Continuing on from previous threads

[threads as metaphor for ongoing brain activity presents an interesting visual when I ruminate on it]

this is the pre-amble

Let me give some context.  I used to have a chromebook, which is to say that there is an unused chromebook in my apartment, but it is unused due to having suffered damage making it nigh unusable; in that sense, I don’t “have” it anymore. Where “it” is a working usable chromebook.

And the process, years ago, of researching and shopping for that chromebook was involved and lengthy, and rife with indecision up to and after clicking on the order button. But I was ultimately really happy with it, and ultimately really sad when it broke.  I don’t remember the order of events, if I purchased my fancypants gaming laptop before the chromebook was knocked out of service, but regardless, it has been missed.

And once again, there has been months of speculation and research, pouring over and comparing specs, reading reviews and user feedback on the finer points, fawning over higher end pricey things that I really want but cannot justify.  Talking myself in and out of it, and doing this on repeat. YOLO! bills! whatevs old man! carpe diem!  you ain’t gonna carpe squat.  rah.

Long story short (too late), a lot has lead up to this point. And I am trying, now that I am here, to make the most of it. I am fighting fatigue to push myself out in the world. I am struggling really hard against a brick-filled brain that wants to shut everything down. And honestly this is all garbage and hopefully nobody ever reads it, but that doesn’t matter.  Point is I’m here and I’m doing it. every paragraph is like a penny off the purchase price, infinitesimal incremental justification for this unnecessary extravagance. I am leaning in.

this is the point

And to complete my embrace of this whole mess, we must have the bonding process with the device itself. It is an Acer Chromebook 11, but it needs to be something more. The instance of the make and model, the one that is mine, must have its own identity so that we can be friends. That is the place I am at, the process I am engaging with. And this is where I have been stymied.

l put a bitchin’ sticker on the back (maybe I’ll figure out how to add a pic here). Always wanted to have a cool laptop with cool stickers on it but this is the first time I’ve successfully done it. But one of the key methods by which we baptize our belongings is by giving them names. This is particularly true for computers in the network age. As citizens of a network, devices need identities, and hostnames and device names are and have been how we do this for forever.

Chromebooks don’t get names.  ChromeOS simply does not have a mechanism to attach a human readable alias to a MAC address.  Whoever was in charge of that didn’t think it was necessary.  And that BUGS THE SHIT OUT OF ME.

There are some options to deal with this.  I could, for example, install crouton and have linux on this, and that would have a hostname.  Or I could ignore the technical failure and simply refer to it by name like some troubling individuals do with their large firearms. But the former is an unnecessary amount of work, and the second feels a little hollow. Maybe more stickers are the answer.

I’m still considering names. Leucothea is a bit of a mouthful, and Ceridwen doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. I’ve got time, I’ll keep looking.Hopefully when I find it, I’ll have figured out what to do with it.

Dear Mr. Chrome OS guy, what were you thinking?