Don’t Mind The Dust Day Forum
So as you have seen, we’ve been having a LOT of server issues since Friday. We’re not completely sure of all of the causes. The site has had a lot of technical debt for a while. I (Matt) appear to have done the WordPress equivalent of tugging the loose bit of yarn that unravels the sweater.
This was apparently exacerbated by our caching plugin and, possibly (possibly), a denial of service attack*.
We think everything has been resolved and we will be slowly bringing aspects of the site back online. That said, after moving fast and breaking things, we’re shifting into moving methodically to fix things.
How are your week’s going?
I’ve been having a ragingly paranoiac subprocess running in my head for most of the week. My homes broadband died not too long after OTB went down, and that did not help things.
…let’s see if this works.
If this works, it means things are a lot better
Testing testy trusty testes 1 2 3
Matt, just wanted to say that I’m sure this has been a massive headache for you and the OTB audience appreciates your effort.
Lurker test post.
Thanks. This has been really frustrating for all of us behind the scenes as well. On the plus side, we’ve taken a bunch of steps that we think will ultimately get the site running faster, but this interim period is going to be touch and go for a while.
I do appreciate seeing this many comments so quickly. We have definitely been worried about losing audience members during this downtime.
It’s good to have OTB back,
Many thanks to Matt, James, and Steven for all their work. Both for keeping the blog running and for fixing this latest fresh hell, whatever it was.
Over the outage, I thought we should set up an OTB starter pack on Bluesky, just in case something goes wrong again. If I knew how, I’d get on it.
Meantime the world continues to go to hell for no clear reason, because the growing massive inequality and the extraction of money for oligarchs is definitely not a factor in anything, right?
Along measles and bird flu, there seems to be a rash of spontaneous combustion syndrome affecting Teslas.
Wooh hoo! You’re back! I’ve been checking every day, it’s nice to have all of you back again.
Radio silence leads to the inevitable speculation.
P.S. OTB is loading faster than even before the crash. A couple of times during the outage, the site would come up it would show comments being posted, but would crash when I attempted to post.
So, was a DDos involved somewhere it this?
Everybody breathing a sigh of relief that it was, in fact, only a technical issue.
That was some kind of whammy laid on OTB. Never experienced anything like it.
Very glad you’re back, regardless.
To be clear:
“Elon Musk’s daughter says father’s rally gesture was ‘definitely a Nazi salute’
—- “Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s eldest child, has spoken out publicly about her father, saying that Musk “definitely [did] a Nazi salute” at two rallies in January and that he is part of a White House that’s “cartoonishly evil”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/elon-musk-daughter-vivian-jenna-wilson-salute
Is our national nightmare finally over? 😀
Seriously, I have been through this and so I know how much this sucks for your end. I really do appreciate the work you all must be doing to get things working.
If you guys need or want some assistance, I know a guy who specializes in this who has been fantastic about helping with similar issues with a site I work on. Although he mainly helps business clients, I can probably call a favor in.
Glad you are back and appreciate your efforts. In lieu of some past missed comments let me sum up most of what I would have probably said by saying, Trump sucks!
Steve
Thank you JJ, SLT, and MB for all your work to get OTB up and running again. I desperately missed my daily OTB fix.
On lighter matters of much more serious long term consequence, recent observations may indicate dark energy is weakening.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/19/dark-energy-mysterious-cosmic-force-weakening-universe-expansion
This is good news for the Author of Tau Zero, as the novel is no longer hopelessly outdated cosmologically, maybe.
What this means is dark energy, whatever it is, was stronger in the past. It may be it will get weaker in the future, or it may reach some sort of equilibrium, or it may get stronger later on. But potentially, the Big Crunch is back in the running, and the Big Rip no longer looks like a sure thing.
And every now and then, it’s good to have the foundations of cosmology and physics shaken.
How’s this for a story? A ship caught in the sweet spot of a black hole stays frozen in time, relative to the rest of the universe, for a couple of trillion years. The crew can’t makes sense why the universe is _smaller_ than when they left.
Thank you Matt, for bringing OTB back for us. When it went down so suddenly on Friday, my thoughts immediately went to worst case scenarios.
Hope this works – each time I tried to post, even though there were other replies visible, the site would go down…
Another huge thank you, Matt, for all you’ve done here.
Comment check.
Every once and a while our complacent selves need a wake-up call. Missing OTB for several days was (for me) one such call.
My heartfelt thanks to all who have worked on bringing the site back up, and, while it might not be much, my future donations to the site will be more regular.
Thanks for hanging in there!
bob
Bullwinkle: Hey Rock, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat …
Rocky: Again?
