Being in a work environment where quite a lot of people have stickers on their laptop lids I am pretty confident you'd have to actively point at it and be like "See? That's the joke." for someone to even notice it because people just don't pay that much attention to it. It's too subtile, but I get that's the point.
Second day of my first ever internship, I dented the aluminium lid of my brand new, very expensive, work Macbook.
So I had an idea - I slapped a band-aid on the dent to hide it. Caught the attention of way too many people. Everytime they inquired, I'd tell them it's because I hurt the laptop by denting it. Resulted in amused and confused faces alike.
This would be a fun game. Take some heavier stickered entries from DevLids.com, Photoshop some of those misbrands-stickers, and let people guess the "fake" ones.
But there are already plenty of these there. It full of these, I'd say. I saw on the first page:
-Github styled as Pornhub (multiple times)
-HDL styled as DHL
-Github styled as Obama
-"Write the Docs" styled as a Metal Band
-Linux styled as "Intel Inside"
-javascript styled as supreme
-"sys admin" styled as AC/DC
-slayer syled as lorde
-"sempai" styled as supreme
-npm styled as IBM
-Arur syled as AC/DC
-untitled goose game styled as antifa
-Javascript styled as playstation 1
-css styled as sega
-starwars as starbucks
- "bookface" as facebook
I found the vim/vscode one especially obnoxious. OTOH, it took me a while to work out what was 'wrong' with the Debian/Ubuntu one. Maybe there's some unconscious biases at play.
I kinda like that these misbrands are all done in the style of a competing technology, or a misconception that would kinda bother people (like vim / vscode, rust / go, or angular / react).
When I saw that sticker, I immediately wanted to give it to this SEO consultant I worked with several years ago. We had a Python + Angular stack so among our first conversations went like:
Him: Okay your biggest problem right now is that your website is written in Java.
Me: Uhh...no...we use Python. Why is our choice of backend language a problem? (I honestly thought this involves a development in Google v. Oracle that I didn't know about.)
Him: No, no. It's all in Java. Look...(he uses a tool that shows us what Googlebot sees).
Me: Ah...Javascript.
Him: Yes, Java.
I instantly recognized the situation I was in so I didn't opt for pedantry. I adjusted accordingly but I kept using Javascript on my side of the conversation. I dunno if he ever caught on to that or if someone ever corrected him but this has been some kind of inside joke in my engineering team at the time.
I'm hoping if he has this on his laptop lid, it would serve as a "hobo sign" for future software engineers he might have to meet with. (Not to be mean on Christmas! He gave us competent advice, this issue aside.)
Man, this obnoxious HN arrogance again. And on Christmas Eve too. I specifically added that Not to be mean part because it's simply not fair that people judge your competence based on an unflattering anecdote. But of course, here we are. :(
Look here:
- He was a consultant; not part of the team. It wasn't his platform, strictly speaking.
- That said, Java and JS was created 1995. Google was founded 1998. I'd give two or three years more before the term "SEO" even became a thing. And then a few more years before it became an established sub-industry. My point is, people working in a Web/IT field have been confusing Java and JS far before SEO's time. These people aren't programmers though they may have worked closely with programmers. Does that make them incompetent at their job?
Marketing: Hey we want a tie-in with the release of the first Harry Potter film! (Good suggestion) Can Java make magic spell effects when people click on our website?
Programmer: Heck no, dunce. First of all, you're thinking of Javascript. Second of all, even if we were a Java Applet, that would be difficult. Third of all, our website is basically in Flash so yes we can accomplish that with some ActionScript.
- You know why these people can't distinguish Java from JS? Because the distinction doesn't matter for their job! The job of an SEO consultant, in particular, is to come up with a strategy; this takes a lot of approaches, and technical execution is a small part of the pie. A lot of the companies they would work with won't even have dedicated engineers developing the platform.
The point of the meeting I related, ICYMI, is that our website is basically "code not content" in the eyes of Googlebot so that needed to be addressed. It could've been spewing out Brainfuck and the point of the meeting stands.
