I’d like to direct your eyes to the right left hand side of your screen where you will see that in addition to the “back to top” arrow, we now have a “go to bottom” arrow. It should work on your mobile devices, as well as on the desktop version of the site.
Those of you using the excellent site enhancements of Monocle, brought to you by trshmnstr and greasonable, already have some great features.
However, for those of us using unsupported desktop browsers or mobile devices, this will make it easier to pretend we’re not reading the site during meetings, as we won’t have to scroll forever after hitting refresh. I had hoped that perhaps all you glibs would just stop being so darn long-winded and the pages would get shorter, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. 😉
Some other improvements have been made behind-the-scenes, but this is the only one that matters to you folks!
Our beloved and infallible hosting service is testing our faith right now. Comments are having to be manually approved. WE LOVE YOU, INTERNET…DO NOT FORSAKE US!
UPDATE: I AM TYPING AS FAST AS I CAN, to approve comments. Site is slow reloading.
#$^&ing comments!
UPDATE 2: We have brought additional assets on-line, and they appear to be helping!
“1020 GOTO FUCK OFF SLAVER” What?
From our provider:
August 24, 2017 9:20AM PDT
[Investigating]Â Our Operations teams are currently investigating connectivity issues which indicate an issue related to our name servers. We will provide updated information as it becomes available.
August 24, 2017 10:20AM PDT
[Identified]Â Our engineers have identified the cause of the DNS degradation as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. We are beginning to mitigate the attack and will update this post as new information becomes available.
It wasn’t us!
UPDATE 3:
August 24, 2017 12:21PM PDT
[Monitoring]Â Our engineers are continuing to mitigate the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that targeted our network. At this time, all services have been restored and are operational. We’ll continue to update this post as updates are available.
In alarming, but not surprising, news, the Department of Justice is demanding over 1.3 million IP addresses and associated contact information for visitors to a website hosted by Dreamhost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company. Our web host.
The only surprising aspect of the case is that it is not Glibertarians.com that is targeted. The website in question is disruptj20.org, “a website that organized participants of political protests against the current United States administration,” according to Dreamhost. Not only is the contact and personal information of the site visitors wanted, the DOJ is also pushing for access to photographs of protesters that are on the site’s server, and what content the website visitors viewed.
If you don’t want something coming back to bite you in the ass, don’t put it online in any form. Almost everyone gets this. (Well, maybe not the assorted criminals who are easily apprehended after posting videos of their criminal exploits publicly on Facebook.) This has been a concern for far longer than the current administration has been around, as I am quite sure the Glibertariat is well aware. Hell, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established in 1978, and it has been perverted and allowed to be used for nefarious purposes willy-nilly ever since, completely gutting Fourth Amendment protections.
However, web browsing is something that most people do automatically, without thinking too much about the ramifications. Of course, many people routinely block their browsing history from spouses, children, bosses and other people in their daily lives. (Visitors to the Certified Family Friendly website Glibertarians.com should certainly be doing so.) It’s far more difficult to block one’s browsing history from one’s internet service provider, and from the web host of sites one visits.
But back to Dreamhost. Dreamhost has a long history of attempting to protect its users by challenging law enforcement requests for information and legally rejecting them. In 2014, for example, DH was able to legally block 57% of the information requests it received.
I’ve been a Dreamhost customer for a decade, give or take. I use DH for all websites I build and domains I register, no matter who owns the site. One of the first things that sold me on DH was the ability to have one’s domain registrant and contacts protected by DH during a whois search, at a time when most other web hosts and domain registrars simply wouldn’t bother. I was happy to avoid random obnoxious marketers targeting website owners, and the occasional too-ardent admirer.
Since then, I’ve repeatedly seen that Dreamhost makes sincere and real efforts to protect more than my mailing address.
My concern over the gutting of the Bill of Rights by the government has increased steadily since 9/11. That dismantling shows no sign of slowing down. It gives me some tiny measure of comfort that Dreamhost shares that concern.
And THAT is why Dreamhost is our host.
If so led, show DH a little appreciation by commenting on their post (link below) or giving a quick shoutout on Twitter or Facebook.
“When you’re the king, everyone thinks they need to take a shot at you,” the hat muttered.
“What the hell are you talking about?” the hair asked.
“Our website was taken down. Hacked. Clearly a conspiracy to stop the relentless MAGA Train!”
“What website? We don’t have a website.”
“Glibertarians.com, motherfucker,” the hat told him, scorn dripping from his voice. “They write up our adventures.”
“Wait… someone knows about us? Someone is writing about us?”
“Yeah, some dumb fucker named SugarFree. Can’t type for shit, but he’s got the inside scoop somehow.”
“Like, he’s watching us?” the hair asked. He tried to smooth some of his more unruly ruffles. “Like, cameras?” the hair asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know how he does it. Might be psychic. Like we come to him in dreams or some shit.”
