What the hell happens to E2 at 2:15am PDT?

E2 is a weird beast. Sometimes EDB gets restless and starts tearing things apart. Sometimes something gets nuked by mistake. Sometimes E2 has a mind of its own. All of these things can lead to disaster.

Thats why, once per day, we cage up EDB and tell E2 to make a copy of itself for posterity. So if you see E2 complaining about not being able to call 'execute' on an undefined object in NodeBase.pm... a backup is probably taking place.

As for how the backup is done, thats simple. Everything (no pun intended) is stored in a database. Once per day, we dump the entire contents of the database to a file, gzip it and upload it to another server that keeps our backups. The reason why you sometimes get an error when we are backing up the database is because the database is at full throttle doing the dump. This can cause our webserver to lose its database connection, which in turn, gives the error that you see.

Ya, right. Let's face it. This is more propaganda from THE MANAGEMENT. Seemingly technical explanations, wrapped in the "Hi-Tech" language we've all learned to associate with the new technocrats: "backup", "mirror", "server" and "webserver", "gzip", "upload", "bandwidth".

If everything is as innocent as claimed, then please explain this:

• Why is gzip, a well-known communist GPL'ed file compressor, being used, instead of the ideologically sounder compress?
• How come the EDB doesn't get shut down?
• How come almost everyone has more XP and fewer nodes than they'd think they have?

Here's the real explanation: the E2Cabal is systematically trying to depress the rising E2 masses. This is done by nuking some of the hoi poloi's nodes every day at 2:15am PDT. The aim is simple: by keeping people further away from rising levels, the E2 ruling class' hegemony is extended.

Naturally, you cannot nuke nodes for a noder who has (say) 17 nodes till their next level -- they are keeping track. It's people with more than 163 nodes till their next level who are the target. Every night, sophisticated text mining software installed on E2 scans all nodes created by these people and selects suitable candidates for elimination; the vast amounts of computing power required for this process is too much even for the immense computational engines running Everything2, so some "non-vital services" (i.e. humdrum noders' use) are "terminated". Then the cabal members disingenuously known as E2 Editors nuke them, after making sure they will not be noticed by the noders. The success of this system is evident: up till now, no one has managed to penetrate the veil of secrecy and publish. All those who have have been "resigned" from E2 shortly after, and before managing to publish.

It is my hope that this writeup will reach a sufficiently large audience to prevent my fate from being similar to those who have gone before me. I can only hope that I am indeed motivated by my bravery, not by my folly.