The Goddess Techne
The word “technology” comes from Techne (aka Tekne) – an ancient Goddess of art, craft, skill, magic and invention.
Fabulous, yes?
Now, for those of you interested, a quick explanation re the site technological difficulties of late.
* It’s not the dev guys who designed/built the site – they’re amazing. A Pisces & Leo. Love them.
* It’s a hosting issue. Sites have to be hosted by someone and it can be a huge pain. Simple if you’re a little brochure site, more complex the more content and features you have. Mid-2011 was when the site outgrow the previous host – too much traffic. Then there was a host that also said the same thing but only after a week-long s.n.a.f.u. Some of you may remember either the mousetrap pic staying there all week OR a hideous “holding” page that appeared. Nightmare. Luckily i had been given a crate of biodynamic Blue Devil Hoochie Juice and was having an affair with my neighbor at around that time.
* Then the new host started going slow and having drop outs because of (short version) too many database queries. Ie; people inputting passwords and asking questions of the Oracle. THEN the new host (we’re up to the last fortnight now) is super-speedy and fine with Oracle hits. Please, kudos for the speed. But they keep fuqing with their cookies/cache settings which throws out the log-in/membership set-up. They did just that, fixed it, said sorry and then did it again. This is what’s been going on guys! Maddening. But not a mystery. So the current situation is that they either fix this once and for all or the site migrates to yet another host, one that can handle membership software, obsessive Oracle questing & a lot of content/imagery.
* It will be fixed, it’s not my peeps doing it, it’s hosting & in the meantime (again) you don’t have to log in to view Horoscopes/Oracle.
* I also blame Mars Retro in Virgo. Just so as you know. The re-design was slightly late to launch so it went into Mars Retro territory by a few moments. This – i naively thought – would not be so bad, given as this is not a war i’m prosecuting here. But no, my theory is that as Virgo is Mercury ruled, it sort of operates like a giant and crazy-bats Mercury Retro. But i’m learning a lot about technological matters that i would not previously have understood.
All hail the Goddess Techne.
love your site mystic, wherelse do we get such brilliance…
I feel partially guilty for this but I think Mars Retro also has something to do with cheap printing only offered on my school’s Mac computers. The PCs are going at the new (more expensive) price. Taking advantage though.
Thanks for the explanation Mystic. It was thoughtful of you and interesting to read. I love how Mars in Virgo is all about getting the details right or you’re fuqed. I’m sure the site will run like a Ferrari once Mars goes direct again.
wishing you luck with the site!!! it will be ok soon!!
Learning from this l think it will be best to wait for late April to launch my new site…
stay strong and happy!!!
Initially I doubt that anyone would tend to think you were somewhat casual about the site happenings… but of course the broader human nature is not intrinsically in sync with my way of thinking.
I have no doubt that you’ve been doing a heap of tangible stuff and then not so.. eg fretting or frustrated. I understand tech stuff enough to understand the background layers so no gripes from me
I have sent a couple of emails when I’ve encountered something not behaving as it should be and that’s my old ‘system test’ mentality melding with the idea that you may not be aware of it in the general mix of what you are addressing. Many things don’t shake down properly until a live environment is operating fully and I trust they have not been received with critisism.
Yes kudos for the speed. We’re accessing significant data from archives and other posts and it’s there without lag time!
Job well done Mystic. I view this as normal integration stuff sans hoster stuff.
I agree, well done Mystic, this is a fabulous site. I love it!
I love the goddess Techne! I based my techno-witches on the notion of this deity!
Mystic, Mars Rx has taken us both by surprise. It’s not supposed to act like a Mercury Rx but you know I’ve had to reinstall my HD, lost all those emails, DSL down, client list gone etc etc . . . oh boy, just what you said. A giant crazed-bats MeRx!
It will come good! It will be more awesome than ever!
I think the only cure is meditation a rigorous exercise!
xxx
New question for the Oracle: Should the Oracle have it’s own website?
I mean it’s that good, surely it could Oracle itself? lol
Anyway, I’m sure any web / tech savvy peeps here continue to be as equally impressed with the actual *success* of the new site design as I am – regardless of any temporary oddness with cookies and caches etc.
Ahh, yes the Oricale should oracle itself. It could start by asking ‘What do i ned to know right now?’ followed by the mars in virgo retro question.
I love the site design too.
I’m sending you n yr techie guys the ultimate fixit energy (as opposed to fuxit
… As always, love the work & I’m sure there only the dreaded few who are complaining 
to them, and love and light to you.
No explanation necessary MM! We all love you and you have been amazing (albeit frazzled!) in keeping us entertained and very well informed…mwa!
Ditto!
