What do you call your machines?
At work I use the names of Graeco-Roman and Nordic gods and goddesses;
thus we have Aphrodite, Minerva, Jupiter, Odin and Loki to name a few.
AFAIK British Telecom seems to use the names of the rare earth elements
for its customer-facing servers and I know of one multinational that
uses artists' names - Picasso, Dali, Rembrandt etc.
So what do you call yours?

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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They have Maori names for animals, computers are birds (takahe, pateke, 
kakariki, korora) and my external harddisk is called tuatara

The photographers in the hospital were in building K on level 2 so 
obviously they named there machines after mountains (K2, Fuji)

Nordic gods and godesses were used for the big machines in my former 
department 20 years ago.

Slightly related: I am trying to get my student to name the amplifier he 
made. That would make referring so much easier. (one of the propositions 
with my thesis was that every machine that is worth referring to has to 
have a name)

	

On 6-7-2014 21:51, Doctor John wrote:
> What do you call your machines?
> At work I use the names of Graeco-Roman and Nordic gods and goddesses;
> thus we have Aphrodite, Minerva, Jupiter, Odin and Loki to name a few.
> AFAIK British Telecom seems to use the names of the rare earth elements
> for its customer-facing servers and I know of one multinational that
> uses artists' names - Picasso, Dali, Rembrandt etc.
> So what do you call yours?
>
> John
>


-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 06/07/14 21:21, andrel wrote:
> They have Maori names for animals, computers are birds (takahe, pateke,
> kakariki, korora) and my external harddisk is called tuatara
> 

That I like.

> The photographers in the hospital were in building K on level 2 so
> obviously they named there machines after mountains (K2, Fuji)
> 
> Nordic gods and godesses were used for the big machines in my former
> department 20 years ago.
> 

I knew I stole the idea from somewhere :-)

> Slightly related: I am trying to get my student to name the amplifier he
> made. That would make referring so much easier. (one of the propositions
> with my thesis was that every machine that is worth referring to has to
> have a name)
> 

How about 'turituri'? Maori for noise

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On 06/07/14 21:32, Doctor John wrote:
> 
> How about 'turituri'? Maori for noise
> 
> John
> 

Just had another idea. If the amplifier can be improved, how about
'tupuna' - Maori for forefather.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:51:47 +0100, Doctor John wrote:

> What do you call your machines?

Places in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.  I've been doing that for 
years, but I might have to start recycling them; the PS3 is Alosimanos 
Syneca (which is really too long a name for a system).  That said, there 
are plenty of good candidates I haven't used yet.

My personal laptop has two names - Brequinda when it's running Linux, and 
Bethselamin when it's running Windows.  (Bethselamin doesn't run very 
often).

The desktop is Lamuella.

My server is Krikkit (I've actually reused that name, as I migrated the 
data from one system to another).

My old cell phone is Voondon.  The new one (a Galaxy S5) seemed content 
as "Galaxy" (technically not a named place in H2G2, but it's my naming 
schema, so I'll use it if I like).

The Raspberry Pi is Xaxis.  It's possible the name for the incoming 
Macbook will be Zirzla, but I haven't decided yet (the company names them 
things like "mbp-jhenderson" - at least that's what the one that's being 
replaced is called).

I had used Magrathea at one point, as well as Damogran (though I think 
that was a short-lived system).  Megadodo (while not a place name, still 
a good name) also was a print server at once time (seemed appropriate).

