Way to go Steve! Will there be a brief description of what the fix was?

Posted January 1, 2007 3:02 PM by Rob Rusick

Woo-hoo! Drive-by wingnuts will once again be easier to spot.

Can we have llamas in the parade? Please? Please?

Posted January 1, 2007 3:08 PM by Larry Brennan

Huzzah! Kudos to Steve!

Posted January 1, 2007 3:09 PM by NelC

Hail to the Restorer! Hail to the Programmer! Hail to the Steve! Three persons, one...whatever.

Praise Him with great praise!

Posted January 1, 2007 3:12 PM by Xopher

The Fluorosphere, its multicoloured light
Projecting over information-scapes,
Auroral in the year's initial night,
Is dazzled by the glow Steve Taylor makes.
The choirs, both those who like their Tallis neat
And those who want a dash of Williams in
Together sing his praises, voices sweet
As fruitcake (with no weasels added in).
The poets cast their laurel and their oak
About his feet, and over his head raise
The highest crown, revered by all these folk:
A laudatory sonnet. Let us praise!
In comment boxes take we up the cry:
Hurray for Steve, who brought back View All By!

Posted January 1, 2007 3:38 PM by abi

Joyous bouncing!

Posted January 1, 2007 3:41 PM by Nancy C

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Posted January 1, 2007 3:48 PM by Aconite

Wes þu Steve Taylor hæl!

Posted January 1, 2007 4:00 PM by Debra Doyle

(I took the liberty of correcting Abi's spelling of "Fluorosphere." The name of this blog isn't Making Bread.)

Posted January 1, 2007 4:12 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Note: it gets misspelled more often than not.

Posted January 1, 2007 4:13 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

True. And I also put Abi's sonnet on the front page.

Posted January 1, 2007 4:16 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

And while we're at it, hurrah for Abi! Who is a splendid occasional poet.

Posted January 1, 2007 4:22 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Heck, I'm leaving a comment now just so I can click on the "view all link" and see what idiocy I've committed on these boards over the years. Thanks!

Posted January 1, 2007 4:26 PM by John Scalzi

Well, now I'm covered in alternating layers of embarrassment and pleasure, much like a gobstopper.

May it all add to Steve's glory. It really was a good thing he did.

Posted January 1, 2007 4:30 PM by abi

Yaaaaaay, Steve!

Posted January 1, 2007 4:49 PM by Marilee

Yay Steve!

And also, gracious hosts, I happened to observe your Dire Legal Notice and note that you need to add "2007" to the copyright years.

Posted January 1, 2007 5:15 PM by beth meacham

I never paid any attention to the "view all by" option. Now I feel another compulsive habit coming on...

*shakes fist*

Thanks, Steve!

Posted January 1, 2007 5:23 PM by CaseyL

Recipie for Flourosphere:

6 cups all-purpose white flour
2 cups warm water
5/2 teaspoon yeast
1 tablespoon sugar (or was it one teaspoon? No matter.)
1 teaspoon salt

Mix 1 cup flour with all other dry ingredients. Mix one cup warm water in. Let rest, covered (in this recipie, covered means covered with a wet/damp towel or plastic wrap) 1/2 hour.

Mix in the rest of the water and flour. Knead. Let rest 1 hour.

Punch down. (Optional, let rest 1/2 hour.)

Form into one large, round, spherical loaf. Place on oiled (I use Pam-equivalent) cookie sheet. Cover, let rest half hour. Now would be a good time to preheat the oven to 375.

Bake 30-45 minutes in 375 oven. Remove when it sounds right. Let sit at least 10 minutes before eating.

Posted January 1, 2007 5:30 PM by Nancy C

Nancy @18

I was thinking more along these lines:

The Flourosphere, a mix of wheat and white,
Is supplemented by a pinch of rye.
Though sifting helps - a bit - to make it light,
Its moral fibre level is still high.
The yeast of us can always raise the tone,
Absorbing any random trolls as salt.
We oil the dough with puns to keep it growin',
And egg each other on (it's no one's fault!).
The loaf, then warmed by passionate debate
Fermenting through the proof and then reproof,
Is raised by all our kneading to create
A better world in one great floury poof.
And thus it is that we have Making Bread.
(That's quite enough of that, now, abi - ed)

Posted January 1, 2007 5:43 PM by abi

Hope everyone has a great New Year!

Hmm. I never used the "view all by" option, really. I'll probably continue not to do so, too.

Posted January 1, 2007 5:50 PM by Gary Townsend

The second from the right in the painting, bottom front ... isn't that Isaac Newton? The folks in the bottom left corner also look a bit out of place (or time).

(I was wondering whether the winged figure might be Teresa)

Posted January 1, 2007 5:57 PM by P J Evans

As a brief sidenote, I noticed that Pete Townshend's surname is misspelled in your list of blogs.

Being a Townsend meself (and wiv both sides of me family hailing from England, me mum being from Westham and wiv me dad's family having come over from Norfolk back in the mid-1600s), I couldn't help but notice.

And now, to go off on another Townsend-Tangent, I've often wondered if I might be distantly related to old Pete -- not that it would matter, really -- especially since my great uncle researched our family tree for 40 years. He learned that prior to some split in the family our surname was spelled 'Townshend'. He also learned that 'round about the time of the Domesday Book, it was spelled 'Townshende'.

So, in sum, and as a service to Pete, it ought to be spelled 'Townshend'.

Posted January 1, 2007 6:02 PM by Gary Townsend

I was wondering whether the winged figure might be Teresa

Probably, P J... I think I'm the bearded guy with the wine-colored peplum to the far right. By the way, I don't know if it's just me, but I keep expecting the whole thing to turn into the opening credits of Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Posted January 1, 2007 6:09 PM by Serge

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

That's our boy. Congratulations, Steve, and much gratitude.

