So, as I write this, day one has officially come to an end. I'm still somewhat in shock over it. Last night when I was editing the database to change over hostnames and such, I was thinking, man, it would be great if we got 100 regular users by tomorrow. Turns out I was wrong. By a factor of ten. Holy cow, people. I'm still in a state of disbelief, partially due to the epic turnout, but also because our very modest server hardware hasn't soiled itself from the influx (the numbers are, well, "impressive" is a way to put it). Anyway, I wanted to do a bit of a writeup of where we stand now, what works, and what doesn't. Check it out (and some raw numbers) after the break! Warning, it is a bit lengthy.
As some of you may have noticed, we've had a couple of hiccups today, but all and all, it was a huge smashing success for day one, and you, the community, made it possible. Here's our version of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good!
Articles, Commenting, and User Profiles: As the basic life blood of any website, these features need to work 100%, be usable for both staff and for the community. As many are aware, we had an issue with story submission; the problem here was that Slashcode has a "Human Confirmation" module which basically went nuts after we launched. That's been fixed, and submissions should work from any user, and from ACs. As for user registration, this is working, but we've had issues with emails either getting placed into the spam bin, or dropping into the nether regions. We're still looking into this, and hope to have it addressed soon. As for user features (referred to as the Zoo in code), things like Friends/Foes/etc. are all working as expected.
Moderation: Of all the bits of Slashcode that needed tweaking, this is the only one that required a rewrite. As it's difficult to test any code that depends on a huge group of users, we went live knowing that this was going to need ongoing massaging. I won't go into the nitty-gritty here, but suffice to say we're keeping a very close eye on it. Basically, modpoints are issued if you're logged in and actively browsing on the site, and expire four hours after being issued. The UI doesn't accurately reflect this, as this change was made a couple hours ago, and the templates don't provide enough granularity to show hours vs. days. For those who are curious, I did a write up the original slash system (and why it had to go) here, and a second one going into details behind the current implementation, and the thought process that went into it here. Comments welcome.
Site Responsiveness: Appears to be good all around, despite the very modest hardware we're running on. Slash does plenty of caching with memcache, and varnish is helping loads. I don't expect any short term issues with us getting overloaded based on our current capacity and the resources we're utilizing. If there's one thing slash excels at, it is at being an incredibly scalable chunk of perl.
Development Portal: Up and running on our local FusionForge installation. Like the main site, this one also having some email issues, but we're manually approving accounts as they come in. The current latest code can be found there, as well as our bug trackers. The SSL issue is known, and we've got a proper certificate waiting to be installed. The git repository for the site is there (as well as mirrored on github) if you want to dive in. Feel free to drop in at ##altslashdot on irc.freenode.net if you have questions.
Statistics: Slash's internal stats engine is mostly working, but is slightly skewed due to Varnish. We can get realistic numbers by combining slash's numbers with those from the host itself. Needless to say, I was impressed.
The So-So!
Journals: On a technical level, these are working as best as we could expect. The problem is there's a lot of missing functionality, either in stuff that you expect to be there, and isn't, or stuff the other site has that we don't. The biggest glaring omission is the missing "Submit for Submission" button. I'm not sure if it's just not existent, or the HTML for it fell off the templates. It would not be the first feature we had to reconnect to the rest of slash. (Next/Prev article was another one). To be honest, overhauling this entire section is on my wish list, and I have some thoughts on this that I will eventually write down, discuss, and perhaps even implement.
Topics: Oh boy ... for a simple feature, this proved incredibly irritating to get to work, resulting in us hosing the site horribly for several hours. In the end, it required implementing the topics one by one in the database by hand then trying to get backslash to cooperate. This feature is somewhat over-engineered due to the fact that every article requires at least one "Topic" and a "Nexus", which is a section of the site which can exist as a subdomain. For the most part, these are implemented, but are all sharing the same icon (the art wasn't quite available by go-live). Expect to see icons sometime soon. The topics.pl page however is glitching out, for reasons I can't completely understand. For the most part, it's functional.
