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Ask HN: Do you name your devices?

4 points by eksith ↗ HN
Be it desktops, laptops, mobile phones or tablets (maybe even embedded gadgets?) I've seen people giving them a nickname.

I've noticed users of Apple products tend to do this more even if their machines aren't beefy monsters full of CPU and RAM (unlike PC users who do this usually only if they build their own as afore mentioned beefy monsters). Home servers also get this honor and I've called mine Seat ... Because that's where Pudding sits : http://eksith.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/20130210_092538.jpg

Well, any namers out there?

11 comments

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LoneWolf
I used to do it more than I do now, but I still have a "DarkStorm" (server) and had a "LightStorm" too (yup another server). My laptop had two names "Lappy" and "Ghost" (Lappy atm) my desktop now is named "LightStorm" since I killed the the server with the same name, not much more naming than that.
eksith
I named my old Inspiron 8200 "Ghost"! There's a story behind that: Once upon a time, I ran a community called Ghostnetworks and I actually hosted the first node on my laptop (don't laugh).
noonespecial
Mine name themselves:

ifconfig eth0 | awk '/HWaddr/ { gsub(/:/,""); print "LTS-"$5}'

eksith
That's actually clever. There should be a similar method for babies. Alas, I fear too many parents flock to People Magazine than gsub.
noonespecial
Well it would have saved us from that tsunami of Jennifers the 70's laid on us. Not sure what Tommy Tutone would have done though....
marssaxman
Always! Every machine I've ever owned and every workstation I've used gets a name.

I've never named my phones, though; you'd think they would be more personal, but somehow they feel less personal, like they don't really belong to me in the same way that a proper computer does.

eksith
I have the same opionion on phones actually. That may have something to do with the fact that they're not really independent and their very use is limited by connectivity to a wireless provider. That makes them feel... chained?

Do you build your machines? Care to list a few names?

webdestroya
My machines are named after Firefly/Serenity people/places.

NAS: Skyplex

Laptop: Inara

Media Server: Serenity

Router: Persephone

hashtree
All celestial bodies in our solar system, usually the most fitting (e.g. Io for a file server). This includes looking at the meaning of greek mythological figures from time to time.
abhijat
Yes : gotham (gaming desktop), krypton(macbook air) and apothecary (thinkpad x201s with fedora) are my current machines.

My current ipod is called odin, the earlier one was igor, and there was a shuffle called skippy which I lost.

Also my debian VPS is called arachnid, because it runs a crawler.