Multiple site-wide connection and layout failures resolved
25-Nov-2009 14:00 (Melbourne,AU)
The past 24 hours have been rough-going on the Facebook application servers, with problems occurring across all apps. Many pages were rendered raw, devoid of all styling (CSS). This occasionally produced some interesting visual results which we have learned from. According to Facebook platform status feed everything is normal now.
Comment boards misbehaving again
11-Nov-2009 13:22 GMT
UPDATE: (Nov. 23, 2009) This bug has returned and is currently known to be affecting the Tolstoy comment board. This is likely not the only board malfunctioning.
UPDATE: (Nov. 17, 2009) All of the databases that handle comments are operating again. This bug is resolved, for now.
UPDATE: (Nov. 13, 2009) This problem is ongoing, but a temporary fix has been implemented and the comments are now appearing...twice. Please ignore the duplicates--do not delete any of them. There is only one copy of each post in the database, and deleting what appears to be a duplicate may erase the original. A proper solution is on the way...
UPDATE: (Nov. 12, 2009) Just received this message from one of the Facebook engineers:
-------From Ray C. He 2009-11-12 01:04:12-------
FYI, this seems to be happening because apps tier machines on the east coast
are having issue accessing platform DBs. (this is why posting still works, as
ajax is west coast. this is also why connect fb:comments still works as those
are served from west coast as well). I am working with ops to figure out what's
causing all the missed db connections.
New posts to philosopher comment boards are disappearing after being posted, and some boards are displaying no posts at all (currently the Marx & Zizek boards) where usually many pages of comments exist. The problem lies with the Facebook comment database, which seems to be malfunctioning; I have filed a bug report to alert the Facebook engineers. All posts have been recorded and stored in the database, even though they seem to have disappeared—your comments are not lost and will reappear once the problem is resolved. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Weird attack on P+P fails to do lasting damage
12-Nov-2009
P+P recently suffered an SQL injection attack by a malicious user. This means someone deliberately infiltrated the database and corrupted the data. The major effect of the attack was the loss of all non-Latin-language-based
quotes, which were converted to question marks. This included all Greek, Turkish, Chinese and Hebrew entries. It is uncertain whether or not this was the deliberate point of the attack, but it seems likely based on information gathered from the logs we keep.
I have been repairing the damage done to the database, and was able to reconstruct almost all of the lost quotes from backups. I have also closed the security hole that made the attack possible. So much for barbarism.
Find a quote you like? Publish it to your network!
14-Oct-2009
A new "Feed" link now appears with each entry on the
Quotes pages. Click on this link to open up the feed publishing dialog box, add a comment, and publish the quote to your profile and stream.
You can now quickly ping your P+P friends from the
Friends page and include a short message.
Banner ads removed
5-Oct-2009
All banner advertising has just been removed from P+P indefinitely. The good news is that this means no more ads at the top and bottom of our canvas pages*, and perhaps faster page loading. The ads were being served to us by a popular social networks advertising supplier that was sending ads of inconsistent quality, some of which violated Facebook's advertising policies (e.g. imitating the blue Facebook buttons to disguise ads as Facebook content, and engaging in other deceptive practices). The bad news is that we have lost a small source of revenue until another monetization option is found. In the meantime, we are almost totally reliant on user donations to make up the shortfall on our hosting bill. I'll do the sums and put up a figure shortly.
*The ads that appear on the right-hand side of canvas pages are placed there by Facebook; apps have no control over that part of the screen.Welcome to our new regular users
5-Oct-2009
P+P has grown an extra 1500 monthly active users during the past six weeks and now stands at nearly 7500. Welcome to you all. Regular use of the app is rewarded with "deep user" status, which earns you more tiles for your montage and other privileges. A large round of promotions has just passed—congratulations to all our new deep users! Another round is coming up soon.
Application Settings
Wednesday 30-Sep-2009
Tip: Visit your
Application Settings page and find P+P on the list of apps. From there you can tweak certain settings and restore your P+P profile box if it disappears for any reason.
New Enhancements
Tuesday 29-Sep-2009
Update: I am aware that the new ppoke! feature is really quite inane in its current form. I'm working on it.