UTF-8: Believe it or not, we do support it (and it was pretty simple to get working, but it's not 100% bug free. This seems to be mostly related to the internal HTML validator slash uses on incoming comments, but the results are mixed based on your operating system, your browser, and the phases of the moon. If you want to see the UTF-8 in actual for yourself, check out here and here.
The Bad!
Search: Mostly hosed. The backend requires Sphinx, and possibly patching MySQL. It seems to be broken on the other site, as well, when I tested it, so at least we're not alone in this department. It does work for searching based on authors/comments by user, thus it was left in place. Just don't expect it to work for general queries right now.
The Skin: We've had ongoing CSS and theming issues since slash was installed. Considering what we had when we started, it's somewhat impressive that it's usable at all. PrestonL and many, many others on IRC contributed CSS fixes, and a proper fix for the user's page went live late today. I need to go through the logs and get an exact list of contributors so I can all give them the proper kudos and put them in the AUTHORS file.
Static HTML Pages: Slash comes with a fair number of static pages, like the About and Help pages. Most of these pages are there, but are either horribly out of date (for example, anything related to slashcode), horribly wrong (moderation), or just nonexistent. Basically, if it is documentation related to the site, the odds are that it's either 404ing or just wrong. Fixing this is mostly a matter of writing them and putting them in the correct places.
The Ugly! Welcome to the top (or perhaps bottom) issues currently plaguing the site today, those that have no easy resolution. Help is especially needed for all the below.
D2: As many people no doubt noticed, we launched with the old D1 system. While perfectly functional, it has a *very* 1997 feel to it, and there are users that do prefer the more dynamic D2 system. This wasn't some conspiracy to launch an entirely Web 1.0 website (which happens to mostly work with NCSA Mosaic), but due to the fact that most of it is missing. We have the actual code and backend stuff, but none of the javascript that makes it work. Furthermore, even if we did, it would be the rather ugly version that had the "floating box of doom" (since that code is from that era). The switch in the UI creeped back in after go-live, but functionally it might as well not be there. I'd like to give the D1 system a SLIGHT facelift (similar to the old Greasemonkey script for Slashdot), yet make sure this site always works correctly. Ideas and volunteers welcome.
Firehose: It's essentially the same story as D2, except I'm not even sure that all the backend code is there for it. If we want it, it's basically a burn and rewrite.
Tags: Unlike the other two, we've got most of bits for them. They're just not exposed anywhere on the skin. It's probably possible to bring them back if the community feels that they add value, but it will require someone who knows HTML, javascript, and Template::Toolkit to do it.
Meta-moderation: This is a case where the implementation itself is questionable. We've got all the code for this, but it's broken. When the other site rolled out firehose, they broke this. It appears all the logic is in place, it just needs minor brain surgery. The problem is, the old moderation system was built on a fundamentally wrong premise that got lucky, and I'm honestly not sure many people ever metamodded in anything approaching significant value. This entire feature needs a rethink in light of the moderation rework.
Theming Engine: Slash's theme engine is an example of evolution, not of intelligent design. Basically, if we want multiple themes, it requires multiple Apache instances, running different vhosts for different Nexuses. If I lost you, the take away is its pretty damn ugly. Its not unsalvagable, most of the themed bits live in the database, and it might be possible to make themes user-selectable (it appears some work was done to implement this in slash before being abandoned).
Backslash: Most of you are probably "WTF is backslash." It's slash's version of an admin panel, and it was clearly never designed for mere mortals. We've smacked most of the bugs out of it, but it remains somewhat awkward to use, and for suadmins, it is possible to actually break the site with a misclick (we've already done it and put slashd in an infinite loop). For the most part, the story editors is "relatively" usable, and I finally smote the long standing 500 error. For end users, the biggest thing on this to know is that the two-man system isn't enforced. Articles will be flagged yellow or red (depending on the author) on the master list, but nothing actually prevents those from going live. Furthermore, there's very little in terms of sanity checking, and it's far too easy to accidentally publish something. I just ask the community bears with us as we fight our backend tools.
