FYI, "Buy N Large" was the fictional Costco-like store from Pixar's WALL-E.

I suspect the name may just be to confuse anyone trying to look into it. "By and Large" returns over 250 million results in Google. Anyone looking to find permits, job postings, or random government filings would need to dig through tons of unrelated cruft.

This is done pretty often for shell companies, they will have names like "Twisting River" or just "Investment Vehicle VII, LLC"

If you want to throw people off the beaten path (and you have google's money) it would be trivial to acquire a small company or even create one from scratch that actually does something, anything rather than give a name which is sure to scream "shell company" and get people's sniffers out.

They could have probably found a way to take even the name that was similar to an overseas company that has a connection to shipping, maritime etc. and simply do a variation of that (and make it in a way that doesn't infringe any trademarks).

That way all the pain in the ass bystanders would simply jump quickly to the obvious wrong conclusion and move to something else.

My point being is that if you are truly trying to hide something then at least put some effort into creating a good distraction.

> it would be trivial to acquire a small company or even create one from scratch that actually does something

It's clear they are optimizing for fun.

I kind of doubt that these two names are related except that they both derive from the same common idiom.

Also "by and large" is a nautical term meaning (roughly) "whether sailing against the wind or sailing with the wind".

While we're speculating on the meaning behind the name(s) RE:wind, remember that Google acquired Makani Power a while back. They build wind generated power systems using large kites. What better place to put them into production than at sea where there isn't much worry about crashing to the ground.

http://www.makanipower.com/home/

unlikely that the Makani planes would be run from a ship. They each have a huge arc, much larger than the diameter of a traditional turbine.

Furthermore, what's the concern with them crashing in to the ground? It's not like they plan to install them directly over populated areas.

From the website: "Opens up large new areas of wind resource, including the vast resources offshore above deep water"[1]

Doesn't sound that far fetched that they would try to anchor this to the barge to try to tap that potential.

[1] - http://www.makanipower.com/why-airborne-wind/

>> unlikely that the Makani planes would be run from a ship.

Something like this, perhaps: http://www.skysails.info/english

Interesting to interpret in that context. Maybe a data center intended to work best exactly when other centers would be experiencing losses in connectivity?

and a common phrase (though a little less used than in previous generations) meaning 'generally'

Confirmed about the generational decline: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=by+and+large&y...

I wouldn't put it past Google to use a tongue-in-cheek name, especially when a good hunk of WALL-E takes place around a massive starship that serves as a floating ark.

The nautical double-entendre that ZeroGravitas mentions only sweetens the deal.

Noting that the domain byandlarge.com was registered in 1998 by a "domainer".

Interesting. The movie came out in 2008.

But the film concept dates to the mid 90's so most likely that concept was the first use of that name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E

It's a relatively common phrase, not too surprising that someone snapped it up.

Except in the movie it is Buy not By...

The picture of what we're guessing is the data center is BAL0010 which is listed as a Passenger vessel above.

Hypothesis found in comments on OP website:

BY AND LARGE = Brin sergeY AND LARry paGE?

They are all attached to one TREQ