In Which Signatures are Talked About

[Char. Limit]

What's the story behind your signature or avatar? Why did you choose it, if you chose it? If you don't have a signature or avatar here, maybe you do at a different forum, and you'd like to share that?

I want to know!

 

[berkeman]

What's the story behind your signature or avatar? Why did you choose it, if you chose it? If you don't have a signature or avatar here, maybe you do at a different forum, and you'd like to share that?

I want to know!

You go first!

Okay, whatever.

Mine (my avatar) is of one of my favorite activities, and the picture was taken by my son when he was about 7 or so. He's now 17 and WAY faster than I am. Fun times

 

[Char. Limit]

You go first!

Okay, whatever.

Mine is of one of my favorite activities, and the picture was taken by my son when he was about 7 or so. He's now 17 and WAY faster than I am. Fun times

Oh fine, I'll go first. (or second!)

My avatar is a cheezburger, as is obvious. This is from when I dubbed myself the Supreme Cheezburger in chat one time.

My signature is two funny lines and a series of true math thingies.

Funny Line 1: PF TOP GUY

Well, one time, I was called "one of the PF Top Guys" by a crackpot on chat. I laughed at that, and decided sure why not, and labeled myself a PF Top Guy!

Funny Line 2: Infractions

I posted about how infractions are like scars. Lisab responded with a quote from someone about how scars are beautiful, and I... adapted the quote. Infractions of whatever nature are beautiful!

Math thingies: Just stuff to give to people with stupid statements like ".999...=/=1" or "1/0 is infinity cause dividing by zero makes infinity" or the most recent "-1 = sqrt(-1)sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1 * -1) = 1".

 

[micromass]

My avatar is of course from "The Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd. It's one of my favorite music bands out there. I originally wanted an avatar of "Wish you were here", but it turned out to be too small.

My signature is my tagline as Supreme Onion. Most of you will recognize it as a spoof of the famous Bhagavad Gita quote "I am become time (or death), the destroyer of worlds".

My last line in my signature is a spoof of Char's and lisab's signatures.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

OK, I'll go first too. Identity theft.

 

[Moonbear]

My avatar just seemed cute...and now too many other people use the same one. When we used to have locations displayed under the avatar, mine was "Hunting Mice." I used to rotate through a lot of aatars when I first joined, mostly dressed up bears, but other stuff too. When I was appointed as a mentor, sniper kitty stuck as I went crackpot hunting instead of mouse hunting.

My signature was another random find while thumbing through quotations, and I just thought it was fitting for PF, and my teaching in general. Too many students spend too much time focusing on rote memorization, and don't really learn.

 

[rollcast]

I mostly post on fishing forums when I'm not on so here's a couple I use.

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/avatars/roll-cast.gif?dateline=1324229424

One of my nicest macro shots and the colours go nicely with the forum colour scheme.

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/avatars/roll-cast.gif?type=sigpic&dateline=1327338534

This is my signature on the same forum. I was mucking around on G.I.M.P. one day and decided to change a cartoon I found into a pac man thingie.

 

[turbo]

My avatar is my favorite ferret, Turbo, When we got Pergo flooring in that long living-room, he loved ferret-bowling. I'd grab him and scale him down that floor on his back and he'd come right back and play keep-away. If he wanted me to pick him up instead, it was nap-time. What a nice boy.

 

[drizzle]

My avatar is a portrait of an arabian lady, it looks calming and I like it. As for my sig, the first line is 'read'. The second is a quote from the Quran: 'Truly it is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts which are in their breasts' 22:46.

 

[I like Serena]

Found my new avatar on the facebook page of someone (else) I like.

I'd like to see more people use a solution method like that if only for fun!
Anyway, I like simple and easy to understand.

 

[collinsmark]

Mine is shrunken version of this:

I created the image before joining PF. It's meant to be a battery powered lightbulb, that radiates isotropically (same in all directions) more or less. I previously used it in an explanation of E=mc² mass/energy equivalency, based on Einstein's own explanation (Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik, Sept. 27, 1905).

