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Posted by: djellison May 8 2008, 03:53 PM

After the great 'server drive' fund raising by UMSF members, we have our dual 3ghz server up and running. I have another domain hosted on it already. It has been fast, and 100% stable ( touch wood ) for 2 months.

Thus, the intention is to move UMSF to the new server this weekend.

At approx 1200UT ( 1300 my time ) UMSF will be 'turned off'. The database is rather large, and can not be moved in an instant - nor can the 4Gb of attachments.

After the forum is switched off, a full backup will begin, sending the entire forum content to the new server ( this has been tested just now - and takes 2-3 hours )

Only once the full backup is successfully completed, will the DNS settings be changed, pointing the domain to the new server.

Once the backup is completed, the database must be repopulated on the new server, the attachments moved to the right place, the settings updated and checked - and only once the forum itself is up and running will it be turned 'on' again. At that point, it will take a couple of hours ( potentially significantly less ) for the domain-name shift to propagate across the web to your own ISP.

The move is scheduled for what is the quietest days of the week, and the quietest hours of that day for UMSF - to minimize withdrawal symptoms. Things might not go perfectly, so you'll just have to hold tight.

To keep everyone up to date - I will use a new external blog ( http://umsf.blogspot.com/ ) with news of the transfer - once UMSF is down, check there for details!

Posted by: Stu May 8 2008, 04:04 PM

You want "quiet"? How lonely did I feel earlier today...???





Great news about the Big Switch. Thanks to everyone involved behind the scenes, and here's to a succesful transfer; in all seriousness I would hate to live in a world without UMSF.

Posted by: ngunn May 8 2008, 04:37 PM

Good luck Doug. Hello Stu . .

Posted by: nprev May 8 2008, 11:59 PM

Give 'em hell, Doug, and thanks!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 9 2008, 02:40 AM

Perfect. I am also moving my home this weekend so I'm glad to see I won't miss anything as I try to reconnect and reconfigure at the new house.

Now, I'd like a few nods of sympathy from everyone. I am moving from a bustling suburban community to a rural agricultural area. So I won't have the cable TV company that I now use for my internet connection and will be forced to use the local phone company's DSL service......

The consolation is that I now have really dark skies at night, so I may dust off the telescopes and go back to that wonderful hobby again. I might even get myself something newer and state of the art to teach my kids with.

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 02:52 AM

Have fun, Dan...(sorry; I know how bad moving sucks!)

Doug, not to scare you, but just for fun I Googled the word 'unmanned'....and UMSF was the fourth ranked hit! For both 'spaceflight' and 'space flight', UMSF was on the 4th page, which is still pretty damn good out of 9.6 million hits.

Posted by: Tesheiner May 9 2008, 07:49 AM

I've bookmarked the link to the "lifeboat", just in case. And while you are in this process and the forum is disabled, may I suggest (you will probably have already taken this into account) that a homepage at www.unmannedspaceflight.com saying "man at work" or something similar should still be available and it should include that same link on it.

Good luck during the switchover!

Posted by: remcook May 9 2008, 07:58 AM

good luck!

Posted by: djellison May 9 2008, 08:19 AM

There's a setting in Invision to turn a board on or off, and when you turn it off, you can put a message up - such as 'Men at Work', or ' Forum unavailable due to server transfer' etc

Posted by: climber May 9 2008, 11:17 AM

Not as scary as an EDL but good luck anyway!
I'll see you there and then.

Posted by: djellison May 9 2008, 07:32 PM

You do know the countryside smells of poo? That's all there is. Livestock, and poo. I spent the best years of my youth in the countryside, most of it standing in, on, or near...poo.

Posted by: Stu May 9 2008, 07:57 PM

The BEST years?! What the **** were you standing in, on, or near during the WORST years?!?!?

You do the countryside a disservice, sir. We also have the heady aromas of tractors spilling diesel oil... muddy sheep soaked with wee... muddy sheepdogs soaked with sheep wee... Argos chain-decorated chavs splashed with cheap Aldi "Rhino" or "Raptor" aftershave, and other olfactory delights...

Bet all you LA dwellers are reet jealous now, eh?

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 08:15 PM

Speaking as a current LA dweller born & raised in Montana and therefore well-acquainted with the various olfactory byproducts of a number of animals...well, that's why I'm now an LA dweller! (Not that I smell all that good myself, you understand, nor does the city in some places...)

Gotta admit, though, well-aged & dried cow poo does have its applications. Makes a pretty good Frisbee, and of course it's always great to throw at your younger brother...

