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#3901 2025-10-24 13:15:56

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re Azure test site...

We have had flawless service from our test VM in recent months, to the point that I forgot to check on it.

It did not respond this morning, and I had to spend several hours with Gemini, figuring out what was wrong (full disk) and then, how to deal with the problem. In the course of the work, Gemini showed me features of Azure for emergency recovery, and I'm mighty glad to know they are available.

I had the system back up, and decided to install 90 pending updates.  The next step was to delete old files and we released 3 gigabytes of storage.

The new updates required a reboot, and I'm waiting now for that process to complete.

Hopefully the web site for our images will be back up soon.

Update: I'm keeping the site offline ... our demand for images is light, and I'd like to implement security protocols to prevent spammer activity.

(th)

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#3902 2025-10-24 17:32:29

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re possible educational activity...

I'd like you to think about this idea, to see if it's something you'd like me to pursue...

In building a robot kit recently (see Robotics Education topic) I discovered that the kit does NOT perform any useful work after it is constructed. The text in the ad at Amazon did not make that clear. I have opened correspondence with the company, and will report anything I learn.

In the mean time, we (NewMars) might have an opportunity to provide an educational service for customers of this particular company, and potentially of others.  Robotics is not something that is easy to master, and the physical size of the robot doesn't make much difference. We are set up to provide useful guidance for kit builders, and more importantly, we are in a position to provide advice to kit builders who have questions, or for software to be exchanged, or described, or debugged when that is necessary.

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#3903 2025-10-25 06:40:20

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re Daily Recap...

Thank you for supporting the new Daily Recap....

As you can see, I do not yet have the routine memorized ... Performing the Daily Recap procedure requires use of a different computer from the one where the Calendar Update and the Recruiting posts are performed.

Update: SpaceNut, I asked Google's Gemini to rewrite the URL's program to run on the computer where I perform daily maintenance tasks for NewMars.com/forums. The revised program works perfectly, so I'll start using it tomorrow. Hopefully we will have a consistent Daily Recap for you to work on.

Thanks (again) for taking on that time consuming task!  I'm hoping our members (and non-member readers) will appreciate your efforts.

Update: The pothole scan is under way... It will cover the stretch from 234001 to 235000.  It will run over night. I'll report the results tomorrow. 

(th)

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#3904 2025-10-26 05:54:22

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut...

The Pothole scan finished with a Green Screen...

Only one post is missing: 234446

That is one out of a thousand.  Pretty good performance.

The missing post is #234446.

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#3905 2025-10-27 18:10:52

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut .... thank you for that interesting series on economics in the US covering (about) 1960 through 2025, with the first section focused upon closings and shifts to overseas, and the second half focused upon new businesses.

That was a lot to try to read, but I found myself pulled along and I read the entire series. You placed that series in the Politics Topic.  If we had an Economics topic it would have gone well there, but for this particular forum, Politics is as good a place as any.

I recognized (and remember) a lot of the names in the series, but there were quite a few regional names I did not recognize, so I appreciate the opportunity to learn about them.

The folks in Jamaica are about to take a beating, apparently.

Not for the first time, it crossed my mind that a hurricane wind farm would collect a lot of energy during an event like this, but I suspect the investment would get insufficient use to cover expenses plus make a profit. 

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#3906 2025-10-28 14:43:09

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut / kbd512 / RobertDyck and all members...

The images site is back up in gated mode. The onslaught of spammers was taking the site down. I have implemented a filter that works, but it depends upon the IP address of the person wanting to pull images from our image storage site.

I just put the rule to find your IP in the HowTo topic.

However, for now, here it is:

Heads-up about member IPs

Many home/office ISPs change IPs. If someone suddenly can’t reach the site:

Ask them to visit https://api.ipify.org to get their current IP and add it.

For frequent changers, consider a VPN/mesh option (WireGuard/Tailscale) or an SSH tunnel for them (keeps the NSG small).

Please send your IP address to the newmarsmember email address published in the Recruiting topic each day.

My assumption is you do not want your IP to become public.

That would definitely NOT be a good idea.

If you do not want images from our Azure image server, don't do anything.

kbd512 is working on a solution that will work for the long term. This is a temporary expedient solution before the Azure account goes away November 14th.


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#3907 2025-10-28 16:48:58

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,760

Re: Housekeeping

The attacks are most likely due to the azure site. Then the software which we are making use of the phpbb3.
The newmars site allows me to see all of the ip's that come in for a user and also ip stats of those that tickle the forum.

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#3908 2025-10-28 17:14:10

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #3907....

The IP addresses we have on record are the IP addresses members used when they registered.  I don't think those IP addresses are updated.  You may have access to IP addresses I can't see.  Let's start with yours.  Please see if the list you have access to includes your IP address. If it does, please send that to the newmarsmember email, and I'll add it to the Azure whitelist.  Our goal here is to provide access to images for our members, while blocking the spammers.

To be sure you have the correct IP address, please be sure to run the lookup that I provided in the HowTo topic.  Or you can run Speedtest.net,  which also shows the current address you are using.

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#3909 Yesterday 20:30:58

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut and RobertDyck's two topics about warp drives....

RobertDyck just created a new topic about warp drives:

Real Warp Drives by RobertDyck
    Science, Technology, and Astronomy     1     Today 22:26:51 by tahanson43206
2
Negative Matter - key to Warp Drive by RobertDyck
    Interplanetary transportation     14     2025-10-18 11:20:30 by tahanson43206

He seems to have both bases covered now.  We have negative and positive versions!

It should be fun to see which one wins the race to realization.   I note that the positive one cannot exceed the speed of light, but jaunting around the Solar System should be a good application for the method.

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#3910 Today 08:32:46

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 22,953

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut ... just FYI ....

The (proposed) URL for the new image store is: http://newmars.com/myimages

There is nothing there now but that is the URL that kbd512 and I discussed for the new store.

The first step is for kbd512 to install the phpBB3 system in the myimages folder. After that we need to configure the site to look like the one on Azure.

I'm hoping we can simply zip up the database on Azure and unzip it in newmars.com in the MySQL folder.

Hopefully this will all happen in the next two weeks.

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#3911 Today 14:33:05

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,760

Re: Housekeeping

rebuilding the house

Its been at a stand still due to contractor being a ghost and town code protecting rather than going after him.

Got Lawyer filing papers to terminate unperformed work getting refund of up front deposits and then filing papers with States AG for criminal and civil suits.

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