Alan Hargreaves' WeblogThe ramblings of an Australian STSC* Staff EngineerListening to Ian Moss- November 30, 2007 I got to hear some tracks from Ian Moss' 2005 Album "Six Strings" recently.WOW!Sufficiently impressed that I've ordered the Album and hanging on a phone call from Borders to tell me it's in.I was already aware of Ian and a lot of his work, but this album of him solo, unplugged is nothing short of awesome.From classics such as Tucker's Daughter through to new stuff like Message from Baghdad (featured on his myspace), Two seconds too long and All alone on a rock.I have a new favorite album, well..http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/listening_to_ian_moss Mutex Contention vs number of cpus- November 20, 2007 I've had a few cases recently that have brought this issue to the fore. It's amazing how many people think that the answer to all performance issues is to simply throw more cpu at the problem. Let's work through this thought (and this holds true for other queuing type locks too). On Solaris, if the mutex holder is on proc, the waiter spins instead of blocking and sleeping If we have sufficient threads wanting the same mutex, we can quickly utilize all cpus in a box The more threads we have..http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/mutex_contention_vs_number_of Making a Stomp Box- November 19, 2007 I posted this over on my myspace blog, but I'm sufficiently please with myself that I thought I'd post it here too. Well I've just finished the main work in making a new stomp box. I did a google search and came up with the following instructions: 2 x 350mm x 70mm (x20mm) hardwood 2 x 310mm x 70mm (x20mm) hardwood Gives you a total of 350mm x 3500mm square, 70mm high. For the top: 350mm x 350mm 3ply (make sure all ply sheets are same thickness, first one they gave me was actually thinner...http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/making_a_stomp_box Toy Recall - HOLY CRAP- November 6, 2007 I just had my dad call me to tell me about this toy recall. The toy (Bindeez Craft Beads) won the Australian Toy of the year award! Now they find that "The colourful beads contain the same chemical as the illicit drug GHB, otherwise known as 'fantasy' ... the product actually contains 1,4-butanediol ... When metabolised, 1,4-butanediol converts into GHB." My (almost) 9 year old daughter loves playing with these things!!! Sometimes as a parent I have the absolute sht scared out of me. I...http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/toy_recall_holy_crap The official melbourne cup site can't cope- November 6, 2007 I simply have to tongue in cheek blog this. For those that don't know, Australia stops on the first Tuesday in November for the largest horse race in the country. The Melbourne Cup. Shortly after the race finished a colleague gathered the below screen shot from the official web site. Do you think they might need to talk to Sun Australia about the new T2 boxes ( e.g. T5220 & T5120), Solaris 10 and Our Application Server :-)http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/the_official_melbourne_cup_site |