The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
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I'm safely back in Albuquerque. The trip back on the C-130 was notable only for being chilly, so it wasn't that bad. We actually arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

Halloween was surprisingly quiet, with only a handful of trick or treaters coming to our house. I spent the whole day after getting back frantically cleaning up with Nicole, and then carving our pumpkin. I'm all for the fancy schmancy designed pumpkins, the kind that won my friend Don a prize(LINK), but I firmly believe that the one you set out on your door step should be a Jack O' Lantern. WIth holes cut all the way through, so you can see the candles/LED/flaming poop clearly. You should be able to pickup your jack o' lantern and use it to guide your way on your damned journey between heaven and hell, and it should have a face on it in case you happen to become a cursed equestrian in need of a substitute head.

Speaking of which, Sleepy Hollow was as awesome as I remember. Just right for Halloween. It still amazes me that they shot that whole movie on a sound stage.

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

Halloween. Of course. John Carpenter’s original, that made his directorial career and essentially invented the slasher movie. You can’t get a better Halloween horror movie than this(although I’ll give you 4 others that are in the running). It takes one of the most purely fun holidays and turns it on its head, using the very icons of the modern American celebration against you. It starts with the most terrifying Jack ‘o Lantern ever, and then turns a costumed child into a masked killer. When the action picks up again years later, the acts of dressing in costumes, scaring friends and even door to door trick or treating are subverted by the spectral Shape into a frenzy of killing. Even the more ancillary activities of teenagers sneaking off for sex while the parents and younger siblings are away are roped into the milieu. By the end of the film it has become clear that Michael Meyers is not just a guy with a knife and issues against his sister. He has become a supernatural agent of fear and evil, the literal Bogeyman, named as such in the final line of the film. Even his disappearance after being shot by Dr. Loomis indicates his non-corporeal nature. The body of the human being Michael Meyers is just a vessel for some kind of otherworldly force, more powerful than anything encountered yet by man. Carpenter’s direction is at his absolute best here, a high point that he would never quite regain even though he made several other fantastic movies in his filmmaking career. The timing of the action, the cutting of the scenes and the subtle cinematography tricks to play with audiences expectations and keep the suspense building are a master’s class in how to make a thriller. The Shape is a perfect horror movie villain, all the more so because he appears in such a small percentage of the total screen time.

Finally, how can I not mention Carpenter’s score. Again, his best work, which is saying a lot when compared to his work in such films as “Escape from New York” and “The Fog.” But the piano theme by the Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra(actually just Carpenter and his friends) is unforgettable and instantly chilling.

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

Turns out my jury duty was yesterday, not today. Also turns out the people at the jury office of the court are really nice and helpful. A fax of my orders seemed to take care of all of it.

I’m excited to see a friend of mine from Iraq tomorrow, hopefully. He was an addition to our unit from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he has since retrained from an F-16 mechanic to a Tactical Air Control Party guy. Basically, he’s the cool guy running around on the ground calling in air strikes, doing all the cool stuff you see in movies with lasers and GPS and stuff like that. He’s out here too doing a big training exercise, so if our schedules align we’ll have a beer or something tomorrow.

I’m having a bit of a freak out here, since I just found out/was reminded that I was supposed to start Jury Duty tomorrow afternoon. Except I’m hundreds of miles away at an Air Force base. Hopefully it won’t be a big problem, but I have to get up early and get on the phone, and potentially fax some orders around. It irks me a bit that the letter trumpets jury duty as one of three civic services all Americans should participate in, the other two being voting and military service. I feel like my military service should get me some credit with the jury people, but we’ll see. I feel stupid for forgetting, but in all the chaos of the past few months and then this guard deployment, I just lost track of it.

Anyway, this trip is winding down and I’ll be back in town to face things personally on Saturday afternoon.

Oh, and I rode in an F-16 on Monday. It was incredible. The openness of it was amazing, really just having a tremendous view of everything while flying. It was amazing how fast we would move, zipping up and around at speeds that put commercial air in the dust. Pulling 6gs was an experience I won’t soon forget, feeling my head get really heavy, my arms move like lead and the g-suit inflating around my legs to help keep my blood circulating. I did get sick a couple of times, both times I got sick when the plane did some rapid drops after some fast maneuvers. The dropping was really the worst sensation of the whole bit. It was a real dream come true, to see what it is really like. The pilot told me that it is much easier to get sick when you’re not flying, since you don’t know what’s coming up next, you’re just being tossed around. He also said that our flight was particularly bad for me, since he was the wingman and had to follow his wing leader’s lead so even he didn’t really know where they were going next. I got a super-quick glimpse of an F-15 during an air to air engagement, whizzing by really fast, but we didn’t really stand a chance. Apparently the F-15s we were fighting had a simple advantage in targeting range, so the F-16 was dead before he got close enough to even target his opponent. After that we flew to the holding area, then flew back to fight the F-15 again and got killed again. Then it was back to base. I got to see Area 51 from the air, not much to report. No UFOs or anything. Just an airfield, a couple of buildings, and a dry lake bed(Groom Lake).

