lucifermourning

After a couple of years away, K & I had arranged to go to one of the days of Victorious festival again. We selected the Friday once we saw that both my favourite band (October Drift) and her favourite band (The Charlatans) were both playing then: when the stage times came out we were aghast to see that, not only were they playing at the same time, but they were both playing very early on in proceedings, at 1pm. So I headed down to Waterloo pretty early on Friday, caught the train to Fratton and wandered down to the familiar Southsea sea-front site on another sunny day. En route, K had got in touch to say that she was having a child-related crisis [well an emotional crisis on the child's part, anyway] so I headed over to The Castle stage to say hi to some of the other OD nuts and watch Man/Woman/Chainsaw, who were playing there before them and I once again enjoyed. I was pretty familiar with October Drift's half-hour festival set at this point but that didn't make it any less enjoyable: there were quite a few people there, given the time of day and clash, but it's quite a big space so hard to feel full. In honour of K I popped over to the Common (main) Stage to catch the end of The Charlatans, then stayed there for most of Sprints before heading back to the Castle to watch first The K's and then Ash (I'm noticing the patterns of with which bands are doing the rounds at this stage of festival season!)

K had resolved her crisis but there was little point her coming to the festival now (especially having missed, what was for her, the main event), so I bailed to go back to hers: to be honest, our plan had been to probably only stay for one more band after that point anyway, one of the options for which would have been The Mary Wallopers, so I missed all the drama of them having the plug pulled for displaying a Palestinian flag. I ended up Uber-ing all the way out to K's, did a run to her local shop with its perky young shopkeeper, and then we immersed ourselves in our usual entertainments before crashing out at around 4a.m. Neither of us had to be anywhere Saturday morning so we did a whole lot of lazing, counting down to when the pizza delivery places opened; around lunchtime she took me to the station, I headed back to London and home for a nap. I had a gig booked in the evening, which Ketch was coming to, so I was committed, and by the time I got there I'd perked up a fair bit. We got to the Camden Assembly during a band called Cereal Milk, who seemed refreshingly to be in perhaps their late 30s, then watched The Number Twenty, young Essex lads who ticked off covers of Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and (delightfully) Killing In The Name Of, but whose own songs were good too. We were there for The Pedals, who I'd only seen once before: their songs kinda blended but it all made me want to dance.

It was sunny again on Sunday (it seems to alternate at the moment) and N & I had brunch in Stoke Newington, the headed over to the Heath where we had a pleasant wander and sat on a bench outside Kenwood with the Bank Holiday crossword before moving on and meeting up with M. N headed off whilst we headed to the playground and paddling pool, chilling while E played. We eventually went our separate ways and back home I had Family Zoomtime in the evening. Monday was the August Bank Holiday and I had a relaxed morning doing Stuff and my shop, then I met N after lunch at Abney Park Cemetery, where we sat and did more of the crossword before tea on Church St. Back home I cooked in the evening.

I was once again due to meet my guest at the Polish Consulate on Tuesday morning but it was once again a bust, although he swore he'd sent me a message cancelling. I didn't hang around long though before heading over to the office and was at home in the evening. I was covering the Earls Court day centre again on Wednesday then we attempted to have our Round the World Dinner (sans N, who's been fighting off some lurking lurgy for a couple of weeks now): I'd booked an Angolan place in Brixton but once we got there, the guy told us that they only really did the Angolan food at the weekend and his Mum (the chef) was on holiday in Portugal. We decided to bail and walked round to the Algerian place we'd been to before: after much sucking of teeth, the one-man-operation who runs it gave us a table; it was great food again, although we felt slightly like we had to rush it. Thursday I was back covering the Stamford Brook drop-in and home in the evening.

satyrica

I did my shop in the morning on Saturday then headed down to Russell Square, an atypical assembly point the latest Palestine solidarity march: I managed to locate PFW and the masses finally got away. It was another hot day and what seemed like a very large crowd made its way in fits and starts from Bloomsbury down to Trafalgar Square, fairly uneventfully. I peeled away at Charing Cross into the station and made my up to Stoke Newington to meet N for cake in a cafe-cum-record store there before we both carried on home. In the evening I went back out to Paper Dress Vintage for some bands: first The Havocks, who seemed to have come along way since I last saw them, no longer including any covers and dealing in some enjoyably bolshie lyrics; then came Another Day, who had a rawer sound than their tousled hair and fitted T-shirts had led me to expect but also threw in some random acrobatics- there was also a fifth guy with them who really didn't fit their mould but interspersed poems with their songs and Bez'd away at the side of the stage the rest of the time. I was there for headliners Gingerella: the crowd finally got lively towards the end of their set and I left feeling invigorated. I spent Sunday morning doing Stuff at home, then headed out after lunch to join N in Clissold Park, where we sat for a while. He went straight home but, barely having moved all day, I walked along the New River from there to Finsbury Park, before carrying on home, where we had a little BBQ with J and his friend A. Then I joined Family Zoomtime.

I was back at work for the first time in nealy two weeks on Monday, covering the drop-in down in Clapham, then came home for D&D in the evening. Tuesday was another baking day, although it's often hard to notice from within the office. I was home again in the evening, where I cooked and did a crossword with N before having one of our online catch-ups with L and R. I came home from work on Wednesday but then headed back out again the Sebright Arms for a gig. I got there during Battery Point, a five-piece from Bristol, who were a bit niddly and awkward ("thanks to the other bands and the promoter" didn't inspire confidence that they knew who any of those people were) and didn't really connect. Next up, Big Head Tea Drinkers, were a grungey outfit from Brighton: they had some good sections of enveloping noise but the vocals seemed a bit ropey at times. I had come for King No-One: it was supposed to be a 'close up' performance, a chance to see a band that usually filled bigger venues at close quarters, but even the smaller space wasn't that packed and technical issues seemed to predominate (which they kept suggesting were the result of not being used to fitting their show into such a small venue anymore), although they played a couple of new songs, which it was good to hear, and seemed to have a different drummer.

