Wow, the hits just went through the /. roof. My article with pics on breaking down the Rio Carbon got posted on slashdot.org [link]. I have changed the pics in the article to make them smaller (clicking the smaller version now loads the larger image), as the bandwidth was challenging the NIC in the server. Good thing I didn't do what someone thought I did. I also made some changes to my fat-fingered apostrophes to settle down the grammar-police crowd. :)
My blogging software, dasBlog (a .net-based app running on Windows 2003 by the way, hehehe), has held up quite well under the /. traffic load. I'll put together stats and post them for other dasBlog users, once this all dies down. My service provider, Stormhosts, held up very well, too.
Number of unique *.slashdot.org web sessions on Saturday: 20,358
The graphs of bandwidth used are pretty interesting - note the trafffic before the spike is for all web sites on that shared web server - after that it's pretty much all mine:
Here are some numbers showing unique user sessions per hour - meaning it's how many actual visitors hit the site per hour. Saturday is usually pretty darn slow day, but not this time, and the number/size of of images on the page being loaded was a real challenge:
6am 57
7am 65
8am 54
9am 68
10am 74
11am 102
12pm 3321
1pm 5069
2pm 3360
3pm 2661
4pm 2196
5pm 1721
6pm 1477
7pm 1279
8pm 1239
9pm 1157
10pm 1063
11pm 702
Some more numbers...
11SEP04 Daily Avg
Sessions 26,030 1,792
Pageviews 52,522 4,280
Hits 639,524 8,754
Bytes Transferred 13.49 GB 175.35 MB
Note that RSS was about four to five times my Saturday normal at 4,426 sessions (about twice a normal weekday count), but at a very light bandwidth requirement. Score one more for RSS. Quick, someone write a manifesto! 
So anyhow, I would like to formally apologize to my service provider, Stormhosts. Well, not really apologize per se - more like shoot them a big HAHAHA! Good test for your systems I guess eh? Their systems held up very nicely, and when I emailed them just in case alert as soon as I knew what was about to happen**, they got right on IM with me. We watched the performance counters together. Great service from those guys, as always. Recommended.
** Mandatory educational content: Many sites over time have fallen victim to the Slashdot Effect, a term used to describe the very common and overwhelming onslaught of sudden traffic to a web site and the resulting failure of said server. It's typical for web servers to simply choke under the load. At some point, I don't remember when, slashdot started releasing new items to their subscriber base for a short while before they release it to their general public web site. This informal early warning system allows just enough time for their notably large number of subscribers to hammer your server, with just enough time left over for you to panic and send an email to your personal web site's unsuspecting service provider that reads something like “HOLY CRAP LOOK OUT!” The slashdot subscriber visits that precede the general onslaught generally include such friendly comments left on a blog as, “What a really cool/lame story. Oh, and by the way - you're about to get slashdotted.”