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Comment by speedgoose | Hacker News Reader

Why would you name a product "old bridge" ? Nobody speaks Italian at Intel's marketing department?

Intel uses geographical codenames, have a look at this (out of date) list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_codenames

Ponte Vecchio is, of course, a famous bridge in Firenze.

It is also the name of many less famous bridges across Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Vecchio_(disambiguation)

And several of Intel's codenames have been bridges ("Sandy Bridge", "Ivy Bridge").

I think the cross section between the people that would read

* "Ponte Vecchio" as "old bridge"

* and not know what the Ponte Vecchio actually is

* and would interpret the name as a bad thing

is probably small enough that it doesn't matter.

Not sure an Italian wouldn't be irritated by "old bridge" as the name of a supposedly high-end electronics product even when (I'm assuming) most if not all Italians of course know the place; "Ponte Nuove (Nuovo?)" could make some sense at least. What's with the bridge metaphor and cultural appropriation anyway?

I'd like to add one more

* and also assume that a corporation named something without figuring out what the name meant!

Because it’s beautiful: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lastingimages/17342493661

There is a lot of beautiful bridges in the world.

Not many bridges have jewelers and art shops along them.

And they chose to name it after this one.

But not many are more than a thousand years old

Ponte Vecchio first appeared in 996

For comparison the new world was discovered by Columbus 5 centuries later.

USA first appeard 8 hundred years later.

Well for sure if you compare with USA's history, many things are older.

Sure, so what

I mean, they’ve already had “Sandy Bridge”, literally in English. That’s not much better…

Intel uses place names (etc) for code names. I guess they’re using bridges for GPUs and it’s named after the famous bridge in Florence?

Because it's the name of the most popular bridge in Florence (and probably in Italy)

https://www.italiandualcitizenship.net/wp-content/uploads/20...

Hey, at least they didn't call it Millennium Bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London#Reso...

Actually as a recovery from engineering failure that might be a good omen.

It sure it gave them romantic thoughts of a country bridge and probably tested well.

I don't like sand on my CPU either...

Your CPU is made of sand.

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