What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Steve Manacek ·
Jan 7, 2011 at 11:19am
I tried to access the Ricochet website earlier today and, after a long delay, got the following error message (and I'm not making this up, as Dave Barry would say):
Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:
XID: 118909562
This is what happens when your site is based in California, I guess....
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Just an issue with The Grid.
May '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
I think the dirty little secret is that they're running Ricochet on a Mac...
Feb '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Sorry to say, we are having a slow morning today with the servers. I've had to restart a few of them, which may have caused your error, but the slowness continues.
The "Guru Meditation" is a throwback to the old Commodore Amiga line of computers. I didn't write it; it's an error used by one of the pieces of software in our stack.
And in fact, the servers are in West Virginia.
Thanks for your patience as I work on this...
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 11:47amRe: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Would you believe a Commodore 64?
Truth be told, about the only part of Ricochet that doesn't use a Mac (OK, Claire and Emily don't use Macs, either) is the infrastructure. We're on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) deployed on Amazon's Cloud. Server's in North Carolina, I believe, with some web and database services coming out of Texas.
Now, I'll leave it up to Busy System Administrator to correct The Logo's no doubt mangled account of the above.
Dec '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
My God.. Ricochet has become self aware! The Logo has become a sentient being...
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Fascinating -- but I liked better the mental picture of Peter, Rob, Diane, and whoever else is based in California gathered in a bare-walled room with a Maharishi, intoning chants while lights flash and alarms sound in the server room next door....
Aug '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
The Perl language allows pluggable error handlers, and Damian Conway wrote Coy, a module that produces all the error messages in Haiku.
For example, an error message that might prosaically be rendered as "Bad Argument" (as in the argument, or input, to a function) could come out as:
A pair of lovers
quarrel beside a stream. Four
thrushes fly away
More: http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol4_4/tpj0404-0004.html
Jul '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
It's the PHP doing the Guru Meditations. One of the originators of the PHP language had an Amiga as a child and was imprinted for life by the experience. (It was as useless as the blue screen of death, but did not take itself nearly as seriously.) Since the PHP code builds the web page, it is usually going to be the one complaining regardless of where in the stack the error originated.
Personally, I have this picture of Thomist monks lighting candles and chanting Gregorian hymns with some minor noun substitutions to confer supernatural reinforcement on the Ricostack. But then I wake up in some sort of glass egg with tubes and wires attached to my naval. Never pick the paisley pill.
Oct '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
I know that this is a bit early, but you all forget that the feral government has now claimed ownership over the internet. Better get used to this kind of "government regulated" service. Incidentally, I help manage a 24/7 streaming operation with well over a thousand radio station streams plus video streams as well, and we actually are seeing much more frequent internet congestion incidents than, say, a year ago. Perhaps this is the buildout slowdown we can expect with net neutrality.
And these are the guys who want to decide on my cancer treatment if I ever need one.
Sep '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Personally, I have this picture of Thomist monks lighting candles and chanting Gregorian hymns with some minor noun substitutions to confer supernatural reinforcement on the Ricostack
You rang?
May '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
The Logo
Would you believe a Commodore 64?
Well, at least it's not the Commodore VIC-20.
Dec '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
The Logo
We're on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) deployed on Amazon's Cloud. Server's in North Carolina, I believe, with some web and database services coming out of Texas.
LAMP, yuck (I'm a .Net dev). If you're in the cloud, why does the site always seem slow? I have had to wait 25 seconds on login before. I thought the cloud was supposed to provide infinite bandwidth.
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
The Logo
Truth be told, about the only part of Ricochet that doesn't use a Mac (OK, Claire and Emily don't use Macs, either)
Oh, we don't?
May '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The Logo
Truth be told, about the only part of Ricochet that doesn't use a Mac (OK, Claire and Emily don't use Macs, either)
Oh, we don't? · Jan 7 at 5:28pm
Oh no. Et tu, Claire?
Dec '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Michael Kellogg
The Logo
We're on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) deployed on Amazon's Cloud. Server's in North Carolina, I believe, with some web and database services coming out of Texas.
LAMP, yuck (I'm a .Net dev). If you're in the cloud, why does the site always seem slow? I have had to wait 25 seconds on login before. I thought the cloud was supposed to provide infinite bandwidth. · Jan 7 at 4:00pm
I also regularly experience very significant delays (I'm located in NJ). Given that the site is hosted by Amazon servers, which are surely capable of handling much heavier traffic, I'm very willing to believe that the problem is with the way this site itself is structured, possibly having something to do with the way that data is being accessed.
... and I thought that I was stopping by to see what Claire has to say about the global jihad, etc.
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The Logo
Truth be told, about the only part of Ricochet that doesn't use a Mac (OK, Claire and Emily don't use Macs, either)
Oh, we don't? · Jan 7 at 5:28pm
I'm sorry! I think your recent Blackberry acquisition threw me. Emily? Are we going to run the table?
Aug '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
haha - I remember that from my Amiga 1000 in the mid 80's.
May '10
Re: What Really Goes On Behind the Scenes at Ricochet
Too much patchouli has done in the servers again, I warned you about the scented candles SysAdmin