Why Did You Choose Your Avatar for Wikipedia?

[Drakkith]

Just a nice photo I took while in Paris. Maybe some mentors can explain their new avatars to us?

A cruel trick by a unceasingly cruel and careless god...

 

[russ_watters]

Agreed.

 

[PWiz]

I wouldn't call myself an anime/manga crazed fan, but I definitely like a few ones, like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Beelzebub, Detective Conan and Death Note (but that's it - I have very specific tastes, and a lot of stuff doesn't interest me). When I joined PF, I thought about setting my avatar as a screenshot of me reaching round 39 in Black Ops 2 Zombies or the one where I nuked ******** as Russia in Civilization 5 (yeah, you must've guessed I'd be all about secrets if I choose Russia) for bragging rights, but then I finally decided to settle for a picture of Naruto and Sasuke after reading the last chapter of Naruto. (*sobs mathematically*)

 

[BobG]

Mine is an extreme close-up of my Pocket Pickett N600-T.

(Slide rule buffs will notice that I'm calculating the quotient of the cube root of 76.8 divided by the sine of 32.5 degrees for no reason other than it made a nice picture.)

 

[WannabeNewton]

Greatest guitarist of all time.

 

[Psinter]

My avatar is a forest nymph. I grew up in a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and I spent many hours in the woods. As an adult I love hiking and backpacking. I love being in the woods!

I did not know what was a "nymph" so I googled "forest nymph" and was not disappointed. How come I did not know about those things? They sound awesome . I also love the forests!

Spoiler

Although alone in the forest is better (IMO). Other people hinder your speed and I like to cross those marvelous lands at high speed. You feel alive running thorugh the uneven land and nothing to stop you! Feeling the humidity of the plants razing your body while you run, and your feet getting wet too. An awesome feeling. (Rain forests are the only ones I've visited. Never been in other kind of forests. I just love them.)

 

[collinsmark]

Mine is a battery and light bulb apparatus radiating energy [mostly] isotropically.

I originally used it to demonstrate a thought experiment (borrowed from another person) which shows that as an object radiates energy it loses a corresponding amount of mass -- even an apparatus as simple as this one.

-------------------

I had once considered a different avatar of a sacrificial Van de Graaff Generator Monkey.

[Figure 1: Sacrificial Van de Graaff Generator Monkey]

The idea is that if there was a velociraptor attack it could be used to trigger an alarm system thus giving me approximately 0.7 seconds of more life, before being devoured by the velociraptor.

It operates by me first carrying around the Van de Graaff Generator Monkey day and night (even on the bus), keeping it powered on and activated all the time. Even to bed. You can never be too prepared. I got used to the constant noise and electrical shocks after awhile. I even sing a little ditty along with the rhythmic clanging sounds. It's sometimes popular on the bus.

Once a velociraptor breach is detected, I'll toss the Van de Graaff Generator Monkey at the velociraptor where it will be gobbled up immediately, giving the velociraptor a net electrical charge.

[Figure 2: Security breach]

Once the velociraptor has a net electric charge, it will create a magnetic field as it moves toward me at 20 m/s (max). This magnetic field is used to trigger alarms inside and outside of my house to warn my neighbors within a 0.9 mile radius, before I get gobbled up by the velociraptor.

[Figure 3: Alarm system]

In the end though, I just went with the light bulb out of laziness.

 

[collinsmark]

Oh, no. I think I see a velociraptor outside in the garden! [I don't know what one looks like for sure, but my landlord, after learning of my fears, showed me a picture of one that I used for Figure 3. How thoughful of him! (He also cautioned me that there might be velociraptors that hang out in the back garden and he would understand if I chose to consider moving, just to be on the safe side.)]
Btw, yes I'm kidding.

 

[Psinter]

Hey! That's a bunny.

 

[Ibix]

Business idea based on collinsmark's post: velociraptor petting zoo

 

[Demystifier]

In real life I don't look so deeply wise and smart, so my avatar is supposed to compensate for it.

Seriously, it's Bertrand Russell from Logicomix
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1596914521/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Garth]

Mine is taken from a stained glass window in a village church near where I used to live.

He's an old church member by the name of William, the village is Ockham (Occam in Latin) and he had a rather famous razor...

Garth

 

[Lisa!]

Mine is a pic of a handicraft!
Vitreous enamel

 

[strangerep]

Seriously, it's Bertrand Russell from Logicomix

Heh, and all this time I thought it was the professor from (the modern version of) the "Astroboy" cartoon series.

 

[Demystifier]

Heh, and all this time I thought it was the professor from (the modern version of) the "Astroboy" cartoon series.

Googling for "astroboy professor" images gives
https://www.google.hr/search?q=astr...CFYO_FAodkTMF3Q#tbm=isch&q=astroboy+professor
This professor looks quite different.

 

[strangerep]

[...] This professor looks quite different.

Yes, that's Professor Packidermus J. Elefun, from the original version. The name pokes fun at that professor's elephant-like appearance.

There was a newer, more politically correct, remake which had a very different professor. But I only remember it vaguely.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Just me in the Paris subway maybe 3 years ago :)

 

[UncertaintyAjay]

Mine's just an awesome comic.

 

[nsaspook]

When I served we still used sparks and long wires but today the rate is gone and combined into something called 'IT' but we will always be sparks. The new chest insignia is pretty cool. It looks a little like the Evil Spock badge with a blade into the earth.

 

[Plotus]

A long series of disjointed feats of attention, followed by turbo cooldown.

 

[KSG4592]

Greatest guitarist of all time.

Eddie and Jimmy are the kings

 

[FeDeX_LaTeX]

Needs no explanation. :)

 

[tfr000]

Elmer Fudd, What's Opera, Doc?
A bit of satire on the typical "cool" avatar.

 

[mfb]

1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6b

Seriously, star and planet need a better name.
The (probable) planet has a gigantic ring system, about 200 times the radius (40 000 times the area!) of Saturn's system. Artist's impression, of course, but probably not so far away from reality. The central dot is too large, the actual planet should be smaller than 1 pixel.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1SWASP_J1407_b.png

 

[George Jones]

My avatar is a picture of me in front of a whiteboard, with some of my favourite books, and with an oscilloscope that has a sine wave running up the vertical axis instead running across the horizontal axis (difficult to see, though),

 

[Buzz Bloom]

My avatar is a visualization of my nickname, Buzz, which was Buzzy from early childhood until teenage. I was dubbed Buzzy, prior to my earliest memory at age 4, by an uncle, a math teacher at a public high school. When I was older, he explained to me that the name was a descriptive adjecive.

 

[Demystifier]

I like nothingness

What has nothingness to do with it?

 

[mfb]

micromass had a different avatar back then.

 

[Kevin McHugh]

Sunset in my back yard. The sky was on fire that day.

 

[cnh1995]

Dr. Sheldon Cooper..B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D, Sc.D...
O.M.G right?..
My favourite character from The Big Bang Theory!