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The Other Pong
theodp writes "Before there was Pong, there was Ping-Pong. Table tennis began in 19th-century Victorian England as a parlor game for the upper-middle class, with cigar box lids used as paddles. Today, as BusinessInsider half-joked, federal law requires all tech startups to have a functional ping pong table. Photographer Alec Soth discusses his love of the game in a NY Times interview and shares some vintage photos of the sport from his new limited-edition book Ping Pong. So, why do people — especially lots of computer programmers — get obsessed with Ping-Pong? Table tennis is 'a way to do a physical sport that has actual athletic qualities but is kind of contained,' explains Soth. 'There's a real mental element to it. It's not chess, but your brain is engaged. It's a break from neuroses.'" As workplace stress relief games go, a ping-pong table is also a lot easier to carry than an air hockey set-up or a bowling alley.
So, why do people — especially lots of computer programmers — get obsessed with Ping-Pong?
It's the bong hits, stupid.
I had a job interview, for a job at a technical university, on a ping pong table. Was pretty cool.
A sufficiently large group of people will have lots of members obsessed with almost any well-known pastime you can think of.
A homogeneous group is likely to randomly have certain obsessions tip over critical mass, and then it's just a matter of fitting in.
There's not always a peculiar explanation for everything, you know.
Waff
Maybe it's because table tennis is the closest thing to a computer game that is socially acceptable at work.
Where is moderation: -1 False?
Even folded up, a ping pong table is much bigger than a air hockey table.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
With this kind of topics I start to wonder why I am still reading Slashdot... Soon it will be Game Over for Slashdot and I'll look somewhere else for good for a high-quality forum.
At every startup I have ever worked, folks wanted a pool table but when management found out what they cost we ended up with a ping pong table.
Same thing with office space. Everyone wants a good space where you can get work done during regular hours but when you price out offices or even cubicles the BS about "communication" and "collaboration" comes out to justify the open plan office.
for people who don't like to hang out in a bar. Unlike most sports, you can have no physical conditioning and still be reasonably competitive.
You got jailed for failing statistics and there's a tennis table in the recreation room ?
You'd need to know at least 10 people who enjoyed ping-pong (and preferably 20 or even 30) for what you said to have at least a modicum of plausibility.
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Ping pong is pretty easy to pick up for anyone with moderate coordination. At the initial stages, improvement can be very quick which creates a positive feedback loop.
Maybe other things, but the two long-lived small companies that I've been a founder of have had no ping-pong tables or other sporting paraphernalia: many of us simply didn't enjoy 'compulsory' group activities/fun and still don't.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Well he can have my ten.
My psychiatric training, including playing ping-pong with patients, was invaluable at an early start-up. Being good enough to *lose*, at will, while making the other person feel as if they'd earned the win was as much of an art form as playing with patients overdosed on Thorazine. They can get "tardive diskinesea", where physical motions are profoundly delayed from when they're intended, and aiming the ball to where their paddle will wind up, so that the game can continue cheefully, was the kind of skill needed to realize you *have* to leave bugs in your code so the system architect will feel empowered by fixing them, and will stay the hell out of insisting that you rewrite everything to some made-up-on-the-spot new scheme that you've already tried and know damn well didn't work 20 years ago, either.
The one start-up I've worked at had a fridge that was regularly stocked with beer. Don't know whether you could get away with that in America though.
Even if you have another ten there, it's very easy to envisage getting unlucky with the first say, 3, and then automatically taking a dislike to any you meet after that from the outset.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Computer programmers play BEER pong.
That's not a way to increase morale, it's a strategy to employ when you have problems with the plumbing in the staff toilets and/or showers and you don't want to hire a plumber. Cos damned if I'd be using a cubicle if I suspected people were up to that in there...
King Kong played ping pong with his ding dong.
I fly kites and when I get tired doing that I'll go back and work a little.
I only know one coder who plays ping-pong.
I know at least 15 who rock-climb, myself included.
I've never had much interest in sports (ping-pong included), I've tried a bunch but it has always felt like a chore to do it, not something fun. With rock climbing, even if I'm just bouldering indoors, I *want* to do it.