“What does he know?”
“Everything,” the hat replied.
“EVERYTHING?!?”
“Dude, dude, dude… you are missing the point. The website is down. They’ve been hacked. This is a clear attack on us.”
“That website should be taken down! Donald would shit out his heart if he knew we were being monitored!”
“Oh, fuck. Calm down. It’s a libertarian website. No one reads those but crazy people and losers. And no one pays attention to SugarFree. He’s a crap writer.”
“Then why have they been hacked? Who would bother to hack them?”
“I don’t know? Putin and the Russians?”
They both rolled around on the seat next to Donald on Air Force One, gripped by convulsive laughter.
In response to some interest in floating a few dollars to the people maintaining the site – we have established a Paypal (yes, I know…Elon Musk) means to do so. Â Look at the right side or bottom of the page and you will see the word “Donate” – the link will be there. Also, one does not need a Paypal account to use Paypal.
A couple of things, right up front;
THIS IS NOT A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION. A non-profit corporation runs this site – but it is NOT a federal 501(c)(3) corp. That takes a lot of fees, paperwork and gets the Feds all up in your business. So we said “no thank you”, and kept it smaller and State only.
We have put a limit in place – trying to keep our paperwork and reporting burdens down, we do not intend to take in more than a few thousand (under 5, if you must know) in any year. Â We are doing this not for Mammon, but for the Love of the Game. Well, and the groupies. Always that.
If someday, one of you has Bill Gates money – we can talk. But for now, a small token of your appreciation is more than enough. Feel free to give zero too…we are libertarians, for goodness sake – this is voluntary.
As you might have noticed, we here in Glibertaria have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to trolling. Â You trolls out there might say to yourself “Reason never banhammered me?” Â We are not Reason.
We will not hesitate to replace your trolling comments with pictures of cat buttholes for everyone to laugh at. Or to ban your ass without notice.
We’re all really delighted with the community that’s coming together here at Glib Central. But it feels as if we’re still missing something. Oh, right, an official logo!
Way back in the advent of Glibertarians.com history–you know, a week or so ago–we posted an invitation for you to design our new logo. Some entries have come in, but because we’ve nearly doubled our members (!) since the original post, we thought we’d give more of you a chance to win glory, fame and…wait for it…a bumper sticker!
That’s right, glibs. Everyone who creates a serious entry–and we get to decide what’s a serious entry–will receive a Glibertarians.com bumper sticker which can be plastered on a bumper (not a euphemism), laptop case, or anywhere that’s unlikely to get you assaulted. Unless you’re into that kind of thing.
To make this feasible for as many of you as possible, The Founders have magnanimously decided to extend the entry deadline to Pi Day. Yep, you now have until noon (CST) on Tuesday, March 14, to get your fabulous (and perhaps, not so fabulous) entries in.
One word of caution: do not send zipped files or any executables. They will NOT be opened.
Check out the original post for the specs and pay attention to the legal stuff from our in-house counsel. Now go have some orphans sharpen your pencils and get to work!
_______________
N.B. Entries must be SFW since the logo will be used to promote our future non-profit.
Thanks to now-designated-as beloved commenter Lafe Long for this truly excellent logo. At a later date we’ll post a roundup of other submissions so you can see the really hard choice that we had to make. There was much dissent, bargaining, and threatening to set people’s cars on fire, but eventually a choice was made. Even ZARDOZ and STEVE SMITH would be proud to wear this be-monocled fellow who is clearly firm but fair with his orphan servants.
Lafe was also kind enough to provide us with a nice font for the sitename too. Look for this to be appearing on t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumperstickers and those “pussy-hats” that the woke people are wearing nowadays in the near future. We’re just about done doing the basic things required like having a moneybin constructed to hold all the loot you’ll send us.
Lafe, in addition to our undying gratitude, you’ll get some free swag when we get it set up, full credit for creating the logo, and a no-expenses paid trip to Warty’s basement.
I’ve been asked to write a post to be used as an information hub for Monocle. I’ll give a quick explanation of what features Monocle has, some wishlist feature that Monocle should have sometime in the future, and how to install Monocle.
Basically, Monocle is a rough equivalent to Reasonable/fascr/greasonable on TSTSNBN. I wrote the initial code for myself as a learning experience, and greasonable hacked it up to get rid of all of my noob crap code and replaced it with quality, efficient code, some of which comes from his eponymous script. greasonable is pretty much the best, and he deserves many accolades for the work he has done so far.
Currently, the source code for Monocle is stored on gitlab.com, so anybody who wishes to help out can reach out to us and we’ll get you plugged in. Development of the code is on more of a “do what you want when you want” cycle, so we’ll never make any promises for a release date unless the feature’s availability is imminent.