Posted January 1, 2007 6:11 PM by Epacris

Woo! Enquiring minds want to know!

Posted January 1, 2007 6:29 PM by xeger

Not usually dyslexic, I always read it as "View By All", thinking some privileged commenters were able to lock their comments so they could be read by only a select group.

Posted January 1, 2007 6:32 PM by mary

Gary @ 22

The Guardian's style guide mentions, amongst other good things:

Townshend, Pete
member of the Who who didn't die before he got old

Posted January 1, 2007 7:01 PM by Sam Kington

P J Evans: The figure at bottom right is Moliere. Next to him, in beard and bedsheet, is Longinus. The jowly fellow opposite them at bottom left is Poussin. The Silverbergian guy looking at us over the top of Poussin's arm is Corneille.

Shall I go on? Man in strawberry-pink tunic, Pheidias. Man in white tunic, holding Fender solid-body classical lyre, is Pindar. The babe with the wings (who quite by accident looks a bit like me when I was young) is either an angel or Nike; doesn't much matter which. The two guys at left who are holding hands -- one's in a white shirt and dark robe, and the other's in a blue pseudo-toga -- are Raphael and Apelles. The bald guy to the right of Apelles is left as an excercise for the reader. The disembodied hand at extreme right belongs of course to Sappho.

The two ladies in red and green draperies are allegorical personifications, not historical figures; but if I told you what they're personifications of, it would give the whole thing away.

Posted January 1, 2007 7:06 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Can you tell over the internet that I'm blushing?

This is really sweet - and Abi, no one's written so much as a clerihew before this!

Rob:
> Will there be a brief description of what the fix was?

The script which generated the comment list was acting as if the parameters for author and email address were just magically present,and they weren't. Given that the script used to work, I presume they used to be magically created, and that some configuration change zorched this ability. Then again, I don't actually know anything about PHP, so I'm flying blind here.

Anyway, I forcibly extracted the two parameters, and the script sat up in bed and said it felt much better.

Posted January 1, 2007 7:07 PM by Steve Taylor

Can you tell over the internet that I'm blushing?

This is really sweet - and Abi, no one's written so much as a clerihew before this!

Rob:
> Will there be a brief description of what the fix was?

The script which generated the comment list was acting as if the parameters for author and email address were just magically present,and they weren't. Given that the script used to work, I presume they used to be magically created, and that some configuration change zorched this ability. Then again, I don't actually know anything about PHP, so I'm flying blind here.

Anyway, I forcibly extracted the two parameters, and the script sat up in bed and said it felt much better.

Posted January 1, 2007 7:08 PM by Steve Taylor

Yay working "view all by"!

One thing I've been wondering for a long time now ... if people throw their hats in the air to celebrate things, do they ever get their hats back at the end? Or do they make sure only to bring disposable hats to such occasions?

Posted January 1, 2007 7:32 PM by MWT

Mary (#26), when I first got here, I, too, thought it was 'view by all', only I thought it had something to do with whether or not one's email address was publically displayed.

--Mary Aileen

Posted January 1, 2007 7:59 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

#31: So far as I know, on ceremonial hat-throwing occasions each individual is responsible for making sure that he/she throws his/her hat upward in such a fashion as to provide for its safe return to approximately the same point from which it left.

Posted January 1, 2007 8:02 PM by Debra Doyle

The two ladies in red and green draperies are allegorical personifications, not historical figures; but if I told you what they're personifications of, it would give the whole thing away.

They look grumpy. They're the only ones who do. I wonder if that's a clue.

Posted January 1, 2007 8:07 PM by Xopher

With an encore of "Vindaloo."

Posted January 1, 2007 8:13 PM by rams

Xopher: They look grumpy. They're the only ones who do. I wonder if that's a clue.

Clearly the one in green is Astroturf, and the one in red is Flamebait. Kids today have no classical education whatsoever, I tell you. It's just disgraceful, it is.

Posted January 1, 2007 8:14 PM by Aconite

Nanana, nanana, nanana nanana nana...

Posted January 1, 2007 8:15 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Steeeve
will restore
one
more
than you...

Posted January 1, 2007 8:19 PM by rams

I have a monument? How cool! Thanks for the fresh flowers (and in the dead of winter, especially).

Good on you, Steve!

Posted January 1, 2007 8:24 PM by Dori

All praise to Mr Taylor.

And to abi.

Posted January 1, 2007 8:41 PM by Fragano Ledgister

#31 and 33: Well, it's too bad that each person is responsible for tossing their own hat in an optimally-recoverable arc. I was kind of hoping they just sort of rummaged for the nearest one among all the strewn hats, and wore whatever they found that way.

Posted January 1, 2007 8:41 PM by CaseyL

Huzzah! And a Hippie Nude Beer to youse all, but to Mr Taylor, an annus mirabilis.

I'd settle for a year without serious illness or death of someone close; it's been a bad* stretch lately. (*Warning: Includes squicky pix)

[pedant]In the spirit of starting fresh in new years, unless it's a deliberate link-avoiding technique abi could change the comma after www to a stop next time the auto-filler fills in that URL box in the comment form
and people desiring a closer look at the epi-image might examine the World Gallery of Art Ingres page. (Nice music plays in IE browser.)[/pedant]

Posted January 1, 2007 9:06 PM by Mez

Dori, look around the Fluorosphere; that's your main monument [t]here <g>

Posted January 1, 2007 9:14 PM by Mez

Good heavens, a bloomin' lyre!

Posted January 1, 2007 9:19 PM by Margaret Organ-Kean

And re: #27, Sam Kington, referring to the Guardian's style guide; the letter T as a whole is a chuckle. See the entry for Trekkers.

Think I'll peruse X.

Posted January 1, 2007 9:28 PM by D.

Steve, I'd like to thank you for the occasion of this post which made me laugh out loud.