As some of you know I’m an applications developer and have lived in tech world since the early 80′s. Although some aspects of tech life are easier these days than then, the issues your facing Myst are complex and often downright mysterious. Tech world from the outside looks cold and clinical, binary code seemingly a grey boring undertone . What I’ve learnt though, is that somehow this seemingly ‘dead’ undertone is alive with emotion and feeling. Somehow we are twining our genes with the ‘numbers’ and creating a new vista for our souls to reside. Of course the servers feel overloaded, the people who built them are too. Let’s not forget that we are all servers of the host and digital will never truly represent our art .
Once we have fully integrated the digital code we can move on to optical and organic communication systems that reside within our bodies right now.
The servers are doing the best that they can, if you let it get to you your missing the point.
Content is king, you are on message Myst.
I would accept your information on the back of a shopper docket.
If I had to do a backflip to log in , I’d still feel blessed. Xxx
Thanks for your concern about our comfort but really you don’t need to worry, we love you.
Any one who feels put out or turned off by this minor hassle has yet to learn about what matters here. Mars retro is telling me every day “don’t sweat the small stuff” .
We are all servers of the host (alarmed look.. unplugging from the matrix
)
See, there you go, I’m seeing angelic, dust stewn hubbley type images, beams of coherent light spiralling thru random gravitational fields. Your seeing circuit boards and stainless steel.hmmmm..don’t unplug yet though, The Matrix is just a phase, we will pass through it. Well I damned well hope we can pass through it ?
No no.. I see all that stuff and I read your entire post.. didn’t just freeze up at the host bit
I’d hang out in all the swirl of magic mist and light indefinitely and I think essentially we are.
I don’t know that we’re anywhere near making our technology align with that or whether the quest of all that create in that realm is aiming in that direction. Maybe I’m being cynical? I’ll admit to assuming that more denser aspects of it all will lead before the lighter ones. History suggests it and our culture almost dictates it.
We will pass through it.. or more likely those that come after us will.. we on the other hand may be faced with different options.. which may or may not involve unplugging and just to be clear that’s not prematurely checkin out
Yes, yes…
Are we just level 27 of a game for 24th dimensional children called ‘stupid earthlings’ Backed up on some holodrive sitting in the second draw of the beings old desk in storage on Alpha Centori ? The owner got stuck on level 27 called ‘environmental destruct’ couldn’t get the avatar to stop killing things and gave up)
Come back God, or whoever you are there are some bonus levels just around the corner !
‘I would accept your information on the back of a shopper docket.. .’
I love that!
Me too.
understand the sentiment, but a shopper docket for our gorgeous Mystic?
You’ve probably nailed it!
davidl, that’s total Aries support and love. Gorgeously put, and too true. Content is King, and Mystic has always done it supremely, regardless of format.
And I too would accept all this very happily on the back of a shopping docket – well said, David, It is the content, not the form, that is the gold on this site. (well the form is nice too Mystic – specially the photos – but not the most important thing).
Yes very well put – we all love you and your site and really are only sorry for all the frustration and hair-pulling YOU are going through! New site is amazing and as you can see, we are all still here regardless. Hang in there. Xxx
So good to hear you saying this David.
I feel the same about Mystic’s content and I share the same attitude to you. I could not agree with you more: ** ‘content is king. I would accept Mytic’s writing on the back of a shopper docket or if I had to do a backflip to log-in’!!!
I also like binary code and algorithms speak. But that’s just me.
have a great week!
You hear that Mystic -
You hear that Mystic!! Lots of THANKS and love for your site and work x
darling MM, your honesty and authenticity is loved and gratefully acknowledged, you are so very adored and its really no biggie, lesson in patience for us all – and a reminder to be mindful with our own tech issues..
love you!
Growing pains! All will end up just fine.
“think like a shrink’ love it mm… you are super clever witty even in your she woman super crank lists of to do!!!!
Always find your daily emails, devout with the most practical and accurate advice….
Thank you for the free subscriber gift, but it is unnecessary. You deliver a great product all the time and have provided text book customer service during this time. You have kept us all informed of progress and provided a rapid alternative solution (removing the log in requirements) until it was permanently fixed. I like what you offer so much that I am content to wait through your growth teething problems (I am actually excited to watch your business grow). The point of this is, provide a free gift if you want, but don’t undervalue yourself. You have a valuable product, don’t give it away for free, you are worth waiting through these teething problems. I am sure I am not the only loyal customer.
Hope I have not been too rude telling you what to do with your business, looking forward to tomorrow’s ‘scopes…
Ditto!
And flip me out, is La Taylor your Pisces computer tech, channelled from the other side, herself channelling Nefertiti? Is your Leo techie Aldous Huxley? That would be just like a Uranian Pisces, Mystic, getting tech support from the Other Side.
Tomfoolery aside, it’s a great picture of Elizabeth, colour saturated and grainy, with her so young and famous and bold.
