My Computer ?
The windows desktop has (had? I don’t pay attention) icons labeled “My Computer”. I always thought that was odd, or at least very often out of context as many (most?) instances of Windows ran on machines at people’s jobs. They didn’t own the computer. It was not “My Computer”.
Similarly, Apple has a long history of asserting they know what’s best for other people and their computers. The last time I had to go to “The Apple Store” all I wanted was a power cable. I wanted the part, I wanted to pay, I wanted to get out. But, characteristically, the “experts” there (what does that say about their view of their customers) wanted to engage me, to “have a conversation”, talk to me about warranties and if I qualified, they wanted to wast my time (more valuable than my money) on their agenda. Apple software is the same way. Not “My Computer”.
Then there is the cloud. “There is no cloud, there’s just other people’s computers.” I’ve worked at AWS. I worked at CompuServe about 5 years into the information service days. Before that, it was a time-sharing company. “There is no isolated Project, Programmer Number environment with custom BASIC and FORTRAN Compilers, InfoPlex (email), and FILGE (FILe Generator and Editor) connected via X.25 PADs (VPNs back in the day), there’s just CompuServe’s DecSystem-10s.”
And then there is this glorious 3 or 4 year old laptop that I’m about to blow up, wiping the disk and reinstalling Ubuntu (switching to Kubntu, because, why not?). No change control. No production concerns (well, maybe a few, I’m putting out this blog post early in case it does not come back quickly). I have a long running game of naming my systems. This one’s currently called ed (for the editor), octo (8 processors), mel (for “real programmers”). I think when I reinstall this time, I’ll call it “MyComputer”.