"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone." Epictetus

R.I.P Tina Turner

I’m into punk, rock, 80’s new-wave and a dash of prog-rock…
Yet Tina Turner was my Queen.
Maybe because she was a punk – in the way she rose up from the abuse and misuse she experienced from Ike and made her own musical experience.
Rest in peace Tina:

Through your blessing, grace, and guidance, through the power of the light that streams from you:
May all my negative karma, destructive emotions, obscurations, and blockages be purified and removed,
May I know myself forgiven for all the harm I may have thought and done,
May I accomplish this profound practice of phowa, and die a good and peaceful death,
And through the triumph of my death, may I be able to benefit all other beings, living or dead.

5 comments posted: Wednesday, May 24th, 2023

Please respect anonymity!

This is a public service announcement and not under my role as part of the site-staff.

This is an open site where anyone can access and read.

I have an inquisitive mind. Over the years I have been able to find – in real life – a couple of the posters that have shared their stories here simply by looking up things they shared. It’s not that I come here to find them, but if I notice they have shared one detail too many I might do a little online sleuthing and find a very likely candidate.

You need to take care in what you share, especially if you want to maintain your anonymity.
That applies to information on the OP too.

If you, your spouse, child, or any stakeholder in your story has a unique job or situation then don’t mention it. If there are localized or unique circumstances, then be careful how you put them forth. Read your contribution and see if you are giving away more than you intended.
Like sharing that you or OM are law enforcement officers is a very broad stroke. Detailing it to being firearm training specialists at the largest academy or police-force is IMHO narrowing it too much down, and probably irrelevant to your story and the advice offered (this is a made-up example, but not too far from the truth of one "discovery" some years ago).
Yes - there is a reason I'm posting this now.

Heck… even if you want to shame your wayward spouse or the OP then maybe calm down and rethink how, why, where and when you do so. Maybe posting under the cloak of anonymity on a public forum isn’t the right place to do so.

Please respect anonymity!
It’s to everyone’s advantage.

3 comments posted: Friday, October 14th, 2022

The new site layout - let's give it a chance and appreciate what's going on!

I have noticed some unhappiness amongst some posters with the recent changes on this site.
Let me begin with saying I’m not in the loop as to what’s being changed, why and how, but based on my experience in IT and EBS implementation I can guesstimate why MangledHeart (MH) is making all these changes.

Web-sites, forums and such are created using some underlying platform. These platforms offer varying levels of services, features and support. It’s my guess that MH selected a platform back in the early days and built SI on that platform. Since then we don’t know how that platform has developed or even if it’s still supported. The IT graveyard is full of great products that were merged, updated, sold or simply didn’t survive the competition or stand up to ever-changing requirements. I’m fairly certain that the change is mainly driven by an impending need to change the very base the site was developed on/for. I can also share that changing an active ongoing site like this can maybe best be compared to open-heart surgery. Frankly – I’m in awe at how smoothly and how well the transmission is going.

Then there is this pesky thing called the "future". Way back when this site was created today was the future. I don’t think anyone could have guessed the number of members, the number of posts, amount of data, interaction, access-needs, bandwidth, databases… this site would need and consume. I’m also guesstimating that the change is due to updates in databases, access, security requirements…

When making major changes like the ones being done here it’s inevitable that some things don’t go as planned, or things need tweaking and adjusting. I’m amazed how MH had managed this (probably or mostly) single-handedly considering this is a volunteer site with no paid staff. Changes like this usually require a team of people with demands being defined, programing, testing, fixing, testing, implementing, testing and fixing.

I also see that since the switch-over changes have been made. In typical fashion I see that the layout has "tightened up" a bit and is becoming crisper and cleaner than it was first after the change. Small ticks and nibbles are also clearing up and/or disappearing.

I encourage all posters to be patient with the changes and appreciate the effort being placed in the implementation. The smaller bugs will go, there is already more leeway in templates, font-size and such from the old site and several other new features. After a week of the new site I’m already appreciating it more than the old one – despite experiencing some quirky behavior every now and then. The old site had over a decade to be stable, let’s give this one a few months…

If you do have real bugs there is a forum (survivinginfidelity dot net) where you can let MH know of them. You can also ask for new features. Just remember that (once again guesstimating…) bugs are prioritized, some "bugs" are permanent features and that there is only one MH.

Finally: If you can’t appreciate what’s being done and think this is a reason to leave SI:
This isn’t an airport.
You don’t have to announce departures.

26 comments posted: Monday, August 16th, 2021