Apropos of nothing (yet again), but brought to mind due to my pending purchase of a new laptop, it turns out that I have yet to have a consistent naming convention for my computers. The closest I have come is with this webserver, and even that was broken at the last round of hardware upgrades (although, I guess, not officially, since I was too lazy to change the name in DNS…)
Regardless, and with nothing better to post, I give you my computers:
- Frankenserver
The first computer I owned was a mashup of discarded parts from other systems, and therefore named Frankenputer. This machine eventually morphed into my home fileserver, and although it has had a few upgrades since then, it is still mostly made up of cast-offs from other systems.
- Gabriel
The official name of the webserver; I have not updated it in DNS because it isn’t worth the chances of me screwing up access to the system. This machine was originally to be named after KMFDM songs. The first, when it was part of a business plan to provide secure webhosting, was “Trust”. After a hardware upgrade (and the failure of said business plan), it became “Godlilke”, and another hardware upgrade made it “Ultra”. “Gabriel”, now on it’s fourth hardware incarnation, is named for the Penny Arcade artist/character. It is intended to match “Tycho”, which is the name of the phantom machine that might eventually also be attached directly to the ‘nets. The new convention, therefore, is any machine connected directly to the internet will be named for a Penny Arcade character.
- Annihilatrix
My desktop. Named for the doomsday machine in the Adult Swim cartoon “Frisky Dingo”. It was either aptly named, or I should be more superstitious; like it’s namesake, it seems to have some sort of recurring power issue.
- Epitaph
My tablet computer. When I mentioned that I had not thought of a good name for it, a friend suggested I use my FPS handle, which works well since it’s, well, a tablet.
- Idoru
My notebook, named for the Gibson novel, which at the time of purchase was fairly powerful and a sort of “idol”.
- Electronaut
Acer Aspire One netbook, named for the song by VNV Nation, both because it is an awesome song, and as a play on the machine’s portability.
- Interocitor
A desktop using a TV as it’s monitor. Named for the machine in the movie “This Island Earth”, which was the basis of the MST3K movie. Hard to explain if you haven’t seen it…
- Cobalt
Palm Pilot. Named for it’s shiny blue finish.
- ?
I have yet to decide on the name of my new laptop. I could name it for another VNV Nation song (”Legion”, “Chrome”, “Nemesis”) but, as much as I really like those songs, it would break the meta-convention of not having a consistent naming convention (at least between machines). At the moment, the short list includes “Monolith” and… well, nothing, yet. I do like “Nemesis” though.