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to our latest posts at Summitlake.com, where we’ve covered a wide variety of topics since 1995. This is our Home Page index with post excerpts. Click DIRECTORY for posts on Astronomy, Commentary, Computers, Humor, La Parola (gay issues), Miscellany, My Notes, Photos, Outdoors, Recipes and Writing. Over 5 million pages served. Page banner photos by Alex Forbes.

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Pussy Riot Band

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Rumor is, Vladimir Putin will consider releasing the jailed Pussy Riot band member Maria Alyokhina. They just have to agree to change the group’s name to “Mildly perturbed Kitties Feeling Slightly Out of Sorts.”

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Welcome to 4.0

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Monday May 20: We are LIVE on the new server under WestHost 4.0. The conversion happened today while I was on the road. This will be brief because I’m still unpacking.

UPDATES and Bug Fixes

  • Tues 5-21: There are still intermittent outages on our new site as the DNS change propagates through the internet.
  • Tues 5-21PM – fixed WordPress config to allow access to all our departments.
  • Tues 5-21PM – DNS propagation should be done or very close. Haven’t seen a site blackout in several hours. All summitlake mail accounts are operating. Fixed home page counter.
  • Thurs 5-23AM DNS connectivity continuous, site stable, and conversion seems complete. Links on HTML files updated sitewide. I expect minor ongoing site maintenance for some time.
  • HUMOR and RECIPES broken, both fixed. For the curious, php does not support the “php virtual” command when installed as a CGI under Apache. I made a workaround. Arghh!

You may find some department level cgi’s that still aren’t working, but WordPress was here to greet me and that’s working. OK, what actually happened is a klunky “under construction” index page was the first thing to greet me. I admit it. Horrors,  I deleted that right away, and our main page is working fine.

Comments are turned on temporarily for this post. There are more of you than me out there. :-)

 

Alex

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IMPORTANT NOTICE

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Over the next few weeks, Summitlake.com will be moving to a new server within same web host provider. There will be service disruptions.

I will have time to upload our existing files and databases and rough in the new configurations before  the switchover. I’ll concentrate on mail and this WordPress installation first. Most users just viewing this and other linked WordPress site pages probably will not notice many changes or broken links.

Temporary outages can probably be expected in some department-level Perl cgi services. Major apps accessible from the HOME page, like Quotes, Password, and Site Stats will be up and running. Some article, legacy HTML and photo links may have to be changed. Due to the overhead of syncing the new site to the existing site, I will probably not plan many posts during the transition. Some server file changes have dependencies that can’t be tested until the domain switchover to the new site.

The new server is reportedly faster, and should be easier to maintain. When it is live, the URL (address) will be the same; you will know you’re there because the front page site name will then display as Summitlake.com 4.0.  Please see progress updates below. Thanks for your support and patience.

Alex

 

 

 

UPDATES

04-30-2013: Progress in new setup and configuring server files. Est 40-50% complete.
05-07-2013: Estimating 80% of the way to switchover.
05-10-2013: Over 90% complete. Switchover should be in less than a week. At that time, DNS changes take 24-48 hours to propagate throughout the Internet. We will likely experience some downtime during this period.
05-15-2013: Looks like it will be next  week May 20-24.
05-16-2013: there was a site outage this morning of unknown duration. Dedicated server restarted successfully about 925AM PDT. This was not related to our coming domain switchover, which has not been triggered yet.

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Tehachapi CA wind farm

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thumbnail, featured imageI pulled over for several minutes to take this photo. Elevation is about 4000 feet. I believe this is the largest wind farm in the state. No cars passed by in either direction. Next time a Californian complains the state is overpopulated, tell them to come here. See post for image in PHOTOS.

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nature.com: Conservatives Into Liberals?

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In “Magic trick transforms conservatives into liberals,” Brian Owens in Nature magazine reviews a diabolical Swedish study that suggests many of us aren’t as politically hidebound as our friends in the opposite political party are so apt to charge. The study showed survey respondents could be tricked into changing conservative positions into liberal ones, and vice-versa.

On the other hand, what I also get out of this is, if we can be that manipulable,  many of us might not always have the foggiest why we hold the political beliefs we do, despite what we may think.

 

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Judging the Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriage

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In Mississippi, it is reportedly still legal for a landlord to evict a gay person, and for an employer to fire a gay person. If this means the states can decide who gets basic civil liberties and how much of them they can get (and it does mean that), then the states are still doling out rights like party favors. Why is anyone waiting for the Supreme Court to put the “all” back into “all men are created equal?” Read our commentary and a link to The Atlantic article “History Won’t Be Kind to the Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriage” in La Parola.

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