Sal
@Sal@mander.xyz
- Comment on This place is back online! 12 hours ago:
AAAHHHH 😭 Such a relief. This was stressful.
The websites makes use of Contabo’s object storage service for storing and serving images. Earlier during the month, I got an e-mail saying that there would be a 12-hour downtime window due to a migration. Alright, no problem.
A bit before this users reported problems with uploads. I figured this was related to the migration.
After the “migration”, images still caused problems due to some “administrative rule” preventing uploads. I sent messages daily to Contabo. At first they were responding that “their engineers were looking into it, that this was related to the migration, and that they had no time estimate”. OK, I can be patient…
After a few days I lost some of my patience and pressed them more often, until they started sending me generic messages and eventually saying that “the problems were already fixed” and suggesting it may be some configuration error on my side.
This is where it got stressful, because my knowledge of the implementation of the images back-end is superficial. So… That meant I would need to study the details and either fix it myself or show proof that it was their fault.
These past few days I have tried to do some reading and tested configuration changes, but I am the kind of person that puts too much on their plate and I have been quite busy, so this has been an additional stress point.
Today, images suddenly started working (until it came down again due to some logs piling up). This tells me that it was not a configuration issue and it was with high probability something on Contabo’s side that they fixed today. Uploads are working as well now. Contabo support never shared any information about the specifics of what went wrong, so I don’t know.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t need to study the details, but at least now the pressure is lower. My plan now is to do some studying on how images are stored and served and once I have a good understanding I can migrate the instance to a dedicated server. I will also look into techniques for making a server more resilient when things do go wrong.
- Comment on Issue with images expected tomorrow over a 12 hour period 2 weeks ago:
Yes, it is pretty frustrating.
I keep sending them messages every day. Today’s reply:
This is connected to the migration and there is no ETA currently.
Not very happy with them. I am looking into how to move the images somewhere else.
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
Thanks! <3 Cost is not the issue. The reason why I selected this option was because it seemed a good choice at the time. Moving the image database around is a bit of a hassle so I chose to just keep it as it was even after learning of other options. Last time it took several days of downtime to move the images over because the transfer speed into/out of the object storage is very low.
If I would have known that this would happen now, I might have taken this opportunity to move all the images over. But I was not expecting this amount of downtime. Now I worry that trying to move images from one place to another when the object storage is acting up is risky, and also I am busy.
I sent another message to support this morning and received:
We are sorry for the inconvenience caused. Please note that our technicians are working diligently on this matter, there is no ETA.
Sorry 😓
- Comment on Issue with images expected tomorrow over a 12 hour period 3 weeks ago:
I hope so!!
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
They are cheap. But I think that at the current total cost I would be able to improve performance while keeping cost about the same by migrating the instance to a dedicated server instead of a VPS + object storage.
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
Only that I am frustrated at the object storage provider (Contabo), and now I see why their reputation is not great. Their reply was that they sent a warning about the “12 hour downtime during March 10th”… but obviously these effects have extended both to before and after this “12 hour downtime”. At least I got confirmation that this problem is due to their migration.
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
I contacted support this morning as the issue persists. They confirmed that it is related to their migration, but they have not been able to give me a specific time for when it will be resolved.
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to mander@mander.xyz | 9 comments
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
I think it is the object storage provider… I see that there is a scheduled migration for 12 hours March 10th, but I suspect that they may have already started moving things around.
- Comment on Trouble uploading images 3 weeks ago:
Thanks. I have not changed anything recently. I am also blocked from uploading. Not sure yet what the problem is, I am looking into it.
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
I think the difference in time is too big. Also, in the talk page’s archive it is stated that the wikipedia was updated because of this meme, and not the other way around. This is from the talk page:
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
Looking through the archived history of the talk page, I can confirm that the claim on the wiki page is derived from the viral post, and not the other way around: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…/Archive_3#Chalchiuhtlicue…
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
How did I miss that?!
My timeline is incorrect then. Since the post from sassymetischick.bsky predates the wiki edit, it is more likely that the wiki edit was made in response to this meme, and not the other way around. This pretty invalidates what I said above…
I still can’t find any evidence of this being an actual trend, but I no longer have a good guess about the origin.
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
Cuando quieras! 😁
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
Yes, but that version is in German. That website also has one in English: annas-archive.org/slow_download/…/0
Let’s see…
Woah, interesting. The author is José López Portillo. I thought he shared the name with a former Mexican president, but, nope, the author is a former Mexican president.
The title of the English version is a bit different, but the text appears to be the same. It is a novel, and I can find no mention of the gulf of Mexico or of Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl in this book. To me it looks like a mistake in the citation.
The claim appears to come from this text (citation 1): scribd.com/…/Dioses-prehispanicos-de-Mexico-mitos…
Unfortunately, that book does not contain references nor is it stated where this claim comes from.
- Comment on Chat, is this true? 4 weeks ago:
Hah, sure, let’s investigate 🕵️♂️
The term ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’ was added as a potential Aztec name to the English wikipedia page on February 15, 2025, by user ‘Mxn’.
