Witness Update - lukestokes.mhth - October 26th, 2017
5 months ago, on May 29th 2017, I made my witness annoucement. I didn't build any secret witness voting alliances or campaign in direct message chats beyond posting here and letting a couple friends know.
Today, I broke into the top 20!
Thank you so much for all your support. Keep in mind, witness votes change all the time, so there's no telling where I'll be in the future.
Here's a quick video I made this morning to share my excitment with you via my voice and body language. So much is lost in text alone.
What I've Been Up To
- As I started creeping closer to the top 20, I realized I need to have a hot backup witness server running all the time. Every 63 seconds, I'm up to add more content to the blockchain so if my primary box has an issue, I need to fail over quickly to the secondary machine. Last night (how's that for timing!), I finished configuring and syncing my backup witness server. It's now live with these specs:
32 GB RAM
4 cores
1 TB HDD
1gbit/s network
I figured it was important to get a new server in a completely different location. I now have a live witness server in both Germany and the United States. Once again, big thanks to @privex. If you end up using their services, please let them know I sent you.
I've been involved in some public discussions with Steemit, inc about the frustration the community has been feeling lately with the site performance of Steemit.com. You can read about my posts here and here and some recent dialogue here and here. My goal with these discussions is not to troll, belittle, or in any way discourage those who are making this platform we love so much. My intention is to passionately and accurate represent this community as best I can. Actively using steemit is really frustrating right now. I've been using steemitstage.com lately, which helps a bit, along with busy.org and chainbb.com. I hope we'll continue to see open communication from Steemit, Inc about these issues and what's being done to resolve them.
My witness missed 8 blocks! 😱😦🤦 Though I have a great notification script, it was sadly disabled! The last time I got a notification in September, I forgot to remove the notification text file to re-enable it. The reason my witness went down is I ran out of space in the shared memory file. In the future, I'll be writing a script to monitor that file and send notifications (along with disk free space and other important server metrics). My Rocketchat notifications on my phone, for some reason, didn't notify me right away either. This was the main reason I finally got around to setting up a live backup server.
My seed node at
steem-seed.lukestokes.info:2001is still working like a champ.Current Economic Witness Settings:
SBD APR Bias Reg fee 1% 0 0.2 I moved the Witness Engagement Report from weekly to monthly as it doesn't change all that much each week. We're at 23.44% engagement for accounts with > 100,000 VESTS.
I'll see you in Lisbon next week! I'm going to do my best to represent the community, have fun, and get a feel for what the future of STEEM, SMT, and Steemit will be. I'll let you know how it goes for sure.
Thanks again for your support!
Got 33 transactions on block 16674820 by lukestokes.mhth -- latency: 82 ms
I love seeing that in my logs. :) :)
As of this post, I'm currently holding position 20!
If you want to know more about what witnesses do check out:
You can read my witness announcement post here:
My previous witness updates:
- Witness Update - lukestokes.mhth - September 2nd, 2017
- Witness Update - lukestokes.mhth - July 19th, 2017
- Witness Update - lukestokes.mhth - July 14th, 2017
- Witness Update - lukestokes.mhth - June 19th, 2017
- Witness Update - 6/6/2017 - More Human Than Human
I don't plan to do frequent witness updates unless I have something worth sharing, but I'm always available if you have a question or concern. I'm monitoring my servers daily and keeping up with the #witness channel on Steemit.chat as best I can.
Created with ChainBB to support that project.
tratare de usar esas otras paginas de steemit, ya que he tenido mucho inconveniente con steemit.com, gracias por su informacion. saludos..
¡De nada! Espero que los problemas de rendimiento que todos estamos experimentando se resuelvan pronto.
ayer cambiaron la interfaz, creo que ya falta poco para que mejoren las fallas que estan presentando.
Seguro espero eso.
Really, do you speak spanish?!? What secrets do you hide?
I took some Spanish in high school and I was able to talk like a 5 year old (okay, maybe a 3 or 4 year old) enough to get by when our family spent 10 weeks surfing in costa rica. Other than that, I'm all about Google Translate. :)
Dear @lukestokes, You have my witness vote, and my proxy. I can see that you are a man of integrity who wants to support this platform in the right way.
You stand out as 100 times better than a certain other popular figure - who ranks very close to you - in the witness votes - who has in the past abused his popularity, and publicly advertised on youtube how to milk the steemit reward pool. (He often sounds like a deranged lunatic). I won’t say his name, but I think you know who I am talking about.
Also, very good seeing you respond to the above comments in Spanish! That takes extra work. I think now you will be getting some votes from Venezuella, thanks to @karlin, and her family and friends.
Now you will get some votes
Thank you so much for your support.
Yeah, I get that impression as well. Some have described him as "my friend" just because I'm not talking down to him like so many others and because I did eventually agree to vote for his witness due to his commitment to spend money on advertising to promote Steemit. He certainly has a "colorful" history when it comes to community engagement in other projects, and I don't yet trust him because he hasn't earned that trust (quite the opposite, I'd say). That said, I try to find and encourage the best in people, and I'd love for this to be the community which impacts his life in a positive way so he can be a genuinely trustworthy, important member. I look forward to meeting him in Lisbon and getting a better sense for where he's at emotionally and mentally.
Thanks again for your encouragement and support. I'd love to stay in the top 20, if I can, but I'm right on the bubble at the moment, so very vote counts. :)
Yup, his decision to spend the witness money on advertising was an important step to demonstrate that he would like to make amends for his non-exemplary behavior on steemit and youtube. We’ll see how he behaves in the future. Maybe the loose screw will fix itself!
