Constantine A. Murenin

Summary judgement and fraud marriage

Tue, 01 May 2012 03:50:28 -0400

It was so funny reading the news on AppleInsider about Apple and some other company Moving for the Summary Judgement on their lawsuits, now that both phrases, Moving and Summary Judgement, have very specific and defined meanings to me. :-)

In other news, it’s always funny to talk to common people on the street. Whilst waiting in line, I met some guy, who told me a great story about how he was essentially defrauded into a marriage scam. He was introduced to a girl who, basically, had no education (and lied about taking the extra courses for which he purportedly paid), hardly knew any English, has absolutely no high plans for life (yet attempted to present herself otherwise), essentially never had any real job, wanted to get a free house, car and credit cards, etc etc. She ended up specifically impregnating herself with an “anchor baby” from him, and simply leaving him the same month without saying a word! E.g. she left to see friends, and never came back! And why did she leave? Because he said that she actually has to work to get all the stuff that she wants, etc etc. And now she simply gets welfare / child support from the state. But what does the state do when a woman applies for child support? They simply try to find out the father first, and send him the bill! So, now he has to be paying 25% of his salary to a former wife that simply used him to get into the country as a complete free rider! Who never had any jobs at all! And who simply thinks that guys owe her nice cars, houses etc! What a scam! Somehow, the whole story reminded me of a former girlfriend, who, after having dated me for just a couple of weeks, or even less, has openly admitted that she was looking into getting married, yet she similarly never ever had any jobs, didn’t speak nearly any English, always wanted me to entertain her as if she was a kid, completely failing to understand that a long day of work is tiring, and had a similar mindset in that she needs to get married instead of pursuing higher goals, yet she similarly never wanted to discuss any matters of actual life or contemplate on the actual reasons of why she has to be married. The element of misleading was also there. To be fair, I did think we had a connection at some point. However, hearing this story today does make me realise that it’s absolutely for the better that I haven’t put myself into a similar situation as that poor guy in line after me!

Young pioneers

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:38:43 -0400

When I was living in Russia, every single problem or concern with the society or the government we as a nation had, could be explained or debated as, “they surely don’t do that in America, our Russian approach sucks”.

I’ve been living abroad for many years now, and, obviously, following the actual American history and politics more closely. I cannot stop being surprised at how historically there are so many misconceptions about the structures of the two nations, and about the past history and treatment of the people by the government of the respective region.

First, a few years back, Russian government has been very heavily criticised by the West regarding the abolition of various American-sponsored NGOs (the Non-Government Organisations) throughout Russia, where in defense, the Russian government claimed that most of these NGOs existed solely to advocate various policies and political views of the US. Now let’s take a look at the other side. Can anyone contribute financial resources towards election campaigns of the candidates for the position of the US president? Nope, only US citizens and permanent residents can! Then why are other countries expected to accept foreign money for their own local politics?

Another one is the allegation of the young children being subjected to the young pioneers teachings back in the USSR. Pardon me, but how is that different from the Pledge of Allegiance in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance), which is, supposedly, present and actively practiced in just about every US school, and must be followed by all the pupils, in this day and age? The wikipedia references quite a number of legal precedents where, in violation of prior Supreme Court rulings, this pledge of allegiance was still being forced onto the many young minds, in an attempt to brainwash independent thinking and dissent. (Note that dissent is what develops the democracy.) And, of course, just think about the social pressure someone at the young age might experience should they wish to stand still and ignore the pledge, when other pupils won’t.

I’m not even going to go into the issues of slavery (with subsequent racial discrimination) and women rights. There are no words that can describe just how much the US government violated both throughout the relatively recent history, and how many attempts are still made at violating women rights even at this day (with repeated attempts by various groups at forcing girls to bear children against their wishes). Women were always a central part of the Soviet economy, always equal to men, which, in fact, can easily be referenced through the various poster art of the time of the two nations.

Or take the communist sentiments. Government jobs. Apparently, as it turns out, the federal government jobs in the US are pure honey: huge pay, huge benefits, guaranteed pay increases, lots of benefits and tax-deductions. If you google the subject, apparently, there’s lots of evidence that the gap between the pay and the benefits between the private and federal gov sectors have only widened in the recent recession. The US Dept. of Agriculture pays an average of 117k p.a. for their public relations people! (http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/overpaid-federal-workers) This is absolutely insane, and should not be happening in a democracy! Or, at the very least, you’d expect that with such high paychecks at the federal level, the members employed would at least uphold the constitution and defend consumer rights throughout the federal sector, but the lobbying industry thinks otherwise!

IPv6 wall of shame: www.bsdvm.com and www.infowars.com, anyone else to nominate?

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:29:00 -0400

I’ve recently started noticing that some web-sites stopped working as I’ve switched to IPv6.

Apparently, some idiots think that it’s all right to (malignantly?) publish AAAA records for their WWW domains without sending any replies on the http ports of the respective IPv6 addresses whatsoever. I presume they might have a drop policy on their firewall, provided that the addresses themselves do have IPv6 connectivity.

Prime examples from today are !www.bsdvm.com! and !www.infowars.com! (exclamation marks to avoid this forum from making direct links). I’ve contacted bsdvm via twitter a month or two ago (http://twitter.com/Mcnst/status/171749296599875585), but their web-site is still unreachable from dual-stacked systems. Not sure about infowars.com, but, seriously, WTF?

I hereby nominate both !www.bsdvm.com! and !www.infowars.com! to an IPv6 wall of shame. I have a dual-stacked IPv6 access from AT&T at home and from two reputable IPv6 VPS providers in the cloud, and trying to open the http port on both of these wall-of-shame sites times out from all the 3 sites. At least with bsdvm, it’s surely not a matter of connectivity itself, since they’re actually hosted in Fremont, yet their web-site remains unreachable from within basically the very same DC.

H&R Block At Home Deluxe + State 2011 Mac

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:11:08 -0400

http://www.amazon.com/Block-Home-Deluxe-State-Download/dp/B0068TJAQC

easier than doing the forms manually

I’ve used the 2010 and 2011 versions of H&R Block on OS X 10.5 (Intel), and neither one has crashed for me during my usage so far.

However, the software is definitely rather full of bugs.

* The “Back” button doesn’t go to the previous page with the previous question. Instead, it goes to the start of the previous flow or subflow, i.e. it goes more than just one page back. This means that if you’ve decided you made a mistake only on the previous page, you might have to waste a few moments on finding that previous page again, by going through the whole x-page subflow again. Made a mistake again? Again, taking a one step back sets you ten steps back instead.

* Changing answers from Yes to No on the first page of the flow (e.g. skipping the whole flow all together) continues to use the numerical values from the later skipped parts of this very skipped flow for the actual return. So if you claimed a certain item, and then decide that you should no longer be claiming it, you have to still go through the flow answering “Yes”, and change your subsequent numerical value from whatever you have claimed to “0”, else, simply answering “No” as if you don’t want to claim the item anymore won’t get rid of using the value you have previously tried claiming. Some other Amazon reviewer somewhere described this point as “it continues to claim the stuff you simply wanted to try out, giving you unrealistic refund amounts”. So, yes, it’s broken, but at least there’s a “simple” workaround to follow.

* Seemingly no way to take a standard federal deduction instead of an itemised one. If you are just in that window that much more state income tax was withheld than what was due, and such that the whole state refund (or most of it) would be taxable on the next federal return anyways, the software would seemingly nonetheless suggest that “itemised deduction is bigger than standard”, and would require you take itemised. In a return I’ve prepared, the standard deduction was nearly equivalent to the itemised minus the state refund (the state refund would not be taxable only if you go standard), yet I received no options or advice to decide on whether I should go standard instead.

* 1040-ES within this software is really missing a lot of instructions and the interview questions are more confusing than H&R Block’s own worksheet form itself; besides, it seems like it has even refused to work a couple of times at calculating the values. There is also no way to itemise the stuff you’re claiming for your own records and bookkeeping within the software. Basically, you have to use a separate spreadsheet software or a third-party calculator to sum up the individual values of your income (e.g. non-wage non-self-employment stuff like interest + dividends + the federally-taxable part of the state-income-tax refund if you did itemise deductions etc, all has to be added up manually and submitted to one single field) and figure out the fields you have to put stuff in, and keep the records of such calculation separate from this software, which entirely defeats the purpose of having a specialised programme to do your tax calculations for you. It also wrongly calculates installments — instead of applying the 2011-year overpayment for 2012 estimated tax installment due April 17, 2012 (as the original f1040es clearly suggests), it applies it equally for the whole year, making your first-quarter 2012 Estimated Tax installment larger than necessary.

