Non-nerds, read this first

For the non-techies reading this I have some explaining to do.  When you have more than one computer connected together you form something called a Local Area Network (LAN).  For instance, you have a LAN if you have more than one computer connected to the internet at home.  Computers on networks like to communicate to one another and so they have an address on the network called an IP address, which is a series of numbers (e.g. 192.168.1.100).

If you know the IP of a computer, you can send messages to it.  The problem is that normal people won’t remember all those numbers, and most of the time those numbers actually change when you turn the computers on and off.  For these reasons, most Operating Systems let you name your computers and they do the translation for you.  This probably happened the first time you turned it on and it asked for a name.

For average users the name will be something like “Living Room PC” or “Dad’s Laptop.”  The more tech savvy tend to enjoy goofing around with these names; for instance my friend Julia named one computer “Red” and the other one “Rum.”  Once you get more than a few computers, though, you naturally move toward a theme for your network.  This makes computers more fun, like collections, and gives the buckets of bits and bolts a touch of personal flair.

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?), or famous scientists or sports players.  Or Pokemon!  Or musicians.

For most people it stops there, but I recently realized that you can do oh so much better.  Your network names can be truly meaningful.  For instance, name your computers based on elements on the periodic table.  Mobile computers are given gas names and desktops are heavy metals.  Maybe the number of electron clouds reflects the number of processor cores!  Creativity is key

Long story short, some metaphors are better than others, and, quite frankly, I have found the best one.  My theme is StarCraft; an incredibly popular strategy game which has every single feature you could want in a network naming convention.   The game features 3 different races and about 70 units with a variety of shape, size, and function.  Well look at THAT!  It turns out there are 3 main flavor of operating system, and I plan on owning about 70 computers with a variety of shape, size, and function.

Back to the point

My network is named based on StarCraft/StarCraft2. The name of the unit should reflect the power, size, and special abilities of the hardware. To some extent this is an art, however there are a few set rules which must be followed.

Rule 1: Flying vs Ground

Starcraft units, in general, can either fly, or they are stuck on the ground.

Computers, in general, are either mobile (laptops), or they are stuck on the ground.

Summary:

• Laptops and other wireless devices are flying units.
• Boxes that are not inherently mobile are ground units.

Rule 2: Race

Starcraft has three main races: Zerg, Protoss, and Terran.  Zerg are the icky gooey alien race (think “Alien” alien); Protoss are the super intelligent shiny sleek technological aliens (think ET);  And Terran are the more traditional space age humans.

Computers have three main operating systems: Unix, OSX, and Windows;  Unix is the icky, gooey nerd computer (think “command lines”);  OSX (Mac) is the super pretentious shiny sleak technological computer (think Unibody Macbook); And Windows is the more traditional normal day human computer.

Starcraft also has other kinds of creatures in the universe.  Loveable animals called critters which mindlessly roam around, and mostly unknown super beings called the Xel’Naga.

Computers also have other kinds of operating systems in the universe.  Random things like the Wii which are based on who knows what, and the mostly unknown Google OS called Crome OS.

Summary:

• Unix / Linux varieties is Zerg
• Windows is Terran
• Mac is Protoss
• ChromeOS is Xel’Naga
• Other is Critter

Rule 3: Non-computers

The real world has tech that aren’t computers, and Starcraft has things that aren’t units (buildings are another type of object in StarCraft.).  Anything that doesn’t have an Operating System like Windows or Unix but can still have a network name (e.g. a shared computer peripheral like a printer or disc drive) or is a piece of tech that you want to be able to easily reference in casual conversation should have a building name. Ideally the building would be a non-unit producing structure (buildings are what make the units in Starcraft), unless of course the hardware in question is something that is used directly to produce computers.

Examples from my network

• Zergling – A tiny little zerg unit that runs around all the time || A tiny little  Ubuntu box that runs all the time
• Overlord – a zerg unit that isn’t used in combat but instead floats around and feeds other units || A unix based Network Attached Storage (NAS) that isn’t often used directly but instead hosts data and media for the other computers.
• Goliath – A pretty standard terran “mech” unit which isn’t insanely powerful, but packs a reasonable punch || A pretty standard Windows PC which isn’t insanely powerful, but packs a reasonable punch
• Thor – A big-ass giant warrior zoid type of suit thing (think transformer style) || A big-ass giant computer case (although currently in hibernation)
• Viking – Terran unit that replaced the goliath in StarCraft2; it can transform from flying to being on the ground || Erek’s Windows desktop (same build as my Goliath desktop) but it also has a wireless card!
• Wraith – !%*#ty flying Terran unit || Erek’s !%*#ty laptop
• Dark Templar – Stealth Protoss ground unit, it is invisible to the naked eye || Stealth Apple mac mini, it is invisible to the naked eye
• Corsair – Sleak and thin air unit for Protoss || Sleak and thin Macbook Air 11″
• Scout – Standard Protoss air unit || Macbook 13″ — pretty standard Apple laptop
• Interceptor – a tiny Protoss air unit that gets launched from a bigger “Carrier” ship || a tiny iPod Touch which you plug into bigger computers
• Kakaru – A flying critter || A Wii with wireless connection
• Spore Colony – A zerg building that spews out spores || A printer plugged into the NAS that spews out paper and ink.
• Pylon – The protoss building which provides energy to other protoss buildings || An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) which provides energy to all my computers.

