https://slashdot.org/ is a site
for geeks with news interesting to geeks. It has become very popular
and gathers large crowds of people who read the posted articles and
participate in various discussions. When a news story posted on this
site appeals to a large number of Slashdot readers, the site
mentioned in the news story often suddenly becomes a new mecca during
the day the story was posted and the next few days. If the
site's owner has just a small machine and never
expected to gain such popularity in so little time, the server is
generally unable to supply the demand and often dies. This is known
as the Slashdot Effect.
Web Performance Tuning, by Patrick Killelea
(O'Reilly).
