)
I never met Brad in person, but we traded comments now and again and his sites — first, The BradLands and later Must See HTTP — could always be counted on for great pop culture commentary and sundry other quality links. Plus, he was always a very friendly and welcoming presence back in the early days, and he really helped everybody feel like they were part of a burgeoning online community. Farewell, Brad. You will be missed.
Update: The online wake is here.
4.D’oh!
Hmm. Ok, as you can see, things look slightly different at the moment. I’ve been trying to update to Movable Type 4.0, and, while trying to get the individual entry pages to update, it seems I’ve gone ahead and switched back to the default style. That’s recommended anyway, but things might look funky around here for a few days while I get everything working again (and try to figure out how to get my individual entry pages to appear.) Bear with me…and hope I don’t permanently break anything.
Update: Well, shoot. I think I broke it. Individual entry pages used to be listed by number. Now they’re listed by name. So that means every entry that links to another entry is now riddled with “Page Not Found” errors. This is not good.
Update 2: Ok, that problem is fixed. I had to read up on archive mapping and then navigate my way around this bug, but that seemed to do the trick. Now, to start playing with the look around here. Sigh…MT 4.0 better be something else, ’cause right now I’m feeling like Gob Bluth…I’ve made a huge mistake.
Update 3: Ok, MT 4.0, autosave be damned, just ate the In the Valley of Elah review I’d been working on for the past hour. And, when it comes to fixing the templates, cutting and pasting is absolutely afflicted. I’m really starting to hate this “upgrade.”
Got his spine, got his orange crush.
Grand news for discriminating readers of the blog nation: GitM’s consistently excellent blog-twin, Follow Me Here, has returned from hiatus. (Both FmH and GitM date to 11/15/99.)
The Revenge of Ethel.
By way of Dumbmonkey, one of the old-school progressive blogs returns to the Big Game. Welcome back, Ethel the Blog!
Full Slate.
“Where is the analyst at a firm called Forrester Research who used to be quoted everywhere calling us, witlessly, ‘the Slatanic’? Haven’t heard much from him lately.” A happy 10th anniversary to Michael Kinsley’s Slate, home to Dahlia Lithwick, Fred Kaplan, Seth Stevenson, and several other writers and journalists invariably worth checking out.
Several Six-Packs of Funk.
A very happy sixth blogday to Quiddity, Neilalien (belated — Feb. 25), and LinkMachineGo (preemptive — Mar. 4), all must-reads on the fanboy/fangirl blog circuit. And, also turning older than one hand can count is Le Blogeur, perhaps the original who-blogs-the-bloggers site. Congrats to all!
Banner Days.
Sorry for the lack of updates around here of late — I’ve been using the blog-time to redesign the old headers above, as well as add quite a few more to the rotation. (It was something vaguely productive that I could accomplish while TV-binging to get up to date on Battlestar Galactica — the thinking man’s gritty post-9/11-traumatic stress disorder sci-fi shoot-em-up — for a few nights.) At any rate, keep an eye out for new faces.
Encomiums.
A very happy 5th blogday to one of Sydney’s finest blogs, Kris at Web-Goddess (In case you haven’t been reading her, she’s compiled a very thorough set of Year 5 stats.) Also, a belated sixth blogday to Boycaught of Caught in Between, who, like this site, also got into the blog-game in late ’99. Here’s to many more! Update: And, in other excellent blog news, Raza at HighIndustrial is back for the ’06…booyah.
Hal 6000.
A very happy 6th blogday to Hal at Blivet, and here’s to many more.
Six in the City.
Or is it Six Feet Under? (Nah, there’ll be no deep-sixing of this site in the forseeable future.) At any rate, Ghost in the Machine is six years old today. (And six here means a half-dozen over at Follow Me Here…congrats.) As always, thanks for dropping by, y’all. [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Brava!
A very happy 5th blogday to Listen Missy, a fellow DC-to-NYC transplant with consistently great links and comment on film, dance, photography, and music. Encore!
Not Enough of Him.
Do You Feel Loved? turns five today. Happy blogday, Chris, and here’s to many more.
Just another statistic.
Better late than never…
Questionable Talkback.
If you’ve tried to post a comment here in the past two days or so and were denied for “questionable content,” sorry about that. I inadvertently added “http://” to my MT-Blacklist, causing basically all comments to bounce. The problem is fixed now.
All About AAG.
A very happy (and belated) 5th blogday to All About George, a frequent source for absorbing links and occasional Dylania.
Back-Talk and Over-feeding.
In keeping with the design and functionality around here being a good two or three years behind the curve, I’ve gone ahead and enabled Trackback and tried to fix up the RSS feeds (RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0). Please let me know if I broke anything. (Also, if there’s a quick way to allow trackbacks on all the old posts without going through and doing it manually, that’d be helpful to know too.)
Senryu in the City.
“How can we fix us? The fights, the silence . . . I know! Let’s get a puppy!” A hearty congrats to Joel Derfner, who’s both a friend from college and the brother/roommate of a good friend here at Columbia, on the publication of his recent book, Gay Haiku (a project which originated on his blog…assuredly a better way to make this hobby pay than the Kottke route.)
Property of Craig.
A very happy 5th Blogday to the consistently well-written, entertaining, and informative Booknotes. Here’s to many more.
Live from the UK.
He’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate…and he’s always made sure to post about it soon afterwards at LinkMachineGo, another excellent blog joining the ranks of recent five-year veterans. Congrats! (Somewhere, Grant Morrison is rejoicing.)
Five Alive.
Happy recent 5th blogdays to Quiddity, one of the web’s best-kept secrets for quality fangirl linkage, to Neilalien, bane of Dormammu and otherworldly portal to all things Strange in this realm, and to Le Blogeur, who’s been eyeing the blog nation since before it was hip….we’ve come a long way, Sally/Renton.
Arrr.
Sorry, Ted – You may be The Late Adopter, but now we have an even later adopter in the Columbia History Department — On Friday, ancient historian Jason Governale set sail with his new blog Corsairs United. Happy hunting.
Recurring Effect.
Found while perusing the Metafilter dust-up (via LinkMachineGo) that ensued after Kottke‘s recent decision to quit his job and blog for food (I stopped reading Kottke years ago, but power to him) — Dan Hartung, one of the earliest old-school bloggers and former proprietor of Lake Effect, has returned to the game with Stilicho. Welcome back!
Pinterested
Visions
Stories We Tell (4/10)
Currently Reading
Hidden Cities, Moses Gates
Omsbudsdog.
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