咱们国家古代的传说里常有乡绅们带着民众一起祈雨的场面，祈雨的主角通常是口中念念有词、貌似法力无边的道士或巫师，他们烧香念咒、手舞足蹈，好像这样就可以把信息传递给上苍了。其实，在古希腊、古印度也都有类似的做法，人们把这样的仪式行为统称为rain dance（祈雨舞）。不过，到了信息时代，rain dance似乎已经和祈雨没什么关系了。

A rain dance is a ceremonial dance that is performed in order to invoke rain and to ensure the protection of the harvest.

祈雨舞（rain dance）是为了保证农作物丰收而祈雨时跳的仪式型舞蹈。

In hacker’s jargon, rain dance refers to any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc.

在电脑黑客词典里，祈雨舞则指针对硬件问题所做的任何程序性、且不太有可能奏效的操作，尤指重置印刷电路板或重接线路等操作。

For example:

I can't boot up the machine. We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance.

我的机器不能启动了。我们得等格雷格来做程序重置。