Mod_perl: And we get to the 600-pound gorilla in the corner. Slash is tied to mod_perl 1.3 and mod_perl is tied to Apache 1.3. If you know Apache, you can guess the problem. If not, it's basically summed up as this: 1.3 is EOL, and has been for some time. There are no "known" CVEs, which helps, but I think everyone wants us to get to supported server software ASAP. This is compounded by the fact that mod_perl development appears to have ceased, and no version exists thats compatible with Apache 2.4. While not an IMMEDIATE problem, it's something we need to figure out for longer term plans for. There's been talk on going to FastCGI or a similar solution, but no definite long term plans have been made. At least one serious effort was historically made to try and update the codebase to 2.0, and MOST of the Apache binder stuff is relatively self-contained. At least we're not alone on this, the few slashcode sites that we're aware of (aside from the other site, which Netcraft reports running Apache 2.2) are still running 1.3.
Final Remarks, and Server Information, and Day 1 Stats
Wooo, still with me? Good. The long and short of it is we're doing pretty well overall, but there's a lot of work that still needs doing. If you want to jump in, grab the code and join us on IRC, all contributions are welcome. After this post goes live, I'm going on a hiatus to try and get my life/work balance back in order. I hope to return in a week or two to help the dev team digging. As always, I'll be available on IRC should something (like the mod script) needs my attention.
A couple^Wsome^Wlot of people have been asking about the server hardware, who is UID #1 (Anonymous Coward), and what the day one counts were. I'm pleased to announce that we are hosted on Linode, specifically, two Linode 2048s running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Average server load during day 1 was between 10-20% percent, spiking occasionally when we had to flush caches out for config changes.
In the last 24 hours, we used over 7 GiB(!) of bandwidth, served to 3630 distinct IP addresses. As of midnight tonight EST, the daily stats email dropped out of slashd, so I'm going to repost most of it here. Please note the bandwidth stats from slash are skewed as it is behind Varnish. For the most part, only the actual HTML of a given page is uncached for logged in users. Enjoy.
SoylentNews Stats for 2014-02-17 UIDs IPIDs Pages total: - - 76164 (2123.8 MB) static total: - - 5722 gstatic total: - - 7827 grand total: 916 3630 78372 (2140.9 MB) secure total: - - 0 total hits: 103059 posts: 267 333 comments: 607 1502 17478 (412.1 MB) index: 868 1818 14931 articles: 738 2298 12508 (573.6 MB) search: 224 568 1841 (31.4 MB) journals: 276 394 1572 (25.2 MB) users: 652 812 5390 (105.0 MB) rss: 55 172 2208 (17.1 MB) other: 43 52 2086 (37.0 MB) formkeys: 1732 rows total comments: 837 posted yesterday submissions: 28 submissions sub/comments: 82.1% of the submissions came from comment posters from this day ------------------------ Yesterday | 2 days ago | 3 days ago Avg Hits Per Article: 962.2| 168.4| 0.0 Avg Comments Per Article: 58.0| 16.4| 6.2 Pages From RSS By Section ------------------------------------------------ Section Pages UIDS IPIDS Main Page 524 36 169 For Main Page Pages IPs Bandwidth Users total: 76164 3600 2123.8 MB 916 index: 14931 1818 644.1 MB 868 comments: 17478 1502 412.1 MB 607 articles: 12508 2298 573.6 MB 738 search: 1841 568 31.4 MB 224 rss: 2208 172 17.1 MB 55 other: 2086 52 37.0 MB 916 ----------------------- Top stories viewed by article.pl: 1885 14/02/17/0148235 Dopefish Welcome to the World of Tomorr 865 14/02/17/1745207 mattie_p What "News for Nerds" Sites Sh 725 14/02/17/0745210 Dopefish Environmentalists Concerned Ab 613 14/02/16/2220240 NCommander Announcing UTF-8 Support on So 608 14/02/16/1331209 NCommander Massive Site Progress - Status 560 14/02/17/145204 LaminatorX Australia spied on US law firm 531 14/02/17/0818240 Dopefish MIT Students Subpoenaed Over T 514 14/02/17/1453216 LaminatorX Find those bugs! 510 14/02/16/2318242 Dopefish AIDS Deniers Use Bogus Copyrig 413 14/02/17/0814201 Dopefish Wondering Where Microsoft Bing 393 14/02/16/0731223 mattie_p Global Warming Finally Debunke 385 14/02/17/180204 Cactus Desalination Project in Califo 292 14/02/17/1734251 mattie_p Coal Mine Fire Threatens Power 292 14/02/16/237205 Dopefish CD Projekt RED Considering The 277 14/02/12/0715245 NCommander Welcome to SoylentNews! 