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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #20 on: September 16, 2017, 07:54:01 PM »
You CLEARLY didn't understand that thread. [essay follows]
I see your understanding of the concept of brevity is just as poor as that of computer networks. But thank you for confirming that you are indeed the person I thought you were.

That's a useful technique for FE'er and RE'er alike - so you should welcome it.
Why should I welcome something that's fundamentally flawed at concept level? Why should I allow for it to garner anything other than ridicule? If we don't point it out early, some poor sods may get the wrong idea and think that there's some merit behind this idiocy. As I already said: you've taken the average quality of RE counter-arguments down a few notches. You do whatever you want with that information.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2017, 07:58:01 PM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline 3DGeek

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2017, 02:14:47 PM »
You CLEARLY didn't understand that thread. [essay follows]
I see your understanding of the concept of brevity is just as poor as that of computer networks. But thank you for confirming that you are indeed the person I thought you were.
That's a useful technique for FE'er and RE'er alike - so you should welcome it.
Why should I welcome something that's fundamentally flawed at concept level? Why should I allow for it to garner anything other than ridicule? If we don't point it out early, some poor sods may get the wrong idea and think that there's some merit behind this idiocy. As I already said: you've taken the average quality of RE counter-arguments down a few notches. You do whatever you want with that information.

So, to be clear, you believe that a "ping" (a data packed traversing the Internet) can travel faster than the speed of light?   I presume you do not think that - so MAYBE you're under the illusion that the packet result might be cached somewhere...which would indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of how "ping" works.   The suggestion didn't seem to "garner ridicule" from anyone but you - so it's likely that you're simply not understanding the concept.

Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2017, 03:48:29 PM »
So, to be clear, you believe that a "ping" (a data packed traversing the Internet) can travel faster than the speed of light?
To be clear, I never came close to saying anything that could be interpreted that way.

so MAYBE you're under the illusion that the packet result might be cached somewhere...   
Instead of guessing what I said (and getting it extremely wrong), could you perhaps consider reading what I said?

The suggestion didn't seem to "garner ridicule" from anyone but you
Much like everything else you said, this is painfully incorrect. Your suggestions have garnered criticism from FE'ers and RE'ers alike. We know this because we have a written record of them doing so in this forum. Yes, there were also a few idiots who voiced support of your flawed methodology - that's why it's particularly important to keep pointing out its flaws.
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Offline Ga_x2

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2017, 03:55:14 PM »
3D, I'll parse it out for you, as far as I understood it amidst the general personal attacks, because he finally explained it clearly in another thread: he says that pings are order of magnitude slower than you think, therefore your result in the "Japan experiment" probably pinged somewhere way closer to you than in Japan.

Offline 3DGeek

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #25 on: September 18, 2017, 03:04:19 AM »
3D, I'll parse it out for you, as far as I understood it amidst the general personal attacks, because he finally explained it clearly in another thread: he says that pings are order of magnitude slower than you think, therefore your result in the "Japan experiment" probably pinged somewhere way closer to you than in Japan.

I absolutely agree that ping times will always be SLOWER than the speed of light.  Over short distances (hundreds of miles) the delays through routers and switches dominates the ping time - so the results aren't much use.  But over intercontinental distances, the times are dominated by the speed of light delays through the cables connecting us.

This means that the ping time can (and always IS) longer than the speed of light round trip.   I do not deny that.

What is not "getting through" is that under no circumstances can it be FASTER than the round trip light-speed.  So we can't use this technique to say "The distance between X and Y is Z kilometers" - but we can say "The distance between X and Y cannot be LONGER than Z kilometers".   That may not be a particularly useful statement, but it is undoubtedly true...and that's what I claim.

Since all known FE maps drastically increase distances across oceans (mostly in the Southern Hemisphere) compared to RE maps - we may say:  "The FE map says the distance between X and Y is N kilometers - but our 'ping' test proves that the distance must be less than Z kilometers.  If N is greater than Z, then the Earth isn't flat.

Now, admittedly, the FE'ers do not claim to HAVE a map of the Earth - but we can say (definitively) that the ping times between Silicon Valley and Tokyo disprove both the unipolar and bipolar maps that have been shown here.

We can also use this tool to test whether future FE maps are at least superficially valid.

The idea that a computer somewhere between Silicon Valley and Tokyo actually returned my ping is ludicrous.