Posted January 1, 2007 9:34 PM by arse poetica

Mr Stephen, or Steven (Steve) Taylor
Made view by all sit up and say "Lor'!
I'm better now, thank you, and feeling all right."
Making Light: making light-making light.

Posted January 1, 2007 9:37 PM by Dave Luckett

Good work Steve -- many thanks. I've found "view all by" useful on occasion, and have missed it.

Side note: Nice choice of art -- particularly appropriate if Steve had to fix a database problem, even if ML uses MySQL instead.

(Yes, I'm a database geek by trade. Why do you ask?)

Posted January 1, 2007 9:38 PM by Claude Muncey

D@#45: There is also this:
Tolkien, JRR
(1892-1973) British author and philologist, notable for writing The Lord of the Rings and not spelling his name "Tolkein"

Posted January 1, 2007 9:49 PM by AQconite

Fine rotten pun, Claude.

Posted January 1, 2007 9:57 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I'll note that the script is still just as vulnerable to XSS attacks as it was before. (slightly tricky, since php's magic_quotes option is on, but not really all that hard)

The major risk with this is to our hosts - basically, an XSS attack in that script makes it possible to construct a url that, when clicked, can do anything else to Making Light as the person who clicked the link. (Assuming adequate knowledge about how the site is structured, but I imagine that there aren't that many ways to construct a Moveable Type blog)

For most of us, that amounts to comments in someone else's name (but that's already trivial), but were our hosts to click on such a link, I can imagine worse damage.

(To programmers fixing this - the "author" parameter needs to be run through htmlspecialchars() before being sent to the page)

Incidentally, from the description of the fix what probably changed was that php was upgraded to a version past 4.2.0, which means that the php option register_globals was now turned off by default. (Using the register_globals option is in general a security nightmare waiting to happen, so the fact that php used to default to having that option on was poor design)

Posted January 1, 2007 10:37 PM by Daniel Martin

[mono lingual pedant] A version of the Web Gallery of Art in English. [/mono lingual pedant]

Posted January 1, 2007 10:44 PM by squrfle

And of course, the real reason "View All By" was restored.

Many thanks, Steve. (Is this the point where I note that the links on VAB go to the article, but not to the comment post? Too much time bug hunting of late...)

Posted January 1, 2007 11:05 PM by Glenn Hauman

Daniel Martin at #51 wrote

> I'll note that the script is still just as vulnerable to XSS attacks as it was before.
[...snip...]

>(To programmers fixing this - the "author" parameter needs to be run through htmlspecialchars() before being sent to the page)

Thanks very much for the heads up! Fixed now.

I'm peripherally aware of this sort of attack, but don't do enough web development to be automatically on guard. I'll be more cautious in future.

> Incidentally, from the description of the fix what probably changed was that php was upgraded to a version past 4.2.0, which means that the php option register_globals was now turned off by default.

I thought it was probably something like that, but hadn't had enough exposure to PHP to know for sure.

Thanks again.

Posted January 1, 2007 11:14 PM by Steve Taylor

Woot! I'm pleased as punch that View By All has made its triumphant return. Bravo to Steve Taylor.

Posted January 1, 2007 11:21 PM by PixelFish

Curious! Does VAB have a set number of posts that it will return before maxing out?

Because I note that searching 'VAB John M. Ford' takes you back only as far as 1/12/05, and 'VAB Serge' also goes back only to early 2005, but 'VAB Jo Walton' extends back as far as 9/19/04 before stopping.

And I know that Jo is not the most prolific poster in the fluorosphere, so it makes sense that an extra three or four months worth of posts would fit into the hypothetical finite number.

If I only remembered the names of some long-time lurkers but only occasional posters so that I could give my theory a really good test -- I wonder how far back in the ML archives that would go?

Posted January 1, 2007 11:54 PM by Harriet

Er, not that I'm not delighted to have VAB functionality restored even to that extent!

I'm just doomed to be the noob that finds new and unexpected ways to break programs that work just fine for everyone else (especially at work).

Posted January 1, 2007 11:58 PM by Harriet

Harriet, those are darn good questions, and I don't know the answers.

Posted January 2, 2007 12:00 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

(Oooo look! January 2nd already!)

Posted January 2, 2007 12:02 AM by Harriet

Notes and comments: "View all by" appears to require an e-mail address; indeed, it will stubbornly insist that the individual in question has posted nothing if no e-mail address is appended.

Since the noble John M. Ford did not always use the same e-mail address, there's a wodge of comments he made which simply will not appear from the link proffered by Glenn Hauman @ 53. Thus:

A different "View All By" for John M. Ford.

Posted January 2, 2007 2:01 AM by Owlmirror

I've been trying to solve Harriet's problem but haven't been able to come up with anything. So no one else bothers going down this path, here's the numbers I've dug up so far without finding rhyme or reason:

Person           Posts      Start Date         Chars         Words       Lines
Dori                50        11.17.03         30488          5398         344
Patrick           1238        09.08.03        590028        101061        5496
Harriet             72        09.11.03         29666          5151         366
John M. Ford/a     449        03.12.06        314174         54087        3420
John M. Ford/b     352        03.30.03        246786         42302        2497
Teresa            1270        07.18.05        777555        133375        7198
Xopher            1796        10.25.05        753432        132746        8199
Lisa Spangenberg   185        10.04.04        121341         21216        1389

Anyone see a pattern in there? I sure don't.

Posted January 2, 2007 2:28 AM by Dori

I don't see a pattern, but that's a damn fine chart.

Posted January 2, 2007 2:36 AM by ethan

And I'd just like to add that, scrolling up the "Last 400 posts" page, the words "All glory" occasionally look like "all gory." May be my love of Romero movies, may be non-literal dyslexia...who knows?

Posted January 2, 2007 2:40 AM by ethan

@ 61,

Well, something is off in some of your numbers. My own results:

Person           Posts      Start Date      Lines
John M. Ford/a    1218        01.12.05      11588
John M. Ford/b     352        08.30.03       3187
Teresa            2659        08.29.03      22929

Maybe more later, but the huge discrepancies are odd.

