June 06, 2017
The Killer App of Mu.Nu
I started to mention this in a previous post, but it deserves to be above the fold.
A bit over 10 years ago, after 1021 posts on Blogger, I was about to throw in the towel. Google had bought BlogSpot shortly after I started blogging in 2003, but this was of no concern until early '07 when 2 things happened. There were some system crashes and issues with the image posting system. More importantly The Netroots types began a campaign to file complaints with Google/Blogger about "offensive content" in blogs whose opinions they found uncongenial and report others as spam blogs. Blogger/Google was only too happy to oblige. As a result of that, numerous blogs whose opinions vexed the Netroots were threatened, locked pending review, or just vanished. There had been a similar purge of right leaning You Tube Channels that had happened a bit earlier, (remember when Hot Air was mainly a companion site to their You Tube channel?). That censorious annoyance had been similarly instigated by complaints from the Netroots.
Brickmuppet Blog was protected from this mainly by my lack of talent which placed me near the bottom of the blogosphereic ecosystem and the fact that it's not really a political blog. Still, I did actually get one vague threat from a reader to have me taken down...because I guess getting a Z-list blogger with 6 readers to shut up is a real power trip. Between that and the short lived technical glitches, I was about to throw in the towel. I had been made very aware of how ephemeral any work consisting entirely of electrical zeroes and ones actually is.
However, I inquired about different hosting services and took the advice of Wonderduck and the late Steven Den Beste, and signed up here in Mee.nu as a Beta tester (my utter lack of IT skills being a feature and not a bug in that capacity). Although the very first comment on this blog was a thinly veiled threat, I've been very happy here.
Since then I've come to appreciate even more the absolute importance of the fact that Pixy Misa (the owner, proprietor of Mee.nu) is completely dedicated to free speech. Unless they are spammers, child pornographers or malware-bots, he and his crackerjack team of pixel elves aren't going to screw with any of the 65,000 odd websites hosted here.
Additionally, unlike some other platforms, Mee.nu doesn't have a truth and safety council, doesn't shadowban users, and allows one to type as many characters as one needs to get out a coherent thought (actual level of coherence is the typists responsibility).
Furthermore, unlike some services Mee.nu doesn't integrate seamlessly into every aspect of one's online existence. That may, at first, seem like a bug, but in an age of weaponized empathy...it is not. The other day I noted noted an online poll that concerned a politically charged topic. It required one to log in via a service we won't name (but it rhymes with SpaceCrook). This of course means that everyone in one's feed knows how one voted, and sets off all manner of flags. Rejoice Mr. Parsons! The telescreen has arrived!
But not here in Mee.nu.
Operating from a vast underground bunker hidden somewhere in the guano mines of Niue, Pixy Misa interacts with the world mainly through a surprisingly lifelike teleoperated animatronic in Sydney. Pixy oversees several servers scattered across the globe in places that are not North Korea, China or The Platt River Networks men's room.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:30 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 587 words, total size 4 kb.
December 24, 2016
Last Day
Art by Itou (Onsoku Tassha)
It will all be over this evening...
UPDATE: I've successfully survived my 24th and most likely final Christmas at UPS.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:12 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.
December 11, 2016
5 Days Till Exams Are Over, 14 Days Till Christmas
Apologies for the content deficit gentle readers.
As partial compensation, here is some seasonally appropriate cheesecake, topped with sundry varieties of fruit.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:27 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.
August 28, 2016
Much Like This Individual...
...I've been distracted by trivialities that have caused me to loose focus regarding rather more consequential things that need to be dealt with.
Art by Subaku
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:41 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 30 words, total size 1 kb.
July 26, 2016
Palate Cleanser
Recent posts have been less than inspirational, so here is a study of a serene tropical beach....and a watermelon.
Art by Yana (formerly went by Nekoarashi)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:43 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 28 words, total size 1 kb.
June 04, 2016
A Test of Testable Things
Well there's been....TALK.
I walked into the cafeteria the other day and noted that all the cool kids were talking, presumably about cool things, so I walked over to say hi, but before i did I realized that they were actually venting about some dork...and then I realized, it was probably me so I hid behind the soda machine before they saw me and then skipped lunch and then I ran home and cut myself checked the blog in Epic, Opera, Vivaldi, Safari, Midori and Chrome and didn't see a problem but realized that the complaint was about IE...which I don't use because it tries to upgrade my Windows 7 into Windows 10...so I just gave up because the day was terrible since I'd already gotten a "D" in English because of something called a "run-on-sentence".
