'A List Apart' Website Changed?

[Primal]

What's going on? Has anyone gone to ALA lately? I went there this morning to get a refresher on a technique, and the website now belongs to 'Mission Arlington Metroplex'!!! I tried .com, .net., and .org just to make sure I hadn't typed it in wrong and they all belong to that church now.

The end of ALA????

[Primal]

Well, it's working again now. That is totally weird....

[MstrBob]

You probably typed:

https://www.alistapart.com/

Notice the little s . It's a secure connection, we picked up on this before in a thread, which I can't remember. Some said it was a pirated site, some say it was some sort of clue or something. Either way, it's on their website, but why, I don't know.

[ray326]

Zeldman and Happy Cog do charitable work at times so maybe that's what's going on. They redesigned the Mission Arlington site. Interesting. I have a "second degree of separation" relationship to that charity. Small world.

[MstrBob]

Not to sound stupid, but, what's a second degree of separation ?

[ray326]

Each degree of separation is someone you know between you and the target entity. E.g. I know my wife; my wife works at a place that gives its discards to Mission Arlington. There's an old saying (and movie?) about everyone is separated by no more than a few (6 or 7?) hops like that.

[scottO]

With Firefox it warns you that the security certificate doesn't belong to alistapart.com

Heh. :)

[jack22]

Originally posted by ray326
Each degree of separation is someone you know between you and the target entity. E.g. I know my wife; my wife works at a place that gives its discards to Mission Arlington. There's an old saying (and movie?) about everyone is separated by no more than a few (6 or 7?) hops like that. I think (?) it's based on a play, which was also then made into a movie... I think Will Smith had the key role, before he became a big star. The "concept" the author uses (we're all "seperated" from anyone else by, at most, 4 or 5 other people) is an interesting concept.

But I've read where it's a totally "made up" premise, not based on a true study or social science. And considering the premise of the movie is one of deception and fraud, that's not surprising LOL. (it's a clever plot).

It's certainly true that we often meet strangers who know a 3'rd person we know, etc. And I'm sure the mathmatical possibilities of the "power of 6" might indeed cover the entire population. But... it's never been proven mathmatically. I'd bet there are people in the outback of Austrailia, jungle of Africa, or Siberia who'd you have to go beyond "6" to be able to link together.

But it's become a common expression to describe a common experience we often find ourselves in when meeting new people, much like "Catch-22" has now become such a common part of the lexicon. Probably more than you wanted to know, but... you asked.

[ray326]

Thanks, Jack. Six Degrees of Separation (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108149/)