Category Archives: Discourse.net

Just wanted to say Hi to my reader from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Whoever you are.

Since I’ve posted before on Dreamhost’s unfortunate CPU-throttling measures, it’s only fair that I note their announcement relaxing the policy,

Well, we’re sick and tired of people being sick and tired of getting disabled for “cpu minute” overages! ESPECIALLY when we don’t even have any real set “cpu minute” levels for plans, or a tab on our web panel where you can track your usage.

So “guess” what?! We’ve changed our “cpu minute” “policy” “for the better!” We no longer HAVE any limits on “cpu minutes”. Maybe it’s just semantics, and maybe it’s just “crazy overselling”, but as long as your site or scripts aren’t causing problems with the server, you are IN THE CLEAR!

Let’s say you’re not IN THE CLEAR though.. don’t worry! We’ll work with you! We’re adding a BUNCH of new servers to help “get” the average load per web server down, and we’ll work with high-load people to get their usage down or their butts onto a new server that can handle it.

… although according to the Unofficial DreamHost Blog, exactly how this will work in practice isn’t 100% clear. I hope this isn’t just a PR gloss on the same old policy, but since they told me I was stressing the server when I ran into the CPU limits…

Someone wrote to me once hinting he might offer the high four figures or even five if I would sell him discourse.net. I had no idea if it was real, or some sort of scam, or an attempt to entrap me into something that might be used against me in some weird UDRP proceeding. And since I had no real desire to sell, it seemed safer not to reply and too much trouble to write back with the sort of NDA you have to have in hand before entering into domain name related negotiations.

If you believe this wacky site spotted by Alex Halavais, then it was a waay lowball offer anyway,

discourse.net

   It has been determined based on search results that this name may be extensively valuable beyond the scope of the LeapFish.com domain analysis tool. It is recommended that you seek the services of a complete domain appraisal company rather than rely on this estimate.
Thank You.

Combined Value Score: 309
Top
Level Domain Score:  8

Unwanted
Characters Score:  10
Dictionary
Word Score:  100
Length
Score:  10
Archive.org
Score:  81

Google
Search Results:  719,000
Yahoo
Search Results:  0
MSN
Search Results:  56,218
Search
Engine Score:  100

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Estimated
Base Value: $927.00
Estimated
Actual Value: $143,222.00

I don’t myself have much faith in automated domain valuation, but if you do, and think something in the healthy six-figure range sounds reasonable, we should definitely talk.

No less than Sean Wilentz has an article in Rolling Stone, asking if Bush is The Worst President in History?

You saw it here (much less well) first: Worst President Ever?. Incidentally I agree with the commentators on that earlier post that the guy to beat is Buchanan. But GWB sure is making a run for it. One attack on Iran or a good big collapse of the dollar, and we’re there, aren’t we?

Here’s one guy who is worrying that Bush will take the country down with him. When people start talking like that, it’s a crisis, isn’t it?

The National Journal’s Hotline Blogometer turns its “blogger spotlight” on what it calls “not your everyday Froomkin”.

The Dark Side of DreamHost (and Shared Hosting) captures something true.

On the other hand, changing the names of some of my movable type modules so that bots wouldn’t find them as easily had major effects: it reduced the CPU time I was using to a quarter of what it had been, and now I’m very comfortably under their limits again.