May I ask Who Ownes the server Photonlexicon.
May I ask Who Ownes the server Photonlexicon.
From what I understand the janitor is a fussy one and prefers to have his server nice and close. I believe it is, while not his "personal computer", certainly his property and located close to his person. I could be wrong. It has happened before.
Love, peace, and grease,
allthat... aka: aaron@pangolin
Is it crunches I just want his email
SentientToaster*at*photonlexicon*dot*com
Last edited by Admin; 01-31-2009 at 06:44. Reason: Edited by Admin; Email obfuscation(I do not less than three spam)
Not quite, Aaron. PhotonLexicon is *far* too large to run on a personal computer in someone's den or library. The bandwidth requirements alone would prevent it. (Not to mention the processing power and storage requirements.)
For a long time, PL used to run on a shared server that was leased from a hosting company. (A friend of Spec gave him a deal on hosting services way back when.) The server that PL used to be on would actually host multiple websites at the same time, thus it was pretty cheap.
However, PL was growing so fast that Spec kept getting polite e-mails from the hosting company explaining that he was using up the majority of the resources of that machine *just* for PL traffic! The guy was a personal friend of Spec, so he cut him a lot of slack for a long time, but PL was getting so big that it could no longer run efficiently on a shared server.
Recently, Spec had to move PL to a dedicated virtual server. Of course, this is more expensive, but it also increases the response time of the site. Pages are served *really* quick now, and you'll notice that even deep searches come back in a second or two. That's really amazing when you consider the size of PL.
Would you believe that PL serves over 1.4 *million* pages per month? Yeah, I had no idea either. This place is *huge*... So yeah, it's not something you'd be able to run from your garage.
Note that Spec also maintains the PL FTP server. This server is different from the ILDA SWAP server that Cruch set up, and it doesn't get nearly as much traffic as Cruch's does, but it is another job that keeps Spec busy.
Quite a bit of work for a sentient toaster, don't you think?
Adam
But is Spec a physical presence or more of an entity?
Has he attended a LEM, mysteriously swathed in impenetrable layers of iridescent clothing with dry ice issuing forth beneath him as he glides surreally amongst us mere mortals?
Would those in attendance bow and reach out to touch the hem of his garments as he passed if he deigned to lower himself to our plane of existence?
Such things are the dreams of mere men.......
Here's the equipment that *use* to run PL.
I have *ACTUALLY* been in the presence of Spec. I didn't notice any dry ice, but there was this hum...