Believe it or not, though; I miss it. I miss wide-open spaces and few or no faces very badly; really miss the peace of fishing all alone on a big, big river. When I was growing up I was fascinated by the very concept of big cities; never saw one until I was maybe ten years old (Seattle), and it was exciting; thought they were the place to be. Now that I'm an old fart, honestly think that when I retire in 11 years or so will go back to Montana or perhaps southeast Alaska to feed my soul.

Posted by: djellison May 9 2008, 08:24 PM

Well - http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2007/07/09/st_georges_tower_feature.shtml is a start. Have to work next to it - it's bloody 'orrible

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 08:30 PM

Huh. There are 4 or 5 new condo towers going up right near me in downtown LA that look just like that! Not blue, but they have all that color-window-stuff going on. Must be the latest architectural fad.

Posted by: djellison May 9 2008, 08:48 PM

This one's a few decades old. A really really REALLY badly done coat of blue paint is the developers idea of improving a building that should have been demolished years ago.

Posted by: nprev May 9 2008, 08:54 PM

Ah, yes, developers...everybody's favorite people...

The new LA projects are basic concrete gray mostly--a couple are pale yellow in accordance with Southwest US architecture. The latter might have been a better choice.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 10 2008, 03:25 AM

Nah, the agriculture near me is vineyards, and they don't fertilize them with that any more. Did I mention the dark skies?

Posted by: Zeke4ther May 10 2008, 04:47 AM

Dan, good luck on your house move. I will envy you for your dark skies
Toronto is almost as bad as LA.

Dough,
I am hoping, as all the rest, on a smooth transistion. Being in the in the IT business, I know that even the best laid plans
may not go as planned

Robin

Posted by: dvandorn May 10 2008, 05:15 AM

Yes, good luck to you, Doug on the transfer. I have fingers and toes crossed that nothing will go wrong. I'm sure your by-now-vast experience with the Invision software will let you bring UMSF back online with no ill effects. (However, I'm already beginning the trembles, the first symptoms of the deliriens tremens that will pile on me full force in the tenth or eleventh hour without UMSF...)

And my heart goes out to you, Dan. I moved about 18 months ago, and while it was an urban move (from one city location to another), about 80% of it was accomplished over a period of six weeks, consisting of load upon load of boxes, transported a dozen miles in a truly tiny Subaru Justy. We had to have made more than a hundred runs before we ever even thought about renting the truck for the major furniture on Moving Day.

Sorry to hear that you're going to have to downgrade to DSL. It's better than dial-up, to be sure, but the speed you get is so dependent on your distance from the "central office" that it's truly a crapshoot whether or not you'll get tolerable service. I wouldn't recommend satellite internet yet, though -- last I heard, most of them still require you to upload via a dedicated dial-up telephone line, with only downloads available through the dish at broadband speeds.

As for rural areas being covered with poo -- in the U.S., that's sort of variable. Major livestock farming over here tends to be concentrated into blocks. You can have hundreds of square km with nothing but plant farming (corn, wheat, soybeans, sorghum) anywhere in site. Some farms will maintain a small amount of livestock on a primarily agricultural farm, but that livestock doesn't amount to much in comparison to the cornfields. (Of course, a relatively modest-sized pig farm, no matter how small a percentage of its county it may take up, is still going to make a very strong impression on anyone who happens to be downwind of it on any given day. Trust me, I know. I grew up in central Illinois.)

So, while you can *always* find poo out in the country, here in the States you can usually avoid it pretty easily -- if you watch where you're walking.



-the other Doug

Posted by: DEChengst May 10 2008, 03:41 PM

After firing "dig" at several nameservers it seems I've found the new box and it's working too

Posted by: djellison May 10 2008, 03:42 PM

Well - the transfer is done. Currently, the DNS hasn't refreshed to my ISP yet - so I'm viewing via a proxy that uses a path that has got the new pointing right. I can't reliably test the site in full until I can navigate 'naively' but I think everything should just about be working.

Doug

Posted by: DEChengst May 10 2008, 03:50 PM

Just add the new server's IP address to the local hostfile and things should work fine. That's how I got in here.

Testing adding an attachment. This is just a console log of me going through several levels of nameserver with dig to find the new server's IP address.

 digging.txt ( 4.09K ) : 1831

Posted by: dvandorn May 10 2008, 04:20 PM

OK -- it's about ten minutes since I noted in the lifeboat blog that Comcast doesn't have the new IP associated in DNS yet, and here the forum popped up. So it's propogated out this far.

