The Reply Button
Dear readers and commenters. Thank you for your relentless advisory that “The Reply Button Is Not Working”.
That is swell. But here is the deal, we are not guarantors of blog commentary perfection for you.
This is a blog that does not impinge on you, the reader and occasional commenter, with advertising of any sort. Much less the invasive horse manure that makes most blogs hard to even engage with (Yeah, go check out Talking Points Memo now).
We do not do a lick of that. Not.One.Lick. So, when you bitch about “golly the reply function does not work”, please stop and think about what happens behind the scenes.
I spent most of yesterday on my day job, and STILL got many dozens of notices of attack on this site.
If your “reply button” doesn’t work, instead of whining about it, note the name of who you are responding to, and the time of their comment you are responding to, and then respond to it.
How hard is this?? There are a LOT of people here that remember when such was the ONLY way you could respond to another commenter. If you cannot do this during the occasional moments when our “reply button” is not serving you well enough, suck it up.
adapt and overcome. now, why can’t I ever login?
you guys all get to login, but not me. that’s okay, I guess…I still love {{EW}}
:)
and for the record, reply seems to be working for me.
The reply button does not work.
My button is bigger and more powerful than yours, and my button works!
Can we use this list to write down what people observe about the reply button not working? I’ve actually tried to explain it to our developer but I don’t understand it. I think the reply button always works for me which — not to be an asshole about it or anything — makes it hard for me to fix it.
This time, it’s working. I think it’s letting people reply to you just to let the rest of us stew when we can’t reply to someone else.
Seriously?
“Open in New Tab” mostly works. “Open” never.
I had to open in new tab for this reply.
There are other times — again, not consistently — when the rich text editor doesn’t appear and it’s just a standard textarea.
99% certain it’s some Javascript that isn’t loading or triggering. I can probably do some diagnostics on it to nail it down.
Ha, Wordfence blocked my comment because I pasted in some JS code.
It’s the TinyMCE functions. For some reason, they don’t always get loaded correctly.
so, it is the TinyMice who are responsible…set the traps, and wait…
I was on a Windows machine (using Chrome) today and tried the reply button just to see if it would work. It didn’t, and opening the console showed, “Uncaught ReferenceError: TinyMCE not defined”. I think TinyMCE is the visual editor for WordPress. Maybe there is some OS specific code that loads the jQuery wrapper for TinyMCE but not the module itself?
yes, almost certainly jquery in particular. it may be the browser being used, or a cache (either server side, or on the browser).
These two things:
Plus a third, that sometimes there is an edit comment button after one posts and sometimes not. I know I once cited a lack of an edit button in giving an extra reply, but it was meant to convey ~ ‘sorry I am trying to follow the local customs’ not to imply any expectation that something be done about it or any criticism. i.e. not meant to piss off the locals, lol.
ADD, with power of edit button: I wonder if -from EoH’s comment below – one always opens via r-click new tab, all of the powers are retained.
This is only to give feedback as I have no complaints. This blog is excellent the way it is. EW gives the best analysis I’ve seen. Also enlightening are the posts from bmaz, Rayne, and Ed. Thank you all.
In addition to the new tab thing which sounds common, sometimes only the text shows to reply to the main post. The box to type in isn’t there.
I have to right click on someone else’s comment and open a new tab, but then the box at the bottom goes to the comment, not the main post. Once I reply to that comment, it lets me cut and paste to reply to the main post, and I can delete the reply to the specific comment.
My computer is old and crappy, so it that might have something to do with it.
Eh, I have fairly new machinery, and it happens. It is a bug, for sure.
My point is there is never anything stopping anybody from just noting the commenter, and time of their comment, and responding. We did exactly that for the better part of a decade here. If the most modern tech doesn’t work, make do.
Frankly, I think “nesting” comments suck to start with because they put one out of time sequence.