* The screen with the property taxes, where you can claim the vehicle tax deduction, is explicitly confusing and makes you think that you can deduct the whole registration fee you pay to CA DMV, which is not the case at all (check out the form, 1040 Schedule A, the field is called “Personal property taxes”, it’s entirely unlikely non-value-based taxes can be claimed). In California, only the “VLF” part of the CA DMV itemised registration fees (e.g. “CURR VLF”) can be claimed (it’s obviously more straightforward tax-wise in other states where registration and property tax fees are billed by separate authorities on separate bills). If you lost your records for the “CURR VLF” item, you can look up your VLFs on dmv.ca.gov for this and prior two years.

* The 2011 version no longer seems to shows how your return compares to the returns of other individuals, something that the 2010 version did show.

Basically, this is easier than filling in the forms by hand, but if you’re confused easily and are unaware of the underlying principles of tax returns whatsoever, don’t even think about trying this by yourself!

I would highly advise anyone to take a look at the printouts of the forms and verify that every single detail makes total sense (you can try printing the forms, as you go, through the File tab, Wrapping Up tab, and then instead of printing on the printer, click on the Preview button in OS X, to soft-print it to Preview).

The realistic mass-produced value of this software itself is probably nowhere near the twenty-something dollars that they are charging for the download version! Not sure if the competition is much better, though. The only reason I’ll come back is if it continues to be the cheapest one next year, too.

Spam from the interface of Amazon.com «Manage Subscribe &...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:57:00 -0400

Spam from the interface of Amazon.com «Manage Subscribe & Save Items». Yes, that’s 53 emails (10 + 1 + 13 + 16 + 17 + 4 - 1 - 7 is 53): there’s at least three or four emails per each item, and there are only 10 items that are ordered, with some other 4 items that were only partially modified, to not ship next time, but not ordered for this time and still have old payment method and ship-to address, because changing address and payment method for individual items just takes too much time (more on this inline below):

One email per item is either:
- “Your Subscribe & Save Subscription at Amazon.com” for newly subscribed-to items, or
- the payment method change confirmation for old items that were shipped to the current address, or
- the ship-to-address and the payment-method change confirmation for old subscription items that were previously subscribed at the old shipping address.
Whilst at it: yes, there is no way to change neither the shipping address, nor the payment method, in bulk for all items in Subscribe & Save at once. Nada. You have to do it manually for each individual item, with at least 5 or 7 clicks for each item. The fastest way would be 5 clicks, if not for the big “Change” button on the interface next to each item, that doesn’t let you change neither address nor payment method, simply wasting your time instead (to get to change address or payment method, you have to click on a tiny pictogram next to the address)
“Your Order” confirmation email
“Amazon Subscribe & Save: Cancel Delivery Request”, for cancelling subsequent delivery, that would otherwise be out-of-schedule, since some items were re-ordered prior to their previous automatic re-order date (and, whilst at it, yes, there is no way to make it automatically adjust the next order month if you do an extra order)
and another one with the “has shipped” status, even if it’s shipped together with other items (whilst at it, yes, there is no way to actually see how many shipments are in progress)

Honestly, I have no idea how Amazon.com’s “Manage Subscribe & Save Items” department can pass a single usability test…

Amazon.com: chat with Cust. Serv. about Subscribe & Save

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 04:15:00 -0400

Chat
Close Window
You are now connected to Beaulah David from Amazon.com.
Me:Subscribe & Save. I have a lot of items in my list (don't you expect me to? :), and I cannot find a way to change the shipping address and payment method, and re-order all of them. Surely I must be missing something! Or do you expect me to change all of it individually for every item?19:20:03
Beaulah David:Hello, my name is Beaulah. I'll be happy to help you.19:20:06
Beaulah David:Can you hold for a minute or two while I research this for you? 19:23:14
Me:a minute or two more? :) ok.19:23:59
Beaulah David:Do you like to change the address for your subscription?19:24:32
Beaulah David:Are we still connected?19:27:21
Beaulah David:Are you still there? You've been idle for 3 minutes, and I want to make sure our chat's still connected. If you aren't able to respond in 2 minutes, I'll need to close the chat.19:28:23
Me:i'm still here.19:29:43
Me:i wanna do mass changes to my subscribe and save items.19:29:55
Beaulah David:You'll need to change the address for the individual items.19:30:22
Beaulah David:Please provide me the address and I'll change it for you.19:30:36
Me:i wanna change payment method, too. can i do it myself? why is there no option to change it for all items?19:31:14
Beaulah David:I'll do it for you, these changes can be done individually for each items.19:32:42
Me:so, you'll do it individually?19:33:18
Beaulah David:Sure.19:33:42
Me:what if you make a mistake? i don't want them to be billed to the old CC i no longer use.19:33:43
Beaulah David:Can you hold for a minute or two while I review your inquiry? 19:35:04
Me:only if you don't disconnect for me holding for two minutes. ;)19:36:04
Beaulah David:Sure.19:36:18
Beaulah David:You can also change the address for your subscription.19:39:52
Beaulah David:To change your subscription, go to the Your Account page (http://www.amazon.com/your-account) and click "Manage Subscribe & Save Items" in the Orders section.19:39:54
Beaulah David:If you'd prefer I'll help you to change it.19:40:20
Me:cannot see a way to change it for all items at once. where is it?19:42:02
Beaulah David:You'll need to change it for individual items.19:42:57
Me:you are kidding, right?19:43:16
Beaulah David:Please provide the address and I'll change it for you.19:43:40
Me:are you going to change them individually?19:44:00
Beaulah David:Yes.19:44:11
Beaulah David:You prefer to change the address and payment method for all the items in the list.19:44:28
Beaulah David:Am i right?19:44:35
Me:then there could be a mistake. how am i supposed to verify that all of them have been changed from the old card to the new one? you don't expect me to read a whole dozen of emails just to make sure, do you?19:45:04
Me:yes, all of them. and then i want to re-order most of the items, but not all.19:45:31
Beaulah David:In the left corner of the item there is the "Delivery and payment information:" information click the drop down button.19:47:30
Beaulah David:You'll be able to change the address and the payment method there.19:48:19
Me:does it let you change address and payment method for all items at once this way? surely you don't expect me to make 100+ clicks with a mouse just to do this simple change, right?19:49:43
Beaulah David:I'm sorry, you'll be able to change the address and the payment method for individual subscription. 19:51:27
Beaulah David:please provide the shipping address and the payment method and I'll change it in the subscription.19:51:58
Me:but i wanna change them for all, i don't want to make 20 individual changes. takes too much time.19:51:59
Beaulah David:I'll change it on your behalf. 19:52:18
Beaulah David:Please let me know the correct address and the payment method.19:52:32
Me:will you change them individually, or in bulk? if you change them individually, again, how will i make sure that it was changed correctly for all items?19:52:43
Beaulah David:I'll make the changes for individual subscription and send you an e-mail about the changes,19:53:42
Beaulah David:Is that OK?19:53:44
Me:that doesn't seem right... 19:54:01
Me:i want to be able to change them all at once, myself.19:54:21
Beaulah David:I understand that, Constantine. But currently we do not have an option to change it in bulk. 19:55:09
Beaulah David:Customer feedback like yours is very important in helping us continue to improve our website and services. I appreciate your thoughts, and I'll be sure to pass your suggestion along. 19:55:13
Me:ok. that page also doesn't give a summary for payment method. it makes little sense that you group deliveries by address, yet it's not possible to change the address within such group, at once.19:56:08
Beaulah David:Thank you for the additional information. 19:58:24
Beaulah David:I'll be sure to pass all your feedback and suggestion. This will definitely help in improving our website feature. 19:59:01
Beaulah David:I'll be happy to help in making the changes in the subscription orders.20:00:00
Beaulah David:Please provide me the correct address and the last four digits of the credit card and I'll make the changes on the subscription.20:00:36
Beaulah David:Are we still connected?20:01:23
Me:i am making the changes myself right now. it is REALLY quite a headache, you have to do 5 clicks for each change, and there's like 15 changes. and some of the pages load really-really slow.20:03:06
Beaulah David:I'm really sorry for the extra difficulty,Constantine. 20:04:21
Beaulah David:I've forwarded this and It'll be corrected in future.20:05:12
Beaulah David:Is there anything else I can do for you ? 20:06:42
Beaulah David:Are you still there? You've been idle for 3 minutes, and I want to make sure our chat's still connected. If you aren't able to respond in 2 minutes, I'll need to close the chat.20:08:06
Beaulah David:Since you've been idle for 5 minutes, I'll need to disconnect this chat. I'll send you a follow up e-mail about our conversation. We hope to see you again soon!20:09:09
Beaulah David from Amazon.com has left the conversation.
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Amazon.com: Subscribe & Save interface sucks

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:45:00 -0400

I cannot emphasize just how much Amazon.com’s interface for Subscribe & Save Items sucks.

