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All Shell Scripting Tips

14 June 2020

Drunk explanation of TCP and HTTP

An alternative answer to a tired interview question

What happens when you type 'www.google.com' into your browser - a drunk explains

I wanna go, right, I wanna go to that big search engine thingy, website - wassisname. Hassnent paid any taxes in yeeeears, y'know. Nothing. Zip. Nada, Zilch. Bastards, they are. Wish I didn't pay any tax. Can't talk politicz inna bar tho.

Make all this money then they do this trick with being in Ireland but not really in Ireland, right, and they, erm, they hide it all behind the bins at the Guinness factory, that's not zigackly worrit is, like, nah, that doesn't sound quite right does it, but it's summat like that, yeah, anyway where was I?

Yeah, so Google are this - oh, yeah, that's what I was doing. Google. Right, I wanna go to www.google.com aright?

Wot, no I'm not leaving the bar, I'm staying here *and* going to google - at the same time as I'm staying in the bar, it's like a cyber mini-me going out to google even though I'm staying in this bar because it's warm and there's beer and there's lovely Linda behind the bar too, and; where was I?

Oh yeah, so www.google.com right? Do I know it? Where are they? Where do they live? I know where you live and I know your parents too, you little sh... er no, that's another thing. Shomewun told me they live behind the bins of the Guinness factory... nah, that doesn't sound right. Erm, right, so have I got it in my little black book? Lessava look at the little black book, leeeettle black book, I've got a little black book with my poems in - keep trying to get lovely Linda's number in mah little black book, haven't coaxed it out of her yet somehow, no idea why she's im- im- immuno-compromised to my effer- effing - effervescent charms. Bitsh.

Er roight, it ain't there, anyway. Gonna get the big guns out now. I gorra number here for big .com, yeah the big fella himself, the good old dot in dot-com, he owes me a favour you know? Mate of mine, Gary - bit of a dick - thought he'd buy sex.com waaay way back when t'internet was a speck of a thing, and this other bloke nicked it off 'im, 'e did, hacked into the internet itself like Neo in his Matiz, no not Matiz, the Matrix, that's it, like Neo out of Bill and Ted, he hacked in and stole sex.com off of my mate Gary. Furious, 'e was, and then the bastard went and sent a fax - a fax! a faaax! Remember faxes? Haahahahahaaa! You're too young for that little snapper, but he sent a fax to say "no I didn't hack it, I'm the perv who owned sex.com from the gecko, honest guv!" and poor old Gary had to say "no, I'm the perv, not that Stevie twat" and it got soooo messy, I had to step in and sort it out, I gave 'em all a big kicking, like this, right, and bish-bash-bosh they all came to my way of finking, yeah? So .com owes me a huuuge favour, and I've got .com's number in mi little black book, a'right?

I mean, I've gorra hint anyway.

Soooooo. He's gonna tell me where to get hold of that google.com bugger. Right. Where was I? Linda? Nooo, she's giving me that look again, not messing with Linda. Lovely Linda. Ahh. Google! Google! Thazzit. Right, I'm gonna axe .com where I find this Google chancer, get him to pay his bar bill, no his taxes, pay his taxes right, oh wait, no I want to axe him summat. Not sure what it was now, but right. 'ere we go.

Right. Yeah. I'm gonna get this big .com feller to tell me where to find www.google.com. Gonna gerris nameserver coz these internet dweebs are all into their blonde birds and dragons, no, 'ang on I'm thinking of that Game of Thrones now aren't I? Dungeons! Dungeons! Phwoar, Linda and Khaleesi in a dunge - no, that's not it - Dungeons and Dragons! That's what it is, these internet geeks are all into their geeky little board games so I've got to axe the dot-com feller for the googly nameserver, which is like their sad little dungeonmaster thing, dig it, daddio?