I share your view. Some blogs sequentially number comments. That’s presumably easy to set up and unlikely to have bugs. Then replyers can cite the comment number.
whatever the code/programming problems, name,date&time of the comment being replied to are incontrovertable markers. a reader can always go looking for those three and zero in in the comment of interest.
That’s a good point. When too many new comments go above old ones and when they branch off too many times they’re tough to keep track of. Some sites just branch off once and then it’s a line. It’s less cluttered that way, especially on mobile.
If you present a particular user interface and it breaks, it’s more frustrating than if it’s not there at all.
(signed, someone who works with user interface shit and gets as cranky about it as bmaz does when people play lawyer on the internet.)
@bmaz I have no beef with your workaround and never lose sleep about it–sometimes replies only make sense when next to the comment they are replying to–but the reason I’m replying is that some don’t appear to realize that right clicking on the reply button virtually always works to open the reply window (in a new tab), so if replying is important, just do that.
When the reply button fails, there’s a JavaScript error. Here’s a screenshot:
https://i.imgur.com/qCkIiuT.png
I’m not a developer, but I’ve done a bit of QA from the user side, and developers I’ve worked with have said this stuff can be maddening to find, so I can see how this is a pain. Helpful diagnostic info, by the way, should include OS, hardware (PC, Mac, IPhone, etc.), browser, add ons, and even type of internet connection.
I wouldn’t be surprised if browser add ons have a role – it’s possible an update to an ad blocker is preventing a script from loading. I have U Block Origin and Privacy Badge loaded, by the way, on Firefox on an Android tablet, and the same thing often happens with Dolphin, which has some kind of baked in ad blocking. Also on PCs with Firefox and Chrome on Window 7 and 10.
I’ve noticed something curious happens sometimes with caching – I’ll open the URL for emptywheel.net, and yesterday’s version loads, but after a couple of refreshes, a new version pops up, while his doesn’t happen with other sites. It’s possible when reply doesn’t work, something not loading gets cached and so reply continues to not work.
It also may be connected to fuzz in a wifi connection. Mine drops on occasion, and again, this may stop some script from not executing correctly.
Good luck, and it may not hurt to add a disclaimer at the bottom wih a link to workarounds.
Except that it happens — inconsistently! — to regular commenters using the same browsers and extensions. That’s not a large cohort.
Ad blockers tend to work based on all kinds of lists of domains, subdomains, scripts, and possibly barometric pressure readings on the slopes of the Himalayas. And those lists get updated at different times with different elements, possibly causing different results.
So even if two people are running the exact same OS, browser, and ad blocker, if they use a different list, they may get a different behavior – and when lists are updated, that behavior may get back in sync.
Privacy Badger supposedly learns over time as a user browses more, so two users with the exact same setups may have different results due to different browsing histories.
Also, if there is some kind of Akamai style distributed delivery system at work, it’s possible people in different locations or on different networks are getting different code if some cache somewhere isn’t getting refreshed correctly.
Again, I’m not a developer so my understanding is superficial, but I do know that this stuf can get really complicated and hard to diagnose because it can be very hard to isolate variables and repeat things under controlled conditions.
For folks willing to reply to emptywheel’s comment at 2:44 pm October 13, 2018, please advise the operating system, version, browser and version used when the Reply button didn’t launch so the developer can diagnose this problem more effectively.
Example: Reply button is not responsive for me using Win7 with Chrome v.69.0.3497.100 and Firefox 62.0.3. whether normal or incognito windows.
Have not tried with a mobile OS or browser yet, will do when I am done with household hardware issues.
Right clicking on reply and opening in a separate tab will allow reply.
Users can also open a reply tab to respond to a particular comment by entering the URL of the post and the reply’s number in this format:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/10/13/the-reply-button/?replytocom=755871#respond
Post URL/?replytocom=six-digit comment number#respond
You can find a comment’s unique ID number by right clicking on a comment’s date/time and copying the address — make note of the six-digit number. Hovering with the mouse over a comment’s date/time in some browsers may also reveal the comment’s unique ID number.