Bullwinkle: This time for sure!
Bullwinkle reaches into hat and pulls out a … Lion
Lion: roarrrrrrr!!!
Bullwinkle: No doubt about it, I’ve got to get a new hat!
Seriously, I wish you all at OTB nothing but the best.
Hang in there.
It’s all smoke and mirriors.
Thanks for all the hard work, Matt. For the first day or so, before Dr. Joyner’s bsky post, I was wondering if the site was down due to creeping fascism or creaky technology — either seemed possible.
I’m getting a white, unstyled version of the WordPress site, which is kind of retro and fun. Maybe I’m just glad the site is back, but I kind of like the simplicity.
There’s a nice tension between “it’s bright and fresh and looks like a newborn website” and “it’s only like that because it’s really old and barely hanging on for dear life”
OTB crew, your efforts to bring back this ridiculously awesome blog back to life is much appreciated.
It was kind of weird not checking in on OTB a few times a day the past several days.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone
Welcome back! I have a lot of backed up rage that needs to be let out.
But I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.
Miss Kathy sez:
If Trump follows through with an executive order declaring vandalism against Teslas to be “domestic terrorism”, how long before insurance companies that have an exemption for terrorism damage stop paying out for damage?
Someone in my neighborhood has rebranded their Tesla as a Toyota. I approve. It’s an older Tesla, I think, presumably bought when Musk was just weird rather than a very public Nazi. That someone shouldn’t have their car vandalized.
From Matt Bernius post above:
“I do appreciate seeing this many comments so quickly. We have definitely been worried about losing audience members during this downtime.”
I have been clicking on the OTB icon on my MacBook Air and my iPhone every hour on the hour (maybe more). I think the fans of OTB are stuck to you like a tick on a dog. Besides where else would we go?
(Upvotes for all the comments so far!)
I was going to say something about Starlink but I don’t want to risk offending the tech goddesses.
Gustopher Sez:
That someone shouldn’t have their car vandalized.
As one who had my “Impeach Nixon-Now More Than Ever” bumpersticker ripped off the tailgate of my 1960 Ford F-100 in 1973 I would suggest that nobody’s vehicle should be vandalized.
I’m still pissed about it.
Kathy –
“What this means is dark energy, whatever it is, was stronger in the past. It may be it will get weaker in the future, or it may reach some sort of equilibrium, or it may get stronger later on. But potentially, the Big Crunch is back in the running, and the Big Rip no longer looks like a sure thing.”
I find the Big Crunch much more satisfying. The idea that there is a never ending cycle is preferable to a future of nothingness.
Yes, we’re using the latest verson of the generic WordPress theme for now. There were issues both server-side and with the plug-ins and trying to run them all down at once was too big a lift. Once we’re sure everything is working on the server end, we can tackle theme/plug-in issues.
@Gustopher
I’ve seen photos of Xybertrucks with a Toyota logo plastered on the back gate.
as if anyone would believe Toyota makes refrigerators now…
Of course, online photos, who knows, especially in these heady AI days.
Moving on, I’m three eps into Kaos on Netflix. I like it, or at least find it interesting. I’m not sure I get the setting. best I can make out is that it’s ancient times, c.1500 BCE, only with late 20th century cities and technology.
Comrade Bluster claimz:
Cybertrucks are fair game. I’ll stop short of advocating that everyone go out and torch one, but it certainly warms my heart to see the flames.
I’m still pissed about the creeping fascism, and anyone who bought one did so knowing that Elon was a right wing freak trying to influence the government.
I think we’ve crossed a line where direct, nonviolent* pushback against the fascist takeover is acceptable if not demanded. Protests barely get noticed these days, and the government is criminalizing protest as much as possible.
Once they start trying to deport legal residents for protected first amendment behavior (a line that was crossed about a week ago), I think a stronger response is acceptable.
If you criminalize protest, only criminals will protest. Criminally.
*: property damage isn’t violence.
James Joyner sez:
“Once we’re sure everything is working on the server end, we can tackle theme/plug-in issues.”
This is a hell of a lot better than no OTB.
(and I used to whine about no EDIT key)
Ahhh. Things are better now, missed you guys
Yay! Welcome back(ish)!
I’d love to say that I’d experienced a sudden upsurge in writing productivity over the last few days, but that’d be a lie.
Adding my voice to the chorus thanking Matt, James, and Steven for all that you do to keep this site up and running.
If I was going to advocate for the damage of private property for political reasons I would not do it on a public forum.
Also, the government isn’t deporting people. They’re sending them to El Salvador’s work camps to be abused off US territory. It’s concentration camps*.
It’s disgusting.
