Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Document the all-balls IPv6 address.

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Ross J. Reedstrom <reedstrm(at)rice(dot)edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:00:19PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> > On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:
>> >> On 03/18/2011 09:18 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
>> >>> "all balls" seems like a colloquialism best avoided in our documentation.
>>
>> >> It's already there, although I agree it's infelicitous.
>>
>> > I vote for taking it out.  I think that could be interpreted as inappropriate.
>>
>> IIRC, the pre-existing usage refers to time 00:00:00.  It does not seem
>> especially useful to adopt the same terminology for network addresses;
>> that's more likely to confuse people than anything else.
>>
>
> And just as a historical etymological note for the list, in case anyone
> finds this in the archives: "all balls" referring to all zeros setting
> shows up as NASA speak in Apollo era transcripts, for any sort of "all
> zeros" setting - the one I remember off hand was actually a angle
> setting for an engine firing for Apollo 13. It may have been milspeak at
> one time as well. The more modern interpretation seems to be a
> contraction of "all balls, no brains", so would in fact be a little off
> for a changelog entry.

This question has indeed come up before. See:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-docs/2005-01/msg00054.php. I
suppose that 'balls' as one of a large and growing number of words
that has to be used carefully due to the increasingly deficient
character of the modern mind.

merlin