Folks,
I have the sincere pleasure of announcing that, starting today, Major Major Major Major is helping with the site on the back- and front-end! Over the past year, he’s been very helpful and has developed some custom programming to enhance our experience here. When I decided to move the On The Road forms to the live site so that we can have a purer test server, I gave him back-end access but that seemed like a tease, so he’s now on the site as well.
Since Major Major Major Major will have access to the site, I asked if he’d be interested in posting. Gracious as always, he confirmed his interest and had a great idea for a regular semi-monthly feature: Book Recommendations, a dedicated space to ask for and give reading recommendations. The idea came from the lively discussions that have happened when he’s asked for recommendations in the past, with several commenters suggesting it as a feature. (If you have ideas for what format this might take, please share them in the comments!)
I’m sure he’ll find other suitable topics to post on, as I’ve encouraged him. I know that, as he pokes around the site and sees what makes it all tick, he’ll have suggestions to simplify, speed up, and improve it. This will be welcome by all, no doubt!
On a related note, in trying to work on some issues the past few weeks, I’ve had to experiment and then restore the server from backup, and this has caused some havoc with folks’ On The Road submissions. It made sense to move that function over so that I can delete and restore the test server as needed, and so for now the On The Road form is offline. I expect there will be some more changes coming soon, and we’ll announce them when appropriate.
Please give it up for a great addition to the team. His developer skillset will help make this site much better and will allow us to do some more custom WordPress work than I would dare alone. He’s a great guy, and I know everyone pretty much knows and loves him, so I hope this news falls on kind hearts.
Corner Stone
Does this mean he’s going to be in charge of adding to the rotating tag lines?
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
Very happy about the idea of book recommendations – I’ve gotten a lot of gotta-reads out of threads here that went in that direction.
This’ll be fun!
Brachiator
Very cool!
Major Major Major Major
So that’s where the mobile edit buttons went, the admins have been hogging them.
@Corner Stone: oh dear I suppose so.
Alain the site fixer
@Corner Stone: he built the tool, we will re-publish the links when it’s all moved and it will be good.
Mary G
Hurray!
SiubhanDuinne
Congratulations and welcome to Front-Pagerdom, M^4! Does this mean even more Samwise pictures for us peons?
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: heh. Responsibility, my friend! ???
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
Congratulations! And yay on threads about reading!
tobie
Thanks, M4, for your work behind-the-scenes and congratulations on becoming a front-pager. I’m looking forward to your posts!
Another Scott
[CMB] Excellent! [/CMB]
Looking forward to the new threads, and the new WP plumbing.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gravenstone
Sucker!
er, um, I mean congrats on your promotion. Will we be calling you Colonel Colonel Colonel Colonel soon?
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: that does sound like the sort of thing I would do.
MagdaInBlack
Book Recommendations? *perk*
Looking forward to it ?
( I do not own a TV.)
chopper
dang. i read the title and was all WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS and saw it was M4 and was all “carry on, i’ll allow it”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m counting on the new guy to fix that.
MobileForkbeard
Okay, I’m super excited about the book recommendation threads.
Also, nice to see M4 getting more acces. Dude is pretty tech savvy.
Manyakitty
And there was much rejoicing!
chopper
@Gravenstone:
or as silverman would write “rear admiral (upper half) rear admiral (upper half) rear admiral (upper half) rear admiral (upper half)“
Yarrow
Congratulations! Remember, first post traditionally includes a pet pic.
lahke
Can I start, hunh, can I, can I?
Because I really love The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck. He got himself a wagon and 3 mules and he and his brother travelled the Trail in 2013 or so. Besides the adventure of it, there’s good history and some major snark about how much these independent Western folks have relied on government help since the earliest days. It was great fun to read, highly recommend.
chopper
@Manyakitty:
yaaay
stinger
Good news!
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: you should see some of the buttons they’ve been keeping from you guys!
seaboogie
@SiubhanDuinne: Mind meld!!!
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: Hey M4, I wrote some code a while back so the reply button would copy highlighted text into the comment box surrounded by blockquote tags. If you have any interest in adding the feature, I can go dig it up. Or you could spend five minutes and rewrite.
Yes, we will be bugging you directly for features now.
Just One More Canuck
congratulations
Fair Economist
Excellent choice, and I like the book recommendation idea.
seaboogie
@Major Major Major Major: Congratulations on the promotion!!! Maybe you can use this on your CV in your job search…? ?
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: hmm, that’d be interesting to see if you can. Gonna try and set up some sort of centralized issue/idea system, so this can all be in one place. GitHub or somewhere. (Alain already has a page there but it could use a spit-shine.)