I wanted keep the apparatus simple and familiar, to emphasize the point that mass-energy equivalency holds true for pretty much any type of energy. And in particular: it doesn't require fancy shmancy nuclear reactions. (Of course, those apply too.)

After joining PF I made it my avatar, because the lightbulb part of it made it look like an "idea". One of those "Eureka!" type symbols. I don't know. 'Seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The two documentaries linked in my sig are as good of a synopsis of the causes of the economic crisis that I've seen; and well worth remembering during this election year.

I picked the avatar to annoy Flex and Dave. It was actually a joke; a reminder to Flex that I was watching him.

 

[Deveno]

as befits a lover of mathematics, my signature and avatar are null

 

[Danger]

My avatar is a photo of me in my Hallowe'en makeup from several years ago. My signature is primarily meant as a joke, but references the time that I parked a Cessna 150 in a friend's back yard.

 

[ThomasT]

What's the story behind your signature or avatar? Why did you choose it, if you chose it? If you don't have a signature or avatar here, maybe you do at a different forum, and you'd like to share that?

I want to know!

I have a signature at a different forum. It's Captain Beefheart's:
The stars are matter
We are matter
But it doesn't matter

Which I think encapsulates the notion that nothing, even matter itself, really matters. But I do think that that should be tempered with the suggestion that what we call wise people, even though embracing this notion, nevertheless understand the importance of behaving as if, and thus appearing to believe that, at least some things do matter.

 

[Deveno]

I have a signature at a different forum. It's Captain Beefheart's:
The stars are matter
We are matter
But it doesn't matter

Which I think encapsulates the notion that nothing, even matter itself, really matters. But I do think that that should be tempered with the suggestion that what we call wise people, even though embracing this notion, nevertheless understand the importance of behaving as if, and thus appearing to believe that, at least some things do matter.

ah, Don Van Vliet (did I spell that correctly, it doen't ma-). I had a friend in college who swore that Trout Mask Replica was the very pinnacle of Western Music (I do confess a certain fondness for "The Dust Blows Forward And The Dust Blows Back" especially the line:

Me and my girl named bimbo
Limbo
Spam

which brings tears to my eyes...or is that micromass? dunno.)

 

[ThomasT]

ah, Don Van Vliet (did I spell that correctly, it doen't ma-). I had a friend in college who swore that Trout Mask Replica was the very pinnacle of Western Music (I do confess a certain fondness for "The Dust Blows Forward And The Dust Blows Back" especially the line:

Me and my girl named bimbo
Limbo
Spam

which brings tears to my eyes...or is that micromass? dunno.)

"Space age couple, why don't you flex your magic muscle?"

By the way, I think that spelling is unimportant in these sorts of interchanges. What is important is that there has been communication in a way that hundreds of millions, if not thousands, of people can identify with.

 

[turbo]

Lick My Decals Off, Baby! R.I.P. Captain!

 

[rhody]

Simple, baby picture, innocence... sans cocker spaniel, Buffy.

Rhody...

 

[physics girl phd]

My avatar is a cat sleeping on a quantum text. My cat, who is still alive (somewhere in this house, I presume, although I'm not presently measuring this). It also, as a bonus, includes my sewing machine... one of my more precious material belongings.

 

[jtbell]

My avatar reflects the fact that I'm a train buff, specializing in electric-powered ones which are rather uncommon in the US unlike some other parts of the world.

It's adapted from a logo that was used in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the "South Shore Line" between Chicago and South Bend. During that period their trains were nearly sixty years old and pretty much held together with duct tape and baling wire. The complete logo had the inscription "the little train that could."

 

[OmCheeto]

What's the story behind your signature or avatar? Why did you choose it, if you chose it? If you don't have a signature or avatar here, maybe you do at a different forum, and you'd like to share that?

I want to know!

