Why did you choose the name you chose?

You mean net nick names?

I didn't get to pick my real name

Swinger's got explaning to do!!!

Your Tangler name. Why 'dekrazee1'?

I changed mine because Marty complained!

Just ignore Marty Mr Sir Phil

Yes Swinger - do tell....

Dekrazee1 has a 11 yr history (well, you asked for it!!)

It started off when I was thinking up a personalised license plate for myself. And everyone around me used to call me crazy, and the limit was 6 characters so I came up with DKRAZ1

It eventually morphed into dkraz1 when I got a yahoo account, and then dekrazee1 when I got a hotmail one. (Someone stole the first version ) All my e-mail addies start with dekrazee1.

So then it stuck as I started playing online games and created ICQ/chat accnts.... saved me thinking up a new nick everytime.

And then I got attached to it... I now regard it as one of my names. I have friends in real like who call me dek sometimes.

Sometimes when I'm at a shopping centre or something, I hear someone calling out Dee and I react to that too...  In singapore, there's a slang word 'de' - so I'm constantly thinking ppl are calling me... andro calls me deezee, so now I react to dizzy too....

(am I sounding confused enough?) 

Hmmmm.... now I'm thinking I should legally incorporate dekrazee1 into my real name...

Great story!

I was Mr Phil because that's what people started calling me for some reason....

Really? hahahaha

Oh, and I never got the license plate btw 

Now Philr because I want to be deeply cynical about web 2.0 for a while just for fun!

I like Mr Phil....

and you do seem like a Mr Phil 

Sometimes I add a Mr infront of ppl's names cos it somehow suits em

I want to be deeply cynical about web 2.0

You'd have to explain that a little bit

Something like Flikr? 

I think its my grey hair. Mick's grey too but he dyes it.

HAHAHAHAHA

Yep - like Flickr

Mr M

Ahhhhhh dek gets it

Can I just say I hate 'cute' names like Flikr and 3eep etc? Enuf already!

I do too

Actually I like Twitter, but hated Twittr which it was initially.

hehehe yeah, same here, which is why I edited my msg

dek, why do u like to put me in such sticky situations?????

ok phil, here's the lowdown...i love swings. 

hey dek....i'm kinda sick of calling u dek as well.....can i from now on use dizzy? i like that....it's...err...very you. DIZZZYYYYY

dek, why do u like to put me in such sticky situations?????

Blame it on Mr Sir Phil.....

this one's got nothing to do with me! 

Mr Phil - very sophisticated

Swinger - now I understands!!!

aman... too much commenting, too little explaining of name

Well I'm actually in an interesting state of transition.

I used to be called 'home_spun' pretty much everywhere on the net, and this was a direct reference to a band that I love "Grant Lee Buffalo", and well it was flickr/yahoo that killed that username. For some reason they had a 'technical difficulty' with my account and I couldn't register the username again, so it became "home_spun2", how aweful.

So why flungabunga? Well after the tragedy of being the second home_spun (granted second only to myself )  I decided to change, and in my work 'flunga' is a print('flunga'); before an if condition and 'bunga' is a print if the condiftion pass/fails whatever. Basically code flow flags Been using it for years, so I thought why not.

I like flungabunga!

Plus it reminds me of the teenage mutant ninja turtles - which is also good

Sorry to hear abt 'home-spun'.... such a tragedy. 

Really, I mean it. If I can't sign up with dekrazee1 at a site, I won't join it at all 

Fo shizzle, one's name is a very important thing!

Hey Dekrazee1 you know that they're making an TMNT movie? It's allegedly going to be daaark. w00t! 

hear hear 

Btw, I like your avatar too!!

Is that your pet? 

I wish! Thats Fluffy. He was a viral email picture type thing from about 4 years ago, and he's been around ever since as my internet pet. So in a way yes, and in a real way no.

Fluffy - Destroyer of Worlds  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's soooooo cute! 

If I may -

Ahhh there you are my sweet fluffy

heheheheheh

hmmmm.... maybe we should start an online pet topic.... see what everyone comes up with 

Or if you don't have a pet, what would you want to have as a pet? Like Medusa! You could bring her out for walks and petrify all your neighbours cats. SCORE!

HAHAHAHAHA

I used to be called Medusa

HAHAHAHAHAH. you've got snakes for hair? I'm sure pillow talk was more a struggle for life, and whispering sweet nothings.

Seriously though why Medusa?  

I'm sure pillow talk was more a struggle for life

HAHAHAHAHA Too funny! 

Well, it was my sis who used to call me that, and I think she meant that my hair was messy and outta control... 

Funny you should be talking about names. Henry came home from school yesterday saying he did not like his name and wanted to be called something else. I was devastated for a second and then asked why. Turns out he just wants to be called any one of his friends' names. I think it's because he likes them so much, rather than not liking his name per se. Phew for Phil and I.

