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[…] 11 Jul 2007 But will it blend? Posted by fungrim under Silliness , Technology Via Baloon Juice: iPhone + Blender = True.Awesome stuff! […]
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Black Jesus loves a paper trail.
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.
Battle won, war still ongoing.
Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?
The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.
Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.
Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
“But what about the lurkers?”
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
We are aware of all internet traditions.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.
Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
Teak111
Pretty cool, literally turned the iphone to dust and a few pieces. Must make a smooth margarita.
Comrade Mattski
Arrghhh!!!! stupid slow work network. I’ll never get to see this video here.
Comrade Mattski
Finally!!!! I prefer the ez cheeze in a can myself
ThymeZone
Now if we can just figure out a way to make this website work. I realize it’s 1994 technology, but after 13 years you’d think they’d have a fix for it.
Just saying. What time is the next site crash scheduled for?
demimondian
Aha! Somebody has finally found the perfect hack to get around the iPhone’s limitations!
Hyperion
TZ, you keep grumbling about this but I have NEVER experienced a Balloon-Juice crash. sometimes the pages load slowly but then so do those at TPM, for example. so…who’s the outlier? you or me? (assumes duck and cover position)
Pb
Hyperion,
You are. If you haven’t ever gotten, say, a mysql error or a DNS error here, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Zifnab
Yesh. No kidding. This site has more bugs than a cheeseburger at a cockroach convention. More hacks than a lumber jacking competition. More flaws than a… um… flawy thing, with flaws in it.
ThymeZone
Couldn’t say, but using 6 different computers at two locations and three different ISP’s, I have had periods where the site crashed totally several times a day. By crash I mean everything from refusal to post, to WordPress database errors and complete site disappearance for a half hour at a time.
Sorry, but nothing I do is going to cause WordPress database errors. The site is crap AFAIC and needs remediation. All those double posts you see all the time?
Those are posts where people gave up and posted again because they didn’t know what happened to the first (or second or third) attempt.
I am rather close to rather large scale sysadmin in a rather large enterprise. I know bad when I see it.
Dis here be bad.
ThymeZone
Or as we call it, the Cheney Salute.
The Other Steve
Those are mySQL failures. Strictly speaking mySQL should never be used for anything important.
Granted, hot air on a blog doesn’t count as something important. So stay the course.
demimondian
Look, I hate open source as much as the next guy, but that’s really not true. Yes, you shouldn’t use unreplicated MySQL without failover for anything mission critical, but MS will tell you the same thing for SQL Server, just as Oracle will (if you get them to tell you the truth, which is hard) about any version of their db.
Yes, MySQL trips over its own toes at embarrassing times, but it’s a solid database if you understand its limitations, and if you understand how to avoid them.
ThymeZone
Well stated. Now if people would just observe the same rule WRT Microsoft Access ……
ThymeZone
No self respecting DBA will have anything to do with it, or Access.
I’ve got two dozen instances of SQL Server running here, along with Informix from IBM and some shoulder-rubbing with large Oracle databases. Those are solid products.
MySql is crap. Use it at your own risk, do not allow it in the door of an enterprise level data store. Unless you don’t care about your job.
demimondian
Enterprise data store? You mean, like Google’s AdWords system?
ThymeZone
Nobody advocating MySql or Access for serious production data storage would be allowed on the property where I work, I assure you of that.
And here’s the best reason why, and why Google probably wouldn’t have the sense to be in the same boat: The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.
Thanks to the EA I (and close to 20k other people here) work under, I can slap an instance of SQL Server on anything with a microprocessor in it, and fire it up and be in business in ten minutes and it costs me NOTHING.
And presto, I have a rock-solid, performant product that I can bank my job, millions of dollars in financial assets, and other data stores that directly affect the lives of literally millions of people, without worrying about licensing details, or cost.
AS you well know, I will bash MS or any other tech company at the drop of a hat, but their approach to this stuff is the reason why no self-respecting DBA would go near a piece of shit like MySql.
Doesn’t Google have a MS EA? If they do, then anybody who advocates MySql there should be fired on the spot. If they don’t …. why not, demi? Why wouldn’t they have one?
Pb
From the outside, I can’t tell if those are MySQL failures, PHP failures, network failures, etc., etc. But maybe you can — paging Dr. Frist!