268 14/02/16/0327202 Cactus Kickstarter Hacked 257 14/02/17/1630228 mattie_p 3D Printers for Kids 210 14/02/13/0412219 NCommander Reworking Moderation Access 182 14/02/16/2059230 mattie_p Amazon Electric Fish Inspire U 176 14/02/15/189225 mattie_p Tuna Hearts Damaged by Oil Pol 175 14/02/16/217209 Dopefish How Facebook Can Be Addictive 172 14/02/14/201241 mattie_p Google Buys Lease On NASA's Fa 170 14/02/16/2032248 mattie_p China Plans World's Longest Tu 167 14/02/16/1115247 Dopefish PPACA/Obamacare Website Develo 160 14/02/16/2119211 Dopefish Germany Beefing Up Spy Defense ----------------------- Hour Hits Hits/sec 00 1027 0.29 ######## 01 1144 0.32 ######### 02 1282 0.36 ########## 03 1171 0.33 ######### 04 726 0.20 ###### 05 2891 0.80 ######################## 06 4595 1.28 ###################################### 07 3356 0.93 ############################ 08 3377 0.94 ############################ 09 2940 0.82 ######################## 10 2895 0.80 ######################## 11 2991 0.83 ######################### 12 3622 1.01 ############################## 13 3992 1.11 ################################# 14 3896 1.08 ################################ 15 3853 1.07 ################################ 16 4019 1.12 ################################# 17 4110 1.14 ################################## 18 3881 1.08 ################################ 19 4504 1.25 ##################################### 20 4558 1.27 ###################################### 21 4685 1.30 ####################################### 22 4112 1.14 ################################## 23 4745 1.32 ########################################
Related Stories
amblivious writes:
"Built in 1932 by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, Hangar One was one of the largest free standing structures in the world and is now a familiar landmark in Silicon Valley. The building, covering 8 acres (3.2 ha), is large enough to fit 3 ships the size of the Titanic side-by-side. It is so large that it generates its own microclimate, with fog forming in the upper reaches and falling 17 stories to the ground as rain. NASA took over Hangar One from the Navy in 1994 but it had little use and fell into disrepair. In 2012 Google offered $US33 million to repair the facility and has now taken over the lease.
There has been widespread speculation on what Google plans to do with Hangar One, ranging from testing planetary rovers and other space or aviation technology to high altitude balloons, or simply for use as an elaborate hangar for Google's executive planes.
In a statement on Monday, a Google spokesperson simply said, 'We are delighted to move ahead in the selection process and we are looking forward to working with both GSA and Nasa to preserve the heritage of Moffett Federal Airfield.'"
"The BBC reports that scientists believe tuna swimming in the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have experienced heart damage.
Lab research has demonstrated how crude oil chemicals can disrupt heart function in the fish.
The study (Paywalled Article), published in Science magazine, is part of the ongoing work to try to understand the impacts of the disaster. The gulf is an important spawning ground for bluefin and yellowfin tuna. Tracking studies have indicated that many of these fish would have been in the area during the 2010 disaster.
Scientists have long known that certain chemicals in crude oil – such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) – can be harmful to the hearts of embryonic and developing fish. These molecules, which have distinct ring-like structures, cause a slowing of the heart, irregularities in rhythm and even cardiac arrest at high exposures.
