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Comment by dankohn1 | Hacker News Reader

"we have had to host it on physical tin". Is this an English English thing? In America, we would say "host on our own iron". Do other countries use different metals?

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Also a British person here. Also own an ISP. I hear that phrase all the time from suppliers to customers.

It means cheap commodity servers as opposed to iron which is beefy expensive servers.

I'm English, and I have never used or even heard the phrase "host it on physical tin" before.

Then again, I just tend to say "hosted on our own hardware" or just simply "self-hosted".

We (UK business) have a contractor who is ex-IBM and who says it all the time. It annoyed me at first but I've got used to it. That was the first time I'd heard it, but now I've become aware of it, I notice it a lot more.

Just to counter my fellow countryfolk, and because anecdata is the best kind of data, I have definitely heard it called that before ... though not so much recently. Perhaps it's a dying term?

Monty Python to the rescue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3-51DhOzHE

Yep pretty common in the UK. The chargeback the IT department makes to other groups or projects for kit is called the "tin tax" too.

(Living in Scotland): I've heard the phrase maybe twice in all the years I've worked here.

British person: I don't think this is one I've come across.

Another brit: just once, three years ago by a Programme Director determined to eradicate our IT dept "We are not going to feed and water our own tin!". I was equally bemused. However the outcome has been very detrimental to our org.

probably cornish :D

They do make great pies :)

don't forget the ice cream!

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