8 ms·

Choosing a Name for Your Computer

26 points by davidjytang 1y ago

theandrewbailey 1y ago
I've been using LoadingReadyRun's Installation Anxiety sketch[0] as a guide to name computers around my house. I originally had a file server, so I named it toilet, then I had a web server named gram, and named my router dishwasher. I recently started a job where I get to run iventoy[1], so the computer it's running on is paul. [0] https://wiki.loadingreadyrun.com/index.php/Installation_Anxiety https://wiki.loadingreadyrun.com/index.php/Installation_Anxi... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajW2fDy41fY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajW2fDy41fY [1] https://www.iventoy.com/ https://www.iventoy.com/
- wildpeaks 1y ago
  A fellow LRR enjoyer <3
- pathartl 1y ago
  What would you name a smart dishwasher?
  - theandrewbailey 1y ago
    I'd sooner throw out a smart dishwasher than connect it to my network.
  - AvocadoPanic 1y ago
    She already had a name when I married her.
GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
my first tech job was doing datacenter monkeywork and phone support for a small-town ISP. a lot of our older machines predated the "function-number" naming scheme (db01.foobar.net, web03.foobar.net etc) and instead were named after various Middle Earth locales. edge routers took regional names, firewalls usually took mountain names, web/file servers were named after big structures/cities etc. took me forever to learn (since i'd only read the books once at that point) but i've carried it with me for personal machine/local network naming ever since. i like descriptive cattle names for machines i support professionally but home stuff gets to stay fun :)
- ElectricalUnion 1y ago
  I somehow misread "cattle names" and was thinking about bovine names for servers. I guess such naming scheme could work well in a Rancher cluster context.
Tanoc 1y ago
The way I've been naming computers for about a decade now is formfactor, intent, and architecture. So you end up with SBC-MUSIC-ARM, TOWER-SERVER-INTEL, LAPTOP-TEMP-AMD, and so on and so forth. It's great so long as you don't have more than about fifteen computers. For a while there were three desktops in one room all dedicated to rendering, so they received names that when read in order were a nod towards a certain film: 1TOWER-RED, 2TOWER-ON, and 3TOWER-YOU.
- mrpotato 1y ago
  > Don't choose a name after a project unique to that machine. The second paragraph of page 1 describes exactly what happened with your setup :D
master_crab 1y ago
I use Civil War generals. But only the Union side.
tears-in-rain 1y ago
> Don't use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names. Words like "moron" or "twit" are good names if no one else is going to see them. But if you ever give someone a demo on your machine, you may find that they are distracted by seeing a nasty word on your screen. (Maybe their spouse called them that this morning.) Why bother taking the chance that they will be turned off by something completely irrelevant to your demo. This.. Now i have bunch of meme-bros instead of useful colleagues.
- satiric 1y ago
  On the other hand, the very first example they give is "goon"... which, needless to say, has changed meaning in the years since this was written
dpoloncsak 1y ago
Every machine in my home stack is named after a Pokemon. Theres hundreds of options, each pretty unique, and fun. You also get some sense of scale, in that stronger machines can correlate to stronger pokes. Beefy desktop with a strong GPU? Name it after a legendary. RPI? One of the thousand little electric guys. Rotom, voltorb, ..... That daily driver laptop that never leaves your side? I usually pick a starter evo or eeveeloution Cloud server? Pick a flying type. It like having a theme to my whole infrastructure. Even my DuckDDNS is named after porygon, the cyber duck.
- IceWreck 1y ago
  Wow I do the same - down to legendary Pokémon for beefy machines.
euroderf 1y ago
No mention of Japanese movie monsters? For shame. Ignoring a long and honorable tradition.
blahblah42 1y ago
My laptop is named after Rocinante, Don Quixote's horse.
osullish 1y ago
My daily driver is called Unicorse - my favourite character from Bluey
dehugger 1y ago
I use Star Wars planets for computer. Screen time of the planet roughly correlates to the importance of the computer. Home server is Tatooine, Linux laptop is Hoth, gaming desktop is Mustafar, etc.