I have been called many names that all rhyme with Kellie. "Smelly" was a common taunt in primary school. And no, I don't smell (anymore)

I have and always smell nice! 

I'm sure you do!

My bro used to have a daily identity crisis from age 3.... everyday he'd wake up with a new name, and wouldn't respond if we didn't address him 'correctly' 

One fine day, he strayed too far from our parents and got lost in a shopping centre. Someone found him and handed him over to the shopping centre ppl. In order to make an announcement, they asked him what his name was. Brilliant bro, in the midst of crying hysterically, replied "Batman"

Ha. Thats funny.

I have a cousin who, when quite young, was also lost in a shopping centre.

She refused to tell the staff her name so they asked her what her mummy and daddy called her.

She replied "Pain in the neck". 

HAHAHAHAHAH

Yeah I had a little bit of trouble with my name as a kid. The part of the country that my parents grew up in had a common tradition that all children should have a reference to Mary or Joseph (as in Jesus's Mum and Dad) in their names but inverse to their sex, for example my sister is Michelle Josephine Grant, while I'm ... Ian James Mary Grant.  MARY! MAAARRRYYYY!!!! Thats right M.A.R.Y. Where as I think it's kinda cool now, it was a torment and a half when your a kid and you teacher announces your full name during roll call. Ian James Mary Grant! .... you hear a rather meek "Anseo" coming from me.

Oh dear!

Well.... at least they made it your third name... 

Brilliant bro, in the midst of crying hysterically, replied "Batman"

She refused to tell the staff her name so they asked her what her mummy and daddy called her.

She replied "Pain in the neck".

 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!! *tearing and laughing all at once*

heheheheeh

That Pain in the Neck one is a gem! 

ya man!!! It's too funny......

flungabunga............Everytime i read your name, in my head i'm going "Cowabunga"!!! Can't get it out of my head so have not taught the school kids to shout "COWABUNGA" before they go down the slide!!!

Oh my name is nowhere near as good as Cowabunga! Cowabunga should be loved, cherish and without any hestitation, be taught and handed down to generations to come. So get crackin'! I wanna here TMNT war cries the next time I walk past the next children (not that that is something I do often)

Like flungabunga I'm actually in an interesting state of transition too

I used to use barlas as my nick, if you know the history then just know I am barlas and skip, else read the whole paragraph. Barlas was a Monoglian tribe in Central Asia, and the tribe of Timur (Tamerlane?) who was descendant of <don't remember the name>, which was also the direct ancestor of Genghis Khan. Then, after few centuries a muslim emperor Babur came to india and established Mughal Empire, he was direct descendant of Timur and also descendant of Genghis Khan from his mother's side.

But now when I tried to register a personal domain barlas.com was registered too, so, I changed it to aqeeliz which was the first nick I every used on internet and use it on websites as often as barlas. 

Oh, you can also read about barlas and Timurid emperors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlas

Wow, I didn't used a single emoticon in whole post

Mongolia man. I've had this fascination with that country since I was a kid. Enough to even have learned how to throat sing.

What does aqeeliz mean?

i have a friend called aqeel....love the sound of that name...:)

Me too....

I like 'ee' names.... like Neel, aqeel.... esp the urdu qee

*two thumbs up* 

haiz....i need to find a nice pakistani boy with a qee in his name to marry....only problem is that my mother will kick me out of the house.

HAHAHAH

Well, pick one, the name or the mother 

the name!

Swinger: i need to find a nice pakistani boy with a qee in his name to
marry....only problem is that my mother will kick me out of the house

Solution - find a nice pakistani boy with a house and qee in his name to
marry

HAHAHAHA

Brilliant in its simplicity 

thanks ruski! i'm going to work on that solution

lol, hmm... I guess missed the aqeeliz part, well, it was 3 am, and I was really sleepy

aqeel is my name, and iz is just something extra I added to register my email address as aqeel was already taken.

lol, forgot to say that before, but I have a house too

HAHAHAHAHAH

*singing*

Love is in the air.... 

well helllo aqeel....:P LOL

...

Hello alimeigooni!

Hi all.

hey, how you doing?

Welcome to the Tangle.  Try search in the top right if you want something pacific. 

pacific?

Top left for Indian.

Unsure for Atlantic.

HAHAHAHA

Maybe check behind the screen for Altantic and under the desk for Antarctic.

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! ruski u r such a clown...:

Hi Everyone , first of all many thanks to Phil for inviting me to participate in this beta version of the application, after so many well 17 emails to be precise I finally got here so thanks to the most friendly blogger I met!!

 well now my nickname I been using it since 1998 when I got on mIRC , it was an internet cafe` 15 pc's sharing a dial up connection and the person before was using it and when mIRC started up there it was me on the verge of the virtual world armed with prospect!!!

hi!

hehehehe

Prospect is a good name to gain by default.... imagine if it was some real bad!

