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As others have said, it's Slashdot - which got it's name from trying to spell out the web address over the phone. Silly and confusing... h..t..t..p..colon..sl

As others have said, it's Slashdot - which got it's name from trying to spell out the web address over the phone. Silly and confusing... h..t..t..p..colon..slash..slash..slashdot..dot..org When you see "Hacker News Hug" on here (recently due to Cloudflare's issues) or Reddit's "Hug of Death", the original was "Slashdotted", when tech people hosted personal sites on their _own_ home DSL (even Dial-up via Dynamic DNS!) connections. These asynchronous connections had terrible upload speed by design. If their webpage hit the front news of Slashdot, their upload bandwidth very quickly ran out due to the torrent of traffic!

rimunroe 3y ago
My brother writes xkcd. In 2006 I was living at home while attending community college. At the time, his site was still hosted on the old HP desktop that used to sit in our family room and now sat in his old bedroom. One day I was playing in an unofficial Counter-Strike tournament when one of his comics (possibly "Pi Equals"[1]) got posted to either Slashdot or Boing Boing. My ping immediately went from probably ~25 ms to over 300, and then I timed out completely. I think it took us a couple hours to get our connection back, which I assume involved getting a new IP address. Sadly, I didn't win the tournament. [1] https://xkcd.com/10/ https://xkcd.com/10/
- lamontcg 3y ago
  The best posts are sometimes found in the comments
- comprev 3y ago
  Please thank your brother! Some of his work has genuinely turned shit days into a positive ones over the years.
  - rimunroe 3y ago
    Aw I’m glad to hear that
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > My brother writes xkcd. Username checks out.
- tezgon 3y ago
  This strip had a profound effect on my life after I read it for the first time. To this day it still means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing your story and to your brother for sharing his art. https://xkcd.com/154/ https://xkcd.com/154/
nkohari 3y ago
Isn't Slashdot a reference to the current directory in Linux?
- comprev 3y ago
  It could be but the version I remembered was trying to tell someone the website over the phone. Perhaps someone on HN has a more reliable source than my brain?
  - RoyGBivCap 3y ago
    How do you create the name for a website by trying to tell someone how to get to it over the phone? Doesn't the DNS entry have to exist first?
    - comprev 3y ago
      "Hey check out this website I discovered - it's called Slashdot" "It's called what!?" "Slashdot" "How do you spell that?" "http://slashdot.org http://slashdot.org" "Hang on, what? How many slashes and dots?"
      - RoyGBivCap 3y ago
        So the conversation of what might happen occurred before the site was created?
        comprev 3y ago
        See the FAQ for an official answer - https://slashdot.org/faq https://slashdot.org/faq I probably got the telephone part mixed up but was right about being confusing to read aloud. Can’t get a better source that /. itself!
        RoyGBivCap 3y ago
        I have a 6 digit /. id and somehow never knew this. Thanks!
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> These asynchronous connections had terrible upload speed by design. As opposed to today, where connects have terrible uploads speed because ISPs don't want you to host servers. I've heard of people getting gigabit down, but only 16 mbps up.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Fiber doesn't do that. I think it's a cable issue tbh
- ilyt 3y ago
  Not really. For example cable internet (and ADSL) goes thru cable (shocking knowledge, I know). Cable have limited bandwidth, and as it is just a single cable, not RX/TX pair as it is for ethernet and it has limited bandwidth Which essentially means you have X bandwidth to distribute between upstream and downstream. And it's far more profitable to sell X 40/10 Mbit connections vs selling a bunch of 25/25 Mbit ones, where most people there won't be using upload all that much.
  - nerdbert 3y ago
    > Cable have limited bandwidth, and as it is just a single cable, not RX/TX pair as it is for ethernet and it has limited bandwidth DOCSIS 4.0 supports 10Gb/s down and 6Gb/s up using that same coaxial cable that's been in your house for decades.
TX81Z 3y ago
I didn’t give you permission to make me feel this old this early in the week.

rimunroe 3y ago

My brother writes xkcd. In 2006 I was living at home while attending community college. At the time, his site was still hosted on the old HP desktop that used to sit in our family room and now sat in his old bedroom. One day I was playing in an unofficial Counter-Strike tournament when one of his comics (possibly "Pi Equals"[1]) got posted to either Slashdot or Boing Boing. My ping immediately went from probably ~25 ms to over 300, and then I timed out completely. I think it took us a couple hours to get our connection back, which I assume involved getting a new IP address. Sadly, I didn't win the tournament. [1] https://xkcd.com/10/ https://xkcd.com/10/

lamontcg 3y ago
The best posts are sometimes found in the comments
comprev 3y ago
Please thank your brother! Some of his work has genuinely turned shit days into a positive ones over the years.
- rimunroe 3y ago
  Aw I’m glad to hear that
Eisenstein 3y ago
> My brother writes xkcd. Username checks out.
tezgon 3y ago
This strip had a profound effect on my life after I read it for the first time. To this day it still means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing your story and to your brother for sharing his art. https://xkcd.com/154/ https://xkcd.com/154/

nkohari 3y ago

Isn't Slashdot a reference to the current directory in Linux?

comprev 3y ago
It could be but the version I remembered was trying to tell someone the website over the phone. Perhaps someone on HN has a more reliable source than my brain?
- RoyGBivCap 3y ago
  How do you create the name for a website by trying to tell someone how to get to it over the phone? Doesn't the DNS entry have to exist first?
  - comprev 3y ago
    "Hey check out this website I discovered - it's called Slashdot" "It's called what!?" "Slashdot" "How do you spell that?" "http://slashdot.org http://slashdot.org" "Hang on, what? How many slashes and dots?"
    - RoyGBivCap 3y ago
      So the conversation of what might happen occurred before the site was created?
      - comprev 3y ago
        See the FAQ for an official answer - https://slashdot.org/faq https://slashdot.org/faq I probably got the telephone part mixed up but was right about being confusing to read aloud. Can’t get a better source that /. itself!
        RoyGBivCap 3y ago
        I have a 6 digit /. id and somehow never knew this. Thanks!

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

> These asynchronous connections had terrible upload speed by design. As opposed to today, where connects have terrible uploads speed because ISPs don't want you to host servers. I've heard of people getting gigabit down, but only 16 mbps up.

FormerBandmate 3y ago
Fiber doesn't do that. I think it's a cable issue tbh
ilyt 3y ago
Not really. For example cable internet (and ADSL) goes thru cable (shocking knowledge, I know). Cable have limited bandwidth, and as it is just a single cable, not RX/TX pair as it is for ethernet and it has limited bandwidth Which essentially means you have X bandwidth to distribute between upstream and downstream. And it's far more profitable to sell X 40/10 Mbit connections vs selling a bunch of 25/25 Mbit ones, where most people there won't be using upload all that much.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  > Cable have limited bandwidth, and as it is just a single cable, not RX/TX pair as it is for ethernet and it has limited bandwidth DOCSIS 4.0 supports 10Gb/s down and 6Gb/s up using that same coaxial cable that's been in your house for decades.

TX81Z 3y ago

I didn’t give you permission to make me feel this old this early in the week.