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[bjork]

I remember this story about five chinese brothers that I read... probably 20+ years ago, at this point. I forget the setup for the story, but I think it involved one of the brothers stealing bread or something.

Anyway, the king or whoever was going to execute him, but every day he had one of his brothers take his place. So like when they were going to drown him, he had his brother who could swallow the ocean, take his place. Another one involved fire, and the other brother had a fireproof body or something like that.

I know it's really vague, and it popped into my mind when I saw the "four brothers" thread title... does anyone know what I'm talking about?

 

[explodet]

 

[bjork]

THAT'S IT!

Awesome.

 

[Deleted member 4784]

That reminds me of a book I used to love growing up about a duck. His name was Ping or something. Anyways, it was drawn in a similar style.

 

[cloudwalking]

While we're on the subject of Chinese-themed children's books:

This is one of my top five children's books ever... just an amazing story and beautiful art. My copy is actually signed by the author, heh.

 

[Mermandala]

I always prefered:

There was a Grimm's Fairy Tale called "The Four Skillful Brothers" which serves as one of the earliest variants of this story type. You also might remember the 3 servants of Baron Von Munchausen. One guy was fast, one could hear/see good, the last was strong:

 

[Deleted member 4784]

I found that book. I knew your book looked familiar; they both have the same illustrator.

Wow, I was really stupid as a kid. :lol

 

[cloudwalking]

Wow, I was really stupid as a kid. :lol

Aww, haha, that's so adorable! I used to write in my children's books too, and sometimes even doodle inside the covers... it's really funny to look back on now. It's all barely legible. :lol

 

[CrystalGemini]

I actually discovered this a couple years ago, but I seriously love the illustrations in this book. They're amazing.

BTW there was this one childrens' book I loved as a kid about a mother and her seven children: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She goes to the market one day and they each ask for random crap. When she comes back it turns out that a witch took them to her cave and turned them into all sorts of food. The mother has to figure out which food is which child to save her kids. She knows who is who by matching the food to the crap they wanted (i.e. pie needs a knife). In the end, she names all seven children then they all chase the witch back to their house where the witch jumps to her death in the river right next to their home. Does anybody know what book that was? O_O

 

[bjork]

Wow, I was really stupid as a kid. :lol

Ha, I'm sure we all did stuff like that, no stress.

I remember once writing a poem about TurboGrafx-16 for an english class... if I ever find it, I'll post it. :lol

 

[JackFrost2012]

A classic Story About Ping review: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-8529425-4634456?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

[Deleted member 4784]

A classic Story About Ping review: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-8529425-4634456?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

OMG I was laughing so hard at that review!!! :lol I have to repost it, this is just classic:

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.