The tech staffers at Softlayer and Orbit The Planet have screwed up the server clock twice in the last seven days, and thereby caused all kinds of reader-posting issues. The site crashed early this morning due to what they said was an “overload.” (Nonsensical.) When they restored service they reset the server clock to nearly three days in the future. When I informed them of this they went “oh” and reset to the correct date and time. But this created another problem.
That’s because between now and late Monday night, all new HE posts (including this one) are going to appear before — i.e., below — the six stories I posted this morning between roughly 7 am and noon. Until I figure something out, I mean. And many of the comments relating to the top six posts (“Weekend Reading” to “Same Foxhole”) won’t show up either because they’re dated as 12.21 and 12.22 posts, and now that the clock is back to the correct date (12.18) and time the system will disregard any comments that are posted before the 12.21 and 12.22 time stamps.
The Softlayer/Orbit guys, in short, are awful — absolutely the slowest, most dull-witted, least problem-attuned donkeys I’ve ever dealt with in my six-plus years of dealing with internet service providers. Softlayer/Orbit is a technical tinderbox. What new problem will happen next?