Come to think of it, my tablet doesn't have a name yet.  Shame on me, I 
need to fix that.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 06/07/14 22:00, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:51:47 +0100, Doctor John wrote:
> 
>> What do you call your machines?
> 
> Places in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.  I've been doing that for 
> years, but I might have to start recycling them; the PS3 is Alosimanos 
> Syneca (which is really too long a name for a system).  That said, there 
> are plenty of good candidates I haven't used yet.
> 
> My personal laptop has two names - Brequinda when it's running Linux, and 
> Bethselamin when it's running Windows.  (Bethselamin doesn't run very 
> often).
> 
> The desktop is Lamuella.
> 
> My server is Krikkit (I've actually reused that name, as I migrated the 
> data from one system to another).
> 
> My old cell phone is Voondon.  The new one (a Galaxy S5) seemed content 
> as "Galaxy" (technically not a named place in H2G2, but it's my naming 
> schema, so I'll use it if I like).
> 
> The Raspberry Pi is Xaxis.  It's possible the name for the incoming 
> Macbook will be Zirzla, but I haven't decided yet (the company names them 
> things like "mbp-jhenderson" - at least that's what the one that's being 
> replaced is called).
> 
> I had used Magrathea at one point, as well as Damogran (though I think 
> that was a short-lived system).  Megadodo (while not a place name, still 
> a good name) also was a print server at once time (seemed appropriate).
> 
> Come to think of it, my tablet doesn't have a name yet.  Shame on me, I 
> need to fix that.
> 
> Jim
> 

Since you're a little bit H2G2 fixated, how about Majickthize or
Vroomfondel? Not places but it keeps the theme going

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On 06/07/2014 08:51 PM, Doctor John wrote:
> What do you call your machines?

I name them according to the colour of the casing. The hostname of the 
PC I'm using to write this is BLACKBOX, due to the black Antec 100 case. 
My laptop is named BLACKSLAB, and my obsolete laptop used to be named 
SILVERSLAB. (Now I should imagine it's called linux-38247, or whatever 
the default Ubuntu hostname is...)

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On 6-7-2014 22:32, Doctor John wrote:
> On 06/07/14 21:21, andrel wrote:
>> They have Maori names for animals, computers are birds (takahe, pateke,
>> kakariki, korora) and my external harddisk is called tuatara
>>
>
> That I like.

me too ;)
BTW I made ceramic versions of some of them:
http://bytehouwer.nl/visitekaart/takahe.jpg
http://bytehouwer.nl/visitekaart/korora.jpg
http://bytehouwer.nl/visitekaart/tuatara.jpg

didn't find time for a duck and a small parror yet.

>> The photographers in the hospital were in building K on level 2 so
>> obviously they named there machines after mountains (K2, Fuji)
>>
>> Nordic gods and godesses were used for the big machines in my former
>> department 20 years ago.
>>
>
> I knew I stole the idea from somewhere :-)

watch out when you are stealing from the gods.

>
>> Slightly related: I am trying to get my student to name the amplifier he
>> made. That would make referring so much easier. (one of the propositions
>> with my thesis was that every machine that is worth referring to has to
>> have a name)
>>
>
> How about 'turituri'? Maori for noise

Not that sort of amplifier. One for microelectrodes, used for patching 
cells. Output is connected to a VCO, but it does not amplify or create 
sound itself


-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 06/07/14 22:36, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 06/07/2014 08:51 PM, Doctor John wrote:
>> What do you call your machines?
> 
> I name them according to the colour of the casing. The hostname of the
> PC I'm using to write this is BLACKBOX, due to the black Antec 100 case.
> My laptop is named BLACKSLAB, and my obsolete laptop used to be named
> SILVERSLAB. (Now I should imagine it's called linux-38247, or whatever
> the default Ubuntu hostname is...)

So... no anthropomorphisation then? :-)

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:08:19 +0100, Doctor John wrote:

> Since you're a little bit H2G2 fixated, how about Majickthize or
> Vroomfondel? Not places but it keeps the theme going

I'd thought about it - shooty and bang-bang would also work.

But if I went with character names, I'd go with probably some more 
obscure ones first.  Prak would be a good system name.

Or Grunthos. :)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 06/07/2014 11:09 PM, Doctor John wrote:
> So... no anthropomorphisation then? :-)

No. I can't spell that.

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Am 06.07.2014 21:51, schrieb Doctor John:
> What do you call your machines?

Kings of the Visigoths:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_westgotischer_K%C3%B6nige
(sorry, I found no list in the English Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_deities
(but there are many names with non-ascii letters)

If you have several Apple computers, I'd suggest this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apple_cultivars


And last but not least the most comprehensive list is
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/lists/MPNames.html

but there are some funny names like "Mr. Spock" and quite long names...


