h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Banks constantly phoning you.....if i want to speak to them i will go into my local branch and speak to someone face to face!!

Computer generated Telesales. When you pick up, you either hear nothing, or you hear a prerecorded sales message....




GT

I finally got around to signing up to the TFS a few weeks ago ... your mention reminded me that I haven't been getting any of those calls recently ... hurrah!

Predictive tuxt. I don't know why i use ti

Leaflets for businesses which only have mobile phone numbers on them. What sort of legitimacy do they think that gives them in my mind? What makes them think I want to pay 25p per minute to call them?

When people say "I want to talk to you reference such-and-such..."

NO!! You can talk to someone regarding such-and-such (which is what they mean because they think they're being clever and de-abbreviating the RE: you get on emails) or with reference to such-and-such. But never just reference such-and-such.

I agree with you, Mr D. And what's wrong with "I want to talk to you *about* such-and-such". It's what we've said for years. Why do people try to be clever, especially when they just end up sounding stupid?

It's like when people say "I'll ping you about it"... it's got so bad that even people who know what a ping actually is say it!

Only one friend of mine could get away with that, and it's because she's *named* Ping

"NO!! You can talk to someone regarding such-and-such (which is what they mean because they think they're being clever and de-abbreviating the RE: you get on emails) or with reference to such-and-such. But never just reference such-and-such."

Are you sure they're de-abbreviating email RE: ... I seem to recall people saying "I need to talk to you referring to such and such" in pre-email days ... that gives you ref ... which could expand back out to reference ...

Yes, but that's still grammatically correct and I only hear it from people who try to be clever and use computery terms as buzz words.

What the hell does ping mean?

"What the hell does ping mean?"

It's a command used in computer networks to find out whether another computer exists. You type "PING 12.34.45.56" and it sends a signal to that IP address and hopefully gets an acknowledgement back.

From my limited knowledge (and spending too much time round my other half while he's building networks), a Ping is checking to see whether someone's machine is able to be contacted. Computer A sends a packet of data to computer B, and when B receives the packet, it sends an acknowledgement back to computer A.
Basically
A: "Are you in?"
B: "Yes, I am."

Also reports on speed / quality of message I believe.

PP

The problem is though is that people use it incorrectly... "I'll ping you about that issue later"; "I'll just ping that off to head office" and it bugs me. In a really petty way.

I believe that it is the equivalent of a 'handshake' in fax machine parlance.....





GT

That's all the noisy gurgling and twanging sounds that my modem makes, isn't it?

Thats right!!!





GT

Ping are also a maker of golf equipment ...