Thanks for your patience.
I just cleared my Chrome cache and the Reply button worked. Whether it will work more than once in a row I can’t say at the moment as I have to attend to other business.
Will advise when I finish my chore.
Great explanation of why the “reply” not working is not a problem. Great work around. EW is great and for those who cannot stop bitching, grow up.
Open question (and set aside whether you’re for, against or whatever about the underlying program):
During all the years that have passed since the beginning of Obamacare – in the legislature, in the courts, in public discussion, yadda yadda (so, that’s a good almost-10 years now) – has anyone ever seen or heard a news report saying something to the effect of “oh, veterans: if you’re eligible for VA medical care, that covers your need to have health insurance and therefore, you’re good for the minimum required coverage”?
I consider myself pretty well informed (and longtime readers here can attest to that, even if we don’t always agree on everything). I followed the whole shebang from jump.
I didn’t know that.
I found out yesterday that, as a Veteran, I’m eligible for VA medical care and that that means I have the minimum required coverage such that I don’t have to pay the penalties.
Maybe it’s because I’ve had the good fortune to not need to see a doctor or get medical care (for longer than you might think), at least until this summer when I had to go to the ER in a strange city. I got sick at work and the supervisor, a former EMT, says: “You’re a veteran. The VA hospital in town has an ER. You want to go there?” “Sure. Why not?”
Turns out I was in their system and I got the ER treatment I needed (not much treatment was needed, thankfully – mostly getting me rehydrated). And I’d been waiting for a bill.
Yesterday a colleague who does a lot of disability law jumped into my conversation about that and told me I’m not going to get a bill and why.
I thought the VA was just for guys who’d been injured in the line of duty, etc. Not regular guys like me who did our tour(s) and came home in one piece.
So, regardless of whether the reply button works, be sure to tell the veterans in your life to check out their eligibility for VA medical benefits.
Now I gotta figure out how to get back a couple thou in Obamacare penalties, if that’s possible.
Scribe, you are yet another victim of the poisoned healthcare “debate”. I have a good deal of experience and expertise in the health insurance field. Your VA coverage is “creditable coverage” in general for just about ANY insurance requirement that I’m aware of. You might want to file amended tax returns to recover your penalty payments.
The news mis-reporting on the Affordable Care Act has been abysmal and as your comments indicate, positively harmful to individuals. Depressing!
It’s not necessary to attack Talking Points Memo, which is engaged in an earnest attempt to solve the ongoing problem of viability for new media journalism (and, has a huge overhead of reporters and staffers, who’ve broken stories and won a Polk Award) and whose Prime Membership program is reasonably priced and removes all the ads. And, they just finished one of the only top-to-bottom site redesigns that’s any good (generally even the best-intended websites get themselves in the hands of some expensive contractor and ruin their entire presentation). Josh’s gang is definitely among the “good guys” (and girls).
Thanks. When I read that site without five million ads, and even worse, overlays and video, get back to me. You want to tout the TPM model, just look at the difference between the user experience there and here. Thanks.
There is absolutely no reason to give me attitude. I love this blog and frequently hype it to friends and colleagues; it’s unique and irreplaceable in its value and insight, and I’ve been avidly following since the “FireDogLake” days.
The problem is, you’re making a comparison that’s not only inapplicable but is built around precisely the kind of solipsistic oversight you claim to be opposing — namely, that inattentive and ungrateful users sit and complain about what’s appearing in their browsers without giving the slightest thought to what has to happen for that content to be made available; what it costs and what it takes.
And, as a counterexample, Talking Points Memo is just wrong, because, while it certainly began as a kitchen-sink operation, it’s grown to a full-fledged journalistic enterprise, with D. C. and New York offices and with full-time reporters, who, in order to be lured from previous and/or potential jobs elsewhere, must be paid and provided with employee benefits. (They’ve even unionized — a development that Marshall, as a good liberal, enthusiastically applauded and supported even though it was sprung on him without his knowledge and takes money directly out of his pocket.)
