I was reminded today that Meta/Facebook's data center project is called Hyperion. Here are some facts about that name that may or may not be of interest.
Hyperion's name comes from two Greek words that together mean "watcher from above" or "he who goes above".
Hyperion was a Titan, the ancient Greek gods that preceded the Olympian gods like Zeus, Athena, etc. Prometheus, Atlas, and the word Titan itself are frequently used to name tech projects. A fun web search is "COMPANY_NAME Titan"; try it. It seems lost on these folks that the Titans were deposed by the Olympian gods and condemned to an eternity in Tartarus, a kind of hell. In other words they're the loser gods, if you want to be simplistic and vulgar about it.
It is believed that one of Hyperion's offspring, Helios, as well as all of Helios's offspring, were imagined as being black-skinned.
My wife, who is a classicist, and I regularly shake our heads about the names of tech projects like this. I always ask her for the dirt on the name, and she always delivers (as in the above, which I credit to her).
#DataCenters #Cloud #AI #Facebook #Meta #Hyperion #GreekGods #AncientGreece #Titans #Classics
Hyperion's name comes from two Greek words that together mean "watcher from above" or "he who goes above".
Hyperion was a Titan, the ancient Greek gods that preceded the Olympian gods like Zeus, Athena, etc. Prometheus, Atlas, and the word Titan itself are frequently used to name tech projects. A fun web search is "COMPANY_NAME Titan"; try it. It seems lost on these folks that the Titans were deposed by the Olympian gods and condemned to an eternity in Tartarus, a kind of hell. In other words they're the loser gods, if you want to be simplistic and vulgar about it.
It is believed that one of Hyperion's offspring, Helios, as well as all of Helios's offspring, were imagined as being black-skinned.
My wife, who is a classicist, and I regularly shake our heads about the names of tech projects like this. I always ask her for the dirt on the name, and she always delivers (as in the above, which I credit to her).
#DataCenters #Cloud #AI #Facebook #Meta #Hyperion #GreekGods #AncientGreece #Titans #Classics