Ahem...
I noted that my page was set at 25 posts per page, I've cut it down to 5. As a stress test, since two other posts have embedded videos in lieu of content, I'll put this animated .gif of a girl passionately explaining why duodecimal is just better.
Let me know if cutting the the page count addressed the issues.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:53 PM
| Comments (8)
| Add Comment
Post contains 202 words, total size 2 kb.
April 27, 2016
Monotonous Meta Monologue
Hello gentle readers.
We're trying to check out the blogs compatibility with Vivaldi, and double-checking a few things in our 5 other browsers. One annoying peculiarity is apparent right away
Additionally, some combination of keystrokes associated with the "BACK" key reverts the page to the previous page in the tab...thereby dumping the post.
Naturally, this is a break from format and therefore of limited appeal to our readers. Thus, sacred honor dictates that we post this picture...
Because few things over the last several weeks have been quite as refreshing as Blizzard's response to those who feel that the greatest problem in the world is Tracer's epic bodankey.
As to the upcoming game itself, I thin....
Ahem.
While I detect the foeted aroma of sarcasm in that outburst, in fairness, it should be noted that we do count amongst our loyal readers those who are not explicitly catered to by the first image.
To that end...
All nekoboys are 18 years of age or older. proof of age was on file in annex C of section 42 of the basement of the Ministry of Education Truancy Division Sector 8, Orion Arm Local Office Copies Division, Located orbiting Alpha Centauri B Planet 3 Moon 2 Quadrant 1, Sector 81, Spoo County, at the corner of 8th Street and Dogwood Avenue and was retained there until the nekoboys alluded to reached the age of majority at which point such records were burned pursuant to the child welfare act. That is our story, and we are sticking to it.
However, this can digress to an alarming degree since our diverse audience boasts a number with...unconventional interests.
...which would just not be keeping with our format and so that is why we generally subcontract such matters to 4-Chan.
Let's try a quotation now
...might not be so bad, with all the lazy bums we got panhandling relief nowadays, and living on my income tax and yours—not so worse to have a real Strong Man, like Hitler or Mussolini—like Napoleon or Bismarck in the good old days—and have ‘em really run the country and make it efficient and prosperous again. ‘Nother words, have a doctor who won’t take any back-chat, but really boss the patient and make him get well whether he likes it or not!”
― Michael R. Meyer, It Can't Happen Here
Ok...that covers most formatting tools and our ongoing nightmares..
Perhaps that's enough for now.
UPDATE: Does anyone note any oddness?
The banner images are working now. I suspect I have a broken banner in the rotation. I still cant figure out quite what selection of keys causes the page to jump back though.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:28 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 447 words, total size 5 kb.
March 07, 2016
Aaaand.....We're Back
Midterms are over, though, there were other distractions over the weekend. While spring cleaning, I cut on the overhead light in the spare room, only to discover...to my considerable chagrin...that the light cover was being employed as an unlicensed flop house by half a dozen of the vast numbers of stinkbugs that have been seeking asylum in southeastern Virginia this winter. As I had the fan running to air out the aforementioned room, the aroma of stinkbug flambe' was distributed through the house in a most egalitarian manner. In other news, my heater core blew Friday night, at least I THINK that's what happened since the van suddenly filled with the subtle fragrance of antifreeze. Cutting the heater off is an acceptable work around for now. The rest of the weekend involved laundry, fixing a broken toilet, intermittent connectivity issues, and a bunch of ghouls who beset me after I jumped into a whirlpool to escape a particularly durable deathclaw.
"That last item isn't so much an explanation as an admission."
Ahem...
In any event; as compensation for the disrupted posting we have provided some Hestia cheesecake below the fold.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:40 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 192 words, total size 2 kb.
February 29, 2016
Midterms Are Upon Us
Posting is, therefore, likely to be intermittent. Here, as atonement, is something to tide you over that seems to cover all bases.
Artist Unknown, but it appeared recently in Nyan-Type
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:27 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 34 words, total size 1 kb.
January 08, 2016
Another Test Post
I just upgraded Parallells and now the blog looks all wonky on windows via my machine.