Looks good, Doug!

-the other Doug

Posted by: dvandorn May 10 2008, 04:28 PM

Must be propogating out pretty fast -- control panel says there are currently 71 people on the forum, 10 members and 61 guests. That's a pretty normal number for a Saturday late morning, here (late afternoon over on the other side of the pond).

-the other Doug

Posted by: Tesheiner May 10 2008, 04:35 PM

Got it!
First attempt half an hour ago pointed me to the old site.
Er..., I suppose I'm posting at the new server, right?

Posted by: Stu May 10 2008, 04:38 PM

All's well here too... good to be back!

Posted by: Greg Hullender May 10 2008, 05:05 PM

Wow. I'm impressed how snappy it is now!

--Greg

Posted by: djellison May 10 2008, 05:05 PM

Yup - if you can post, you're on the new site. The old one now has a closed message.

Posted by: dvandorn May 10 2008, 05:14 PM

Response times for pretty much all functions are noticeably faster here, Doug.

This joint is jumpin'!

-the other Doug

Posted by: djellison May 10 2008, 05:27 PM

Page process times show on the bottom of the admin section. On the old server, anything from 0.25 to 1.5s or more was common. Now it's in the 0.02s area. The performance restriction now is actually ping times to and from Europe for me If you're US, and especially west coast US - you're going to have a very fast server

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 10 2008, 05:54 PM

Got it...and it's rippin'!!!! Well done, Doug.

EDIT: Just played around a bit, and you're right; it's just wicked fast from LA! What's weird is that I ran a tracert just for grins to the new IP, and everything after the 14th hop timed out; is this some sort of proxy thing?

EDIT2: It's unreal how responsive the site is now. EVERYTHING's fast.

Posted by: DEChengst May 10 2008, 06:26 PM

It's probably a firewall issue/setting. To me it looks like ICMP traffic is getting dropped. Using traceroute in UDP mode it works fine.



If I switch to ICMP mode it fails however:



This may be done on purpose. I drop ICMP that comes from the outside world on my firewall as well.

Posted by: djellison May 10 2008, 07:02 PM

That will be one of the steps taken by my server management guys who did a swathe of server security steps after the server was in our hands, I would imagine.

Doug

Posted by: elakdawalla May 10 2008, 08:33 PM

Whoah, you're not kidding, Doug! Super zippy here. Hooray! Who knew a server switch could happen without any major snafus? Our most recent hardware switch had us intermittently down for more than two weeks!

--Emily

Posted by: nprev May 10 2008, 08:39 PM

Thinkin' we should call this a success...damn, this is fast!!!

Congratulations, Doug, as well as to all others involved; most impressive!

Posted by: nprev May 10 2008, 08:58 PM

Just for testing purposes, a noted member & I just exchanged PMs...lightning, absolutely lightning, probably <1 minute delay. Wow!!!!

Posted by: djellison May 10 2008, 09:51 PM

Certainly not me - I was expecting it to take all weekend

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 10 2008, 11:22 PM

Sometimes probability doesn't suck, by definition...bask in the glory & relief!

Posted by: Zeke4ther May 11 2008, 12:42 AM

Nice and fast!!

Posted by: stevesliva May 11 2008, 08:43 PM

Wow, this is indeed MUCH faster. Thank you Doug!

Posted by: mhoward May 11 2008, 09:01 PM

I'm impressed. I thought my mediocre Internet connection would hide any speed improvement, but the site seems much faster now.

Posted by: Shaka May 12 2008, 12:52 AM

Amazing, but I'm concerned about one thing.
Does this mean we're going to have to think faster as well?

Posted by: dvandorn May 12 2008, 01:43 AM

Well, after a full day of using the forum on the new server, I have to say it has remained significantly faster in all functions. None of the individual boards or topics are displaying that "take five minutes to load a post" behavior that had plagued about a third of the boards for me, and pages pop quite smartly.

I think we all agree this is a really good move, Doug!

-the other Doug

Posted by: nprev May 12 2008, 02:17 AM

Second that as well; this is a quantum leap. Gonna need it for Phoenix, for sure, and especially because the landing occurs the evening before a US national holiday, so the traffic will be even more intense. UMSF has an inordinately large amount of Google hits already.

Speaking of which, Doug, any specific forum plans for landing day?

Posted by: edstrick May 12 2008, 02:59 AM

I'm not sure that what's important is that the board is exactly "faster", in some respects, though it is.

