Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 7 Oct 1997 01:55:45 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Cc:        tlambert@primenet.com, adrian@virginia.edu, rminnich@sarnoff.com, dcarmich@mcs.com, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-smp@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Building parallel "Beowulf-style" supercomputers with FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <199710070155.SAA03145@usr08.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <199710062126.PAA01718@rocky.mt.sri.com> from "Nate Williams" at Oct 6, 97 03:26:34 pm

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> > > > I vote for "Legion", because of the obvious tip of the hat to Chuck...
> ..
> > Chuck is the BSD Daemon.  "Legion" is a biblical reference; do the
> > math.  8-).
> 
> Legion in the Bible is translated to mean 'more than one Demon' (note
> the difference in spelling.  Chuck is a singular entity, and one whose
> purpose is to do good, not evil.

Actually, "I am Legion (capital 'L') for we are many".  So it was
"many Demons".

A Daemon is more properly compared with a Homonculus or Imp, I suppose,
though I have met more than one person who, wearing a BSD Daemon shirt,
was accused of "promoting devil worship".

If you want to reference it with less alchemic and/or Biblical/Diabolical
overtones:

	And forth he cald out of deepe darknes dredd
	Legions of Sprights, the which, like litle flyes
	Fluttering about his ever-damned hedd,
	Awaite whereto their service he applyes,
	To aide his friendes, or fray his enimies.
	Of those he chose out two, the falsest twoo,
	And fittest for to forge true-seeming lyes:
	The one of them he gave a message too,
	The other by him selfe staide, other worke to doo.

		-- The Faerie Queene, Book One, Canto I

Which covers a cluster virtual machine ("true-seeming lyes": it's not
a real single machine), and both message passing and multitasking.

8-).


Hmmm... "Alchemy" has about the right ring to it, too.  Plenty of
cool names out there... ;-).


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199710070155.SAA03145>