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Comment by jackmaney | Hacker News Reader

> I've heard Microsoft built a new real-time telemetry system codenamed "Asimov" (yes, another Halo-influenced codename)

[long, drawn-out sigh] No amount of head-shaking or facepalming will suffice here.

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I facepalm your facepalm.

Is it possible that the author knows about Isaac Asimov, but that she also knows that Asimov is also the name of a character from Halo? And that it fits in a pattern in the Halo context and not in the Sci-fi-author context, and she therefore reports it as such?

What if there were a Halo character called Sinatra, and the Windows feature would be code-named Sinatra, would you call the author out (sigh! facepalm!) for being too stupid to know about the actor?

EDIT: personal pronoun gender. thanks cwyers.

The author is a female. And she adds additional information about the origin of the program inside the Xbox team; it's not that she doesn't know who Asimov is, it's more likely that someone involved in it TOLD HER that they took the name from Halo, which in turn used the name of the writer.

But the weird part is that there isn't a Halo character called Asimov. The author's own potholed link to the Halo wikia just shows an "Asimov Center" as a briefly mentioned location in one short story. And even the tiny article for it takes time to explain who it was named after.

Linking the name "Asimov" with the Halo games seems to be a bizarre speculation/research failure on her part, as far as I can tell.

As the article goes on to note:

"One of my contacts said Asimov is a system that the Xbox team originally built and used during its development process."

I don't see why you'd need to facepalm the Xbox team using a codename from the Halo series, or why it's so headshaking that the larger Windows team would adopt a tool from the Xbox team they found useful.

I assume OP is referring to the fact that the name Asimov isn't well known for being part of Halo. At least, I hope the writer would be considered more popular.

Yes, this.

It's about as depressing as people 5000 years from now thinking that most of what 21st century people knew about birds was disseminated using an ancient application called Angry Birds.

I think it is more of the fact, that OS will be shipped with remote monitoring built in. <sarcasm> Privacy advocates everywhere rejoice. </sarcasm>

Windows has had telemetry since forever (well since at least XP). It has gone by several names including "The Windows Feedback Program" (Windows 7).

I really do not see how telemetry is same as feedback. One is proactive constant monitoring with automatic data collection and second is reactive report submission that asks every time before sending report.

Or even more simply, why it really matters what the codename is at all.

Well the Xbox team got it from the sci-fi author. The point is it might be inspired by Halo, but the Halo reference is inspired by the author. It's like saying John Locke is a reference to Lost, when Lost co-opted it from the philosopher.

But John Locke in lost is merely a reference to and not the same as, John Locke the philosopher.

Not everything with the same name is the same thing, and it's possible to reference the second in a series of shared names that itself is referencing the first.

References aren't transitive, in this case.

Well, Windows Phone has been using the name Cortana for their Siri-equivalent. The codename for the next version of IE is reportedly Spartan[1], which is used in Halo. The codename for the upcoming version of Windows is Threshold[2], which again is a name that shows up in Halo. Naming everything after things in Halo is apparently Microsoft's new thing.

1) http://www.zdnet.com/how-the-next-version-of-ie-codenamed-sp... 2) http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-taps-the-halo-franchise-...

Mary Jo Foley is a well-known Microsoft reporter and has been for a lonnnnnng time (I would bet on 15 years without Googling). She's also sharp and plugged into the tech scene, with the usual savviness to develop sources inside corps. I've met her at a couple conferences. She's probably read a few Asimov books.

What I think the quote shows is not a lack of awareness about other uses of "Asimov" but that much of her stories are copy-pasted from emails with Microsoft marketers. Someone in Microsoft (Azure?) wants you to know about "Asimov"... perhaps an announcement next week? This way Mary Jo looks like she is relevant and you are primed to want to learn more...

Edit: I agree with the facepalm, just for different reasons

What a bizarre connection to make. Maybe I'm out-of-date on my Halo lore but I don't think there's even anyone/thing significant in that universe named after him. Indeed, the search on the Halo wiki she links only reveals an "Asimov Centre" briefly mentioned in one short story and a quarter of the tiny article is a sentence explaining who Isaac Asimov was.

/s Yes, Asimov was the real name of Master Chief. His compatriots were Bradbury and Heinlein.

always bet on ellison

Thanks for dominating discussion of the story with this horseshit.

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