Forum is down until Dec 5. Sorry.

[selden]

when chris gets back

[chris]

I'm back from Patagonia now. I'm very puzzled as to why the forum broke while I was away, but I think that I've got at least a temporary fix for the problems. Please respond to this topic with reports of any further troubles.

--Chris

[t00fri]

I'm back from Patagonia now. I'm very puzzled as to why the forum broke while I was away, but I think that I've got at least a temporary fix for the problems. Please respond to this topic with reports of any further troubles.

--Chris

Hi Chris,

I hope you had a great time!
Things seem to work fine for me again, here...

Bye Fridger

PS: After some time also your WEBserver went down, but some time later it was up again...(I explicitly checked the status on /etc/init.d/)

[chris]

Hi Chris,

I hope you had a great time!
Things seem to work fine for me again, here...

Bye Fridger

PS: After some time also your WEBserver went down, but some time later it was up again...(I explicitly checked the status on /etc/init.d/)

A friend of mine had to reboot my server while I was away. When it came back up, one of the PHP files for the forum (viewtopic.php) was mysteriously missing. Replacing it was all that was required to fix the forum. I now suspect that the cause of the problem was a stray emacs backup file created when I edited viewtopic.php some months ago.

The trip was great! And while pictures of Patagonia don't really belong in the Celestia Users forum, I'm going to indulge anyway:



The rest of my trip pictures are here:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/photos/view_alb ... =patagonia

--Chris

[t00fri]

Chris,

my wife and I just looked through your photos! Just out of this world....There is clearly a target left for us to go, if there is a time slot available. Incredible.

Bye Fridger

[Cham]

Those pictures reminds me my own treck in Nepal and Tibet, last summer ! COOOOL !

[selden]

Those are obviouly young mountains!

[abramson]

The rest of my trip pictures are here:
--Chris

Hi, Chris. The "Strange spherical growths" you saw and photographed are fungi, called "llao llao." It means "sweet sweet" in Mapuche language. Yes, they are edible, even if "sweet" seems an exaggeration.

The tree with the red flowers is a "notro". The tree where the fungi are growing is probably a "coihue" or a "lenga", or some other nothofagus, the "southern beechs".

Cheers,

Guillermo
Patagonian

[Rassilon]

The trip was great! And while pictures of Patagonia don't really belong in the Celestia Users forum, I'm going to indulge anyway:

What do you think of a preposal of changing Purgatory to:

------------------------------------------
Moderate Discussion
All discussions not directly related to Celestia can be placed here.
------------------------------------------

That way there will be no question as to where a post can be placed or not...I have had in the past dozens of postings that havent been related to Celestia lately...since most end up about programming or maths I tend to place them in the Developers forums...Alot of questions that can pop up from time to time about a users PC having problems...those I have seen...Posting art pictures...a creative effort I like to see from the community that was of course directed to Purgatory....etc...I think this will give more of the community a chance to express themselves in a constructive manner without fear of reprisal...Purgatory comes across somewhat as a 'bad place to be posting' and gives the impression that one cannot post there if he/she has a constructive post to add that is not directly related to Celestia...

Of course with any privledge, if it is abused it surely can be taken away...

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Or just rename "Purgatory" to "Off-Topic Discussion" or "Chatter" or something else that people wouldn't get offended by...

Or just get rid of it altogether if you'd rather that people didn't talk about anything unrelated to Celestia. After all, no Admin of any forum is obliged to provide a board for topics that aren't relevant to what they want to see discussed.

[Michael Kilderry]

I don't think it is a good idea to get rid of Purgatory. It is good for the Celestia community to have a place to chat about anything with each other.

Michael Kilderry

[chris]

Hi, Chris. The "Strange spherical growths" you saw and photographed are fungi, called "llao llao." It means "sweet sweet" in Mapuche language. Yes, they are edible, even if "sweet" seems an exaggeration.

The tree with the red flowers is a "notro". The tree where the fungi are growing is probably a "coihue" or a "lenga", or some other nothofagus, the "southern beechs".

Cheers,

Guillermo
Patagonian

Guillermo,

I was familiar with notro, but thanks for letting me know what those fungi were. Now, I wish I would have tried eating one while I was down in Patagonia. You live in a spectacular part of the world; I hope to visit again before too long.

--Chris

[Cormoran]

I am in agreement with Rassilon and Evil Dr. Ganymede on this one. While there may be arguments against the discussion of unrelated topics within the forum, I feel that renaming Purgatory to a less pejorative name would be a step in the right direction.

After all, such off-topic discussions allow us to communicate broader aspects of our personalities, creativity and interests, thus allowing us to be visible as people...

Think of it as the bar where we just chew the fat after a hard and rewarding day at the Celestia coalface...

And Chris, that pic is gorgeous....

Regards,

Cormoran

[RND]

I agree that a "general" forum is needed to discuss other things. But I dont like the idea of calling it "Moderate discussion", sounds like it would be heavily sensored or something.

How about calling it "Black Hole". It still reflects the forums theme while giving it an astronomy related title.

[Michael Kilderry]

I have made up my own forum, complete with it's own off-topic section. I call it "Just Stuff" because it is for talking about just stuff.

Michael Kilderry

[Mirozen]

Those pictures of Patagonia are of some of the most beautiful spots I've ever seen!!!

Off topic or not, thanks for sharing them!