Just imagine for a second that you were a brilliant mathematician, you eat, shit and sleep math.
One day you see a big gathering, and someone has been chosen at random to answer a math question, and they will win untold fame and fortune.
The question is fun, if a little simple, but you have to squirm as you watch this nincompoop fumble around and fuck it up.
Guys like me who love servers, server architecture and scalability arguments, dream of days like this.
We love to overengineer even when it is not necessary (we try not to).
this is a no brainer, a quality problem.
If i knew that on date x, time y, that i was going to have n users hitting my server all at once, this would be an easy task.
It would be fun, it would go smoothly, I would have a plan.
I can only think the guys at MtGox are either grossly incompetent or incredibly greedy (they still have all this stuffed on to some box under their desk).4
The problem I see is increasing their last mile connection speed to their ISP as this cannot be done quickly. Here is the states it takes 2 to 6 weeks and you are at the mercy of the provider. All the equipment processing speed is useless without this upgrade.
Torturous...