So I dig for google.com nameserver, like this dig google.com NS see, and the dot com feller gives me thiiiiiiiis . Wow, thasalorra nameservers, these googly bods are full-on geeks. Feck it, I'm gonna pick one that's easy. Right. ns4.google.com is 216.239.38.10, two one six dot, hang on, start again, I'm gonna put this in my little black book for next time, right, two one six dot two three nine dot two three nine dot two three hang on have I done this bit already? Right, thirty eight and ten. Forty eight! Forty eight! Oh no, I don't need that. Spare maths, that was! Just some extra maths you got for free there matey! No charge! 38 and 10 is 48. But yeah, this is 38 and 10, they're different bits of it. Well they're bytes, not bits, but you donnawanna gerrinto all of that! Nibbles! Hah! Nibbles! They call em nibbles you know! Half a byte! Boom boom!

God I'm tired all of a sudden. Where were we?

Google, don't pay any tax the little twisters, didja know that? Them and Amazon and Starbucks, not a penny. So anyways, I goes to 216.239.38.10 and I axe it why it's called a number, and yeah, computer stuff is stupid, computers don't know about anything but numbers! ones and noughts yasee - looksie, these numbers are just ones and noughts, look, it, oh well this lot starts with a 2, but it's all ones and zeroes really, this is just a, erm, anyway. I want www.google.com, so I dig @216.239.38.10 www.google.com and it spits out all this gibberish - wow, that's hard to focus on. They ought to do this in focus, that's bang out of order sending the stuff back all out of focus.

Right. So the A record is 172.217.20.132. Hah! Yeah, that's a one. Then a, oh, a seven, well it's ones and noughts really right, there's this stuff they do with it that they can make it into ones and noughts and even into stuff where letters become numbers, but only some letters - they're not crazy! A and B are allowed to become numbers when it's special, but not like X or Z or anything, that'd be stupid. Osbiussly. Well then, I'm going to talk to this 172.217.20.132 chancer and see what he's got to say for himself. I'm hungry, are there any nibbles on the bar - hah! nibbles! remember! Nibbles! Stupid geeks. Nope. No cookies.

Shame, the google likes it when I give it a cookie; nobody knows why. Most of 'em look something like when I fall on my keyboard after a leeeeetle bit of overinjuddger, overid, overinjulian, er, over-in-drinking too much. Not even just numbers and letters, they make everything on the keyboard into a number, the dirty, dirty, nasty where was I?

Right. Neeeeearly there now, we'ze neeearly dunnit.
I'm gonna get some of that septic tank, no, norra septic tank that'd be daft. Auntie who? Auntie Linda? No, it's o'th' tip of my tongue, it's antiseptictank no it's antiseptic, that's what I need now. Eh? what's antiseptic? Have yer cut yersen? Toughen up yer little wimp, you've never even used a fax. A faaaax! Hahaha! Oh, where was I? Oh yeah, antiseptic, yeah, we need some TCP. Wipe a bit of TCP on it and we're good to go.

An' this is how the TCP works, okay? I'm a good roamin' catlick boy, I confess my syn to 172.217.20.132 and the priest (and the priest is called 80 cos he's holy or summit, okay? And 80 rhymes with holy, oh I dunno, it jussst is 80, you can get a secret confesshun with priest four-four-fhree, but there's sososososo much stuff widdat, I'd need another ten pints tah get fhru allovat stuff) so this priest called 80 he ask, no, askiew, no - priest google eighty acknowledges it and he confesses his syn to me... I don't understand all this modern stuff going on these days, when I were a lad you confess your syn to the priest and then the other stuff happened and that was the end of it but now he sends his syn to me and then I acknowledge his syn, and we can shake hands! Hurrah! Cheers! Drink up, lad. Something like that. Anyway, once we've shook hands - that must be why we needed the TCP, can't be too careful these days - we can have a chat. And I say I want to GET http://www.google.com/ and that's a dead old fassuned way to do it, the fancy shmancy new way is to say I want that and then - then - then - I say I want it as HTTP/1.0 and that means I've got to tell it again that I want the Host: www.google.com which is just stuupid stuff, it's political correctness gone mad, I tell you, mad.

Anyway, once I've got to www.google.com I type in shellscript.sh drunk explain tcp and this is where we ended up!

Hic!