The report was being discussed at annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS)"
According to a recent announcement, the crowdfunding site Kickstarter has been hacked. Kickstarter states that there was no credit card information stolen and that all unauthorized activity has been limited to only two accounts.
While the passwords are all salted and encrypted (either using SHA-1 or bcrypt), a weak password might still be hacked. Users are strongly advised to change their passwords on Kickstarter and any other site where they use the same passwords.
Further information can be found at the Kickstarter blog.
AudioGuy writes:
"You heard it here first. According to Natural News, a NASA report has verified that carbon dioxide actually cools the atmosphere.
Practically everything you have been told by the mainstream scientific community and the media about the alleged detriments of greenhouse gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, appears to be false, according to new data compiled by NASA's Langley Research Center. As it turns out, all those atmospheric greenhouse gases that Al Gore and all the other global warming hoaxers have long claimed are overheating and destroying our planet are actually cooling it, based on the latest evidence."
[Ed. note] I'm going to post this, because why not argue science that has been settled? Also, we needed to test the algorithm that generated mod points by sparking conversation. This was as good a way as any to get posts quickly. Sorry if you thought SoylentNews really endorsed this. ~Mattie_p
mrbluze writes
"In the ongoing fallout from the problematic Obamacare website launch, John McAfee gave his perspective on the troubled project as reported in Day On The Day:
'The company used Indian programmers—in India—to code using Java Script. On the user's computer…Just bizarre,' he said.
McAfee also pointed out security flaws in the website, and those flaws are in addition to the scammers who will build fake websites just to get personal information. He said the hacker aspect was only one of the problems in 'an error ridden system.'"
[Ed. Note] Now that individuals will be more or less compelled to sign up, what implications will this have on information security?
mrbluze writes:
"Projected to cost around US$37 billion, China has resurrected plans for an underwater tunnel 123km in length, Daily Mail reports that 'the tunnel will run from the port city of Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province to Yantai city in eastern Shandong, slashing travel time to 40 minutes.'
China first announced plans in 1994 to build the tunnel, at an estimated cost of $10 billion, with completion set before 2010. But 20 years on, the project remains stuck in the planning stage. The project has also been proposed at the annual session of China's parliament every year since 2009.
A world wonder, or just another pipe dream?"
janrinok writes:
"The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is providing many interesting news items this week. The BBC reports that the Black Ghost Knifefish has inspired construction of a new robot. The robotic fish would be able to swim in underwater situation where it would be impossible or too dangerous for a human to swim."
Read more below.
Gaaark writes:
"Germany plans to beef up its counterintelligence tactics against allied countries in response to revelations of widespread US spying, Der Spiegel magazine reported Sunday.
In the wake of the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the German government is considering deploying its own agents to keep tabs on Western secret services and embassies on German soil, including those of the United States and Britain.
They'll deploy two spies, and they'll deploy two spies, and so on, and so on... Read about it here, at Security Week"
janrinok writes:
"Researchers from Norway have developed a new instrument to measure Facebook addiction, the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale. This report is based on one first issued in 2012, but updated within the past few days.
'The use of Facebook has increased rapidly. We are dealing with a subdivision of Internet addiction connected to social media,' Doctor of Psychology Cecilie Schou Andreassen says about the study, which is the first of its kind worldwide.
Andreassen heads the research project “Facebook Addiction” at the University of Bergen (UiB). An article about the results has just been published in the renowned journal Psychological Reports. She has clear views as to why some people develop Facebook dependency.
"It occurs more regularly among younger than older users. We have also found that people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face. People who are organized and more ambitious tend to be less at risk from Facebook addiction. They will often use social media as an integral part of work and networking. Our research also indicates that women are more at risk of developing Facebook addiction, probably due to the social nature of Facebook," Andreassen says.
The report also details 6 warning signs of Facebook addiction, which resemble those of drug, alcohol and chemical substance addiction."
