The Outsider's Inside View - post#001

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Yep, we ran out of Simpsons characters and aliens with names that start with K.

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--
Eric

I Was A Landscape In Your Dream

What kind of comedy is this all of the danger you’ve discovered
What kind of comedy is this how can you say now you’re frightened
You labeled me in forty tries and in case you didn’t realize
I was a landscape in your dream and all my mountains were on fire

What kind of labyrynth is this that we’re constructing through talking
What kind of labyrynth is this that sends you laughing without smiling
Age brings a sad little surprise and in case you didn’t realize
While you were calculating tears my head expired

~ Of Montreal ~

I Was A Landscape In Your Dream

What kind of comedy is this all of the danger you’ve discovered
What kind of comedy is this how can you say now you’re frightened
You labeled me in forty tries and in case you didn’t realize
I was a landscape in your dream and all my mountains were on fire

What kind of labyrynth is this that we’re constructing through talking
What kind of labyrynth is this that sends you laughing without smiling
Age brings a sad little surprise and in case you didn’t realize
While you were calculating tears my head expired

~ Of Montreal ~

Thanks for that. This band is playing in SF next week. Maybe I'll
go check them out. I'm only familiar with one of their albums.

Check out this lovely image of interstellar hydrogen:

It's not SETHI data; it's from another Arecibo-based project called
GALFA. I'll write a bit more about that in next week's new post.

Back from the dentist with the new, permanent, cap. The rest of my teeth are pointing and laughing, but I assume the new one will be accepted as a brother before too long. I'll take a few minutes before getting back to work to explain the history of names. We tend not to repeat names, so once a machine goes, the name will probably go with it.

When I started here people named machines after the research group leaders. Stu Boywer and Supria Chakrabarti had "stew" and "soup" repsectively. The rest of us had terminals. Then came "rocket," a 4MB, 16 Mhz diskless 68020, named so because that's what we worked on at the time.

The came a big NASA mission, EUVE. At that point things divided up into multiple camps. There were the big servers which were usually named with acronyms, SOC1 (science operations center) and SDAF1 (super duper aerodynamic frog maybe? I dunno.) Then we got a optical disk jukebox, so it seemed obvious that "elvis" would run that. Around this time the SETI group got a machine named "serendip"

Personal workstations were usually named after towns on the california coast. "pacifica," "bodega," "bolinas," "monterrey," and "laguna" all come to mind. When we ran out of those we moved on to single malt scotch varieties "highland," "lowland," "islay," "skye," "speyside," etc.

Then I worked on the Far Ultraviolet Coronal Rocket and got a machine named "mofo" for obvious reasons. (Don't explain them unless you want to be moderated.)

Following that, a trend for naming machines after famous scientists and writers developed, some fictional, starting with "albert" and continuing through "isaac," "asimov," "drake," "jill," "dyson," "clarke," "sagan," "ellie," "jocelyn," "herschel," "hawking," "jansky," "hertz," "galileo," "castelli," and "ewen."

There was a brief stint of Simpsons characters, "marge," "homer," "lisa," "maggie," "bart," "skinner," "syzlak," "milhouse" mixed in with Scooby-do's "shaggy" and "scooby"

Then there's the "K-rack" that when it was full contained "kosh," "kang," "kodos," "koloth," "kryten," and "klaatu"

There was talk of a "G-rack" which gave birth to "gowron"

Now we're onto Star Wars, although Matt named his new desktop machine "wahweap" which could start a trend toward naming machines after marinas on Lake Powell.





____________

Kevin, You're the answer to an infoholics dream!
Also I've not heard "Gentle Giant" mentioned in years! KUDOS for Brains and Good taste! BUT, NO PINK?

Re: host names. Eric pretty much spelled out most of it below, but there were a couple of Mac's we had early on called "jobs" and "wozniak" as well as a PC called "gates." That PC disappeared and, oddly enough, the name was indeed reused on a Sun Ultra 10 (ha ha). I'm also an old Amiga-head, so we named a few machines after Commodore types like "miner" and "peddle" but those machines ended up not getting used very much (how ironic). "Wahweap" refers to an impossible-to-get-to section of southern Utah where I found these.

Re: musical tastes. Dave is a very accomplished pianist whose tastes trend towards classical (romantic through modern). He and I had several musician friends in common before we met here at the lab (which we only discovered later).

- Matt
____________
-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Do you guys specialise in only listening to obscure music? The only ones I have heard of on that list are Pierrot Lunaire (and I kind of wish I hadn't) and Queen.

"Wahweap" refers to an impossible-to-get-to section of southern Utah where I found these.

Then I worked on the Far Ultraviolet Coronal Rocket and got a machine named "mofo" for obvious reasons. (Don't explain them unless you want to be moderated.)

Kevin, You're the answer to an infoholics dream!
Also I've not heard "Gentle Giant" mentioned in years! KUDOS for Brains and Good taste! BUT, NO PINK?

Not on the mp3 player, no. Plenty of it at home, though. The Floyd
are one of those bands I hardly listen to anymore, despite having so
many good albums. I've just heard them all so many times - same with
Yes, old Genesis (Hackett-era), King Crimson, etc. There are just so
many lesser-known bands that play challenging, complex rock music that
I'd rather discover. Finding out that
Matt & Jeff & Court have similar musical tastes to me was yet another
unexpected delight when I started working here. Maybe Dave too...not
sure though.

What the point of all this. I was watching a google video (i forgot which one) where some group did make contact. The military came in and shut the frequency down. When it was reopened nothing could be found. The military must have haad them change channels. IF TRUE, what's the point?

Welcome to the board Kevin....hmmm..a fellow Canuck eh! You mention that Eric brought you in to the project..I wonder if in one of your future posts, you might mention what part of Canada you are from and if you are currently 'on loan' from a University up here and what projects you might have been involved with prior to coming to Berkeley. You know us, always interested in ex-pats...lol.
Oh !....I live in the heart of University country (Waterloo,ON) and thought I'd mention that any other Canucks in the area might be interested in an upcoming 'talk' being given at the PERIMETER INSTITUTE in Waterloo by Dr. Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with an insight into what you're working on...much appreciated.

Welcome to the board Kevin....hmmm..a fellow Canuck eh! You mention that Eric brought you in to the project..I wonder if in one of your future posts, you might mention what part of Canada you are from and if you are currently 'on loan' from a University up here and what projects you might have been involved with prior to coming to Berkeley. You know us, always interested in ex-pats...lol.
Oh !....I live in the heart of University country (Waterloo,ON) and thought I'd mention that any other Canucks in the area might be interested in an upcoming 'talk' being given at the PERIMETER INSTITUTE in Waterloo by Dr. Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with an insight into what you're working on...much appreciated.