[blauditore]

Fun story, but the numbers don't add up for me:

Wouldn't the signal have to do a full round trip within the timeout of 3 ms, meaning it could not go beyond 580 / 2 = 290 miles?

Additionally, the connection from A to B is usually not a straight line, and at that time fiber lines were much less widespread. All these factors combines make it unlikely that even 200 miles could be reached...

[mulmen]

The FAQ [1] addresses both of these questions. See numbers 8 and 15, respectively.

[1]: https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html

[blauditore]

Thanks for that link.

> Well, to start with, it can't be three milliseconds, because that would only be for the outgoing packet to arrive at its destination. You have to get a response, too, before the timeout will be aborted. Shouldn't it be six milliseconds?

> Of course. This is one of the details I skipped in the story. It seemed irrelevant, and boring, so I left it out.

I don't understand, so it was in fact 6 ms?

[YesThatTom2]

I remember chatting with Trey about this as it happened in real time.

I love that every time this link gets posted to HN someone says it looks like a hoax.

[blauditore]

I never claimed it was a hoax, I just didn't agree with the math, that's all. No reason to get upset.

[saagarjha]

I love that every time someone says something is a hoax a person who was there shows up to correct the record :)

[YesThatTom2]

I wanna see that happen for The Loch Ness monster!

[coffeemaniac]

This is addressed in the FAQ[1].

> That three millisecond time doesn't make sense as the timeout for a connect() call.

> Yes, I know. And it wasn't the timeout, actually. In the story, I make it sound like it took all of ten minutes from being made aware of the 500-mile email limit and determining a 3 ms light-speed issue. In fact, this took several hours, and quite a bit of detective work. The point is, eventually I came up with that figure, ran units, and gagged on my latte. (I'm fairly certain it was a different latte from the one I started with.) So what, in particular, is your question about the 3 ms figure?

[1] https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html