$|++; # turn off output buffering on STDOUT
my @pipeproc = ("flakey_writer |","| flakey_reader",...);
for (0..29) {
  my $start = time();
  my $pid = open( FH, $pipeproc[$_] );
  my $now = time();
  print "opening $pipeproc[$_] returned $pid in ",$now-$start," sec\n";
  close FH;
}