Wow, that's great! I'm going to run that script every time I'm considering opening a browser window. Perhaps this could be a Firefox add-on that would alert you every time your internet is not working... because you might not notice it otherwise and start browsing on a broken internet.

I would suggest there are a considerable range of use cases for this, for example you could want to automatically run this on connection to a wireless network.

Your lack of the need for this script does not excuse the short sightedness of your sarcasm. And I am glad you were brave enough to sign up to use a new account to make that comment, nice to see the dominion of the Internet troll extends it's stony fist into the halls of HN.

Yes, there are a considerable range of use cases. There are also considerable use cases for many blindingly obvious/simple snippets of Python code. That does not mean they deserve to be blogged about / posted to HN / upvoted or anything other than ridiculed.

Besides it's prone to false positives such as DNS not working. So, not only is it mind boggling obvious it's flippin wrong.

But they do deserve something other than ridicule (Reddi-cule?), they deserve ignoring.

A HN with either good comments or no comments sounds much better than a HN with good comments or trollish smug mocking comments. Especially since there is so much more room for poor comments than good comments, I think there's a tendency for sites to get flooded with cheap shot replies.

"One word: Salads", 4 upvotes. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346264. Come on!

"Word": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346662

It's annoying.

I do it and I shouldn't be allowed to get away with it either. Cheap shot one word answer: 4 upvotes, long detailed answer: 0 votes or replies. Sigh.

This automation was a much meeded one!!

wouldnt it be better to check the HTTP response code