[HN Gopher] Can't send email more than 500 miles (2002)
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Can't send email more than 500 miles (2002)
Author : dvrp
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-09-19 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (web.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (web.mit.edu)
| sudobash1 wrote:
| Every time I read this story the part that always surprises me
| again is the units command. Converting from 3 millilightseconds
| to miles is brilliant, and I am delighted every time that the
| units command can do this.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| kragen posted a several of excellent comments highlighting the
| capabilities of GNU Units a couple of months back, these two in
| particular:
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36988917>
|
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36995046>
|
| And Trey Harris's "500 mile email" story is what clued me on to
| GNU units and its capabilities.
|
| Reminder: if you're on MacOS, or one of the BSDs, your default
| units is from BSD, _not_ the GNU version, and is far less
| capable. GNU units can be installed on MacOS through Homebrew.
| The package is "gnu-units", the command is "gunits" once
| installed.
|
| _Edit:_ Corrected Homebrew package name.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It's also in chocolatey for windows
| dementik wrote:
| Actually,
|
| brew install gnu-units
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Gah! Thanks, corrected above.
|
| (I run the command far more often than I install the
| package.)
| ashton314 wrote:
| My units command (on macOS) doesn't have it. :/ Is there a
| better version out there?
| drpossum wrote:
| Yes, you want the gnu units. It's in homebrew as gnu-units
| (and you run it as gunits)
| orisho wrote:
| Oh, I love this story! :D Always fun to read whenever I stumble
| upon it.
| ashton314 wrote:
| "You waited a few DAYS?" I interrupted, a tremor tinging my
| voice. "And you couldn't send email this whole time?"
| "We could send email. Just not more than--" "--500
| miles, yes," I finished for him, "I got that. But why didn't
| you call earlier?" "Well, we hadn't collected enough
| data to be sure of what was going on until just now."
| Right. This is the chairman of *statistics*. "Anyway, I
| asked one of the geostatisticians to look into it--"
| "Geostatisticians..." "--yes, and she's produced a
| map showing the radius within which we can send email to
| be slightly more than 500 miles.
|
| Pure gold. I love that the stats department put in such rigorous
| testing before submitting the ticket.
| [deleted]
| jayrwren wrote:
| classic. I read this 20yrs ago.
| Royce-CMR wrote:
| The best part - the consultant who patched the server is on
| Hacker News! He commented on his part here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23775404
| swyx wrote:
| i think about this story often and i find that the person who
| figured out that it was 500 miles actually deserves more credit
| than they get in the story. have to really think out of the box
| to figure that one
| kibwen wrote:
| I've wondered how feasible it would be to do something like this
| to have a website that could only be accessed when a client is
| within a certain physical proximity of the host. Could make for a
| fun CTF!
| escapecharacter wrote:
| My quick hack would be to establish a websocket connection, and
| send a random stream of numbers to the client. If the client
| didn't return the number within a ping threshold, block their
| access.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Great story!
|
| At lunch today I was just talking about Sendmail, which I can
| assure you is a rather rare occurrence. I was talking about the
| first time I set up sendmail, back in '91 or '92. I was using the
| bat book and nearly tore my hair out over a week getting that
| first setup working. I eventually came to understand and
| appreciate the m4 config, but I ended up moving to qmail and
| postfix in the mid '90s and never looked back.
| pestatije wrote:
| > our campus network at the time was that it was 100% switched
|
| is this realistic, or a writers license?
| itscodingtime wrote:
| What does this mean anyway ? I tried googling but no dice.
| brazzy wrote:
| No routers, only switches.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I thought it meant no hubs, only switches...
| morley wrote:
| There's a bit of storytelling embellishment. I believe it's
| covered in the FAQ:
|
| https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > is this realistic, or a writers license?
|
| Realistic. And, believe it or not, I know of at least one
| organization that plans to convert an entire literal skyscraper
| of office space from routed networks to a single, flat switched
| network for all the employees of all the subcompanies. In 2023.
|
| Obviously everyone with a bit of braincells left tells them to
| _not_ do that because it 's utterly dumb, but hey, strategic
| decision by the holding company to save on costs...
|
| At least they're not using hubs. (For the younger generation: a
| hub is an Ethernet device that takes any packet it ingests in
| one port and sends it out to all other ports, with no
| consideration at all if the device that the packet is destined
| for actually is on that port - something a switch does, by
| maintaining a mapping of MAC addresses to ports. Extremely dumb
| devices, but used to be way faster and especially cheaper than
| switches in the 90's/early '00s)
| [deleted]
| Terr_ wrote:
| I still keep an old 4-port hub in my junk-box because that
| way I can diagnose/snoop on network traffic... Although so
| much of it is encrypted these days anyway.
| wink wrote:
| bonus fact: multicast was still being done via broadcast in
| some switches ~10y ago, also extremely dumb :P
| snewman wrote:
| This excellent tale has appeared many times on HN; here's dang,
| in 2021, listing some of the past threads:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29213472
| ShamelessC wrote:
| Indeed. Seeing this on the front page is a good reminder I've
| been on this site far too long.
| kibwen wrote:
| Sometimes you just need to gather all the young'uns around the
| campfire and regale them with the tales of old, like The
| 500-Mile Email, or The Story of Mel.
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email (2002)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29213064 - Nov 2021 (93
| comments)
|
| _We can 't send email more than 500 miles (2002)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23775404 - July 2020 (135
| comments)
|
| _500 miles (2002)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18675375 - Dec 2018 (32
| comments)
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email (2002)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14676835 - July 2017 (56
| comments)
|
| _The 500-mile email (2002)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708 - April 2015 (139
| comments)
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2701063 - June 2011 (18
| comments)
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 - April 2010 (24
| comments)
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 - Dec 2008 (28
| comments)
|
| _The case of the 500-mile email_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 - Feb 2008 (7
| comments)
| dvrp wrote:
| oh! do submissions of same link stop being "linked" after a
| year or so?
| dang wrote:
| Correct! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
|
| That's on purpose--we want good articles to get multiple
| chances at attention, and we want the 'classics' to pop up
| periodically (just not too often), so newer cohorts of users
| get some exposure to them. So you did well :)
|
| The purpose of linking to past threads is not to imply
| anything bad about the repost (if it were a bad repost, we
| would handle it differently) - rather, it's to point curious
| readers to other discussions on the same topic that may
| interest them.
| dvrp wrote:
| good to know, and it makes sense!
|
| ty
| qup wrote:
| Do you have a script to do this work for you?
| dang wrote:
| Kind of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668525
| zerojames wrote:
| Thank you for sharing, dang! Onward to find the next
| curiosity!
| BjoernKW wrote:
| Ah, the true mother of all leaky abstractions:
|
| The actual underlying transmission protocol of the relativistic
| universe shining through when trying to send an email.
| [deleted]
| unlog wrote:
| My memory is vague. Anyone remember the related one about wife
| reporting some office app won't print on $day?
|
| edit: here it is
| https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Probably the "Openoffice can't print on Tuesdays" one:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8171956
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| This sort of kind should be [1997] rather than 2002, but then
| even Trey can't remember:
| https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html
| jaboutboul wrote:
| Love when this story comes up on HN.
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