Fountainhead: February 2013

Driving around silicon valley on routes 101 and 280 ("The 101" and "The 280" if you're from California) you can't help but notice this isn't like the rest of America. You'll see dozens of Priuses and Teslas... and even the occasional Fisker. But what really drives-home the fact that this is northern CA -- the heart of Silicon Valley -- are the Vanity plates.

Herein I post plates that I personally see (or submitted by friends). And boy, are there a ton of proud techy nerds driving around. To wit:

011111 - Guest vanity plate submission. Yes, probably a machine language nerd, but what's the message?

100MBPS - The guy is clearly into networking. And he's probably flaunting the bandwidth he has to his car.

1E4 Gauss. That's a Tesla.... literally and mathematically. James Maxwell and Carl Gauss would be proud of ya'.

68000. Geeky reference to the Motorola 68000 processor used in the first Macs. And parked outside the Hillsdale Apple store. D'oh.

802.11AC - Guest submission from @DavidGee - Think high-bandwidth WiFi protocol, and you'll get the picture of how truly nerdy this plate really is.

AD CLIK. One click at a time, and away goes all of your personal information... into their wallet.

Airpods. What he listens with, what he does, and probably how he affords the ride.

Apple. No, not Steve's car. But I'm sure they've had multiple offers for this plate. Wondering how many times it's been stolen. Oh... and years later, I see the owner made a major hardware upgrade!

Apple22. Could it be an early employee? Then again, it could be a car service.

Apple MV - Apple Mountain View? Momentous Vision? Motor Vehicle?

APPLE OS - More general purpose than saying Lion or Tiger or any other aggressive mammal. (also see AAPL 9 below)

AAPL 9. Ticker for you-know-what. Possibly referring to employee number, iPhone version, MacOS or other? (also see AAPL OS above)

APS Market - Maybe they work for Google Play? Apple App Store?

ARM Pwrd. Oh boy, that's a RISCy vanity plate.

BEA Number 1. BEA… fastest SW company to reach $1B. And this is a Proud Man (and the ex-BEA CEO). Go Cardinals.

BLM RCH - Short for BloomReach. Big Data analytics. Small Car transportation.

BOX.NET - Squarely an #OnlyInSiliconValley qualifier.

BSSID - Basic Service Set ID (for those not in the know). He knows his wireless MAC, daddy.

ByLogic - Is this about how they think? Or are they into rational biology?

Byte Law. I take that to be a metaphor for Shark Attorney. Nice Karma.

Byte Guy. Original editor of that dated magazine? Machine Language programmer?

C6H12O6. Sugar, sugar. Clearly owned by a lover of sweets... or a food chemist?

Canadian Engineer. Met this guy.... owned by a proud Canuck from the GWN. And, no less, a real Rocket Scientist.

CashFlow - Literally found this one in a VC's parking lot. Too apropos.

CLKMAIL - That would be Click Mail. Smart email.

Cloud C. [Guest submission] Wow, just wow. Thanks @geoffarnold

CMD SHFT. Now that car's got to have an awesome function keystroke.

Comp LWR. Whether this lawyer is into computers or compensation, another only-in-silicon-valley sighting. Probably knows the Byte Law guy above.

Comp Sci - So very proud of their coding degree.

CPTR NRD - For the Computer Nerd. Need I say more?

CTRL-ALT - Makes me want to cry out "DEL". Clearly a close personal friend of CMD-SHFT noted above.

CTRL-G Turning the new page of life.

CTXS Ready - For those in the know, it's the Citrix technology compatibility program. Thanks @swarna for reminding me to post.

Cyber404 - License not Found ?

DNS NMBRS - What you do when 12 digits won't fit in a 7 digit field.

DP AAPL. This is an obscure one. I think they must have made money by being a Depository Participant (DP) brokering Apple Stock.

Engineer F+ - What do you call the person who graduates last in their engineering class? An engineer.

Ethernet - This was parked right around the corner from where I live. I'm thinking the car also dates back to the first time that a 10baseT got plugged in... And it turns out - indeed - that it was owned by David

Boggs, co-inventor of the internet! Only in Silicon Valley...

FACEBK - needs no introduction Guest submission by former colleague @mitchparker. Plate probably does not belong to Mark Z.

Geek Girl - And proud of it.

GIGA OM - Could be the Man himself, Om Malik... but more likely an analyst at the firm. (Guest submission by Dave Berger)

Good AI. Better than Tepid AI. The enemy of Perfect AI. (Guest submission sighted by @davidgee)

Google. Yet another proud (and perhaps, financially independent) Googler.

