Sandy Drowns Jalopnik, Site Advocates Wife Swapping While Down
One of the many victims of Sandy: Jalopnik. Along with the other servers of the Gawker network, Jalopnik joined the fate of some ten thousand websites served by 150 data centers on the East Coast that were drowned out by the ferocious storm. Even after going down, the site’s problems did not end.
We wish our colleagues at Jalopnik all the best and a speedy comeback. Also, we recommend to hunt down whoever changed Jalopnik’s redirect from http://updates.jalopnik.com to http://w.jalonik.com, a site that offers “wife swapping”, and “colon cleansing” along with more traditional fare such as “body kits” and “Cadillac Escalade.”
According to the New York Times, the Gawker sites share a common Internet service provider, Datagram, housed in the financial district in Lower Manhattan, which lost power on Monday evening. TTAC’s servers are in a secure location in Canada, and its editors are dispersed over multiple continents.
Update: The hijack of Jalopnik’s emergency site appears to be fixed. Jalopnik now redirects to the proper ersatz-Jalopnik page that sports familiar robust language like “The asshole spreading false info on Twitter revealed.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Ah shadenfreud, the civilized part of us recoils at the sight of it. Yet we are all guilty of it, so let TTAC enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling.
I actually like Jalopnik's new "lite" site. It's much easier to navigate than their "new and improved" version they came up with awhile back. I hope they keep it.