5MV Update History

maintained by Zeke

DECEMBER 2003

December 1

The Enterprise fiver -- Five-Minute "Carpenter Street" -- is now done.

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December 2

Kira here. Just in time to get us all into the holiday spirit, IJD GAF brings us Five-Minute Aliens.

It's not a coincidence that the fiver is being published today, either: the "quadrilogy" of Alien movies was released on DVD today. I've been instructed to pass along IJD's assurances that these rank among the best DVDs, like, ever. Maybe if you're nice they'll end up in your Christmas stocking instead of that lump of coal you got last year.

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December 3

No new content today, but after the last two days, can you really complain? Huh? Can you? I didn't think so. Wuss.

Today's link is to a little collection of stuff by Kevin Wald. Highlights include the humourous Buffy filk "World Without Shrimp" and a proof that pi is irrational to the tune of "Model of a Modern Major-General."

(By the way, the forums are back now. We were having some server problems earlier, but they're resolved.)

December 4

Today's another link day because I'm really, really tired. I'm sure a lot of our readers have seen this already, but the Evil Overlord List is always worth another read. Kira and I are big fans.

Oh, Nan finally posted the conclusion of her Hallowe'en comic trilogy at Working Title. I appear in this one too, and I'm still covered in slime from part two. Serves me right.

December 5

Kira here; I'll be your host for the next few updates while Zeke does, I dunno, real work and stuff. Sucker.

Today's link is to my favorite, and only, webcomic that I frequent: Piled Higher And Deeper, or PhD for short. It's a comic by grad students about grad students -- scarily accurate and consistently hilarious.

December 6

New material today from a somewhat familiar face: guest writer Nic Corelli brings us Five-Minute "Obsession."

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December 7 and 8

Sorry about the downtime; we were planning a server upgrade and it happened earlier than expected and without a lot of warning. The FTP was down until just a few hours ago, and the Forums will be back shortly.

There will be new material in the next few days from Marc, but for now check out The Worst Jobs in Science. Some of you may find these quite amusing... I, on the other hand, will have to go through #10 before I get a real job.

December 9

Well, the forums are still down, so sorry about that. But on the plus side, I've been asked to pimp the Firefly DVD, which is being released today. (ahem) Go buy Firefly, because Jade says you should.

And for today's link, if you've never seen Laid Off: A No-Nothing Production by a guy called Odd Todd, you're missing something. This has been around for ages, but I never get tired of showing it to people.

December 10

Slightly delayed by the server upgrade, here's a new This Just In from Marc Richard: Havers claims studio wanted male actor to play Seven of Nine.

The forums have been restored; hopefully we'll fare better with the new server than we did with the old.

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December 12

Well, it seems I spoke too soon about faring better with the new server; the recent downtime was due to Owen needing to reinstall a security patch, or something. The Forums will, once again, be restored shortly. Figures this happens on my watch and not on Zeke's -- Murphy's Law in action.

If the Forums come back and the server holds, there might be new material later today. I'd provide an interesting link in the meanwhile, but I'm in the middle of a very short incubation and I have about thirty seconds before I have to be back up in the lab.

December 13

Obviously, the forums are still AWOL, and that's about all the information I have on the subject. I'm going to hold off on Marc's new fiver until they're back because I work under the assumption that everyone enjoys feedback as much as I do. In the meantime, why not find out why We Are All Nerds Now. (In case you didn't guess, it's because of Lord of the Rings.)

December 14

Zeke here. The forums are still down, and it's time I explained the reason for that: the new 3Sygma server was the victim of a large-scale hack. We were taken over through a security hole (since patched) in our ikonBoard system, and used as part of a flood directed at another server. That left the site offline for a day, and while we're back now, Owen isn't going to bring the forums back until he's absolutely certain the security is airtight now. It shouldn't be too much longer; I'll keep you posted.