The only patter that I can see is that nothing earlier than the end of August 2003 appears to be returned for me. Is it possible that you "03.30.03" for John M. Ford/b is a typo/copy and paste error?

Posted January 2, 2007 2:55 AM by Owlmirror

Sigh. "pattern", "your".

And one more compare that matches yours, nearly:

Person           Posts      Start Date      Lines
Patrick           1234        09.08.03       8080

Posted January 2, 2007 3:02 AM by Owlmirror

Ah, that's a clue... I did the lookups again, and got some different numbers:

Person           Posts      Start Date         Chars         Words       Lines
John M. Ford/a    1218        01.12.05        866105        148866        9199
John M. Ford/b     352        08.30.03        246786         42302        2497
Teresa            2659        08.29.03       1874742        323895       16780
Xopher            2429        12.11.04       1051100        185214       11280

Yes, it does look like that 03.30 was a typo for 08.30. As for the rest, they're all over the place.

My current theory: it's a timeout issue, so how long the lookup takes can limit how many posts you see. At certain times of day you're likely to get fewer posts back than at other times.

Posted January 2, 2007 3:28 AM by Dori

Harriet @57:

I'm just doomed to be the noob that finds new and unexpected ways to break programs that work just fine for everyone else (especially at work).

Make that talent work for you and come join the wonderful world of software testing!

Posted January 2, 2007 4:01 AM by Martin Wisse

*perks up* You can get paid to break software? Where?

(and here I've been doing it for free...)

Posted January 2, 2007 5:12 AM by MWT

abi@19: Very nice! I laughed.

Posted January 2, 2007 5:21 AM by David Goldfarb

And, apropos nothing, Happy Birthday Patrick!

Posted January 2, 2007 5:35 AM by Paul

Steve @29 & 30
I'm glad you liked it. It was fun to write.

And you really do rock for solving the problem.

Mez @42
I have tried to remove the comma from the autofill, just in case anyone wants to read my humdrum blog. But it keeps cropping up again.

Suggestions welcome for deleting it from the options list. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.1.

Posted January 2, 2007 5:50 AM by abi

"I have tried to remove the comma from the autofill, just in case anyone wants to read my humdrum blog. But it keeps cropping up again.""I have tried to remove the comma from the autofill, just in case anyone wants to read my humdrum blog. But it keeps cropping up again."

Since you're using Firefox: Put the cursor into the field. Hold down Shift. Press the down arrow until the entry in question is highlighted. Press Shift-Delete.

(Documentation here. It's a Mac site but the advice applies to Firefox on all platforms.)

Posted January 2, 2007 8:47 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Happy Birthday, Patrick!

Posted January 2, 2007 10:01 AM by Lizzy L

if I told you what they're personifications of, it would give the whole thing away

As a matter of fact, it was the crownee's rather fixed gaze that did it for me. It does make an excellent selection for this little piracy.

Posted January 2, 2007 10:11 AM by fidelio

Yes, it is January 2nd; which means that Patrick is now 48 years old, and Bunny is 39.

Posted January 2, 2007 10:52 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

And a happy birthday to Patrick!

May this year be better for us than last!

Posted January 2, 2007 11:01 AM by P J Evans

RE: Harriet's question . . . it's a timeout issue with respect to the database query, and so it's tied to server load . . . and that means all of the server load, not just ML.

Posted January 2, 2007 11:23 AM by Lisa Spangenberg

I hate to interrupt the festivities, but there appears to be another Wierd Quoting Problem.

On reading comment 109 of http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008461.html
I wanted to find other comments that Charles Dodgson had written.

But, instead of the

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/commentlist-oneauthor.php?author=Patrick%20Nielsen%20Hayden&email=pnh@panix.com -shaped link that most authors have, his VAB link went to http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/commentlist-oneauthor.php?author=

because the quotes in his monicker had not been HTML-quoted when making the link.

<a href="http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/commentlist-oneauthor.php?author="Charles Dodgson"&email=charles.dodgson@gmail.com">(view all by)</a>

I fear that one more prone to mischief than I, by claiming to be mister "><blink> , might be able to cause some trouble to your page.

And a Happy New Year to you all!

Posted January 2, 2007 11:50 AM by Tom Womack

Happy B-day, Patrick.

Posted January 2, 2007 12:11 PM by Serge

Lisa, re timeout issues, that makes sense to me. Do you suppose there's anything we can do, short of changing hosts, to improve matters?

Posted January 2, 2007 12:17 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Nancy C. @ #18, I'm almost tempted to try that. Sadly, I was the only one who enjoyed our last attempt at blog-acquired silly baking, Stross' Schadenfreude Pie.

I'd also be tempted to add, say, 1/3 cup of Cocoa Powder and triple the salt, just to make "Chocolate Salty Flourospheres."

Recipes aside...YAY! VAB! On a site that is as commenter-community focused as this one, this was a feature I used often and have missed dearly. Thanks, Steve!

Posted January 2, 2007 12:42 PM by Skwid

Teresa @ 50 --

Thanks. Where else can you pun linking 19th century French neo-classical art and relational database software, and expect someone to get it?

Posted January 2, 2007 12:52 PM by Claude Muncey

“VIEW ALL BY” functionality IS RESTORED

hooray!!!

Posted January 2, 2007 12:55 PM by Greg London

Of course Dori Smith has a monument. Would we make something like that up?

Posted January 2, 2007 12:56 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Herzlichen Glückwunsch Patrick!

As someone staring 53 in the face, I can only suggest from my own experience single malt as an effective treatment. Repeat as necessary.

Posted January 2, 2007 12:57 PM by Claude Muncey

OK, that took far too long...I was having trouble with the two riotous children. They mess with the scansion, they do.

