Last night I was obliged, temporarily, to switch off the comments system here. This blog, and my other blog too, came under severe automated comment attack. (This posting is an adapted version of one that has just gone up there as well.)

There were several hundred comments in the space of a couple of hours. I was out late and only got home an hour into the process. All the comments have been cleared out, and a random number system has now been installed, like the one already in use for the comments at Samizdata. New comments are trickling in as per usual, so there doesn't seem to be any great problem with this.

My deepest thanks to Perry de Havilland of Samizdata, and especially to the Dissident Frogman, for their prompt and excellent assistance. First, the crisis was stemmed. Then the solution was put in place which ensures that this particular crisis can't happen again.

Quite what the cultural lesson of that is, I don't know. That my bit of the culture seems to work? And maybe some random thoughts about the immense utility of random numbers, despite seeming only to be an artistic fancy when first thought about?

I'll leave it to commenters.