Asymptomatic

We had a discussion at work the other day, and again on IRC recently, about what to name our computers. At first this might sound like a silly thing, especially to people who use a single home computer, but for people with more than one at home or who use computers every day at work, it's something that you probably end up thinking about at some point.

All of my computers at home are named after "characters" in books. This computer is Defiant, named after a spaceship in Bill Baldwin's Galactic Convoy novel. My file server is Naruto after the manga character, and my notebook is named Runcible, after a much higher-tech device that is the center of the Neal Stephenson novel The Diamond Age.

I tend to be pragmatic about my server naming because there are just too darn many of them to remember, but many people and organizations give them more fanciful names. For example, A Small Orange uses characters from the show Lost to name their servers, as I noticed when editing some of my content on Hurley....

We're getting a cat. Two, actually.

Berta's sister Maryann took in a pregnant stray cat and fed it back to health. Of the litter, only two kittens survived, and we'll be venturing out in early February to collect them and bring them back to their new home with us. Of course the kids are excited, and we spent a good deal of time at the pet store today buying supplies for them.

Unlike the last time I had kittens, when I could barely afford the single vet bill, we actually have money to spend on non-necessities with these kitties. We ended up getting some pretty crazy stuff rather than the usual items....