To celebrate the ability to once again quickly (and successfully) upload a batch of pictures and post them, here are some more of these colorful photos.
Of course, probably because I was arrogant enough to write that sentence, again I can not upload. Stand by.
Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography
And just like that, WordPress is working normally again.
I did get a reasonably intelligent response from their tech support today. They actually acknowledged the troubleshooting I had already done and had reasonable requests for further information. (Run speedtest.net? Sure, no problem, I’ve got 60 Mbps down and 6 Mbps up, so glad we were able to eliminate that quickly.) After writing up close to a thousand words of further details on what works, what doesn’t, what the timeline is, etc, I suddenly had a thought. I went onto The Long-Suffering Wife’s computer, which has never touched WordPress, and logged onto my site. Media updates like lightning.
Was it her computer and something’s messed up on mine? Go back to my office and check it out. Like lightning!
So it’s working again, at least until it’s not. Nothing’s changed here, nothing changed before the problem to start it, nothing’s changed after to end it.
Gremlins! That’s what it was.
And we all know (i.e., I’m pulling this out of my ass, whole cloth) that Gremlins are warded off by good karma. Right? So here’s what solved it:
A “double red” donation.
I should have thought of this earlier!
Still having issues with WordPress, still haven’t heard back from tech support. So far I can post text without problem on all platforms, and I can post media (pictures, video, Twitter, etc) from my phone. I can not post any media from the “classic” web interface, and from the “new & improved” web interface I’m getting media to post about one time in ten.
Just saying, if all of a sudden you don’t see anything posted here for a bunch of days, it either means I picked off by a runaway crosstown bus or that I’ve lost all ability to post. It could happen.
In the meantime, here’s a “test” image picked at random, to go along with the previous 3,751 posted in the last forty months or so.
This is how we know it was a good barbecue around here! (That’s the back of my right hand, with much of the hair curled & burnt off from a flare up – no harm, no foul. It grows back.)
Filed under Castle Willett, Computers, Photography
Racing the clock last night to post by 23:59 was not my idea of a good time. The fact that WordPress decided to go flaky then only made it that much more “special.”
Tonight I started early so that I could troubleshoot the WordPress problem of last night. Yep, something broken! I can’t upload any new images or media at all. Not from any one of about three different methods, old and new, built into the WordPress interface. Not on different computers. Not using different browsers. Not clearing the browser cache. Not turning the whole freakin’ internet off and then turning it back on. (Sorry, that was me!)
Very frustrating. I’ve sent a request to their tech support. We’ll see how well that works.
I apparently CAN email myself the photo, save it on my iPhone, and then upload it to WordPress using the iPhone app.
THIS is what you missed last night at 23:59!
Aren’t you glad that tonight I was stubborn and got it posted “early,” at 23:58?
Filed under Computers
I’m telling you, this website is an addiction. The things I do for it…
And now the blessed picture won’t post!
Filed under Critters
Don’t you just hate it when you’re just trying to go out with the wife and kids for a little dinner, to stretch your legs, to get out of the house for a bit, when those assholes with cameras show up and flash! Flash! Flash! FLASH FLASH FLASH!! Over here! No, look this way! FLASH FLASH FLASH!
Hey, they started it – it sounded like they were training for the Olympic elephant dancing team up there on the roof tonight!
Well, there’s their “superhighway” on to and off of the roof – that tree makes it stupid easy to get up there.
“Come here, guys! Look at what’s up here. It’s that freakin’ idiot from downstairs with that big flash of his!”
(I would note that while this picture proves that there are at least four – I’m guessing a mating pair and at least two kits – in the flashing and flashlight glow I swear I saw a fifth, and possibly a sixth.)
“Stop that! It is so annoying! You are really getting on my nerves!”
“Honey, is he still out there?”
“Honey, he’s frightening the kids! He probably thinks you’re rabid, go scare him off!”
“Dear, what if he’s rabid? He’s the one standing on top of that really rickety and unstable ladder, perched on the edge of the Jacuzzi, on that step that says ‘Do not stand on this step or higher,’ using both hands with the camera and flashlight. Doesn’t that prove he’s barking mad?”
“So you don’t have to actually throw yourself off the roof into his face. Just run over there like you’re going to. He’ll go right off onto the concrete and bounce into the bottom of the empty Jacuzzi, breaking every bone in his body!”
“Not tonight, dear, I’m working on controlling my aggressive tendencies this week.”
“Let’s just go inside, he’ll cramp up trying to balance on that ladder, then he’ll go inside and put the pictures on his website. We can bring the elephants back out and get some more training in while he types.”
As for the quality and focus of these pictures, they’ll improve if/when I get a taller and much more stable ladder. Or when I get a flight suit when built in air bags that can keep me from breaking every bone in my body when I hit the bottom of the empty Jacuzzi.
Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography
As mentioned, it was recently The Long-Suffering Wife’s birthday. While she did an excellent job of shopping for herself and made sure that she got something that she liked, I had another idea. After some consultation, making sure that she could actually use it, and thinking about whether or not she actually would use it, we picked it out this weekend.