Today the Fluorosphere* will mark his birth
Whose gravity, when he has cause to write,
Can draw us all together, while his mirth
And musicality yet make us light.
His passion and his politics infuse
Discussions with his sense of what is right:
When someone challenges his deep-held views
He argues with uncompromising might.
And yet that passion is the lesser part
Of what I find that I admire the most.
I've seen, in quiet moments, a great heart,
And looking, find it somewhere in each post.
So happy birthday, Patrick. All the best.
Eat well, drink lots, and well, you know the rest.

----
* note the correct spelling.

(PS - thanks for the solution to the URL problem.)

Posted January 2, 2007 1:01 PM by abi

Lisa, re timeout issues, that makes sense to me. Do you suppose there's anything we can do, short of changing hosts, to improve matters?

How feasible this would be to implement for this particular installation, I can't say.

Posted January 2, 2007 1:21 PM by Dan Blum

Very good, Fidelio.

Posted January 2, 2007 1:40 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I keep seeing this thread title and thinking, "All glory to the Hypnotoad!"

Posted January 2, 2007 1:43 PM by Jen Roth

Quit making frogs at me, Glory!

Posted January 2, 2007 2:33 PM by Erik Nelson

Am I the only one who thinks Fidelio's real name must be Leonore, or something like? Or did we already discuss this, and my aging brain has not retained it? I'm pretty sure we've at least made overtures to this effect...

And I'm just too damn pig-ignorant to get this whole visual joke. And apparently too stupid to pick up enough clues to Google it.

Oh well, it's awful to be the smartest person in the room. That's why I hang out here instead!

Posted January 2, 2007 2:53 PM by Xopher

Xopher @ 91:

I googled the words apotheosis poet painting and got the answer right off. The one from USC has a better version of the painting, though.

Posted January 2, 2007 2:58 PM by P J Evans

OK, I get it now. I never would have come up with the word 'apotheosis' to Google though. I'll remember next time.

Posted January 2, 2007 3:08 PM by Xopher

Abi, I'm almost too stunned to respond. I don't think anyone's ever written a sonnet for me. Thank you!

Skwid, #81: Surely you must mean Scalzi's Schadenfreude Pie. Although I'm sure Charlie Stross would enjoy a dark, rich, baleful slice of it.

Posted January 2, 2007 3:19 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick,

I'm afraid I've embarrassed you. I suppose if I did it's salutary in some way or other.

Happy birthday, or as happy as you can have when you're feeling poorly.

(I am more impressed that Skwid got "Schadenfreude" right than that he swapped Stross for Scalzi.)

Posted January 2, 2007 3:37 PM by abi

"Remember, sire, that thou art mortal...."

Posted January 2, 2007 3:44 PM by Alan Bostick

Alan Bostick @ 96:

And you're not?

Posted January 2, 2007 3:55 PM by Lydia Nickerson

Lydia @97

No, it's Steve who's been apotheosisified*. We have a picture to prove it.

________
* Gods don't mind having undergone a process whose name includes the term "sisified", because everyone** knows they're not sissies. Unless they choose to be.

** Everyone who doesn't want to be smitten with lightning, thunder, locusts or plain bad SQL, that is.

Posted January 2, 2007 4:06 PM by abi

Many happy returns, Patrick!

Posted January 2, 2007 4:45 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Gah! I have no idea why my mind confuses Scalzi and Stross, aside from both starting with S and being 6 letters, but it happens frequently.

My experimental Schadenfreude Chip Cookies (my contribution to the same occasion, the pie was baked at my request by a friend) didn't turn out quite as gooey as I'd hoped, although they were definitely dark and delicious. Next time I'll use more honey and be extra careful not to overbake.

Posted January 2, 2007 5:20 PM by Skwid

Skwid: don't just describe them, give us the RECIPE!!!

Sheesh.

Posted January 2, 2007 5:48 PM by Xopher

And a very late Huzzah! Surely, Steve Taylor thou deserves the PHP and MySQL groupies thou get-est.

As to the fluorosphere, I did work for a very large light bulb manufacturer in Cleveland. At one time I was privy to watch another vendor give a presentation (a vendor who did a great deal of work for said client) and continued to misspell "Fluorescent" in every single slide.

Posted January 2, 2007 6:05 PM by Steve Buchheit

P J Evans, I found it in the first place by googling apotheosis painting. The best online scan of it is at the Louvre's website. My version's been cropped and reprocessed in various lossy ways so it'd be clear enough to deliver the joke, but small enough to not be a burden for people using dialup connections.

There's a site here that'll tell you who all the people are. Also the personifications: believe it or not, that thing the woman in green is holding is supposed to be an oar.

Xopher, you're not the least bit stupid. You just didn't know that apotheoses (apotheosi?) are a trope of representational painting. Feeling bad about that is like fretting because you can't play "spot the saint" as fast as Claude Muncey and Jim Macdonald.

In art, an apotheosis shows some supposedly heroic figure(s) either becoming god(s), or being welcomed into the company of the immortals. For instance, the rotunda painting in the US Capitol building is an Apotheosis of George Washington. It has all sorts of nifty supporting allegorical figures, like Minerva instructing Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Morse in science, and Venus holding the Transatlantic Cable.

Really, if what you want are over-the-top allegorical agenda-pushing paintings, you could do worse than type "apotheosis" into Google image search. Some specimens: The Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency of Marie de Medicis on May 14, 1610. The Apotheosis of the Slav. The Apotheosis of Pennsylvania. The Apotheosis of Saint Ursula. The Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Apotheosis of Hercules.

Another Apotheosis of Washington. A third Apotheosis of Washington. The Apotheosis of Washington and Franklin (a popular upholstery pattern of its day). The Apotheosis of Lincoln (with George Washington). The Apotheosis of Suffrage (note presence of George Washington).

