Configuring my new server: a name
I just acquired a new server, and I have spent some time configuring it yesterday. Server are those systems (they can either be physical or virtual) that are always on, and connected to the Internet. In its simpliest form, a server can be your computer open 24/7.
With a server, you can have a total control of the technologies you are using, of the environment you’re developping in. It gives you freedom, but takes away the plug-n-play goodness of other hostings.
So what’s the first step of configuring a server? Giving it a nice, catchy name of course. As a machine is something that’s very rational, you might want to give it the name of some highly rational person. Aristotle, Plato, I like those names for a server. Aristotle built an entire set of physics laws with nothing but logic, and although they were highly logical, they failed to deliver. Sounds a bit like a computer. :)
I have nothing against Greek philosophers, but I first decided to name my server after Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace. He is an incredible French mathematician who’s “Laplace Transform” came in really handy at the time I was designing electronic circuits. But well, he’s a “marquis”, which is linked to the monarchy, so as a Parisian it’s my duty to protest against that.
This is why I chose Galileo as my server’s name. Not only was Galileo an incredible scientist, he also fought with his life to defend Copernicus’ view on Heliocentrism (people used to believe earth was the center of the universe). I like that. I want my server to do the same!
So with no further due, Galileo was born (again!), not as an italian scientific, father of modern science, but as a nice little debian-running server in New Jersey.
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