The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

This month has been an unexpected publication bonanza! As well as the beautiful Lacing Glamour book cover I'm also on the cover of issue 2 of the German Gothic Lifestyle Magazine with one of my favourite pictures of all time :)



Photo by Allan Amato
Hair by Robert Masciave
MUA: Bea Sweet
Clothing: Mother of London and Antiseptic Fashion.

I also have a big feature/interview inside but I've not seen a copy yet.

As well as that I also have a pic in the German Foto Magazine for a feature on Marla Rutherford, a full page in the new Bowens Litebook magazine, 2 full pages in the Spanish Sensuality Magazine for a feature on Maya Hansen corsets and I'm on a full page ad in this month's Scarlet Magazine for the new collection from Angels Carrying Savage Weapons. Phew!

( (big) scans under thee cut )

I think I forgot to post about the new Angelic Weapons collection actually.. it was shot several months ago around the streets of Nottingham but has only just become available. Many pretty clothes! And the shoes were so hot! Can't find any bigger pics than these at the minute though:

Following on from my previous update regarding the impending sleepover at Stansted airport... thanks to the decision to get a National Express coach to the airport instead of the fast train I managed to get absolutely no sleep at all before the 6am flight. Usually I manage about 3 hours - yes I'm actually tight enough to have done 6am Stansted flights more than once. Curse you Ryanair and your £5 flights - which seems to be just enough to keep me from going temporarily nuts. The effect on my brain from being unable to sleep was rather interesting - I actually became a little delerious, complete with minor hallucinations, inability to complete a sentence and finding stupid things really hilarious. Thankfully my partner in travelling crime was equally affected so I was not a lone moron on the plane. I managed to sleep for most of the flight and the coach from Lubeck airport into Hamburg though, which my brain was very thankful for. Upon arrival in Hamburg around 10am we were met by Voivodess. Unfortunately we were so tired we then spent the rest of our first day in Hamburg in a state of semi-conciousness on an inflatable matress with a fast puncture. It's a form of torture.

Anyhoo sleep found us eventually and day 2 in Hamburg was spent visiting some sights, including the St Nikolai church ruins. The weather wasn't great (read: bloody freezing, damp and grey) but it was still a pretty cool view from the top of the tower.

The next day we car-pooled to Berlin to meet up with baudot and for halloween the 4 of us went to Feenfest. We managed to get a wee bit pissed and I think I won 'stupidest drunk' prize of the evening by setting my hair on fire. There's really nothing like the smell and sound of hair burning next to your ear combined with the drunken delayed reactions of your companions telling you your head is a-flame. It was on my short hair side though so the damage wasn't too bad...

We also visited the Pergamon Museum again (was there very briefly in june). It's the first time I've done an audio guide, it made a huge difference and I saw many things I would usually have overlooked! I'm no good with words so I won't even try to describe how amazing this place is. So inspired to make more drawings :)

The trip back to Hamburg is worth a small mention by itself... Voivodess had befriended a couple who were also looking to travel from Berlin to Hamburg on the same day as us and as a party of 5 we could get a group ticket which would be 8 euros each between us instead of 70 euros each seperately. However this meant we weren't allowed to take the 1.5 hour fast train but instead had to make 3 changes on the daftest most indirect route around obscure parts of Germany, totalling 6 hours.

But the story doesn't end there! We finally got onto the last connection only to have it terminate in Lubeck instead of Hamburg. No explanation or annoucement from anyone, the staff at the train station were as confused as the many passengers who had been travelling to Hamburg, who all stood around the empty station looking confused, tired and cold. Some of the passengers had obviously been to some sort of Anime/Manga convention and were still dressed up in Cosplay gear, it was a sight! The situation wouldn't have been so bad had it not been after midnight at this point and the entire station was deserted and about to close. There was one last train to Hamburg at 00:40 to save us from another night of no-sleep. Felt sorry for people who had been catching other connections in Hamburg though ><.

So ends my very brief overview of adventures in german-land. And now, for some silly photos! I just dumped my camera memory card so these actually start off from latest travels in Northumberland and Scotland before getting to Hamburg and Berlin.

( under a cut, there's quite a few... )



(Thanks to baudot for the last few :)

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.

another TTMT :D This one is themed! :D

Off to get a coach to Stansted airport in about an hour, coach gets in just after 1am, flight to Hamburg leaves at 6am. Not sure yet if I'm going to attempt to sleep or just drink a lot of caffiene. We're spending a couple of days in Hamburg and then going to Berlin for a halloween party, though I'm sorely lacking in a costume so far!

But I did just accidently dye my hair fluorescent orange about 20 minutes ago. Not my usual bright coppery orange, but full-on molten lava mixed with nuclear waste sort of orange. I'm not 100% sure if I like it or not yet. It certainly looks as if it will stain everything I come into contact with.

