Time vs Money


Carrot Kiwi Banana is a great way to get to know your co-workers a bit more. It's definitely not my idea, it came from a [post on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/carrot-kiwi-banana-remko-vermeulen).

The idea is this: 3 subjects with 2 slides and 1 minute each. Three people choose a subject each. It can be anything they like, they learned, they want to do, anything in the world. They have to made two slides for that subject, and they have one minute to present it to everyone.

We wanted to try this while I was working with [NiceDay](https://niceday.app), and we edited the format slightly. We used to have lunch talks, that used to be one presentation about something, sometimes having a guest, a client or an external professional doing it. We replaced that with our own Carrot Kiwi Banana. We had three people choose a subject, they had to do two slides each (sometimes it was one, sometimes it was three, but two was the suggestion), and we gave two-three minutes for the presentation.

The idea for these changes to the format was mostly to be able to have all three presentations happen in the first 5-10 minutes of lunch, and no more. After the presentations were done, the three presenters would nominate the next three presenters, for two weeks later. After that, they would join everyone else on the table. CKB was not taking too long, it was fun, and it allowing for time after the presentations for possible questions or just discussions while enjoying lunch.

These three subjects served as a great conversation starter, or sparked interesting questions and follow-ups. We had presentations about keyboard layouts, tips for saving money, design imitating life, origin of certain words, factor.io, and many other fun ones!

Try it! All you need is a schedule and the three initial presenters. To make it easier, the hosts could also use a Google Slides template that is cloned for every CKB day, and presenters can add their slides in there directly, so that all presentations happen in one machine, for easier transitions (no unplugging or switching machines etc).

If you did try or want to try, I want to know all about it! Hit me up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/pvinis)!


Carrot Kiwi Banana


Always choose time if you can.

Spend the money, and gain the time.

It's worth it.



You might have noticed that my blog is called `Purple Royale`. Sounds silly? Get ready, because it will get more colorful up in here!

So you know how devices have names? `iPhone` or `John's iPhone` or `5PLA7` or whatever else. I don't like these names. I don't like the plain name, not the code name, and not the `<someone's name> <device name>`.

Many years ago I was looking for a device naming scheme. It had to be interesting to me, it had to have at least "a lot" of possible names, and it had to be easy for me to generate these names.

I googled and I asked what other friends use. I remember a friend (and a great dev) used physicist names, which I found cool but not too interesting and hard to generate for me. Yes, googling for a name is too much work. Other schemes I found I think on Wikipedia were not too interesting either, so much so, I don't even remember them or care to find them again. I decided to make my own.

## Colors!

I'll name my devices with colors. Thats interesting to me, there are definitely a lot of them to not run out soon, and its easy for me to think of a color, and only if I want a very unique color, I can use online help.

#### List of names I've used, roughly in order 🤷‍♂, with explanations and my thought process:

- **red**

An iPhone, it wasn't red. But a good color to start with. red.

- **black**

Another iPhone, that one was black. black.

- **purple**

My first macbook, that I got used from a good friend. purple is my favorite color (could you tell?), and that was my main machine, so it deserved it. purple.

- **blaxk**

iPhone X black, hence the `x` instead of `c`. blaxk.

- **blue**

A server I had running. Running my own server is cool, blue is cool, blue.

- **redo**

A server I had running but in Japan, so, redo 😅. At that point red, remember, the first iPhone on the list, that was gone, so red would be free to reuse too, but I wanted something more Japanese. I thought of the JP flag, has red, make it a bit more Japanese-y, redo.

- **green**

The macbook I had from work when I worked at a company doing football streaming. football, green.

- **white**

My ipad. Generic device, generic name. white.

- **royal-purple**

The next macbook, I bought that one myself new. It was an upgrade from purple, so royal-purple.

- **pavlos' airpods**

😬 Yea that one was like that. For some reason when I got the first airpods, I didn't think they needed a device name like that. Shameful 😛.

- **royal-black**

That was my next iphone, I felt like keeping the black color for my phones, so from blaxk i went to royal-black, similar to the macbook. At the time of naming, I didn't feel like looking for a different shade of black, so the easy name was that. royal-black.

- **maroon**

My next airpods. This time I got a nice name for them. red was the first iphone I named, maroon is close enough but darker, fitting for the airpods, used usually with my iphone. maroon.

- **samblue**

I got a nice TV, a Samsung. I saw that I can change the name of it, so I thought of something nice, blue is nice. Samsung + blue, samblue.

- **lavender**

The next work macbook. This one is close to purple as a color, because I really like that company I'm with. Its subject is art, I enjoy working there a lot, lavender felt like a good combination. lavender.

- **royal-blanc**

Not a new device totally. My royal-black broke and I got it replaced. So as it needs a new name but not a totally different name, I made a small change typographically speaking. royal-blanc.

- **the-pink**

I got a little gaming PC for myself. It's small, it's cool, it allows me to play games and talk with my friends, quarantine style. Even though I have the lights on the case colored purple, the PC is a nice little fancy thing, so I wanted pink as a name. Just pink didn't feel special enough. the-pink.

- **wh1te**

Similar to royal-blanc but not really. I got a second ipad from my brother. Sticking with white for the ipads, that one felt like an upgrade to the last one, so again, small change. wh1te.

- **hookers-green**

I got a gaming laptop to be able to play and talk with friends while I'm away from home. It was an unexpected buy, but one that definitely was a good one. It's windows, which I like slightly less than mac, it's a lenovo, which I like less than macbooks. So I looked for a less great color. To me that was green. green was free since I had left the company that gave me that macbook before, but still I didn't want to reuse. green was that one. This should have another name. I googled for shades of green, and there it was. A funny silly name for a shade of green, perfect for that laptop! hookers-green.

- **yellow**

I decided to name the linode server I have to yellow. It's in Europe this time, but the color has nothing to do with that. Just a color that will not be used for any of my main daily devices, so I might as well use it there. yellow.

- **neon-orange**

I got a Synology to use as an extra backup thing and some other uses. So you know that neon orange vest that workers wear, so you can spot them from afar and in the dark? That's what this NAS is doing. It's a worker, backing up, doing things for the betterment of my data. And I need to acknowledge that. neon-green.

My **current devices** are royal-blanc, royal-purple, lavender, maroon, the-pink (when I'm home), hookers-green (when I'm not home), wh1te, samblue, yellow, neon-orange.

### Wow

So there we go! People have asked why my phone is called that or commented on the name of my airpods etc. Now we all know where these come from. From the need to have a unique device name (unique within my devices, but being unique in the sea of `John's iPhone`s doesn't hurt either. They are fun and easy to remember, for me. They are easy to recognize, for me. They make sense, to me.

Do you have an interesting device naming scheme? Let me know on [twitter](https://twitter.com/pvinis).
