Why the site was so slow yesterday

If you tried to visit WU yesterday, you probably couldn't get it to load. The reason for that is because one of our old entries, about "paradoxical undressing," was linked to by reddit's "Today I Learned" subreddit, and that resulted in the server being overwhelmed by traffic. The phenomenon is known as the "reddit hug of death."

I tried to do what I could to mitigate the server freeze by redirecting the reddit traffic to a static page, but it only helped a little bit. However, the gaze of reddit now seems to have moved on to other things, so server response times have returned to normal.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 12, 2016
Category: Weird Universe

Comments

Good thing that the intent wasn't malicious. Denial of Service attacks can be difficult to fend off.

Posted by KDP on 07/12/16 at 01:50 PM

Perhaps it's the North Koreans who fear WU is a CIA plot of some sort to corrupt the minds of it's citizens and are attempting to destroy WU. I would launch a full counter attack of current political speeches by Mr. Trump and friends. The great leader over there might enjoy them.

Posted by Gator Guy on 07/12/16 at 05:49 PM

I always thought that was if I traveled back in time and met my former self undressing, we'd have Paradoxical Undressing. No?

Posted by Greg on 07/15/16 at 09:20 AM

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