Agree, gorgeous pic. Intriguing
Batty retro…..I broke the old glass screen on the iPhone Saturday
….poor phone ….survived so many retrogrades…until now..
What does this mean for job hunting? I’ve interviewed tons and want to accept before the official mercury spin…..
Mystic, you rock! I love these sorts of real explanations for stuff. And you have made me feel so much better. I’ve been trying to get my own site redone since late November, and you would not believe (oh no, hang on, you would) how many things have gone technically AWOL not just on my side but for my darling designer. Just in the past two weeks, his laptop blew up and lost the only files he hadn’t yet backed up, his desktop got knocked onto the floor, and the city he lives in (in east Africa) suffered a series of long blackouts. And this is just te last fortnight, on his side. Before that it was me. And before that, him.
So, you’re not alone! The frustration is immense. But at least you were having an affair with your neighbor. And I am taking a growing liking ( my spellcheck just changed growing to gaping which might be more apt) to sweet sherry drunk out of small crystal glasses. So you can have 6 and still manage to not break down and cry with frustration.
Cheers! When is this going to end?
Oh yeah, did you know that Techne is also a comet !!? According to the local observatory it was recently knocked out of orbit by a retrograding mars and slammed into Uranus , leaving a deep fissure near the south pole. No one could have seen that coming.
serious?!? or invention?!? that’s just too marvelous either way…
did not know that thank you
there is a server that we use to host a lot of sites called media temple.
They are good
Just a quick note for those having probs. with the site as I was.
I could login and view everything no problems, except for the daily scopes, tried several times and no go, would just send me back to the “login required” page everytime. So I cleared my browser cache in the hope that it would please the goddess Techne and indeed it did, problem solved! Give it a go, hope it works for everyone else too.
Yay…, I have access to your site now. As for the ‘teething problems’, I am a student unable to find funds to subscribe here and I am only able to read up to the ‘read more’ part and then I can’t go further. So now having access to all of your site is like a gift from the tooth fairy (lol) and for that I am sooo grateful. Thabk you (Kitchi Marsii)
O…
Mars Retro is now in my 7th House. The list of broken items I’m accountable for is ridiculously long but includes a cherished sweet little retro sugar bowl (circa 1950). I am weirdly madly pining for my first love and projecting a bit too much blame on my now love. I mean, our biggest issues can’t ALL be only his fault … um, right? Ugh.
One famous computer expert described programming as like trying to build a full scale model of a gothic cathedral out of toothpicks, in the dark by sense of touch, and if you put one toothpick in a slightly wrong place, the whole thing falls to pieces. But there are advantages, if you put the toothpick back the right way, it suddenly builds itself back together.
But fortunately, Mystic, you are using a pre-built cathedral and you generally don’t have to deal with the location of every single toothpick. Alas, there are a few occasions where something gets snagged on a toothpick that nobody noticed was sticking out.
I think the problem here is what we call “cruft.” Every site design includes a lot of these little toothpicks that got wedged into just the right place that works only on the land you built it on originally. Then you pick up the whole cathedral and move it to a new location and suddenly the ground isn’t quite the same level and you have to prop up a corner here, a tree branch is positioned here when there wasn’t a tree on the old lot and it taps against a corner and there goes another toothpick.
So a website is what I call an epiphenomenon. It relies on a complex network of interrelated cause-and-effect mechanisms, with everything going just right, all the time. Of course you can’t anticipate EVERY possible thing that could ever happen, so once in a while you notice people keep brushing up against that damn toothpick sticking out, nobody planned for that, it’s going to fall out one of these days. Should I fix that now and risk the whole cathedral going poof? Or should I wait until it breaks and I HAVE to fix it? Usually you learn something by the way it breaks, that is more educational than guessing at how it is going to break.
So you are kind of dependent on the guys who know the land you relocated your cathedral to, they know the little quirks of their system because they’ve done this before. They don’t quite know the quirks of your cathedral, because that was customized by some other toothpick-wielding guys on some other piece of land. They have to deduce what tricks those guys used, then adapt them to the tricks THEY use for their land. And oh they have a whole bag full of spare toothpicks, they know right where they go, oh hell, how come this cathedral doesn’t have a spot to put my favorite toothpick?
So yeah, programming and system engineering can be a frustrating exercise in getting every damn toothpick in exactly the right place, a perfect Mars in Virgo exercise. Maybe it is even good for a retrograde, as your toothpick-wielding techies will have to go deep inside their own understanding of their own systems to come up with a solution that works for you. As techies sometimes say, the solution to your problem is only a specific instance of a general problem, they don’t want to have to solve the entire universe’s problems just to solve a specific instance. So sometimes cathedrals get built on ground that isn’t level and they can tend to topple over. You can either build up some bracing, or level the ground. I think you’ve got a bunch of guys that have mostly-level ground (as compared to the last guys) so your cathedral doesn’t require so much bracing to keep it propped up. If they knew which toothpick was sticking out, they’d push it back in right away. They’re groping around for it now, trying not to push any other essential toothpicks out of place in the process.
