{Interlude 3}

I'll have a lot more to say later on.

[Later on.]

I received this email from Lunarpages, my web host, late on Wednesday night, as I was halfway through writing "Thalia":

walkyt2	walkytalky.net	1.80	0.18	0.1
Top Process	%CPU 50.0	/usr/bin/perl -w mt-comments.cgi
Top Process	%CPU 41.0	/usr/bin/perl -w mt-comments.cgi

I wasn't a happy bunny, and to some extent still am not. Given the number of MT sites around, and the integral nature of comments to many of them, I was pretty shocked that Lunarpages, who have provided an excellent service up to now, could object to them.

I do have a certain amount of sympathy. The fault, as so often, lies with our friends in the spam industry. Walky Talky, though not nearly as targetted as some others I know, receives a large number of spam comments every day, and each one consumes far more resources on the receiving end than it does for the hateful, venal, soulless motherfuckers who send it. Worse, MT-Blacklist, the first line of defence for many bloggers, performs some-thousand regular expression matches against every incoming comment, which is a significant effort. Paradoxically, spam comments are actually less of a burden than genuine ones in this respect, since they usually match somewhere down the list, thereby stopping the process early; legit comments must go through every single test. It all adds up.

But what are we supposed to do? This is a communications medium. If we give up trying to use it because the scum of the earth are constantly trying to wrest it to their avaricious purposes, then we are the losers. Not in the sense of losing the fight, though it would certainly be that, but in the sense of losing something of value that we ought to be holding onto.

So: I have disabled the comments script as a stopgap measure, but am now looking for a new host (recommendations gladly received). My requirements are quite particular: no objection to MT comments; no objection to any of the content of WalkyTalky, including the couple of nude pics in the photo gallery (you'd be surprised how many hosting companies seem to be run in Utah by Mormons); reasonably high disk space and bandwidth; and (this is the real issue) support for Java servlets and JSP.

The current front-runner is CWI Hosting, although it looks like the "adult" content may mean I'd have to go for the Power Plan, which is kind of steep. On the other hand, it does allow three different domains to share the plan, so it might make sense: I could merge in Ilan's site, and still have room for one more. If you have any experience of CWI, please let me know what they're like.

Dealing with all of this took a lot of time, and caused a lot of aggravation, yesterday, and is one of the reasons Incognito is really nudging its deadline. I still expect to make it, though. As I write this there are just four chapters to go (one of which I have been looking forward to writing for years).

Work has been a bit of a mare this week, and now looks to be set on a path of escalating hysteria until the end of January. Some of this is good -- I prefer to be busy than at a loose end -- but there are limits. I expect to be checking into an insane asylum come February. Do you think I can get a nice room if I book now?

Some light relief was provided last night by The Incredibles, which I enjoyed enormously. It has been described as "Watchmen Lite", which isn't totally off the mark (though I'd say it's more "Miracleman Lite" myself), but it's a stunning piece of animation and definitely the best action adventure movie of the year so far. Go see.

And I'm getting a cold. Ian is four or five days ahead of me in this, which is a bit daunting: on the evidence of his state today, I'm probably going to be in a really bad way at the beginning of next week.

I fucking hate the winter.

Posted by matt at November 25, 2004 01:27 PM