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Looks like he had time to remove the javascript window (I don't see it anymore either) and post an anonymous retort.
Mr. Christmas Lights didn't post as an AC.;-)
And yes, as some more astute/knowledgeable readers pointed out, my site was.'ed last week - I realized after posting that the JS pop-up was still there, so I removed it... believe it or not, BEFORE I saw your "nice" reply.
My post was a serious inquiry/question - sorry it elicited such a strong response.
Is there any way this could somehow do color/images?
I read the story (yea, even though this is/.) and I think the writeup
could have been more clear that I think (?) all this is doing is
rendering text into Braile (the title of the story made me think it did more)... but what about colors/images?
I don't know what people blind since birth can "visualize", but
for those folks who have had vision, could this be used as some
approach to see colors?
I.e. I realize that something that is fairly "color deep" like
my christmas webcam
is probably undoable, but what about simple stuff like a red rose?
HEY... I said I was going to sleep... don't get me started on looking at the mod_perl docs... I'll be up for hours!;-)
GREAT explanation - I HAVE looked at the mod_perl docs briefly before, but see that this would be well worth some time - boy, if there is ONE thing I wish Santa would bring for me this year, it would be a six-pack of time...
Thanx for the offer of assistance. At this point, I have what I have... but turning off KeepAlive seems to have helped a LOT. As alluded to above, I think the memory/swap "performance knee" is between 150 and 200... and since it is just a single script, I don't think I want to use Apache::SizeLimit becaus it's just my script - i.e. it's not a web server with a buncha scripts where one could runaway (?) Finally, I don't think a proxy front-end would work since this is all dynamic content.
Having written all of the above (and about to go to sleep!), I don't know if you guys will see much of me in the next few weeks (again, I got what I got!), but I'll definately be boning up on this stuff so I'm better prepared for 2005 - thanx again!
YEP - only have a Gbyte of RAM and I waded into that swamp a few times... there's a definite "performance knee" between 150 and 256. Looks like what helped a lot was was turning off KeepAlive
After fiddling with various other parameters, I finally engaged my brain and realized why you recommended setting "KeepAlive OFF" - you are basically trading some "horsepower" (since connections have to be re-estabilished each time instead of persistant with HTTP1.1) in order to free up more slots - maybe it's because the crowd has slowed down a bit, but pretty darn snappy now and I shoulda done this earlier in the evening - thanx!
alek
P.S. The Timeout was/is set to 20 seconds - yea, a little agressive, but I figure by time 20 seconds has elapsed, it's all over anyway. And back the the KeepAlive, I don't have a lotta graphics, images, frame, etc. so there isn't a lot stuff to be sent down the same pipe.
Allright - you guys kicked my *ss when the story first posted, but things are hanging in there now. In response to some of the posts above:
I was using the same web interface as everyone else (and reloading Slashdot.org to see when the story would hit) and it was fairly responsive after it showed up in the Mysterious Future... until 1749... and then BAMMM... welcome to/.;-)
Per the Christmas FAQ, the Web Server run Linux/Apache/Perl - IIS on Windoze 2003 - yea, right!
Main stats page is here - yea, big JUMP... and as of 2100, Firefox is > 50% browser percentage.
I'd like to see AC#11069825 put HIS web server on Slashdot, especially with dynamic content. I had turned the webcam on early this evening at 1712, but then disabled it shortly after the story hit at 1749, but turned it back on 1930 and (except for a few Apache restarts for tuning purposes), the web site is semi (!) responsive and the machine was never rebooted... plus (knock on wood), I haven't blown any fuses... yet!;-)
Unfortunately, Apache1.x... so the threading stuff doesn't apply, and 256 (my limit w/o a recompile) appears to be keeping a fairly constant load in the teens (so I wouldn't want to go much higher than this)... but it's actually fairly snappy right now, especially for static content... and even the CGI (mod_perl DOES help!) seems to be moving along.
HEY - that's a little "unfair" don't you think - my comment was meant to say lets do a "fair"/.'ing... get enough of your friend togather and keep doing "wget's" and you can crush anyone...
I just about fell outa my chair reading this post when I got to the last line - well done!;-)
Actually, ssh is quite responsive - it's just the darn MaxClients limit of 256 I'm bumping into - plus I restarted httpd twice. I think if folks would not open up every link in the article, it would help - every time I've check, Apache Status is showing all 256 requests - I just bumped the TIMEOUT numbers down a bit, so people may see timeouts sooner, but this should release some child process slots for folks.
As a Slashdot subscriber
(highly recommended BTW) I saw the/.'ers coming in the "Mysterious Future"...
so much for sitting down to dinner with the family tonight!;-)
We'll see how well everything works tonight - expect things
to be nuts and we'll see if mod_perl can save the day on the web server - fortunately, the analog stuff is throttled at one/second!;-)
I actually turned things on early tonight, but
I may need to disable if the load gets too high. For those
interested in data, I'll be updating my Christmas 2004 Slashdot Effect Analysis and
I'll provide some followup here.
P.S. WRT JPEG/EXIF stuff: ummmmmm... let me get back to you on that one!