Feel free to adopt this naming convention. If you have a perfect fit on your network post the name here!

Amazing Opportunities

The nice thing about this convention is it makes you want to buy / build technology just to have the perfect fit for a unit.

For instance:

• Apple AirPort named Carrier
• Macbook Pro 19″ (doesn’t exist… YET) named Mothership
• A partitioned box with unix and windows. Windows OS named Marine, Unix OS named Infested Marine
• A unix box dedicated to masterminding trojan attacks called Infestor
• USB based unix install named Larva
• Two apple computers called High Templar 1 and High Templar 2 which can combine to form an Archon.

The potentials are limitless!

To give you an idea of how great StarCraft is – it is a national sport in South Korea. Television stations are dedicated to broadcasting games between professional players on a 24/7 cycle.  Think chess but the board is digital terrain, the pieces are infantry, and instead of taking turns everyone moves their pieces at once.

You might ask “why are you talking about StarCraft in a post about pumpkins?“ Well there is a good answer.  The answer is that Blizzard, the company that created StarCraft, has an annual pumpkin carving competition.  This year I decided to give it a shot (spoiler alert: I didn’t win).

The beginning of the journey

I’m not crafty and I don’t have any skill when it comes to slicing gords, but I have advantage.  You see, I have access to thousands of dollars of equipment!  In particular I have access to a laser cutter.  A laser cutter is exactly what it sounds like – a machine that uses LASERS to cut things.  The lasers are attached to the heads of sharks.

I wanted to try this novel technique but assumed that the folks who run the shop wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of putting pumpkins in their expensive equipment so I let the idea die.  A week later my friend (and fellow Info Eco member) Matt Hirsch found a picture of a pumpkin carved into the death star online and declared his own interest in cutting pumpkins with the laser cutter.  This tipped the scales.

I rushed out and bought a test pumpkin.

Understanding Laser Cutters

Laser cutters cut on two axes.  This means they can make cuts in two dimensions.  Think of an ink jet printer only instead of putting ink on spot they burn away the material there.  The laser is attached to a head, which can move forward, backward, left and right.  You put the material underneath it, focus the laser, and let it work magic.

Laser cutters are great at cutting shapes out of flat things like cardboard, or sheets of wood, or acrylic. They aren’t so great at cutting shapes in pumpkins.  `Luckily our shop has a device that converts round things into flat things – it turns the laser cutter into a laser lathe.  Instead of having the laser move forward and backward, the laser only moves left and right, and this device spins whatever it is you want to cut.

The cuts themselves are designed digitally as a drawing.  You just “print” the picture you want, and the laser will burn away the material to match the image you printed.  Of course there’s a bit more to it than that.  Vector (i.e. line drawing) images are used to make lines.  Raster (i.e. solid shapes) images are used to burn away large areas of material.  Vector is far faster than raster, but raster is needed for certain kinds of effects.

Science!

After gutting my test pumpkin it was time to give the cutting a shot.  I didn’t know what settings would work – I wanted to be able to cut through the pumpkin in certain spots, but I also needed to be able to make shallow cuts, since the most fancy pumpkins tend to have different depth cuts in them to create different shades of orange.

Cutting through was a breeze, but required very slow settings.  The big issue was that because the pumpkin isn’t a cylinder it curves down on the sides.  This means that the surface is further away from the laser and so the laser loses focus and intensity as it moves further away from the center (i.e. lines that are closer to the sides are wider and shallower).

It was also clear that the bottleneck to this whole process would be pumpkin size.  The lathe attachment can’t hold objects that were wider than about 7 inches, so I would only be able to cut shapes on tiny pumpkins.  Blast!

Design #1: Tassadar

Since StarCraft has a fan base, there is a lot of artwork out there.  I just had to pick one I thought would look good on a pumpkin, and convert the image to a format that a laser cutter would understand.

I wanted to try making a pumpkin with four layers.  The first layer wouldn’t be cut at all (darkest), the second and third would be different depths of raster art, and the fourth would be cut all the way through (lightest).  I used Adobe Illustrator to “trace” the image I had selected.  This process converts a full-fledged image into a much simpler one; in my case the new image had only four colors.

The original artwork.

It looks good, but it is very... very badly burnt

It's all lit up, oh boy!

Design #2: Tychus

I was impressed with the amount of precision you could get with this technique, but the small size of the pumpkin meant that I was limited in the amount of detail I could accurately display.  I wanted to try again with something a little less involved – the face of Tychus Findlay, one of the main characters in StarCraft 2 and also the image that announced the release of the game several years ago (Blizzard had promised never to make a sequel, so this announcement image is iconic).

This one was amazing, but only when you looked at it correctly.  Check out the black and white one at the bottom.

Halloween It's About Time...

In conclusion, my camera isn’t very good, the pumpkins were too small, and I didn’t have enough time to create original artwork that worked well for this project.  As a result, I didn’t even get an honorable mention!  I don’t mind, though, because now I know how to make awesome pumpkin carvings for next year!