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Comment by xanadohnt | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I didn't agree with the name criticism either. For the small sample of us techies, sure, it has some negative associations (but even still not significantly so). For most, however, it's positive: Boom, drops the mic; Sonic boom, something good in the technical advancements of achieving great speed; and great for a simple, easy to remember, evocative brand name.

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There's also the example of Steve Jobs. He used the word 'boom' quite a bit in keynotes (silly compilation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y38Sb3FOYmY), always with the positive connotation of 'get results fast'. I don't remember anyone ever making a remark that it had negative connotations.

On the other hand, if this becomes a successful company, it is inevitable one of their planes will go boom in a negative way one day, and that day will see quite a few bad jokes. Will that permanently damage the brand? That, I think, is anybody's guess, and may not be caused by the name. 'MH' didn't have any connotation positive or negative a few years ago, but I expect it will be a few years before anybody considers using that airline abbreviation again.

Concorde had a fatal crash... but then they went out of business (er their division was dropped?) -- but everyone wants faster than sound transport between continents. I doubt BOOM will ever be a detracting brand issue.

> I doubt BOOM will ever be a detracting brand issue.

I dunno, it could turn against them if they have reliability issues. "BOOM is the sound their planes make when exploding on takeoff", etc.

Aren't Malaysian still using the "MH" designation?

You are right. I thought Malaysian had stopped operations, but Google tells me it was nationalized and Wikipedia that their subsidiary MASwings uses the code.

Malaysia are still in almost full operation. They never stopped using MH. There are currently 37 MH flights in the air at the moment according to FlightRadar.

It's an example of Antonin Scalia's advice to "yield indefensible terrain---ostentatiously":

    Rarely will all the points, both of fact and law, be in your favor. Openly
    acknowledge the ones that are against you. In fact, if you're the appellant,
    run forth to meet the obvious ones. [1]

[1] Dan Slater. "Scalia and Garner: 'Yield Indefensible Terrain---Ostentatiously'" in The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, April 29, 2008.

Why does it have negative associations for us techies? It sure doesn't for me.

The first thing that came to my mind was sonic boom, which made me think of Guile from Street Fighter II, who was one of my favourite characters. It also reminded me of my dad describing the sound of sonic booms as jets passed overhead (he lived fairly close to an air force base).

Then I read more comments here and now I think of crashing and death :-(.

In the previous thread some associated "Boom" with "Something blowing up" which wasn't perceived as a great name for a plane.

Yeah, I thought it was a horrible name in light of the fact that the last supersonic jet program was permanently grounded because of a crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590

That just moved things up a bit - they were already winding it down.

Was it not grounded due to Airbus ending their support agreements?

Makes me think of the challenger disaster [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...

One of the difficulties Concorde had was the sonic boom, drawing attention to it doesn't seem wise.

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