My avatar is all your faulthttps://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3190907&postcount=7010 and my signature is now a bad translator mish mash of abbreviated nonsense.

Original quotes and sources:

Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom.

Opening your mind to something you ignorantly detest can be a jarring wake up to the reality that is, which is this: everything is what you make of it.

Sunlight will never cost $4/gallon

Sail!

 

[Danger]

I'm a train buff, specializing in electric-powered ones which are rather uncommon in the US

Aren't they all?
Every one that I've seen here in Canada is, with the exception of a couple of old steam units used for touristy stuff or movies. I thought that you use the same stuff down south.
Oh... do you mean straight electric, that takes power from a pantograph or the rails, as opposed to those with a diesel-powered generator for the motors?

 

[edward]

My avatar evolved over the years. At first my grandiose idea was to trim the pyracantha into the shape of an eagle.

Then one fine late spring morning I realized that a disease called fire blight had destroyed my dream.

Not being one to give up easily I set a couple of old wheels under it because what was left of it it now resembled the outline of an old car.

After a few years of drenching the soil with steer manure and Miracle Grow the hedgemobile as I now called it improved in appearance greatly. It had even become three dimensional.

Another year or so of constant trimming and streching the branches out with plant tie wire it looked like this:

 

[jtbell]

Oh... do you mean straight electric, that takes power from a pantograph or the rails, as opposed to those with a diesel-powered generator for the motors?

Yup. I don't ignore the diesel-electric (and steam!) stuff, in fact I just bought a nice picture book featuring the Erie-Lackawanna in northeast Ohio where I grew up in the '60s-'70s. But when I go traveling for railfanning, it's the streetcars, light rail, and electrified commuter/suburban rail that I mainly seek out.

Beyond that, you can count the straight-electric railroads in the US on one hand: Amtrak's Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston, and Philadelphia to Harrisburg; three isolated railroads out West that each carry only coal between a coal mine and an electric power plant; and a short trolley freight line in Iowa that uses 90-year-old electric locomotives to deliver freight cars from other railroads to a few businesses.

 

[OmCheeto]

My avatar evolved over the years. At first my grandiose idea was to trim the pyracantha into the shape of an eagle.
...

Then one fine late spring morning I realized that a disease called fire blight had destroyed my dream.

Not being one to give up easily I set a couple of old wheels under it because what was left of it it now resembled the outline of an old car.

...

After a few years of drenching the soil with steer manure and Miracle Grow the hedgemobile as I now called it improved in appearance greatly. It had even become three dimensional.

Another year or so of constant trimming and streching the branches out with plant tie wire it looked like this:

That is awesome! I always thought you lived here in Oregon. If you leave your car out for a few years and don't wash it, you end up with a Chia car.

 

[Danger]

when I go traveling for railfanning, it's the streetcars, light rail, and electrified commuter/suburban rail that I mainly seek out.

Beyond that, you can count the straight-electric railroads in the US on one hand

Hmmm, yeah... the LRT in Calgary works that way. Now if we could just get those idiot pedestrians and drivers to recognize what it means when the crossing arms come down... They just insist upon trying to beat the train.

I didn't even realize that other countries had straight electric trains as intracity transport until less than a year ago when I saw a Daily Planet episode featuring a German line. Since then, I've seen a lot of items about Japanese systems, and I think maybe a French one. I don't know how well such a system would hold up here. One good ice storm could cripple the entire thing. (It's not so bad inside the city, because they have the budget for a preventative infrastructure.)

Okay... sorry for derailing the thread. Back to business, folks.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Okay... sorry for derailing the thread.

More like enrailing it.

 

[BobG]

My avatar comes from one of my hobbies: collecting slide rules.

My signature comes from a news story:

TEACHER ARRESTED. - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," the Attorney General said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle.'

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

My first thought was, "How could anyone want to count any higher than they can count on their fingers and toes!?"

 

[drizzle]

This sure clear things up, BobG.