I hope so. I still get the feeling it's a bit of "I'm sorry for being caught" instead of "I am a man of integrity who understands the difference between what's right and wrong to begin with."
Great job, it is very exciting to learn another language :D
hola @karlin, es genial ver a nuestros amigos de Venezuela aquí.
Me gustaría que sigas las instrucciones para dar tu voto de testigo, (witness vote), a los @lukestokes.
En mi opinión, es un hombre de íntegro, y honesto, (man of integrity), que quiere mejorar esta maravillosa plataforma.
Puede hacer clic en los enlaces en la parte inferior de esta página para seguir las instrucciones para votar por él.
Vaya a esta página web para votar. https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Lo anterior se tradujo usando Google Translate, ya que no puedo escribir en español.
fabuloso, lo haré con todo gusto. gracias amigo
listo amigo ya entre a la pagina y vote por lukestokes.mhth. espero haberlo echo bien.
Woohoo! I'm proud of what you have accomplished, man! I'd like to think that me including your witness in my signature for months now at least added some minnow votes your way, however insignificant they might be :D But, it's all you and all that you do. Congrats, Luke!
I hope you appreciated the shout out in the video. :)
Oh!!! I didn't realize there was a shout out in the video haha! I just read the whole thing but didn't play the video. I'm not sure if you remember but I don't have audio on my computer. Will view it in my mobile for a bit. Thank you in advance for the mention! I really appreciate even the thought of it :D
Man, sell some of your Steem and get yourself some audio! Dang. :)
Saw it! Thanks for the shoutout, man! I didn't realize I was the only one named haha! It was a great address, felt like a celebratory speech haha! I do have to say, you might have missed the opportunity in saying "My name is Luke Stokes, and I am so stoked..." hahaha!
I don't make nearly enough to justify me buying speakers haha!
Enhorabuena y espero que alguien soluciene esta pagina. Esta haciendo mucho daño y sobre todo la falta de comunicacion por parte ee Steemit Inc, muy frustrante
Estoy completamente de acuerdo. Es realmente frustrante
You deserve it my friend! I'm excited for you... I always mention you when someone asks for Witness advice (along with @blocktrades)
Thank you!
OMG luke that a real great job you did. especially without some commercial activities. Today I wrote a blog about it.. I stopped begging for witness votes and hope for natural growth. And we will see how this works out. well done
I'm all about the all-natural approach. :)
Well done and thats why you deserve top 20.. But I guess you already had some powerful friends who supported you to give you a kick start. Anyhow amazed how fast you did it.. For me it could be a life changer.
Wow, thx for your upvote on my post, lets go for natural
Enhorabuena y espero que alguien soluciene esta pagina. Esta haciendo mucho daño y sobre todo la falta de comunicacion por parte ee Steemit Inc, muy frustrante
Estoy completamente de acuerdo. Es realmente frustrante
I'm so happy for your, Luke! You really deserve this!
As you mentioned in your video, you bring both the technical expertise and community spirit, so everybody should give you their witness votes :-) Resteemed this for even more attention and looking forward to seeing you in Lisbon.
Steem on!!!
Thanks so much for your encouragement and support. I'm looking forward to telling some surf stories together. :)
Congrats on # 20. You deserve it. 🐓🐓
Thanks so much. :)
I watched the video. You started programmining in 1996? You would have still been a teenager, I think?
Unfortunately, we didn’t have computers when I was a boy. I got my first computer in 1985 when I was 28. It was an IBM PC. Green and black screen, no hard drive, no mouse, no USBs, no graphics, 64k ram - that I upgraded to the max of 256k.
Of course there was no internet or WWW in those days. Software and data moved by physically carrying a 5.25” floppy disk to another location.
I bought the PC second-hand. There were no shops in my country selling new computers. It cost me CHF 5000 including MS DOS. Back then the exchange rate was around $1 = CHF2.80. Today the dollar is worth much less. It’s now $1 = CHF 0.99.
Yeah, I was in high school making websites for my friends. Not sure if JavaScript rollovers and such count as "programming" but I was learning a ton and having fun. By the time I was in college, I was running my own apache server with mysql and a PHP guestbook (remember those?) I wrote myself. It was fun. During the dot com craze, I had companies I had worked for during the summers try to convince to not to go back to college by stay and work with them. I'm glad I finished school. :)
That's a lot of money for a computer. Dang. Thankfully, my dad was a database programmer who worked from home so we always had computers around and I think I learned about database design just sitting on his lap as a kid where'd he'd explain stuff to me.
No websites in 1985! I was an expert in every MS Dos command. You wouldn’t believe the things I could do in an autoexec.bat file (For the uninitiated, autoexec.bat was a small file that ran a series of commands when the computer booted up). When Lotus123 appeared I knew every command and could write macros with my eyes closed. Computers are getting so cheap these days, they will soon be giving them away. (Maybe not Apple). Until 2009 I was 100% PC. Then I bought an iPhone.... then an iMac.... My PCs started to gather dust. Now I am 100% Apple. Oh the irony of being in the control of the largest company on the planet, yet loving them to death.
Ah yeah, I use to have some fun with autoexec.bat as well. My buddies and I would have LAN parties late into the night playing quake 1 and whatever else we could find. Our first networks used BNC cables. If one person had to go home, we all had to stop are game as the whole network would go down if someone disconnected. Those were the days. :)
The first of us to get a "real" job got hired by IBM so he went to Fry's electronics and got a 10/100 switch. We all bought new network cards and felt like gods transferring files and mp3s around. It was pretty sweet. :)
Those were the days!
Voted for you Luke, some of the people on that list I am like, "what the hell?"
Hahah... thanks Randy.