June, 4, 2005 archives

here’s a small program to test non-blocking reads that i wrote to try and diagnose a problem with mysql on mac os x. the surprising thing to me is that i have occasionally seen reads that returned with EAGAIN take about 15000 µsec. on my x86_64 linux development box, nothing ever cracks the 20 µsec reporting threshold in the code.

• downtown los angeles neighborhood council: hosted in las vegas, nevada
• hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in the bay area, california (i think)
• grass roots venice neighborhood council: hosted in santa monica, ca
• greater griffith park neighbrohood council: hosted in houston, texas
• hollywood hills west neighborhood council: hosted in henderson, nevada
• west hills neighborhood council: hosted in phoenix, arizona
• reseda neighborhood council: hosted in baltimore, maryland
• midtown north hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in san jose, california
• historic highland park neighborhood council: hosted in littleton, colorado
• arroyo seco neighborhood council: hosted in phoenix, arizona (maybe)
• east hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in vancouver, british columbia, canada
• central hollywood neighborhood council: hosted in dulles, virginia
• empowerment congress north area neighborhood development council: hosted in st. louis, missouri
• coastal san pedro neighborhood council: hosted in san pedro, california (on a residential cable line)
• mid city west community council: hosted in providence, utah
• neighborhood council of westchester-playa del rey: hosted in chicago, illinois
• northwest san pedro neighborhood council: hosted in dallas, texas
• pico neighborhood council: hosted in seattle, washington
• palms neighborhood council: hosted in baltimore, maryland
• porter ranch neighborhood council: hosted in fort lauderdale, california
• silver lake neighborhood council: hosted in henderson, nevada
• south robertson neighborhood council: hosted in providence, utah
• west van nuys/lake balboa neighborhood council: hosted in lansing, michigan
• westside neighborhood council: hosted in pasadena, california
• wilmington neighborhood council: hosted in kenosha, wisconsin
• mar vista community council: hosted on a dsl line, perhaps in mar vista, california
• la citywide alliance of neighborhood councils: hosted in spokane, washington

except for the two using what are probably residential connections, none of the neighborhood councils managed to find a host within the city of los angeles. (pasadena and santa monica are close, but not quite.)

the east hollywood neighborhood council wins some sort of prize for managing to host outside of the united states.

what i don’t get is why each of the neighborhood councils needs to fend for themselves on this. the city of los angeles appears to have its own datacenter, and surely it would make sense for them to just plop a machine in the rack to handle all of these. heck, it would be like a two-week job (four weekends?) to knock together a basic neighborhood council website toolkit with calendar, weblog, forums, etc.

(for the record again, this site is hosted in los angeles, in koreatown.)

stephen metcalf, writing for the new york times magazine, covers gold bugs. the profile of clifford asness, a hedge fund manager, is fascinating, too.

but this article about the serial entrepreneurs in silicon valley just boggles my mind. if i’m ever worth $5 million (2005 dollars), you can count on me being done with working for a living. but i don’t see that happening anytime soon — the downside of not having the drive to go on to a second startup after hitting it big at a first is that you likely don’t have the drive for the first one.

this opinion piece from the los angeles times has the usual statement that “The nation — and California — will have to spend more on education, schools and personnel, but it also desperately needs a vision and a stable plan to guide this investment.” the article in general looks towards the finnish education system as a model to emulate.

of course, in finland they spend $5,000 per pupil, and in los angeles we spend about $7,000. professor grubb fails to mention that.

maybe the real solution is to prevent schools from purchasing any textbooks over 200 pages in length.

oil storm is a faux-documentary from fx that reminded me, at least viscerally, of the day after. it chronicles a series of events (hurricane, shipping accident, attack on infrastructure in saudi arabia) that send the price of oil up near $150 a barrel, and the price of gasoline of $8 a gallon. the whole structure of the movie is just really well done, and i think they made the right choice in not being over the top in pushing a particular point of view. it really does come off as a television news documentary from the future, albeit with a focus on the smaller players in the story than you might see in real life. (for example, the administration is represented by a couple of under-cabinet-level players, and the references to the president and cabinet officials is pretty fleeting.)

one can only hope that this ends up being as un-prophetic as the day after has.