Server like butta'

January 29, 2008 12:43 AM

Oh how easily we forget! Months ago (a year?) the server was consistently slow or down. Now it's smooth as a baby's butt and fast as the Google. Is Federer your server? I love it. My Mefi addicted brain thanks you.
posted by null terminated to MetaFilter-Related at 12:43 AM (21 comments total)

I, for one, have not forgotten those bad old days of Cold Fusion Gone Frozen and jrunaways. And I am certainly thankful for the High-Preformance Filter, for the herd of ponies we've gotten and mostly for the great one-liners in the deletion messages. Keep up the good work, MetaTeam!!!
posted by wendell at 12:59 AM on January 29, 2008

Looks like things are starting well.

I wonder if the additional donations have tapered off - I used to give the occasional $5 through Paypal to hopefully help make things better - now that I think of it - I'll do it again...
posted by birdsquared at 1:12 AM on January 29, 2008

Now that MeFi is up all the time I never get any work done. Thanks a lot, jerks!
posted by aubilenon at 1:33 AM on January 29, 2008 [2 favorites]

fandango_matt: The apology thread is about 4 threads down on the page. Look there :)
posted by pjern at 2:08 AM on January 29, 2008

Is Federer your server?

Nope. Didn't note any disturbances in mefi on 25 Jan.
posted by ersatz at 4:01 AM on January 29, 2008

Tennis references are always weird on the internet
posted by poppo at 5:01 AM on January 29, 2008

You're gonna have to serve somebody.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:15 AM on January 29, 2008

Well played, flapjax.
posted by danb at 5:22 AM on January 29, 2008

Yeah there was a time where the site would be basically unreachable all morning. In 1996 we were lucky to reach the server several times a day, and that was if night riders were available at each post with fresh horses available every seven leagues! Why the wonders that modern Electrical Telegraf has wrought.
posted by geoff. at 7:01 AM on January 29, 2008

the server's unreliability was part of MeFi's goofy charm; the idea that the server resided in somebody's closet next to stacks of old porn magazines and boxes of hockey gear was quite funny, too. if MeFi is really up 24/7 without glitches it doesn't make the site special; the entire Internet is up 24/7, MeFi's server errors were an oasis of tranquility in the "information superhighway"
posted by matteo at 7:49 AM on January 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

Are those things actually smooth, or is that just one of those expressions?
posted by Wolfdog at 8:03 AM on January 29, 2008

MeFi's server errors were an oasis of tranquility in the "information superhighway"

I had a different term: I called them "Oh, what the fucking-fuck! God damn it. Now what am I supposed to do? Maybe if I hit reload a couple of times.... Fuck. Ok, don't panic. I'm sure it's just a minor glitch, go to the bathroom and see if it's back when you come back... Nope. Fuck! Well, I guess it's going to be offline for a while. It looks like I have no choice but to socialize with my co-workers. Fuckity-fucking-fuck."

Things are better now.
posted by quin at 8:05 AM on January 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

We're pretty lucky now. When I first join MeFi the server was in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, reboot the server, eat a crust of stale bread, click on the homepage, wait fourteen hours a day week in-week out for a few choice links. When we were done, Matt would thrash us to sleep with his belt! etc.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:19 AM on January 29, 2008

I used to think "uptime" meant "when Matt gets out of bed".
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:21 AM on January 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

I think that started around May 2005 because, if I recall correctly, that's about the same time MetaChat started (partly as a response to MeFi being down a lot).
posted by Doohickie at 8:49 AM on January 29, 2008

Matt, please reboot the server in your closet, or wherever it was......

yeah, it's like a pro site now. kind of cool, but the child like innocence of the early site was pretty cool as well, jrun and all
posted by caddis at 4:04 PM on January 29, 2008

We should code in a preferences option to serve a fake jrun every now and then, for the nostalgia factor.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:07 PM on January 29, 2008 [4 favorites]

Jrun error in your favor: collect two minutes of free time.
posted by blacklite at 6:01 PM on January 29, 2008 [3 favorites]

the random errors hurt at the time--realizing you actually have NOTHING to do--but have a certain maybe even authentic charm as i look back.
posted by madh at 8:40 PM on January 29, 2008

Tennis references are always weird on the internet

No kidding. I'm kind of in the market for a new managed server solution, and I actually Googled "Federer server" to learn about the company.

It kinda ruined the joke.
posted by generichuman at 7:03 AM on January 30, 2008

I read it as 'Federline' and was all, like, what? Cheetos? I couldn't make it work.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:41 AM on January 30, 2008