5 ms·

I miss the early versions of Netscape, when they used to show the server domain lookups that the packets were transiting through to get to you in the status bar

I miss the early versions of Netscape, when they used to show the server domain lookups that the packets were transiting through to get to you in the status bar. I remember being amazed at the 'magic' of the internet back then, when I would sit in Australia and request a page in the UK, and see responses flickering through at the bottom from France, Japan, Malaysia etc. Really brought home that each packet was coming to you via bouncing around all over the world, and two consecutive packets could come by incredibly different pathways. That was dial up days too. Now I complain when NetFlix take an extra second to begin streaming a show. The magic has become mundane. I wish someone would bring out a Chrome extension that could display what the ancient Netscape browsers did...

xelxebar 9y ago
Hmm... I'm not sure how you'd reliably do this. AFAIK routers don't usually bounce back a notification to origin every time they route a packet. You'd have to do some kind of traceroute and then look up the ips in the geoip database. The former is pretty slow in my experience, and the latter might be pretty noisy data. Makes me wonder what Nexflix was doing way back when!
- kinos 9y ago
  When Netflix first started they only sent out DVDs via mail, and it was three DVDs at most at once. You paid a monthly fee, and you would mail back DVDs when you wanted a new one on your queue. It took them three or so years to get streaming set up, long after YouTube had made the idea of streaming video realistic. I believe VidX had also put a lot of effort into making high quality streaming realistic before YouTube supported it. This all occured before Netflix offered any streaming.
  - aptwebapps 9y ago
    I think GP meant to type 'Netscape' in the last sentence ...
    - xelxebar 9y ago
      Whoops :/
tacon 9y ago
>The magic has become mundane. Classic Louis CK routine: "It's going to SPACE!" https://youtu.be/q8LaT5Iiwo4?t=1m31s https://youtu.be/q8LaT5Iiwo4?t=1m31s

xelxebar 9y ago

Hmm... I'm not sure how you'd reliably do this. AFAIK routers don't usually bounce back a notification to origin every time they route a packet. You'd have to do some kind of traceroute and then look up the ips in the geoip database. The former is pretty slow in my experience, and the latter might be pretty noisy data. Makes me wonder what Nexflix was doing way back when!

kinos 9y ago
When Netflix first started they only sent out DVDs via mail, and it was three DVDs at most at once. You paid a monthly fee, and you would mail back DVDs when you wanted a new one on your queue. It took them three or so years to get streaming set up, long after YouTube had made the idea of streaming video realistic. I believe VidX had also put a lot of effort into making high quality streaming realistic before YouTube supported it. This all occured before Netflix offered any streaming.
- aptwebapps 9y ago
  I think GP meant to type 'Netscape' in the last sentence ...
  - xelxebar 9y ago
    Whoops :/

tacon 9y ago

>The magic has become mundane. Classic Louis CK routine: "It's going to SPACE!" https://youtu.be/q8LaT5Iiwo4?t=1m31s https://youtu.be/q8LaT5Iiwo4?t=1m31s