I don't think the CPU alert is worth having, so we should be okay to disable it.

Why on earth would anyone bother to attack our forum? Strange. It is quite strange. It's not unusual for us to get bogged down by a DoS attack. I block an IP range and problem solved. I've never seen one distributed like this one before, though. As for why, no earthly idea. Maybe it's practice?

Sorry about the emails, dualstow. I've turned off the CPU alerts for this machine. Good news is it looks like the torrent has abated, at least for now. Let's hope it stays that way. boglerdude, if the host were struggling, things would be slow for no reason apparent to our system. But that's not the...

It's not terribly meaningful to ask for a prediction of the top without giving either a timeframe or a definition of how much lower it must go than its record for that record to be considered a top.

Hi folks, We seem to be under a distributed denial of service attack. There is no one IP or IP range to block. I've tried to tweak things to allow the service to mostly operate. If you see an error, just refresh and try again. Sorry about the trouble. It might be possible to largely mitigate by (tem...

Jack Jones wrote: ↑Tue Feb 17, 2026 9:19 amLooks like more evidence for the Hijacked thesis was released in the Epstein files.

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-hij ... f-bitcoin/

If I'm at a cocktail party and I say that Epstein is responsible for hijacking Bitcoin, I sound like an absolute lunatic.

Happened to see this on Drudge today: https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening I think it's worth reading. His point is that we're in the same spot we were in February of 2020 with Covid: that everything is about to change. I know you've heard that kind of thing before, but it's worth reading h...

That's one way to describe "off-topic"!

Modern headrests have greatly reduced whiplash in car accidents. EXCEPT for some reason GM vehicles (at least Suburbans/Tahoes) don't have them in their middle seats. Middle rear: no headrest. Middle middle: no headrest. I recently saw a Suburban with a front-row bench seat. Middle front: no headres...

Thanks for the kind words. Not everyone would agree with you. When I started, I had visions of me being the technical administrator and others handling any kind of user issues. Unfortunately that's not how it played out: the buck ends up stopping with me, and I don't really like that, but it's been ...

Smith1776 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 28, 2026 10:13 am Xan: the best forum steward on the internet!

I'm glad you think so! I fear I've disappointed many of you on this private message thing, though. There isn't much that I could do to improve the situation, I don't think.

Oh I should also point out that in theory, Linode has access to all this too! And even more in theory and less likely, the people who run the datacenter.

In terms of private messages, this isn't different from your email provider. Unless you are hosting your own email, then your provider has access to all your email. If it's stored on their server, they have access to it, and if it so much as passes through their server on its way to you, they could ...

When Craig stepped back from the forum, he did so completely. In fact he had originally planned for it to disappear. He hasn't had anything to do with the forum, other than being a member, for many years. The forum is hosted on a Linode rented by me. I administer the (virtual) server. I have access ...

Yes, only the people who actually run the site would be able to read private messages, not run-of-the-mill moderators or even admins.

Can Meta read Whatsapp messages? https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1qngizc/lawsuit_alleges_meta_can_read_whatsapp_messages/ I just checked to confirm that you are part of this forum's team. Can any person on the team read any of private forum communications with one another? That is impo...

The big question is, how much is temporary and how much is permanent?

Maybe you're right, Vinny. Also I thought one of the worst things about a potential Harris presidency was that she wanted to do price controls. Now suddenly Trump is not only for price controls (at least for credit card interest), but he's for government ownership of companies. Isn't that straight-u...

"We need Greenland for national security." My understanding is that we have an existing agreement that lets us do virtually anything we need militarily in Greenland. It's also under the control of an ally. Is Trump really willing to blow up NATO in order to attempt to seize Greenland? Why?...

dualstow wrote: ↑Sun Jan 11, 2026 8:29 pm At least at the beginning.

Could you expand on that, Dualstow?

Hi All, I do occassional lurking, but wanted to post and say hello to all. I'm still doing my Permanent Portfolio and have been to the US several times for work and see family. Things in the US (and New Zealand) have gotten very expensive as all the govt. spending is catching up and the bill is due...

Ice report from here: it's a bit chillier today, but it was around 80 degrees yesterday. I didn't observe any ice.

Please tell us something about yourself.

What do you mean by portfolio? In particular, are you including the primary residence? (I'm assuming, if so, that the amount of equity in the house is what would be counted.) I understand the common practice is to consider primary residence as part of total net worth but not as part of investment p...

What do you mean by portfolio? In particular, are you including the primary residence? (I'm assuming, if so, that the amount of equity in the house is what would be counted.)