I had Thursday booked off work (despite an abortive attempt to sneak on for an external meeting at lunchtime), then N & I had our online mortgage application meeting in the afternoon, after which we headed to Finsbury Park for a drink and then food at the same Mexican place we'd been to before. I travelled over from there to The Troubadour, meeting up with Ketch for a gig: we saw Am Shanley an American in the classic shades and leather jacket who played some delicate, beautiful songs, a female singer joining him for the last couple. Next up were The Rants, who were down from Scotland and impressed with the intense, emotive indie they played. Headliners were Dead Freights, who had a fourth member again (albeit potentially only temporarily) and the gig generated a good energy, even with a crowd of thirtyish.

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise posting in

dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

satyrica

I was still on leave after getting back from the festival: N was off too and we viewed a property we liked the other side of Bruce Castle Park on Tuesday morning, then headed down to Stoke Newington for lunch in one of the delis along Church Street, before a wander around Abney Cemetery. Otherwise it was a mostly chill, recovery day, with a Zoom with my parents in the evening. Then on Wednesday we headed out fairly early to get the train up to York: it had been my New Year's Resolution for both 2024 and 2025 to visit the city, which neither of us had been to since we were children (and I had no memory of at all). The train was quick and efficient, getting us there in less than 2 hours: we quickly found somewhere we could stow our luggage and headed straight for York Minster. Having been to a fair few cathedrals now, I spent a while thinking that York Minster, whilst impressive, was just more of the same (albeit the Chapter House was a highlight) but right near the end the trail took us down into the Undercroft and we suddenly discovered a great exhibition detailing all the history of the site, including the discovery of the Roman remains that the Minster was built on. It gave the context I'd been craving to everything we had been seeing and contained some great artefacts.

Ready for lunch, we succumbed to a Yorkshire pudding wrap along Stonegate [every road seemed to be something -gate, but the four actual gates to the city were called bars] then had a little bit of a wander before walking all the way wound the city walls, which were extensive and impressive, as well as a good vantage point to spot sites and peek into gardens. Once we were done it was time to collect our bags and check into the Travelodge, which was situated above a Wetherspoons, although we never really felt disturbed by it. We spent some time chilling out until we were ready to head out for the evening and first had a couple of drinks at the House of Trembling Madness back on Stonegate, which we loved, then some food at Fat Hippo (a burger place I had remembered from our last cathedral visit, in Durham). We were both pretty knackered and ready to head back and crash once we'd eaten.

Thursday was our only full day in the city, so we wandered out fairly early and wandered up the Shambles before they got too busy (we'd deliberately gone mid-week but it was clear that tourists (such as us) were a huge factor in the city. We were also booked at the Jorvik Centre fairly early: I hadn't been quite clear what the set up was and started to worry it might be a but tacky, but we had a wonderfully clear and articulate guy doing out initial spiel, then the 'ride' through a reconstructed Viking street was actually pretty interesting, before we wandered through a few galleries of artefacts (including the much-vaunted coprolite) at the end. We went for a pleasant wander along the Ouse (getting the news that our offer had been accepted on the house we'd viewed as we did so), then back into the centre for lunch.

After lunch we went our separate ways for a bit: N went to visit the Railway Museum, whilst I went up Clifford's Tower and to the York Castle Museum which, take note, had nothing at all to do with the castle that once stood on the site. It was a pot pourri of social history, really: the initial collection being old objects a doctor had collected from poor families in lieu of payment; there was a reconstructed Victorian street, an exhibition about World War I and a history of the prison that the buildings had been, including some nifty projections in the cells. We met back up at Over the Rainbow, an amazing neurodivergent-friendly queer cafe and bookshop, for tea and cake, then back to the hotel for some chill time. In the evening we sandwiched an amazing meal at a vegan East Asian restaurant with drinks in a couple of the endless supply of historical pubs that the city had to offer.

Friday morning we checked our bags back in at the shop in the centre, then finally poked around the Museum Gardens until the Yorkshire Museum opened, which also turned out to have a great collection of items, especially from the Neolithic and Roman eras. We were ready for lunch afterwards and had lunch at a pub that the friendly owner had just taken on: they did traditional, hearty meals (pork belly, shepherd's pie etc.), which you bought (very reasonably) just as the main, then you could get the trimmings as add-ons, so we shared plates of cauliflower cheese, veg and Yorkshire pudding, everything accompanied by lots of peppery gravy. We had a bit more of a wander around the centre, popping into a couple of incredible, historical churches (especially Holy Trinity, Goodramgate with its box pews) that could have easily gone under the radar. I then popped into the small Roman Baths museum (under the pub of the same name) before we reconvened, collected our luggage and went to the station in plenty of time for the train back to London.

We went home but I turned around and pretty much headed straight back out again to a gig down at Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes as I was really keen to catch Bennie Jetz, first on the bill there: he had his band behind him this time and sounded much heavier and more alt than he had by himself. Gig-regular B and his new girlfriend S were both there as well and incorporated me into their group, which was lovely: especially with Bennie being as friendly as ever. Soft were next up, so it was a double-whammy of acts I was excited by, although they rise and fall a bit depending on the energy in the room. I stayed for headliners Chest, who were fine but didn't make as much of an impression.

denise posting in

dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.