And, with no judicial review, we can’t even be sure they have correctly identified the people they are sending, let alone whether they have committed any crimes. There could be citizens in that group, how would you know?
Not that non-citizens should be treated that way. The bill of rights protects (“protects”) citizens and non-citizens equally, even people in the country illegally.
*: concentration camps, not to be confused with the death camps that came later in the holocaust. The Trump administration is trying out the penultimate solution, not the final solution, so far as we know.
Gustopher:
Anecdote not data, but here in my Vegas Condo Compound we have above ground parking and underground parking. A cybertruck with an orange skin was parked proudly in the outside lot until a week ago when it went underground after Vegas terrorist/freedom-fighters burned some Teslas up real good.
@ Scott
I do like the idea of a Big Crunch followed by a Big Bounce.
I just don’t know if entropy works that way.
The thing about the Big Rip, is that all energy would be dissipated all over, and all too far from all other energy. In a Big Crunch, all energy, dissipated or not, gathers in one place.
Of course, there’s till the matter of whether we’re in an open or closed universe. Back in the 80s and 90s, that was the big question about the feasibility of the Big Crunch/Bounce.
@Michael Reynolds
To me, the Xybertruck is the ultimate in “I’ve got more money than sense” statement.
I have noticed far more Youtube videos critical of it since last January. There were some before, including several showing sharp edges on places a hand or arm might get a nasty cut, like doors and other covers. But now I’m seeing more.
This may mean there are more of them out there, or the almighty algorithm deems them more popular, or unbiased and utterly fair reviewers are finding more defects and stuff about it, or it finally dawned on everyone that a cool but useless expensive toy is not worth the expense if it’s not cool.
Bluster:
When there’s a violent fascist takeover in progress, and more peaceful and orderly protest has been rendered ineffective and is frequently criminalized, I’m not going to hold my nose up high and say that there should be no property damage. And I’m going to tell people who do so that they are weenies.
That’s you. You’re the weenie. I’m sorry your bumper sticker was once damaged. These are different times.
I would prefer the minimum effective disorderly conduct. The political system is failing, has failed, is in danger of failing (pick one). Peaceful protest has been marginalized, and is being prosecuted. We’ll be lucky if we get out of this without a Reign of Terror. And you worry about your bumper sticker from decades ago.
As Stalin said, “you can’t make an omelet without a few people setting fire to Cybertrucks.”
Gotta say, attacking people driving Teslas is absurd. I’d wager 83% of them voted against Trump three times. They were a liberal status symbol until very, very recently.
Gustopher, Bluster:
A couple of weeks ago I threw out for discussion/speculation the question: “At what point does legal and financial violence justify physical violence in response?”.
No one took the bait.
Unfortunately, I believe the forces being arrayed against our country and its institutions are going to result in no option but a violent response.
I fear for our future.
@Scott I fear for our future as well. I think 30 years of active measures carried out via the internet has cause a rift in the US society as well.
It could hypothetically be arranged that MAGA be the ones to first resort to violence. (after all, they did this once already). I have not much confidence that this will be the way it plays out.
For what it’s worth, as a thing that says “I have more money than I know what to do with” the Cybertruck is probably more left-wing than a Lamborghini, which is something I’ve also seen on the street.
And well, cocaine is also in that category. As is buying a house in certain neighborhoods.
I know, this is not the most life-or-death issue in the short term, given all the awfulness happening right now. But it is important in the long term. DOGE is going after the Institute of Museum And Library Services (IMLS). I’m sure a lot of you are like me, a kid whose knowledge and imagination were spurred by visits the library and museums. As a society, we can’t afford to rob future generations, regardless of who they are, how well off their parents are, of the same life-changing, society-enhancing pursuits that start with a particular book or a particular exhibit.
Here’s a link where to go to make noise with your elected representatives.
https://www.congressweb.com/aam/95/
My interest and focus has always been national security and defense. I am increasingly concerned/alarmed that this administration is engaged in a unilateral disarmament of our national power, specifically our soft power. The shutdown of the Voice of America and more broadly, the US Agency for Global Media; the closing of USAID, the elimination of DoD’s Office of Net Assessment are all disasters in the making.
None dare call it treason.
BTW, I recommend the Shield of the Republic podcast hosted by The Bulwark if you are interested in national security and defense. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-ongoing-vandalism-of-our-government
Great to see everyone here! I am hopeful that things will be back to normal (ish!) soon!
The minimalist skin is sort of appealing.
Welcome back, we’ve missed you
“Gotta say, attacking people driving Teslas is absurd. I’d wager 83% of them voted against Trump three times. They were a liberal status symbol until very, very recently.”
