–Summary: Lots of traffic; no server problems; Reddit loves Macs

Yesterday, Tyler’s post about the Grand Canyon Skywalk had the good fortune of hitting both the top of Reddit and the front page of Digg, one after the other.  That presented a golden opportunity to see what the traffic from each site was like.  I knew that Digg was considerably larger, but I didn’t appreciate how significant the difference was until I saw the traffic first-hand. Here’s a timeline (all times in CDT):

• April 4: Tyler releases his Grand Canyon post to the world.
• April 9 — 9:50 a.m.: First inbound referral from Joel on Software
• April 9 — 10:20 a.m.: First inbound referral from Digg
• April 9 — 10:25 a.m.: First inbound referral from Reddit
• April 9 — Mid-afternoon: Story hits the front of Reddit
• April 9 — 5:30 p.m.: Story hits the front page of Digg

Tyler’s web site is hosted on my server, so I was able to watch behind the scenes as the traffic grew.

On most normal weekdays, the server is idling along and using about 600 kbit/s of outbound bandwidth. The vast majority of that bandwidth is consumed by Bonnevilleclub. When Tyler’s story hit Reddit, the outbound traffic spiked to 1.7 Mbit/s and then relaxed a bit to about 1.0 Mbit/s. While the story was on top of Reddit, a link would come in every so often from Digg, but the Digg traffic was in the noise. That changed when the story became “popular” on Digg.

Within a few seconds of hitting the Digg front page, traffic for the blog post jumped from about a request per second to over ten per second. Outbound traffic spiked too, from about 900 kbit/s to 4.7 Mbit/s. Here’s a chart showing the traffic at the server’s network interface:

As you can see on the chart, traffic stayed extremely heavy for about 20 minutes before falling off.

The server handled the task without breaking a sweat. The only real issue was that the database kept bouncing off a concurrent connection limit, but I increased the (artificially low) limit and the problem went away.

So, what numbers can we extract from the traffic? As of noon today (the day after), there have been 76000 visits to the article from Digg, 23600 from Reddit, and 6200 from Joel on Software. Of the three sites, it seems that Reddit has the largest proportion of Macintosh fans, with 17.2% of the visitors from Reddit using Macs (Digg: 16.2%; JoS: 8.4%). Similarly, Reddit users are the most likely to be using Linux/UNIX, with 8.6% of visitors from Reddit running X11 (Digg: 4.7%; JoS: 7.5%). Rounding out the stats, 70.5% of visitors from Digg used Firefox (Reddit: 67.6%; JoS: 65.2%). These numbers are quite different from the web at large. If we assume that visitors to these sites are bellwethers for the general computing industry, Apple is poised to recapture an enormous amount of market share.

Traffic on the server is still slightly heavier than normal, with the current upstream usage at about 1.3 Mbit/s. I predict that it will return to pre-Digg/Reddit levels by tomorrow. The challenge is now in Tyler’s court: convert the one-time visitors into regulars.

There is a Dilbert desk calendar sitting in my cubicle at my office.

Each strip has a date stamp indicating its original publication date. In this calendar, all of the strips were published in 2004 – just three years ago. I know I read those strips when they were new, since I have followed Dilbert daily for over a decade. What an odd feeling, then, to know that all memory of the strips has passed from my brain. When I read the strips now, they invariably appear fresh.

I suppose it doesn’t matter too much; new or old, they are still funny.

Like many other bloggers, Tyler disagreed with Paul Graham’s recent assertion that “Microsoft is dead“[1] by claiming that “Microsoft is (Unfortunately) Alive and Kicking.”

Well, they’re both wrong.

And they’re both right. The truth is that Microsoft is in the process of being resurrected.

Born during an especially bright alignment of the stars called Preparation and Opportunity, the infant Microsoft had instant recognition as something special. It spent its time as a newborn being showered by gifts from the three wise men called Aye, Bee, and Emm. Then some stuff happened, but nobody really remembers much about it.

Years later, Microsoft popped back onto the radar and began amassing a following in the land called Desktop. To the wonderment of many, miracles were performed that came to be known as Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer. Others scoffed at Microsoft’s actions and accomplishments, calling them unoriginal and inferior, but the criticisms did not quell the company’s growing popularity. More time passed, but then one day, when the company was about thirty years old, the company was betrayed by one of its own.

The powerful Web 2.0 Empire[2] sentenced Microsoft to death alongside the landline phone and CRT monitors. Most of the populace rejoiced Microsoft’s plight, but at least a few mourned its passing and hoped for its return in a new, improved form. Those left with the Microsoftian corpse interred it and made a prediction: Microsoft would rise again. They even threw together a schedule that showed the glorious return in a few days time. Unfortunately, that schedule was made without engineering input, so days slipped into years.

One morning, somebody went looking at Microsoft’s grave, and lo, it was empty! What had happened?

The faithful whispered “Office XML documents” and “Windows Live” even as the Empire celebrated Facebook, Twitter, and Google Docs.

Is Microsoft alive again? The signs suggest vitality, but the conclusion is yet to come.

[1] This is, of course, an allusion to Nietzsche’s statement that “God is dead” — in other words, “dead” means “irrelevant” not “defunct.”

[2] The empire later fell due to economic problems

Eight days ago, it was 80 degrees here. Now it’s snowing. This stupid weather…

Those who eat cold cereal often have a favorite. For many years, mine was regular Cheerios. After college, my tastes changed to favor Back to Nature Flax and Fiber Crunch.

Despite the unappealing name, the product is quite good. My preferred grocery store, Super Target, sold the 14 oz. boxes for $2.29, so all was well in the world. Unfortunately, my peaceful bliss was shattered this week by the disappearance of the familiar boxes from the shelves.

Where there had once been 14 oz. boxes, there were now 10 oz. bags. That wouldn’t have been too bad, except they seized the opportunity to boost the price to $2.99. That represents an increase of 82%, from 16.4 cents per ounce to 29.9 cents per ounce. Oh, the injustice! That’s on par with the recent run-up in orange juice prices, but it might be nothing compared to the fallout from the honey bee population collapse.

Regardless, I’m left with a quandry: I can pay the newly exhorbitant price at Target, or I can find a new supplier. Amazon looks promising, but I would need purchase a three-month supply to make it worthwhile. I suppose that I could simply find a new breakfast cereal, but I would rather avoid that hassle. The good news is that it will be a few weeks before my stash runs out, so I have time to find a solution.

In other words, I’ll forget about the problem until I have no more cereal, then I’ll buy whatever’s on sale.