B-Day shout-out to...

Sep. 9th, 2025 05:48 am
moxie_man: (Default)
[personal profile] moxie_man
[personal profile] relee! Though, I'm not sure if you're still active here, I hope it's a good day!
moxie_man: (Default)
[personal profile] moxie_man
I don't post much as I don't have much to report in RL.

The one fun thing to mention is that we still have a landline (VOIP) and I've stopped letting the answering machine pick-up to monitor for spammers when I'm here 'cause half the time the firetucking spammer will leave friggin' message despite the message spelling out we'll only answer if we recognize who is at the other end.

Now, I answer immediately as if I'm still at work: "Catherine Cutler Institute MHRT* Certification program, this is Aldin, how many I help you?"

It's amazing how quickly they hang-up, usually before I get past MHRT. Oh, and the word must be getting around. We're down to one spammer per evening instead of a half-dozen or so. I guess they don't want to learn how to obtain the required certification (basically a license without the license regulations) to work in the adult behavioral health field in Maine. :)

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*--Mental Health Rehabilitation Technician

STORY: Got Skunked Part 1

Sep. 6th, 2025 08:34 pm
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[personal profile] moxie_man
Inspired after returning from my annual fishing camp trip with my father and kid brother, though that trip turned out nothing like this story though my father and I took turns getting skunked playing cribbage several times while at fishing camp. This started as a short story, but the characters demanded more "screen time". It expanded from 2K words and 5 pages to 26K words over 56 pages. Parts 1 and 2 posted now. Then one part a day until done--roughly two weeks. Behind cut to save space on your reading/subscription page as I know not all who follow me will be interested in a furry story.

PG rating: Mild cussing throughout.

Nibbled to save space on your page )

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Drat! Belated b-day wishes to...

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:20 am
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[personal profile] moxie_man
[personal profile] jayblanc. Sorry I'm late. I hope it was a good day. I got too busy in RL to log into here.
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