The entire purpose of having "ping" packets is to time the packet.  The Internet protocol uses two special packet types - this protocol is also used for the "traceroute" tool - which allows you to figure out which computers are forwarding the ping messages to their destination.

I can use 'traceroute' to verify my ping distance...

1  ip-66-33-208-1.dreamhost.com (66.33.208.1)  2.282 ms  2.328 ms  2.359 ms
 2  ip-208-113-156-13.dreamhost.com (208.113.156.13)  2.153 ms  2.186 ms  2.220 ms
 3  ae1-0-bdr1-iad1.dreamhost.com (208.113.156.5)  0.207 ms ip-208-113-156-9.dreamhost.com (208.113.156.9)  0.169 ms ae1-0-bdr1-iad1.dreamhost.com (208.113.156.5)  0.178 ms
 4  xe-2-1-0.er5.iad10.us.above.net (208.185.23.133)  0.307 ms ae-65.a03.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.196.241)  0.667 ms xe-2-1-0.er5.iad10.us.above.net (208.185.23.133)  0.465 ms
 5  ae-70.r05.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.195)  38.457 ms  38.258 ms ae16.er4.iad10.us.zip.zayo.com (64.125.31.78)  0.802 ms
 6  zayo-ntt.iad10.us.zip.zayo.com (64.125.14.70)  6.457 ms ae-10.r22.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.21)  0.875 ms ae-2.r22.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.120)  1.025 ms
 7  ae-69.r06.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.193)  35.608 ms  35.821 ms ae-69.r05.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.191)  37.130 ms
 8  ae-2.r22.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.120)  0.593 ms ae-2.r10.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.82)  38.641 ms ae-10.r22.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.21)  0.529 ms
 9  ae-0.a00.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.170)  42.566 ms ae-1.a00.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.202)  42.497 ms ae-6.r22.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.12)  38.267 ms
10  192.80.16.162 (192.80.16.162)  36.848 ms  36.984 ms  40.931 ms
11  * ae-0.a00.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.170)  36.889 ms ae-1.a00.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.202)  36.864 ms
12  192.80.16.162 (192.80.16.162)  35.483 ms * *

Notice that the last few computers are xxxx.ntt.net - "NTT" is "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation"...which clearly shows that my traceroute definitely made it to Japanese soil - and the time between the last US node and the first NTT site is the one where the ping time jumps from 6-ish milliseconds up to 36-ish milliseconds.

This is CLEAR evidence that my packet really did cover no less than the distance claimed.

Short-circuiting a 'ping' (eg by having some intermediate computer return the ping ahead of the final destination) would break a whole lot of the Internet's most important parts.   It categorically does not happen...and traceroute shows that it didn't happen in this case.

I agree that timing (say) an HTTP request and response wouldn't prove a darned thing - because all manner of intermediate computers might choose to cache the result and return it to you quicker than the destination computer might have done.  But ping message types are sacrosanct.  NOBODY screws with those!

Read:

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1122

(The bottom of page 41 and on into 42).
Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?

Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #26 on: September 18, 2017, 03:31:44 AM »
There are still a few problems here.

Yes the domain of the last hops are ntt.net, but that doesn't mean the endpoint must be in Japan.  Even if the IP block seems to be in Japan, it can be announced anywhere they want.  A more telling point is that in the host name is a clear physical identifier of Dallas, and Ashburn right before it.  After seeing that it brings into question why a source in Silicon Valley is routed almost immediately to the other side of the country.

As I alluded to in the other convo going on about this, there is a relatively "easy" way to fix this - know for sure where the physical end points are beforehand instead of guessing it afterwards.  For example your company has an office in San Jose and in Tokyo with servers in each office.

Edit:  I admit I'm unsure if you originally said the source was Silicon Valley or Texas, but still the problems I mentioned and the fix are still accurate.  This ping stuff seems to be spread over like 5 threads, difficult to keep track of it all.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2017, 03:45:46 AM by Psychotropic »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #27 on: September 18, 2017, 07:14:22 AM »
3DG, part of your problem is that you jumped into this community without familiarising yourself with it. You continue to assume, time and time again, that any criticism of your sorry attempt at methodology must be caused by people not understanding ICMP pings. Thus, you keep responding to criticisms by re-explaining it ad nauseam. Nobody here needs that. Meanwhile, the problems with your idea remain largely unaddressed.
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Offline 3DGeek

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2017, 02:06:27 PM »
There are still a few problems here.

