One for the router techies
 

I run into "router issues" from time to time. You know: I can see a site but someone else can't and vice versa.

According to my understanding of the genesis of the Internet, this is exactly the sort of thing the Internet was designed to prevent, right? I mean, if someone drops a nuker on Nashville or Topeka, information is simply routed around the bomb crater and data travels uninterrupted.

So, WHY ARE THERE ROUTER PROBLEMS?

Typically the problem originates at the end host, or at your isp. The route in between is usually clear. So its probably your isp's fuck up, or your end-servers fuck up.

Droppin a nuker :1orglaugh

Call Ponch.

that's the way it was DESIGNED, but that's not the way it operates. Today most internet topology is like a star. Once you get to the Level1 providers you can typically find another route, but from you to your first tier1/level1 provider and from the cloud down to your host you'll almost always find single points of failure. That's supposed to be on the big advantages of colocation, the facility where you're located should have multiple paths, both logically and phsyically.

Learn to use the traceroute/tracert command. On windows go to start, run, command, then from the dos shell type "tracert hostname.com" or from a unix shell type "traceroute hostname.com" ... this should give you an understanding of who's problem it is.