For now, I will leave LJ land with the first shots from the one shoot I did on my holiday in Paris. Another reason that Paris is fabulous - no-one tried to stop us or ask us to leave, despite the fact we had semi-transparent outfits on and full giant light. We did attract quite a crowd of followers too though, including paparazzi photographers! I think maybe they thought we were more important than we were! haha.

Click for fullview!


Photography: Allan Amato
Clothing: HMS Latex
Hair: Camille Rapin
MUA: hurtmeso

Models: Myself and Marie Kalista

( here are some behind the scenes pics too! :) )

The guy in the last pic had nothing to do with the shoot whatsoever, he just decided to follow us around for about 20 minutes taking photos!

I just read the following e-mail from my viz comm professor: (lezlishae I think you'll find this amusing)
On Wednesday night during Intro to Viz Comm we will be having a costume contest that you can enter for the chance at winning some extra credit for either class. Pick a typeface (it can be your favorite or least favorite) and send me an email announcing your choice before Wednesday at 5:00pm. Then, dress up as your chosen typeface, but DO NOT write the name of your typeface anywhere on your costume. Then, during class, we'll vote to see if we can figure out who is dressed as which typeface. The winner, first and second runners-up will receive extra credit.

if only I had a straight jacket.... mailbox open mailbox!

Got back to London yesterday from another portion on the European tour-athon. This time less glamourous but still an adventure of sorts, firstly to Glasgow for a couple of days and then Newcastle and surrounding areas of Northumberland. Newcastle to visit my parents for the first time in almost a year, with a day trip to Barter Books and the castle in Alnwick. The former is one of the largest second hand bookstores in the UK, housed in the old train station. I'm particularly fond of the toy train that runs around the top of some of the bookshelves and the open log fire to sit and read next to. Managed to limit my spending to an illustrated hardback of the Plague Dogs and a History of Erotic Literature. haha.

I think I forgot to mention in my last entry that I stumbled quite by accident upon Cecil Court in London not long before we left for Glasgow. It's a wonderful little street close to Charing Cross, where every single shop is a second hand/rare/antiquarian book store with a Victorian frontage, it's wonderful! They even have one that specialises in illustrated children's books, where I stood with a goffy excited grin on my face. I don't think many people know that I am rather into late 19th/early 20th century book illustration. Most of my favourite artists specialised in children's fairytale books.

But anyhoo, back to the trip! Got to Glasgow via a stopover in Edinburgh where I met uglydiamonds new puppy, which was perhaps the most adorable creature I've ever met. She clung to my face like an excitable little face-hugger and tried to eat my hair. The next day off to Glasgow to meet up with Grant and Kristan Morrison (Grant Morrison, who is such an eloquent speaker I was pretty much awestruck and quietly mourned my own complete lack of conversational skill ><). Extra thanks to Kristan for showing Allan and I around Glasgow (particularly the Museum of Transport! hehe).

And we're off to Hamburg tomorrow! So I'll be spending Halloween in Germany. Hopefully going to fit a day or 2 in Berlin in there too :)

I didn't get a chance to check my email much for most of the past 2 weeks, so it was rather a nice surprise to have this in my inbox! It's the cover of Bibian Blue's new book 'Lacing Glamour', published by Norma Editorial. It's being released this week at the 2009 Salon del Manga de Barcelona:



( the full wraparound cover and the 2 full size images under the cut... )

Photo: Phantom Orchid
Styling & clothing: Bibian Blue
Hair: Mizzie Logan and Angela Holthuis
MUA: Angela Holthuis

I had some idea that the second outfit we shot was going to be on a cover as it was vaguely mentioned after the shoot but I haven't been allowed to see the shot until now! (The first of the 2 outfits was the equally cool 'Black Lace' I wrote about HERE :)

halloween_fan
Here at LiveJournal, we never balk at an opportunity for high drama, wicked costumes, and gluttonous sugar consumption. But this community takes it one step further: Here, everyday is Halloween. Of course, the hallowed eve is particularly sacred to this spirited crowd. If you're looking for last-minute costume ideas for your black cat, faux eyeball candy, or stand-out haunted houses, dive in for a splash of pagan merriment.

picturing_food
Designing gourmet? Feast your eyes on these pixel perfect dishes with an accent on presentation. A visual smorgasbord of eclectic cuisine, ranging from fusion to down-home comfort foods. If the way to your heart is through your stomach and the way to your stomach is through your eyes, you're sure to leave with a good taste in your mouth.

bookish
Passionate readers share well-penned reviews on a broad sweep of genres, including fiction, YA, sci-fi, paranormal, fantasy, and good ol' pot-boiling suspense. Those of a lit crit persuasion are invited to introduce themselves before posting. And for the silent majority who prefer to bask in our neighbors' labors, there are thoughtful reviews, book list suggestions, and even great gift ideas to keep your library card and dowtime filled.

Just saw Paranormal Activity. It was creepy... but I was not too impressed.