Eh, here in NH I always got the sense that Teslas were more “tech fan/early adopter” vehicles, rather than a liberal status symbol–and, just the cars.
By the time those very ugly trucks came out, Musk was already showing his uh, “nuttier” side, and the ones purchasing those were solidly in the Musk Fanboi crowd.
Test
Per the NYT, Trump has signed the order to begin taking down the Dept. of Education. Will Congress approve?
MAGA Influencer And Fox News Guest Indicted On Child Sex Abuse Charges
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-raw-ricci-wynne-homeless_n_67dc47a6e4b038b4d0a69941
Obviously now qualified for a high level appointment in the felon’s administration. The nomination will sail through the Senate.
OK, my test worked. Thank goddess you’re back, I was starting to get the shakes from OTB withdrawal. I missed y’all. Well, almost all y’all.
Thanks for all the effort, Matt, I expect you’ve had a maddening several days. And James for hosting this site.
@Joyner:
The car owners aren’t the target. And they’re insured. The target is people considering buying a Tesla and the stock price.
Thanks for all your hard work.
Touching grass must be in moderation.
@Kingdaddy — I’ve been struggling with that…with allllll of the destruction raining down, I’ve been hesitant to be too vocal about the elimination of IMLS, but as a library advocate, it breaks my heart and makes me angry. Libraries and museums are educational and cultural outlets available to those with limited means. It’s like we, as a country, have decided that poor and low-income people (urban AND rural) don’t deserve access to books or art or science. Anyone who has ever seen the wonder in a child’s eyes that comes from looking at a dinosaur fossil, would/should be opposed to this. It also funds things like the interlibrary loan system, and technology support for borrowing ebooks (Libby).
It’s .0046% of the budget. Total.
No one is going to see their taxes lowered by eliminating this department. NO ONE.
The Trump Administration has crippled the effort to track the children that the Russians have kidnapped from Ukraine.
https://newrepublic.com/article/192924/trump-musk-scandal-ukrainian-kids-stolen-russia
Been lurking here on the daily for what seems like two decades. Am very happy this site’s posts and (largely) erudite comments are back on the menu. Never thought I’d start getting the shakes from a website being down. Thanks, folks!
Replying to Sleeping Dog – That’s as big a shocker as last week’s, “Former Trump spiritual adviser faces charges of lewd acts with a child”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/13/robert-morris-trump-megachurch-pastor-charged
(The photo looks like he uses Trump’s bronzer.)
With regard to the IMLS shutdown – it seems so petty and insignificant. I mean that think is as significant as a whisker in the Federal budget. And I can’t see it having any political significance.
Maybe it’s a “hotbed of liberalism”?
I guess?
@James “Gotta say, attacking people driving Teslas is absurd.”
Agreed. plenty more in the dealerships 🙂
@Jen
Even before he went off the rails, the nazi in chief had his fanboys who tolerated no criticism of their god emperor. Be it of Texla, the solar tiles that are a good idea but don’t quite deliver, XpaceS, or anything else touched by the head of the department of government elimination.
That’s never a good look for those outside the cult.
Welcome back!
Sounds a bit like the “fun” we had when our rather ancient digitized exam-papers archive decided to fall off it’s perch.
@JohnSF I have been thinking of you, wondering about the “It’s the inflation, stupid” theory of incumbents doing badly.
Do you think that high inflation was a primary driver for the defeat of the Tories last year? Over here, it more seemed like it was the bumbling and general economic malaise, not inflation.
Yippee! The old format is back. Again, huge thanks to JJ, SLT, and MB.
@James Joyner:
When did the Cybertruck start getting delivered compared to Elon going hard right on Twitter? These are weird, ugly vehicles being bought as a statement as much as for transportation. They aren’t buying them for practicality (they’re terrible as trucks) or looks (they’re terrible as objects).
People were buying them before the Roman Salute, but not before the Woke Mind Virus. By and large, people bought them knowing Musk was a hard right freak ranting about DEI, woke mind virus, trans people being everything wrong, immigrants and the great replacement theory, praising de Santis, and trying to control social media — and they bought supporting that.
They aren’t “voted against Trump three times” people.
I’ll never feel bad when I see Swastikars getting a Viking funeral.
So nice to see everyone! Yeah, my OTB withdrawal was unpleasant, I didn’t realize how much I depended on this site, particularly in the mornings!
@al Ameda:
looks like we’re on!
all the usual graphics are back
Trump says America has been a “fat, dumb, foolish country.”
Take one to know one.
@CSK:
And the reply function works, too? Yay!
@Scott:
Property damage is not violence. It is not counted as violent crime — that’s assaults, rapes and murders.