So, I have about half a dozen of items for one address, half a dozen for another. I wanna change the payment method for all of them, and the address for the second half-dozen to match the address for the first half-dozen.

Turns out, I have to make AT LEAST 12 + 6 individual changes in total, for something that should be a 1 + 1 operation. Obviously, each of these 18 individual changes requires quite a lot of clicks and attention in itself.

To top it off, the management page only shows the address to which stuff is shipped, but NOT the billing method. So, there’s no way to ensure that the billing method was corrected for all items, or whether it needs to be corrected in the first place.

I’ve counted that changing the billing method from one to the other (both already being present in the account) takes 7 clicks: first (1) click on “Change” next to the item, realise it was the wrong link, (2) click to close the popup with the wrong item from the previous click, (3) click on the tiny pictogram next to the address, (4) click “Change” next to the payment method, wait until the new page opens up, then wait again until slow Ajax populates the stuff on the page after a couple of seconds, (5) click on the desired payment method, (6) click “Continue”, noting that you’ll still have time to review before the order is final (hey, it’s not even an order, but who cares, right?), wait until the new Confirm Changes page loads up, (7) click Confirm Changes. Repeat ~18 times.

WTF? Seriously? That’s over a hundred of individual clicks with the mouse! BTW, don’t forget, billing address is separate from the payment method! So, I’d presume you’ll still have to repeat the whole thing for the billing address too, if you needed that changed!

Clearly they either don’t expect anyone to move, or have anything other than a couple of Subscribe & Save Items. Either way, I couldn’t imagine a supposedly modern interface could suck so much!

Remember, you’d have to do these 7+ click steps for EACH ITEM. And trust me, you do get to click on the wrong “Change” link every single time (the one that merely changes frequency and month), instead of that tiny pictogram that hardly draws any attention to itself.

And after you’re doing these 7-click steps for each item, you then STILL have to ask for Extra deliveries for every single item again (after all, you’re not changing all of this for nothing, right?). Basically, I’m still surprised how Amazon can do so much business with such poor engineering on the part of the customer order flows. (Frightening to think that the competition is even worse.)

The Extra delivery option in itself is a mess, with completely different flow than the rest of Subscribe & Save, and it doesn’t return you back to Manage Subscribe & Save Items (MSSI) after the new order is generated, instead simply leaving you with the order number on the new page. Also, when you go back to MSSI with the back button in SeaMonkey, it seems to have unintended effect, seemingly going back to the confirmation of the previous order, instead of to the MSSI page. And to go to MSSI, you actually have to click on the MSSI link at the top of the page, instead of clicking on the links in the middle of the page as you would usually do (the links in the middle would bring you back to SSS, Subscribe & Save Store).

Once you’re on MSSI again, there is NO indication of which items you’ve already requested deliveries on, and which are yet to be requested. Completely loosing the track!

Also, after doing Extra delivery option, you STILL have to manually Skip the Next Delivery (else, why would you want to have another one on the original schedule, when you’ve just altered the original schedule by having an extra delivery?).

Basically, just a mess. A really big mess. And they’ve been doing it for years; it does seem different than it was back in 2006 when I started buying Ahmad and PG Tips tea from Amazon, where back in 2006 subscribe&save seems to have been more like the regular ordering, where you weren’t spammed with all those separate order numbers for each individual item. Nice to have the price w/ discounts itemised on separate orders, and it’s good that the items are nonetheless grouped when shipped, but it’s really annoying when they generate so many distinct orders in your account that are not grouped together whatsoever, even though the items are actually shipped all together.

Tumblr’s 2012 updated terms and conditions, on 1080x1920. ...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:28:32 -0400

Tumblr’s 2012 updated terms and conditions, on 1080x1920. In short, Tumblr’s web-design skills suck.

I/O Crest SY-ADA24005 USB 2.0 Ethernet Adapter

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:33:54 -0400

My review of
http://www.amazon.com/Crest-SY-ADA24005-USB-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B003M8I0RM

Works as mos(4) w/ 50Mbps throughput on an OpenBSD netbook, 17 March 2012

This review is from: I/O Crest SY-ADA24005 USB 2.0 Ethernet Adapter (Personal Computers)

I got this as a temporary solution for my netbook router to be, from WOWparts with fast Bay Area shipping, prior to a more expensive GigE arriving with slower shipping direct from Amazon.com.

It has a very nice aesthetically pleasing design, doesn’t look cheap, even though it costs under 9 bucks shipped, and has a nice red internal LED that shows network activity through the otherwise-non-transparent white enclosure case.

I’ve used it for an hour or so, and the enclosure is merely a little nicely warm to the touch, so power consumption doesn’t seem too bad.

This is how it’s detected on OpenBSD 4.6:

mos0 at uhub0 port 1 configuration 1 interface 0 “Moschip Semiconductor USB-MAC Controller” rev 2.00/1.00 addr 3
mos0: MCS7830, address 00:12:34:xx:xx:xx
ukphy0 at mos0 phy 1: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface, rev. 0: OUI 0x000000, model 0x0000

Note that it’s supposedly actually a newer version called MCS7832.

However, performance-wise, I’ve been disappointed that it seemingly can only deliver around 50Mbps, compared to full 100Mbps through the integrated re(4) adapter in my netbook. Not too bad for the price, though, and I expect that it should be sufficient to handle my slow AT&T FTTH connection of only 18Mbps down / 1.5Mbps up.

Please note that it’s based on Moschip MCS7832, which actually does support USB 2.0, whereas some other cheapo adapters in this price range of under 10 dollars, are actually based on Davicom DM9601 (udav(4)), which only supports USB 1.1 (12Mbps), and is therefore much slower than this one (to add insult to injury, they’re actually still advertised as “USB 2.0” in their Amazon.com title nonetheless). If you’re looking for ~50Mbps performance at under 10-dollar range, this definitely seems like a good adapter to get.

Buying a vacuum cleaner

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:52:00 -0500

I’ve lived in my apartment for almost two years, and have never vacuumed the place. It’s not as bad as you may think, but recently, perhaps from about this very winter season, it started being really dusty everywhere.

I contemplate that, perhaps, the prolonged 23°C setting for the heater throughout most of the winter may be partially responsible, seemed like the heater was running all the time at times (also, perhaps a few new clothing items may have contributed to the extra fibres flying around). I’ve reduced the setting to 22°C now since a couple of weeks ago (I’ve originally set it to 23 after catching a cold or two, as a precaution, but since then, I’ve pinpointed the problem of catching the cold as entirely diet-related — frozen dinners with 280—390 calories are probably meant to be eaten in pairs, since I don’t drink soda, take my tea without sugar and rarely have deserts; the time when I caught my last few colds, I was under a little extra stress, some extra exercising, only 6 or 7 hours of sleep, plus the infamous 300-ish calorie frozen dinner).

——

To make the long story short: shopping for a vacuum cleaner, for someone who never owned one, is quite a nightmare. Apparently, there are half a dozen of manufacturers, with each making half a dozen of nearly identical vacuums, WITHOUT any decent comparison charts! It’s much worse than the electronic industry, where every feature gets renamed with each release into a different comparison field, making most comparison tools useless!

Apparently, when you’re shopping for a vacuum cleaner, “upright” or “canister” type is really important. Why would anyone shop for a vacuum based on it being “bagless” or “bagged”? Why would anyone care about suction, size of the dust container, whether there are two dust containers (one for small particles, and one for larger dust items), or anything else in the design that actually matters? Clearly “Available In Canada”, being either “True” or “False” (seriously, Eureka!? Any “NULL“‘s for me to parse through?) is more important during comparison than any other pressing matter!

Say, Eureka! AirSpeed® AS1000A, AS1001A, AS1050A and AS1051A, with the 0x going for 99 USD, and 5x going for 129, this end of February 2012, at online and brick-and-mortar retailers. All four models look bloody same, plus there’s even a few more nearly identical models. All compare about exactly the same. All seem to be on sale at the same time, perhaps all being the same generation. How is anyone supposed to know which one they want, you dumb heads at Eureka!? How is anyone supposed to know from your comparison tool that 00 and 01 are Bagless based on uber-cool cyclonic technologies, whereas 50 and 51 are the old and flawed Bagged design that always loose suction? Is it so difficult to point these things out, clearly and distinctly, in your own comparison tool? Whether the vacuums have a HEPA filter is also not worth it to make it to the comparison charts, you Eureka! dumb heads?