Yes the domain of the last hops are ntt.net, but that doesn't mean the endpoint must be in Japan.  Even if the IP block seems to be in Japan, it can be announced anywhere they want.  A more telling point is that in the host name is a clear physical identifier of Dallas, and Ashburn right before it.  After seeing that it brings into question why a source in Silicon Valley is routed almost immediately to the other side of the country.

As I alluded to in the other convo going on about this, there is a relatively "easy" way to fix this - know for sure where the physical end points are beforehand instead of guessing it afterwards.  For example your company has an office in San Jose and in Tokyo with servers in each office.

Edit:  I admit I'm unsure if you originally said the source was Silicon Valley or Texas, but still the problems I mentioned and the fix are still accurate.  This ping stuff seems to be spread over like 5 threads, difficult to keep track of it all.

Sorry - I did the traceroute from my PC, here in central Texas - the original ping experiment was done from a server in Silicon Valley.
Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?

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Offline juner

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2017, 02:23:51 PM »
I have split the posts from the debate interview request thread and moved them here.

Offline StinkyOne

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2017, 05:48:51 PM »
Yeah, I think once you get past Pete's condescending attitude, his point is relatively valid. You need to know, without a doubt, where your endpoint physically sits. If you can't prove that, then no FEer is going to accept any of your data. We spend more time trying to get our data validated at a level no FEer would ever apply to themselves than we do talking about actual ideas. We are dealing with people that at best are prone to not trusting established science. Someone like Tom would never accept your data.
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Offline xenotolerance

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #31 on: September 18, 2017, 07:24:56 PM »
The first lesson is that there is no "if" - No flat earth believer is going to accept any data that suggests a round earth. "Someone like Tom would never accept your data" is true without qualification.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #32 on: September 18, 2017, 07:50:59 PM »
Just for fun (I'm not trying to make any strong point here, please treat everything as merely anecdotal), I've pinged the website of my University from home. I know the precise location of both machines (one's right in front of me and I really hope it actually exists, and I've visited the other site on multiple occasions) - an average-sized Svarrior can walk that distance in 20-30 minutes. The times I've measured were in the ballpark of 119ms-138ms.

I guess it's not incorrect to say that my campus is less than 35,000km away from me. It's just also not very useful.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #33 on: September 18, 2017, 07:58:01 PM »
Just for fun (I'm not trying to make any strong point here, please treat everything as merely anecdotal), I've pinged the website of my University from home. I know the precise location of both machines (one's right in front of me and I really hope it actually exists, and I've visited the other site on multiple occasions) - an average-sized Svarrior can walk that distance in 20-30 minutes. The times I've measured were in the ballpark of 119ms-138ms.

I guess it's not incorrect to say that my campus is less than 35,000km away from me. It's just also not very useful.
That seems a fairly long ping. Traceroute would be interesting there I think.

But yes, this reminds me very much of a 'brain test' thing I recall. 5 questions, each along the line of "Give me a range that will have the distance of the Nile river in it." Obviously the smart thing to do is say something like "5 miles long to 15,000 miles long." Correct, but not very helpful if actually trying to find the length of the Nile river.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #34 on: September 18, 2017, 08:04:16 PM »
That seems a fairly long ping. Traceroute would be interesting there I think.
It does, allegedly, go to London and back once, but that's quite insignificant for my location.
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Offline 3DGeek

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Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #35 on: September 18, 2017, 11:34:59 PM »
Just for fun (I'm not trying to make any strong point here, please treat everything as merely anecdotal), I've pinged the website of my University from home. I know the precise location of both machines (one's right in front of me and I really hope it actually exists, and I've visited the other site on multiple occasions) - an average-sized Svarrior can walk that distance in 20-30 minutes. The times I've measured were in the ballpark of 119ms-138ms.

I guess it's not incorrect to say that my campus is less than 35,000km away from me. It's just also not very useful.

I absolutely agree.  Somewhere, there is some horribly slow piece of equipment in the way - and I won't deny that this can happen.  Some ISP's use geostationary satellites to transmit data instead of land lines.   Some routes have to go through a lot of "hops".

But AGAIN you're arguing something I agree with you on and missing the WHOLE POINT OF THIS.

The ping time CANNOT tell you how far away something is.    I don't deny that.

What it CAN tell you (and we can debate whether this is useful or not) is the MAXIMUM distance it could be from you.  Light cannot exceed 300,000,000 m/s no matter what.

So, yeah - in your case, it says "The server in the closet over there is AT MOST 35,000km away"...which is a true (but entirely USELESS) piece of information!   I could not agree more!

