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Comment by john_strinlai | Hacker News Reader

a lot of these company names are kind of hilariously non-descript. no smart wordplay, no chance of coming up with a good jingle for a commercial. exactly what you would expect, really.

"Science Applications International Corp"

"Radiation Monitoring Devices Inc"

"Physical Optics Corp"

"Physical Sciences Inc"

"Applied Nanotech Inc"

edit: this is a light hearted comment. i am not saying your favorite non-descriptly-named company is worse than any other name.

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There’s an interesting talk that relates to this: Trevor Paglen’s “Seeing the Secret State: Six Landscapes”[0]. He investigates some of the front companies involved in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. They mostly have unassuming names, presumably by design.

[0]: https://youtu.be/lvEMSRKniWk

The cover is a strange thing to judge a book by. SAIC isn't somehow worse because they couldn't think of a witty name 60 years ago. IBM couldn't either, nor General Motors. Basic descriptive names are actually pretty good compared to meaningless "Meta" or "Google" that have no idea what industry they even want to appear to be in.

>SAIC isn't somehow worse because they couldn't think of a witty name 60 years ago.

is "non-descript" an insult now, or something? where do you read "worse" in my comment?

Your comment reads as negative about the corporations even if that's not what you intended. There's something about the way it's reads (I noticed myself when I read your comment, then noticed your edit at the bottom). Nuance usually does not translate well on the internet.

That's what I did when I created a hemp company in 2019. And then I registered a dba (doing business as) with the real name. It made banking easier.

The first one is literally a well-known massive corporation

>The first one is literally a well-known massive corporation

i am sorry, i really must have messed up in my comment somewhere. on top of not trying to insult these companies by saying they have non-descript names, i was also not trying to imply that they are small.

non-descript, and what i expected of government contractor names. thats all.

International Business Machines…

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company

General Mills

General Motors

American Telephone and Telegraph Company…

You seem to have it backwards. Companies being called Poopity Scoop is a modern phenomenon.

Companies have otherwise been named like this for centuries.

i havent heard a good jingle for any of those

(i didnt make the judgement you think i made. i simply said they are what i expected: very non-descript)

IBM had a corporate songbook!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YBpNzxz1XgU

that was fascinating, i had no idea. and, surprisingly, i dont think i knew of this channel which seems to have a ton of interesting videos. thanks for that.

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