What's in a name?

[Arantor]

I'm always curious how people pick their usernames; unlike our own names which are bestowed upon us at birth, our forum names are ones we pick.

A lot of people - especially on a certain forum - assume that Arantor comes from the fact I can get a bit ranty at times and that I'm 'A Ranter' just adapted for spelling. It's not entirely unfair as a story and I've been known to encourage it on occasion - it can, under the right circumstances - be good to have a 'forum bad guy' that everyone can gang up against. Trolls can be good for a community, to have a point for everyone else to rally against!

But sadly it's less interesting. I grew up with a series of books calling Fighting Fantasy - they're like a more densely packed variant of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, but have stats and combat and so on. One of the recurring characters is one Arakor Nicodemus, who lives in the citystate of Port Blacksand, in a hut by the river - and he has no objections to turning people who annoy him into goldfish to see how long they will live in the filthy river water (not long, for the record)... it's just a variation on that name.

I think I can probably guess how @Retro picked their name though curious about a few other people.

 

[Retro]

I think I can probably guess how @Retro picked their name though curious about a few other people.

Yup, you're right, it's a reference to retro computers.

For those who don't recognize my avatar, it's the original Acorn Archimedes logo from 1987. Such a nice clean design that's stood the test of time and looks great as a forum avatar.

Thanks for letting us know how your username came about.

 

[wolfdeer]

My username is inspired by the maned wolf (actually not a wolf; it's its own species), that is also called, "wolf deer", as it resembles a deer and a wolf. It's quite fascinating.

Here's a picture, if anyone is interested:



Please note that I do not own the rights to this image.

 

[Tiffany]

@Arantor Fun thread topic and interesting detail on your username. It's a fitting name while encompassing your childhood interests!

@Retro I can't claim to recognize your avvie, but now that you have shared it's origin, it's always nice to learn something new and you are well suited for your name and avvie!

@wolfdeer I love animals....this wolf is amazing!

So apparently, I need to spiff up my username. I dabble in a few hobbies, including graphic art if I have any free and "peaceful" time to create. Pixel Princess, I commonly use in the forums I post in that are relative to my hobbies. Y'all take a vote, should I morph into PixelPrincess

 

[Retro]

Tiffs, I want to stress that there's no requirement or recommendation to change your username. I only mentioned it in case you were thinking of doing it.

 

[Tiffany]

All good .....

 

[wolfdeer]

@wolfdeer I love animals....this wolf is amazing!

I think so, too. They're absolutely beautiful.

 

[Retro]

I'm always curious how people pick their usernames; unlike our own names which are bestowed upon us at birth, our forum names are ones we pick.

A lot of people - especially on a certain forum - assume that Arantor comes from the fact I can get a bit ranty at times and that I'm 'A Ranter' just adapted for spelling. It's not entirely unfair as a story and I've been known to encourage it on occasion - it can, under the right circumstances - be good to have a 'forum bad guy' that everyone can gang up against. Trolls can be good for a community, to have a point for everyone else to rally against!

But sadly it's less interesting. I grew up with a series of books calling Fighting Fantasy - they're like a more densely packed variant of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, but have stats and combat and so on. One of the recurring characters is one Arakor Nicodemus, who lives in the citystate of Port Blacksand, in a hut by the river - and he has no objections to turning people who annoy him into goldfish to see how long they will live in the filthy river water (not long, for the record)... it's just a variation on that name.

I think I can probably guess how @Retro picked their name though curious about a few other people.

Oh no, the last thing I'd ever want is to attract that sort of trolling to me, what a headache! You're a braver man than me.

Interesting how you came to choose your username.

@wolfdeer You've got a lovely username and I've actually learned something too as I had no idea that such an animal existed. Thankyou.

Re my logo, here's an official Acorn promo shot for the A310, one of the original 1987 models and you can clearly see the stylised "A" on the screen. My original is lifted straight from the operating system, RISC OS, so it's gloriously bit perfect. Note that it's been scaled a bit by XF, so it's not 100% accurate on here.



Looking more closely at the picture, does anyone have any idea how they prevented the mains cable from showing? That computer is really on I believe and sitting on those flagstones, so it's not clear to me what image processing they used then to do it. Only other way I can think of is to have a mains socket underneath it, which seems really unlikely.

This article from a decade ago about Acorn is very interesting.

Strong ARM: The Acorn Archimedes is 25

The first ARM computer

www.theregister.com

 

[wolfdeer]

@wolfdeer You've got a lovely username and I've actually learned something too, as I had no idea that such an animal existed. Thankyou.

Thank you! I'm very glad that you learned something new. It's my pleasure.

 

[Retro]

@wolfdeer @Mars here's a video on the maned wolf I think you'll find interesting.

Did you know that they're omnivores with a preference for fruit?

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[wolfdeer]

That was interesting, thank you for sharing! I learned something new myself.

 

[Mars]

Thank you for that article. What wonderful, elusive animals. They are protected, and as long as there are animals in captivity they will not go completely extinct. Never enough knowledge....

 

[JimmyNeutron]

I think you know where it came from

 

[CyberGeek]

Love this thread !

 

[CyberGeek]

@Tiffany are you into photography?

Guess how I chose my username!
Geez, this site made me more of a @CyberGeek

 

[Tiffany]

Yes, love photography, anything creative really.

How did you choose your username?

 

[CyberGeek]

Obviously as I spend my life online, lol.
Way to go for a software dev

 

[Tiffany]

Why of course that would be your name

 

[CyberGeek]

I just saw you’re no longer the pixel princess ?

 

[Tiffany]

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to notice

 

[CyberGeek]

Is that why you changed it? As a test to all the members?

@Retro the competition should be changed to “first person to have recognised Tiff’s custom user title change”

When did you change it?

 

[Retro]

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to notice

Oh yeah! Like it.

 

[CyberGeek]

Oh yeah! Like it.

I somehow remind you to reply to threads by reviving them lol

I like it too, but preferred the pixel princess ngl

It’s a creative name to suit the creative persona you wish to portray !

 

[CyberGeek]

Oh yeah!

Don’t even try it, Retro! I and ONLY I noticed. Please. Okay?