To look at all of this and shrug that it doesn’t matter because from the point of view of your browsing experience it’s still annoying or inconvenient, is not just to make a mistake, but to make precisely the same mistake as the “reply button complainers” that this entire post is aimed at: to not be able to make allowances for what has to happen, out of sight, for the user experience to occur.
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with Emptywheel or the content here or the commentariat, and I understand and agree with your rankling at the entitlement implied by the “reply button” complaints. All I’m saying is, Talking Points Memo is a bad counterexample, for all the reasons I’ve given and more. Your snotty response is entirely unwarranted.
“Give you attitude”? Please. I described the lame situation one has to navigate to see any article there at TPM.
And juxtaposed it to what you, and everybody, gets here. And you responded with paragraphs of run on baloney and false, and frankly, vacuous, accusations of “solipsism”.
Wow — you really are an asshole. My mistake; I thought it was some kind of pose.
Now why don’t you go fix your fucking reply button.
Thank you kindly for your generous and brilliant response.
So, apologies if, occasionally, when the “reply” function does not work perfectly for you, obviously the most important commenter in our history, can you not do the obvious, and not constantly complain, and understand people here are working their asses off? If not, then feel free to refrain from telling us what to do. And take your beefs elsewhere.
Or you could just remove TinyMCE from the setup.
Wow. Let your hair down, one poseur asshole to another.
A less fevered comparison of the approach taken by two ambitious PhDs might be more helpful. One wants to mimic high-traffic, commercial newsroom coverage, at the expense of charging for it or subjecting readers to dizzying amounts of commercial ads. That’s attempting to compete directly with the MSM.
The other prefers an Izzy Stone, sole proprietor’s approach, and narrower, deep document dive-based reporting. Something that hasn’t been tried since Izzy shuffled off his mortal coil.
It doesn’t generate the clicks or ads or sell its readers’ data via the advertising. It’s a voluntary subscription-based model, which generates a keenly interested, loyal readership – and generates news the MSM ignores or could not come up with.
If the cost of the latter is the occasional, peripheral site bug, meh.
(using “open new tab” approach on Android Google – seems to always work?)
Having spent enough time at TPM, I think Josh never really liked engaging with the riff-raff, but liked his elite team of commenters. I think his website choices were specifically to try to take advantage of a perceived trendy news blogging opportunity that never materialized. I can’t see much benefit in his current model, and don’t see it as more relevant or useful than the many other contenders, including this one, but if he makes a buck and draws an audience, why not. Huffpost and Salon for two have gone to shit in terms of article quality/newsworthiness, and tons of decent lesser blogs exited, so we have what we have. I’m grateful for what we still have, and do what I can managing another site (Drupal-based, btw, mostly works w/o too much hassle)
Yes, sad about the other good bloggers who have had to leave the field.
I agree with your observation about Josh not much liking hoi poloi. His comments section was never properly moderated, which meant it became overrun by shouting, trolls, and off-topic diversions.
I think his MSM model is derivative and targets the upscale MSM’s traditional 9th grader. This blog and nakedcapitalism are more ambitious regarding the newsworthiness of the non-obvious – something the MSM avoids. That said, his people occasionally come up with very good reporting.
They don’t have Trash Talk so why would any one go there;-)
The critique wasn’t about their intentions, but rather about their product. They can be good people and still have a user-hostile product.
Exactly. Their content is good, and there are several reporters there I really like. But, man, the user experience really has gotten hostile.
Right clicking consistently works. Direct click almost never. When reply works, the formating keys come, too.
I much prefer this site’s content and format over TPM’s. The business models seem irreconcilably different. While its range of topics is broader, I find some of TPM’s coverage derivative, obvious, and credulous, not characteristics I’ve ever come across here.
I have not found any site with a comment section as well run as this one’s. (Nakedcapitalism’s come close.)