Googled. Past-tense verb, past-tense employee, or statement of financial status?

Go Pure: My bet is it's a Pure Storage marketing vehicle. Is a vanity plate fee deductible as a business expense?

Hacker Gurl - yup, that girls-that-code initiative sure seems to have paid off.... or has it?

HAX 4 BUX - Clearly a blue team or red-team member? Ethical hacking, I hope. (Guest submission by @guycole)

HAX R US - Ditto above. (Guest submission... thanks @bitsavers)

Hey RTFM - [Guest submission] Clearly displayed by an enlightened, yet very frustrated, front-line IT support person. For the uninitiated, think: Read The F%&# Manual... a common complaint when dealing with instruction-averse users. Thanks again to @skpodila for finding this via @UODucks.

Hi Tecky. Not entirely tech. Just a little.

HTML 20. So classic. So IETF. So groundbreaking. But so 1995.

HTTP 204 - No Content. Is this guy trying not to say something? Must also be a super-nerd given they graduated from Hogwarts. (Guest Submission from Laura A)

HTTP 402 - Payment Required. And, evidently, this chap in the shiny M3 is the recipient.

HTTP 451 - Error code for Site Unavailable for Legal Reasons - If, for example, it's censored by the government. I'm soooo curious what business this guy has. Or had.

HTTP 501 - uhh... License Plate Service Not Found?

HW ENG - Hardware is still king, despite how much software-defined-everything seems to dominate trade press.

HW Engr - Hardware is still king, despite how much software-defined-everything seems to dominate trade press.

I Binary. And I think he was doing 100 in bumper-to-bumper traffic on RT 101. (Get it?) LOL.

I Crypto - Crypto? (Or de-crypto?)

I Debug. What Claudius the engineer says. One classy coder.

I Hate Microsoft Well, someone was either burned bad by Balmer, or worked for Sun Micro at some point in their career. [Guest submission] Thanks to @derek32smith for snapping the pic and for @skpodila for bringing to my attention.

I LOVE GOOGLE - I'm betting they love that ticker too, judging from the quality of Ride they were driving.

I Love Lytro - This guy clearly knows something about Light Field imaging cameras and sensors. If you don't believe me, ask Andreessen-Horowitz, Greylock and NEA.

In Beta - You know this person does lots of development and testing. I wonder if their other vehicle has "Outa Beta"?

Innovate IP - Judging from the high-end Porsche this is bolted to, I'm guessing they're an IP attorney, or made serious coin with IP licensing (no pun intended).

Innovation. How Apropos. And especially perfect when found on a Tesla.

iPodded. You did? I was unaware there was a past tense of a noun.

IP Reuse - Intellectual Property or Internet Protocol? Patent lawyer or inventor of DHCP? IPv4 company car? You get to decide.

IPSEC - that would be IP Security. This is a serious network security guy. And apparently, the profession pays.

IP Video. Besides, who uses broadcast TV or cable anymore? This photo also receives the "Only in Silicon Valley" bonus award for the MIT license plate frame.

ISO27001 - Do ya think they're into InfoSec and Risk Management?

Java Com. Likely a reference to java.com But what's with the "Got Coffee" reference? (Hopefully just wry humor.) 3rd Java-related vanity plate sighting!

Java Fun. Love this one. And it ain't about coffee… cross-referencing SUNW above.

Java Man. From the looks of this plate, it historically pre-dates Java Fun (above) and possibly Neanderthal Man as well. Could it possibly even pre-date the programming language?

Jedi Coder - Not modest in the least... and on a P100D. Must be quite the coder.

JR GEEK - Apparently not yet a Major Geek... or I suppose they're just a maturing Nerd?

Love To Code. A quintessential vanity plate of Silicon Valley. Love what you do.

Live to Byte - Bitten by the technology bug, or biting the software bug?

Malware. (Guest submission by @paullipman). Do you think the driver creates or defends?

MEMLEAK - modern version of oil leak? Or maybe they know I Debug, above?
(Guest submission by D. Berger)

Mozilla - a Fiery, Foxy vehicle.

MY IoT - Just one of a few billion programmable Internet-of-Things. This one just happens to have four wheels. (Guest submission from a friend)

NASDQ FB: Many of you will instantly recognize the references to the exchange and to the ticker.

Nerd Nation - How apropos. It certainly seems that way, living here inside the Bubble.

Net BSD - can you say highly-portable open-source Linux O/S?

NETGURL - Faster than a speeding packet. More powerful than a 32-core CPU. Able to leap great latencies with a single bound. It's.... NetGurl.

