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May 22: It's the Circle of FA Liiiiife
9 years ago
|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still the blahs, but not as bad
█ So FA is alive again, that's good. It's a bit of a running joke of how FA is unstable, unreliable, and goes down for days or weeks at a time; and moreover how people are idiots for sticking with it despite it being so miserably managed and run. I personally don't keep track of things all too closely. Most times when FA has gone down in the past it's been for a few hours here or there every few months or whatever. Sometimes it goes down and back up without me even noticing since I don't spend 24/7 of my time here. The last time FA was down for a significant period of time was it was hit with a DOS attack back in December of 2013. So really that was over two years ago and something that was out FA's hands.
No doubt there will be another wave of "I'm leaving FA" journals popping around, and it's pretty justifiable for most people. Some will go as far as to hope FA crashes and burns, such as the way of things. Which is the other running joke: How people who leave FA will be back in a week, if not tomorrow. A lot of people ask why that is when clearly other sites are superior in management and functionality. The short and simple answer is just brand recognition. More people know about it, so more people use it. That's all there is to it.
Granted this does have ripple effects as well, and the ones who feel the consequences of that the most are those who make money via art commissions, or simply want attention. It's far harder to get traction anywhere else. It wouldn't be too much of an issue if another site had say 70% or 50% of the traffic FA has, but I from what I've seen that's simply not the case. It seems to be more around 10% or less, and it makes things difficult for those who choose to migrate off FA. It's quite striking as an example you go from 100 views on an image down to 10 or 1. I probably have enough of a presence in the community that I could probably build up enough of a base to work commissions off comfortably, but that's definitely not the case for artists who barely get enough attention on FA. Some don't get enough as is, and showing up another site would just be even worse.
It's not like this phenomenon is isolated to FA only. Take Facebook for example, there's lots of other options for a social media site, but Facebook is the only game in town; despite it's questionable privacy policy. Online stores and auctions: Amazon. Search engine: Google. Operating system? Windows. Another thing of note is the most popular thing is the one that also is the target of the most attacks. Easy one is Windows, where viruses and the like end up with your data stolen; people back then talked about how Apple computers didn't get viruses, but back then hardly anyone ever used them so relatively few viruses were written for them. I could have a wooden gate with a piece of string used as a lock and go "This is the most secure gate ever" and someone using a bank vault door gets broken into. What's the reality of the situation? That my security is better, or that my security just isn't pressured as much?
It's not like credit card companies or banks haven't lost the personal information of their customers in the past right? Except they have. What security system exists out there that's perfect while allowing information to transfer in and out? Throwing money at the problem certainly doesn't work because the richest institutions in the world have had information breaches and leaks. Not that any of this really matters, people will blame whoever or whatever they wish to; and usually the blame goes towards the easiest most accessible target. In the case of FA it's always blame FA, that's probably part of the running joke too.
█ In regards to my physical health, my weight still is stable and hovering at around 200lbs. Which is to say I still need to lose 20-30 more. I also had results of previous blood-work and generally good news on that front as my blood sugar levels are back in the normal range instead of pre-diabetic. Cholesterol levels also went down.
Mental health is the same old same old, trying on a daily basis to scrap together the willpower to work on art. Overall I'm doing better than previous years, but I still need to work on that. It's hard to stay in a happy positive mood when there's so much negativity around the world, which of course gets concentrated a whole lot on the Internet. I kinda wonder how other people view the world as a whole with the constant barrage of bile and hatred. I know I do my best to avoid such things, but when it's everywhere it's hard not to see it every now and then.
█ Still have my ant farm, and a few days ago the second generation were walking about bringing the worker count from 5 to 9 with another half dozen that will probably be fully developed in a week or two. I'd take photos but I'm a weird person who doesn't have a phone and therefore no camera.
EDIT: Also card games cause why not?
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still the blahs, but not as bad
█ So FA is alive again, that's good. It's a bit of a running joke of how FA is unstable, unreliable, and goes down for days or weeks at a time; and moreover how people are idiots for sticking with it despite it being so miserably managed and run. I personally don't keep track of things all too closely. Most times when FA has gone down in the past it's been for a few hours here or there every few months or whatever. Sometimes it goes down and back up without me even noticing since I don't spend 24/7 of my time here. The last time FA was down for a significant period of time was it was hit with a DOS attack back in December of 2013. So really that was over two years ago and something that was out FA's hands.
No doubt there will be another wave of "I'm leaving FA" journals popping around, and it's pretty justifiable for most people. Some will go as far as to hope FA crashes and burns, such as the way of things. Which is the other running joke: How people who leave FA will be back in a week, if not tomorrow. A lot of people ask why that is when clearly other sites are superior in management and functionality. The short and simple answer is just brand recognition. More people know about it, so more people use it. That's all there is to it.