I tried to add my insults to Rusharuse in support of Bmaz’ insults, but THE REPLY BUTTON WOULDN’T WORK.
“And the cat came back, the very next day…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETCusT5kNM
Is Rusharuse a kind of Roshamon, where we have 7 different views of Emptywheel experience to compare? Who knew a Reply could be such a weighty issue.
On a Mac, I use Control+Click, which is the Mac equivalent of a “right click”, and “Open in New Tab” always solves the problem.
Based on the behavior of the latest Safari browser in any number of – for instance bank accounts – that no longer work… I can login and view everything, but trying to initiate a funds transfer (for example) – FireFox (as usual works) does not work.
My point is that it could be browser and browser version based so, I tend to agree with bmaz and SirLurksALot.
Usually when it does not work on Safari it simply ignores the click but almost always I can get another tab to open and that works fine. On the iPhone it works less often and sometimes I can get a new tab to open.
So you have ” mobile friendly”, multiple browsers, versions, etc all at play.
Simply not a big deal – for me. Its the quality of the topics and posts and replies (however they get in) that counts.
Technological miracles often aren’t
Like!
Hey! I don’t have a like button. I want that!!!
Shudder. The profiles Amazin’ and Giggle produce from half a dozen likes and a little background data would impress Freud. No thanks.
;)
Re: Scribe @ 3:00PM October 13,2018
I too have just recently (a year ago) discovered that I am eligible for VA medical benefits, however I am still trying to figure out how to negotiate using it most efficiently with my existing Medicare and supplemental through my wife’s retirement insurance. Clinical visits are backed up 3-4 weeks out and the VA Hospital complex is 50 miles away. I have managed to get a number of very expensive diagnostic procedures done there (including echo cardiogram, cardiac stress,pulmonary stress and MRI) for $50 bucks while the clinical visits cost just $25. Any hospitalization is capped at $3,200 and if I end up with any of a long list of Vietnam related maladies everything will be picked up. But again it’s a difficult program to negotiate.
As for those folks who are complaining about the “reply” button not working: get over it for f**ks sake!
“…difficult to program navigate.” How so? Granted it’s an HMO like Kaiser and like any HMO it helps to know the ropes (I don’t, but still get generally quick appointments).
Drove to emergency (30 min drive) eight years ago thinking I had ruptured appendicitis. I did; was admitted immediately, given pain meds, x-rays/mri and operated on w/in 2 hrs. Bigger scar than private care, but who cares. Two years later, again 2 a.m. thinking I had a heart attack drove in I did, damn it (to stupid to call EMT). Again immediate admittance/care. Sacramento determined I needed a double stint, a procedure they didn’t handle. Ambulance ride to S.F. VA for procedure (Davis can do also). Out in three days. Daughter had to pick me up, but had excellent lunch in S.F. and nice drive home. Regular eye care with Ophthalmologist. All zero cost.
Of course REThugs was it privatized for profit
bmaz – you’re pithy comments make my day and this is one of the best!
I was for it before I was agin it.
Thanx again bmaz, for herding all the cats that show up here. And, unfortunately, I must admit that you are right about the relative strength of the rusty Big Ten vis a vis the SEC but that’s just another reason I don’t watch even college football anymore…just women’s hoops, both pro and college, from now on. Go Gophers and Lindsay Whalen!!
Consider that the usual “Reply Button doesn’t work” may be a disclaimer (i.e. a concise way of saying “This comment is meant as a follow-up on one of the previous comments, you will have to read for context to see which comment is being addressed”) rather than as a complaint (i.e. a concise way of saying, “bmaz you lazy shit! Why haven’t you delved into the WordPress inner workings and fixed the Goddamn reply button yet?!?”). There may be some who expect you to be a php master but I think the regulars are just explaining their inability to place a comment where it belongs.
Fair! But isn’t that what we all once did here? Note the comment and posting time of it, and simply respond?
That was the standard protocol here for years. Years when that was the ONLY option. If our interface breaks down occasionally, we all have to fall back on that. That includes me, who also sees those problems every now and then.