The Apotheosis of the French Royal Family. The Apotheosis of the (Napoleonic) French Heroes. The Apotheosis of Lord Nelson.

And so forth. Once you've seen a half-dozen of the things, you'll never mistake the form again.

Posted January 2, 2007 6:15 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa @103:

For my part, I got the oar and missed the sword - I thought it was some form of flute.

Is it a sign that I'm too much of a Classics geek that I always associate apotheoses with gourds?

Posted January 2, 2007 6:54 PM by abi

Tom Womack at #78 wrote:

> I hate to interrupt the festivities, but there appears to be another Wierd Quoting Problem.

botheration. And well spotted.

This one happens before we get to the VAB script, so I imagine the actual comment-entering script needs to be hit with a hammer. Fortunately I have a hammer right here...

I'll try to get to that shortly.

Posted January 2, 2007 7:07 PM by Steve Taylor

I can see how you'd do that. How is it that I've previously missed the Pumpkinification of Claudius?

In honor of that work, and this day's solemn observance, I think I'll go get myself an ice cream cone.

Posted January 2, 2007 7:08 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7005_make-pumpkin-ice.html

Or perhaps you still have a container of Edy's, or Coldstone Creamery, or some other commercially marketed p.i.c. in the freezer?

Posted January 2, 2007 7:31 PM by Harriet

TNH #106: Robert Graves did a translation of the Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius) for Penguin Books back in the 50s.

Posted January 2, 2007 8:36 PM by Fragano Ledgister

I can't see going to that much trouble, considering where it's going to end up.

Posted January 2, 2007 9:12 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa, I'm still trying to figure out why I googled apotheosis - I thought it was you that used the word upthread, but couldn't find it. I've heard of the apocolo-whatever, and (personal opinion warning) it would be really fun to pumpkinify some of the people in DC. (I saw the oar, but read the text from UMich which explained a lot of what was going on. The symbolism gets a bit deep in there.)

Posted January 2, 2007 10:09 PM by P J Evans

Happy birthday, Patrick! You share the year with my brother Joe, though his doesn't come around till August.

Posted January 2, 2007 10:12 PM by Anne Sheller

P J Evans@110: "Apotheosis" is in the alt-tag for the image. If you have a slow connection, like I do, you get to see it before the image loads.

Posted January 2, 2007 10:14 PM by Aconite

Aconite @ 112

In all honesty, that's where I got the hint to try apotheosis. I would suspect that Jim McDonald hit it on his own, first try.

Only I am to blame for the pun, of course.

Posted January 2, 2007 10:35 PM by Claude Muncey

Squid at 81 in re the recipe given at 18 by me:

This is foolproof bread. There is very little you can do to ruin it. Honestly. I used to bake it in the dorms, and have had to bake it at the wrong temperature for a while because someone else was using the oven. I usually break it into two loaves, rather than a single flourosphere.

You can also substitute 3 cups whole wheat flour for 3 cups of the white, but be sure to make the first cup with the yeast white.

It has the added advantage that there is no milk, butter, or eggs to go bad in a dorm fridge.

Posted January 2, 2007 11:39 PM by Nancy C

Tom Womack at #78 wrote:

> I hate to interrupt the festivities, but there appears to be another Wierd Quoting Problem.

Fixed, I think. Please tell if you see any more weirdness. I suspect other components than the AuthorName need some quote filtering, but this will do for now.

Posted January 2, 2007 11:42 PM by Steve Taylor

Aconite @ 112:

I'd agree, except I was at work where the connection is normally very fast. Something ran through my mind really fast and left that word behind, though. (Let's mix a metaphor here: that train of thought got derailed early, too.)

Posted January 2, 2007 11:59 PM by P J Evans

Rams @35, Teresa @37, Rams @38

Thanks ever so...

(It's my own fault, I suppose. After all, I *was* the one who purchased Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children with some of my Chrimble money. Doesn't stop that blasted tune from being a right 'orrible earworm, though.)

Posted January 3, 2007 12:44 AM by Meg Thornton

"if people throw their hats in the air to celebrate things, do they ever get their hats back at the end? "

From "The Lost Works of H. P. Lovecraft: "The Terrifying Story of the Hats"

"I repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless! I *know* what I saw! It was at a holiday sporting-event--the one called 'base-ball,' where the fans were getting ready to salute the Brooklyn Dodger Fred Merkle, for his fine work on the field. As he came out, there was a great cheer, which had started as a dull roar. The ladies applauded, and the gentlemen were quite pleased.

To salute him, they threw their hats in the air…

And then, the screaming, oh, gentlemen, the screaming! For the hats were not just hats, no, now they had *wings* and horrible ropes--nay, tentacles! They swooped down on the defenseless crowd, plucking their heads off like so many snapped toothpicks. Oh, the screaming, oh, the panic!

But those who were snapped were the lucky ones. For in some cases, the hats jammed themselves back onto selected heads, with a strange noise emanating from within--my God! It was SLURPING!

And when their feasting was done--for that's what it was, gentlemen--the hats flew in a great, swooping motion, into a terrible dark hole which opened up in the sky.

This is why I urge you not to wear your hats! Or to throw them!

You tell me it cannot have happened. Then where, I ask you, is Ms. Amelia Munson, and her eight-year-old daughter Sarah? Devoured by the hat-like-things they were! The hats! The hats! Oh, Cthulu! I see them still!"

Posted January 3, 2007 2:40 AM by Greg

Intrigued by the never-seen-before concept of pumpkin ice-cream (Am I not even now sipping a cool mango green tea in this summer evening?), I clicked the link above (Harriet # 107). Fortunately I had swallowed my ice-tea, because the Google Ad next to the recipe said

Family Desert Recipes
Chocalate cake, candy & ice cream. Kids favorite recipes. Yummy!