Philosophy-poke! Beta: a new feature, active but still in development. Give your friends a gentle nudge. Why would you want to do that? I don't know; let's find out. You can "Ppoke" people from the
FRIENDS page, where you can also peek at what your friends have been up to and when they last visited a P+P canvas page. You can now also select individual friends to view, instead of paging through screens to find one person.
Comments on Quotes: I've re-written some of the code to iron-out weird behaviour and shorten load times on the
QUOTES pages.
Quote Enhancements
Sunday 13-Sep-2009
It is now possible to edit quotes from the
Quotes page. An "Edit" link will appear under the quote if the person viewing it is the quote's owner (the person who added it to the database).
To help users follow discussions happening around particular quotes, the "Essential Links" section of this page contains a new
Quote Discussions link that will display all quotes with comments attached to them in order of newest to oldest.
References for quotes should be added to the separate "Quote Source" field, newly provided, instead of the main body of the quote. This should ensure more consistent formatting of quotes over time.
Four Principles of Quotation by Martin Porter
Sunday 6-Sep-2009
For readers
- Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
- Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
For quoters
- Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
- Only quote from works that you have read.
Source:
Martin Porter's essay onlineReply link gone missing (update)
Sunday 6-Sep-2009
Update 6-Sep-09: The reply links attached to posts in the discussion board have been removed, and this is a deliberate and permanent move by Facebook. The current situation in which every contributor to a thread receives a reply notification with each new message posted is, however, clearly untenable, and we are in dialogue with Facebook to come up with a sensible solution. Ideally, both developers and users would prefer it if the links were restored, and we are still trying to convince Facebook of this. Interested people may follow our progress on Bugzilla, the Facebook bug reporting site:
http://bugs.developers.facebook.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6579
Facebook has removed the "Reply" link from discussion boards. This is already creating havoc across the platform, as now there is no way to direct messages to individual posters, and every contributor to a thread is receiving a notification whenever someone posts a new message. I am unsure at the moment whether this change is a deliberate new policy or a bug.
New feature: comment on the polls
Monday 31-Aug-2009
Our polls seem to inevitably arouse questions and controversy. In response to repeated requests, a comment link is now available for each poll. The link opens a dialog box where comments may be read and posted. We're also trialling a poll-dedicated forum to facilitate longer posts and more involved discussion. This is available to registered P+P users and can be found above the main Poll area.
Sudden problem with some links forcing pages to reload *Resolved*
Wednesday 11-Aug-2009
I have temporarily resolved this problem by turning off Facebook's "Quick Transitions" feature for applications, which is a beta feature that improves page load times at the cost of occasional problems like the present one. I'll monitor things over the day and turn QT back on if the Facebook engineers manage restabilize it enough for general usage.
Lots of errors loading pages *Resolved*
Friday 7-Aug-2009
Facebook is experiencing a network problem that is affecting some applications and users by preventing some P+P pages from loading. Please bear with us while we wait for the Facebook engineers to find a solution. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Melbourne Philosophy Under Threat
Thursday 6-Aug-2009
The department of philosophy at the University of Melbourne is in a time of need and seeks letters of support. Read the story and get the details
here.
Bug fix for users of Safari and Chrome web browsers
Monday 13-July-2009
An odd bug was limiting the
Quote Editor color options for users of Chrome and Safari. A succesful work-around has been implemented.
Oops! We may have accidentally replaced your montage with a welcome message!
Tuesday 7-July-2009
First of all, don't panic! Your montage is not lost—
click here to restore it to exactly the way it was before, or use the
montage editor.
A bug crept into the code during some routine maintenence. The bug will have affected any authorized user with a P+P profile box who visited this page during the 12 hours leading up to 09:49 GMT, on Wed. July 8. Please check your profile and use the link above if required. Sincere apologies for the inconvenience.
Voting for and against
Requests made easier
Tuesday 7-July-2009The
Requests page has been improved so as to allow voting without reloading the page each time. It also now displays fewer philosophers per page, making the pages load much more quickly.
Comment on Quotes
Sunday 4-July-2009
Many of the quotes that users contribute to the application are provocative. Sometimes the "Like" link is perfect to register your agreement, but at other times "like" doesn't quite square with your honest opinion of the quote. To address this deficiency we've added a "Comment" link to every quote. Now you're free to express the full extent of your love for each quote, in your own inimitable words. Be effusive, be effulgent.
