[Bioperl-l] Excessive CPU use by various Bioperl sites

[Chris Fields]

Robert, 

Not sure why you're seeing that, but the HOWTO (and, AFAIK, the wiki in general) do not use JS, unless there is a specific addition I'm unaware of.  Now, the site wiki was recently 'parasited' for redirects, which may be the culprit, but this is now fixed.  Can you at least retest to see if this persists?

Anyone else know about this?

chris

On Nov 20, 2009, at 7:40 PM, Robert Bradbury wrote:

> I run a Linux system which is in a gradual process of evolution from the
> default Linux browsers (Galeon, Epiphany, etc.) through Firefox (better) to
> Google's Chromium (IMO, perhaps the best so far).  Chromium allows one to
> create a process per tab/URL so one can effectively track what it is doing.
> It also allows one to track the machine usage of these processes (through
> the Developer > Task manager [shift-escape keyboard] option) which though
> expensive in terms of overhead allows one to track offending windows (in
> terms of memory or CPU use).  My processor recently jumped from a typical
> 700 MHz to 1.4 GHz speed (using the Linux Ondemand scheduler - which saves
> ~20 W at the wall outlet -- I've measured it) to the full tilt 2.8 GHz the
> CPU is capable of.  Looking at the chrome task manager I was not surprised
> to find the NY Times high on the list (they are pushing content, esp. using
> Javascript) but much to my dismay the Jalview and Howto:Trees:Bioperl
> appeared to be high on the list.  Now I am forced to ask myself *why* sites
> which are simply distributing static information are eating up CPU on my
> machine!  This is a fundamental flaw in the architecture of the sites --
> wherein there should be conscious efforts to minimize user-CPU use (or avoid
> Javascript entirely).  This would not be a problem if I were using Firefox
> as I can easily use NoScript to block Javacscript from non-approved sites.
> But it raises the question of when one should allow Javascript to run (one
> would "normally" approve academic sites by default) when even the academic
> sites are abusing my CPU.  There needs to be much greater awareness both on
> the part of software distributors and software consumers that it is *MY* CPU
> and *MY* Electricty and *MY* contribution to global warming.  And the
> developers/distributors should not be sucking down those resources without
> first saying "May I?" and I have the option of saying "No you may not."
> There is enough we can do productively (running low homology blast
> searches) without engaging in endless wheel spinning of Javascripts or
> looped GIFs.
> 
> Robert
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