When getting a new machine, there’s a series of steps you go through; you remove the wrapping and gawk at its beautiful design (or not, in which case maybe you should have bought a Mac), you flip through the accessory CD’s and cables, you start- and setup the machine, you tweak all of the preferences until everything perfectly fits the habits (and quirks) you’ve acquired over the years. Finally … there’s the namegiving; what do you name that Macintosh HD (or My Computer, in which case maybe you should have bought a Mac)?

There’s always the option of accepting that it doesn’t matter that much what you name your computer — but really, let’s get serious; if it isn’t important there’s no reason for me to write this blog entry — and thereby I’d be throwing away the opportunity to excercise the intelligence that Evolution worked so hard to produce. That would just be rude to Evolution, and I don’t want to be rude.

Over the years I’ve come to try and find names that inspire me. My current desktop machine is named Serafin after a children’s book I loved when I was younger (and still love). My former laptop was named Dedalo — meaning “Labyrinth”. It has to be something with meaning and preferably give me something to think about. After all, it’s the name of the machine that extends my creative capabilities to infinity and beyond. It’s only logical that the name of a machine for creation inspires creation.

But at this point, I would really like to see my computer find its own name. Unfortunately, my research on artificial creativity is still at a stage where such a task is unrealistic. But damn it would be cool. As I’ve already had my new MacBook for two days without naming it, I’m gonna brainstorm a bit about how I could get it to name itself, in at least, a pseudo-intellectual manner.

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