----
SEO is really a different kind of beast (I've talked about it here other times before). In that team I'm ready to admit that I, the guy who can distinguish between Java and Javascript, had the least impact; there was a low bar on the programming skills needed and I just happened to be the guy with nothing else on his plate then. I was a "fungible asset" as the cool kids would say nowadays. Shows you how little technical programming details matter for general SEO.
And yet with that guy's strategy we achieved (and this goes on my resume):
- from page nowhere of hyper-targeted keywords we made it to page 1 within a few months. Crept up in ranking slowly with marketing, not technical, strategy. Then from that content we managed to score in less-targeted keywords.
- by the end of my tenure as the "Growth Hacker" we went from 200K users to past the 1M mark with zero marketing ad spend. (We were actually bleeding on ad spend with very little ROI that's why they kickstarted the SEO initiative.) It was slow but steady, not the hockey-stick growth that would've pulled Sequoia Capital on board but enough for our investors.
----
To be honest, this is one long comment too many than I planned today. But what can I do duty calls (https://xkcd.com/386/) even on holidays. Merry Christmas/Happy holidays and a fine new year HN community. I'm pulling myself off-duty for HN comments for the rest of the calendar year.
> My point is, people working in a Web/IT field have been confusing Java and JS far before SEO's time. These people aren't programmers though they may have worked closely with programmers. Does that make them incompetent at their job?
It’s been around for nearly thirty years. It entirely matters if they are saying “your site has poor SEO because it uses Java” rather than “because it uses JavaScript”. I’m glad you reinforced it without becoming arrogant or standoffish and seemed to meet your goal in working with him. I’m not sure I’d been able to do the same myself. Merry Christmas :)
I’m glad you reached your goal, which is exactly why I was asking.
I’d genuinely like to know if someone had a good experience since it might change my current view.
Unfortunately, the tone of your comment did the exact opposite. You blame me for being uncharitable in the same breath that you are being immensely uncharitable yourself.
In my experience, people that don’t know the difference are invariably windbags that read results off of whatever google dashboard. It’s not like this skepticism on HN comes out of nowhere. There’s a fuckton of charlatans in the SEO space.
I’ll admit part of it is that nobody listens to me when I tell them the same thing (5 months before) their $200/hour consultant is telling them.
There was another section here, but in the spirit of Christmas I’ll leave off.
It was done on purpose, and early on JVM was shipped with Netscape Navigator. The rebranding of LiveScript (iirc) to JavaScript was done to connect to the Java hype of the time.
That was the summer that MarcA publicly announced that Netscape would be a pure Java app by the end of the year.
So one of the mainline JavaScript interpreters was written in Java, and the JavaScript could call out to that engine, so you could load Java plugins at runtime, extend the JavaScript interpreter.
So you could say "Java" many times during the tech demo.
It's like when Panel de Pon for the Super Famicon was rebranded and rereleased as Tetris Attack for the Super Nintendo. It has nothing to do with Tetris, but Tetris was a popular game at the time.
I don't remember that java script logo - it looks like a knock off of the Sunsoft Java trademark of the era, however. Does that image have any provenance? It looks like a professional imitation but I am seeing straight trade dress if not actual Langham Act infringement.
It’s a parody logo and a straight copy of the Java logo, on purpose. The point is to ridicule the lack of legitimate connection between the two languages, as pointed out above thread.
> To be honest they should have picked a different name for JavaScript since it has nothing to do with Java.
It was marketing very much in cooperation with Sun.
That's why JS has a C-style syntax: Netscape simultaneously looked at embedding Java and hired Eich to embed Scheme, which then morphed into a bespoke language with Java-inspired syntax but semantics closer to Scheme's.
>In 1995, after 10 days of work, Brendan Eich created a scripting language for browsers. He called it Mocha. The language was renamed several times over the course of just a couple of months, and was eventually given the name we know today, JavaScript. Brendan originally wanted to add support for the Schema programming language to the Netscape browser, but his superiors wanted the language available in their browser to be more like the then popular Java [1].