Hi Stuart!

yeah guess so dek , and hey Stuart tell us about your nick

Hello everyone.

I guess my name has come from a general need for a fantasy alias in Dark Age of Camelot about 4-5 years ago... And has generally stuck.. Shame really I am starting to get more than a little bored of it...

I am thinking up a new name as I write!

OK. Flotz doesn't work for me. Thinking... thinking....

bah, the best i can think of at the moment is... err.... gigglegimp... but thats just a bit.... well... theres no real need to say anything... right. ahem. sleep i think is the best plan for me now. damnit.

I thought of Kasta which is, interestingly, a bit like yours!

I like Karath!

And Kasta!

And I did get a little confused for a while there

Hey Karath, I actually like gigglegimp!!!

I think it sounds nice and makes me smile everytime I see it 

Karath and Kasta are fairly cool names I'll have to say. Same with Aqeeliz

I like Aman. It sounds "fair", "trustworthy" and "noble"

hahahaha - none of which actually describe me - hence the deception!!! I'm too much of a scatter brain to be trustworthy!!!

Aman actually means Peace - so it would incorporate "fair, trustworthy and noble". 

Nice one kasta!!

haha, methinks the 'pic' with the glowing eyes sorts of hints at the deception there.

Definatly evil eyes.RAHH.

And thanks about my name. I did try to put my real name on here, but someone had already taken it and i'm sure as hell not gonna have something like Anthony_1337 or whatever! heh. 

YUp!! Karath is way cooler!

haha

Maybe, after all this the life-span of 'Karath' is a little longer, but methinks in a couple of years I am going to have to hit a dictionary and find some ambigious and interlectual word to use as my online alias... Like 'EqUaTe', as an old friend used to have.

Bryan is my real name.  Easy enough I guess.

Kamisamanou is actually my real name. I use it for everything and if you search Kamisamanou in Google every result points to something related to me.

I also use thewhitefedora 

My avatar/logo is actually my initials. KB

oops....

i thought it was a plane

Which language is Kamisamanou from? 

i am guessing greece?

I thought Japanese...

i dunno....it's the end part that sounds greek to me......manou...although i'm not so sure now.

It's Japanese.

Kamisama means God(In a reverent tongue)

nou means gift

The two together mean God's gift. 

Nice!!

Is there a short version of your name?

Not really 

interesting

My family name has also some interest (especially for australians) 

Sauvignon -> Yep like the wine (see, I told u you were gonna like it)

In french Sau (Seau) means Bucket.

And Vignon (Vigneron) means winemaker.

So "Sauvignon" is pretty much the  winemaker's bucket

I think the last time my family dealed with wine it was with my grand father or grand grand father. 

Yes. Kamisa - Japanese.

Manou - Greek.

I wondered about Mongolian but that may have been in a moment of delerium as I know no-one from Mongolia nor have heard of any Mongolian words. 

I have no good story. I am not even against anything.

hahahaha there's your story!

Kinda the anti anti.

Hey that's wierd. I think my post was delayed...

Oh really??

Unless I just erad past Kamisamanou's post... Mmm.

Pierre- I thought you must have winemaklers in your family history. Do you like wine then? 

my name doesnt have much of a history to it - it was in Futurama

Bender's super hero name in the 'New justice league'

I also use man-man in a fair few places (like superman but less super, and more human) but for some reason or another I either didn't or couldn't use that here.. I forget why 

Kasta -> My wine knowledge is very poor. I'm ok with drinking wine but I think I never spent more than AU$20 for a wine bottle... For the special occasions I used to ask my father for a bottle from the familial reserve Then it's good (old bottle with spider web on it ) and cost nothing

Dek Justice League!!

I made up mine for a yahoo account years ago when I wasn't able to just use my name. The first part is from one of my favourite books - "Shibumi". Using the whole thing seemed a bit pretentious, so just shib. And 71 because, clearly, 71 is the best number.

I've used it for everything ever since and have never had to resort to anything else.

BTW its awesome to meet a fellow Zim fan.

LOL why is 71 clearly the best no?

I'm partial to 79

And what's Zim?

79 pffft

Invader Zim was a short running cartoon series about an alien trying to take over earth. Very funny.

Classic quote for Zim fan detection: "I LIKE WAFFLES!"

hahaha

Pierre's avatar is the character that says it.

*sees the light... finally*

71 IS THE BEST YEAR EVER

No other 79ers here?

ME ME MEEEEE!!!!!

79ers unite!!

Bricoleur:

A word coined a few decades ago to describe a paricular type of behaviour: A bricoleur is a person who creates things from existing materials, is
creative and resourceful: a person who collects information and things
and then puts them together in a way that they were not originally
designed to do. Comes indirectly from another coined word ... Bricolage...which was constructed to be similar to the French word bricoler, meaning "to tinker" or "to fiddle"

YAAAAYYY!!!!!!!