26 points by davidjytang 1y ago

I've been using LoadingReadyRun's Installation Anxiety sketch[0] as a guide to name computers around my house. I originally had a file server, so I named it toilet, then I had a web server named gram, and named my router dishwasher. I recently started a job where I get to run iventoy[1], so the computer it's running on is paul. [0] https://wiki.loadingreadyrun.com/index.php/Installation_Anxiety https://wiki.loadingreadyrun.com/index.php/Installation_Anxi... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajW2fDy41fY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajW2fDy41fY [1] https://www.iventoy.com/ https://www.iventoy.com/

wildpeaks 1y ago
A fellow LRR enjoyer <3
pathartl 1y ago
What would you name a smart dishwasher?
- theandrewbailey 1y ago
  I'd sooner throw out a smart dishwasher than connect it to my network.
- AvocadoPanic 1y ago
  She already had a name when I married her.

GuinansEyebrows 1y ago

my first tech job was doing datacenter monkeywork and phone support for a small-town ISP. a lot of our older machines predated the "function-number" naming scheme (db01.foobar.net, web03.foobar.net etc) and instead were named after various Middle Earth locales. edge routers took regional names, firewalls usually took mountain names, web/file servers were named after big structures/cities etc. took me forever to learn (since i'd only read the books once at that point) but i've carried it with me for personal machine/local network naming ever since. i like descriptive cattle names for machines i support professionally but home stuff gets to stay fun :)

ElectricalUnion 1y ago
I somehow misread "cattle names" and was thinking about bovine names for servers. I guess such naming scheme could work well in a Rancher cluster context.

Tanoc 1y ago

The way I've been naming computers for about a decade now is formfactor, intent, and architecture. So you end up with SBC-MUSIC-ARM, TOWER-SERVER-INTEL, LAPTOP-TEMP-AMD, and so on and so forth. It's great so long as you don't have more than about fifteen computers. For a while there were three desktops in one room all dedicated to rendering, so they received names that when read in order were a nod towards a certain film: 1TOWER-RED, 2TOWER-ON, and 3TOWER-YOU.

mrpotato 1y ago
> Don't choose a name after a project unique to that machine. The second paragraph of page 1 describes exactly what happened with your setup :D

master_crab 1y ago

I use Civil War generals. But only the Union side.

tears-in-rain 1y ago

> Don't use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names. Words like "moron" or "twit" are good names if no one else is going to see them. But if you ever give someone a demo on your machine, you may find that they are distracted by seeing a nasty word on your screen. (Maybe their spouse called them that this morning.) Why bother taking the chance that they will be turned off by something completely irrelevant to your demo. This.. Now i have bunch of meme-bros instead of useful colleagues.

satiric 1y ago
On the other hand, the very first example they give is "goon"... which, needless to say, has changed meaning in the years since this was written

dpoloncsak 1y ago

Every machine in my home stack is named after a Pokemon. Theres hundreds of options, each pretty unique, and fun. You also get some sense of scale, in that stronger machines can correlate to stronger pokes. Beefy desktop with a strong GPU? Name it after a legendary. RPI? One of the thousand little electric guys. Rotom, voltorb, ..... That daily driver laptop that never leaves your side? I usually pick a starter evo or eeveeloution Cloud server? Pick a flying type. It like having a theme to my whole infrastructure. Even my DuckDDNS is named after porygon, the cyber duck.

IceWreck 1y ago
Wow I do the same - down to legendary Pokémon for beefy machines.

euroderf 1y ago

No mention of Japanese movie monsters? For shame. Ignoring a long and honorable tradition.

blahblah42 1y ago

My laptop is named after Rocinante, Don Quixote's horse.

osullish 1y ago

My daily driver is called Unicorse - my favourite character from Bluey

dehugger 1y ago

I use Star Wars planets for computer. Screen time of the planet roughly correlates to the importance of the computer. Home server is Tatooine, Linux laptop is Hoth, gaming desktop is Mustafar, etc.