4 ms·

HN seems to be struggling too, but that could just be everyone here to talk about the outages.

by sbrother 3y ago

passwordoops 3y ago
Happens whenever Sama sneezes too
GaggiX 3y ago
That's the standard HN experience, this site runs on a single core I believe.
- HumblyTossed 3y ago
  Does it really or is this a joke? Edit: I found the following, I wonder if it's still the case. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041
  - neocritter 3y ago
    It's real. Single core performance improves all the time. People overestimate how much power it takes to handle lots of queries per second on a well-tuned system and well-written software in 2024. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=single-core%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - __s 3y ago
      Note that's the application server process being single threaded, but the server machine is 4 core, so nginx cache etc use other cores
      - neocritter 3y ago
        A worthwhile distinction! I looked up the CPU mentioned in the link from your other comment. It looks like HN handles enormous traffic on about 2x the power of the last Celeron chip ever made. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2383vs5793/Intel-Xeon-E5-2637-v3-vs-Intel-Celeron-7305E https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2383vs5793/Intel-Xeon-E...
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Doesn't he mean single socket by single core?
    - ndiddy 3y ago
      I see the "sorry, we are receiving too many requests, try again in a few minutes" error several times a day on here. I don't think that HN is reliably able to handle the amount of users it currently has.
      - 6510 3y ago
        It's a feature
      - busymom0 3y ago
        I believe that's by design if you send an action request very quickly after a previous one. It's very easy to replicate. Open a post. Then click the upvote button and very quickly click the favorite button too. That will trigger it. I think it's used to rate limit.
        yreg 3y ago
        >"Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly" is our little server process saying "help, I only have a single core and I'm out of breath here". If your account were rate limited it would say something like "You're posting too fast, please slow down." dang, linked in one of the ancestor comments. But I still suspect you are correct.
        busymom0 3y ago
        I just tested it by quickly upvoting your comment and then favoriting it and the error was: > Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly. reload Note that this only seems to happen for actions. Doesn't seem to be the case if I am just loading a page quickly.
      - newswasboring 3y ago
        I have been using HN daily since I was a teenager. I've seen that message maybe 10 times outside of serious issues in last 15 years. It's strange to me that it happens so frequently for you.
    - HumblyTossed 3y ago
      > People overestimate how much power it takes to handle lots of queries per second on a well-tuned system and well-written software in 2024. I wasn't overestimating anything, but with how easy it is to write concurrently software today, why limit your site to a single core.
      - neocritter 3y ago
        Maybe it's a lisp thing. Who knows what mysteries lurk here
        Zak 3y ago
        It's not a lisp thing. Many lisps are capable of multithreading, including implementations of Common Lisp that have had it far longer than HN has been around, and Clojure, which is extremely good at it. It even looks like Arc, the lisp HN is written in has threads now, but Arc is built on top of Racket and uses Racket's green threads, so it only takes advantage of one CPU core. Racket does have OS threads, but Arc does not use them.
    - hoosieree 3y ago
      > well-tuned ... well-written These are good for actual business needs, but bad for resume-driven development.
  - __s 3y ago
    See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478379
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Solvency 3y ago
  You don't run a massively profitable VC company by just throwing money away at a second core.
  - supportengineer 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
paulddraper 3y ago
HN is always struggling. Couldn't use it two nights ago, IDK why.

HN seems to be struggling too, but that could just be everyone here to talk about the outages.

passwordoops 3y ago

Happens whenever Sama sneezes too

GaggiX 3y ago

That's the standard HN experience, this site runs on a single core I believe.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
Does it really or is this a joke? Edit: I found the following, I wonder if it's still the case. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16076041
- neocritter 3y ago
  It's real. Single core performance improves all the time. People overestimate how much power it takes to handle lots of queries per second on a well-tuned system and well-written software in 2024. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=single-core%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - __s 3y ago
    Note that's the application server process being single threaded, but the server machine is 4 core, so nginx cache etc use other cores
    - neocritter 3y ago
      A worthwhile distinction! I looked up the CPU mentioned in the link from your other comment. It looks like HN handles enormous traffic on about 2x the power of the last Celeron chip ever made. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2383vs5793/Intel-Xeon-E5-2637-v3-vs-Intel-Celeron-7305E https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2383vs5793/Intel-Xeon-E...
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Doesn't he mean single socket by single core?
  - ndiddy 3y ago
    I see the "sorry, we are receiving too many requests, try again in a few minutes" error several times a day on here. I don't think that HN is reliably able to handle the amount of users it currently has.
    - 6510 3y ago
      It's a feature
    - busymom0 3y ago
      I believe that's by design if you send an action request very quickly after a previous one. It's very easy to replicate. Open a post. Then click the upvote button and very quickly click the favorite button too. That will trigger it. I think it's used to rate limit.
      - yreg 3y ago
        >"Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly" is our little server process saying "help, I only have a single core and I'm out of breath here". If your account were rate limited it would say something like "You're posting too fast, please slow down." dang, linked in one of the ancestor comments. But I still suspect you are correct.
        busymom0 3y ago
        I just tested it by quickly upvoting your comment and then favoriting it and the error was: > Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly. reload Note that this only seems to happen for actions. Doesn't seem to be the case if I am just loading a page quickly.
    - newswasboring 3y ago
      I have been using HN daily since I was a teenager. I've seen that message maybe 10 times outside of serious issues in last 15 years. It's strange to me that it happens so frequently for you.
  - HumblyTossed 3y ago
    > People overestimate how much power it takes to handle lots of queries per second on a well-tuned system and well-written software in 2024. I wasn't overestimating anything, but with how easy it is to write concurrently software today, why limit your site to a single core.
    - neocritter 3y ago
      Maybe it's a lisp thing. Who knows what mysteries lurk here
      - Zak 3y ago
        It's not a lisp thing. Many lisps are capable of multithreading, including implementations of Common Lisp that have had it far longer than HN has been around, and Clojure, which is extremely good at it. It even looks like Arc, the lisp HN is written in has threads now, but Arc is built on top of Racket and uses Racket's green threads, so it only takes advantage of one CPU core. Racket does have OS threads, but Arc does not use them.
  - hoosieree 3y ago
    > well-tuned ... well-written These are good for actual business needs, but bad for resume-driven development.
- __s 3y ago
  See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478379
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Solvency 3y ago
You don't run a massively profitable VC company by just throwing money away at a second core.
- supportengineer 3y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

paulddraper 3y ago

HN is always struggling. Couldn't use it two nights ago, IDK why.