I got this right!! 

I've used it as title on my Business card for some time... it seems particularly apropos for Tangler.

That it does....

Can I ask - what is the feminin version of Bricoleur?  

Bricoleuse? 

I think its unisex as it describes an attitude and behaviour .... nothing that is gender specific... (although the roots are french where everything has a gender of sort, the english coined word would not be gender specific I'd guess)>

Sorry, I was referring to the French version

Well my family abandoned France sometime back just after Napolean... and  unfortunately I'm a unilingual Canadian whose french extends about as far as bon bon...and my Latin doesn't help too much in determining French genders... Bricoleuse sounds great to me though

That's ok.... we'll just have to wait for someone else to wander in and give me an answer

the feminin version of bricoleur is bricoleuse

YES!! Got it right again!

Thanks Doume 

i knew my french would be good

I still remember the day I learnt that word...

It was part of an assignment to find the meaning of the word and use it in a sentence, and no one in class could find its meaning!! 

"des bricoles" are small (of little importance) things. So a "bricoleur" (or "bricoleuse" when it's a girl) is someone who does interesting stuff with "des bricoles".

MacGyver is a good "bricoleur" 

"A term introduced by Lévi-Strauss
(1962), describing a type of thinking and symbolization; the opposite of "engineer".
The engineer creates specialized tools for specialized purposes. The bricoleur
is a "jack-of-all-trades", who uses few, non-specialized tools for
a wide variety of purposes. There is a loose connection between, on the one
hand, the bricoleur and "primitive"
societies, and, on the other, the engineer and modern societies (see evolutionism).
For Lévi-Strauss, the two concepts are the point of departure for a complex
theoretical discussion of "the science of the concrete" in premodern,
"primitive" cultures."  .... After that it was picked and used in a slightly different context by Papert (esp. in learning of Children) and then adopted by some to describe learning by trial and error.... I never liked the somewhat negative connotations but the more positive view of the "MacGyver" personality is what appealed to me...this is basically the course I was taking in adopting the name

to Dekrazze1:  re " I still remember the day I learnt that word..." I'm not suprised that no one else could find its meaning... you're obviously above the crowd... but what suprises me is that it came up in class at all... you must have had a true educator, not someone just trying to stuff a preordained syllabus done all your throats!

They liked to throw things at us which we couldn't find anywhere.... I have no idea why they did that!

Mind you, this was a course in uni....  

I dun need no edumacashion

heh heh  

But yeah, I agree with you Bricoleur.... there's too much stuffing in going on these days

I called myself chameleon (with one 'e') because I used to do a bit of everything, until one day I made a typo and used two, and since then I've been chameeleon

I prefer chameelon

Me too

That's great Chameeleon.

Back to learning etc... Do you think we place enough emphasis on learning? That is, critical thought, developing arguments etc... Rather than just learning how to be something specific? 

I know the focus of learning seems to have changed - in geography lessons you learn the environmental and social impact of such and such instead of where the hell places are (theres a lot of cities that I couldn't even name the right country for if I hadn't picked it up myself)

Physics has involved learning about insulating your house, and an actual equation for working out how long a certain type of insulation will take to pay for itself in energy bill savings

On the whole science and maths aren't following this trend of "lets look at how X affects the world" instead of "lets look at what X is, what it does and how it does it" - except the example I gave for physics, although in biology we get the occasional "environmental message" or learn about an EU directive about conservation or something or in chemistry one of the listed disadvantages of a certain method will be the cost if done industrially

In French I hate how we're taught to learn a few set phrases that will answer most of the questions on an exam instead of building up a decent vocabulary and then the stuff we do learn is all things I would never use in an actual situation (do I really need to be able to tell french people about how i keep in shape?)

Coursework is almost entirely a matter of jumping through the right hoops to tick the boxes on the mark scheme and always involes a disproportionate amount of explaining why you're going to do something (Just to demonstrate that you actually know why you're doing it) than the actual doing of it, to the point that it reads like "I will do X because... I am now doing X because... Now I have done X I have found... and will now do Y because....

 bleh!

That sounds quite different to when I was at school. We learned about where places where and when a war happened but never really why or how. I always wish we had. It sounds like they have gone entirely the other way now.

yup - now its all about "what effect did this have on the other" and "to what extent did something something" - analysing and evaluating instead of learning some cold hard facts

I always hated that we were told when a thing happened but never why. I guess that could be due to opinion,, but surely sometimes you can say this happened because of this, and due to this...

thing is, even with the method I've described you don't really get told why stuff happened - you get to evaluate multiple sources of evidence (read 2 conflicting paragraphs in the book) and judge their validity (one of them comes from a blatantly biased source) then make a judegement on the extent to which it can be said that <<insert statement>> (if it comes up in an exam you have to argue both ways with about equal strength, even when one side is clearly superior)

Like (his)tory or (her)story? Two accounts of an event?

