Regarding the homepage

[stubby]

Not sure what you did exactly, but it's killing site performance - I'm getting repeating errors across my monitoring scripts since you made whatever changes you made. It's disrupting the RSS feeds in particular.

Could be the image rotation, those scripts can be siant process hogs if you're not real careful about how they're programmed. We got the old site shut down for a couple of days because of a rotation script on the front page.

[Natalya]

It is a ghetto piece of crap I wrote in 2 minutes with 5 lines:

Code: Select all

<?php
$lol = rand(0,11);
$image = "http://www.brikwars.com/forums/images/header_random_" . $lol . ".PNG";
readfile($image);
?>

If you got any ideas then let me know.

[stubby]

Oh well that's the problem. Never, never use rand(), it's hideously expensive. Try a time() % 12 or something instead.

This is true in almost any language, not just php. rand() functions should always be avoided.

[Natalya]

What does time() %12 do?

[stubby]

What does time() %12 do?

time() gives the Unix timestamp, which is the number of seconds since 1970. It's basically just a pseudorandom number that increments every second. % is the modulo operator, which gives the remainder after division. So time() % 12 divides the large number by 12, and gives you whatever integer is left over - that is, some number between 0 and 11. It sounds complicated, but from a computing standpoint it's infinitely less costly than a rand() call and it's as random as it needs to be for something like this.

(time() % x) is what we went with for the rotating image on the homepage, which is why I'm more familiar with it than usual.

[Tzan]

Modulo is awesome, its like math majic, except spelled correctly like dictionary magic.

[Zupponn]

So this is why I couldn't access the forums yesterday.

[Legofighter]

are you talking about?

This is , not a php discussion forum.

[mgb519]

This is a thread where people discuss the homepage and changes to it. I believe they just discussed making changes to the PHP code of the homepage, which qualifies as part of the homepage.

[Legofighter]

Good,

[Zupponn]

Please give legofighter the noob image in his rank.

[Bragallot]

That flag for an avatar should be bad enough already.

[Predator]

That flag for an avatar should be bad enough already.

No shit but GET AN AVATAR ALREADY. Please. Just copy one off the interwebz. U don't have to draw one with paint.

[Colette]

That flag for an avatar should be bad enough already.

No shit but GET AN AVATAR ALREADY. Please. Just copy one off the interwebz. U don't have to draw one with paint.

I think a triple troll/pedonuker/n00b banner would suffice as an avatar.

[Predator]

That flag for an avatar should be bad enough already.

No shit but GET AN AVATAR ALREADY. Please. Just copy one off the interwebz. U don't have to draw one with paint.

I think a triple troll/pedonuker/n00b banner would suffice as an avatar.

If you get a n00b banner and a pedonuker banner it would be n00bception and the internet would crash in china.