At least online retailers like Amazon.com played it smart, and put “Bagged” and “Bagless” right into the description of these AS10xxA items, but the whole fact that this distinction is classified as an unintelligible pair of “Flip Bottom Cup” and “Easy Empty Dust Cup” (why is there even two, and that’s the bloody difference between these two again? both are checked for “Bagless”, unchecked for “Bagged”, but, seriously, without knowing, how is one supposed to figure out what those wordy-words supposed to mean?).

Also, the packaging of all vacuums never makes it clear whether or not HEPA filters are supported/included, how many total filters there are, how much maintenance the thing requires, whether all filters are washable/life-long or whether they must be replaced, what brushes are included and exactly how they look and work, the size of the dust that it can hold, the path that the air takes etc etc.

——

Also most of the vacuums never really mention how the cyclonic features work. Frankly, I don’t recall much explanation from the Dyson commercials, either. So, I spent some time, looking at the vacuums in the stores, at Walmart and Lowe’s. At first, the whole thing made exactly zero sense: some of those holes were pretty big and see-through, some parts which you think should be holes were actually completely sealed.

I still haven’t used these vacuums in action, but the whole idea seems pretty good. Basically, the way it seems to work is that whereas the top of these cyclone-based vacuums has the cyclone going on, the two bottoms of it, one the inner fine-dust bottom, and one being the outer big-particle bottom, are supposedly staying peacefully quiet. This is where the magic happens. By gravity, the dust collects in those bottom parts, and does not impede the airflow in any way! And in case it does, it would seem like turning the vacuum off for a few seconds should theoretically be enough for the stuff to fall down into the inactive area, and cease of being an obstacle.

Also, note that most of these cyclonic vacuums have two dust compartments that must be emptied out: the inner fine dust one, and the larger-particle one, plus the HEPA filters. I think it is truly amazing how the whole vacuum, effectively, completely lacks a dust-collecting filter per se, since nearly all the work is done at the cyclone layer, where the most dust is literally stored almost entirely out of the air path, ensuring great suction!

A particularly handsome and interesting design is the one that connects both the fine dust and the larger particles onto the same “release” bottom cover (this very part, without seeing the thing in operation, made the least sense of being sealed out, until I grasped the whole concept). Personally, though, as I anticipate making sure that the stuff I dust out doesn’t contain anything of value, I think a two-compartment design with separate release procedures may sound a little more appealing for my needs.

Also, after looking at the original Dyson by Dyson, I was somewhat surprised that the thing looked so very fragile considering its hefty price: the whole thing is made out of seeming very easily breakable plastic (I doubt the Dyson dust container can sustain a minor drop on the floor or a bump with the wall), so, I’m not sure it makes that much sense to be paying out 400+ USD for a such a thing, even if they do give out a 5-year warranty indeed.

In the end, it seems like to get “a vacuum that doesn’t loose suction”, you don’t actually have to shell out 400 or 500 bucks for a Dyson: there are plenty of models with similar designs, and some are even almost entirely identical to Dyson for like less than 1/3rd the price (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Hoover-SH40060-MultiCyclonic-Canister/dp/B0043VP5YI, goes for only 136,99 USD with free shipping, yet seemingly using the (expired?) patented Multi-Cyclone technology from Dyson; but I think I like the Eureka! AS1000A at 100 bucks from Walmart better, which was supposedly tested as being better than Dyson in some test in 2009). Of course, the imitators are not true Dyson, and probably don’t have as good a warranty or perhaps lack in materials and other design issues, but for between 1/3rd and 1/4th the price of Dyson, I think they provide some very exciting alternatives for those of us that could quite easily leave without a vacuum cleaner in the first place, yet are passionate about the latest innovation and tech gadgets out there, without the desire of a premium price-tag or paying just for the brand.

my NETGEAR GS108 died overnight

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:04:15 -0500

My good old NETGEAR GS108 8-port GigE switch died overnight (2012-02-27/28). This Sunday, 26th, I was watching some Showtime VoD on U-verse, and noticed some occasional packet loss, which, apparently, completely interrupts the stream with U-verse PoS STB. Also the packet loss was present at the very same time on my laptop, trying to ping www.google.com, but was very-very minimal.

What I thought AT&T was to blame, seems like the switch was responsible for.

I honestly didn’t know that switches can fail. :-) It lasted a few years, got it back in North Carolina prior to my grad studies in Canada.

Supposedly, NETGEAR has a lifetime warranty on these ProSafe switches, so, I’ll take a look if it can still be replaced.

AT&T 6rd support is long as live (a well hidden gem from at&t U-verse)

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:43:00 -0500

written for, and discussion at, http://www.tunnelbroker.net/forums/index.php?topic=2293.0

It would appear that AT&T has quietly added IPv6 support through 6rd for, seemingly, ALL of its customers without telling anyone (specifically, without telling any of the said customers).

All existing customers “are not affected” and don’t know about any such support, since it’s not actually supported by most CPE.

Details are here:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26841639-

If you have Motorola NVG510, it’s enabled by default (yes, that’s how we, the customers, found out!). If you have 2Wire PoS, you can still play around and have it configured through your own equipment (and your equipment doesn’t even has to have 6rd support, e.g. OS X and OpenBSD would do just fine for basic 6rd IPv6 connectivity).

Basically, [b]2602:300::/28[/b] (6rdPrefix/6rdPrefixLen) and [b]12.83.49.81[/b] (6rdBRIPv4Address, which is an anycast) is all you need to get it running, IPv4MaskLen is 0 (use the whole IPv4 address within IPv6, but notice that due to 6rdPrefixLen being /28 (instead of the more conventional /32) you have to do some one-nibble shifting, but the plus side is that you do get a /60 in the end). Plus [b]74.82.42.42[/b] (ordns.he.net.), of course. :-) You can also try the standard dnsr{1,2}.sbcglobal.net, but they have a few problems: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26902814-IPv6-6rd-DNS-Cannot-resolve-IPv6-only-zones.

This 6rd from AT&T works great in the Bay Area, but I’ve heard that IPv4-wise, Los Angeles gets routed through San Jose, which is a bummer, since IPv6-wise, HE.net is routed through Los Angeles from San Jose AT&T, hence it would appear like people in LA would have to make three full roundtrips (LA -> SJ over IPv4 (1 round), then SJ -> LA -> SJ over IPv6 (2 rounds)) to reach HE’s FMT IPv6 resources over this 6rd. :-)

[b]This is a must-try if you’re on AT&T![/b]

Here’s a collection of my traceroute6’s:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26907835-IPv6-latency-BayArea-Local-IPv6-around-San-Jose-

Just in case you don’t care for external links:
[code]
% traceroute6 www.google.com
Wed 22 Feb 2012 18:38:09 PST
traceroute6 to www.l.google.com (2001:4860:4001:801::1011) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
1 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) 1.579 ms 1.368 ms 1.309 ms
2 sj2ca404me3.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:119:192) 4.014 ms 4.042 ms 4.007 ms
3 2001:1890:c00:8c02::1116:e9cb (2001:1890:c00:8c02::1116:e9cb) 54.538 ms 55.262 ms 55.846 ms
4 2001:4860::1:0:21 (2001:4860::1:0:21) 5.572 ms 5.374 ms 5.154 ms
5 2001:4860:0:1::1af (2001:4860:0:1::1af) 5.425 ms 5.55 ms 5.343 ms
6 2001:4860:8000:e:92e6:baff:fe53:a202 (2001:4860:8000:e:92e6:baff:fe53:a202) 56.341 ms 57.198 ms 56.167 ms
[/code]

Here’s my traceroute / mtr to the 6rdBRIPv4Address:
[code]
% traceroute -I 12.83.49.81
Wed 22 Feb 2012 18:47:16 PST
traceroute to 12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81), 32 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.581 ms 1.700 ms 1.568 ms
6 12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81) 1.311 ms 1.310 ms 1.107 ms
% mtr -c60 —report{,-wide} 12.83.49.81
Wed 22 Feb 2012 18:49:30 PST
HOST: 99-124-xxx-xxx.uvs.sntcca.sbcglobal.net Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1.|— 99-124-xxx-xxx.uvs.sntcca.sbcglobal.net 0.0% 60 0.8 0.4 0.3 0.8 0.1
2.|— 76-220-32-3.lightspeed.sntcca.sbcglobal.net 76.7% 60 2.2 2.5 1.9 5.1 0.9
3.|— 71.145.0.104 98.3% 60 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.3 0.0
4.|— 71.145.0.80 96.7% 60 6.7 6.8 6.7 6.9 0.1
5.|— 12.83.39.137 0.0% 60 1.7 2.1 1.7 2.8 0.2
6.|— 12.83.49.81 0.0% 60 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.6 0.1
[/code]

