Still not quite caught up in the Supernatural Thread, so I'll post today's Winchester Qwertee in here. Enjoy, those who are so inclined!

[link]

Joss is now on Twitter. His account hasn't been officially verified, but Maurissa Tancharoen (his s-i-l) has confirmed it.

In case anyone is interested you can watch a livestream of the Dalai Lama giving a speech on "Strength Through Compassion" right now at [link] HIs speech tomorrow will also be livestreamed.

The NBC Universal store is having a Memorial Day sale--this includes Community swag. Use the code HONOR20 on checkout for 20% off everything.

eta: figurines from Abed's holiday break with reality! V-neck Greendale Community College shirt! Trot & Abed In The Morning mug! Human Being plushie and key ring!

For a few reasons (cost, support, obsolescence) we've been discussing moving b.org servers in BBABB++. We're currently running on PHP 4.3.9, and the world is up to 5.5 (in layperson's terms, we're over ten years behind) so if we're going to a new host, we'll at least have to cross a major release Rubicon (4->5) which will require code changes and therefore testing.

What is this post?

CALL FOR SUBJECTSVOLUNTEERS: I have the code ported to a 5.2 system, and I've tweaked basics, but really haven't had a reasonable kick at the tyres. That's where you, the subject matter experts, come in. I'm looking for five people to come and run amok and break things willy nilly.

I'd love to have a volunteer from among the admins too.

This isn't a huge commitment of time. If you can spend a total of a few hours spanning across a few days, I'd be very grateful. All you need to do is everything you can think of.

Pipe up in BBABB++ if you're interested in helping.

Thanks!

I talked a woman today who has been detained by our government for over a month. She fled Guatemala, leaving behind her two children, because her husband was violent and hurting her and she couldn't take it any more. I am planning on representing her pro bono in her asylum case. The US government is going to keep her locked up for a while more until they decide whether or not she deserves a chance to speak to a judge.

I know we have several librarians on this board and I would really appreciate any help anyone could give me on finding scholarly articles on getting asylum for victims of DV, particularly women from Guatemala. The few articles I have found were from 97 or so and the law has changed since then. My work email is stephanie at izaguirrelawfirm dot com. I'm still researching, but if anyone has a few spare minutes and would like more information or can otherwise help, please let me know.

Hey all --

We're... having technical problems (see here Tom Scola "Buffistas Building a Better Board ++" Jun 5, 2013 3:43:49 am PDT ) that will probably cost us money, possibly significant amounts of money (not that I know what that means at this point). So if you have any, throw it toward donations at buffistas dot org, if you would? And if you can help with the tech side of things, please do.

THANKS.

To postscript Jesse's news, this is as good a time as any (MAYBE) to move hosts. If you have anything to offer on tat front from bacon chocolate on up to doing all the work, our timeline is TIGHT. See link above.

Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) talks about DIY home design for a zombie apocalypse: [link] (With special thanks to PC for his assistance.)

Currently Phase I of the Big Move is scheduled for Saturday (8th June) morning. That's when I plan on bringing b.org down, moving the data to buffistas.com which will be on another server running more recent versions of the underlying software, and bringing it back up there.

There are 2 known bugs currently with the b.org code and the more recent infrastructure, and full testing was not completed. Bear with us--logout doesn't seem to work (but if you don't have "remember me" checked your session will time out), and neither does "email the admins".

IF YOU WANT TO DO SOME IMMEDIATE, QUICK, TESTING OF THE CODE ON A NEW PLATFORM PLEASE SPEAK UP IN BBABB++.

The second step will be to move the b.org URL to the new server and code, which hopefully can be complete by Sunday. Most urgent goal is to shut our server here at Istrata down for good.