Lars R.

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Le 2014-07-06 15:51, Doctor John a écrit :
> What do you call your machines?
> At work I use the names of Graeco-Roman and Nordic gods and goddesses;
> thus we have Aphrodite, Minerva, Jupiter, Odin and Loki to name a few.
> AFAIK British Telecom seems to use the names of the rare earth elements
> for its customer-facing servers and I know of one multinational that
> uses artists' names - Picasso, Dali, Rembrandt etc.
> So what do you call yours?
>
> John
>
One of the companies whose network we acquired during a merger was using 
Bond villains for their mail servers, but the rest of the infrastructure 
had a more mundane naming convention.

I've always been fond of Flintstones character names.  Mostly in jest 
because people at work insist on naming standards that will fit any and 
all devices, and include stuff like city and building into the name, to 
make it easier to locate a device in case of problems.

So my retort was that, yes, having to remember that Fred, Wilma and 
Pebbles were front end web servers and Barney, Betty and Bam-Bam, the 
back-end databases means you need to remember things by heart, but it's 
no worse than having to remember IATA airport codes and that "T" in the 
4th position stands for "windows nT" because "W" was already taken by 
Web servers, and "N" for Lotus Notes.  (And that now that most servers 
are running 2003 or 2008, it makes even less sense for the people who 
weren't there back in '97 when the standard was devised)

And it's definitily much easier to scream "LOOK FOR A SERVER CALLED 
BAM-BAM!" than yelling "LOOK FOR 
ALPHA-CHARLIE-SIERRA-DELTA-YANKEE-WHISKEY-GOLF-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-THREE" 
at a tech who's in a noisy computer room with bad phone reception, 
trying to find the right machine.
-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Le 2014-07-06 17:36, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> My laptop is named BLACKSLAB

Are its proportions 1 x 5 x 9, per chance?  Have you gotten the urge to 
smash your neighbors, brains with a tibia?  Or maybe embark on a mission 
to Jupiter?

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Thinking about your question, I now remember the old scheme for our own 
computers 20-15 years ago. Inspired by Don Knuth they got names that 
started with 'gn' gnu,gneiss,gnome,gnarl, our boss (who was and is 
member of the board of http://mnuurwerk.nl/en/ ) obviously got 'gnomon'.
We had a little machine that circumvented something (that I pretend to 
have forgotten), that was named 'gniffel', dutch for snicker.
When we had to name the machines at home too, my student (later 
co-worker and possibly soon my boss) who had 'gnu' at work named his 
'wildebeest'. I had already 'takahe' so to keep in the spirit his 
outside name became 'takkebeest'. (any other dutch people out there that 
can translate that?)


-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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Am 06.07.2014 23:00, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:51:47 +0100, Doctor John wrote:
>
>> What do you call your machines?
>
> Places in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.  I've been doing that for
> years, but I might have to start recycling them; the PS3 is Alosimanos
> Syneca (which is really too long a name for a system).  That said, there
> are plenty of good candidates I haven't used yet.
...

I'm missing Guildford in the list :-P

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Am 07.07.2014 18:52, schrieb andrel:
> Thinking about your question, I now remember the old scheme for our own
> computers 20-15 years ago. Inspired by Don Knuth they got names that
> started with 'gn' gnu,gneiss,gnome,gnarl, our boss (who was and is
> member of the board of http://mnuurwerk.nl/en/ ) obviously got 'gnomon'.
> We had a little machine that circumvented something (that I pretend to
> have forgotten), that was named 'gniffel', dutch for snicker.
> When we had to name the machines at home too, my student (later
> co-worker and possibly soon my boss) who had 'gnu' at work named his
> 'wildebeest'. I had already 'takahe' so to keep in the spirit his
> outside name became 'takkebeest'. (any other dutch people out there that
> can translate that?)

Not a dutch myself, but the 'nets say that "tak" is a branch, and it 
seems that "takkebeest" means almost anything from "stick insect" to 
creepy critters /on/ branches to creepy critters made /from/ branches to 
cute dogs /carrying/ branches.