For purposes of breakage, anything that breaks the site layout/Reply To/Parent/Moderate buttons, or breaks any comments beyond itself is considered bad. We need to stop those. If you can break it (which shouldn't be hard), you earn a cookie, and I'll get you in the CREDITS file as something awesome.
For comments that are just plain unreadable, moderation will take care of them, and that isn't considered a bug. So go forth and BREAK my minions! ()}:o)↺
ticho writes:
"Followers of the Penguin, Marcin Iwiński, one of the founders of CD Projekt RED, has spoken out about why the developer of The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 has not yet shown any support towards Linux.
Marcin says: "You know, one of the reasons we have not released The Witcher on Linux is that we most probably have to address five different versions of Linux and this is always terrible to support the quality of the games afterwards. The patches, the updates, and everything. If Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, call it SteamOS or anything like that, we would love to have our games there because, you know, the more people play our games, the better for us."
Entire podcast (in MP3 form) here."
Greetings Soylentils! And welcome to SoylentNews!
We are here to deliver the best community-sourced news, catered for all manner of nerd! Because this is a grassroots based platform, the content feeds are powered by readers like you. Our main objective is to highlight news stories on the web that are of importance to everyone, but especially nerds. In addition, SoylentNews will strive to go beyond simple news-aggregation, with some core principles:
- Providing a soapbox for experts to discuss their profession and solicit questions from a curious audience.
- Allowing the community to comment, without any mandatory registration.
- Staying mindful of the community's needs and wants while avoiding changes to satisfy an overarching corporate agenda.
We want to make this your source for news about technology, art, science and politics. We are the new kid on the block and are adapting quickly to satisfy our community's needs, as we look forward to exceeding your expectations and pushing boundaries like never before. Lastly, there will be no changes in format without a general consensus from the community. Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the ride!
~Dopefish
mattie_p writes that this was originally submitted by cmn32480 via the forums.
"According to Fox News, environmentalists are concerned about the impact of the world's largest solar plant, which is located in the Mojave Desert, on the local bird population. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (a solar thermal plant) covers nearly five square miles, has approximately 350,000 garage door sized computer controlled mirrors, and has temperatures near the boilers reaching 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Plant owners NRG Energy Inc., Google Inc., and BrightSource Energy say they have found dozens of dead birds in the complex in the last several months, some with burned or scorched feathers. The plant cost $2.2 Billion to construct, and had been held up in regulatory and wildlife relocation fighting for several years. It has officially been open since Thursday, February 13, 2014."
AudioGuy writes "A Guardian reporter, Rebecca MacKinnon, has some interesting insights on how Chinese censorship may be inadvertently leaking into Micosoft's Bing Search engine.
"After conducting my own research, running my own tests, and drawing upon nearly a decade of experience studying Chinese Internet censorship, I have concluded that what several activists and journalists have described as censorship on Bing is actually what one might call "second hand censorship". Basically, Microsoft failed to consider the consequences of blindly applying apolitical mathematical algorithms to politically manipulated and censored web content. The algorithm deployed by Bing may be mathematically sound, but it fails to protect online freedom of expression. Bing failed to take into account the political reality of Chinese government censorship and its broader impact on the shape of the Chinese Internet. Without adjustments to how simplified Chinese websites based outside of mainland China are "weighted," exiled and dissident online voices inevitably lose out. Put it another way: an apolitical mathematical formula automatically amplifies Chinese government censorship to all people searching for simplified Chinese content anywhere in the world, not just in China."
Apparently Google had the same problem, but has managed to write code to prevent these side effects."
At first MIT council referred the students to legal assistance from the EFF, who quickly came to their defense. Now there is a petition going around requesting the MIT administration support the students directly. Parallels are being drawn to Aaron Swartz, possibly because one of the authors of the recent petition is Prof. Hal Ableson, although details of the two cases have very little in common.
MIT President Reif has now come out strongly in support of the students--and in favor of academic freedom from interference by government."
Submitter ticho writes:
"The latest Snowden revelation suggests that Australia's spies are committing economic espionage on Americans, for the benefit of the American government.