I was mainly just talking about how they use all the fancy terms for stuff as if we were doing it "for real" when we're really not learning anything about how you would actually have to do it, just to talk the talk so we can write about it and tick all the boxes on the mark scheme

okey dokey

ok, so i may be a day late and a dollar short, but "hi". i'm lalalyn - so named because of the city I live in (so aptly nick named la la land) and my nickname... lyn. not much to it.

also. yes. my avatar is a scabby pus-y man's leg.

Ok, forgive my ignorance, but where/what is la la land?

Funnily enough, I think your avatar looks good!

la la land = Los Angeles

and re the avatar.... cheers! 

heheeh

We always referred to la la land as an imaginary place... so if we say someone daydreaming, we'd say, 'hey, snap out of la la land!'

yeah, me too... that's why it's so apt for this place. I've only lived here just over a year, and most people are in la la land, as well as this being a pretty non-realistic place to live.  totally it's own world, you know? people are SO celeb/hollywood obsessed.

Re Los Angeles: I think that was the point.

Or maybe it's because LA == Los Angeles. I know daydreaming is what most anyone outside of LA would be refering to if we called it la la land.

Beat me to it...

it's a bit of all those things really.  plus... there's a song by a band i really like called lala land about living here.

one line goes "we're in the land, we're in the land... the land of everything and nothing at all".... that's pretty much LA in a nutshell

hahahaah

Unless it's 24's LA, in which case it's always being attacked by terrorists

How many 24's have there been? 3 or 4? That dude has had a pretty rough couple of days.

Dude, there've been 6 or 7!!

Shit. A whole week then.

Never seen a minute of it. Am I missing out?

no.

YES!!!!

It got really good around the 5th season I think

I wouldn't know. I haven't had a TV for almost 2 years.

Surely they'll give him Sunday off?

No rest for the wicked!

What day's has there been?

Good question... I have no idea!

test 

Hiya mond!

So were not talking about names anymore? Maybe it's time to set up Moderators?

Doesn't take much to get back on topic.... and vice versa

I have something to say about my name:

It's too long for reko.us 

hahahahahah

I saw your message in that group! 

Hi Lalalyn. Does LA have any redeeming features?

Hello guys! I chose the name Quagmire from the character on the show The Family Guy.

There's a character on Family guy called Quagmire??

Where have I been??

Introducing Quagmire:

hahahah

He's such a psycho! 

dek...how can you not know quagmire???? he's soooo funny!!!!!

that pretty much sums me up in a nut shell

oh dear lord! there is a quagmire on tangler!

hahahah

giggity giggity goo

HAHAHAHAHA

We need to put his appalling one-liners in that post from a long time ago!

"You must be a parking ticket. You've got fine written all over you." AND;

"Hey if I could rearrange the alphabet I'd put you and I together." 

Questionable piece of work that Quagmire!

hahaha, Quagmire is one of the best characters in the show. Lets see i chose my name "MetallicA" because they are(to me) the best.......

And i just like music. So it just came to me to put my favourite band up.

Up until she described her name, I though dekrazee1 was pronounced "dekruzee 1"

hehehe Why the difference of one letter?

But yeah, I've noticed that not many ppl get it...  

neat!! :p

What is?

the quagmire clip :p just watched it

heheh He's such a character...

I used to use Khamul, then moved on to Ambition when I started my web design company "Ambition Design". I tend to use Cupiditas (latin for Ambition) on some forums if Ambition is not available.

I like cupiditas!

What does Khamul mean? 

I suppose i could tell about my nick..

well, it started off being cyber_punk .. i know lame as, but what can i say, i was a young idiot

then it became sc0rp10n.. well, coz my zodiac sign is a scorpio..  

and now my new one which i use a lot is funkycoda. use this for flickr, twitter, tangler, and any new identities. People now know me better as this which is pretty cool. If I remember right, it was my manager who gave me the nick funkycoda, well, it was initially a password and now my net-identity.. and before you ask, no, im not that lame to leave that as my password :p

I'm sure i'll keep this for a while, i like it.. very me i think.. 

I like your nick....

I wish I could be funky.... or coda even 

well, i suppose i'm the only funkiest coda ever

That you are.... the one and only

hey, if google agrees, it's gotta be correct right 

 *head growing in size*

hahaha

Sure! 

My name is Italian..............

hahahah 

My name is Italian..............

I don't get it.

isn't there a place or area called Flat Irons in Colorado? I'm sure i went trekking there

From a trekker's blog...