Build an ice-making machine in the Amazon and pretty soon the natives are getting pissed off if their G&T isn’t sufficiently chilled. Anyway, unless the commenter actually gets all assholish about it, they’re probably just letting others know that they are responding to another comment, not directly to the main post (not as useful as spelling out who they are replying to, but still nothing to take as a criticism of the site).
re: NorskieFlamethrower says:
October 13, 2018 at 4:27 pm
This time, “reply” didn’t work.
Anyway, what you’re paying for what you got beats the hell out of peeling bills off your bankroll.
I have a friend who has to be drive some distance every couple weeks to get injections into his eyes – diabetes, I think. Fully covered. It allows him to continue living independently, which he prizes above all else.
For the MDs in the crowd, it’s worth looking into hiring on with the VA – the jobs might not pay the greatest but, especially if you hire on with one of the more-rural hospitals, you can live quite well on that pay. And you will, by and large, get love like you don’t know.
Re: Scribe @ 4:47 PM October 13, 2018
Of course I am NOT in any way dissing the VA in it’s attempt to reach veterans who have been deliberately keep from low cost or no cost healthcare by a politics owned by the for profit healthcare industry. In fact, the VA could go a long way toward a national healthcare fix if we extended full care to all vets with more than 2 years of continuous service and took the funding from the military budget. And in the process let’s rebuild and adequately fund the US Postal Service. Talk about a jobs program and economic stimulus!
Namaste
AND I find that the professional and support staff (right down to custodial and security folks) in both the clinics and hospital operations are not only good but VERY good and user friendly.
When the product doesn’t work – blame the customer! How fucking Trumpian are you!
And when things are not absolutely perfect for a quite recent addition to our comment list, it is always great to hear their sarcastic complaints.
“How Trumpian of you”? Seriously?
That is what lame response you have on the offer to this blog ” Rusharuse”??
You’re confusing this site with the standard large corporation business model. If you want the experience you just described, you won’t find it here. You will find it if you ring the “customer service” number for Verizon or Comcast.
Hahaha, Good one…that Verizon or Comcast have customer service! Every real human is a up-seller salesperson.
Also, I appreciate the lack of advertising and info-brokering, and will be mailing my subscription in the next month or so.
also, too – I dig the fact that bmaz is into The Dead and Formula 1 – that is common ground for me. :)
okay, that has nothing to do with the reply button, just sayin’.
Fuck yeah!
My kinda commenter SirLurks. Never was, never will be, a more talented group of musicians than The Dead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LCOUzImFo
Don’t forget The Hold Steady.
The Hold Steady are great. Went, thankfully, and saw them live a few years ago because Atrios (Duncan Black) had posted a music video one night. Man,was I Glad I did. It was incredible.
For those unfamiliar with the Hold Steady, see here with Sequestered in Memphis; Subpoenaed in Texas
The Hold Steady are awesome.
@many folks here.
As anyone with a brain in their head(s) know(s) this blog is a stupendous and rare gift and a benefit to it’s readers. (And I suspect a benefit to certain special counsel as well.) And often the comments are also enlightening. Does anyone have a right to complain? How silly. Unless of course one is being denied their white male privilege. That would be a serious matter and should be referred to the DOJ or an available vigilante group. Sheesh.
Thank you to those who devote their time and energy to the maintenance of this site. I am just thrilled to find out there is an actual bug. It’s not me?? Thank you, thank you! I thought I sucked. That’s all I needed. Carry on with your amazing work!!! I have no problem being patient till it’s fixed or…..replying the old fashioned way.
Wonderful site (however, should replace that crusty old *beak in customer service/donor relations with a “people” person. Ideally someone less keen on honey malts!).
PS. tried to nest this under @bmaz but the reply button DIDN’T FUCKING WORK!!
