[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 hour ago

...i'm all like, hey, i recognise that cover art; i've been there!..

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 5 points 2 hours ago

...yeah, urban hellscapes are pretty bleak but it's obvious someone tried here to make the best they could of what they had to work with...dense as it is in hong kong, the other nice thing is that you don't have to travel too far to experience open parklands...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 1 points 15 hours ago

...that is legitimately cool...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 3 points 22 hours ago

...the yellow king is just a herald...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

...can't say for certain that it won't lift some ink, but on other materials i take a piece of clear packing tape, press it smooth against the surface then violently lift it off; repeat dozens of times...

...it's slow going to start, and you'll need a fresh piece of packing tape as the adhesive eventually gets cluttered with paper-label residue, but after 2-6 pieces of tape and dozens of rips, you'll eventually lift away everything which isn't integral with the plastic surface...

...it's more work than solvents or oils but it keeps your base material absolutely pristine...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 day ago

...and likewise a host of san antonios in california...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

...in USA america, initial IPOs are ATM machines to fund CD deposits...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 day ago

...the defiant was stupid and undermined the entire narrative premise of deep space nine...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 3 points 2 days ago

...when i was a little kid, driving my own car was pretty much the coolest thing ever and worth the wait...

[-] myrrh@ttrpg.network 35 points 3 days ago


"PING! The magic duck!

Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix’s most venerable networking utilities.

Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.

The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat).

At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).

The title character — er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders around the river before being received by another host (another boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the worse for wear.

If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this is the book. I can’t recommend it for most managers, as the technical aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts too daunting.

As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the command line options well enough, some review of them seems to be in order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have expected a more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.

But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens’ Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante’s seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno.

Who can read that passage on the Windows API (“Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight — Nothing whatever I discerned therein.”), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress."

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myrrh

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