Here’s traceroute6 to he.net and back (as I mentioned, it goes SJC -> LAX -> FMT, since LA is the closest point where HE and AT&T do IPv6 peering):

[code]
% traceroute6 ns2.linode.com
Wed 22 Feb 2012 19:07:19 PST
traceroute6 to ns2.linode.com (2600:3c01::a) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
1 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) 1.579 ms 1.2 ms 1.315 ms
2 la2ca02jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:127:43) 129.526 ms 13.831 ms 24.7 ms
3 10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:1e6::1) 13.755 ms 13.938 ms 13.77 ms
4 10gigabitethernet2-1.core1.lax1.he.net (2001:470:0:72::1) 13.843 ms 13.829 ms 13.787 ms
5 10gigabitethernet7-4.core1.fmt2.he.net (2001:470:0:18d::1) 24.908 ms 21.798 ms 21.9 ms
6 gige-g4-18.core1.fmt1.he.net (2001:470:0:2d::1) 22.01 ms 21.99 ms
linode-llc.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.fmt1.he.net (2001:470:1:1db::2) 22.852 ms
7 ns2.linode.com (2600:3c01::a) 22.439 ms 22.319 ms 22.335 ms
[/code]

[code]
# traceroute6 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1
traceroute to 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1 (2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1), 16 hops max, 80 byte packets
2 10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.fmt1.he.net (2001:470:1:1db::1) [AS6939] 5.666 ms 5.782 ms 5.760 ms
3 gige-g4-8.core1.fmt2.he.net (2001:470:0:2d::2) [AS6939] 0.454 ms 0.443 ms 0.532 ms
4 10gigabitethernet6-4.core1.lax1.he.net (2001:470:0:18d::2) [AS6939] 8.514 ms 8.500 ms 8.474 ms
5 10gigabitethernet1-3.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:72::2) [AS6939] 15.265 ms 8.905 ms 14.903 ms
6 att-internet4-as7018.10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:1e6::2) [AS6939] 8.915 ms 8.988 ms 9.052 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:114:41 (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:114:41) [AS7018] 22.141 ms 22.114 ms 22.078 ms
10 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) [*] 21.171 ms 21.174 ms 21.148 ms
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 2602:300:c533:1510::6 (2602:300:c533:1510::6) [*] 22.154 ms 22.425 ms 22.649 ms
15 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) [*] 22.280 ms 22.709 ms 23.197 ms
16 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1 (2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1) [*] 22.543 ms 22.710 ms 23.209 ms
[/code]

Try the following to get your IPv6 prefix from the IPv4 address:

[code]
% printf “%02x%02x%02x%02x” 99 124 xxx xxx | awk ‘{print “2602:30” substr($1,1,1) “:” substr($1,2,4) “:” substr($1,6) “0::/60”}’
2602:306:37cY:YYY0::/60
[/code]

What would be interesting to know are the locations of where 6rdBR’s have been deployed. So far, it’s known that LA uses the one in San Jose, so there doesn’t appear to be a 6rdBR in LA. You can guesstimate the location of your 6rdBR by doing `traceroute 12.83.49.81` from your local AT&T network, or by doing a traceroute6 of your 6rd IPv6 address from a remote network, seeing the latency of the last hop of the 2602:300:c533:1510::/60 origin (which is, you’ve guessed it, the anycast 6rd prefix of the 6rdBR’s 12.83.49.81). Your total latency for a given IPv6 resource over this 6rd would be the sum of these two latencies around the 6rdBR anycast (12.83.49.81 / 2602:300:c533:1510::/60).

Happy 6rd tunnelling!

P.S. I should warn you that this whole info is based solely on user-submitted “reverse-engineered” information. I should also warn you that if you ever decide to go to AT&T’s corporate IPv6 web-site (the link for which is very short and memorable, but is intentionally omitted from this post such as to not waste people’s time), that you will not find a single useful piece of information about anything whatsoever, and the time that you will lose you’ll never get back! (-:

"being a novice again"

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:13:59 -0500

It’s funny how the rank and seniority within a given organisation or community is not necessarily attached to the person, but to the person solely within the context of the said organisation.

What happens when you switch or are on a visit elsewhere? What’s the best way to take your achieved “rank” and seniority with you? Regardless of the new community — be that study, workplace or online — it seems like in the vast majority of cases, you’d have to spend at least a few days, weeks, months, or maybe even years, being “that guy who only showed up here XX days ago”; not necessarily from the point of view of everyone in a given org, but at the very least from the PoV of some individual members of the new group.

However, since there are so many idiots around everywhere, it’s hardly surprising that it happens just like that… Perceived rank and seniority must be earned individually within a given group. Fast-tracking is obviously highly common, but, IMHO, outright and immediate acceptance is a myth.

firstvds перешёл на cloudflare!

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:15:22 -0500

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.firstvds.ru

Какой позор! Перешли на CloudFlare, вот смеху-то! Хостер, называется!

Собственно, совершенно не удивительно: как оказалось, на их глючной ISPFreeBSD8 нет поддержки динамических правил ipfw, т.е. “keep-state” и “limit” работать не будут! И от “setup” тоже толку нет! Из-за этих мудаков я в январе потратил несколько часов на написания правил ipfw для нового сервера на ISPFreeBSD8, которые абсолютно на их сломанной виртуализации не работают! Без динамических (keep-state) правил, полностью все правила нужно переписывать с нуля, с абсолютно другой ментальностью! А потом ещё окажется, что их говёная исковерканная фря ещё чего-нибудь не поддерживает!

В добавок, их NS-сервера постоянно глючат. Несколько раз проверял ns2.firstvds.ru, `dig @ns2.firstvds.ru`, как мои домены, так и сам firstvds.ru. Постоянно записи на половину доменов отсутствует! Только ns1.firstvds.ru выдаёт записи! Честное слово, что за дерьмовым провайдером я пользуюсь уже который год?

FreeBSD VPS: vr.org

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:13:00 -0500

Just found a seemingly absolutely great VPS provider I’ve never ever heard of before: www.vr.org! Last result on google for ‘FreeBSD VPS’ on the first page — http://www.vr.org/os/bsd-hosting/freebsd-vps . Their price structure is similar to Linode, but they start out at 256MB/10GB/200GB with 2 CPUs at only 9,99 USD. Have a Looking Glass, many DCs all over the world, including San Jose andwww.vr.org! Last result on google for ‘FreeBSD VPS’ on the first page — http://www.vr.org/os/bsd-hosting/freebsd-vps . Their price structure is similar to Linode, but they start out at 256MB/10GB/200GB with 2 CPUs at only 9,99 USD. Have a Looking Glass, many DCs all over the world, including San Jose and Los Angeles, IPv6 support at each DC, and are even based out of San Jose, CA! Plus, www.vr.org, how cool is that? ;-)

vr.org seemed to have started offering FreeBSD only about last year or so, maybe that’s why I haven’t heard of them yet. However, I’m still amazed that I’ve never heard of such a huge global hosting operation.

Another interesting provider that is nqhost.com, based out of Eastern Europe (.cz), that started out just a couple of years ago, with some servers in the US, Germany and Russia. http://nqhost.com/freebsd-vps.html / http://ru.nqhost.com/freebsd-vps.html . 512MB/30GB/unmetered for 15 USD is a good deal, and, according to the Russian page, they do give out two CPUs! Supposedly, they do offer IPv6 on at least some locations (.de only, according to a support ticket), but they don’t officially advertise it. No West Coast locations.

My new In-N-Out preference: 2 HAMB "K M Inst"

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:03:00 -0500

I started In-N-Out with a cheeseburger and a fries. Since I usually have just water to drink, I’ve switched to two cheeseburgers, triple-extra tomato, well-done, plus fries—light.

However, it was kinda a bit heavy, and looking over at the Nutrition Facts, 25 grams of saturated fat, where the daily intake is supposed to be 20 g.

Way to make it healthier?

0. Cheese. Turns out, American cheese (or perhaps milk/cream in general), is pretty bad for you, having 0.5g of trans-fat (regular burger has none), plus 5 g of “Saturated Fat” (regular burger has 5 g in itself, yet cheeseburger is 10 g), plus almost 1/3rd more extra “Total Fat”. Not much extra protein, either; zero extra carbs. No cheese for me!