Posted January 3, 2007 4:05 AM by Epacris

test 1, please ignore

Posted January 3, 2007 5:59 AM by "Steve Taylor"

'VAB Serge' also goes back only to early 2005

That sounds about right, Harriet. That's when I started going around the whole blogosphere. And I dare not find out how many posts I have out there, just in ML.

Posted January 3, 2007 8:29 AM by Serge

Epacris (#119): here in the northeast US, pumpkin ice cream is commercially available around Halloween and Thanksgiving (which is Fall here--pumpkin season). It tastes a lot like pumpkin pie, only creamier. Yum!

--Mary Aileen

Posted January 3, 2007 9:41 AM by Mary Aileen Buss

Nancy C @ 81, I have to confess that I mostly just wanted to make the joke about "Chocolate Salty Flourospheres." It fits the meter of the song's chorus better than the original, even!

Xopher @ 101, Gah! Again! I meant to get this down after I'd gotten home from work, but completely forgot, and it would only have been an approximation anyway, as I was winging it. If I were to do it again, I would make cookie dough as though for Chocolate Chip Cookies, but short on white sugar, substituting a paste of honey and cocoa powder (the first time, I added these seperately on top of my regular dough mixture, and had difficulties with the consistency) to taste/color. Then fold in cinnamon chips. It might help to refrigerate the dough before forming the cookies.

When these bake, they're going to get very dark because of the honey, so watch for subtler signs of done-ness. You'll absolutely need parchment paper for these, or you'll never get them off your pan, and cooling racks are going to be essential to the consistency, as well.

I only made a small batch of two dozen for my Halloween party, and they certainly vanished quickly. The best picture I could find of them, sadly, is here. If I didn't have a pie and a half in the fridge that need eating, I'd try for a new batch tonight. Maybe next week.

Posted January 3, 2007 9:46 AM by Skwid

#91 Xopher--I'm not sure that's ever been raised, but as a matter of fact it isn't. My given name is either a Spanish adjective or one of those bits and pieces* that are used to make up Germanic names. It's the sort of name the nice, damp homebody has on soap operas, where she's always the last character to find out her husband is sleeping around with everyone in town--and can't figure out why he would.

*There's a proper technical term for this, but my brain is full of other stuff today and is not helpful.

Posted January 3, 2007 2:07 PM by fidelio

Skwid #123:

At the risk of appearing the world's biggest most naive idiot, I must confess that until your post, I had never heard of cinnamon chips, and in fact googled it to make sure it wasn't a typo. Do they defy description?

Posted January 3, 2007 3:21 PM by joann

Cinnamon chips are basically cinnamon flavored high-temperature-melting fat with a brick-red sort of color, and they're really, really yummy. You can also use them melted for all sorts of things; there are a variety of recipes out there. Hershey's makes them...I'm sure there other sources, as well, out there somewhere. If you can't do or are bored with chocolate, they make an interesting alternative in either regular cookie dough or (highly recommended) oatmeal cookies.

Posted January 3, 2007 3:34 PM by Skwid

Wish I'd heard about these before Christmas. For me, Lent begins on Jan 2. Oh well, I shall bear them in mind for next year. I bet they go good in gingerbread things?

Posted January 3, 2007 4:52 PM by joann

bored with chocolate

This has to have been a typo, since that's a phrase no one could possibly type deliberately. Bored? With chocolate?!?!?!

Well, but. There are still Bush supporters. I suppose people who are bored (?) with chocolate could exist too.

Posted January 3, 2007 5:28 PM by Xopher

Perhaps I should have phrased that "bored of baking with chocolate?"

I knew there was an issue with the original phrasing, but figured my continued sanity was implied...

Posted January 3, 2007 5:31 PM by Skwid

Some of us are still scared by chocolate and working our way back gradually. This after an unfortunate conjunction of what had to be quintuple chocolate cake and one of those violent episodes of Martian Death Flu that cause you to lose eight pounds in less than two days. It took me over a year before I was able to even smell the stuff, although white chocolate was an exception. I can take milk chocolate quite well now, but I've still to touch my Christmas Scharffenberger. We'll see.

Posted January 3, 2007 6:27 PM by joann

First things first: All glory to the glorious.

Given my strange memory lapses (sometimes I don't remember doing something at all, sometimes I remember doing it while I only imagined it), this is a must.

Add to that, as soemone pointed out already, a "must" use.

Then: I've years ago read the Apocolocyntosis, but I must say that "Pumpkinification" is an incredible word that just make me want to read it again in english.

Also: Pumpkin ice cream ! I've got to find some now (will go right next to carrot and violet ice creams as far strange desert experiences go).

Happy Birthday to the lord of the place.

And a (bit) late Happy New Year for everyone else.

Posted January 3, 2007 6:28 PM by MD²

MD² @ 131 - Pumpkin ice cream = not so strange. Pumpkin beer = strange. Like drinking a slightly alcoholic undersweetened pie. Very filling. Both are probably out of season by now, so you many have to wait until the September to try either.

I'll take a pass on the violet ice cream. I suspect I'd like it more that rosewater ice cream (yuck). Carrot could be good, though.

Posted January 3, 2007 6:48 PM by Larry Brennan

I suppose people who are bored (?) with chocolate could exist too.

*raises hand*

Come sit next to me, Xopher. You pass me your fruit-based desserts (mmm, lemon-lemon-LEMON!!!) and I'll pass you my chocolate-based ones. Everybody's happy that way, and we can both go away shaking our heads ruefully and murmuring "wow, you don't know what you're missing, do you?"

Posted January 3, 2007 6:49 PM by Lexica

Damn, I *hate* it when they upgrade PHP and register_globals gets unset and breaks my website. It's like when they upgrade MySQL and all the old-format tables I didn't know I ought to have converted to the new format get hosed.

I like to think it's the universe telling me I need to actually learn to program for real instead of this lazy monkey-see-monkey-do stuff I've gotten by on all these years. There would have been nicer ways to tell me, but I probably wouldn't have listened.