To compliment Jah-Wren Ryel'scomments, my brother (for his younger kids) uses a timer - once a half hour is up, they are OFF the computer. Why not do the same things for the teenage daughters?
Low tech, but works.
P.S. Blocking sites is a never-ending battle IMHO - Corporations (with dedicated IT teams) can't keep up with the spammers. I'd just review their surfing history occasionally and ask 'em about it.
Back in the 1970's Air New Zealand used to run sighseeing flights down to Antartica... until the trafic Mount Erebus crash. This was 25 years ago Sunday and there was a recent memorial service. There are stil the occasional charter flights.
I agree with all you have written above - yea, why this isn't in the core distribution is a bit confusion - maybe for Perl6?!?;-)
BTW, I was tweeking my christmas webcam code today and I was actually surprised that I do NOT use DateTime there... but I don't do much time manipulation and I intentionally tried to minimize modules inclusion for performance reasons... but rest assured I use it in a lotta other code!
Just to echo rwinston's comments above, this is darn good stuff... and for December 1st they are talking about DateTime which is an extremely useful module which I've used in a variety of code.
Another nifty customization would be to set the Firefox Home Page to something personal and/or Christmas'ie so they are reminded again of your gift (cool idea) when they fire up the browser.
Wonder what they do with their "idle" CPU cycles
on
HP & Commodity Computing
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Since they have the hardware in place, I wonder what they do when they don't have films to make and/or work - i.e. would they consider contributing those idle CPU times to something like the Folding@HOME project... the powder2glass team would love the work units!;-)
At the risk of sounding like a shill for the/. editors, I recently became
a paid subscriber
and it was pretty sweet for this article as the video's were smooth,
will be interested to see if they hold up under a/.'ing... you may need to head over to MirrorDot if it slows down.
The "tech video" isn't worth much IMHO (unless you understand Japanese), but the image video was kinda amusing in that it had data shown on the screen,
but the Japanese style of commercials is definitely different than I'm
used to and was entertaining in a different type of way.
One more interesting thing not mentioned above is that it has 8 wheels.
LED's are definately the way to go, but the price still needs to come down quite a bit. People ask me if I used LED's for my Christmas Lights since when you have 22,000 of 'em (as I did in 2002), that's a lotta electricity. So while there are some GREAT looking LED Christmas Lights (with all the obvious advantages - and don't forget the color stays fairly permanent unlike painted on mini's), they are still really pricey... especially when I can buy lights after the Holidays at 75% off.
sudo is a great tool to control and log root access - if the UNIX Admins aren't using this already, they should be.
So document exactly what you REALLY need sudo access for, and *if* there is a business case justification, then they should be able to grant this on a per command basis. There should be no reason for a webmaster to "need" the root password.
I got some long video cables, PS-2 connectors, and USB cables... and my PC sites in the crawl space behind my closet. In the middle of the night, the noisiest thing I can hear is the 'fridge downstairs.
Yea, low-tech... but pretty darn effective... and I rarely need access to the CD/DVD drive and/or box itself, so it works for me.
Having said that, I look forward to the Pentium-M's... 100+ Watts of power for the 3+ GHz Intel CPU's is semi-ridiculous... and I gotta believe that if the thermal load from that can be removed, it will create savings in other areas. BTW, if you DO want your PC to be a space heater in the coming winter months, fire up Google Compute.
Here's the earlier Slashdot story on her
on
A New Elena Story
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like he had time to remove the javascript window (I don't see it anymore either) and post an anonymous retort.
Mr. Christmas Lights didn't post as an AC.
And yes, as some more astute/knowledgeable readers pointed out, my site was .'ed last week - I realized after posting that the JS pop-up was still there, so I removed it ... believe it or not, BEFORE I saw your "nice" reply.
My post was a serious inquiry/question - sorry it elicited such a strong response.
Happy Holidays! ;-)
I.e. I realize that something that is fairly "color deep" like my christmas webcam is probably undoable, but what about simple stuff like a red rose?
GREAT explanation - I HAVE looked at the mod_perl docs briefly before, but see that this would be well worth some time - boy, if there is ONE thing I wish Santa would bring for me this year, it would be a six-pack of time ...
Having written all of the above (and about to go to sleep!), I don't know if you guys will see much of me in the next few weeks (again, I got what I got!), but I'll definately be boning up on this stuff so I'm better prepared for 2005 - thanx again!
YEP - only have a Gbyte of RAM and I waded into that swamp a few times ... there's a definite "performance knee" between 150 and 256. Looks like what helped a lot was was turning off KeepAlive
alek
P.S. The Timeout was/is set to 20 seconds - yea, a little agressive, but I figure by time 20 seconds has elapsed, it's all over anyway. And back the the KeepAlive, I don't have a lotta graphics, images, frame, etc. so there isn't a lot stuff to be sent down the same pipe.
- I was using the same web interface as everyone else (and reloading Slashdot.org to see when the story would hit) and it was fairly responsive after it showed up in the Mysterious Future
... until 1749 ... and then BAMMM ... welcome to /. ;-)
- Per the Christmas FAQ, the Web Server run Linux/Apache/Perl - IIS on Windoze 2003 - yea, right!