ThymeZone
I’m pretty sure some of the messages I’ve gotten have referenced MySql specifically. Didn’t capture any so can’t be sure now, but the next time I see one I will snag it for you.
However the fact that they are using MySql doesn’t mean that MySql is the cause of their problems. It could be the design and administration of the site’s infrastructure that is the problem, and it wouldn’t matter what database engine they used. No way to know from out here.
demimondian
As to whether Google has an MS EA, I don’t know — and, if I did know, couldn’t say, Google and Microsoft being the secretive places they are.
As to why Google uses MySQL, though, you should go read the article. I assume that the ads database has some clever hackery behind it, but Google supports a multi-billion-dollar a year billing system off it at extremely high scale.
ThymeZone
Yeah, well in my culture, “clever hackery” is not acceptable. We are responsible for other peoples’ money, and lives here. Conservative system administration doesn’t go in for “clever hackery.” We go in for reliability, dependability, predictability. Our jobs and other people’s lives, property and money are at stake.
High Availability does not rest well upon cleverness, or hackery. At all, ever. It rests on predictability and redundancy.
Anybody in this org who chose to use MySql in a mission-critical application instead of SQL Server, Informix or Oracle or DB2 would be seen as crazy. And I would support that judgment 100%.
For the rest of you who are not pathetic geeks like demi and myself, if you want more information about this, ask for my email address and I will talk to you offline. Don’t risk your job or something of value for other people on a decision whose basis is probably more political than technical, and more geek political than normal-person political. Make your decision on solid grounds, and sleep well at night.
demimondian
For what it’s worth, TZ is half right — if you don’t have an army of wizards to support your database, and aren’t able to grovel around understand the code, there’s little if any benefit in running MySQL or PostgreSQL except cost, and the savings can easily be eaten up by the cost of personnel. Google’s a bit of a special case — really, it’s a giant distributed database company, and so it already has to pay the wizards anyway.
However, that said, if you don’t have an EA (or equivalent) claims of instability and unreliability are overblown. If you’re building a small farm on a small budget, then MySQL is a good choice.
Andrew
All right, who unleashed the dork storm?
demimondian
You must be new here.
ThymeZone
No, I am entirely right, and for exactly the reason that you inadvertently point to right here in this blurb.
Solid database administration and High Availability (the true measure of solidness) does not, and cannot, rest on an “army of wizards.” It rests on the principles of conservative, methodical administration. It is low maintenance, it is as simple as possible given the nature of the mission, and it works largely unattended.
Anybody who touts cleverness, hackery, cost savings, or an army of wizards as the basis for database availability is a quack and should not be allowed on your property.
MySql has a cult following, and within that cult, I suppose it fills a need. But you better hope that your bank isnt using it for your account transcations, and that your hospital isnt using it for your Intensive Care care management.
jg
No code cowboys in large shops. TZ is right.
ThymeZone
Uh, no. We are not talking at that level. We are saying that if you are looking at an org that won’t commit to mainstream database products, mainstream robust infrastructure, and mainstream conservative methodical system management and administration, and mainstream strategies for High Availability …. that’s an org that you probably don’t want taking care of your most important data assets.
Google is hardly a good example of anything in the real world. No doubt they have a lab or a shop doing almost anything you can imagine and having great fun and success with it. But they aren’t living in the real world I live in, the world of ordinary business and ordinary IT. In this world, predictable and mundane are preferable to clever and cool. Always. And for good reason.
Cool is for blog spoofing. Mundane is what you want for the folks who manage your bank account and your nuclear power station.
canuckistani
19 years of database admin here – I agree with TZ entirely. I’ll trust my money to an enterprise solution that has the ability to do proper testing. DB2, Informix or Oracle. I won’t even touch MS SQL, since (last time I looked) it was restricted to Windows platforms only, and I wouldn’t trust management of my toaster to Windows.
HyperIon
hmm, i’m pretty sure i’d notice, leadhead.
as far as the double posting goes, i agree. but my response to the lag is to open another tab and go about my business. the post does appear eventually. and obviously no “site crash” occurs.
Greg
You can watch it on YouTube.