Mobile Update! 2018/01/03 I have crafted a somewhat mobile friendly version of Monocle called Eyepiece. The only way I know to use it is to add tamper monkey to mobile Firefox and install Eyepiece by clicking the link.
How do I install Monocle?
Monocle only works on non-mobile versions of Firefox and Chrome; and now on mobile Firefox. Yes, it sucks that mobile is not supported. No, mobile support isn’t the highest priority right now. See update above! (SP edit)
Click “Install” or “Reinstall” in the appropriate place
What Features are Currently Included?
Full width article/comments – if the author of a piece forgets to turn off the sidebar, Monocle removes that part of the webpage and expands the article and comments to full width of the screen.
Local timestamp – the timestamps for the comments are in Central Time on the server. Monocle adjusts them to your local time zone.
Condensed comments – The default view for comments has a large amount of space between consecutive comments. Monocle condenses them closer together.
Next unread comment – The Monocle toolbar shows a count of the unread comments on the page. Clicking that button cycles through the unread comments.
Show/Hide old threads – The Monocle toolbar includes a toggle for hiding all the comment threads that haven’t been commented on since your last refresh
HTML tag buttons – There are buttons above the comment box that allow you to insert HTML tags for formatting your comment. If you highlight any text on the screen and then click a tag button, the text will be placed within the tag inside the comment.
Current Known Bugs
-The comments at the furthest right (without a reply button) are too close to one another
-Hide old threads hides siblings of new threads
-If you click a formatting button without previously typing something in the thread, the word COMMENT stays in the comment box
As of version 1.15, there are no known bugs
Wishlist
-WYSIWYG commenting (you get to see, in real time, what your comment will look like as you type it)
-Spellcheck
-User Mute/Block
-Theme/Word/Topic Mute/Block
-Dynamic loading of new comments (so you don’t have to refresh the page to see new comments)
-Alternate comment views (newest first, most popular first, etc.)
-Options toolbar for toggling all of Monocle’s options
-Automatic split of multiple links in order to avoid having to go through moderation (this feature will be subject to admin’s approval)
-Allow images and Youtube vids to be displayed on the page (either automatically, or subject to clicking a “show” button)
-“Replies to you” information/button to allow you to see the new comments that are in reply to yours
-Mobile support
How do I get help with my specific Monocle questions?
Post a comment in this article. It’ll bug me and I’ll come check it out.
How do I suggest a new feature, report a bug, or otherwise make general comments/questions about Monocle?
Post a comment in this article. I’ll read it and reply to you.
How do I know whether a feature would be good for Monocle or for glibertarians.com as a whole?
If it’s something you’d prefer, but you think that other people might prefer it a different way, that’s the perfect feature for Monocle. If it’s something that involves changing data on the server (like an edit button, two links in one comment, etc.), Monocle can’t do it. Generally, I’m not going to do anything that requires leaving “artifacts” in comments that Monocle then interprets and renders something different. That’s just mean to people who don’t use Monocle and can’t tell why the hell there’s some comment with computer code in it.
How do I lodge a complaint about Monocle?
Send all complaints to tour-scheduling@WartysDungeon.com
Think you’ve got what it takes to design our logo? Â Think you can submit it to us at submit@glibertarians.com by Saturday, March 4th at noon? Â Then we have just the thing for you.
This man is an artistAnd this is his art
We want you guys to design what will be the face of Glibertarians…the icon on our twitter handle, even! Â So send us in your finished products in .tif, .jpg or even lowly .pdf (I’m not judging, SugarFree is) to us by the above date. Â Winning submissions (and some really awful ones for the lulz) will be revealed Tuesday, March 7th in the evening.
Now go out there and make us proud!
P.S.: If Chimpy McHalliburton can draw, you can too. Â So no excuses!
And now for the legal stuff… [NOTE: This differs from our normal Disclaimer]
By submitting your entry, you confirm that all intellectual property rights in it are yours and you grant to us an irrevocable and perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully-paid, royalty-free, worldwide license, by ourselves or with others, to use, copy, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, print, publish, republish, excerpt (in whole or in part), reformat, translate, modify, revise and incorporate into other works, that submission and any works derived from that submission, in any form of media or expression, in the manner in which we choose.
Folks, in plain English that means you are submitting something original and yours – then it becomes ours. Completely ours. We will credit you as the artiste and laud you in these here pages. But we get to show it, sell it, make T-Shirts and mugs out of it (assuming our orphan workers are creative enough) or write it in the sky with fireworks – our choice. You still game? Good – send ‘em in and we’ll let you know if you are the lucky winner.
As you might have noticed, we here in Glibertaria have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to trolling. Â You trolls out there might say to yourself “Reason never banhammered me?” Â 
We’re all really delighted with the community that’s coming together here at Glib Central. But it feels as if we’re still missing something. Oh, right, an official logo!