The latest quote always appears at the top of this page; the entire database can be viewed
here.
Get Lost in the Bookstore
Mon 29-Jun-2009
A new category,
The Developer's Bookshelf: Recent and recommended titles from the developer of P+P, is now available to browse in our online bookstore.
You can preview books, read editorial and user reviews, and add items to your shopping cart all from within the app. As an Amazon affiliate the application receives 4% of the cost of titles purchased through the store, which helps to keep us online (or it would if more people used our bookstore!).
News Feed Problem *Resolved*
Wed 24-Jun-2009
Images have stopped appearing in feed stories. Facebook engineers are aware of the problem. In other news, a new philosophy poll is up and running.
Problem saving Montage in Internet Explorer *Resolved*
Tuesday 8-Jun-2009Klooger on Castoriadis
Monday 18-May-2009
Castoriadis: Psyche, Society, Autonomy by
Jeff Klooger is the first monograph in English on the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis. It is now available to pre-order from the
P+P bookstore or you can click on the image (left) to go directly to Amazon.com. Jeff is a regular guest of the application. We congratulate him on his momentous achievement.
New Social Feature: Like! (update)
Thursday 21-May-2009
Update: This feature now incorporates the ability to "unlike" previously liked quotes, and there is a new link (
My Likes) that displays all of the quotes you have liked so far.
You can now express your like for individual quotes on the
Quotes pages. Doing so will send a short message to the user who added the quote, whether friend or stranger, notifying them of your appreciation. As quotes begin to emerge with high likeability, we will display the results here. Please give this feature a try. It is a lot of fun.
p.s. Stay tuned for a new philosophy poll. Coming soon...
Add Bookmark
When all the world recognizes beauty as beauty, this in itself is ugliness.
When all the world recognizes good as good, this in itself is evil.
Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
High and low set measure to each other.
Voice and sound harmonize each other.
Back and front follow each other.
Therefore, the Sage manages his affairs without ado,
And spreads his teaching without talking.
He denies nothing to the teeming things.
He rears them, but lays no claim to them.
He does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.
And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him.
John Abbate8:29 am
Ryan ShirkNov 23
John AbbateNov 23
This is me drawing the contradictory implications of your position. You believe in conscious introspection that reveals the brain working, yet you have also asserted that the agent of consciousness is an illusion. How does an illusion observe the brain?
John AbbateNov 23
Ryan ShirkNov 23
John AbbateNov 23
Ryan ShirkNov 23
—Wolf Singer, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
"This book is a 'must' for anyone who is interested in empirical studies related to first-person issues or subjectivity."
— Kai Vogeley, TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences
"While some philosophers have resisted scientists' incursions into the philosophy of mind, Thomas Metzinger has welcomed them. In this book he employs his impressively detailed knowledge of the latest developments in cognitive neuroscience to develop an exciting new philosophical approach to consciousness for which the experience of the self is fundamental. His is a truly interdisciplinary project...
Ryan ShirkNov 23
Ryan ShirkNov 23
Oh yeah, ok then John, if you are so certain of this substance dualism, then go ahead and mail me your brain. Obviously you don't need it if brain and mind are two different things. PM me and I'll give you a P.O. box to mail your excised brain to. Makes sure you remove your brain first though, I want to see a photo of your brain next to your empty cranial vault with all of the connections severed. I'll accept that as proof that brain and mind are different substances, but I still want the brain for my own studies.
Ryan ShirkNov 23
I'm not saying anyone does so ex nihilo, the feedback loop is gradually being generated by LTP without the individuals awareness. It hits them one day as an epiphany or sudden realization. Prior to that they don't have any conscious sensation. I had heard discussions on free-will and determinism several times before one day thinking "Wait a minute, this means there is no such thing as free-will!" when I began taking this more seriously, I spent 4 years on the subject, I started to realize that it was never an original idea, but something people had been trying to tell me for a long time.
John AbbateNov 23
John AbbateNov 23
Ryan ShirkNov 23
Peer-reviewed empirical observation John. Otherwise known as scientific rigor.
John AbbateNov 23
Ryan ShirkNov 23