Eclectic Views

    
I have always been insistent that my name is "ari", which is not short for 
"aryeh". So, for my first online systems, that was always my userid. After 
a while it became clear that there were many other "ari"s online, and I 
often received e-mail intended for them. So, I came up with an alternate 
userid that I use almost everywhere else, "adavidow". Except for the WELL.

The WELL is sufficiently exceptional in enough ways that this is no more 
confusing than anything else.
  

    
There was a time, back when one could capitalize only the first letter
of one's name, when MacEachen was almost readable for folks.  Never
has been pronounceable (is that sp. even close?) for anyone save the
blessed Canadians (and they don't say it as I do, but who cares?  they
don't gasp or choke; it's refreshing).  

Things went south when the world switched to computer all caps. 
MACEACHEN. Oh yeah, that helps. Mace-achin' to you too.  So I selected
my various id's with the intent of making life easier for the world. 
<laura-mac>.  Simple.  To the point.  Rudely interrupted by a hypen,
courtesy of the rules of engagement the week I signed up.

Pelly, you just reminded me of a one-liner I read years ago (in
readers' digest, no less):

Pall Mall can't spall.

Still cracks me up!
  

    


viv is from my granny, Vivian O'Brien.
my altmail is edgarbox and if I log into altmail then get a shell prompt I
can telnet to the well again and receive sends but the sends are read by viv
and when I type reply they reply to the the person who last sent viv not to
the sender of the send to edgarbox.  yeah, kick my ass for speaking.
  

    
What's "altmail"?  What are "sends"?  Are they similar to instant messages?
  

    <scribbled by cooljazz Wed 22 Jan 03 08:16>
  

    
<ouch no typos here>

 I visited the WELL on a trial basis, and thought the logon
 ids where  well, kewwwwwwl, err, amusing and intellectual.

 I decided to join and needed something to indicate my interests
 I liked jazz, so I thought up cooljazz.  I meandered the 
 back-alley conferences, flamed a few folks, got scorched in return,
 and soon my ASCII blended right in. 

 I knew I had arrived when after a month or so, 
  I got a send from a fellow pern asking "Are you a woman?" 

 Only recently did I discover 
 my logon ID had become a music industry marketing category. Can I
sue?
 
  

    
Sends are instant messages, but they use the pico command line--they don't 
have a separate client as with AIM or the like.

Among other things this means that the text from a "send" can mix with 
other things the computer is trying to display, such that you can miss 
seeing the "send" entirely. So there are tools to see your last few, just 
in case, and other tools to compensate for trying to deal with a complex 
world in one, print-only window.

I'm not sure what altmail is.
  

    
autumn, why are you asking like that? i am confused. is the idea that 
even though you know the answers, you think it's better in this conference 
to pretend you don't?
  

    
Looks like a time-honored interview style for gently drawing out
explications rather than seemingly offering a correction, don't you think
Fom?  Perhaps it is not so mysterious!
  

    
altmail is the place where alternate email IDs hide.   

Any holder of a Complete well account can create any number 
of alternate email addresses, each costing a couple of bucks
a month.   Every Complete account holder is - at bottom - a 
UNIX logon ID.  Alternate email addresses are also UNIX logon 
IDs. Every UNIX logon needs to have a shell - the initial 
environment in which you're placed at logon.   The altmail 
shell allows UNIX logon and email services, but does not 
allow access to the conferences.

I'd bet that only a tiny fraction of altmail IDs ever actually
log on to UNIX.  Most just fetch their mail using Netscape,
or Eudora, or even (shudder!) Outlook.
  

    
My id is a result of poor typing.  I am most everywhere, kdsigmon. But
that was too short for my engaged-only account here, so I added my
wife's initial, thinking we might share an account (this is totally
impractical, as it turns out, and she is not interested in the Well
anyway, except to comment on how much of my time it occupies). Thus I
typed in kd-csigmon to the account registration, only it came out
kd-scigmon. I din't notice till the deed was accomplished. I could
start a new account with a better name, and I consider upgrading to a
full account, but inertia prevails.
  

    

>she is not interested in the Well anyway, except to comment on how
much of my time it occupies

A common phenomenum, I'm betting.  Describes my wife's attitude to a
tee.
  

    

You know, I did do that on purpose--<28>, that is--just to render my ass
kick-worthy.
  

    
Viv -- Wrong topic.  ;)
  

    

 'viv  kewl! Kick on!
  

    
Thanks for giving us the opportunity, (viv)!
  

    
When I started computing on machines that allowed you to name files
:-), if I created a temp file I called it "jaxfile" or a directory
"jaxdir" e.g., Jack's dir. By retronymization or some such process
over time I became "jax". It was even my handle at IBM which usually
frowns on userids which mask the user's true name.
  

    

Retronymization. Heh.
  

    
(The term "retronym" was either invented or popularized by Stan
Kelly-Bootle.)
  

    
went exploring  re: retronym (without intention to confront, mind you)
and found this page (hilarious, to me):

http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-ret1.htm

carry on.......
  

    
Right. Like I said, I wasn't sure if S. K-B. invented or just
popularized it.
  

    
Interesting, Laura-mac!
  

    
Been meaning to say, Great idea for a topic, Adam!  I'm sure I'm not
the only one who gets curious about others' user ID's, just as clowns
get curious about each other's clown names.

My ID came from a song by the band Abney Park.  It used to be on their
MP3.com page, along with an interesting description, but unfortunately
it isn't up there any longer.  It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek song
about having babies, born from the writer Robert Brown's musings on (I
paraphrase from memory):

\<cite>...how creepy our reproductive system really is.  I mean, the
male squirts goo inside the female, and nine months later you have this
tiny monster running around knocking boxes over in the grocery
store.\</cite>

The lyrics can be found by scrolling down a bit at
http://www.abneypark.com/2002/lyrics/t.html .

I came by the Well through the conversations with Neil Gaiman on
<inkwell.vue.>, about a year before I actually joined.  Since Abney
Park is kind of goth-y, and "Tiny Monster" sounded kind of like
Gaiman's bizarre sense of humor, I decided it would make a good
username for when I eventually bought a membership.
  

    
I also recall a lyric that goes "and the sea breeds tiny monsters" from
"Horse Latitudes" by the Doors.  I'm sure somebody who can look up these
things on the Internet will be around in a moment with the definitive
answer.
  

    
HORSE LATITUDES
From the album "Strange Days"   
   
 When the still sea conspires an armor   
 And her sullen and aborted   
 Currents breed tiny monsters   
 True sailing is dead   
 Awkward instant   
 And the first animal is jettisoned   
 Legs furiously pumping   
 Their stiff green gallop   
 And heads bob up   
 Poise   
 Delicate   
 Pause   
 Consent   
 In mute nostril agony   
 Carefully refined   
 And sealed over