But, so far, it doesn't have short, extended, or long pauses, and it doesn't just "hang" as though the net connection between me and it had died.

Posted by: nprev May 13 2008, 02:04 AM

It just loads at lightspeed for me no matter what. I'd swear I was on a LAN site instead of the Net. Dunno; maybe I live just a few blocks from the server?

Posted by: Tesheiner May 13 2008, 07:47 AM

I'm pretty sure the server is located quite far from my location here in Spain, and the change was significant.
What I always do after checking in is look for new posts and open each new thread of interest in a separate tab. Just a few clicks and I have a number of pages loading simultaneously on the browser. This process was taking a significant time on the previous server but now the time is almost irrelevant.

Posted by: climber May 13 2008, 04:09 PM

Significantly faster for me too, in South of France; which means about the same distance from the server as Edouardo

Posted by: djellison May 14 2008, 11:03 PM

We've got an issue on the new server with registrations - the security CAPTCHA image isn't being generated. If you're trying to register, and can't - drop me an email ( djellison@mac.com ) and I'll do it the manual way. We're working the problem, hopefully we'll figure it out soon.

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 14 2008, 11:10 PM

There always has to be one damn bug, doesn't there?

Speaking of which...has anyone yet tried typing The Word That Must Not Be Typed yet? (I don't wanna do it!)

Posted by: djellison May 14 2008, 11:11 PM

DO IT - I dare you.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 14 2008, 11:12 PM

chunked

Posted by: nprev May 14 2008, 11:25 PM

Ha-HA!!!!! Man has triumphed over machine!!!!!

(I wanted an admin to do it; damned if I was gonna be blamed for screwing up the brand-new server!!!!)

Posted by: djellison May 15 2008, 09:05 AM

Ahh - our PHP compile doesn't include the GD libraries required to do things like generate the thumbnails, produce the CAPTCHA graphic etc. Hopefully the server-admins will do that today. I'll then do a complete thumbnail rebuild to bring things up to speed

Update

There may be some downtime in over the next 24 hrs to get this sorted.

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 15 2008, 02:23 PM

Maybe Bob will be able to get back on now...?

Phil

Posted by: djellison May 15 2008, 04:49 PM

CAPTCHA now working with the GD library - I'll run a rebuild of thumbnails now as well.

Doug

Posted by: climber May 15 2008, 05:50 PM

I had to enter my username and password again (normaly automatic on my computer); It happens once in a while. Anything to do with the change ?

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 15 2008, 05:56 PM

If you are losing the password cookie, try using www.unmannedspaceflight.com instead of just unmannedspaceflight.com

Posted by: djellison May 15 2008, 06:07 PM

I've switched to the stronghold cookie - which is more robust than the usual one and would prevent a similar hack to the one that caused a virus to be linked-to from the foum previous.

Doug

Posted by: Floyd May 16 2008, 04:21 PM

I'm having trouble staying loged in. Bumped out when I try and post.

Floyd

Posted by: climber May 16 2008, 07:08 PM

This is what I use actualy. I've been asked again for pasword today (but this time my computer remembered it so I had to hit "enter" only)

Posted by: djellison May 16 2008, 07:41 PM

I've switched back to the non-stronghold cookie - so it would ask some people again.

Doug.

Posted by: djellison May 16 2008, 08:13 PM

Just for those that like stats...

New server doing beautifully.

Also - the problem of getting GD to rebuild the thumbnails from the few days when it wasn't working is fixed - PHP didn't have enough memory allocated to play with. Fixed with a quick ini file setting change.

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 18 2008, 08:22 PM

Oooo...AWESOME new banner, Doug, thank you!!!!

Gotta say frankly that this is the best yet by far; really captures what UMSF is about in a single image. Love it!!!!

Go Phoenix!!!!

Posted by: djellison May 18 2008, 09:12 PM

The latest in a series of 'Pimp my banner' courtesy of AstroO He's VERY good at these

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 18 2008, 10:30 PM

Obviously. Astro0 is a Mac Daddy pimp then...well done!!!

Posted by: Astro0 May 18 2008, 10:40 PM

PC Daddy actually. Photoshop Rules!
Astro0

Posted by: nprev May 18 2008, 11:22 PM

PC Daddy it is then...nevertheless, thank you!!! Really nice, just love it.

Posted by: nprev May 22 2008, 03:23 AM

Doug, I just dumped my entire cache (finally), and ever since I've noticed that I have to log on every time I surf back to the site from elsewhere. Not a big deal, just thought you'd like to know. Running IE7 here on XP.

