I think that when next one of my hosting subscriptions comes-up for renewal, I am going to migrate from FourBucks.net to AN Hosting, unless FourBucks.net introduces a more competitive package in the mean-time.

With just one domain and low traffic, the FourBucks.net entry-level package is the better buy. But it appears that when one has two or more domains to be hosted, the AN Hosting becomes the better choice.

Addendum: I will in any case continue using this domain name, and the change should be transparent to visitors.

My latest three entries to the Jelly Belly® Dream Bean Contest:

• Ginger Beer — This was really just a riff off the submission by the Woman of Interest of Ginger Snap, to which I made explicit reference in my submission.
• Oatmeal — This bean goes for the pity vote.
• Peach Vanilla (though they already have a Peach)

Yester-day, the Woman of Interest alerted me to

the Jelly Belly® Dream Bean Contest

One is allowed one suggestion per diem. My two entries so far are

• Cinnergy (red shell with yellow speckles around orange-colored center) — Cinnamon and tangerine.
• Hillary (pink shell around red center) — Stale and bitter, yet preferred by many people to chocolate.

Last night, at David's Coffee Place, a large, odd fellow came and sat near the pianist. He began aggressively coaxing the pianist to play this-or-that in particular manners, paused in doing this to talk loudly for a while over his cell phone (it perhaps did not occur to him that the he could step outside for a while, and that the rest of us might not want to hear his part of the conversation), and then returned to the dominating of the pianist. The large fellow did put some money in the pianist’s tip jar. But his manner was still odd and very pushy. I tentatively mapped-out how to forcibly intervene if things got clearly out-of-hand.

After the fellow left, the pianist noted that the interaction had been difficult. I noted that I'd been wondering whether I might have to bail-in, but hadn't seen real signals of impending violence. I suggested that the pianist work-out a signal that regulars would recognize as a call for assistance. He tried to think of an appropriate tune. Since he plays a lot of show-tunes — yeah, it’s Hillcrest — and indeed songs from West Side Story, I suggested Jet Song. He liked that.

I don't know whether he understands that I would, indeed, bail-in.

The Woman of Interest and I each noted that our websites had been slow and unresponsive, so yester-day after-noon I contacted technical support at FourBucks.net. A technician got back to me, reporting that he’d found nothing amiss on their server but noted that our sites draw upon resources on other servers, and suggesting that perhaps the problem was there. This explanation seemed plausible, except that shortly after I received it we found that first cpanel and then simple FTP were slowing to an effective halt. When I checked a few hours later, the sites seemed to work fine more generally. So I think that our support query was vindicated.

In case some of my readers could benefit by the consolidation, I here bring-together more of the reports on the elimination of LiveJournal Basic accounts.

Without prior announcement, Basic accounts ceased to be an option on 13 March.

When LJ was asked to restore the option, Jason Shellen, VP of Product Development for LiveJournal, made the ridiculous claim that the elimination was to help new subscribers:

From a product perspective it was more about creating a new registration process that was easier for new users to understand. I'm sure it's been ages since many of you signed up for an account, but it was quite confusing and included a table of options that was not very inviting to new users.

He expressed offense when he was called on having transparently lied.

Brad Fitzgerald, the original creätor of LiveJournal and a member of the Advisory Board, objected to having not been presented with the idea in advance except as a sort of trial balloon to which he had objected. Danah Boyd, another member of the Advisory Board, likewise objected to the failure to consult, and indicated some of the mentality of the present management:

When I get my feet back on the ground, I intend to talk with the folks at LJ, but I can already predict the first question: what can we monetize? how can we grow?

Fitzgerald had already told them how Basic accounts monetize:

In any case, SUP apparently sees no value in freeloaders not looking at ads, not paying, and oh wait… producing most the content for other members to read, other members who are looking at ads and paying for their accounts.

This elimination of Basic accounts isn't about actually maximizing profit; it is about a childish desire to grab money more immediately.

LiveJournal began admitting that it was a business decision:

Over the past 24 hours many of you have asked whether the changes to the account structure (removing the option of creating new basic accounts) is a business decision. It is, emphatically.

c·news, a Russian-based IT WWWeb journal, picked up the story, and reported Anton Nosik, Chief Blogging Officer for СУП, as saying:

We do not consider it necessary to inform those, who have not opened a basic account during 9 years of LiveJournal’s existence, that there is no such an opportunity any longer

Which implicitly refuses to acknowledge that all users, even those who do not plan to creäte new accounts, are affected by this change qua members of a community (and that users with existing accounts often want additional accounts). It also reveals that СУП more generally resists transparency, which resistence is also exposed in the same message in which it was admitted that the elimination of basic accounts was a business decision:

We're still working out how to strike just the right tone when communicating with such a diverse and complex collection of communities.

which is to say that previous pious words were empty, and they can't even figure out quite how to fake openness without giving away more information than they wish.

Now, while New York is weakened and distracted by scandal, New Jersey should seize Bedloe's Island!

Without prior announcement, it is no longer possible to creäte a Basic user account on LiveJournal. The change wasn't presented to the Advisory Board for prior discussion. (When I want your advice, I'll ask for it!)

Even Brad Fitzpatrick has been roused from smug complacency, albeït perhaps only because of his commitment to a business model:

In any case, SUP apparently sees no value in freeloaders not looking at ads, not paying, and oh wait… producing most the content for other members to read, other members who are looking at ads and paying for their accounts.

Presumably СУП understands that, for the time being, existing Basic accounts cannot be mandatorily converted to Plus accounts without alienating most of their content providers, but believes that a fair number of potential future subscribers who would have chosen the ad-free option will go ahead and chosen the Plus account (or perhaps now even the Paid account), such that any actual net loss of content providers will be more than off-set by greater ad-density (and by subscription fees).

Unless their model fails in sufficiently spectacular manner, when they reach the point where active Basic accounts are perceived to be a sufficiently small share of existing accounts, these will be converted to Plus accounts after some subsequent major (or ostensibly major) software change.

Half a block from where I live is Bronx Pizza, which looks like a hole-in-the-wall place, but has a really great pesto pizza, usually available by the slice. One can get two large slices and a soft drink for US$6. (The soft drink choice isn't great, but it's passable.)

To-day, I was there to get dinner. At a near-by table sat three blue-collar guys, my age or older. They looked as have white blue-collar guys for most or all of my life. But they were talking sincerely and unaffectedly about fighting a problem of sexism and racism at the place at which one of them worked, with the victim of the sexism being a woman. That's not the sort of conversation that such men would have had in my childhood.

The sun was going down, but my day brightened a bit.

Controversy has erupted over Robert Downey jr having been cast in the rôle of a black character in Tropic Thunder. By coïncidence, over the last couple of days I have been watching The Most Dangerous Game (1932) in bits and pieces. The coïncidence is in that Noble Johnson, an African-American, played a Caucasian in that earlier film.

I don't think that we should give much of a d_mn about blacks playing whites or vice versa. It should be no more than a mild curiosity.

On the other hand, Tropic Thunder stars Ben Stiller, and the fact that he still has a career in movies certainly does offend me.

Addendum (09 Mar): I am now told, distinct from the report of the Daily Mail, that Downey plays a white actor playing a black character. (So the rôle would be somewhat more like that of the main character in Soul Man (1986).)