HRA
Congratulations to Major Major Major Major. The subject of reading has been in my leisure time and my 27 years of work at our university.
dmsilev
Either congratulations or commiserations are in order, and I’m not sure which.
Spanky
@Major Major Major Major: Fuck you! And welcome! Although since I am Jackal of very little brain and long words bother me, I expect my contributions to such posts will be minimal.
In any event, to summarize: fuck you and welcome!
RSA
@Major Major Major Major: Congrats on becoming a front pager! I’m looking forward to your posts.
Chip Daniels
Sorry, I’m old.
Is “back and front end” some urban slang I need to get hep with?
Major Major Major Major
@Spanky: fuck you too spanky :)
cmorenc
He is a MAJOR addition to the team.
Ruckus
@Chip Daniels:
If you don’t know the difference between the back and front ends, how the hell did you get old?
Steve in the ATL
Congrats—I was hoping for Colonel Colonel Colonel Colonel, but I’m sure you’ll be great too!
Steve who should have known better than visiting Orlando in July. Or, you know, ever.
Quinerly
???
WaterGirl
Most excellent, Major Major Major Major, on all counts!
HinTN
@Alain the site fixer:
Does this mean you’ve lost the pix from the trip out west?
Major Major Major Major
@Chip Daniels: generally speaking, the front-end of a website is the part the user interacts with (and its associated technologies), and the back-end is the part that does everything else.
Gin & Tonic
He’s probably going to make this place suck even more than it does now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I’m sure you’re talking about the nested comment button.
HinTN
@chopper: Does that distill to UH^4 ?
IOW – Congrats, lowest level field grade, you’ve got room to grow.
laura
Big Ups for the additional gig hopefully with more and better Samwise!
I like big books and I cannot Lie!
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: [makes sign of the cross]
Anyway, the link button is fucked up. Chrome on Windows, but you hit the link button and before you can get to pasting a URL in there, it disappears.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Seriously, I have like eight buttons now. And the edit window has like six more!
HinTN
@Major Major Major Major:
/pedant
FTFY
ETA: By the way, pukka sahib, sometimes on android displaying the desktop with Chrome, when one hits linked comment name it jumps there and right back to the linked name location. Please to be have fix, suh.
James E Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
Looking forward to your front page contributions.
Ohio Mom
Congrats!
Also, my nym and email are gone again. Can you fix that? Thanks!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
I thought it would be OO making the first comment about that.
I’ve noticed the problem with the link button, I just try again, no problem.
James E Powell
@Chip Daniels:
Nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He must be otherwise occupied. I’m not.
karensky
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog: Ditto
Luthe
If we are having regular book recommendation posts, could we possibly also have semi-regular Balloon Jobs posts?
Major Major Major Major
This is going to get annoying really fast until I get an issue tracking system ready, isn’t it.
FlyingToaster
Glad to see you up on the board, M^4.
West of the Rockies
Awesome news! Good on ya, mate! The book recs sounds like a great recurring post.
EricNNY
I would like to be the first to complain about M*4’s posts. They’re too long/short and too light/heavy on detail.
I feel better.
SectionH
@Major Major Major Major: It’s one of those Do I offer congrats or condolences to you? things. As a commenter, makes me very happy.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: You knew what you were getting into…
Tom Levenson
Great news!*
*Or is that “newts.”
Spanky
@Major Major Major Major: I think with this crowd, a stack of 3X5 note cards is sufficient.
John Revolta
So where’s the Recent Comments list already?
Jeez ya been doing this almost an hour awreddy!
rikyrah
Welcome to the Front Page, M4????
eclare
What a great idea! Looking forward to it.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: This seriously all happened yesterday while I was in a meeting.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: That might help, then again, you know us.
Corner Stone
@EricNNY: They are the worst, I have to agree. And until he addresses the 100 tapes the Govt seized from Cohen then I personally don’t want to hear anything he has to say.
HumboldtBlue
Will there be beer?
And are there fees?
Nobody likes fees.
Omnes Omnibus
You dumb bastard, What were you thinking?
Gravenstone
@Tom Levenson: Did you get better?
Thor Heyerdahl
Congrats m^4!
Corner Stone
@HumboldtBlue: Dude. You’re in Humboldt County?
chris
Good news! Congratulations, M4.
Madeleine
First, thanks to Alain as always for all you do, including the invitation to M4 to join the grownups. And congratulations, Major Major Major Major, on the promotion. If that’s what it is.
Ben Cisco
Congratulations. Looking forward to your posts.
zhena gogolia
I’m here for recommendations on Russian literature and Galsworthy trilogies.
Platonailedit
@Major Major Major Major:
Congrats for finding the problem right off the block. Now fix it.
HumboldtBlue
James Milner is a professional football player.