Colorado is a Mecca for rock climbing, some of the
best in the world. And most routes are easily accessible with a short
hike from a road or parking lot. The most popular places include the
Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon state park just outside of Boulder Colorado.
There are many great climbs near Estes Park as well including Lumpy
Ridge, The Monastery and more.

Blog

Doesn't look very flat....

Maybe it's because the sides are so flat/straight-edged...

Actually, that does make sense

It makes me think of all those early settlers having to heat a very heavy iron on a very hot stove in the very hot summer to iron some very white and very creased linen clothing.

Gosh they did it hard in those days. My nan often talked about those days - she lived long enough to see electric irons, electric washing machines etc... and grew up making her bacon, milking a cow, going out on the horse and cart and making her own soap from animal fat...

Flat Iron could also be a place straight out of an E Annie Proulx novel (Amercian landscape) or Olga Masters (Australian landscape).

"My nan often talked about those days - she lived long enough to see
electric irons, electric washing machines etc... and grew up making her
bacon, milking a cow, going out on the horse and cart and making her
own soap from animal fat..."

I'm impressed. It reminds me of a blog entry I read recently with someone reminiscing about their grandfather who was always a great fixer - the kind of guy who has all the know-how to  make broken stuff work again without consulting a manual or a mechanic/repairman/help place and to look at somethings workings and see what each part adds to the whole (and from that see ways to maintain or improve it). Apparently he even made a TV out of radio parts when he heard about the new invention.

hmm.. actually the post was more about his grandmother who had been really worried when he died that she would have no way to fix all the things he had been maintaining and tweaking over the years because it was all so customised and didn't have any kind of help service available. But when something broke, she drew inspiration from her memory of him and just got on with it, figured out what needed to be done and did it - gradually getting to know how to fix everything.

There's definitely something.. good and real about that way of doing things - before everything became disposable and unfixable unless you go to the manufacturer, or just more expensive to repair than to buy new. Planned obselescence hadn't begun, everything was made to last and if it wasn't, it wouldn't sell.. sounds like good times

He suggested working on open source software to be in the same spirit - working out what the original designer's intention was and how they achieved it then tweaking it with a line of code added here or removed there. Apparently when he explained what he did to his grandmother she said she thought his grandfather would be proud of him. Little "awww" moment there 

Don't people still fix things?? Or try to at least?

Ever built a TV out of radio parts?

(Or more relevantly, ever tried to sharpen a disposable razor blade, or refill a biro?)

no to the first

yes to the next 2

note: refilling ball point pens doesn't really work 

ok.. well you're ahead of the majority I think

People do still fix stuff but there's a lot of things that are designed so that it isn't worth trying to fix them when its easier and cheaper to have it repaired professionally, replaced (under a warranty or something) or just buy a new one 

yeah, I know....

like my DVD player.... it was cheaper to buy a whole new one than to get the old one fixed.... RIDICULOUS! 

I just don't like the 'trashy' culture we have.... use and throw, get a new one

UGH! 

Then there's the things where the relentless pace of new technology means that whatever you buy, it will be out of date or obsolete within a few years (I'm looking at you, every component inside a PC) You can beat the system a little bit by building your own PC and only replacing the individual parts every so often, but if my motherboard or hard drive (or anything else in the case) broke then I'd have no way to fix it without creating a risk of electrocuting myself or starting a fire.

yeah...

I love the analogy between open source code and the old tinkler days.

I think SuperKing is right. You are in the minority Dek (fixing things).

Chuck away and replace makes me despair. It's about more than waste because it permetaes how we relate to the world and how we end up mistreating it - I think it's about loss of respect for people and property.

My husband is pretty good at fixing things - if he decides it's worth fixing. I, on the other hand, am hopeless, even though I preach about not getting rid of things.   I do try and get things fixed though - even if it's not me doing it.

Simple. The first part of my business name attached to my real name

I like mine for now.

It use to be realmudflower, which is a literal translation of my english name to mandarin, then giving it a twist and back into english...

INCOMPREHENDABLE? refer to my chart below...

Jennifer--------------------------- zhen ni hua

zhen---- could mean precious or real; ni------ could mean nothing but a phoenetic sounding word or mud; hua----- means flower

 thus realmudflower, mudflower for short, getting older thus lazily-impaired to type :-p

Well I originally started the account on here with my real name as my friend Mick asked me to give him some feedback about this new thing he was working on. called Tangler.

Man.... that is some great history behind a name!!

@funkycoda  I actually live in Superior, CO--right next to Flatiron Mall, ROFL.  Here's a link to a picture (random, not mine) and the Wikipedia entry, for those who are curious to know more.

 As for my name, just like dekrazee1, I had picked L1Wulf for a license plate for when I got out of the US Navy (also, I never used it for that purpose).  During my last week there, a bunch of people asked for an email address--the name popped in my head and I made the yahoo account and have used it ever since.  This was a little over seven years ago.  For those who haven't figured it out, that's LoneWulf (L with the number one spelled out--also wulf instead of wolf since someone else apparently had the same idea and had registered l1wolf prior).

wulf is better than wolf anyday!