Posted by: djellison May 22 2008, 08:23 AM

You shouldn't, I certainly don't. Not a forum problem I'm afraid. Are you visiting www. not just .umsf ? There isn't a 'make people forget logins' button that has been pressed.

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 22 2008, 11:57 AM

Yeah, seems to have been me; it's working fine now.

Weird. Maybe the cookie didn't load successfully the first few times.

Posted by: djellison May 23 2008, 12:56 AM

Well that was interesting. No idea of a cause for that 1hr of downtime yet. Server management team are on the case.

"It was related to a small power issue we had, everything should be fine now."

YOU'VE got power issues. Clearly you've never parked on home plate for 8 months.

On the way back up, the database got a kicking which cause some session control issues. I repaired the database ( by hitting a button marked 'repair' ) and it's back up and running fine now.

What's amazing is how quickly the current visitors number rocketed back up after downtime. Having had look at Google Analytics - yesterday was UMSF's busiest day this year - and I can see a pre-phoenix trend. We needed this server

Doug

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 02:13 AM

#1: GO TO BED & READ THIS LATER!!! (Please?)

#2: As I mentioned on the Lifeboat blog, ask these guys about their UPS arrangements...might be time for another fundraiser for a standalone device.

Quick war story: Last year during my Reserve duty here in sunny SoCal we started taking bets as to when our automated test bench would shut down during the afternoon...we got within less then ten minutes of error, usually. The power grid drain from air conditioning use throughout the area was so high that the supply voltage would drop below the station's tolerance for a second or two at a time & it would shut down. We bought & installed a nice 15KVa UPS (way bigger than needed for a server, obviously, but that station does a lot of other stuff, like providing high-current DC for testing flight control computer servoamps)...no probs from then on, and in fact much greater reliability because it conditions the input power as well, thus preventing power transients from messing up components.

So, if the server's well inland (Pasadena or further east), it's gonna have some power issues in the summer. Today was an anomaly--we almost never get T-storms this time of year; actually, we almost never get T-storms, period--but it might be a harbinger of future probs.

Posted by: centsworth_II May 23 2008, 02:20 AM

Don't worry. He's just acclimating himself to be up and bright-eyed when Phoenix lands.

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 02:23 AM

<grumble>...ya just gotta worry about the guy; he's still got a day job! Running UMSF alone woulda killed me outright two years ago...</grumble>

Posted by: centsworth_II May 23 2008, 02:26 AM

Brace yourself, this is something you may not like to think about...................................................he's young.

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 02:38 AM

Oh, yeah, THAT lasts forever... . My warranty ran out when I turned 30, and the extension was definitely gone at 40...

Posted by: elakdawalla May 23 2008, 02:55 AM

Not only that, he doesn't have kids yet. He has approximately eleventeen times the 'free' time that us old breeders have.

It's a good point about the UPS arrangements. The power issue could have been related to today's freak storms -- I heard on the radio that there was actually a tornado east of here, which is practically unheard of. In honor of the polar landing, it actually hailed at JPL today -- I've got pics to post later. After waiting out the hail I drove out of a thundery downpour across the valley to cloudless skies and fire-tinder-dry landscape at home.

--Emily

Posted by: nprev May 23 2008, 04:22 AM

Would you believe two tornadoes that skirted the south edge of my USAF Reserve base? Article & a video of one of them:

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20080522_tornados_moreno_valley.htm

No deaths or serious injuries, thankfully.

This is unusual in the extreme. I read somewhere that on the average everywhere in the US gets hit by a tornado at least once every 200 years...guess we got "lucky".

EDIT: An unfortunate correction: a trucker was in fact seriously hurt when one of the twisters mangled his rig. The storms also blew several railroad cargo cars off of their tracks. These would seem to have been at least F2 tornadoes. Heads up: possibly more of the same sort of weather today.

Posted by: PhilCo126 May 26 2008, 08:41 AM

Just emphasizing that the new server switch couldn't have been better timed
Moreover, with the Phoenix landing, I've never seen so many "Junior Members" online...

Doug, any idea how the Phoenix landing affected the number of newly registered members on UMSF?

Posted by: nprev May 26 2008, 03:46 PM

Wondering that myself; we got 124 people on right now as I write this (0845 PDT)...REALLY high for a Monday morning, even if it is a US & UK holiday.

Posted by: Tesheiner May 26 2008, 03:57 PM

160 people right now. No doubt that we would have been knocked-out without this server switch.
Doug, do you have any statistics to share?