Granted this does have ripple effects as well, and the ones who feel the consequences of that the most are those who make money via art commissions, or simply want attention. It's far harder to get traction anywhere else. It wouldn't be too much of an issue if another site had say 70% or 50% of the traffic FA has, but I from what I've seen that's simply not the case. It seems to be more around 10% or less, and it makes things difficult for those who choose to migrate off FA. It's quite striking as an example you go from 100 views on an image down to 10 or 1. I probably have enough of a presence in the community that I could probably build up enough of a base to work commissions off comfortably, but that's definitely not the case for artists who barely get enough attention on FA. Some don't get enough as is, and showing up another site would just be even worse.
It's not like this phenomenon is isolated to FA only. Take Facebook for example, there's lots of other options for a social media site, but Facebook is the only game in town; despite it's questionable privacy policy. Online stores and auctions: Amazon. Search engine: Google. Operating system? Windows. Another thing of note is the most popular thing is the one that also is the target of the most attacks. Easy one is Windows, where viruses and the like end up with your data stolen; people back then talked about how Apple computers didn't get viruses, but back then hardly anyone ever used them so relatively few viruses were written for them. I could have a wooden gate with a piece of string used as a lock and go "This is the most secure gate ever" and someone using a bank vault door gets broken into. What's the reality of the situation? That my security is better, or that my security just isn't pressured as much?
It's not like credit card companies or banks haven't lost the personal information of their customers in the past right? Except they have. What security system exists out there that's perfect while allowing information to transfer in and out? Throwing money at the problem certainly doesn't work because the richest institutions in the world have had information breaches and leaks. Not that any of this really matters, people will blame whoever or whatever they wish to; and usually the blame goes towards the easiest most accessible target. In the case of FA it's always blame FA, that's probably part of the running joke too.
█ In regards to my physical health, my weight still is stable and hovering at around 200lbs. Which is to say I still need to lose 20-30 more. I also had results of previous blood-work and generally good news on that front as my blood sugar levels are back in the normal range instead of pre-diabetic. Cholesterol levels also went down.
Mental health is the same old same old, trying on a daily basis to scrap together the willpower to work on art. Overall I'm doing better than previous years, but I still need to work on that. It's hard to stay in a happy positive mood when there's so much negativity around the world, which of course gets concentrated a whole lot on the Internet. I kinda wonder how other people view the world as a whole with the constant barrage of bile and hatred. I know I do my best to avoid such things, but when it's everywhere it's hard not to see it every now and then.
█ Still have my ant farm, and a few days ago the second generation were walking about bringing the worker count from 5 to 9 with another half dozen that will probably be fully developed in a week or two. I'd take photos but I'm a weird person who doesn't have a phone and therefore no camera.
EDIT: Also card games cause why not?
*Runs around throwing leaves everywhere*
(Sorry, I don't intend to the steal attention from you,Endium. It's not my intent)
Well, fuck me if there aren't 5,000 games that could be referring to. Star Fox? Far Cry? Final Fantasy? FNAF? Street Fighter? Need for Speed?
But since you couldn't put in the effort.
http://bfy.tw/5tmz
(Sorry, I thought for a solid 2 minutes, and that was the best response I could come up with. )
(At least not yet...)
And of course there is Discord as an option too.
its just amusing , and in the end they come back anyhow.
but imo, twitter (and tumblr) could be a good addition in case fa down again, should be easy to raise & gain more follower in there because those place are very crowded.. :3
(Sorry if i am a bit rambley or hard to understand.)
If it bothers anyone that much, then get the He.. off the internet, dump your cell phone in favor of land line pay phones, and use only cash!
There is a silver lining though. Encryption has gotten WAY better in the last ten or twenty years. We literally have encryption strong enough that even those in the federal government still can't get access to some places. Today hackers are taking more of the role of computer literate conmen than strict coders. Today four of every five hacks involve what is called 'social engineering'. For example, guy who works at your company is standing outside the security door pretending to dig out his pockets and says he forgot his key card at home and if you'd let him in. Most attacks are now more from internal.issues than external hacking attempts.
The trouble is, as you've said, users are spread so far between the other sites, and they each have their own problems with their staff as well, so there's really no telling where to go. Most of the time nowadays I use Tumblr to share my art, that seems to be the most reliable place in terms of that.
To that end, are there any places I can get in touch with you outside of FA? I'd love to commission you for art again in the future, even if it's not on FA!
As has been pointed out before, this is strictly their own fault. If you use disposable e-mail addressES, you should expect to loose access to accounts!
I maintain a number of different address (gmail, hotmail, ...) and use different ones for different things. All of them aare checked every month or so to be sure they remain active. I've also bailed on ALL ISP supplied e-mail accounts; that did cause me to loose something I wanted because I'd forgotten to change the address at one site and by the time I realized it, it has been 2 years since the account was shut down. But, it was not a disposable address, I'd had the same ISP for years and gmail did not exist when I setup my ISP accounts there.
As far as the password thing goes, perhaps it was a mistake on their part to force a password reset on everything. It's not like the logic is unsound of "We know there's a chance that passwords were compromised, so best we reset all the passwords." Problem of course that won't change the passwords people use for other things, and of course causes problems for people who's emails linked to FA which themselves are inaccessible. I have no particular comment about people not having access to their own email accounts.
In other words... I'm staying. At least until I get tired of this Furry B-S.
Rule 36 >.>