Wow! I can't believe how similar our stories are! 

hey @L1Wulf, thats cool. Boulder, CO has to be my fav place in US (visited San Fransisco, Berkeley, Newark, New York, LA). Haven't spent too long in all the places, a week at most, and Boulder was the only place I felt "down" with I've also been invited to work at UCB there, but for now sticking with good ol' Sydney, AU.. for NOW

Do you visit the Flatiron much? 

I agree, wulf > wolf

interesting thread

i actually used to luuurve making up nicknames for my numerous email addresses, web IDs, chat IDs etc but I guess it kinda faded off (though i still love to play with words, rhymes & gibberish

mine's a long history from the hey-days of school when i was introduced to the web via hotmail and alamak chat.. haha i used to login as 'nisha' (coz i like names with 'sha' init) but due to the increasing pings of propositions of 'friendship'.. i decided to have an ambigous one.. and one that i can easily use for a while without anyone using a similar ID (at that time..now with any luck I might still get to use 'hysteriq' though the web domains have been disgustingly parked by net abusers)

and hysteriq is pretty matter of fact to my mental state of mind! hahaha.. hysterics, hysteria, hysterical... so its gonna stcik for a while in cyberspace.. not gonna be h(y)story yet.. hahaha...

but i still got my bag of nicks that i still 'reuse' once in a while for the fun of it

I've also noticed that you now like names that end with q.....

I love hysteriq btw.... when I saw it, I wished I'd thought of it 

keke, thanks..heh so far only this one has a 'q' init.. the rest are gibberish like 'plumrum' (as in it got inspiration from rum-a-tum-tum)

i used to have an email address with an ID i absolutety loved: iscream@chocolate-starfish.com

hehehe.. nice

umm.. just going to check here, you do know the "other" meaning of chocolate starfish right? 

there is another meaning?

Well, there's the literal meaning of "a starfish composed entirely of chocolate"

and the other meaning, which I don't particularly want to be the first one to tell you about...

I think it may be a British thing

(by thing I mean saying)

hmmmmm..... I really wonder what it is

Well, imagine if a naked person (who's not so hot on the hygiene) were to roll onto their back, put their legs against their chest and spread their cheeks wide

The resulting brown shape would be kinda like a starfish 

There I said it, are you happy now!  

*Covers her eyes and tries to forget*

Sounds like a similar experience to the first time of seeing "Goatse" or "Tubgirl" or "Meatspin"

oh Internet... why are you so cruel to our minds and innocence 

Ok, I don't know what any of those things are..... and please, don't feel obliged to tell me

You haven't seen them?

Avoid them like the plague. They are very nasty.

*keeps eyes closed*

Also has closed eyes. Still can't get rid of starfish imagery...

@dek, @kasta. how long have you been "surfing the net"? i'm sure almost everyone know what they are

What does time have got to do with anything?

I'm pretty sure our surfing habits are very different 

well, i've been surfing the net for a few years now. I think i was bored of the net after the first 25mins (probably a bit of an exageration).. but yea, keep going thru' the net and you are bound to hit things like "goatse" et al

yeah..... i don't surf unless it's with a purpose

oooo.. i've lost all purpose :'(

Oh shock sites! I abhor those! Shame on you for reminding me of the horror that is [names omited to protect the innocent or those too curious for their own damn good]

HAHAHAHAHAH

How kind of you 5th wall....

No problem

I, of course, fall in the later category.

Good thing you aren't of the feline variety

Hahaha!

arrrghhhh nooooo.... *closes eyesearsmouth* iscreeeeeaaaammmm-ing, my chocolate-starfish tarnished forever...

the only thing i used to associate it with was the song by Limp Bizkit..*gasp*... so thats why.....*doh*

thank god am not using that email anymore... hahhaaha

hmm.. I just realised I could have explained that slightly less eye-burningly by starting with "y'know when you're stood behind a cat thats stood on a table and it has its tail in the air"

HAHAHAHAHAH

Admit it.... you were going for the shock value 

The cat one is probably more accurate! Or maybe it's just that I have seen more cats' bums!

haha, kasta, you sicko i admit, never seen a cat's bum, never will.. i dont like cats..

Since de linked this in another topic to explain her name I figured I'd add my explanation.

chapel is my last name. I played sports in school and have been called chapel for so long that I just use it as a nickname. I also go by thechapel and jchapel depending on if chapel is taken or not. If you're curious my first name is Jacob.