*”During the bubonic plague, judges visiting prisons used to wear primitive gasmasks, stuffed with herbs or spices thought to ward off the plague – since it looked like a beak… they were referred to as “going before the beak” as they were never seen without it.”
I’ve marveled when others get “bmaz’d” on an individual basis (sometimes deservedly), but when such… maztuperation is fired off to the entire EW audience…balls!
It’s never wise to piss off a plaintiff’s lawyer.
“Much less the invasive horse manure that makes most blogs hard to even engage with (Yeah, go check out Talking Points Memo now).”
People actually still read TPM?
And if you want manure, go check out the “lefty” establishment blogs like Eschaton, Hullaballoo, and LGM, etc.
Personally, I spend most of my commenting time over at Ian Welsh. Good analysis, good commentary (if a little rough and tumble sometimes due to the wide variety of perspectives), and, oh yeah …. no reply button.
But I’m always a’lurking around here.
Keep up the good work gang.
Rusharuse says: October 13, 2018 at 9:54 pm
[snip]
*”During the bubonic plague, judges visiting prisons used to wear primitive gasmasks, stuffed with herbs or spices thought to ward off the plague – since it looked like a beak… they were referred to as “going before the beak” as they were never seen without it.”
So that’s what was going on in all of those Hieronymus Bosch paintings? Who’d’ve thunk it. Thanks Rusharuse.
Anyone catch Paul Simon on SNL? What a tremendously haunting and unsettling remake of Can’t Run. It is the perfect reflection of our times.
A cooling system
Burns out the Ukraine
Trees and umbrellas
Protect us from the new rain
Armies of engineers
To analyze the soil
The food we contemplate
The water that we boil
https://www.paulsimon.com/song/cant-run/
The best and possibly only thing that made me lol was the skit with Trump and Kanye, with Trump asking Kanye if he should get lunch from the pharmacy.
Crap, I missed Simon on SNL. Wish I would have known, would have DVR’d it. I did see Simon and Garfunkel last night though! There is a full on production touring the US currently called The Simon and Garfunkel Story. And it was incredible, the performers were just perfect.
Here you go, bmaz. Have a wonderful Sunday!
Can’t Run (SNL) last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8cd1h6UWj8
WOW, that is great. Thank you!
As Trip said, it is pretty haunting and unsettling. And fantastic.
Sorry, I missed your comment, but Vern posted it, so all good.
It is pretty great, and different.
It is real art.
I thought I would be disappointed because I caught him on Letterman toward the end, and he had lost the sweetness in his voice (for lack of a better description), as age advanced on him. But even his voice was on point when he spoke/sang. He has always been a great writer, and now he has turned the theme of individual alienation into a collective strangling of the heart (whether he means global warming, age, oppression, war, or a composite of all those things and more). The music was devastating in replicating the anxiety and angst. I was surprised by how truly genius it was.
Meh, he may have a little bit of the old man’s rasp, but he still has a firm grasp on his chops. Which is a lot more than I can say about his buddy Dylan these days. Also, seems to have picked up along the way, with a little bit of help from his friend, Cocker’s mannerisms…albeit more gentle, less spastic :) Damn it Belushi, where are u when need u most!?!
There is an interview with Paul and Bob Boilen talking around Into the Blue Light.
https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2018/09/05/644544793/paul-simon-says-im-finished-writing-music
My dad died in February, and many of his friends have too or soon will. Hearing Paul and Bob dancing with death, without mentioning it explicitly, touches me deeply.
This thread cracked me up. I’ve grown to love bmaz. I hope I don’t bitch about this silly stuff anymore. This blog is pretty awesome. Wish I had more to give, guys.
Speaking of its Homophones… I always thought the reply failures could be related to cache size. Empty your cache and see what happens. It works for me, but so does refresh sometimes…
Are you saying the cache is homophonic? hasn’t that been ruled unconstitutional? Should we boycott?
In any case, this thread and more “personal” encounters might be refferred to as a “bmazaccre” or “bmazakker” or “b-massacre”, not sure the best spelling, but the feeling of being scalped by a modern Mohican is the general implication. Or maybe a BMaz Attack, has more scifi feel.