1. Spread. Lots of “Total Fat” (not to be confused with merely saturated fat). We’re no-cheese now, so: the burger with spread: 19 g, without 10g. Wha-ha! No extra protein whatsoever, no extra carbs, just pure extra fat! And a heavy feeling in the stomach! No spread for me!

So, in the end, to get more protein intake than from two cheeseburgers, you can afford 3 hamburgers “with mustard & ketchup instead of spread” (“M K Inst”), and still have lots of room left fat-wise! Protein is good for muscle build up when you work out, whereas carbs are good for energy to do the work out.

For me, since one cheseburger was too little, and two were too much (especially fat-wise with a heavy stomach feeling), I decided to be going with just two burgers, “M K Inst”. About the same protein intake as two CHB, but LOWER fat intake than a single one CHB! Frankly, it even tastes better (can taste the great western US 100% pure beef patty), and obviously doesn’t clog your arteries.

My new total order is:

2 HAMB W X X X T K M Inst Well WO X X X T K M Inst Well FF light

Amount Due $5.95

This leaves me with:

Total Fat: 2 * 10 + 18 = 38 g (previous 2 CHB order: 2 * 27 + 18 = 77g, oh-oh)

Saturated Fat: 2 * 4 + 5 = 13 g (daily limit is 20g, previous 2CHB was over by 5g (2*10 + 5 = 25g), this one is lower by 7g!)

Carbohydrates: 2 * 41 + 54 = 136 g (previous 2CHB: about the same, 132g)

Protein: 2 * 16 + 7 = 39g (previous 2 CHB: 2 * 22 + 7 = 51g; new alternative 3 HAMB: 3 * 16 + 7 = 55g)

So, notice how you could have 2 “HAMB K M Inst” instead of 2 CHB for about the same carb and protein intake (for exercise energy and post-exercise muscle-build-up), yet less than half the fat, or 3 “HAMB K M Inst” instead of 2 CHB for much-higher protein intake, yet still less fat!

Thing is, regular burgers even taste better. I know I made my choice, and I rest the case. :-)

Undercover Boss on CBS

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:26:44 -0500

I’ve been watching Undercover Boss on CBS VoD in the last month or so, and I have formed several very strong impressions that are evident throughout the series.

0. “Overpaid” individuals like the CEOs have absolutely zero skills to do the low-paid level jobs. Seriously. I highly doubt I myself could ever be successful at flipping burgers or getting the pool clean, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. I might do a good job, but I’d be too damn slow at it for sure. The CEOs indeed show that they’re absolutely horrible about it. Probably, the more “overpaid” you are, the worse you’d be at doing the lower-level jobs. :-)

1. Being an engineer myself, the series brings to light the working conditions of regular Americans. Some of it is already known through the day-to-day interaction with various staff members of various hospitality establishments, but some shine extra new light of just how horrible the working conditions of some people are.

1a: Diamond Resorts International (resorts/hotels/hospitality) episode: The episode showed an example of a single one of the operations being: underpaid, understaffed, overworked and lacking proper equipment and tools, and also even lacking appropriate safety precautions (no proper safety masks, WTF?). What do they do to rectify all of this? They just claim to give that very single operation the resources that it should have had in the first place, plus the rewards to the poor folk that happened to be the “trainer” of the CEO, and call it a day. WTF?

1b: The Kendall-Jackson (winery) episode. Someone in their retail branch works 40 hours a week as a part-time employee with no benefits. Seriously, WTF? How could they possibly, “by mistake”, hire someone to work 40 hours per week as a part-time employee? How does this even fit within the legal framework; surely it must be illegal per California law to hire someone parttime at a fulltime job, working over 40 hours per week, shouldn’t it be? IMHO, this just shows how horrible the system is. The rectification? Full-time promotion of the single affected individual. What about the rest of the people? Completely left out.

1c: The Checkers (southern/east-coast fast-food chain) episode. They literally closed down the whole restaurant after finding out that not a single person within the operation has received any training, the manager was being an arsehole (seriously, how could someone be so stupid to let that one slip on the camera?), and that most buttons on the grills and such were mislabelled. WTF? However, having dined in the McD over here in the US after honestly enjoying it back in Canada, I can say that I’m hardly surprised: McD in California is the worst place ever, and I will never step my foot into one again. (The one over here in Midtown San Jose has once made 5 mistakes on my 4-item order; when I asked for the manager, it was revealed that the stupid employee who made all the mistakes was in fact the manager, who offered no apology, either.) I miss my Canadian McDs.

2. It’s nice that they with these series help out these poor people, who work their arses off at these low-paid jobs, however, what happens to the person next to those being helped? What does it feel coming to the low-paid job, after you have “won the lottery”? How do the colleagues react to interacting with their peers who have happened to have “won the lottery”?

I think as a viewer and potential customer of these establishments, some of which I haven’t even heard of before, it is certainly to be appreciated that the CEOs have allowed this kind of exposure into their business. However, on the other side, I find the “rewards” and the “fixes” they present in the series to be rather superficial. In my opinion, the whole series is rather depressing to watch, as you quickly realise how horrible the working conditions of some of our neighbours are…

AT&T IPv6 latency in Bay Area: Local IPv6 around San Jose?

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:43:56 -0500

I’m on AT&T’s IPv6 network in San Jose, CA, and I’m trying to find the best edge nodes latency-wise. Here’s what I have so far, California-wise.

% alias traceroute6 traceroute6 -w2 -l

% traceroute6 ipv6.akamai.com
traceroute6 to a152.i6g1.akamai.net (2600:5:3700:2::c703:730b) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.863 ms  1.149 ms  1.304 ms
 2  sfcca01jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:241)  8.013 ms  3.031 ms  3.605 ms
 3  2001:1890:1fff:404:192:205:35:18 (2001:1890:1fff:404:192:205:35:18)  5.989 ms  21.109 ms *
 4  2600:5:3700:2::c703:730b (2600:5:3700:2::c703:730b)  5.248 ms  7.884 ms  5.317 ms

% alias postcmd date

% traceroute6 ipv6.akamai.com
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:13:45 PST
traceroute6 to a152.i6g1.akamai.net (2001:559:0:301::6011:6d48) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.701 ms  1.306 ms  1.336 ms
 2  sfcca03jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:243)  3.134 ms  2.941 ms  3.006 ms
 3  2001:1890:1fff:400:192:205:37:2 (2001:1890:1fff:400:192:205:37:2)  9.998 ms  7.029 ms  7.734 ms
 4  pos-2-2-0-0-cr01.sanjose.ca.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:0:f58d::1)  10.499 ms  12.967 ms  10.206 ms
 5  pos-0-4-0-0-pe01.529bryant.ca.ibone.comcast.net (2001:558:0:f5e4::2)  9.635 ms  8.965 ms  8.941 ms
 6  2001:559::16 (2001:559::16)  11.532 ms  8.532 ms  8.35 ms
 7  2001:559:0:301::6011:6d48 (2001:559:0:301::6011:6d48)  8.428 ms  8.403 ms  8.437 ms

% traceroute6 www.limelight.com
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:14:09 PST
traceroute6 to llnw.vo.llnwd.net (2607:f4e8:110:104:230:48ff:fe87:3054) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.613 ms  1.336 ms  1.281 ms
 2  sfcca01jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:241)  2.917 ms  3.037 ms  2.898 ms
 3  2001:450:2008:100::109 (2001:450:2008:100::109)  70.089 ms  70.23 ms  70.255 ms
 4  2001:450:2002:2c6::2 (2001:450:2002:2c6::2)  16.898 ms  24.493 ms  13.562 ms
 5  ve4.fr3.snv1.ipv6.llnw.net (2607:f4e8:1:a4::2)  14.659 ms  20.964 ms  14.185 ms
 6  cds205.sjc.llnw.net (2607:f4e8:110:104:230:48ff:fe87:3054)  15.343 ms  15.902 ms  16.278 ms

% traceroute6 ipv6.google.com
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:14:35 PST
traceroute6 to ipv6.l.google.com (2001:4860:4001:800::1011) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.749 ms  1.173 ms  1.346 ms
 2  sj2ca404me3.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:119:192)  4.048 ms  3.999 ms  4.059 ms
 3  2001:1890:c00:8c02::1116:e9cb (2001:1890:c00:8c02::1116:e9cb)  50.029 ms  48.965 ms  47.51 ms
 4  2001:4860::1:0:21 (2001:4860::1:0:21)  5.225 ms  5.96 ms  5.481 ms
 5  2001:4860:0:1::1ab (2001:4860:0:1::1ab)  5.381 ms  5.204 ms  5.305 ms
 6  2001:4860:4001:800::17 (2001:4860:4001:800::17)  54.298 ms  53.502 ms  53.744 ms