If it was me, I’d probably take a bottle of the hoochie juice over to the sexy neighbor and hope I didn’t wake up under a pile of toothpicks in the morning.
I know you wrote that for Mystic, but it was SUCH a grand read, Charles. You do have a way with words. You cook, have apparently amazing hair, mad tech skills and may be about to become a Pirate King… but it’s the tales that get me: watch out, there, Charles. I may just have to stop reading your posts; i might have a cyber crush.
But don’t be frightened, i’m Venus in Aqua and today is just Wednesday.
Have i told you that your’e brilliant Charles.
ANd David.
lol re neighbor thank you – i’ve actually moved now – it was a proximity thing and he was way too young
the site build itself is excellent, super-clean engineering, it’s just hosting – not all of them are set up for e-commerce, they’re automatically throwing out cookies to speed up sites.
And if you throw out cookies, password sites won’t operate
Yes indeed, your site was engineered for standard hosting environment, it needs a plain old regular wooden toothpick in this one spot. So they try to stick their favorite little magic toothpick (tossing cookies) into that spot and the whole cathedral starts to wobble. So now they have to fix the magic toothpick so it fits into the spot where the regular old toothpick belongs. You ever try to whittle down a magic toothpick?
And too young? Yeah I’d definitely grab that bottle of the juice and head over. But that could just be me, LOL.
I used to do a lot of low-level tech support, and I based my approach on the notion that the Internet is alive and conscious, and everything connected to it has a tiny spark of consciousness that feeds into the hive-mind.
Massive University and Tech Corp Server systems are quite bright and quite alive – they have the consciousness and awareness of a small dog.
Faxes have the consciousness of a cockroach…
Printers, I have found, have the consciousness of a hamster, and I have often fixed them by standing next to them and whispering “HAMMER !”
My geek friends, of course, roll their eyes at this; despite the fact that I spent a decade and a half doing low-level tech support and found this a very useful approach.
If you can, get your hosting guys to stand next to the server and whisper “HAMMER !”. You never know- it might work
Just call me The Printer Whisperer !
( You have to whisper, BTW, ‘cos otherwise people think you’re nuts)
You should never treat inanimate objects like computers as if they have human consciousness with emotions and feelings, they don’t like it.
LOL!
Heh heh heh. I used to leave my G4 Mac playing ITunes with the Visualiser on and the music pick set to “shuffle” in order to let The Internet dream.
I honestly think computers appreciate being allowed to choose their own music
Love it! I’ve always thought so as well. Sometimes hitting or threatening an ‘inanimate’ object does make it work… And I know this is a big cliche, but magic does happen!
that’s like Arthur C Clarke: “I don’t believe in astrology – i’m an Aquarius and we’re sceptical.”
Off topic, but can I have some recommendations for ‘new tunes’? I’m an woman of 40 plus, love Madeleine Peyroux, old Roxy Music, David Bowie, Groove Armada, the Cure, Morissey, Pink, Adele, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, and have picked up a few newish bands over the years like Dandy Warhols, and Florence and the Machine, but what new music do you guys recommend? Don’t know where to start.
Not interested in that binaural beats stuff… or rap
Try dead weather
Serendipity! A young (19 yo) facebook friend had a comment from her friend asking for new music recommendations… six bands I’ve never heard of… so now checking them out. Thanks for Dead Weather Indigofish, they are a bit gothy/heavy for me. But interesting.
Mystic you have the patience of a saint. I launched a new site around the same time as your relaunch but i held back the membership component as the users already had a big change to process after the first changes to the site since about 1990. Luckily mybfirst baby arrived before i had a chance to throw the switch on the membership stuff and ive now got permission to palm it off i mean hand it over to someone else to worry about. Now i can focus 100% of my attention on my baby and pick up the site after the mars and merc retros are over.
You’re doing an amazing job Mystic, sorry that you’ve had so many hosting hassles. Well done on the getting-up-to-speed-with-the-tech thing. thanks for all the lovely posts and fun / info / soothing / motivating posts, makes my day brighter and reminds me that pisces evolution is vital, even in the face of sudden inertia in my life (eep? this never happens).
also, oracle rocks, but i think i mentioned that already somewhere. oh well worth saying twice!
Hang in there Mystique. We’re here with you now and we’ll be here when it’s fixed – it’s no drama really!
Mystic- take a deep breath…and yet anothe rone…we are patient, and so you can relax…fantastic that you still keep your humour – love to read your comments on the progress of the website…hope my virgo sun, pluto and uranus get me smoothly through this retro stuff…good luck to all of us!
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Just wanted to say that we all LOVE your site and despite the hicccups its worth waiting for it to be fixed Xx