Concerning the new address
I notice that over at Free Canuckistan, Binks has mentioned my change of address (so to speak). That’s as good a reason as any to quickly talk about the reasons behind the move.
Basically, the move has to do with the fact that I outgrew my previous hosting company, Canaca.com. They were good to me while they were adequate to my needs, but over the last few months it became apparent that they were, in fact, no longer adequate to my needs.
The first such indication was a link from Digg to one of my Battlestar Galactica articles, in which I gave a very detailed explanation of my reason for suspecting that the character in that show named Karl Agathon (Helo, by callsign) was in fact the final, as-yet-unrevealed Cylon. The day the link hit Digg, about a thousand people tried to view the content within a fairly short span of time, overloading the shared server with PHP function calls.
Oops.
That happened again a couple months later, although the traffic spike at that time was only on the order of about 500 inbound connections…which suggests to me that one (or possibly more) of the other sites on the shared server was also dealing with heavier traffic load. But whatever; Time Immortal was taken down a second time, and I again had to plead for its re-activation with a promise to do my very level best to curb traffic spikes in the future.
And I tried pretty hard to do just that. I put in place very aggressive caching, cut back on the number of cron jobs I was running, and tried a few other optimizations as well. Canaca.com, for their part, also tried to help out by imposing a mandatory limit of 250 simultaneous connections on my account.
Evidently, that all wasn’t enough: last week, my account was irrevocably suspended for overloading, for a third and final time, the server with PHP function calls. What’s really odd is that none of my sites show traffic spikes; everything was “normal.”
Which suggests to me that despite the fact that between all my various websites combimed (e.g. Aiera, Lost Sosaria, my and Grace’s wedding website, Grace’s blog, and a couple of others) tended to receive not more than about 500 hits a day, my hosting needs had outgrown Canaca.com’s ability to provide adequate resources.
It was, in other words, time for a change. Enter Mediatemple. These guys are serious players (they host the Adobe website!), and offer what I think is a fairly unique service. The hosting package I have with them is their “(gs)” grid service, which (if I understand it correctly) stores redundant copies of my site across several servers, and uses load-balancing technology to distribute incoming traffic spikes between those copies. In theory, this enables the site to survive links from Digg, Slashdot, and other such sites. I’ve also got aggressive caching in place (again), to further insulate myself from the possibility of being taken down by a traffic spike.
At any rate, those are the technical reasons behind the migration to a new website, to a new blog. In the meantime, Canaca.com has graciously allowed me FTP access to my account with them, and I am in the process of backing up files from there. As I liberate the files for the various domains and subdomains I had previously been maintaining, I will put those websites back online, through the mediatemple hosting account.
There’s one other reason for the change of address, though, and this is the reason it’ll be a permanent change. As former Time Immortal readers will know, I got married last year, in October. My wife and I, this past October, welcomed our little girl — Ella Rose — into the world, a mere six days after our first anniversary. In all that time, Grace and I had kept our respective last names, and had been tossing around trying to decide what to do about them. We both agreed that we didn’t want Ella to have parents with different last names, and we both agreed that hyphenation was not really an option.
So…whose last name were we to choose?
Social tradition would dictate that we take my last name (Kully) and simply make that the family name. Now, the former Time Immortal reader will know that I’m a stickler for some traditions (specifically, for Sacred Tradition — the traditions of the Catholic Church). Where other traditions are concerned, however, I’m more ambivalent.
Whose last name a married couple takes is not a matter that can be determined by Canon Law or appropriate consultation of relevant doctrinal documents. As far as Grace and I can tell, the Church has no specific teaching pertaining to whose last name a married couple must take. Western social tradition, again, dictates that the couple should take the man’s name…
…but what if the man feels more like a son to the wife’s parents? What if both he and his wife agree that where they perceive divergent values between their respective families, it is the values of her family that they would wish to instill in their child?
And so I made a choice which some might think is unusual: I decided that I would take my wife’s last name. Because at the end of things, the only argument that could be stacked against the reasoning above is that social tradition suggested the opposite course of action…which is a pretty stupid reason, I must say.
So there it is — the real reason behind the change of address, in addition to the aforementioned technical problems. I’ve been blogging under the Time Immortal pseudonym for long enough, and I wanted to move to a site that better reflects the new life journey I have set myself on, with God’s guidance, and in His sight.
So do enjoy the new site, good reader. And do come back again.
Time Immortal » Blog Archive » I’ve Moved! (November 20, 2008, 1:49 pm).
[...] In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here. [...]
Steynian 287 « Free Canuckistan! (November 21, 2008, 11:25 am).
[...] TIME IMMORTAL: “Concerning the new address” …. [...]
Social convention, stupid or not -if followed, doesn’t spread hurt and consternation. This decision does great harm – for what purpose? If you have problems with your family’s values- as we all do-(Ella may do so in later life) don’t handle it by rejecting your heritage or them. This appears to be a rejection even if not intended as such. Your parents have done their best to bring you up and support you and have recently been going through a rough time- both mentally and physically as they try to cope with various things that have happened and this will be the icing on the cake.
I’m sorry but this action doesn’t fit your values as I see them- as it does actual and unnecessary harm to others.
Have you discussed this with anybody?
We love you very much and will continue to do so but we have been hurt by this and fear the repercussions for both you and your family. Please think carefully.
Love as always
Does this decision do great harm? If so, in what way? Though it might seem odd to hear this from my mouth, my question is basically thus: it would not seem to be a harmful thing for Grace to take my last name, so why is the inverse action harmful? What makes my name — the man’s name — sacrosanct?
The end goal here is cohesion; we don’t want Ella to have parents with differing last names, and we don’t want a hyphenated name, so we have to pick one or the other. Yes, the tradition is for the woman to take the man’s name…but apart from the fact that it’s tradition, what causes that change to be…mandatory? Is mandatory the word? Or, at least, what makes that change non-harmful, but the reverse change harmful?
Now, I can grant that Mom and Dad have been going through rough patches of late, which need not be enumerated here. I realize that the timing of this decision on our part, which has been forming in mind since at least last June, is not the most opportune. But at the end of the day, the motivating factor for the decision was the arrival of Ella, and her arrival was not something which we had the ability or the desire to defer.
At the end of the day, we want our family name to be unary, and to reflect the value set that we desire to bring our child(ren?) up in. That could have been Kully; it turns out that it was Hynek. You’ve asserted that to decide in favour of Grace’s last name does “actual and unnecessary” harm — please elaborate on this point, because this is the point I’m struggling to grasp. How is it harmful, and how is it hurtful?
For example: it is true what you say, that they have “done their best to bring [me] up and support [me],” but is this not also true of Grace’s parents and their efforts toward her? And if so, how is it not harmful for her to change her name, and how is it harmful for me to change mine?
This is the point I do not understand, and which I need clarified.