In the early 90s a practise at my university was to “finger some.edu” and subsequently “talk [or ytalk] randomperson@some.edu” half way around the world.
IIRC we could have 4 people ytalking. We had IRC but it lacked variety.
In another terminal window you’d have a “watch w” waiting for local “friends” to turn up.
I remember xhtalk. It was a graphical X11 program which you configured with a list of hosts and usernames, and corresponding full names, and it ran “finger” at those hosts at regular intervals, looking for those usernames. If any of those usernames were seen to be logged in, they were shown in a list, and if you clicked on a user in that displayed list, a new terminal would be started with a talk session to that user. It was basically a precursor to the instant messenger craze, which had not yet started.
I used to finger John Carmack's account when we was at id Software to get information on what technology interested in at the time and what he was working on.
There is a semi-famous quote (maybe by pg?) that I can't find, but it's something like: "If you're looking for startup ideas, look at the list of built-in command line programs in Unix and figure out which ones you can turn into a web service."
That's good. There was a post on hacker news a week back or so that was essentially ifconfig as a webapl and I was thinking to myself, "what other command line tools can be webapls"
If only the name wasn't as awkward... I can't help myself, maybe it's just my crude foreigner's understanding of the English language, but fingering someone always has that uncomfortable, slightly salacious sound in my ears.
[graph.no]
-= Meteogram for New York, United States =-
'C Rain (mm)
21 ===
20### === ===
19 ### ========= ======
18 === ---
17 ---
16 ---
15 ---
14 ------
13 ------ ---
12 | | | ------ 1 mm
_10_11_12_13_14_15_16_17_18_19_20 21 22 23 17/05 02 03 04 05_06_07 Hour
S SE SE SE SE S S S SW SW SW W W W W W W W W W W
20 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 56.9 ms ] thread<https://plan.cat>
The Gemini/Gopher browser Lagrange can handle finger:// links.
<https://github.com/skyjake/lagrange#lagrange>
IIRC we could have 4 people ytalking. We had IRC but it lacked variety.
In another terminal window you’d have a “watch w” waiting for local “friends” to turn up.
For example, see http://www.columbia.edu/cu/moment/v0/100996/ytalk.html
> Every Unix Command Becomes a Startup
-- https://matt-rickard.com/every-unix-command-becomes-a-startu... [2022-04-09]
> Every Unix command eventually become an internet service. Grep->Google, rsync->Dropbox, man->stack overflow, cron->ifttt ... etc
-- https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/505118160811728896 [2014-08-28]
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+finger+on
For instance:
Which will give you: