For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. - Alice Kahn
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I was driving home one day, kicking around an idea for a client/server program to be used as a 'Quiz Bowl' sort of setup. I was still in the planning stage when I started thinking about visual representations of the client machines. Sure, I could place their IP number there, but that would be dull and IPs are hard to say, much less remember.
So what else could I use? How about a name? How could I name each machine? Well, I could let each team name their machine and pass that along, but there would always be the chance of collision and the fight over team names. What's unique? The IP, really. How can I create names using the IP number? After thinking for sometime, I decided that we might be able to pull it off with three letter words, one for each number 0 to 255.
So, I grepped dict for all the three letter words (500+) and sat down with a good friend of mine, Mark "Adam" Baum, to whittle it down. We eliminated all two-syllable words, acronyms, homonyms and obscure words. After that we removed slang and expletives, surely disappointing many of you. 8^) We still had 300 plus words, so we concentrated on reducing the sound-alikes. Eventually we were able to whittle it down to 256 mostly unique, easily pronounceable words.
"So what?", I can hear you say. No, really, this has some nice uses. Let me make a list...
There are a multitude of disadvantages too, one of the main ones being that this one doesn't scale to IPv6. When that rolls around, it's a whole new ballgame.
NOTE: While the list is alphabetical order, there are two exceptions to the rule: 0 and 255. We reversed the order so that these IP numbers (which are often special case) have a more distinctive name and the name correlates to the number. ('Ace' being the mnemonic for '001' was just a happy coincidence.)
000 zip 001 ace 002 act 003 add 004 age 005 aim 006 air 007 and 008 ant 009 ape 010 arm 011 art 012 ash 013 ask 014 bad 015 bag 016 ban 017 bar 018 bat 019 bay 020 bed 021 bet 022 bid 023 big 024 bin 025 bit 026 bog 027 boo 028 box 029 bud 030 bug 031 bun 032 bus 033 cab 034 can 035 cap 036 car 037 cat 038 cop 039 cot 040 cow 041 cry 042 cub 043 cup 044 cut 045 day 046 den 047 did 048 die 049 dig 050 dim 051 dip 052 dog 053 dry 054 dub 055 dud 056 dug 057 ear 058 eat 059 eel 060 egg 061 elf 062 elk 063 elm 064 end 065 fan 066 far 067 fat 068 fed 069 few 070 fib 071 fig 072 fin 073 fit 074 fix 075 fly 076 fog 077 foo 078 fox 079 fry 080 fun 081 gab 082 gag 083 gap 084 gas 085 gel 086 gem 087 get 088 gin 089 got 090 gum 091 gut 092 had 093 has 094 hat 095 hen 096 hex 097 hid 098 hip 099 hit 100 hog 101 hop 102 hot 103 how 104 hub 105 hug 106 hum 107 hut 108 ice 109 ill 110 imp 111 ink 112 irk 113 jab 114 jam 115 jar 116 jaw 117 jet 118 jig 119 job 120 jog 121 jot 122 joy 123 key 124 kid 125 kin 126 kit 127 lab 128 lag 129 lap 130 law 131 lax 132 lay 133 leg 134 let 135 lid 136 lip 137 lit 138 lot 139 low 140 mad 141 map 142 mat 143 men 144 met 145 mix 146 mob 147 moo 148 mop 149 mud 150 mug 151 nab 152 nag 153 nap 154 net 155 new 156 nil 157 nip 158 nod 159 nor 160 now 161 nut 162 oak 163 oat 164 odd 165 off 166 old 167 orb 168 out 169 owl 170 own 171 pad 172 pal 173 pan 174 pay 175 pen 176 pet 177 pie 178 pig 179 pin 180 pit 181 ply 182 pod 183 pop 184 pot 185 pox 186 pry 187 pun 188 pup 189 put 190 rag 191 ran 192 rat 193 raw 194 red 195 rid 196 rig 197 rip 198 rot 199 row 200 rub 201 rug 202 run 203 rut 204 rye 205 sad 206 sag 207 sap 208 sat 209 saw 210 say 211 set 212 shy 213 sip 214 sit 215 ski 216 sky 217 sly 218 sob 219 soy 220 spa 221 spy 222 tab 223 tag 224 tan 225 tap 226 tar 227 tax 228 the 229 tie 230 tin 231 tip 232 top 233 toy 234 try 235 tub 236 tug 237 use 238 van 239 vat 240 vex 241 vow 242 wag 243 war 244 was 245 wax 246 web 247 wet 248 who 249 wig 250 win 251 wit 252 yes 253 yet 254 zoo 255 all
| DOMAIN | IP NUMBER | IP MNEMONIC | |
| 1 | gurno.com | 66.33.193.225 | far-cab-raw-tap |
| 2 | advogato.org | 128.32.112.248 | lag-bus-irk-who |
| 3 | 192.168.1.58 | rat-out-ace-eat | |
| 4 | Your netmask | 255.255.255.0 | all-all-all-zip |
So what do the examples teach us? Well, it was dog-simple to create the name. Give it a try yourself. Got an internal network? Look at example three. There's your machine name. Next one down would be -eel. No thinking necessary. Shorthand, you could refer to them by the most unique combination. All are 192.168.1.x? Call 'em by their last name - the one would be 'eat', the next 'eel' and so on. Also have a 192.168.2.x network? Call 'em by the two name combos: "ace-eel", "act-toy".
I'm a programmer and a father (not necessarily in that order) - in my spare time I serve on the local library board, am president of the local LUG, and I try and explain Free Software to people. (They never get it - I'm terrible at it...) More info? Go up a level to my homepage...