Science Addiction

I just added a blogroll- links to blogs that I frequent- to the right sidebar, and I think I should introduce them to you. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, the 18th of December this website was the victim of “the slashdot effect”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect. That is, we were slashdotted.

slashdotted
Function: Verb
Etymology: Post-modern geekspeak
1 a: to kill a web server through excessive traffic, usually caused by a link from “slashdot.org”:http://slashdot.org
Usage: “Science Addiction”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com was slashdotted on Sunday because I submitted my “article on open source charity for the holiday season”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2005/12/18/seasons-givings/.

Here are a few stats from the aftermath:

• So far, in 2 days, my server has recorded 9000 views for the article linked from slashdot.
• In the first 6-8 hours after the effect, the site was practically inaccessible. Read “comments on slashdot”:http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/18/1453256&tid=105&tid=95&tid=4 to that effect.
• So far, 5 people besides me have del.icio.us’ed my article! Translation: they added it to their web-bookmarks at “del.icio.us”:http://del.icio.us.
• This website, which till a few days ago barely received a dozen visitors a day, is averaging in the hundreds 50-ish hours after the effect

Interesting stuff, to say the least. I will put more facts up as I come up with them!

UPDATE (12/22/05): A few more facts…

• A vast majority of the slashdotters use “Mozilla Firefox”:http://spreadfirefox.com/community/?q=affiliates&id=76836&t=1. Many use Apple with Safari, and finally, a few poor souls actually use MSIE, though I would like to believe they are online from their place of work and have no choice. If so, please switch jobs quick!
• Many Linux users… no surprises there. Many of those were “Ubuntu”:http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ linux users; seems like Ubuntu is popular with the slashdot crowd.

Welcome to Science Addiction! The purpose of the web site is to feed the obsessions of people like me: that is to say people who live for the minutiae of different aspects of science (mainly) and art. For the bloggers out there, the web site has been created using WordPress v1.50 (which I will write an extensive article about soon) w/ the Black Letterhead theme. Expect it to grow with time. The site is hosted by WestHost.