]> snarfed.org draw group stream of consciousness Ryan Barrett <snarfed at ryanb dot org> en text/html Copyright 2002-2007 Ryan Barrett 2006-04-08 Ryan Barrett <snarfed at ryanb dot org> 2006-04-08T04:00:00Z en text/html Copyright 2002-2007 Ryan Barrett

Slashdotting hurts Icon-Permalink.png

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A few days ago, my article on GMail vs. Pine was posted to Slashdot. Soon after, it was posted to Digg, Reddit, and other geek news sites.

The torrent of traffic quickly brought my poor little server to its knees. I tried bringing it back up, but the flood of visitors put it right back down again. I had no choice but to wait until the story ran its course and fell off the Slashdot front page. My hosting company was not amused.

So, apologies for the outage. On the plus side, it generated a lot of comments. Digg user oltompic posted my favorite:

IT'S JUST E-MAIL !!!

read your e-mail and send your e-mail. holy shit.

Eloquent in its simplicity. I can only hope to achieve to such a Zen outlook on life, liberty, and the pursuit of email nirvana.

 http://snarfed.org/ start/2006-04-08/1-1 Guest cmt_pubDate text/html heh, nice work Ryan!

this was my favorite comment: 

by this great guy
I suggest we all start using "snarfed" as a synonym 
for "slashdotted". As in "we have figuratively 
stolen your server('s bandwith)" == "we have 
slashdotted your server" == "we have snarfed 
your server". I like this word better anyway. 
Thank you, OP, for your contribution 
to the /. subculture language !
PS: Don't worry about your server, it will be back
up online soon when the story will leave the front 
page.

- Maulik http://snarfed.org/ start/2006-04-08/1-2 Guest cmt_pubDate text/html Hehe, this is interesting! :)

~~- Brandi Belle http://snarfed.org/ start/2006-04-08/1-3 Guest cmt_pubDate text/html aww, the price of popularity … so sad. At least you hosting company did not terminate your service contact. I have heard of that happening in extreme situations.

- Dan http://snarfed.org/ start/2006-04-08/1-4 Guest cmt_pubDate text/html Looks good :)

- Manca http://snarfed.org/ start/2006-04-08/1-5 Guest cmt_pubDate text/html I hope your hosting company won't termitane your service contact at all.

~~- Liz Vicious