He’s also funny. (His team just signed the two most expensive defensive players in league history. They are owned by Fenway Sports Group, John Henry and the Red Sox an’ them)
Platonailedit
@Major Major Major Major:
Finally some insider baseball info. Cool.
Gretchen
Welcome M4. His comments are always good, and I like the book recommendations idea.
MomSense
Happy news. Now we can haz front page Samwise?
mvr
Happy to see this, Welcome!
Viva BrisVegas
M4 is worth double what you’re paying him. Even triple.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: soon enough, Ms. Sense…
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
??
Amir Khalid
Congratlations, Major Major Major Major! So, are you now Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant Colonel? Or do we call you LTC LTC LTC LTC?
hedgehog mobile
Yay!
p.a.
More help at BJuice World Central? Will this increase my subscription fee? Or lower my free page limit? Whacking deBoer improved things, but since then…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@p.a.:
Yes, your fee will double.
p.a.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Huh. Bet it’s the cost of digitally reproducing all those infrared shots…
CaseyL
Wonderful news! I do like promotions from within :) Congrats, Major-to-the-4th!
I’m gonna love the Book Rec threads, because reading is, like, my favorite thing, and so is talking about books I’ve enjoyed.
JanieM
Congrats to Major^4! Or is it LTC^4? I’m getting confused already! :-)
Also great idea about the book recommendations. I’m looking forward to that.
RedDirtGirl
Congrats, and looking forward to whatever fun you send our way!
Mnemosyne
Wow, it’s kind of weird to have met someone IRL who later becomes a front-pager. Congrats!
Major Major Major Major
Thanks everyone!
@Mnemosyne: that seems like a very specific experience yes.
Alain the site fixer
@HinTN: no I’ve got them, don’t worry. It’s more like i might double post some stufff….
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: lets talk about that soon.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@p.a.: You don’t get an officer cubed for free.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Specific, but not solely reserved to me. I think there are only two of us commenters who have witnessed the glory of Samwise in person, unless there was a second wave.
Oh, and I saw a Gudetama display in Little Tokyo and immediately said, “Goddamn you, Major Major Major Major!”
satby
Congrats Mx4!
I’m really looking forward to those mobile buttons and edit coming back.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: happy to help.
SiubhanDuinne
@MagdaInBlack:
Nor do I. Come sit by me and we can not watch TV together.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chip Daniels:
You sound groovy to the max.
sgrAstar
Books, yay! M^4 double yay. Nice going.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ohio Mom: Hey I know what would be fun, since the site has trouble remembering the right nym. What if it randomly reassigned your posts to other people’s nyms?
A little punchy here. Still on vacay on the left coast. On some exhaustion-triggered impulse we decided to check EVERYTHING with Amtrak. And for one horrible hour, they lost it and we left the station empty handed.
Turned out to be a communication screw up. Due to AC problems they put a bunch of passengers on a bus. We were on the train, but our luggage was on the bus. And nobody told Portland there was a bus. They found out when it arrived.
MoxieM
Lovely news. I suggest a first book: The Day of the Jackal
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Also, congratulations to M^4 and BTW I have no nym-recall issues.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@SiubhanDuinne: Far out, man. Outa sight.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Yikes! I think there’s still an ongoing major track repair between Portland and Seattle that keeps confusing Amtrak employees.
I still want to take the Coast Starlight long-distance from Los Angeles, but now I’m thinking of ending in Portland rather than Seattle. ?
Brickley Paiste
I’m wasn’t aware that there was a dearth of why guys expressing themselves on the internet.
kindness
Thanks to all of you who help keep this site going. Really. Thanks.
mere mortal
“Major Major Major Major is helping with the site”
There’s got to be some sort of Catch.
I’ll show myself out.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Oh sure. He shows up for YOUR meet-up! As I recall he ditched us for the Seattle one!
@Major Major Major Major: In all serious, mazel tov ya crazy kid!
Lymie
M hat 4, welcome.
The site is almost unusesable tonight. Scrolling up and down produces grey boxes, content that has already loaded.
iPad and safari.
5 minutes to write this comment.
J R in WV
WHO PICKED WHO to do WHAT!????!?!!?
Welcome on boar major major major major. Seriously. Ever try to ride a big boar hog? B-J seems like it can be like that some days. But now you can graph all the data any time!! Never bored again! Whoot!>!
Thanks for volunteering!
Books… I love SciFi, and when I was a kid, I read a Newsweek story about a speed reading course, and the concept of reading blocks of text rather than a word at a time. So now, damn it, I spend more money on books than a junkie does on their dope!! I love the David Weber 900 page volumes – they take several days to finish.
Paula
Congrats!
baquist
Congratulations, Major!
Miss Bianca
Yay, M4!!