I really hope you're using SELECT * as an example and that you don't really do that.

Don't forget the version of Wordpress that you download is very different from the version that's on Wordpress.com

It's actually not that different, and of course they make as much use of caching as possible.

So does my self-hosted wp blog, for that matter. If you are using WP Super Cache correctly, you can deal with significant amounts of traffic. I've seen peaks of hundreds of simultaneous users on my blog, with a server load < 1. The server is a modest aws small instance.

Single author mini-blogs without logged in users are super easy to cache.

But multi-author blogs with thousands of logged in users is a nightmare with wp.

I suspect 90%+ of wp blogs are in the mini-blog category though.

Why would multiple authors make a difference?

Every time an article is created, saved or published, wp uses hundreds of non-cachable queries.

Every time an article is published, it causes the cache to be deleted for not only that article but related pages, which means all those pages have to be rendered again.

For one author, that can be managed. Many authors, the cache is constantly being defeated.

What matters is the ratio of reads per write. Blogs with multiple authors have a higher ratio than blogs with single authors.

>For one author, that can be managed. Many authors, the cache is constantly being defeated.

That's irrelevant. It's the pages view count that counts, not how many authors are in the same cms.

I know they replace the database class on wp.com to support replication (I think they even released the code once) but I don't think they do extensive changes otherwise unless you've actually read otherwise.

It's called HyperDB, and they did indeed release it: http://codex.wordpress.org/HyperDB

I always thought that the ICO cookie law stuff was opt in, rather than opt-out like the BBC were doing.

It seems that they (Rackspace) are just about to launch something that might fix some of the issues that are being talked about: http://www.rackspace.com/blog/next-generation-rackspace-clou...

And the competition is heating up

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/openstack-vs-cloudstac...

Just to confirm, it is free (if you're in the UK) but the link above is for the US version which isn't free.

You might want do something about the bad security message (or change the above link)

They have posted an apology: http://gigaom.com/2011/12/07/did-someone-order-500-copies-of...

And can you link to reliable sources with that stuff?

And there's a different between a rape trial being held in private (see fun2have's post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186245) and some secret committee.

Personally, I think there are too many contradictions (like the fact that the stories have changed) for this to be something other than politically motivated. But we shall see.

It also might be worth getting in touch with Student Unions as some students might have entrepreneur societies that have final years that would be interested. As well as Math and Computer societies.

Generally I've found that the Unions might be more willing to spread the word to the students than the universities.

We've hit quite a few entrepreneur societies but not really student unions. We'll look into that. Thanks.