BUT if ping says (in effect) "The server in Tokyo is AT MOST 6,600km away" - and *both* of the FE maps that I've seen say that's it's much, MUCH further - then the ping time did actually, conclusively, prove something quite significant.   It actually proves that both maps are WRONG. (Which Tom doesn't deny of course).

Now, you're right - I could come along tomorrow and do the exact same test and be told that Tokyo is AT MOST as far away as the moon...and that doesn't help much.

But if the ping time EVER comes back with a usefully short time - then I've proven an upper limit on the distance in a manner that is beyond rational dispute.

This might allow us (with the right access to the right machines) to say (for example) the FE claim that Sydney Australia to Santiago Chile is no more than (I dunno) 10% further than Qantas airlines claim it is...which would be concrete proof that Qantas are not claiming flight distances that are wildly too short...as Tom has been claiming.

My experiments with the Dallas/Tokyo and SiliconValley/Tokyo ping suggests that the shortest ping times do indeed match RET distances between those to place to within a useful percentage...enough to prove conclusively that the two FE maps are indeed CRAP.

The technique is valid for the narrowly stated claims that I make for it.

Your efforts to tarnish it by REPEATEDLY saying that I'm claiming accurate distances - when I'm ABSOLUTELY not - seems to indicate that you're either being deliberately and knowingly incorrect or you're not as knowledgeable about the simple laws of physics and the way ping packets travel as you seem to think you are.

Honestly, I don't care which it is.  Either way - I now know something useful that can be used in the future - even if you're not going to accept it.
Hey Tom:  What path do the photons take from the physical location of the sun to my eye at sunset?

Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #36 on: September 19, 2017, 12:15:33 AM »
I understand what you are trying to test and I think it could be potentially useful as a supporting argument for RE, but you still need to know the true physical location of your source and destination first.  The traceroute provided goes through the above.net colo facility in Ashburn VA and ends in Dallas, not Japan.  You just need to find some nodes that are known to be in a certain physical location.

To play devils advocate, I do not know with absolute certainty that a node with a hostname of  ae-2.r22.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net is in Ashburn or that  ae-0.a00.dllstx04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net truly is in Dallas, but it doesn't make much sense to have nodes in Japan named like that.

It looks like the ntt infrastructure is sending you to the nearest colo facility they have to the source, which is Dallas and you are in central Texas, so that all seems pretty normal to me.

So as I said a few posts ago, all of this is easily addressed by knowing for sure beforehand the location of your source and destination.

Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #37 on: September 19, 2017, 05:34:19 AM »
Dear RE people, I suggest that as a general strategy we should refrain from complex proofs like this and really press on the simpler, easily observable stuff.

The FE has obvious holes in relation to concepts like gravity, momentum, inertia, as well as motion of planets and stars. Notice, for example, that when the topics like the sun's movement or video and photographic evidence come up, there's usually a sudden hush on their end (because this is the kind of stuff they have no logical explanations for). We should press on with these topics until flerfers run out of excuses.

[/plea]

Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #38 on: September 19, 2017, 05:45:34 AM »
Dear RE people, I suggest that as a general strategy we should refrain from complex proofs like this and really press on the simpler, easily observable stuff.

The FE has obvious holes in relation to concepts like gravity, momentum, inertia, as well as motion of planets and stars. Notice, for example, that when the topics like the sun's movement or video and photographic evidence come up, there's usually a sudden hush on their end (because this is the kind of stuff they have no logical explanations for). We should press on with these topics until flerfers run out of excuses.

[/plea]

Curious, and this has nothing to do with the reply I just made to you on another thread, but who do you consider FE'ers in this thread?

Re: Dropping the other shoe: A new distance metric.
« Reply #39 on: September 19, 2017, 05:50:47 AM »
Dear RE people, I suggest that as a general strategy we should refrain from complex proofs like this and really press on the simpler, easily observable stuff.

The FE has obvious holes in relation to concepts like gravity, momentum, inertia, as well as motion of planets and stars. Notice, for example, that when the topics like the sun's movement or video and photographic evidence come up, there's usually a sudden hush on their end (because this is the kind of stuff they have no logical explanations for). We should press on with these topics until flerfers run out of excuses.

[/plea]

Curious, and this has nothing to do with the reply I just made to you on another thread, but who do you consider FE'ers in this thread?

I meant this more as a general statement, and I figured that there'd be more RE'ers reading this thread than others.