Freedom and Justice
From an Argentinean military dictator:
He says (specifically) that the freedom and justice in his country make up for it. I was entertained especially since I traditionally name my computers either "freedom" or "justice".
Did you know computer nerds like to name their computers? There are different schools of thought. One is that you should use hard-to-distinguish names to demonstrate your skills at remembering arbitrary text sequences. Like calling your computers "nerdcave" and "nerdcave-2". Another is that you should use your native language for unspellable names like "chanakya" to spite your monolingual coworkers. Another is that you should prove your nerd-in-group-ness with names that have double meanings that are only apparent to hard core techies, like "swap". And yet another strategy is to use your own username so that you are spared the difficulty of remembering yet another arbitrary word.
And of course the "freedom" strategy, in which I pretend I am a hippie by emotionally bonding with computer hardware.
We believe we are already within a democratic system. Some factors are still missing, like the expression of the people's will.
He says (specifically) that the freedom and justice in his country make up for it. I was entertained especially since I traditionally name my computers either "freedom" or "justice".
Did you know computer nerds like to name their computers? There are different schools of thought. One is that you should use hard-to-distinguish names to demonstrate your skills at remembering arbitrary text sequences. Like calling your computers "nerdcave" and "nerdcave-2". Another is that you should use your native language for unspellable names like "chanakya" to spite your monolingual coworkers. Another is that you should prove your nerd-in-group-ness with names that have double meanings that are only apparent to hard core techies, like "swap". And yet another strategy is to use your own username so that you are spared the difficulty of remembering yet another arbitrary word.
And of course the "freedom" strategy, in which I pretend I am a hippie by emotionally bonding with computer hardware.
posted by Kevin at
10:37 PM
2 Comments:
Hey, hey! "Chanakya" isn't just an unspellable name meant to spite my coworkers. Chanakya was the wily prime minister of an Indian Emperor, and was the real power behind the throne. Wikipedia says that he is known as "The Indian Machiavelli" in the Western world.
My favorite Chanakya factoid is his art of persuasion. He gave a four step process for persuading someone to do what you want them to do:
kaam, daam, danda, bhed
In English, that means you first try to reason with the person (kaam). If that fails, you try to bribe him (daam). If that also fails, then you threaten physical harm (danda). And if even that doesn't do the trick, then you blackmail them by threatening to reveal a secret (bhed)!
So a fine name for a computer, I think. And come to think of it, he might have actually enjoyed spiting co-workers...:-)
By
Pandu Nayak, At
June 19, 2008 9:08 AM
I stand corrected: the four step process is actually
saam, daam, danda, bhed
But the English translations are still correct.
By
Pandu Nayak, At
June 20, 2008 11:44 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home