[1] Freely based on a description from book and wikipedia:
C. Saternos, ClientServer Web Apps with JavaScript and Java. O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2014.
Small typo, he originally wanted to support Scheme. I wonder where if the typo was introduced in your comment, or in the book, or in Wikipedia at the time (which was since corrected)!
I felt bad that PHP and Django were unfairly left out in the RoR misbrand (well, Wordpress is written in PHP but that looked a bit remote), so I decided to fix that: https://imgur.com/a/quN1aEa. Now THAT should make someone's blood boil.
(sorry for the aliasing, the font was taken from a screenshot)
Never understood why people put stickers on their laptops, to me it seems like a cargo cult. Oh, you’re using this trendy library? Are you a brogrammer or a programmer? Why is libraries and technologies trendy anyway, so much time has been wasted building something using the wrong tool for the job. It also ruins the design of the laptop, just like a phone case does. Maybe I’m just old.
For me it's positive memories. Every time I pull my laptop out I'm greeted with a mash of events I've been proud to have been involved in and technologies I've done good things with - it's good motivation to continue to do good things. Same goes for every place I've glued the case back together (and frankly a lot of the scars on my body). It all reminds me of a story so why not collect the good ones.
I don't like them either but having one is definitely better than displaying the manufacturer logo. Far less obnoxious than advertising a product you had to pay for. I also never buy clothes with printed brand names and remove every single logo I can off my car.
Also at airports. I liked having no sticker then I was at an airport and at screening they gathered up four identical MacBooks and (non ironically) asked ok whose is this? Nobody knew and they had to start turning them all on.
If the designers of the phone want to provide a reasonably priced cover that will hold my credit cards and protect the screen then perhaps they can make one that complements the device; and perhaps I'll buy it. Until then I'll have to make do with what the third party suppliers can deliver, there is no way I'm going to carry my mobile without having it in a case.
I switched to carrying my phones naked about 6 years ago and prefer it. It seems odd to prioritize buying a thin, light phone and then put it in an Otter Box. I buy them used right after the next one is released (when the first glut of used phones is available) and keep them for a few cycles. Worst damage I’ve done is to damage a volume down button on the XS Max I’m using right now.
> It seems odd to prioritize buying a thin, light phone and then put it in an Otter Box
Not everyone prioritizes buying thin phones, but it appears aesthetics is a big deal for you. I'm your opposite: all I want to see when I'm using my phone is its screen. Having a case made out of soft material that can absorb energy when it is dropped (not "if") has saved it on multiple occasions at the cost of adding ~1mm to the thickness.
The same argument can be made for tattoos. Why ruin the design of perfectly good skin? And not so long ago, it was the common opinion.
Stickers are a way of expression. Sometimes, I don't like the idea being expressed, sometimes I do. Clean is fine too.
Phone covers are usually for protection. And a reason I hate phones with a glass back (thankfully a dying trend). It is fragile, slippery, heavy and not structural, it only looks good in a store because people put on a case afterwards. Pre Galaxy S6, Samsung had the perfect back cover, made of light plastic, openable and replaceable, and in the case of the S5, waterproof. You may find it ugly, but under a protective case, you don't see it. In fact, they even sold cases that replaced the back cover.
I've certainly used it as a conversation starter, just like wearing a band tee. I think there's something interesting to say as well about putting cheap stickers on a a super expensive laptop as a “see if I care” vibe like slapping a bumper sticker on a Lamborghini.
It's a way to express your opinion. Quite a lot of stuff on devlids.com is political. Like a bumper sticker or a t shirt. Althoug it probably is a "everybody posts, nobody reads" situation.
The company I work for handed out stickers when I joined and I put my company logo sticker on the work laptop so that I don't confuse it with my personal one.
What's worse is the stickers will fade after a while and then just look bad. I used to put stickers on my laptops, but I stopped doing it a few years ago. I especially don't want to put a random company logo/brand on my laptop (as opposed to a library or programming language, which I'd be a little happier with, at least)
I never use stickers from commercial projects or just because something is trendy.