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 05:00 PM

I'll give it a day or two, and then show the build-up, and following fall off

One thing I will say - the usual number of posts per day is about 30-60. Yesterday was 267 and today, so far, is 547. Today is the busiest UMSF day ever, yesterday the 4th. Previously is was Jan 19th 2006.

Doug

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 26 2008, 05:07 PM

What time is the "day" cutoff? 12:00 UT? I was a bit shocked by 547 since from my perspective its 10:00 am on a holiday here

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 05:10 PM

Forum time is BST (so 1810 right now ) - but the raw server stats will be PST.

Doug

Posted by: jmjawors May 31 2008, 06:42 PM

Speaking of time zones, I've noticed a problem that I didn't have before the server switch, so I suppose this is the best place to post about it.

It's certainly not a big deal, but for some odd reason the 'board time' keeps jumping backwards and forwards an hour. For instance, Doug's post right above this one currently says "12:10PM." But if I were to navigate away from the site and then come back it might say "11:10AM." Rinse and repeat and it's back to "12:10PM." This occurs not only within the post itself but also on the main board page.

I've cleared my cookies but the problem persists. Not sure there's anything else I can do on my end. But like I said, it's nothing but a very minor inconvenience. Anyone else have this issue?

Oh... I'm using Firefox.

Edit :: Sure enough, as soon as I post about it I found a fix. The problem was the auto-DST setting. Turned it off and all is fine now.

Posted by: djellison Jun 10 2008, 02:13 PM

Thought people might enjoy this - UMSF over the past month, including the Phoenix 'Spike'

Google Analytics produced this PDF.

Posted by: climber Jun 10 2008, 03:01 PM

Indeed !
I can see that there are not too many hits from France but we've got the record of the number of pages per visit. This must be because of the 35 work hours per week
I guess we'll go up again when we'll have sample analysis results, full pano, not talking about other discoveries...
Did I read right, 24% more people here ?

Posted by: djellison Jun 10 2008, 03:19 PM

Week 21 on '08 saw 39 registrations.

That's a record, beating 24 from Nov '05. (if you ignore the week that got 123 new regs because I accidentally turned off forum visibility to non members)

Doug

Posted by: nprev Jul 29 2008, 07:33 PM

Well, the server just withstood a 5.6 earthquake about 45 minutes ago without a hitch, and my cel providers apparently did not...good news! (For the server; not pleased about the phone outage.)

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 29 2008, 08:01 PM

I heard it was down in Chino Hills. I called a friend there and he said lots of shaking, not much damage that he can see anywhere.

Posted by: dvandorn Jul 29 2008, 08:02 PM

I guess it's apropos to ask here, then -- everyone out on the Left Coast doing OK, now? I saw the news and while there isn't anything along the lines of "big damage" reports in what I'm seeing, I figured I'd make sure no one on the Forum is in a bad way.

-the other Doug

Posted by: elakdawalla Jul 29 2008, 08:12 PM

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001576/. I think anything under magnitude 6, even a little higher, is in the realm of scary but not damaging.

--Emily

Posted by: nprev Jul 29 2008, 08:15 PM

Yeah, all's well here in downtown LA, but it really was a hell of a shake. I did the doorway thing in my bathroom (fortunately (?) I'm home today due to lack of hot water in my 5th floor apartment!), and watched stuff in my closet swaying for a full minute, at least. Lots of building creaking as well.

Saw a lot of these in Alaska, but this was definitely the second-strongest shake I've ever felt.

EDIT: Local news here is endlessly repeating the possibility that this was a foreshock (5% chance)... Okay, I might need a place to stay for the next few months. Who's got the beer?

Posted by: djellison Nov 30 2008, 11:29 PM

FYI - still working from the donations pot - the server is now paid for until the end of June '09.

Posted by: Astro0 Dec 1 2008, 03:23 AM

Hmmm, only until June '09.
Time to start thinking about extra donations for the expected increase in discussions about MSL's pending launch and cruise.

The goal - enough to pay for extra server space/speed/features(?) to get us through to July 14 2015 - New Horizons closest approach to Pluto. Then we can worry about the Kuiper Belt.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Dec 1 2008, 07:50 AM

Next time ( MSL 2009 ) I'll double my donation ... promised

Posted by: PhilCo126 Dec 6 2008, 10:22 AM

With MSL being delayed, we'll need to find another "reason" to start donating to UMSF.com again
Just warn the UMSF community on time...