December 15

Still no word on the forums. No new content either, but while I'm tied up with the last of my schoolwork right now, I'll definitely have something for you by the end of the week. Today's link is one of 5MV's old friends: Star Trek Minutiae, Dan Carlson's great archive of Trek info and trivia. My favourite part is the extensive humour collection, which includes the truly classic Voyager Coronary by Cureboy. Have a read.

December 16

I do have word on the forums now, but it's vague. According to Owen, the security work is "nearly done." The first day the forums are back, I'll publish Marc Richard's new fiver, so that's something to look forward to.

Hmmm.... link for today, link for today.... oo, I know. Go read "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself."

December 17 & 18

(The site was down due to connection problems. Thank you, Telus. Hey, think they were trying to tel-us something? Ha ha ha ha ow.)

December 19

Annnnnnd we're back. (Cue either "Backstreet's Back" or "Without Me," whichever you hate less.) Zeke here welcoming you back to 5MV after our third downtime this month alone. I admit it couldn't have come at a better time for me -- my last two school projects were on the go, and one was due today -- but it's still pretty splucking annoying.

Here's the lowdown on the next few days. First off, that Marc Richard fiver I told you about will still be appearing the first day the forums are back. In light of the mess the server just crawled out of, I have no idea when that'll be, but let's hope it's a short wait. Likewise, there are other guest fivers in the works, but Kira's idea of waiting for the forums to return is wise. Daily updates will continue until then, they'll just have to be link days. As for me, I'll be catching up on Enterprise over the holidays, but I can't promise anything until that other project is done. It's due on Tuesday; I'll get "The Shipment" out as soon as possible after that.

At any rate, the forums may not be back, but at least we are. Tell your friends! (Shady's back... tell a friend...)

December 20

As warned, today's a link day. But this link isn't just good, it's good for you! The HTML Hell Page is the one document everyone should have to read before becoming a webmaster. It's concise, it's witty, and it's right. (I'm aware 5MV doesn't follow all of these rules, but the infractions are minor.) The author, Eric S. Raymond, is a major figure in the geek community; his site is very much worth exploring. It includes the famous Jargon File, which has provided me with many an hour of interesting perusal.

December 21

Today's my dad's birthday. He doesn't visit this site much, but in case he drops by: Happy birthday, Dad.

Through the two Angel-heavy blogs I've linked to recently (Naomi Chana's and Jennifer-Oksana's), I found dachelle. Last month she wrote a short Angel parody I still can't stop laughing over. Go find out why Angel. Can't. Read!

December 22

Today's link is to Lady Maigrey's Andromeda Ascendant, a great Andromeda site. (checks watch) And that's all I have time to say.

December 23

The forums are back! I have a lot more to say than that, but my project took me till past midnight and I don't have time to explain it all. Come back tomorrow for some site news and Marc's fiver.

December 24

First off, here's Marc's new fiver: "Sins of the Father," a pivotal NG episode. Enjoy!

Second, the spiel I was planning to give you guys yesterday. Basically, 5MV is going to be moving in the near future. After three years of excellent service, Owen has decided to stop hosting sites; he doesn't enjoy it as much anymore, we've had a lot of trouble with the server, and it's costing him more money all the time. So 3Sygma is on the way out. Fortunately, it's not going to be in any way abrupt -- and the way I plan to do this, you readers should barely notice when the actual move occurs.

See, for years I've been tossing around the idea of getting 5MV a domain name. Sites tend to do that a lot earlier than we have, and I've decided it's about time. So very shortly I'm going to be posting a notice that we've now got the domain "five-minute.com" or some such. At that point both the 3Sygma URLs and the new ones will work, so you'll be able to use either, and I'll recommend that you switch your bookmarks and links to the latter. Then, when it's time to move the server, I'll just have five-minute.com point to the new server instead. If you're using the new addresses, you won't see any change. If you're still using 3Sygma, you'll get a redirect page, and you can change your bookmark when you get tired of seeing it.