I have stickers from community projects that I actively contribute to or projects that are really meaningful to me and I support morally and financially.
I used to want to personalize my laptops. Due to same vague notion it'd reduce confusion in the office. (Which proved to not be a problem.)
Not big on product stickers. Because "No Logo".
I haven't liked any of the cases I've tried. Among other problems, accumulation of grit and scuz.
I once tried that spray rubber stuff (on an old sacrificial laptop). PlastiDip? Didn't work well. I'm dumb about this stuff. Someone with more experience could probably make it "nice". I plugged stuff into the ports I cared about. Then tried to tidy all the edges with an exacto knife. Looked terrible.
You know those fancy vinyl car wraps? I keep expecting someone to do that for laptops.
> You know those fancy vinyl car wraps? I keep expecting someone to do that for laptops.
I had one of those in like 2006. There was a website where I gave my laptop model, uploaded the image I wanted, and they mailed me a perfectly sized sticker that covered my entire laptop back.
I made one real one, and a "Three Wolf Moon" one for fun.
I personally use generic stickers from random sticker packs, since I also don't like the product or political stuff (well, work laptop can have employers product if there's nice stickers for that). E.g. the laptop I'm typing this on has a small bird sticker in one corner.
> You know those fancy vinyl car wraps? I keep expecting someone to do that for laptops.
ferris.svg - The rust mascot crab (called "ferris") with the face and color of Gopher (the golang mascot)
github.svg - GitHub in a Gitlab styled logo
javascript.svg - JavaScript written in a Java-styled font + the Java logo (Sun/Oracle)
pip.svg - Pip (the python package manager) styled in the npm logo style (node.js package manager)
rails.svg - Ruby on Rails with pretty much the rails logo, but in the color of WordPress. Also the "RubyOn Rails" text theming is in the style of the WordPress logo typography
react.svg - ReactJS in a the Angular logo, including the font style
rust.svg - (this one was truly painful, personally :P) "Rust" (the language) displayed in the node.js logo font styling, including colors
ubuntu.svg - "Ubunutu" styled in the debian (linux distribution) font styling, along with the debian logo. This one specifically, is where the hybrid feels the most accurate since Ubuntu is a debian-based linux distro, but I do believe the communities don't get along very well (or at least that's the running joke)
vscode.svg - VS Code (Visual Studio Code, the IDE/Text Editor) displayed in the "Vim" logo font styling and the logo with the stylized "V"
Thanks: I couldn't figure out the Rust one thought the font was indeed very familiar, or the Ruby on rails thing (looked familiar too).
FWIW, I wouldn't say Ubuntu/Debian communities don't get along well, Ubuntu is officially built on top of Debian (it imports packages from Debian unstable archive verbatim for majority of its archive), and many Ubuntu devs are Debian devs too. There are certainly some Debian devs who have held a grudge for Ubuntu becoming more popular by focusing on better integrating a subset of packages in the Debian archive, but I think we are waaaay past that.
Thank you! Could not figure out Rails, was thinking about Django, Laravel but didn't think of Wordpress. I think (Django) with a PHP-like oval background would have been funnier.
I don't know if it's just me by I would love to have these as t-shirts. I would buy them all in a heartbeat. Great for conversation starter or as a prank to my fellow CS friends lol
Our work laptops are are sold back to the sell after two to three years. They announced that this option would no longer be available to owners of MacBooks, if stickers are placed on the lids.
Apparently the stickers leave a discolouring that cannot be removed.
Sold back to the what? I think our (and many other companies) consider laptops depreciated for tax purposes after around 3 years. Maybe they just give them to the next developer to join?
The company we buy our laptops from will buy them back for 50% of the original price after two years. That allow us to renew hardware a little cheaper.
We never assign used hardware to new employees, well monitors are reused.
I was guessing something PHP-related, but I couldn't guess Wordpress fwiw.
Python/Ruby worlds generally have the "it's pretty much the same shit" attitude towards each others' ecosystem, so it wouldn't be exactly the same message :)
