5 ms·
Seriously. I use HN as my "am I connected to the internet?" check, as it always loads instantly even when Google takes a while.
by mintplant 12y ago
Seriously. I use HN as my "am I connected to the internet?" check, as it always loads instantly even when Google takes a while.
- ponytech 12y agoI personally use : http://perdu.com http://perdu.com (up since 1998) Which translate into: Lost on the Internet? Don't worry, we will help * <----- you are here
- tux3 12y agoI'd love to see their stats. They have basically 0 content and I hit them 10 times a day.
- imjustsaying 12y agoWhat fast IP do you use when you suspect you're connected to the internet but can't resolve DNS? I'm looking for a good non-Google IP (because China)
- nitrogen 12y agoLevel3's DNS is easy to remember at 4.2.2.1. Or is that Verizon's?
- wattengard 12y agoOr google's at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 ?
- vinceguidry 12y agoYou should only use 4.2.2.1 or 4.2.2.2 if you're an actual Level3 customer. While they do respond to public requests, they're not intended for public use, unlike Google's 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 servers.
- userbinator 12y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7120248 Level3's VP says they're public. (They go up to 4.2.2.6 too, I think.)
- nitrogen 12y agoInteresting. I seen to remember that at one point the reverse lookup for one of the 4.2.2.x addresses was "dont-steal-service-etc.somebody". I just send an ICMP ping when I need an IP to check a connection. I also seem to recall reading that the 4.2.2.x resolvers were multi-homed, but in both cases my memory could be faulty.
- pcl 12y agoI still ping the IP address of my college's DNS server, all these years later. Muscle memory dies hard.
- iamwithnail 12y agoHah, glad it's not just me. It's also the thing I hit if I'm trying to think of what I was doing/am idle for a moment... typing 'news.' just seems to flow from my fingers if they're unoccupied.
- mintplant 12y agoYep, same for me. I'll be staring at the screen in thought, then up pops a Hacker News tab.
- vehementi 12y agoI have this habit too and it's deeply disturbing. Actively fighting it!
- joefreeman 12y agoCtrl-T, N, Enter :/
- asadlionpk 12y agosame here, I visit this site so much that only typing 'N' does the job.
- crystalclaw 12y agoDitto. Done with catching up on other stuff? CMD-T n enter. When it's perpetual tab gets closed, that is.
- bpodgursky 12y agoI use HN because I can never trust whether anymore whether Google is really loading from a remote source or is just doing some aggressive caching magic (or whether Chrome just has the Google homepage baked in now).
- logn 12y agoIn terms of uptime, HN has been hosted on a single server (until recently... I saw mention of a failover server). If you are just looking for a lightweight site to load, example.com is great.
- dredmorbius 12y agoMight want to spread that out over a few sites. Any one can go down. Alexa's top 10 sites is usually a pretty good set.