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The Story about Ping
 
 

The Story about Ping [Hardcover]

Marjorie Flack , Kurt Wiese
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 18.50
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School & Library Binding CDN $12.44  
Hardcover, Jan 1 1933 CDN $13.51  
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Product Description

From Amazon

The tale of a little duck alone on the Yangtze River, The Story About Ping is a sweet and funny book with wonderfully rich and colorful illustrations. On a day like any other, Ping sets off from the boat he calls home with his comically large family in search of "pleasant things to eat." On this particular day, he is accidentally left behind when the boat leaves. Undaunted, the little duck heads out onto the Yangtze in search of his family, only to find new friends and adventures--and a bit of peril--around every bend.

The exceptional illustrations bring the lush Yangtze to life, from Ping's family to the trained fishing birds he finds himself among to the faithfully rendered boats and fishermen. Certainly intended to be read aloud, The Story About Ping deserves a place on every young reader's (or listener's) shelf. (Picture book) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description

A childhood classic. "Kurt Wiese and Marjorie Flack have created in Ping a duckling of great individuality against a background (the Yangtze River) that has both accuracy and charm".--The New York Times. Full-color illustrations.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
ONCE upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

39 Reviews
5 star:
 (33)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Ping! I love that duck!, Jan 25 2000
This review is from: The Story about Ping (Hardcover)
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.

Problems With This Book

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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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A book on the futility of thought, Nov 6 2003
By 
Dave Shepherd (Ansonia, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Story about Ping (Paperback)
The Story About Ping is a beautiful allegory for the futility of free thought. While conforming may be painful [as shown by Ping's daily swat for being last and least of the conforming], it triumphs over the frightening world of the unknown. Leaving us with the message that overcoming adversity through intellectual superiority is impossible and in vain. A perfect story for the proletariat children of the future, or for a President supporting the PATRIOT Act, though the latter may have problems tackling its big words.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Nov 30 2003
This review is from: The Story about Ping (Paperback)
When I was a kid growing up in the south, I used to read this book over and over. That was in the 1960's, when the Chinese, who's side we were on during the war, were a people we were supposed to hate, and the Japanese, who we hated during the war, were a people we were supposed to like. Nevermind all those reruns of anti Japanese war movies that were still playing on TV at the time.

The wise-eyed boat, the fishing birds with the rings around their necks, the boy with the wacky hairdo and peculiar barrel tied to his back. The hand-made wicker basket and complete absence of anything material or useless.

It humanized Asians for me in a way that was not only healthy, but induced a curiosity of the region and its peoples that I have still yet to satisfy, even after living for 18 years of my adult life in Northeast Asia. (Maybe I'm still running away from that dreaded spank!)

Every time I see those Peking ducks strung up in those shop windows in Hongkong I can't help but think of Ping and his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins.

Read Ping to your kids. It just might change their lives!!

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