

Starcraft Network - slifty
http://slifty.com/2011/03/starcraft-network/

======
zach
This is pretty clever. Reminds me of an article a few years ago about printer
names -- YouTube named theirs after Wu-Tang members; Google, after
Transformers:

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/the-wu-
ta...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/the-wu-tang-
sag.html)

Regrettably, I must report that at Blizzard, printers have boring but
functional names. And even though the campus is laid out with three buildings
positioned similarly to the current WoW map, they're merely Buildings 1, 2,
and 3. At least the meeting rooms all have lore names, however.

~~~
electromagnetic
That's actually depressingly boring for one of the worlds most recognizable
games companies.

It makes me feel like throwing out my lucky charms and eat cheerios for
breakfast. (FYI I'm in my 20's, but shitty North America doesn't have good
breakfast cereals like the UK)

~~~
alanfalcon
Eh, if it makes you feel any better, [many of] the servers themselves have
wonderful names.

Plus, you have to love going to a three o'clock meeting in the Spawning Pool.

------
nkassis
I think this is enough for me to switch from protoss to zerg. Just the idea
that I'm playing a Mac race is going to affect my psyche enough for me to stay
in bronze forever ;p

------
wulczer
Sounds fun if you do it for your home network, but profesionally you'll
quickly appreciate embracing a more dull pattern of calling database machines
db01, db02, etc, preproduction machines preprod01, preprod02, etc. And the
sysadmin that will come after you will appreciate it even more.

~~~
bdb
Which falls over when db01 ain't a database machine anymore.

When I ran a large network, machines didn't physically move very much (at
least, far less often than their logical functions changed); we had a naming
scheme based on datacenter code, rack ID and rack position:

sjc02-X0501-19

would be the machine in sjc02, rack X05.01, unit 19.

Far more important than the actual scheme you use is consistency. Pick one
scheme and stick with it. Easier when you pick the right scheme the first
time. :)

~~~
jswanson
That's great for SA's who are working in the racks.

Not so great for SA's that are administering the boxes remotely, devs trying
to figure out what machine they are on, or teams trying to troubleshoot an
issue.

If a box is no longer a db machine, just rename it to something descriptive.

------
elliottcarlson
"A partitioned box with unix and windows. Windows OS named Marine, Unix OS
named Infested Marine"

This just seems to be the wrong way around...

~~~
roc
Agreed.

In general I'm not sure how you could think the battle-worn/old-tech/modular
visual style of the Terran race applies more to Windows than Unix.

Whereas terrifyingly-impressive testament to the brutal domination of an
evolutionary niche and subsequent uncontrolled (uncontrollable?) growth seems
like such a more-natural analogue for Windows.

And that's without even _touching_ the gross, slimy, _infested_ allusions. ;)

~~~
slifty
What sold me on unix being zerg was the concept of the swarm. Open source ==
powered by the hive mind.

Also I think it is safe to say that most everyday folk relate more to windows;
same way most would relate more towards the human faction.

That said, you have good points!

~~~
roc
Well, yeah. I'm sure the average person with 4 windows boxes at home wouldn't
be wild about the idea of _the creep_ seeping between the boxes...

Whereas unix folks are more likely to be nerdier and _like_ that sort of thing
;)

Oh, and _awesome_ scheme overall.

~~~
slifty
Another attractive reason for Windows being Zerg is it would make Ballmer
Queen Bitch of the Universe (Gates would be the now-dead Overmind).

------
rapind
I'm ashamed to admit I'm using Jersey Shore names for my home network.
"Situation", "Snooky", "Jwow", "Paulyd", etc.

~~~
narsil
you must be facing some serious trust issues when you try ssh'ing from one box
to another.

------
prawn
"Here are some examples: you might use the planets in the solar system (I
would never do this; who wants to have to wait for the discovery of new
planets to buy your 9th computer?)"

For this reason, I use moons of our solar system in naming external hard
drives at home. Figure it will last me a little longer, and saves me having to
say to my wife in front of friends "Can you put the wedding photos on x?" and
"Is x now full?" for certain instances of x towards the outer reaches of the
system.

~~~
leif
it's pronounced "urine us"

------
jarin
Well, butter my biscuits.

------
biotech
Here is the my naming convention:

1\. Desktop computers are any land animal

2\. Laptops are birds

3\. Virtual machines and servers are any water dwelling creature

I try to progress through the alphabet. For example, "Buck" is an old, now
defunct computer - "Gila" has only recently been retired.

------
UrLicht
My home network is based on the Batman universe:

My shiny new power tower (Windows 7): Batman

Same tower booted into ubuntu: TwoFace

NAS: arkham

Content Filter: gordon

Wifi SSID: TheRiddler

etc, etc

------
flexd
I've previously gone with various fun things (the main server at my previous
job was named mainframe for ages), currently it's star wars characters as a
friend of mine insists. Mine are all just named for their purpose. Laptop
being playworkschool, my older server is called beast (hosting a civilization
5 replay generator). I don't like the idea of StarCraft though, but perhaps
i'm just not such a big fan? I remember playing the first game a lot but i'm
not a huge fan.

------
marcamillion
This is brilliant!!

The only issue I will have now is trying to convince my wife that SC2 is a
healthy addiction - especially now that her iMac will be renamed 'Archon'.

~~~
arjunnarayan
Only works if you cannibalized that iMac from two other Macs.

~~~
wdewind
also macbook air = dark templar? i think youd have to make an imac 30 out of
two of those to make a dark archon.

------
tomrod
Am I the only one who thinks that Windows, with malware, worms, and trojans,
are more akin to the zerg? Whereas Linux, with its post-humanism, is akin to
Terrans?

------
jcurbo
I was hoping this would be about Blizzard or battle.net, oh well. My own
network machines are all named after space probes: pioneer, skylab, mercury,
surveyor, gemini, apollo, voyager, etc. The university I went to (www.hsu.edu)
named all their machines after trees (cyprus, pine, etc) - the school alma
mater was about the pine trees that grew throughout the area, so a tree based
naming scheme made sense.

------
cpeterso
I recall Hotmail's servers were revealed to have some funny names, including
rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com.

------
mashmac2
Server names at my university's CS department (and at least 2 other
universities I know of) are biblical characters- Matthew, Mark, John, Gabriel,
Mary, Martha, etc...

And, of course, Saul is a alias for Paul.

~~~
jacques_chester
> And, of course, Saul is a alias for Paul.

Does it require you to login via Damascus?

------
epynonymous
i was expecting to read something about scalability of battle.net...

------
sliverstorm
I just name mine after motorcycles I've owned. Crazily enough, I go through
motorcycles faster than I go through computers, so it works.

------
benkulbertis
I love starcraft...but honestly this is stupid. I mean seriously...you could
waste your time in so many better ways .

~~~
gcb
> you could waste your time in so many better ways .

for example, pointing out how stupid this is.

:)

~~~
TheSOB88
Fuck you, dickwizard

------
gcb
i like the unimaginative names. www28.fe2.us.example.com

one huge portal used writers, philosophers and poets. try to spell Nietzsche
to the operator during an outage.

Another job, they used star trek ship names. with the occasional klingon
vessel here and there.

------
TheSOB88
This is very intellectually unfulfilling. Second place? HN is approaching
chain emails...