NETPOP1 - If you're a geek, this means a Network Point-of-Presence. If you're not, you're just a cool networked dad.

Net Sclr. Judging that this was taken in a Citrix parking lot, I'm guessing this guy has something to do with NetScaler. That's auto load balancing for network traffic, not load balancing for automobile suspension in traffic.

Neural Net. (Guest Submission) That this is on a NetFlix plate holder makes me wonder how their recommendation engine really works....

Nfobahn for the autobahn. But is the Benz speedier than my 2 gig WiFi?

No Login. (Guest submission from @AndrewShikiar ) Spotted on the way to an Identity and Authentication conference. Passwordless is on the way.

Not PC. A Mac user, then?

NVIDIA GPU. Best-guess is the owner designs Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) at NVIDIA. Stock appreciation clearly helped buy this ride. (Guest submission from @LauraAgarwal)

Patent: This one speaks for itself. Their other car is probably a Bentley.

PA VC. Either cute spousal initials… or a Palo Alto Venture Capitalist? You decide.

Pixar4U. Had to include this one, with its San Francisco and Emeryville roots, as well for as its Cupertino-based Jobsian funding.

PIXXL - Is this a commentary on the size of the vehicle, or on their display technology profession?

POSIX. Once there was O/S compatibility. Those were the days.

PPT DIVA - Probably works for Duarte. Seriously... how would we possibly convey any ideas at work if it were not for PowerPoint?

PR Maven - In the world of high-tech, your Public Relations staff need to be bold. Clearly not lost on this PR professional.

PWR V*I. Another apropos Tesla vanity plate right around the corner from me. What? That's a Watt.

Quantum - An apropos Si Valley vanity plate found on a compact 2-seater.
...was that a wave, particle, or BMW Z4??

Roblox. Dedicated gamer, or committed game designer?

ROM RAM - Cute couple's initials? Maybe. But more likely that this guy's into volatile and nonvolatile memory technology.

SaaS APM. Why do we use acronyms in Silicon Valley? Because that's short for Software-as-a-Service (delivered) Application Performance Management. Guessing this one's owned by someone from NewRelic or AppDynamics?

Server Dude - An Iron Hugger in a Prius? Anyway, hoping to find Server Gal soon. To pair with HKRGRL and NETGURL above.

Silica. His wife's car is plated SiO2. I have to wonder what form of the compound he made his fortune with. (Perfect for a Blog post with the word "Silicon" in it).

Silicon 4 Sale - That's how Silicon Valley got its name in the first place. FAB-ulous plate!

SGML. <comment> Standard Generalized Markup Language </comment>
<Type> ISO8879

SIGSTOP. (Guest submission from David B). A Linux geek who prefers to Pause, rather than Kill. Perhaps a message to pursuing RoboCops?

Siri - Hey Siri, are you owned by the same driver of the Benz?

Siri - Hey Siri, please bring my Benz around to the front of the estate...

SMB Guru. [Guest submission] Yep, that's his thang. Small Businesses. Billboard or vanity plate? Thanks @AnuragTechaisle

Square Wave - Vehicle corners tightly, not sinusoidally.

SUNW. A bygone ticker preceding a bygone ticker (JAVA) for a bygone company (now ORCL) that held a special place in my heart. Alas, it didn't look like Scott was the guy driving.

SUPER AI - Maybe an update to Tesla's Auto Pilot? (doubt it).

Syntax Error - A frustrated compiler designer?

TAO WEB - The way of the Web? The path of Packet? The avenue of the Applet? The trail of TCP/IP? Ommm.....

Think Different. Another AAPL employee toeing the company line?

U+1F697. That's unicode for the car emoji. Totally nerded-out. (Guest submission from @veltman)

UNIX. 'nuff said. (Guest submission from @davidgee)

UPDATES - For that Tesla, that's not any updates, but over-the-air-updates.

UX Dzinr. [Guest submission] And that's quite a user experience you're driving Mr. Designer. Thanks @susanwu88. Recently saw this guy in my neighborhood. So I'll take credit for the sighting, too.

VC Chic - Funder of fashion startups? (Guest submission from L. Agarwal)

Venture. I'm guessing that's the industry that got this guy/gal their Tesla, as well as their spot in Woodside where this was photographed.

VMUNIX - I'm nerding out here... Back in 1979, 3BSD (the third Berkeley Software Unix Distribution) was released. First to have Virtual Memory, hence VM. I'm guessing that by the type of license plate this Beemer is sporting, this guy was part of it. Also loving this latest find due to the Net BSD plate two clicks up.