I looked at it through a couple of other computers today and it looks fine there, so it's probably something to do with the recent software upgrades to my iMac, or it's specific to Midori.
Let's see if pictures work:
It's the Martini-Henry that really sells that picture.
Now lets try some tags:
Superscript test
Nope.
Subscript test
Nope.
Some things are just stupid. Some other things occasionally transcend that stupidity by embracing it. This may be one of those other things.
UPDATE: Well, we won't be using Midori for a while. Posting will resume shortly.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:00 PM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 2 kb.
December 28, 2015
I Have Been Remiss in My Blogitude
Rooster Teeth has been remiss in getting the next episode of RWBY out after that gut wrenching cliffhanger they foisted on us two weeks ago.
To partially address both issues, here is Ruby Rose doing a dramatic reading for your enjoyment.
I swear. It sounds like Random House has figured out how to print cooties.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:53 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 62 words, total size 1 kb.
December 19, 2015
So Exhausted
...that I can't even spell occoured, ocour....that word for "happened" correctly.
So rather than post anything substantive, I'll rely on the fallback of a cute girl in seasonal attire swearing like a sailor at you.
Full Disclosure: I don't...strictly speaking...know what she's actually saying, but I can make some problematic assumptions based on her background and the fact that she obviously suffers from turrets syndrome.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:07 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.
December 10, 2015
15 More Days
...till, posting returns to normal. Here is a compensatory Yuletide dreadnought.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:42 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.
December 03, 2015
In Lieu of Content: Here's Something Seasonal and Surely Problematic
Art by Tob
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:01 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.
November 17, 2015
The Christmas Imp Is Out Early This Year
Despite, (or perhaps because of) the fact that the economy has been so-so and is looking uncertain moving forward, online orders are surging, with the result that a full week before Thanksgiving we are already getting the kind of hours we got in early December last year.
Unhallowed Yuletide Yandere By Toropu
Blogging is likely to suffer a bit.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:03 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.
October 27, 2015
I Know I'm Human
....and I know some of my commentors are human too.
But it will take longer than I have before work to figure out which of them aren't.
I'll be back later to make things right.
In the meantime, make sure you eat out of cans as you amuse yourselves trying to figure out which of you is real.
But ponder this.
This...thing...it knows what color an orange is.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:47 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 72 words, total size 1 kb.
October 14, 2015
Egzam Heck!
I have midterms, a stone, and other issues, so I'll continue to be scarce. In the meantime, as compensation, here is a cute bunnygirl.
Art by Razi.
Look. It's fall, its cold, and she's probably looking for work, so stop complaining.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:34 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.
September 23, 2015
The Hiatus Continues
..but the sun is directly over the equator today, so...
Art by Sumashi (whose page has disappeared)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:16 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.
September 20, 2015
Life Intervenes
Blogging will be sporadic at best for a bit.
UPDATE: Well, that was an unfortunate typo. Happily, now, no one will ever know.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:38 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.
August 02, 2015
That Comment Problem
I've been informed that people not logged into Mee.nu have been getting the following message when they attempt to comment:
COMMENT REJECTED BY AKISMET
I inquired to Pixy as to why my commentors were being harassed by what appeared to be an obscure Egyptian god.
Pixy informed me that he was able to acquire the services of the Egyptian god of what translates very loosely as spam busting for a remarkably reasonable rate.
Unfortunately, this had unforeseen consequences as the contract required that all mee.nu users be registered as "Members of the Temple" and those who are not member be registered as "Unaffiliated". Fortunately, none of our commentors were sent to Duat before the issue was discovered (except for Wonderduck...He got better).
Pixy has made arrangements so that non-menuvians can comment by presenting offerings of hieroglyphics via captcha. Note that since Egyptian gods have not been in the deity business since the abdication of Nectanebo the second, and in any event, as this is "payment" for admission to a secular web service, it is not actually considered apostay.
Anyway...The comments should be fixed and we have captcha now.
Art by Abusoru, who, to the best of our knowledge, has at no point denied this is a representation of Akismet...and that's good enough for us.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:24 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 217 words, total size 2 kb.
85kb generated in CPU 0.11, elapsed 0.2422 seconds.
76 queries taking 0.1699 seconds, 304 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
76 queries taking 0.1699 seconds, 304 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