- Main stats page is here - yea, big JUMP
... and as of 2100, Firefox is > 50% browser percentage.
- I'd like to see AC#11069825 put HIS web server on Slashdot, especially with dynamic content. I had turned the webcam on early this evening at 1712, but then disabled it shortly after the story hit at 1749, but turned it back on 1930 and (except for a few Apache restarts for tuning purposes), the web site is semi (!) responsive and the machine was never rebooted
... plus (knock on wood), I haven't blown any fuses ... yet! ;-)
alekUnfortunately, Apache1.x ... so the threading stuff doesn't apply, and 256 (my limit w/o a recompile) appears to be keeping a fairly constant load in the teens (so I wouldn't want to go much higher than this) ... but it's actually fairly snappy right now, especially for static content ... and even the CGI (mod_perl DOES help!) seems to be moving along.
HEY - that's a little "unfair" don't you think - my comment was meant to say lets do a "fair" /.'ing ... get enough of your friend togather and keep doing "wget's" and you can crush anyone ...
Actually, ssh is quite responsive - it's just the darn MaxClients limit of 256 I'm bumping into - plus I restarted httpd twice. I think if folks would not open up every link in the article, it would help - every time I've check, Apache Status is showing all 256 requests - I just bumped the TIMEOUT numbers down a bit, so people may see timeouts sooner, but this should release some child process slots for folks.
HECK - this is looking good - lets turn it on!
We'll see how well everything works tonight - expect things to be nuts and we'll see if mod_perl can save the day on the web server - fortunately, the analog stuff is throttled at one/second! ;-)
I actually turned things on early tonight, but
I may need to disable if the load gets too high. For those
interested in data, I'll be updating my Christmas 2004 Slashdot Effect Analysis and
I'll provide some followup here.
P.S. WRT JPEG/EXIF stuff: ummmmmm ... let me get back to you on that one!
Low tech, but works.
P.S. Blocking sites is a never-ending battle IMHO - Corporations (with dedicated IT teams) can't keep up with the spammers. I'd just review their surfing history occasionally and ask 'em about it.
I use X10 to turn my 17,000 christmas lights on and off and it would be neat if the various remote vendors added some X10 capability to their devices - my kids think so too! ;-)
Slashdot has previousely written about Max Lyons' Gigapixel Grand Canyon and also TNO's 2.5 Gigapixel office park which were both generated by taking many digital images and stiching them togather. Film is not quite dead though, as the Gigapxl Project is using a customized 9"x18" film camera - read more in their FAQ and how they have to worry about issues such as atmospheric transmission. They have an impressive image gallery that shows some amazing detail in some crops. Since a Gigapixel uncompressed 16-bit RGB image would be 6 GBytes, they can be excused for not making that available to /. readers. They hope to be
able to eventually generate a four Gigapixel image.
Back in the 1970's Air New Zealand used to run sighseeing flights down to Antartica ... until the trafic Mount Erebus crash. This was 25 years ago Sunday and there was a recent memorial service. There are stil the occasional charter flights.
BTW, I was tweeking my christmas webcam code today and I was actually surprised that I do NOT use DateTime there ... but I don't do much time manipulation and I intentionally tried to minimize modules inclusion for performance reasons ... but rest assured I use it in a lotta other code!
Just to echo rwinston's comments above, this is darn good stuff ... and for December 1st they are talking about DateTime which is an extremely useful module which I've used in a variety of code.
Another nifty customization would be to set the Firefox Home Page to something personal and/or Christmas'ie so they are reminded again of your gift (cool idea) when they fire up the browser.
Since they have the hardware in place, I wonder what they do when they don't have films to make and/or work - i.e. would they consider contributing those idle CPU times to something like the Folding@HOME project ... the powder2glass team would love the work units! ;-)
The "tech video" isn't worth much IMHO (unless you understand Japanese), but the image video was kinda amusing in that it had data shown on the screen, but the Japanese style of commercials is definitely different than I'm used to and was entertaining in a different type of way.
One more interesting thing not mentioned above is that it has 8 wheels.
LED's are definately the way to go, but the price still needs to come down quite a bit. People ask me if I used LED's for my Christmas Lights since when you have 22,000 of 'em (as I did in 2002), that's a lotta electricity. So while there are some GREAT looking LED Christmas Lights (with all the obvious advantages - and don't forget the color stays fairly permanent unlike painted on mini's), they are still really pricey ... especially when I can buy lights after the Holidays at 75% off.
So document exactly what you REALLY need sudo access for, and *if* there is a business case justification, then they should be able to grant this on a per command basis. There should be no reason for a webmaster to "need" the root password.
Since the submitter talked about a giant pinball machine, here's the world's smallest pinball machine
Yea, low-tech ... but pretty darn effective ... and I rarely need access to the CD/DVD drive and/or box itself, so it works for me.
Having said that, I look forward to the Pentium-M's ... 100+ Watts of power for the 3+ GHz Intel CPU's is semi-ridiculous ... and I gotta believe that if the thermal load from that can be removed, it will create savings in other areas. BTW, if you DO want your PC to be a space heater in the coming winter months, fire up Google Compute.
Previousely discussed back in March/2004