If you post a comment on this site after midnight, please don't email me demanding that I publish it twenty minutes later. Unlike you I actually have a life and am rarely sitting at a keyboard (especially on a school night) at such an hour. You see, part of having a life means that I have a two-year old that wakes up each day at 5.30am and only knows the word "Daddy". As such my offspring and sleep take priority over your desire to engage in an argument on teh interweb that hardly anyone is reading.
So, the next time your comment is not published within minutes in the middle of the night, be aware that it means, that like so many normal people, I am in bed (or if I'm really lucky I'm binge drinking somewhere). Postulating a wild theory for why the comment has not been published at the expense of rational thinking might seem clever at the time, but the problem with the Internet is that whilst people have a "presence" on it, they do exist in the real world as well away from it.
I should add that I am currently working on a device that will allow me to connect 802.11b signals to the neural pathways of my brain whilst I sleep. However, as you can imagine, I'm having problems getting funding for it at the moment. Rest assured that once it has been invented then I will of course publish comments in virtual real-time from the comfort of my bed whilst fighting dragons that are not just pixels in World of Worldcraft.
However - and this is purely a word warning for all in the future - if you email me demanding that I publish your comment (at any time of the day) or if you go on to speculate that there is some hidden reason I have not published it, then I will publicly delete it and happily "shape" the debate in my favour.... because guess what.... I can. You are of course perfectly entitled to flail your arms around in virtual moral outrage and engage in panty-wetting fits of pique at this, but I don't really care.
22 comments:
Yes Dizzy you are so clever and we are all idiots and nerds. Pity you don't run the world, but after this post I am glad you don't.
Do you take sugar in your tea?
Actually I think you'll find it's me that is a nerd.
Oh yes, and I don't want to run the world. I have asthma.
Daddy, it that what is called a hissy fit?
Indeed it is son. Indeed it is.
Just ignore the buffoons Mr Dizzy. I like the blog and I find you are usually very efficient at allowing comments through.
I run a forum in another part of my e-life and it really irks me when members email me within seconds of it going down which it does occasionally. I give them a full refund of course each time...
I don't believe I've posted here before, but I will now.
Dizzy, you are a chap entirely on my wavelength and this might just become my favourite bestest blog evva.
"I should add that I am currently working on a device that will allow me to connect 802.11b signals to the neural pathways of my brain whilst I sleep. However, as you can imagine, I'm having problems getting funding for it at the moment".
Have you not thought of approaching the Dragon's Den with your idea and asking them for funding?
Please name and shame the self important prick as an example to others.
"After Midnight" indeed Dizzy.
May I recommend it as a thoroughly decent piece of Mr. Eric Clapton's work.
I believe you are referring to me Dizzy. And by extension that would make me the "self important prick" mister crackers refers to without insight or prior knowledge, so cheers mate.
I posted a comment at 18.33 GMT. At 00.32, after checking to see if my comment was up, I emailed you, saying, "c'mon Dizzy publish my comment." Hardly demanding. And quite clearly six hours later, not twenty minutes.
Hahah you mean this one? 13-Nov-2007 18:34:00 which I replied to at 13-Nov-2007 21:55:00 and you then replied to at 14-Nov-2007 00:09:00 and then twenty minutes later sent me an email to complain about the first comment that you had already replied too not being published?
You also missed a line out the email didn't you? You know, where you suggested there was a reason why I hadn't done it?
Look, the point remains this. If I don't publish comments immediately it's going to be because I'm not in the position to do so. And if you email me about it as you did you along with anyone else can expect the comment to publicly deleted.
Of course, I'm not going to guarante any consistency on this policy. It all really depends on whether you can me in a "fuck you" type mood or not.
No I don't mean that Dizzy. Perhaps you are mistaken. The only email I sent you recently is the one to which I refer above. And that, as I say, was six hours after I posted and wasn't published. I think I made that clear.
I did "miss a line out", yes. I said, (for the benefit of other readers now as you bring it up) "you're kind of trapped". I still believe that, as I thought, and still do, that you were in a sort of logical black hole. No threats, no hassling, an attempt to understand.
Mr Scotch - you are not a self important prick I apologise. I ask a rhetorical question 'What was so compelling about your comment that you thought it needed to be published tuits suit?' I am puzzled. You remind me of another earnest blogger from Surrey.
Mr Scotch update.
I just had a look at Timmy's bloggerheads site. Manic issued a call to arms for his poodle army to post on right thinking female bloggers. Mr Scotch was one of the first to respond to the call to arms. No wonder he was anxious to get his comment published. OHMS.
I understand Mr S's anxiety since he was taking part in a concert party and had to report back to base. Tosspot
I like to think I'm in touch with my feminine side. I have moobs.
Anyway, on the point at hand, can you clarify something scotch. Has or has not the comment been published yet?
Sure Dizzy, always happy to clarify. The comment is published now (as I look, 17.51 GMT) but when I emailed you it hadn't. Good use of the reality distortion field.
Mr Crackers - I'm pretty sure I'm joking.
Could you tell me which comment it is please? What thread?
NO Dizzy. Enough now. You can indeed "shape the debate in {your] favour". I think that's a shame. I think any debate benefits from thruth and trust. I am sorry I don't find it here.
I think what you actually mean is that I published your comment, it appeared at the times that show in the comments and that your assertion is not backed up by that. That's not to say of course that you are wrong and I'll come to that in a moment.
However, I don't know whether you've noticed this, but I'm quite unashamed about saying that I will delete things. Now you have yourself conceded that the comment was published (although you won't tell me which it was), so you're only complaint regarding "reality distortion" could be that the timestamps do not match that which you believe they should.
Now as I said a moment ago, you might not actually be wrong. The reason you see is because when it comes to the timestamps on posts and comments on Blogger the only control over them I have is the timezone that all of them appear to be in, and the way they are formatted on the screen. The actual integers (YYmmddss) that they consist of are stored in a database that I have no control over. This page that you see when you post a comment (rather than the generated one by blogger that appears under my posts) is on a separate piece of infrastructure to the website in fact. That is why it does not follow my style sheet settings.
What that means is the timestamps by your comments are the timestamps in a database over which I have no control. If I worked for Google I might have, but I don't. So why might you still be right? Well it's entirely possible that the database had some sort of issue writing your comment. It's possible that someone was playing with the system clock or there was a time-sync problem at precisely the time you posted.
Now, I have email alerts for all my comments so I have just had a look at the headers, and because I use Google it is a mail being sent across Google's internal mail infrastructure. The timestamp for the comment alerts appear to match up with the comment timestamps, albeit in it PST because of where the servers are. Again though, it's entirely possible that Google had a mass NTP blip where everything was shifted around by an odd number of hours and minutes - stranger things have happened. Sadly I'm not in a position to be able to confirm that though.
All I can know is that yesterday evening you posted four comments which Blogger says, not me, were thus.
13-Nov-2007 18:34:00 - In the Tim thread where you asked a question. Which is 1 minute after the comment you say that you posted, has been published, but won't confirm which one it is.
13-Nov-2007 19:09:00 - the postmodern thread.
13-Nov-2007 21:55:00 - I replied to your post from 18:34 after returning from the pub.
13-Nov-2007 21:59:00 - I posted a comment on the postmodern thread.
14-Nov-2007 00:09:00 - You replied to my 21:55 comment and even referenced it.
Then at 00:32 you sent me the email about "slow comments".
What does all this mean? Well it means I shaped the debate.. or maybe it doesn't. I'll happily let others decide. I shall now lock this thread as you did say "enough now" and I agree.
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