The original site is down is because it hit the front page of Digg and got bombarded with traffic.
Rome Again
Well include me as another who has seen the site crashes (usually late at night, around Midnight to 3AM EST or sometimes also in daytime during rare moments when Darrell posts and a thread goes from 12 posts to 150 in 26 minutes due to the pile-on). I’ve been witness to both of these types of crashes, and TZ and I have both achknowledged them happening at the same time while in email. It’s not anyone’s imagination. These crashes are real. If you aren’t experiencing them, consider yourself lucky Hyp.
Andrew
I always get super long posting lag as well as the occasional wordpress connection error.
ThymeZone
Yes, but it’s Windows Server. As long as you patch it carefully and keep dedicated servers (SQL only on the SQL Server boxes) it is by far the most reliable db platform in our world. Pound for pound, can’t beat it.
MS doesn’t do some things right, but dedicated SQL SErver on Win 2003 servers is pretty bulletproof.
ThymeZone
I think there’s an exercise you can do for that.
grumpy realist
Getting back to the topic of this thread….
…wonder if this homogenizability will show up in the future ads for the blender?
(Actually, if I were a PR person, I would be rubbing my hands at this. A whole slew of ads designed around “NOT the usual blender” and “After this, imagine what it will do to your ice cubes” and leaked to YouTube? You’d get The Buzz, all right.)
Rome Again
Oh, do we have to? I wasn’t going to even click on this thread until I found out you guys were talking about what WASN’T on topic.
Andrew
I did that, and now you should see what I can launch out of my hoo-hah.
ThymeZone
Woot! Are you going for distance, or accuracy?
Rome Again
Does that fact that I’m even laughing at this mean I’m debased in depravity?
ThymeZone
It might ….. but only in a good way.
Rome Again
Ooooh, does it turn you on?
ThymeZone
~8^O
Rome Again
You mean I found your ON button? Yippeee!
ThymeZone
Yes, and I can last a long time on Standby.
Rome Again
Oh… I see.
Andrew
Oh Jesus, not again.
ConservativelyLiberal
I visit this site 20+ times a day, and I have yet to see any MySQL errors. The only problem I ever had was submitting a post and it taking forever or even timing out. And if it times out, if I check the site here, in most cases the post has been made fine. Odd, but I live with it.
I have been using MySQL for the last three years now, and I have no problem with it (for what I use it for, an online game server and three phpBB2 forums). I know it is not perfect, but in my experience I have had no problem with it. I am even running an older version (v4.0.20) too, not the latest stuff. The game server is on one machine, with the web server on that machine handling the client page for the game server. The three forums are on the second machine, and I have had no problems with either systems MySQL install. Not exactly mission critical stuff, but it is definitely low (more like no) maintenance. Easy to set up, easy to operate and maintain. The servers are up 24/7/365, and I have no complaints with it. I use MySQL Admin and phpMyAdmin whenever I rarely have to fix a players game data, and only once for a phpBB hack that one of my boards was hit with (the ‘nigga’ exploit/hack). I work with MySQL from the command line on the machine, and the GUI versions for remote work. Either way, easy to use and it works for me…
As far as Access, I have it for personal use but I would not use it for anything critical. No way. I used to use Oracle 8 with Praxis at a medical clinic I handled IT for, and I really liked it. Easy to operate and work with, and I would prefer it to MySQL, but I did not create the game…lol
Damn tech snobs… ;)
Worse than some of my fellow guitar players… “Bolt on necks suck, set/thru necks RULEZ!!!!!” Yet many acts I have seen used bolt on necks (eg: EVH and Frankenstrat) until they became famous enough to afford the set or thru neck guitars, and shortly after that they suck for the rest of their career…
I will take MySQL and my bolt on necks, you damn snobs… ;)
ThymeZone
In the time since PJM, I’d say I’ve seen the WordPress database errors somewhere between 50 and 100 times.
Ordinary crashes (the page cannot be displayed) probably on average, 30 times a month, 360 times in a year.
Ordinary “hangs” (attempts to post just hang forever), probably anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day. Worse at night but not always, I have seen all of these in the middle of the day too.
Again, using numerous machines, several locations, and multiple ISPs, I get the same results. It ain’t me.
It’s them.