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On 7-7-2014 19:23, clipka wrote:
> Am 07.07.2014 18:52, schrieb andrel:
>> Thinking about your question, I now remember the old scheme for our own
>> computers 20-15 years ago. Inspired by Don Knuth they got names that
>> started with 'gn' gnu,gneiss,gnome,gnarl, our boss (who was and is
>> member of the board of http://mnuurwerk.nl/en/ ) obviously got 'gnomon'.
>> We had a little machine that circumvented something (that I pretend to
>> have forgotten), that was named 'gniffel', dutch for snicker.
>> When we had to name the machines at home too, my student (later
>> co-worker and possibly soon my boss) who had 'gnu' at work named his
>> 'wildebeest'. I had already 'takahe' so to keep in the spirit his
>> outside name became 'takkebeest'. (any other dutch people out there that
>> can translate that?)
>
> Not a dutch myself, but the 'nets say that "tak" is a branch, and it
> seems that "takkebeest" means almost anything from "stick insect" to
> creepy critters /on/ branches to creepy critters made /from/ branches to
> cute dogs /carrying/ branches.
>
You might think that, but that would have been 'takkenbeest' (or at 
least when I was young, they tend to change the rules for the 'n' every 
couple of years)
No, in this context 'takke' means more like annoying or horrible. The 
only combination that the translators seem to know is 'takkewijf', 
translated as 'shrew' but that is much too friendly. Besides you 
probably only use it in a context when the animal or woman just did 
something to you. So it is more of an expletive.
...
Just looked it up 'takke' derives from the French 'attaque' (heart 
attack/stroke), so it used to be used as a curse.


-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 07/07/2014 2:27 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2014-07-06 17:36, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>> My laptop is named BLACKSLAB
>
> Are its proportions 1 x 5 x 9, per chance?  Have you gotten the urge to
> smash your neighbors, brains with a tibia?  Or maybe embark on a mission
> to Jupiter?
>

My God, it's full of stars.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On 06/07/2014 8:51 PM, Doctor John wrote:
> What do you call your machines?
> At work I use the names of Graeco-Roman and Nordic gods and goddesses;
[Snip]
> So what do you call yours?
>

I call mine:
Laptop Laptop_1 Laptop_2 through to my newest one Laptop_7. (PS please 
excuse lack of commas I'm trying to cure myself.)

Years ago, about the time I read "The Moon's a hard Mistress". I decided 
to call my first AI, Cassandra. So the hardware is just the body, not 
the mind.
(May you walk on rice paper...)


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 18:59:07 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Am 06.07.2014 23:00, schrieb Jim Henderson:
>> On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:51:47 +0100, Doctor John wrote:
>>
>>> What do you call your machines?
>>
>> Places in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.  I've been doing that for
>> years, but I might have to start recycling them; the PS3 is Alosimanos
>> Syneca (which is really too long a name for a system).  That said,
>> there are plenty of good candidates I haven't used yet.
> ...
> 
> I'm missing Guildford in the list :-P

Names of the relevant places on Earth probably will be later in my home 
systems' lives - perhaps as part of a virtual machine cluster. :)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 20:57:35 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> AI, Cassandra

?

(The comma, that is)



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 08/07/2014 1:59 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 20:57:35 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
>> AI, Cassandra
>
> ?
>
> (The comma, that is)
>
>
>
Don't you start. :-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On Tue, 08 Jul 2014 05:44:17 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 08/07/2014 1:59 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 07 Jul 2014 20:57:35 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> AI, Cassandra
>>
>> ?
>>
>> (The comma, that is)
>>
>>
>>
> Don't you start. :-)

Too late. :)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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We had six mass spectrometers, numbered #1 to #7. (Yes, you read that 
correctly. #4 was retired years ago...) For an April Fool's joke, our 
lab director circulated an email suggesting that we rename them after 
famous tennis players - the reliability of the machine being related to 
how hot-headed the tennis player is...

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