Sanjeev Singh

It has nothing to do with the endpoints - Google answers requests very quickly. One issue is that many caching nameservers do run at crazy high CPU because the ISP doesn't care if it's not an uptime issue. Also Internet UDP is truly unreliable (high drop rate) and retries are delayed by a long timeout. TCP requires connection setup. :-( - Daniel Dulitz from iPhone

I discovered some issues with my methodology. "host" by default does a bunch of other crap that requires talking to isp DNS servers susceptible to the issues Daniel is talking about. dig @nameserver domain is much better. I get 5ms for dig @usw6.akam.net smugmug.com and 21ms for dig @ns1.google.com google.com. We're trying to figure out who provides the best dns servers :). - Private Sanjeev

dig even reports the query time for you. The difference between the recursive (and caching) bind instance in my house and going to google's name servers directly is approx 20msec. - Andy Bakun

i'm getting 175ms ping to ns1.google.com and 243ms to friendfeed.com (avgerages of four) - i have noticed the backwards bug motion for dns activity a lot tonight w/ friendfeed. i'm using opendns - Chris Heath

backwards bug motion in chrome that is - Chris Heath

From home, I'm getting 30ms ping times and 34ms DNS query times to ns1.google.com, and 11ms DNS query times to usw6.akam.net for smugmug.com (akam.net doesn't answer ICMP echo). Whoever has the best connectivity can win here. - Daniel Dulitz

Best? I have 0.130ms best, 0.191ms avg to www.yelp.com. - Andy Bakun

I take that back, I have 0.034ms best and 0.041 avg to www.yelp.com. - Andy Bakun

On, and by the way, the pings are COMING FROM INSIDE THE NETWORK... so I cheated. - Andy Bakun

Chris, what is "backwards bug motion"? - Private Sanjeev

In chrome, when a page is loading the tab has a 'bug' like other browsers do that moves to let you know that the page is processing. In chrome the bug just moves in a circle where the favicon ends up after the page loads. It moves clockwise and counterclockwise. Counterclockwise (or backwards) is when the dns is loading, and then it will switch to clockwise (forwards motion) when the... more... - Chris Heath

Cool, inspired me to do this http://blogoscoped.com/blownup... (but using VectorMagic for resizing) - Philipp Lenssen

I tried vectormagic on the same image, but the results don't seem as good. Vectormagic after HQ3x (or 4x) would probably do a really good job, though. - Sanjeev Singh

The HQ*x scalers are only one of many: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... (or the docs for recent MAME versions, which include a giant stable of rescalers). - ⓞnor

I love Lenssen's images -- they do such an amazing job of capturing the spirit and flavor of the character, it's almost worth framing on the wall. - ⓞnor

I love Lenssen's images too. And the games they are from :) - Amit Patel

Lenssen's vectormagic images are definitely more museum-worthy than HQ*X blowups :) - Sanjeev Singh

Is anyone up for designing zazzle.com t-shirts with Lenssen's images? - Sanjeev Singh

I would put this up on goodies at CafePress.com, like posters or shirts, but they are pretty strict (probably more than legally necessary) with their trademark policies... but I just uploaded this as SVG for you, so feel free to run with it: http://blogoscoped.com/files... (needs some cropping still for some pics to get the original image composition) - Philipp Lenssen

The lookup table bit reminds me of the marching cubes algorithm. - Laurence Gonsalves

small update in regards to Vectormagic approach: first decrease the resolution (without resampling), then increase it using a vectorizer, see image of Marilyin Monroe http://blogoscoped.com/files... - Philipp Lenssen

hi Sanjeev Singh, http://www.hiend3d.com is not working do you have an alternative link? - Bruno Simoes

Does this really work? - Sanjeev Singh

If anything this test indicates how well your microwave shields from pretty low power 800MHz or 1.9GHz signals. I'd say place your Wifi access point next to your microwave and then experiment measuring the link quality in different microwave modes. - ǝuǝƃnǝ

Try it in the FF office. If the network craps out.... - ld

What depresses me more than the interview are the comments. There's no hope for humanity if that's the typical representative of humanity. - Piaw Na

"Resistance is futile you will be assimilated into the one world government socialist police state and forced to comply with global warming regulations and bank recapitalisation." - Jim Norris

He can spread his outrageous doomsaying all he wants. I'll still be here, living in post-industrial splendor, long after he's gone. - Stefan Moluf

pencils up! - Kevin Fox

toast. - Tudor Bosman

yep :) - Sanjeev Singh

Did that happen? Did anybody notice? - Louis Gray

So is it down now? - Richard A.

It should be back up now. Please let us know if it still seems down for you. thx! - Sanjeev Singh

Working fine for me in that case. - Richard A.

I think it's happening right now - Dennis Bjørn Petersen from twhirl

Congratulations for putting this out there. Is there a standard place I should be looking for service status (like I don't get at some other unnamed site) ;) It would be a great thing if it's not there already. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Yes, I am pretty amazing :) Actually, *that* Ana Yang is a Guinness record holder. I actually decided I'm going to go see her show in NY on my 30th birthday this year! :) http://www.telecharge.com/BehindT... - Ana

Amazing stuff! The bubble liquid formula helps too. Even though it's kind of curious (if now unwanted ;-)) to have the identical name as someone very famous, the Bubble Girl is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Nenad Nikolic

No, Fan Yang is her husband. Ana Yang is the bubble lady whose Google results have been dogging me for a decade. - Ana

I wonder what her bubble solution is made of. - April Buchheit

I think this might be a bad thing for two reasons: (1) These megacorps are less likely to fail, but when they do, they can cause a crisis (Fannie, Freddie, AIG) (2) Do you actually believe the customer is better served if competition is reduced? - Sanjeev Singh

Didn't some of the other European countries (Sweden? I forget...) end up buying their banks in a recent crisis and things turned out OK? - Patrick Lightbody

Regardless, seems like either path (pseudo-nationalizing like we just did vs. letting them fail) leads to the same thing: fewer top-level ownership of banks. The only difference is who the owner is: Joe Taxpayer or BofA - Patrick Lightbody

Please explain how having fewer, larger central banks is good. =) - Jim Norris

Yes, rescuing banks (UK, USA) allows more of them to avoid acquisition by other banks. In the case of the UK, the prime minister is chairman of the board of a few of them and can set executive compensation. However, he's beholden to the electorate, so you can argue he'll make more globally optimal decisions. In the US, the fed forfeited their voting rights (I think) so there was no increase in concentration of control. It's probably too early to say "things turned out ok", though. - Private Sanjeev

I like Buffett's plan the best. Spend the least amount of government money to kickstart private investment in undervalued banks, thereby keeping them afloat and independent. The Austrians would discourage any intervention at all. - Private Sanjeev

I think Austrianists would argue that this crisis was caused by bad monetary policy on the part of central bankers and government over-regulation that prevented smaller private banks from being able to compete with larger ones. - Jim Norris

I agree with the Austrian interpretation of the cause, but not their fix! - Private Sanjeev

If insolvent banks weren't allowed to go bust when they are "too big to fail", that introduces a moral hazard (large banks can get away with taking larger risks since losses are socialized) and a big competitive advantage (smaller institutions like Countrywide and WaMu don't get the government guarantees that big ones like GS and JPMorgan Chase do). - Jim Norris

It's an arguable point, but what if the cost of letting the big guys fail is anarchy? - Private Sanjeev

I think the problem is that we shouldn't allow too many entities to get "too big to fail" in the first place. It also seems, with derivatives, that even fairly small entities can now become too big to fail (LTCM). Would the Austrianists have intervened to prevent or regulate derivatives? - Private Sanjeev