I'll recap all this when we get the domain name. For now, just be aware that the move will be happening before long. If you're wondering where the new server will be, I don't know for certain yet, but like Buffy, I have the best plan ever. I'll let you know what it is if it works.

We will update tomorrow, by the way. I'd put up our Christmas banner but it's apparently been damaged somehow. I suspect Lithuanian spies.

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December 25

A very merry Christmas to all 5MV readers! I hope you're all enjoying your holiday festivities, whatever they may be.

I would have liked to mark the occasion with a fiver or two (I even had one in mind). But this has just been a rotten month for both me and the site. Our server went down three times, the forums for even longer; the dent this made in our readership may take months to repair. And my life has been the property of a pair of punishing projects. Today was the first day in three weeks that I've had time to breathe, let alone write fivers. (By all accounts, Kira's even busier.) There was just no way I could have prepared anything.

But I'm happy to say that should now change. My projects are finally done with, and I'm itching to get back to work at 5MV. I'm going to try to keep things as interesting as possible for you guys for the rest of the Christmas season. You'll definitely see Enterprise fivers -- my Best Plan Ever for the server move can't happen till I'm caught up on S3, for reasons I may or may not end up explaining. I'm also going to get some guest fivers out there and continue the v3.1 creeping redesign. And don't be surprised if there's a big event before the twelve days are up.

So happy holidays from us at 5MV to you reading 5MV. We may not have had a Christmas present for you on the day... but I think you'll be pretty happy with what you get after it.

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December 26

Happy Boxing Day to all and sundry. The new stuff is in progress... meanwhile I guess I should give you a link. I linked to a good Andromeda site recently, so here's a good Farscape site: Farscape Ally. It's got a lot of the episode transcripts and some other interesting stuff.

December 27

One more link day and then we should be onto new content. Let's see... well, since I'm on a big Mega Man kick right now (and since the series turned 16 last week -- on my birthday, in fact), here are two of my favourite MM pages. I've mentioned The Mega Man Network on this page before for its humour content, but that's just a small part of an enormous, fascinating site. Mega Man X fans in particular will find comprehensive and detailed data on every aspect of the X series. Another very cool MM site is MMXZ: The Maverick Hunters. This site covers the original and X series, and while it doesn't have the sheer quantity of MM Network, it makes up for that with beautiful layout and graphics. Both sites are definitely worth visiting.

December 28

Hey, I haven't made a colour code for T10 yet! Ah well. Today's content is a new Top 10 list (the first in six months or so): The Top 10 Christmas Presents for Enterprise Villains, by me.

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December 29

I have the new layout of the T10 section almost done, but due to an unexpected mid-afternoon disaster I wasn't able to finish it. I'll include it in tomorrow's update. I guess I should give you a link instead.... go read Her!, a promising young webcomic about a girl and a pig. (No, ladies, that does not describe all male/female relationships.)

December 30

Sigh... it's no good. I'm not going to be done tonight either. Please be patient one more day... there are things going on that are beyond my control, and believe me, I'd stop them if I could.

Anyway, tomorrow there'll be at least one other item besides the new T10 layout. Meanwhile, I should give you guys a link; since I've already done several Mega Man sites, I'll do another video game series now for evenhandedness. The Metroid Database is the best Metroid site I've seen -- it's got comprehensive data on all five games to date, and a slick, friendly design. Check it out.

December 31

Here it is, at last: the redesigned Top 10 Lists section, complete with subsite FAQ. You can now browse the lists by number, series, theme, or author. (But still no colour code for T10... I really should get around to that.) By the way, did you know that there are now exactly as many Top 10 lists here as there are This Just In articles? Now you do.

Today's other news is the long-awaited next update of the Jokes and References page. That's right, I finally got asked another question! And it's not from one of the staff this time! It's about the Aibo, actually, and I tell the whole story of that joke in my answer, so if you've ever wondered what I was drinking in "Two Days and Two Nights," have a read.

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