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Database maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

Entry tags:

The Friday Five which is really just an excuse for a cat photo

What do you see when you are looking out of the window closest to you?
The canal lock. No boats coming through, though, it’s quiet season now.
Who was the last person coming into your room?
Astro. He is now lounging on the day bed, as is his wont (example below).
What is the most predominant colour around you?
A gentle pastel green. It is very soothing.
What is right behind you?
A box containing a bunch of stuff that I need to take to work. Thanks for the reminder, meme. :/
What is on today's calendar sheet?
More than I could possibly accomplish in one day, and several meetings of different types.

AWS outage

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

Entry tags:

The Friday Five on a Sunday

How long ago did you join LJ (or DW)?

I joined LJ in 2001 and DW in 2009. I stopped paying for an LJ account some time ago, but I don’t want to abandon the community I still have there. So I still cross-post to both, manually since automatic cross-posting hasn’t been possible for some years.
How did you find out about LJ (or DW)?

I believe I was introduced to LJ by victorine. I can’t remember who introduced me to DW: apologies if this was you!
If someone introduced you to LJ (or DW), is s/he still on your friends list?

If they’re still active, either as a poster or a commenter, then yes. I don’t remove people until they’ve been inactive for years and are clearly not coming back.
Have you introduced anyone to LJ (or DW)?

A few people, but I can’t remember their identities. It was mostly a long time ago, when there was more chance of recruiting people to blogging / journaling sites. Most people just use social media apps these days, so it feels pretty pointless trying to compete with that. I’m also really fond of my stable, long-running communities on these sites, and as long as there are a few empathetic folks left to commune with, I’m happy.
Is your LJ (or DW) public or friends only, and why?

They used to be mostly public, but these days almost everything personal or with photos of me and/or my children is locked. Back in the early days of journaling, it was easy to feel optimistic about the internet being used for peace and love and bringing together global communities. With social media being used so frequently to amplify hate and fear, terrorise minority groups, and shield trolls and creeps from consequences, I don’t feel quite so confident about sharing my life openly.