Two days ago I tried to post to my blog and realized I was locked out of the database. Unbeknownst to me said database had been gradually filling up with spam emails . When the bloat reached 150Mb (my database quota is 100Mb), the host site, 1and1.com, froze any access to the database that might increase its size (such as new posts or comments).
It took me a number of hours, using the onLine mySQL database tools at 1and1.com, to clear out all the garbage, and then another day for the host software to updated my official footprint — which is now back down to a slim and energetic 18Mb.
Since I’ve been blogging every day for over four years, without missing a day — until this — I decided, on an editorial level, to declare this an “Act Of God”, and to continue blogging daily as though nothing had happened. So my posts for the last two days were duly written on the appointed day, but uploaded this morning, when my blog returned to life.
The most unfortunate thing is that all reader comments during the AOG were annihilated. If you left a comment about, say, the recent Hypergeography post, it has been, I am sorry to say, savagely crushed, pulverized, zapped by a Martian death ray, sucked of all its life giving essential juices and left to die a sad and lonely death on the blasted shores of some internet wasteland.
So if you did leave a comment sometime in the last few days, please repost it. I would love to read it!!