% traceroute6 ns2.he.net
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:15:46 PST
traceroute6 to ns2.he.net (2001:470:200::2) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.601 ms  1.266 ms  1.283 ms
 2  la2ca02jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:127:43)  13.73 ms  13.632 ms  13.996 ms
 3  10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:1e6::1)  18.977 ms  13.617 ms  13.708 ms
 4  10gigabitethernet7-3.core1.sjc2.he.net (2001:470:0:16a::1)  22.056 ms  24.109 ms  24.928 ms
 5  ns2.he.net (2001:470:200::2)  22.112 ms  22.085 ms  21.968 ms

% traceroute6 www.ixsystems.com
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:16:38 PST
traceroute6 to web.ixsystems.com (2607:fca8:2636:8001::4) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.629 ms  1.233 ms  1.183 ms
 2  la2ca02jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:127:43)  14.812 ms  13.473 ms  13.863 ms
 3  10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:1e6::1)  14.281 ms  15.176 ms  13.682 ms
 4  10gigabitethernet2-1.core1.lax1.he.net (2001:470:0:72::1)  13.531 ms  18.466 ms  20.744 ms
 5  2607:fca8:1530::1 (2607:fca8:1530::1)  13.688 ms  13.865 ms  13.782 ms
 6  2607:fca8:2636:8001::4 (2607:fca8:2636:8001::4)  14.136 ms  14.481 ms  14.672 ms

% traceroute6 www.arpnetworks.com
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:17:02 PST
traceroute6 to www.arpnetworks.com (2607:f2f8:0:102::3) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.74 ms  1.222 ms  1.182 ms
 2  sfcca01jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:241)  113.136 ms  3.134 ms  2.922 ms
 3  2001:450:2008:100::109 (2001:450:2008:100::109)  150.088 ms 2001:450:2008:100::c5 (2001:450:2008:100::c5)  69.797 ms  70.066 ms
 4  * * *
 5  2607:f2f8:100:105::1 (2607:f2f8:100:105::1)  14.123 ms  14.058 ms  14.096 ms
 6  www.arpnetworks.com (2607:f2f8:0:102::3)  14.616 ms  14.429 ms  14.47 ms

% traceroute6 obsd.isc.org
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:20:22 PST
traceroute6 to obsd.isc.org (2001:4f8:3:36::217) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  1.753 ms  1.213 ms  1.905 ms
 2  sfcca01jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:241)  2.957 ms  4.544 ms  3.373 ms
 3  2001:1890:1fff:40d:192:205:33:50 (2001:1890:1fff:40d:192:205:33:50)  4.895 ms *  5.069 ms
 4  chi-bb1-v6.telia.net (2001:2000:3018:2c::1)  55.734 ms  55.583 ms  55.652 ms
 5  isc-ic-117366-chi-bb1.c.telia.net (2001:2000:3080:138::2)  55.852 ms  56.083 ms  56.078 ms
 6  int-0-0-1-8.r1.pao1.isc.org (2001:4f8:0:1::4a:1)  108.838 ms  108.864 ms  110.633 ms
 7  int-0-1-0-0.r1.sql1.isc.org (2001:4f8:1b:1::8:2)  112.205 ms  108.617 ms  109.507 ms
 8  2001:4f8:3:36::217 (2001:4f8:3:36::217)  108.234 ms  107.538 ms  108.512 ms

So far, the now-disappeared DNS resolution of ipv6.akamai.com over at Sprint seemed to have had the best latency earlier this morning, of only 5.3ms.

IPv4-wise, I can still get 3.7ms to some CDN host at nlayer.net (see http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,26669632 and the traceroute below), so, I’m thinking that something around 4ms should be entirely possible with IPv6, too.

% traceroute -I 69.22.162.122 
Fri 17 Feb 2012 12:41:33 PST
traceroute to 69.22.162.122 (69.22.162.122), 32 hops max, 60 byte packets
 5  12.83.39.145 (12.83.39.145)  16.198 ms  2.141 ms  1.800 ms
 6  ppp-151-164-52-233.rcsntx.swbell.net (151.164.52.233)  99.646 ms  207.202 ms  5.913 ms
 7  asn4436-nlayer.pxpaca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.46.70)  5.041 ms  4.636 ms  4.421 ms
 8  69.22.162.122 (69.22.162.122)  3.802 ms  3.792 ms  3.710 ms

Any ideas what other IPv6 hosts are in the Bay Area that could have good latency with AT&T’s IPv6 network?

written for, and discussion at, http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26907835-IPv6-latency-BayArea-Local-IPv6-around-San-Jose-

AT&T U-verse DNS: Cannot resolve IPv6-only zones.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:48:00 -0500

There seems to be a bit of confusion over which DNS servers the IPv6-enabled customers are supposed to be using. I found that using the regular recursive DNS servers (-4 dnsr{1,2}) from the non-IPv6-enabled-2Wire directly on my OS X does work on resolving AAAA records, but ONLY if the auth NS servers for the domain zone in question are available over IPv4.

Please note that in the scope of this discussion, an “IPv6-only domain” is a domain name that can be resolved ONLY via an IPv6 network, since the NS servers of the zone in question are available ONLY via IPv6. A more correct term would probably be a “domain name within an IPv6-only domain zone”.

Surprisingly, using dns6rd{1,2} does NOT resolve IPv6-only domains, i.e. those that require IPv6 to access its auth NS servers. Making it pretty obvious that dns6rd{1,2} are NOT dual-stacked. WTF? So useless! What’s the purpose of the dns6rd servers if they can’t access IPv6-only domain zones, where the regular dnsr{1,2} already work for AAAA as is?

Seems like dns6rd{1,2} are already EOL at this point, as they offer no advantage whatsoever over -4 dnsr{1,2}, and there’s not even any -6 dns6rd{1,2}, plus they don’t seem to be much of anycast, either.

Using the -6 dnsr{1,2} does resolve IPv6-only domains, but the servers are very far away from me, so they’ll be breaking all those unicast DNS-based CDNs in a snap (e.g. Google, Akamai etc).

Is there an ETA on when either my -4 dnsr{1,2} anycast would be dual-stacked, or the -6 dnsr{1,2} would be anycast’ed locally, instead of going back to Texas or whatnot?

Here are my sample traceroute runs from San Jose, CA. (Note that there’s no -6 dns6rd{1,2}, as already mentioned above.)

[code]
% echo traceroute{\ -IM5,6\ -l}\ -w2\ dns{r,6rd}{1,2}.sbcglobal.net | xargs -n4 | sh
traceroute to dnsr1.sbcglobal.net (68.94.156.1), 64 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.464 ms 2.178 ms 1.997 ms
6 151.164.102.35 (151.164.102.35) 3.796 ms 3.268 ms 3.058 ms
7 dnsr1.sbcglobal.net (68.94.156.1) 3.347 ms 2.834 ms 3.005 ms
traceroute to dnsr2.sbcglobal.net (68.94.157.1), 64 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.155 ms 1.865 ms 1.857 ms
6 dist1-10g1-2.snfcca.sbcglobal.net (216.102.176.225) 3.463 ms 4.992 ms 3.052 ms
7 dnsr2.sbcglobal.net (68.94.157.1) 3.343 ms 3.147 ms 3.004 ms
traceroute to dns6rd1.sbcglobal.net (99.99.99.53), 64 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.051 ms 1.846 ms 1.838 ms
6 12.83.49.11 (12.83.49.11) 44.498 ms 44.029 ms 44.040 ms
7 ppp-151-164-39-47.rcsntx.swbell.net (151.164.39.47) 44.457 ms 43.917 ms 46.538 ms
8 dns6rd1.sbcglobal.net (99.99.99.53) 44.564 ms 44.067 ms 44.076 ms
traceroute to dns6rd2.sbcglobal.net (99.99.99.153), 64 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.059 ms 1.907 ms 1.769 ms
6 bb2-p2-0.snantx.sbcglobal.net (151.164.42.128) 44.352 ms 43.849 ms 43.905 ms
7 ppp-151-164-39-47.rcsntx.swbell.net (151.164.39.47) 43.946 ms 43.907 ms 43.753 ms
8 dns6rd2.sbcglobal.net (99.99.99.153) 43.984 ms 43.546 ms 43.679 ms
traceroute6 to dnsr1.sbcglobal.net (2001:1890:fff:840::10) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
1 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) 3.121 ms 2.098 ms 1.968 ms
2 2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:100:82 (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:100:82) 47.929 ms 47.989 ms 47.585 ms
3 2001:1890:fff:820:12:122:243:1 (2001:1890:fff:820:12:122:243:1) 47.562 ms 47.671 ms 47.714 ms
4 dnsr1.sbcglobal.net (2001:1890:fff:840::10) 47.718 ms 47.714 ms 47.818 ms
traceroute6 to dnsr2.sbcglobal.net (2001:1890:fff:841::10) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
1 2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5) 2.224 ms 1.868 ms 2.016 ms
2 2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:100:82 (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:100:82) 47.57 ms 47.429 ms 47.747 ms
3 2001:1890:fff:820:12:122:243:1 (2001:1890:fff:820:12:122:243:1) 47.372 ms 47.382 ms 47.31 ms
4 dnsr2.sbcglobal.net (2001:1890:fff:841::10) 47.834 ms 47.489 ms 47.508 ms
traceroute6: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
traceroute6: nodename nor servname provided, or not known
[/code]

[code]
% traceroute -I 12.83.49.81
traceroute to 12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81), 32 hops max, 60 byte packets
5 12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137) 3.015 ms 1.799 ms 1.976 ms
6 12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81) 1.908 ms 1.682 ms 1.517 ms
[/code]

written for, and discussion at, http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26902814-IPv6-6rd-DNS-Cannot-resolve-IPv6-only-zones.