“X web thing isn’t working” is something I might say out of courtesy, something like flicking your lights on the highway to convey, “your headlights aren’t on.” It would indeed take a tiresome and self centered person to demand that it be fixed immediately by a specific Arizona lawyer, who presumably didn’t go into business as a web monkey for a reason! I’m not sure that’s most of this readership, though. But it’s good to know that that’s how it may be interpreted… in return, please remember that we don’t all hail from the FireDogLake days and so some cultural stuff won’t be obvious to everyone, especially in the face of an obvious path that is actually a dead end for some browsers/devices.
(A data point in case EW needs it: reply rarely works for me. iOS12/Safari, old phone, one content blocker.)
Ty Bmaz,
Shine on you crazy diamond.
the best ASCII in left blogistan, bar none.
I just shrug at the “Reply doesn’t work” comments; it (Reply) has always worked for me. That it always works for me is quite remarkable because I have so changed the normal set-ups of my operating system (Linux) and browser (Firefox) that I’ve lost some normal functions. For example. because I DISabled Javascript (ripped it out by the roots), I get a lot of web pages that are totally blank and “sign up” pages that don’t work at all. Web commerce sites? They require Javascript, so no, they don’t work either.
But EW does. It works pretty OK, and I feel welcome here as a result. That matters bigly. I will just mention, though, that the EW landing page loads the slowest of any of my 50-some “Bookmarks” (“Favorites”), by about 3x. That’s an observation, bmaz, not a “bitch”.
That depends on the day and the subject, on my end. When the site has “controversial” content (for the cult, that is), it takes a little longer to load, but nothing painful.
You’re obviously part of the Deep State, if not the Matrix.
Your feedback will be quarantined for the recommended period of time.
PS – in this case, Reply on Win 10/Firefox works fine.
Note previously, Android Chrome for mobile requires “Open in New Tab” to work.
Captain Obvious Update:
GOP: “Civility” = obedience, surrender, subservience to cruelty.
I’m sick of it.
About all the “reply problem” and related techno-stuff. On occasion, I’ve tried to type a thought as a “reply” and have, as a subset of that, had it not get posted. I’ve kind of internalized those instances as karmic “is it really that worthwhile” and a built in editing feature. You folks have ended up missing out on those meanderings, and we’re all likely none the worse for it.
Then again, over several years of Emptywheel, I am grateful that never once have I come across a user comment advising me how much they’ve earned at home this month by clicking the following link….. So we’ve got that goin’ for us. Which is nice. Pretty good choice of allocation of technological prioritization, in my book.
Fix the reply link; don’t fix the reply link; maybe the reply feature is smarter than many of us some of the time. Thanks to Emptywheel for the content and to the commenters for the general (with the occasional exception) level of insight and discourse.
I can’t let this thread be closed down without contributing some observations:
bmaz is clearly some hard-arse who is prepared to ride over my sense of entitlement.
His approach that neither I nor others should expect perfection from a freely provided resource is absolutely what is needed in the current political and social environment but at the same time a slap in the face to so many of us.
His repeated, somewhat jarring, comments insisting that garbage has no place on emptywheel are further examples of the uncommon insistences that bmaz puts forth. They do make a welcome change and set a pretty clear standard that I do struggle to reach.
“Reply” sucks. It breaks the sequence and timing of commentary. To have replies nested hours (days even) after a particular comment, which has great content and information, is thee most annoying thing in the world. I can’t tell you how much time I waste going back to stuff I thought I’d already finished reading to find I’ve missed a real great nugget. Bmaz is right. Keep the sequence proper by stating the @person and time you’re responding to. Keep the line moving, next, move on, give the past a slip.
Uh…That picture?
That’s not the “Reply” button.
That’s the “Paws” button
That was my subtle hint: Hit ‘paws’ before flipping out about Reply. ;-)