Posted on 06/19/2008 4:45:14 PM PDT by Uncle Ralph
Don’t forget
“All” your pings are belong to us.
And I’m still not clear what a “ping” is. I don’t think anyone ever actually explained it to me.
Or when sounded as A as in sleigh or weigh, (exceptions are weird)...
Ah. Well. We stole it fair and square from Tom Clancey.
In The Hunt For Red October, he had a submariner use a a single sonar ping to signal another.
“Ping” became shorthand for “calling someone over to look at and/or participate in a thread”.
I suppose we could have called it a “call” or a “wave” or something else, but Ping is what became popular.
Originally about nine years ago, I was communicating with Billie and I was trying to coax the dreaded Navigator to the thread. Much like Alec Baldwin in Red October, I issued a single “PING” on the thread directed at Navigator. I still have the original posting as I saved the thread (on discette) and I just may post it to my homepage sometime. That, I believe, is the earliest use of a ‘ping’ at FR.
“All” pings the entire online community.
Not limited just to Free Republic, the use of “All” alerts virtually every user in the planet to the post in question.
It is not to be used lightly.
Is it still today.
AAAAUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!
Oh. A "ping" is an ICMP packet sent to see if a device at the destination IP address answers with a return packet, called - I'm not making this up - a "pong."
:-)
Thanks for clearing that up.
So, let’s say I’m reading a thread about such-and-such, and I want you to comment on it, but you haven’t yet. I post a reply on that thread, but I address my reply to you instead of someone who’s already on the thread?
What I was talking about earlier is the origin of the term in computer networking. One machine sends a single packet to another machine to see if it's up and around. That's sort of what an FR ping does.
I do sort of fancy myself a bit of a connoisseur, thank you.
Welcome to FR!
Here’s the profile page for “All”:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~all/
Here’s the listing of all postings by “All”:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~all/in-forum
The “All” screenname is just there for the convenience of those who post to “all”. All public posts are to everyone. :’)
Strangely, there is a poster named “zot”.
If someone signs up named ‘stune’ I’m outta here.
;-)
That’s just wrong!
;-)
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