To me it's the ultimate combination of physical and mental efforts, problem-solving, and working towards reaching a goal. It's definitely not just for adrenaline-seeking showoffs (in fact, they tend to be very few, and not that good).
First of all, I am not an Anonymous Coward - but just too lazy to self-identify! Secondly, I totally agree that the magic appeal of ping pong can be attributed to the perfect balance of fifty percent ping and fifty percent pong in it. Check out a spanking new blog dedicated to comically supporting the global resurgence of pong if you are like-minded and/or so inclined: http://pingpongnation.net/. Long Live Ping Pong!
Fuk u faget I am a table tebbis master - suck it
I know a hot blond babe who is a great ping pong player. She has excellent muscle tone and a nice figure thanks to this game.
The only shortcoming I've seen is that the table is a bit flimsy for having sex on between games compared to a pool table.
Have gnu, will travel.
Where I worked a few decades ago. We had a ping pong table. It was great for unrolling blueprints on during working hours.
Have gnu, will travel.
As a former HS and Division-I varsity college "normal" tennis player (albeit low on the ladder) I scoffed at "ping-pong" pretty much like everyone else. That is until one of my teammates dared me to not look like an idiot at one of the fraternities' (women's) intramural practice sessions. I lost that dare big-time. After that I actually was interested in it as an actual sport...the fact that there were also relatively hot chicks helping me out kind of gave me a bit of incentive, also. I actually play once in a while even now and that was almost 20 years ago. I even have a STIGA rosewood racquet that is worth almost 100 bucks and replacement rubbers (yeah that's right). Anyone who thinks volleyball, the cue sports, or even golf require mental focus and physical dexterity anywhere near table tennis are seriously misinformed. If any physical game could be compared to chess I think it would be table-tennis. Ok, now mock away...I can take it.
http://youtu.be/zlUOvP-kzyU
No way I feel like spending all my time at work, even if some of it is spent in "ping pong"
I'd rather be outside or at home in my free time
To be honest I'd be quite happy making such a broad brush stroke after just three.
But then it was only a joke.
Pingpong, handball, racket-ball and any FPS - i totally suck at anything that requires reaction time faster than "glacial". Put me on a bicycle though....
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Call it 'ping pong'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
All of my heroes, are table tennis players. Zoran Primorac, Jan-Ove Waldner, Wang Tao, Jorg Rosskopf and of course Ashraf Helmy. I even have a life-size poster of Hugo Hoyama on my wall. And the first time I left Pennsylvania, was to go to the hall of fame induction ceremony of Andrzej Grubba.
I was once introduced to a variation of table tennis played with a bigger ball and your head instead of a paddle called Headis.
It's a lot of fun and the lack of paddles makes it more suited than table tennis to be played at hostels and parks.
Ping pong is great, and I've played it obsessively in a workplace setting (my young son thought I was paid for playing it).
In Finland, though, the workplace game of choice is floorball.
Ping pong is attractive to the tech crowd because it can be played indoors.
It's scary out there in the real world with that hot ball burning things from the sky.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I play in Seattle and there are tons of great local players who work at Amazon, MS, what have you, loads of engineers.
Tennis is super heavy on the statistics; it's primarily mental, then running, then hitting. And best of all, it tends to be played by people who play to have fun and not by aggressive bozos. There's an ethos of calling points fairly (players call everything on their side of the net), laughing at your own mistakes, congratulating your opponent. If you think you hate sports, probably you are not playing tennis. (Also, running is a fine sport too.)
BTW nerds, tennis is super heavy on physics due to the emphasis on spin, angles, trajectories, and just the behavior of strings and string materials. Tennis is also the most chess-like of sports--certain shots just feel like certain chess openings (e.g., a backhand slice is pure Caro/Slav).
Often there is a table set up out front at a tennis center, and you can usually tell the serious tennis players because they go way the hell overboard on spin when playing ping pong.
Any, take up sports! They will improve your cognitive functioning and coding stamina.
You call someone a homophobic slur and then exhort them to fellate you. Very telling.
We had a foosball table, too. It got much more use than the ping pong table - it's much easier for beginners to join in games with more experienced players.
why is this here?