June 18, 2007: Ukai, traditional Japanese comorant fishing

[wolf]

I think the cormorant fishing book was a picture book ... water color looking illustrations? Come on, someone else must have seen this!

[wolf]

Lots of pictures detailing the pre-fishing ritual and fishing.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by wolf

I think the cormorant fishing book was a picture book ... water color looking illustrations? Come on, someone else must have seen this!

You don't mean the Story About Ping, a duck on the Yangtze river, do you?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Welcome to the Cellar, spudcon.

....hold it well away from you as you carry it home; these birds are exceedingly verminous and the lice are said to be not entirely host-specific.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by glatt

You don't mean the Story About Ping, a duck on the Yangtze river, do you?

Yes, that's the one!

[Clodfobble]

Oh my God! Glatt, that was one of my favorite books as a child, and I had completely forgotten about it until you linked it just now. I think I may have to buy it from Amazon right now.


Edit: Ha! I just noticed one of the product reviews at the bottom of the page:

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

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I think I may have to buy it from Amazon right now.

Do it. Minifob will thank you.

La la la lee!

[chrisinhouston]

This guy's bandaged fingers makes me wonder if the birds inflict a little damage as they are being readied for the fishing expedition.

[spudcon]

Originally Posted by spudcon

The burning basket is to singe off the cormorant feathers before they eat them. That's what happens after selling the fish to tourists. Tastes like chicken.

Okay, I guess I was wrong. Change last line to "Tastes like shit."