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ping [from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a
computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The Unix
command
ping(8)
can be used to do this manually (note that
ping(8)'s
author denies the widespread folk etymology that the name was ever intended
as an acronym for ‘Packet INternet Groper’). Occasionally used
as a phone greeting. See ACK, also
ENQ. 2. vt. To verify the presence
of. 3. vt. To get the attention of.
4. vt. To send a message to all
members of a mailing list requesting an
ACK (in order to verify that everybody's addresses
are reachable). “We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but
he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends.”
5. n. A quantum packet of
happiness. People who are very happy tend to exude pings; furthermore, one
can intentionally create pings and aim them at a needy party (e.g., a
depressed person). This sense of ping may appear as an exclamation;
“Ping!” (I'm happy; I am emitting a quantum of happiness; I
have been struck by a quantum of happiness). The form
“pingfulness”, which is used to describe people who exude
pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language,
“pingfulness” can also be used as an exclamation, in which
case it's a much stronger exclamation than just “ping”!).
Oppose blargh. The funniest use of ‘ping’ to date was
described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the Usenet group
comp.sys.next. He was trying to
isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a NeXT
machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after each cabling
tweak to see if the ping packets were getting through. So he used the
sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then wrote a script that repeatedly
invoked
ping(8),
listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet.
Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over,
“Ping ... ping ... ping ...” as long as the
network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the
building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no
time.
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