The flight was just amazing all told. A once in a lifetime experience in all likelihood. Also a kind of boyhood dream come true. The pilot and the Air Force sure achieved their simple goal of brining an hour’s(80 minutes) joy to a man who’s half a boy.

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Military deployments, even ones to such playgrounds as Las Vegas, have a distinctly monastic element to them. You are stripped to only the posessions you can carry with you. When I say carry, I quite literally mean carry, and often you won’t even have the luxary of a rolling suitcase or cart to assist with your luggage. If you can’t lift all your bags off the ground with nothing but your own strength, then you are in trouble.

Right now I’m living for two weeks with only a handful of t-shirts, 2 button downs, 3 pairs of pants and my uniforms. I have 3 books, my phone and an old laptop. I’m living in a hotel room, with a small per diem for paying for meals. In a sense, I’ve suddenly left behind what clutter there is in my life and reduced to the bare essentials. Living in a hotel room with maid service removes the need to do almost all household chores, so what time you have outside work seems to multiply. The problem is because of a lack of transportation, the absence of most friends and all family and the usually odd work hourse, there is often little to do beyond the walls of the hotel room. So at times it feels like a cross between a monk’s cell and a prison cell. Guilded, to be sure, and with HBO, but still.

Don’t underestimate the pain and difficulty in being seperated from family for even as short a time as 2 weeks. Nicole and I have had a couple of terse phone calls, and while we both miss eachother greatly, we can also get rather testy when one or the other of us is not understanding the other over the phone. I’ll be glad to get back to her on Saturday.

This trip has been pretty good. My shop breaks down into some strange cliques, but I think I’ve figured out how to navigate them pretty well. I’m one of only 2 traditional(part time) people from the Albuquerque area who took this trip, the others are all either from Arizona or are full time guard people. I end up spending most of my time with the full timers, but we have a pretty good rapport, even though I only do the job once a month and they do it every day.

The job I do, Weapons Loading and Maintenance, is an interesting one. I get to do most of the things I like, including working outside and being around the aircraft during takeoffs and landings, and few of the things I don’t like, including jamming my hands into small spaces to get a screws and connectors and covering myself in the variety of fluids that course through the pipes of the jet. The job is pretty easy, and at times it seems that an idiot could do it. But it is also fairly dangerous, working with bombs, fuses, missiles, and don’t forget the running jet turbine engines. There are lots of ways to get hurt, and a few ways to get killed, if you aren’t paying attention. So while an idiot could probably do it, an idiot could also easily get killed if they are careless or inattentive to the technical instructions or safety regulations.

More on my trip later, but for now I’m feeling rather sleepy. Back to my cell, for some meditation and perhaps illuminating a manuscript or two before bed.

halloween_fan
Here at LiveJournal, we never balk at an opportunity for high drama, wicked costumes, and gluttonous sugar consumption. But this community takes it one step further: Here, everyday is Halloween. Of course, the hallowed eve is particularly sacred to this spirited crowd. If you're looking for last-minute costume ideas for your black cat, faux eyeball candy, or stand-out haunted houses, dive in for a splash of pagan merriment.

picturing_food
Designing gourmet? Feast your eyes on these pixel perfect dishes with an accent on presentation. A visual smorgasbord of eclectic cuisine, ranging from fusion to down-home comfort foods. If the way to your heart is through your stomach and the way to your stomach is through your eyes, you're sure to leave with a good taste in your mouth.

bookish
Passionate readers share well-penned reviews on a broad sweep of genres, including fiction, YA, sci-fi, paranormal, fantasy, and good ol' pot-boiling suspense. Those of a lit crit persuasion are invited to introduce themselves before posting. And for the silent majority who prefer to bask in our neighbors' labors, there are thoughtful reviews, book list suggestions, and even great gift ideas to keep your library card and dowtime filled.