On a totally different subject: I, too, am a chocolate-indifferent freak. Boulder's wonderful Breadworks bakery makes their bread pudding with chocolate chips, which certainly doesn't render them inedible, but really, when I'm craving bread pudding, I am not craving chocolate. I am very rarely craving chocolate, in fact. Someone suggested I add chocolate chips to my annual fruitcake exercises and I couldn't form a coherent reply out of sheer surprise.

In other news, happy new year, y'all.

Posted January 3, 2007 7:19 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Carrot is good. As is violet I thought.

I'll have to pass on pumpkin bear as I don't mix well with alcohol.

Posted January 3, 2007 7:23 PM by MD²

Nicole @134

Someone suggested I add chocolate chips to my annual fruitcake exercises...

Blech! I have a mild aversion to chocolate and fruit in general, and a serious tendency to nausea if the fruit in question is raisins.

Legacy of a childhood with chocolate covered raisins on long car journeys. I'm prone to carsickness, and the taste became associated.

I hope that the idea of adding chocolate in any form to fruitcake remains surprising and uncommon.

Posted January 4, 2007 2:00 AM by abi

MD² - don't forget to add in lavender as another "odd" ice cream flavor. Well, I find it odd because I don't care for the smell of lavender, so why would a person want to eat it?

Posted January 4, 2007 2:52 AM by Tania

One lovely moment out of many at Minicon in 2001: it's late at night, I decide to leave the party and go to bed; I tell Tom Whitmore, "It's time for my apocolocytosis." He gets the joke. (The next day I repeat it to Jo Walton, who does also.)

Posted January 4, 2007 5:33 AM by David Goldfarb

Tania at #137 wrote

> don't forget to add in lavender as another "odd" ice cream flavor. Well, I find it odd because I don't care for the smell of lavender, so why would a person want to eat it?

I like lavender as lavender - we've got a huge bush growing out the front of the house - but I've got little sympathy for any processed form.

We visited a lavender farm once, and in the kiosk/ticket office we were assaulted by a nightmarish wave of lavender potpouri, lavender soap, lavender fruit cake... I'm sure they would have been selling lavender ice cream if they'd thought of it.

Do not try lavender fruitcake. It will not make you happy.

Posted January 4, 2007 6:09 AM by Steve Taylor

#129 Sqwid: Oh, OK. THAT I can see.

#133 Lexica: I understand not liking chocolate, at least intellectually; it's got a bitter tone that some people are sensitive to. I can't stand coffee, for example. And some people just don't care for its flavor or effect; de gustibus non disputendem est, after all. I also understand acquired taste aversions like abi's, and I consider them tragic (the very smell of peppermint makes me queasy).

What I can't understand is someone who does like chocolate getting bored with it. Chocolate is ancient and ever-new; chocolate, all alike, no season knows, nor clime; as chocolate was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be, flavor without end, aché, so mote it be, amen.

I do agree that adding chocolate to fruitcake is an abomination. Chocolate is too strong and penetrating a flavor to add to fruitcake. That said, if someone else baked it, I would taste it to see if I'm right (I am nothing if not an empiricist when it comes to delicious things).

Posted January 4, 2007 7:34 AM by Xopher

One summer I brought a tub of "Ballard Broccoli" ice cream to a Vanguard party. Let's just say it remained untouched. It was designed for the middle of salads in hot weather: I don't know if they even make it anymore.

Posted January 4, 2007 8:35 AM by Bruce E. Durocher II

A local restaurant, now alas deceased, used to make rosemary ice cream. Delicious, especially served over the brownie-like cake with which they paired it.

Posted January 4, 2007 8:48 AM by Lila

I like chocolate just fine; I'm just not one of the (evidently many) people in whom it provokes a singular rapturousness. Sure, it's good stuff, lots of complexity at the high-quality end. One of the more intense taste experiences I ever had was drinking a hot chocolate supposedly prepared as it would have been in the 17th century, at the 1657 Chocolate House in Kendal, in the Lake Country. But I can say the same for a lot of foods and flavors. I can easily get as excited about the variety, subtlety, and exciting nuances of vanilla. Or malt sugars, particularly as expressed in various bottlings north of Hadrian's Wall. And don't even get me started about European-style butter.

Posted January 4, 2007 8:55 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Steve Taylor @ 137... Lavender fruitcake? My wife tells me that the town of Gilroy, south of San Francisco, makes garlic ice cream.

Posted January 4, 2007 8:57 AM by Serge

Xopher, re:#140 --

"Bored" is perhaps not quite the right word. "Wearied of," or "surfeited unto temporary aversion."

This is the tragic side effect of having to bake a dozen flourless truffle cakes daily for several weeks, on top of the usual quantities of brownies, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cupcakes... It gets worse when you one day start the Hobart before the liquid chocolate mixture is sufficiently cool, and wind up wearing chocolate over your entire right arm and torso. (Let's hear it for the shielding properties of chef coats. I was unharmed, although uncomfortable.)

I was unable to face eating chocolate in any form from mid-December to Valentine's Day, that year.

Posted January 4, 2007 9:00 AM by Rikibeth

On the subject of odd ice cream flavors, I write to you from the greater metropolitan area that's home to Toscanini's, where you can frequently find such varieties as khulfee (not a typo), mango (served occasionally in Swissair First Class), green tea (big in Japan; here, not so much), vienna finger cookie, etc., etc. Their vanilla and chocolate (several varieties) are excellent --- but I can't remember the last time I saw them serving strawberry. (Then again, if vanilla is what you want, you might be better served by Herrell's --- depending on the day, they may have Vanilla, Private Stock Vanilla, or Hi-def Vanilla...)

Posted January 4, 2007 9:28 AM by "Charles Dodgson"

We just finished gobbling up a package of pumpkin/chocolate