Caligula's Giant Ship

Mar 31, 2009

Like any good geek, I have a naming system for my computers and associated devices. Real systems — which I define as those that run SSH — are named after Roman Emperors; things that are computer-like but don’t run SSH are named after Roman generals.

I have also taken to naming each of the disks attached to a machine after a land mass somehow connected to the Emperor it is named after. My main desktop is Caligula with the disks Capri, where Caligula lived under the care of Tiberius, Mauretania, which Tiberius annexed, and Germania, where Caligula accompanied his father on military campaigns as a young child. When I got a USB drive for keeping off-site backups, I needed to name it and though ships of the Roman Navy would be appropriate. What a pleasant surprise to find that Caligula had built a ship to transport the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square which when it was found in the 1950’s was named Caligula’s “Giant Ship”.