The description of the edit is the following:
Frum says the Aztecs had no specific name for the gulf, which is plausible in a practical sense, but Fernández gives a specific religious name and is more of a reliable source on this topic
So, it is clear that the term was identified by user Mxn by performing an active online search.
If we investigate a bit further, we can see that the term Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl is described to be a name for the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in the spanish Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl
This page was updated to include the description of Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl as the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in September 16, 2018. I don’t have access to the citation so I don’t know if the citation specifies if this term is still known/used.
If you check the history you will find that the same ‘Mxn’ fixed a typo in this page on February 15, 2025.
So, from this sequence of events it is highly likely that the term ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’ was included into the Gulf of Mexico wiki page as a result of the user Mxn performing an active search for Aztec names for the Gulf of Mexico.
I can find no evidence of native people referring to the gulf of Mexico as ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’. I can find no mention of this becoming viral in Mexico.
I find it highly unlikely that:
- User Mxn added an obscure Aztec term to the Wiki page two weeks ago AND
- This same obscure Aztec term coincidentally began being used by Mexican natives, and this trend became popular enough to be noticed by foreign media but not by Mexican media
More likely…
- Mxn actively looked for a term and updated the English wiki
- Someone read the English wiki, thought this would be a nice story, made the meme
And this concludes my little investigation 🧐
- Comment on [deleted] 5 weeks ago:
Hello!
Yes, the !biology@mander.xyz community is a community for general biology-related content.
There are also more specific communities that focus in more specialized topics, such as such as !palaeontology@mander.xyz.
If you have an interest in a specific topic, feel free to create a community that reflects that interest. Some instances are very general while others try to limit communities to those that fit a range of topics, so it is best to create a community in an instance for which the topic is in scope.
- Submitted 1 month ago to [deleted] | 1 comment
- Comment on Supporting Mander 2 months ago:
An instance for nature and science related content. It is intended to be an instance to share photos of nature, scientific articles, ask about plants, science-related hobbies, etc. I make some effort to avoid politics and charged topics, although some small amount is tolerated, mostly because it is difficult to always enforce this without being too aggressive with moderation.
Here is the side bar:
An instance dedicated to nature and science. We follow Lemmy’s code of conduct. Please be respectful to each other. The main focus of this instance is the natural sciences, and the scope encompasses all of the STEM fields. Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instance’s local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities. As a member of the fediverse, you can create your account here and interact with any other federated community! To find communities all over the Lemmyverse you can use a community browser such as: https://lemmyverse.net/communities To fetch a community, simply copy and paste the community’s URL into the search box in Mander.
- Comment on Supporting Mander 2 months ago:
Hey! Thanks a lot for offering help with this, and I am happy to hear that you like it here :D
Financially: At the moment I am paying approximately ~$60 per month for the instance, which is an amount that I am more than happy to contribute to the fediverse in addition to donations to the dev team. If you have the means and want to contribute, my suggestion is to donate directly to the development: join-lemmy.org/donate
As for other kinds of help: Moderating a community (or communities) is a lot of help. Users are free to create their own communities or can reach out to me and I can make them a moderator in any of the communities I moderate 🙂
- Submitted 2 months ago to mander@mander.xyz | 0 comments
- Comment on Haha SO TRUE! 4 months ago:
Haha So True!
- Comment on STOP. IDING. PLANTS. 4 months ago:
Careful. Big Taxonomy doesn’t mess around.
- Comment on I feel like laying an egg. 5 months ago:
Hahahahaha
- Comment on Whenever I follow an external link, I'm not logged in. 5 months ago:
I have tested this and it happens with other instances as well, so it it is not mander-specific.
I am not sure why this happens… In my browser I even get fully logged out when I do this, unless I return to a previously open tab where I am logged in. So, maybe it is related to the behavior of the authentication cookie. Not sure.
- Comment on Is Lemmy an effective alternative to Reddit? 5 months ago:
🙌 ❤️
- Comment on Honey 5 months ago:
Hmm… Some lichen make use of orobatid mite labour in order to disperse the cells of their photobionts. Are those still ok?
- Comment on posts blackholed on the onion instance 5 months ago:
Thanks for pointing this out… I am very sorry that this happened. I have not tested the .onion front-end much.
Sorry for missing this post, I was traveling during holidays last month.
The server that is serving the .onion front-end is running only that service, and so I doubt it is ever under heavy load. I am not sure if this was a problem with the onion network itself, with the front-end, or the instance. When I looked into options I could not find examples of Lemmy instances using .onion front-ends and I picked the one I did because it does not require JavaScript.
I will make an effort to use the .onion site myself more often and I will look for other options.
- Comment on I constantly get errors loading images. 7 months ago:
I have changed rate limits / timeouts that I can control, but I still see that this happens when I clear my browser cookies and load the front page. I agree that it is quite bothersome. I will need to dive deeper and get in touch with the object store provider again.
- Comment on I constantly get errors loading images. 7 months ago:
Thank you. There was a different error that should have been fixed yesterday (a “too many requests” reply from the object storage provider). But this error is different, and I am not sure yet why it happens. I will change some settings that could have an effect. Please let me know if it happens again!
