On Jan 12, 5:39 pm, Chris Shea <ch... / ruby.tie-rack.org> wrote:
> Any pointers or ideas would be hugely appreciated.

After some pointers and ideas, things are running much faster. What
I've done:

1. Disabled IPv6 (thanks s.ross)
2. OpenDNS for lookup (thanks Ara, though those redirects on failed
lookups suck)
3. Started requiring 'resolv-replace' (thanks Roger Pack)

I'm using Ruby and the Internet together at near Tiger speeds. I added
"require 'resolv-replace'" to /usr/local/bin/gem as well, and I'm no
longer scared of "Updating metadata for 132 gems from http://gems.rubyforge.org"

Thanks everyone. Hopes this thread helps anyone else having similar
issues.

Chris