As I said in the comments at the time, it’s either the most romantic gift ever or the LEAST romantic gift ever (odds on the latter) but at least it doesn’t have a cord.
Tonight was time for the maiden flight!
Safety first!
You’re number one on the runway!
She’s doing great!
Well, it got expanded all right!
Last night, while my meat puppet shell was in a seat in Section 149, Row L at Dodger Stadium, my consciousness was pretty solidly in the Von Kármán Auditorium at JPL, roughly twelve miles to the northeast as the (three-eyed) raven flies.
The Long-Suffering Wife was insightful enough to point out that I had become one of those people I detest – someone who’s at a ballgame with friends or family but on their cell phone constantly, oblivious to the game, the score, or any possible incoming foul balls. As for the latter, I was fine since there were a couple of young ladies sitting in front of us, probably something like eight and ten years old, and both had their gloves and meant business. Nothing was getting by those two!
I’m glad to report that the Dodger Stadium wi-fi is indeed much improved. It does however, as Murphy would predict, get flaky and start dropping out about five minutes before the Juno engine burn started. I was watching NASA-TV off and on up until then, tweeting and re-tweeting comments from the NASA Social attendees who were at JPL. (None of them took me up on my offer, obviously.) Then the wi-fi started to lock up and lag.
It’s for situations like this that I’ve kept that grandfathered unlimited data plan on my iPhone come hell or high water.
As we all know, Juno performed like a champ, hitting her mark just one second off schedule after travelling more than three billion miles through space in five years.
As people have pointed out, the next time a politician tries to tell you that they’re going to “make America great again,” point out Juno, Cassini, the Hubble Space Telescope, Curiosity, and all of the other NASA and JPL spacecraft currently up there. We’re already pretty freakin’ great!
After Juno was safely in orbit and had successfully spun down and turned back to face the sun, I looked up and found that the Dodgers were winning. The fireworks were pretty good too.
How was your Fourth of the July?
Okay, everybody remember that Juno arrives at Jupiter tonight! If your fireworks got rained out, or were yesterday (what’s up with that?), or are already over, or you’re not in the US and you’re just thinking that we’re especially wacked out today (BTW, you’re correct!), then hunker down in front of NASA TV and watch the show!
If you don’t have NASA TV on your cable or satellite system, or your fireworks are going on simultaneously and you don’t want to miss them, or you’re going to be at a ballgame (like we are), then watch it on your phone or computer or tablet or your freakin’ Apple Watch! C’mon folks, we’re in the 23rd Century here! (Actually, I don’t know if you can watch it on your Apple Watch. You should be able to on general principles alone – just sayin’.)
My thoughts will be will all of the thousands of folks across the globe that have worked for decades on this mission. Tonight’s one of the true do-or-die moments, with very, very little room for error.
To all of my fellow NASA Social tweeps at JPL, a few short miles from Dodger Stadium, where I’ll be – I’ll be watching, keep up the great work! And just on the off chance that any of you were thinking, “Damn, I really wanted to see that game tonight and the fireworks, but now I’m stuck being at JPL!” I have some nice seats on the third base side I could trade…
Head at JPL and Jupiter, body at Dodger Stadium watching some of this (these are from July 4th 2006 at Dodger Stadium):
Anyone who also follows me on Twitter (or, if you’re reading this on the site in the next few hours, you can look at the sidebar on the right of the page) will know that there’s a big planetary exploration event tomorrow, and a NASA Social to go along with it.
For the rest of you, note that tomorrow evening the Juno spacecraft, launched five years ago, will arrive at Jupiter. It will be firing its main engine for about 35 minutes to slow down enough to be captured by Jupiter. If the engine fires for less than 20 minutes, Juno will sail off into interplanetary space. If the engine fires for much longer than expected, it will crash into the planet and be crushed.
Emily Lackdawalla at the Planetary Society has an excellent guide to what’s scheduled to happen.
As is my wont these days when I can’t make it to a NASA Social (in this case, because I wasn’t picked when I applied) I spent a good chunk of the day spreading the word about those who were there, and re-tweeting many of their excellent comments, pictures, and videos. All of those folks will be there again tomorrow during the orbital insertion, so you can follow them to get a view from inside the campus.
Over on NASA-TV there will be a pre-insertion press conference at 09:00 PDT (12:00 EDT, adjust as needed from there). The NASA-TV coverage of the actual insertion maneuver will start at 19:30 PDT, with the maneuver itself to start at 20:18 and be over at 20:53. There will be a post-insertion news conference at 22:00 PDT. All of the NASA-TV events will also be available on a number of platforms on your phone or computer as well.
Since I didn’t get picked for this NASA Social, we’ll be at the Dodgers game for the fireworks. But I hear they have excellent wi-fi these days – and I have a DVR.
Follow along! Our family has watched every planetary flyby, arrival, and landing we could since the kids were born. Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, New Horizons, Galileo, Messenger, Cassini… It’s exciting to watch something created by tens of thousands of scientists and engineers from all over the country and all over the world actually arrive at another planet, close to a billion miles away.
We really should do it more often!
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 