The NSA's espionage partners in Australia offered the U.S. intelligence agency surveillance information on an American law firm that was representing the Indonesian government in a trade case against the U.S., according to leaked documents from Edward Snowden's stash.
Read more here."
[Ed. Note] This is another long-denied open secret now documented. One can only wonder what we gve Australia in return. Here is the NY Times article referenced in the above article.
similar_name writes: "The prospect of children printing their own Transformers and My Little Pony toys is a step closer, after toy firm Hasbro revealed a partnership with 3D printing company 3D Systems. The two companies are working together to 'co-develop and commercialize innovative play printers and platforms later this year.'"
[Ed. Note] The first one I would print is Applejack.
Submitted on behalf of user "crutchy" #179, who writes:
"I don't seem to be able to use the 'Submit Story' feature at the moment... I just thought I'd flag a little saga currently unfolding near where I live. An open cut coal mine that supplies coal to a nearby 1600MW power station in Victoria, Australia, has been on fire for over a week. This could threaten electricity generation in the area and might have been deliberately set.
What might be more interesting is the lack of news media attention to it."
[Ed. Note] we're working on fixing article submission, thanks for getting this to us via alternate means.
stderr writes: "I used to visit a certain website quite often, but if Dice Holdings decide to switch the interface to what is currently known as "Beta", I'll have to find another site for my "stuff that matters" fix. So, SoylentNews, what sites can you recommend for a "maybe-ex" /. user?"
As part of a project developed by San Francisco area start-up WaterFX, a giant solar receiver in Firebaugh, CA, rotates to track the sun and capture its energy. The 377-foot array, however, does not generate electricity, but instead creates heat used to desalinate water. The goal is to tap the abundant, if contaminated, resource in this parched region: the billions of gallons of water that lie just below the surface.
The water is tainted with toxic levels of salt, selenium and other heavy metals that wash down from the nearby Panoche foothills, and is so polluted that it must be constantly drained to keep it from poisoning crops. This, coupled with the record-breaking drought that California is facing means that irrigation costs are going to double or triple as farms are forced to buy water on the spot market.
"Food prices are going to go up, absolutely", said Dennis Falaschi, manager of the Panoche Water District. "This year, farmers in the Panoche district will receive no water. Last year, they received only 20 percent of their allocation", Mr. Falaschi said. In 2012, the allocation was 40 percent. Farmers elsewhere who rely on the State Water Project to irrigate 750,000 acres of farmland will also receive no water in 2014.
Hey, just a heads up on our Day 1 status. I've made some tweaks to the moderation script to handle the surge of users we've gotten, so modpoints should start flowing more easily. I'm making a few more tweaks right now that should get this working as expected (I am going to have to purge out the point in system to reset the script though, so if you have modpoints right now, don't be surprised if they suddenly vanish into the ether.
We know there have been some issues with both registration and submitting stories. On the registration front, some of our emails have been marked as spam, so if you're not getting them, check spam filters. In addition, for the last half an hour, we had a problem with a human confirmation check breaking, which just got cleared. We'll keep you apprised of any updates to this. As for story submissions, this looks like an artifact of a human confirmation script that got re-enabled when we went live. It should be working properly now for logged in users, as well as AC, though I'll be keeping an eye on it. I hope to have a more verbose tech write-up of the site sometime tonight.
As many of you have already read, John Barrabas resigned as head of SoylentNews, and I've taken over in his place. Many people who are not involved in Staff were likely blindsided on this, and the community itself deserves to have an understanding of the reasons and events leading up to this. This post exists to set the record straight.
I would like to make it clear, especially in hindsight, that the events leading up to this were not pretty, and that no one involved came out smelling like roses. Mistakes were made all around, tempers were lost, and to be frank, at times, I've conducted myself in a way that was not professional.
In the end, the changeover was amicable, and John and I are still on speaking terms with each other. This isn't intended as a bashfest, but rather as explanation to the community (along with those staff who were not directly involved) of why and how this change came about.
NCommander Adds: Staff logs and copies of the email have been posted to my journal. Links included below.