6rd just works indeed, even when your OS doesn't support it

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:48:00 -0500

Over at my FTTU and IPv4-wise, my ZyXEL router stopped working around midnight today (2012-02-15T00) for good, and the connexion seemed quite dead when trying to revive it directly at the ONT with an OpenBSD netbook, too. 2Wire PoS has been disconnected for several months, but I guess they do have that crappy authentication going on after all? Had to put the 2Wire PoS back into service, leaving no excuse not to try 6rd.

6rd is quite boring. It just works. :-)

This is on OS X 10.5 (yes, 10.5, which obviously has no 6rd support).

% printf "%02x%02x:%02x%02x\n" 99 124 xxx xxx
637c:YYYY

sudo ifconfig gif0 tunnel 99.124.xxx.xxx 12.83.49.81
sudo ifconfig gif0 inet6 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1 prefixlen 60
sudo route add -inet6 default -interface gif0

% traceroute -I 12.83.49.81
traceroute to 12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81), 32 hops max, 60 byte packets
 5  12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137)  3.583 ms  2.173 ms  1.882 ms
 6  12.83.49.81 (12.83.49.81)  1.813 ms  1.518 ms  1.540 ms

% traceroute6 ns4.linode.com
traceroute6 to ns4.linode.com (2600:3c03::a) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  2.209 ms  1.871 ms  1.815 ms
 2  sfcca01jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:126:241)  3.612 ms  3.588 ms  3.687 ms
 3  2001:1890:1fff:40d:192:205:33:50 (2001:1890:1fff:40d:192:205:33:50)  5.432 ms *  5.567 ms
 4  nyk-b2-v6.telia.net (2001:2000:3018:39::1)  77.77 ms  78.044 ms  78.822 ms
 5  nac-ic-114014-nyk-b2.c.telia.net (2001:2000:3080:46::2)  76.989 ms  77.049 ms  76.955 ms
 6  e1.2.tbr2.mmu.nac.net (2001:518:1001:3::2)  77.676 ms  77.757 ms  77.78 ms
 7  Vlan805.esd1.mmu.nac.net (2001:518:2001:5::2)  78.886 ms  80.195 ms  78.718 ms
 8  2001:518:2800:3::2 (2001:518:2800:3::2)  78.69 ms  78.849 ms  78.725 ms
 9  ns4.linode.com (2600:3c03::a)  78.33 ms  77.946 ms  77.767 ms

% traceroute ns4.linode.com
traceroute to ns4.linode.com (207.192.70.10), 32 hops max, 40 byte packets
 5  12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137)  3.591 ms  2.302 ms  2.418 ms
 6  ppp-151-164-52-233.rcsntx.swbell.net (151.164.52.233)  4.896 ms  4.254 ms  4.098 ms
 7  asn4436-nlayer.pxpaca.sbcglobal.net (151.164.46.70)  6.131 ms  6.476 ms  8.813 ms
 8  ae0-80g.cr1.pao1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.153.18)  5.656 ms  4.189 ms  4.074 ms
 9  ae1-60g.cr1.sfo1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.143.169)  5.371 ms  5.289 ms  5.062 ms
10  xe-1-2-0.cr1.slc1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.142.96)  22.531 ms  22.867 ms  22.016 ms
11  xe-0-3-0.cr1.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.142.101)  56.448 ms  56.244 ms  55.929 ms
12  xe-9-2-0.cr1.ewr1.us.nlayer.net (69.22.142.75)  75.541 ms  75.642 ms  75.418 ms
13  ae1-70g.ar2.ewr1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.94.118)  80.255 ms  79.729 ms  76.732 ms
14  as8001.xe-3-0-6.ar2.ewr1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.95.130)  77.457 ms  76.987 ms  76.975 ms
15  0.e1-2.tbr1.mmu.nac.net (209.123.10.118)  78.117 ms  77.715 ms  78.437 ms
16  vlan803.esd2.mmu.nac.net (209.123.10.30)  78.247 ms  77.647 ms  77.971 ms
17  207.99.53.46 (207.99.53.46)  78.274 ms  77.553 ms  77.599 ms
18  ns4.linode.com (207.192.70.10)  78.482 ms  78.088 ms  78.224 ms

% traceroute ns2.linode.com
traceroute to ns2.linode.com (65.19.178.10), 32 hops max, 40 byte packets
 5  12.83.39.137 (12.83.39.137)  3.102 ms  2.376 ms  2.672 ms
 6  12.122.200.9 (12.122.200.9)  3.967 ms  3.606 ms  3.714 ms
 7  dcr2-so-3-0-0.washington.savvis.net (192.205.32.46)  6.394 ms 192.205.32.50 (192.205.32.50)  5.996 ms 208.51.134.1 (208.51.134.1)  6.122 ms
 8  po1-20G.ar3.SJC2.gblx.net (67.16.134.26)  5.954 ms  188.998 ms  200.258 ms
 9  Hurrican-Electric-LLC.Port-channel100.ar3.SJC2.gblx.net (64.214.174.246)  6.361 ms  6.022 ms  5.615 ms
10  10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.fmt1.he.net (72.52.92.109)  9.235 ms  17.773 ms  6.752 ms
11  linode-llc.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.fmt1.he.net (64.62.250.6)  10.632 ms  8.125 ms  7.812 ms
12  ns2.linode.com (65.19.178.10)  7.259 ms  6.758 ms  6.698 ms

% traceroute6 ns2.linode.com
traceroute6 to ns2.linode.com (2600:3c01::a) from 2602:306:37cY:YYY0::1, 30 hops max, 12 byte packets
 1  2602:300:c533:1510::5 (2602:300:c533:1510::5)  2.729 ms  1.91 ms  1.766 ms
 2  la2ca02jt.ip.att.net (2001:1890:ff:ffff:12:122:127:43)  14.564 ms  14.409 ms  14.385 ms
 3  10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.lax2.he.net (2001:470:0:1e6::1)  14.458 ms  15.662 ms  24.833 ms
 4  10gigabitethernet2-1.core1.lax1.he.net (2001:470:0:72::1)  14.206 ms  14.287 ms  14.391 ms
 5  10gigabitethernet7-4.core1.fmt2.he.net (2001:470:0:18d::1)  22.733 ms  23.853 ms  25.081 ms
 6  gige-g4-18.core1.fmt1.he.net (2001:470:0:2d::1)  22.758 ms  22.674 ms linode-llc.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.fmt1.he.net (2001:470:1:1db::2)  23.296 ms
 7  ns2.linode.com (2600:3c01::a)  22.903 ms  22.875 ms  22.795 ms

Routing to the first and second IPv6 hops is absolutely great, just as good as comparative IPv4 hops. (No bunch of useless hops anymore.)

However, AT&T’s in-network IPv6 routing is oftentimes far from optimal: traffic from AT&T SJC to ISC PAO goes through Chicago, HE FMT through LAX, but other routes are pretty decent.

Out of other possible problems, seems like dns6rd1.sbcglobal.net and dns6rd2.sbcglobal.net are not anycast, so, the unicast-based CDNs seem to suffer greatly from poor DNS resolution. But the 6rd gateway, 12.83.49.81, is definitely anycast, no questions there! I am still coloured impressed. :-) You don’t get 1.5ms tunnel endpoints on residential connexions here and there. :)

written for, and discussion at, http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26898965-6rd-just-works-indeed-Even-when-your-OS-doesn-t-support-it-