The Peril of the Laptop Sticker | Hacker News Reader

The Peril of the Laptop Sticker

callercallsback.com

38 pointsohjeez38 comments

I just have random stickers as it's easier to find your laptop in a pile of uniform MacBooks in security lines or at work. Also sometimes it's a good conversation starter if you are at a conference or cafe and people recognize one.

Mine: https://i.imgur.com/pb074g0.jpg

Nice to see a fellow Whatter (RIP)

Proving my point that people will recognize niche stickers :)

Never personally seen a wcd sticker in the wild but once I was visiting a stately home and saw a guy sporting the MTV logo style wcd T-shirt. Possibly the first design they did?

Yea I have that shirt too. Don't think it was the first design, there were a bunch of others before that from what I remember and can see in my collection.

Aha, I may have just assumed that because it looked very well worn :-)

Mine is easily identified in a tech conference as the only one without stickers.

The Grateful Dead had a similar issue with trying to find gear at festival shows, so Owsley "Bear" Stanley and friends came up with the Steal Your Face logo.

http://www.thebear.org/GDLogo.html

It's only a personal observation, but I've always associated laptop stickers with the same sort of demographic that likes to plaster their cars with bumper stickers.

Could be. But there is a much lazier laptop sticker demographic. It is by far the lowest effort way to tell one MacBook from another. The people who do this with stickers they got at a meetup are the same demographic as healthcare researchers who use pens and writing pads with the name of a prescription medication. It is the lowest effort way to jot something down.

These people don’t have bumper stickers because a bumper sticker isn’t a low effort way into o do anything. They do tend to have a permanent layer of dust on their car as well as parking stickers that expired six years ago, though

Anyone I know with laptop stickers does not have bumper stickers, so there's that. But that may be because bumper stickers are not a thing round here.

I have a "powered by MonogDB" bumper sticker...

... and laptop stickers too.

It took me a long time to put stickers on my laptop.. But I still would not put a sticker on the outside of my car, unless its a sponsors logo on the track car.

There's also another distinction there to be made, that a bumper sticker is a very low-effort garnish for your car. I wouldn't consider a tuning manufacturers logo on the rear of a race car to be a 'bumper sticker', for instance.

To me, stickers layer on a laptop like history. When I retire a laptop, it takes on a character seen outside a theater with layers of posters for bands.

Here’s mine -

https://imgur.com/a/BzweZEQ

I agree, and I work to preserve the historical timeline... The seed for my next pristine macbook: https://photos.app.goo.gl/h3Fx2DEe5cD7Mkqw6

>No matter how ugly the sticker is, you pretty much have to put it on your laptop

what world is this person living in? If your sticker is ugly, I won't put it on my laptop and I'll probably say "no thanks" when offered. If asked I'll explain what problem I have with the sticker. Maybe i'm just an asshole.

>Stickering a laptop is a social dance with its own moves and behavioral expectations.

Every time I think there are no more possible ways to be surprised at how strict cultural conformity in the bay area is, you guys manage to show me something new.

I wouldn't read too much into it. I don't think I've had a conversation concerning those stickers other than asking about a conference attendance or questions about their place of work.

I'm not a fan of seeing corporate logo stickers on laptops. Instead, I go for full-page custom artwork, for example: https://www.nayuki.io/res/patchouli-knowledge-laptop-sticker...

Hey, nice patchouli!!

On topic, I always prefer getting an aftermarket lid case before putting on all the stickers. Easier to change.

I liked how the PowerBook 1400 did it. I kept the clear cover on it and swapped out the picture regularly, or put inserts in it. No muss, no fuss, change as much as you like.

Great keyboard on it too.

Good catch.

I had a few 1400s in our fleet of laptops. The clear double-covers kept getting lost, they didn't last very long. As corporate business loaners, to be checked out for travel, they came with extra battery etc in a huge Targus case the size of a carry-on suitcase.

But it was a fun idea. I feel like we lived in a watered-down idea of what that product was supposed to be.

I guess the author and I come from different cultural backgrounds. I have a few stickers on my laptop to mark big accomplishments, such as after passing a very difficult course. Whenever someone offers me a sticker I put it away and if requested to put it on my computer I politely say that it does not fit my style.

Where would I be without my npm sticker? How would anyone know that I'm a legitimate bona-fide hacker?

I only have one rule for stickers on my laptop - nothing tech-related.

I currently have these on my MacBook 13": http://bfx.re/sy1c I'm upgrading in a few weeks, though so I'm curious what I'll do with the new one... Might go for some full-size artwork.

Are stickers on laptops an American thing? I'm from the UK and I don't think I've ever seen more than one or two stickers on laptops.

Could it also be because be we don't have bumper stickers either?

Everyone I used to know in the UK DJ/VJ/festival/tech crew sphere had plenty of stickers.

The pics on this thread with lots of big company logo stickers do look odd to me though.

Not really, seeing tons of them at European tech events and universities too.

Seeing my name in Kenneth Reitz’s handwriting on the envelope of Requests stickers that I ordered may have been the moment that I finally felt like a real programmer.

My laptop churn rate is so high, if I put stickers on my computer, I'd have to remove them in 6-12 months. You can use this argument if you want. :)

What are you doing to your laptops!? Have you considered something rugged or at least semi-rugged?

I'm a cross platform tester for my own company. I spend a couple months stabalizing software for say, MacOS 10.14, until it's to satisfaction, and then I move on to say, Windows 10 with a touch screen. And then an ARM and AMD machine, etc. I keep maybe the last four around before selling them. I have a personal laptop as well, but I often replace that one as well as I discover new laptops that I like as I'm testing them.

My 2015 rMBP runs both macOS 10.14 and Windows 10 just fine. Are you testing different hardware configurations as well?

Yes, and different hardware that they connect to.

I rarely put stickers on my laptop, but when I do it's not for the latest tech fad.

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