Dave Viner's Weblog

weird google problem

I love google. But in the past few days, Google seems to timeout, particularly in Firefox. After doing a little digging, here's what I found:

$ lwp-request -SUsedx "http://www.google.com"
LWP::UserAgent::new: ()
LWP::UserAgent::request: ()
LWP::UserAgent::send_request: GET http://www.google.com
LWP::UserAgent::_need_proxy: Not proxied
LWP::Protocol::http::request: ()
[BIG HANG HERE]
LWP::UserAgent::request: Simple response: Internal Server Error
GET http://www.google.com
User-Agent: lwp-request/2.07

GET http://www.google.com --> 500 Can't connect to www.google.com:80 (connect: Invalid argument)
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:04:59 GMT
Client-Warning: Internal response

Now, that's gotta be weird.

Oddly, if I use a specific IP, like http://64.233.187.99/, it seems to work fine.

Google resolves to 3 IP addresses for me, and the one that always hangs is 72.14.207.99.

Has anyone else experienced this?

UnConference FAQ

[Thanks to Amanda for putting this together. If you have suggestions or additions, let me know and we'll get this updated.]

Startup Camp Primer: FAQs for Unconferences

1) Unconference? What's that?

An unconference is a conference that is conceived, organized and delivered
by a group of loosely connected professionals centering on a common
interest, theme or idea that has generated "buzz" in their community. A
topic is chosen, then organizers volunteer. The event is held a short time
after that.

StartupCampLA and UnConferencing

I've been drumming up support for a Startup Camp here in LA. In trying to convince people at UCLA to host it, I ran into a problem. They hadn't heard of StartupCamp or UnConferencing. And I had a helluva time describing it concisely.

So, I asked the BarCampLA google group for some help in compiling information that would describe what an UnConference is and what StartupCamp is all about. I'm not sure which wiki is the right place to post all this info, so I'm just gonna use my blog for a while. If anyone wants to put this on a wiki, let me know. I'd be happy to move it. Or you can move it and just tell me.

So here goes....