[StarCluster] AWS_REGION_NAME -- spot price problems

[Stephen How]

Anyone,

The spot pricing for c1.xlarge on us-east-1 is all over the map lately.  Usually, it's $0.07/instance-hr, but lately it's as high as $1.00/instance-hr.

The price history is very steady on us-east-1b, but is all over the place for us-east-1a and us-east-1c.

Can I specify the us-east-1b zone via the AWS_REGION_NAME and AWS_REGION_HOST config fields?

Has anyone ever had problems with erratic spot instance prices?  Is this normal?  I've never seen this volatility in prices.  These prices don't seem real.

Thanks,
Steve