Feeling Slow? Check the Load

January 12, 2008 by Eric Richardson

My phone (an iPhone) has been feeling sluggish lately. It took until today for the light to turn on where I said "Why don't I open the terminal and check top?" Load was around 4, and it was instantly apparent the culprit:

12796 gnuchess    31.7%  7:12:55   2    31   109  1.36M  1.47M
12538 gnuchess    28.0%  6:46:13   2    30   109  1.36M  1.47M
12116 gnuchess    25.8%  7:02:24   2    30   109  1.36M  1.47M

Turns out that if the chess app crashed it was leaving a gnuchess instance running (and running hard, apparently) under the hood. A couple of those had built up and were choking out anything else trying to hit the CPU. A simple killall gnuchess and I'm feeling much better.

... And Wet Here

January 05, 2008 by Eric Richardson

L.A. River after Rain Eric Richardson

We got back into town Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday evening it started raining. It's been dry this morning, so I rode over to the river to take a few photos. You can see them as a set here.

Shot taken from the 7th street bridge, with the shutter at 1/4 sec to get the silky water. And, yes, it really was that brown.

It's Cold Here

January 01, 2008 by Eric Richardson

Kathy in the Snow Eric Richardson

Tomorrow morning Kathy and I head back to L.A. after a little over a week here in Michigan. We arrived to a snow storm and despite a little warming in between it's been pretty consistently cold with two good snowfalls. While it's always nice to see family, I'm good and ready to get back to California warmth.

Looking Ahead: Rails and Bicycling

December 27, 2007 by Eric Richardson

Obviously I'm still not much back into this "writing on my own blog" thing. Kathy and I are back in Michigan for the holidays, and I've been digging into a work project in the free moments between family things.

Agathon has never deployed a Ruby on Rails project before, and I talked them into that being the correct way to go for a fairly hefty job with a big deadline three weeks into January. Right now I'm plugging at the foundation myself, and then after the new years I get to show off where things are and we'll bring some other people up to speed on how to jump into Rails and help get it all going.

January looks to basically be Rails and bicycling, which is all I could ask for. I'm having a blast on the new fixie, and have basically been making excuses to ride it whenever possible.

Bicycle Shots

December 16, 2007 by Eric Richardson

Bicycle at Radio Hill

I said I wouldn't take any full-bike photos indoors. This afternoon I took the bike up Radio Hill to find a suitable spot for shots. I'll admit to not making it the entire way up the hill on my 48/15 gearing, but I made it close enough the the last bit of walk wasn't bad.

After a few days of riding fixie my legs are killing me, but I'm having a blast other than that. Friday I rode down to USC and back, and then did maybe 20 miles for Midnight Ridazz (I don't have a computer on, so just a guess). No bicycling yesterday, but then the couple miles to Radio Hill and back today.

Two more shots after the jump. — Continue Reading...