No, not that Adam. The other Adam. Adam Lang, who works on our Join the Fight! project as the “database guy” and who hosts our database and the WordPress server for the social media initiative.
I spent part of yesterday testing and repurposing our Join the Fight WordPress server for the Balloon Juice home away from home, showed it to John, got the nod from him, called Adam to let him know, and was writing the newsletter note to let everyone else know… when Adam volunteered to host a separate WordPress server just for this.
One way or another we were going to have a home away from home today, but this is even better!
Thanks, Adam, for your generosity and your time.
In other good news, late last night we received an update from our site hosts.
365 Data Centers identified the root cause of the May 14 cyber incident. I would have thought the root cause was the hacking, but that’s just me! 🙂
Seriously, though, this is spectacular news. It was becoming clear that the “investigation” phase was going to continue until they figured it out, and now that they have, they are finally saying words like “developing recovery action plans” and “timetables”.
Because of the sheer volume of sites involved, I think it’s still going to be a long slog to get them all back up, and there’s no way to know yet exactly what the process will be and where we’ll be in line.
Developing recovery action plans? Be still my beating heart.
Thanks also to Subaru Diane for the awesome image and thanks to all the jackals for all the encouraging messages you guys have sent over the past week.
Good news X2. And again, thank you. You are indefatigable.
It is encouraging that they are being as thorough as they are.
/wave
Thanks, Adam!
I gather they didn’t name the root cause?
“Too many cat pictures” is never a reason you want to give your customers.
I am so happy to have a home away from home. And Zoom Balloon Juice today and tomorrow.
I really appreciate all the behind the scenes time and work that happened (is happening) to make these two things happen : )
Thanks to Adam and WaterGirl! Such a happy surprise this morning!
This is awesome!! Thanks so much. As I said in an email to WaterGirl, I hope we get to hear what happened and who dunnit.
OMG, thank heaven. Thanks to you, WG, and Adam. I’m sure this has been very difficult for you, especially, WG.
I am so happy to have this home away from home. I think I went through withdrawal. I was clicking several times a day, hoping the site would pop up. I even looked up 365 Data Centers to figure out what had happened, but there was no news. It was getting ugly when WaterGirl posted her message with the email subscription. Balloon Juice keeps me informed and connected. I missed the front-pagers and the jackals that make it so worth visiting. Crossing my fingers that it’ll get sorted sooner rather than later!
Is this a good time to complain about the new site?
PS thanks to WG and adam!
The link to our home away from home is now up on the BJ splash page. Until now, the only folks who knew about it were the 600+ people who signed up for the mailing list.
Now anyone who checks the BJ site will know we are here.
I thought Steve had pulled the plug cable out and was hiding it from Cole until his demands were met.
So glad to have this place to see the important stuff. I hope the old site gets back soon.
What a relief to have some form of BJ back again!! All week I have been checking to see if we were any closer to home; feeling more depressed that it was going so slowly. WaterGirl’s email rants were a sort of lifeline. It is good to know that I was not the only one feeling adrift.
thanks Adam – missed my BJ fix each morning.
Our long actional nightmare is over!
(Almost.)
🙂
So glad this Balloon Juice is back in some form again! Missed everybody : )
Hooray! That is all.
I never realized how important BJ was until it was gone. Just a long time 20 year lurker here that follows along.
Thank you John, WG, Adam, and all of the rest! If we have to move to a more expensive host at some point, I’m in for contributions!
I am completely uninformed about world affairs because I can’t stand any other sources. Somebody wrote me, “How about those primaries?” and I had no idea what they were talking about.
I miss you all. Thanks, WaterGirl, for keeping us connected. I’m sitting waiting for the Zoom right now — when I tried earlier, it looked as if I was the only one there?
I’ll echo geg6: Thank you WaterGirl, this is amazing! I missed B-J but I didn’t know how much! “You don’t miss your water ‘til the well runs dry”
Edit: and echo Tokyocali and others. I was also obsessively checking the site hoping it was back.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can’t believe how much I missed checking in here. B-J withdrawal was harder than getting sober!
Thanks Water Girl for getting this site up. Looking forward to dropping in on the Zoom gathering today and Saturday, hope to see some of you lthere.
Oh happy day!!! Thanks to WG, Adam and John.
So glad B-J is back! Thought it was me, but the tech said he couldn’t access it either. Got a computer clean-up though.
Hi WaterGirl. Thanks for the heroic work, and keep that ass-kicking leg limber. Hello everyone, how are the shakes? Keeping mine under control so far.
Well, at least no threaded comments here.
@Gin & Tonic
That was the first setting I changed! Threaded comes as the default.
You know you have reached a certain point in your life when you have excited anticipation about a vacuum cleaner delivery
Oh, a propos of nothing: I found a good news resource on Russia recently, that perhaps some of you (e.g. G&T, ZG) already knew about, but which I found offered perspectives on Russia that are at a minimum different, and seemingly better-informed and better-sourced than a lot of Western media: The Moscow Times (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/).
Obviously they are not publishing or reporting directly in Russia any longer, but their reporters are apparently still in communication with Russian sources. Andrei Soldatov writes for them, but also a lot of other folks who seem rather well-informed, at least to me.
“the “investigation” phase was going to continue until they figured it out,”
Merrick Garland would approve!
Spanky, I am fairly sure it was the duck pictures not cats that brought BJ down.
https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2022/05/bird-flu-outbreak-kills-backyard-flock-of-chickens-ducks-in-nj.html
I can’t even spell my name right. I blame WordPress
Thanks Watergirl and Adam, I was hoping we would have a tent hospital to deal with the BJ withdrawal.
“root cause” is a technical term. It sounds like they have completed a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cause_analysis
I do hope they issue a public statement of what happened.
[I won’t speculate about the cause (and motives, if any), but will note that … balloon-juice punches way above its weight.]
I’m glad I could help.
Pretty amazing what a ten year old Mac mini sitting in a data center in Atlanta can do. Thing is barely even ticking over.
I never thought I’d consider the phrase “Developing recovery action plans” with such enthusiasm!
This technical issue made me realize how much I like balloon-juice. I hope it gets resolved soon! Maybe there is a way to architect a multi hosted site? i.e not totally reliant on one provider???