And it’s justified when it is the least worst option, and even then it should be targeted. I think the inevitable backlash would be too great to justify it.
I would say that I don’t hold Republican lives as more important than immigrant lives, or trans lives or brown lives. There is absolutely some point at which violence — real violence — would become the least worst option. But a very costly one.
But we aren’t even at Trump defying the Supreme Court (or the Supreme Court ruling that this is all fine and dandy) yet. I don’t know that that would be the point where violence is the right option, but that’s a definite requirement — the failure of the political system. Even at that point, however, demonstrations and property damage may be enough to topple a fascist government. The wealthy need to only feel unsafe.
Like everyone else, I am relieved and happy to see OTB back. I had been ruminating on the last comment I posted before the site went dark.
Let’s see if the link key works.
Today is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere.
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring // London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle
I got this email from Patreon last Sunday:
“ Good morning,
As most of you are likely aware, OTB has been down since Friday. No, I have not shuttered the site. Matt Bernius, who has been doing pro bono IT work for us, ran into a glitch fixing something and has been working with our host’s support team to get us back up and running. We seem to have narrowed it down to a single file as of late last evening.
Much thanks for your continued support. I hope to be back in operation very soon.
-James ”
Thanks for that. Glad that OTB is back.
PS I truly miss Kevin Drum.
@Jay L Gischer:
Inflation was a significant driver.
But i doubt it would have got the traction absent the hangover from Johnson’s serial sleazy idiocies, and Truss screwing the pooch with the bond markets.
Interesting to look at how the Conservative vote shrank: about half the loss was to Reform on the right.
But almost as many to Lab and LibDem.
The Conservatives are fixated on the Reform threat on the right, partly because its a new thing, historically (well, that is, including UKIP, since c 2010) and because it stirs up their social media base.
But in fact: the Conservatives lost 5 seats to Reform but 59 to the LibDems, and 150 to Labour.
The interesting data is really in the vote shares, and who is positioned second.
I still haven’t got round to really looking in datail at that. but even a cursory analysis indicates the Conservatives are close to being scalped by the LibDems in numerous seats in the “upper middle class” suburban/exurban seats across southern England.
Imo, if they tack right to head off Reform, they are liable to lose quite a few due to “conservative” voters who dislike Brexit, culture war posturing, and general incompetence.
Reform actually seem more of threat in a lot of Labour held former Con seats where Reform came second or third, and enabled Labour to beat the Tories.
Hence Labour being cautions re EU relations and other topics.
Thank you for all the work to get the site up and running. I wondered if my frequent checks were a sort of DDoS – hopefully not more than the site could manage.It’s been an ugly week and I missed seeing all the thoughtful commentary here.
@Jay L Gischer:
Libraries and museums are about facts, and truth. You know, the Enemies of the People.
Preliminary report on the Delta CRJ crash in Toronto, says the rate of descent was over 1,000 feet per minute, as opposed to the expected 600.
In other words, it was a very hard landing.
Why the rate was that high is yet to be determined, as well as what other contributing factors were involved. Like why didn’t the pilots abort the landing and do a go around. Crashes aside, hitting hard can damage the landing gear, cause a tail strike, or cause a wingtip strike. Imagine a go around after touching down with damage to the gear, tail, or wing.
Beth and I considered getting a Signal group together, in case we’re actually descending into fascism ( I mean, we are currently THERE, in my view) and we need to be encrypted. I would hate to lose all of you! The one thing the internet has done is bring us all together, on this one website, for decades. If any of the commenters or the front pagers are interested, I suggest we call it OTB Refugees.
@Steven L. Taylor: I’m afraid that “normal-ish” is as close as we’re getting for 4 years. Maybe longer.
@CSK: 218 Representatives and 50 Senators? Easy peasy.
@just nutha: You and Luddite are on my list of “People I’d hate to lose if OTB went down forever”. I am tiedyejax.74 on Signal.
BTW among the oddities of the Time when OTB Went Down, in some of the test posts only James, Steven, and Bill were able to post.
@Jax: I’d be in
You’d think by now even wannabe trillionaires and their lackeys would know about the Streisand Effect.
TL;DR a tell all book from a Fakebook insider that Zucks tried to block promotion of, has reached, unsurprisingly, the top of the sales charts.
whocoulddanode?
ETA: the edit window is back! Good job!
I stopped posting on Fakebook sometime around the beginning of the trump pandemic. I think I’ll post about this book to see what happens.
@James Joyner: True. I have a friend who has driven a Tesla for several years. He has a bumper sticker that reads, “I bought this before I knew that Elon is an idiot.”