I know its not the most private or anonymous of nicknames but it suits me well.  

hahaha these days, there's no way of knowing if a nick is a real name or a nickname

actually funny story behind my name....for a while i used shardzealot.  shard + zealot, two words that i thought were cool when i was a kid

but now my girlfriend laughs at me because she reads it "shardz a lot"

and so now she says i poop all the time and am a big fan of it

buuuut anyways, i was reading for a medieval philosophy class and found out about this guy who had a nickname "doctor subtilis" and it was kind of like the medieval version of calling your friends "the professah" or something like that 

It's because it's the name I use for everything.

Speaking of which, if you check out http://www.mashable.com you might see a familiar name on the front page as of right now

http://mashable.com/2007/06/16/stalking2/

I hope to add a few more and maybe even get Tangler into the mix on mashable.com 

I didn't see anything

The article doesn't work for you? 

Ah!!! I just saw the second link

Yay

Good Stuff!!

(sorry, I meant I didn't see your name on the first link)

  I want to write an article for Tangler, I like it so much

YAAAAY!!!!

And 'Stalking 2.0' - I like it!

About 11 years ago, I ran a small booking agency where I booked celtic bands from all over the world.  That's where the 'celtic agent" came from.  I still play celtic music primarily, and I still book a few celtic bands, so I kept it. 

Results 1 - 10 of about 16,000 for celticagent. (0.25 seconds)

have you googled your nick?

Super-King gets 624,000 hits 

I win  

hehe.. its a mattress size

Mine's simple: I'm callkathy because that's what my clients do when they have PPT, OneNote, or other Office emergencies - They " call Kathy"

I've already told my wife that when my daughter turns 18 I'm changing my name to Crazy Horse. My real name that is - not my screen name. I love the idea of her introducing her boyfriends to her father, Crazy Horse.

hahahaha That's terrible!!!

btw, I think we have a user called crazyhorse!

I can think of worse native american style names

Like squatting dog, that's worse than crazy horse 

Yeah, not sure my wife would stand for that though...

Mine's pretty simple, I happened to be studying the nervous system in biology and found that corticalaxon (from axons [extensions] of neurons of the cerebral cortex) had a nice fluidity to it. Nothing too dramatic.

Yours has been a tongue twister for me.... I keep jumbling up the word and it sounds like 'cortical nation' in my head.....

Clutztr also sounds like Clutzr in my head....

Clutztr also sounds like Clutzr in my head....

same here 

Melarith: Combination of my name and something fantasy related. I was going through a 'phase'...

and my avatar? It is a 'Moogle'. Which I liked cos  it started with an "M" and ended in "oogle".

What's a moogle?

(please don't say your avatar!)

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_elements_of_Final_Fantasy#Moogle

Moogles have small eyes and red, pink, or purple bat-like wings. A single black antenna sticks up from their heads, with a small colorful ball (usually red or yellow) at the end called a "pompom". Their ears are usually shaped like a cat's and their fur is white or light pink.

In Final Fantasy XII, the Moogles are known to be skillful in mechanics and engineering; they were the first pioneers of airship construction.

 I like them cos they're cute.

Awwww.... they are cute!!!

The only thing that's cuter is Fluffy... the destroyer of worlds...

.. if you don't understand wht i'm talking about, pls scroll upwards 

hehehehe yeah..... it's too cute

Looking for more cuteness?

Check out the Cat group

Well, it started out as an xbox live account name, then i thought it was pretty clever and i just stuck with it. I wish that you could change your account name sometimes. Eventually I will probably want to change my username but I don't want to go back and need to re-setup everything I did.

Moogles have small eyes and red, pink, or purple bat-like wings.

A furby with wings? 

Yes, a furby! oh wow.. it's been a while since i heard that word. I used to own two. They'd freak me out by turning on in the middle of the night...

 "brrrrreeeeee I'm hungry".

Furby??

Are those the cute version of the gremlins?

Weird little owl toy things that made annoying noises unless you shut them in a dark and quiet cupboard

Oh yeah, I think I remember... those things with the beeeeg round eyes

That's one!

http://www.pbfcomics.com

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Good one!

I would make the same call 

Hahahahaha

"I would make the same call"  Super-King, aren't you just up the road from where the Vogon Constructor Fleets arrive to do exactly that to the earth?

I'm in the same country.. can't remember where Arthur was supposed to live but it was somewhere close-ish to London, so yeah, probably fairly close to me.

I thought 'closer'  than just the same country..... I seem to remember  that Arthur was picked up from The Lord's Cricket Grounds, but I have the impression his house was  actually further south outside London ... (which could put it in Surrey ?) ... but I read the stories back ~ 1970 so the memories might be a bit dodgy.... 

Lord's Cricket Grounds came later in the story, in the bit about the alien species that had a brutal war that cricket appears to make reference to in many ways (I forget the details)

He was picked up from outside his recently demolished house, where that is I don't remember either, but it was somewhere fairly close to London which means it probably was quite close to here (closer than Scotland anyway)