Comments on: Ping! A new bad habit in the workplace

By: Tony C

Tony C — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:27:30 +0000

LOL

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:54:47 +0000

There, who said you never learn anything from dadams.co.uk?

By: Jed

Jed — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:44:12 +0000

Darren, not to be pedantic, but I suspect you mean ASDIC (nowadays called sonar) rather than radar. Radar’s electromagnetic radiation whereas ASDIC/Sonar is a short burst of sound, or ping, a bit like the noise sametime makes when you get a message.

Ding is something different entirely, being a verb, and something women do to cars I think.

By: Cali

Cali — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:57:23 +0000

And confirmation of what Matt and I said here http://www.answers.com/topic/ping

By: Cali

Cali — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:07:59 +0000

Interesting comment, made me think and I’m afraid I’m guilty of it, but I think you’re fighting a losing battle! It seems that ping is now being used for any form of electronic communication that may notify you of its arrival with an audible sound or ‘ping’. Hence it’s used for Instant Messaging (Sametime), Mail or SMS and the ping is more a representation of grabbing your attention rather than the actual sound that might be used by the software.

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:29:35 +0000

I think a ‘ping’ sound emits from a submarine’s radar when it sweeps round and finds a humpback whale or a Russian sub in the vicinity.

How many people in IBM know that the Navy use Sametime? I fail to see how a naval term would become common-place inside IBM.

By: Matt Newton

Matt Newton — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:30:51 +0000

I thought that the word “ping” in this sense derived from the use of IM (probably Sametime) in the Millitary – more specifically, the Navy.

By: Dave Hay

Dave Hay — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:46:27 +0000

Ah, Darren, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without you having a good old moan !

Personally, I’m quite happy with ping – although one has to be careful who one pings; Packet Internet Groper might not be appropriate for everyone. Similarly, I’m also careful who I Finger for the same reason

Exit stage right, laughing like a seal – ARP ARP ARP

By: Choddo

Choddo — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:11:25 +0000

I quite like the adoption of technobabble into wider society. I bet techies started it anyway

By: Stephan H. Wissel

Stephan H. Wissel — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:16:23 +0000

Actually with the use of a little script the ping command should be suitable to “ping a note across”. It takes a little preparation and agreement on both ends.
a) The receipient needs to monitor for incoming ping requests
b) the “language” to be used is morse-code
c) Since the duration of the ping itself is fixed/can’t be influenced the time between two ping requests needs to carry the short/long notation
d) some start/end sequence needs be be agreed upon to filter communication out of arbitrary ping requests.

Shouldn’t be too hard to implement.
stw