Comment by eqvinox
> Packet loss over ICMP can be artificial based on the backplane load of routers.
This doesn't generally apply to the end host; note the last hop in the trace I posted is the web server itself. Also, the second last hop having very similar loss% makes it likely that neither of the two systems is hitting rate limits (as they would be different).
> Are you seeing TCP retransmits to port 443?
If the webpage loaded normally, I wouldn't have investigated to begin with ;).
Right now, the loss on TCP SYNs is about 70%. (mtr -T -P 443) Second to last hop still has roughly the same loss. Something's h0rked at americanis.net.
If you are confident where the loss is then the only thing you could really do within HN is email Daniel (dang) and ask him to replicate the issue and open a ticket with their upstream provider to check routes and for losses. hn@ycombinator.com
Outside of HN I suppose you could check the Nanog mailing lists [1] and chat servers to see if there is any discussion ongoing for those networks.
[1] - https://lists.nanog.org/mailman3/