Author Topic: Question about players names  (Read 1181 times)

Jacki

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Question about players names
« on: April 08, 2020, 06:22:31 PM »
Why are some in blue and some in black?
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mkenuk

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2020, 08:01:37 PM »
I think registered players' names are blue; everyone else is black, but Alan will confirm that.

Jacki

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2020, 09:38:18 PM »
How can you have a name - eg Zanzibar- and not be registered? Do they not have a password?
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mkenuk

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2020, 09:59:54 PM »
Quite easily, Jacki. You can play any game under any name you like - as long as it's not one that is registered to someone else.

For example, when playing on my smartphone I don't use my normal mkenuk;
I have a different user name, which is not registered. (A hint - it's the name of the hero of my all-time favourite novel).
Somehow, the cookies remember the name so I don't need to enter it each time I play.

You don't need a password to log on with an unregistered name; the benefit of registering and having a password is that it stops anyone else using your name.




« Last Edit: April 09, 2020, 01:58:44 AM by mkenuk »

Alan W

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2020, 10:18:13 PM »
I think registered players' names are blue; everyone else is black, but Alan will confirm that.

That's correct. Another way of looking at it is that, in line with a common convention on websites, text in blue is a link you can click on. In this case, if you click on a blue player name you'll see the player's profile.

For the first year or so of Chihuahua's existence (2005-6, would you believe) simply typing in a name was the only way you could identify yourself. This proved to have a few drawbacks, so I introduced the player registration system, but allowed players who didn't want to register to keep playing, and giving themselves a name if it's not taken by a registered player.

One risk, if you don't register, is that someone else can hijack your name. This happened, as I recall, to the forumite who, to this day, has the record for the greatest number of forum posts. (And who hasn't been active here for some years, but has been mentioned recently in the topic started by Binks.) She originally started playing as birdbrain, but someone else started using that name, so she switched to biggerbirdbrain. She subsequently used that name in the forum too.
Alan Walker
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Jacki

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2020, 08:44:40 AM »
Well I normally look for you Mike and the invariable rosette next to your name. I'm intrigued about you playing under another name. Do you play the same game twice? Because you play all three games as far as I can see as mkneuk.
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mkenuk

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2020, 10:14:44 AM »
Do you play the same game twice?


Not really, but occasionally, if I have been somewhere, on my way home I play on my smartphone as 'dentarthurdent' and see how far I can get. As you probably know, Bangkok has horrific traffic jams and a bus journey which should take 30 minutes can take up to two hours. Chi is a great way of sitting out interminable traffic-light delays.
It's usually the 10-letter game I play 'under my alias' because that is the 'afternoon game' in Thailand.
Sometimes 'dentarthurdent' does quite well - he actually beat Rhino to first place on one very rare occasion! - but normally he finishes up a few short of the target.
Once I've got home I usually do play the game again as mkenuk. I try not to look at 'dentarthurdent's' answers, but sometimes I cant resist!
'dentarthurdent' also plays on my behalf during my visits to North-East Thailand, but usually he stops playing once he has found the big word.
 



Jacki

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2020, 11:23:44 AM »
I've noticed dentarthurdent! What is he the main character in?
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mkenuk

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2020, 12:26:34 PM »
'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams.

I've been a huge fan since the 1970s. It started as a BBC radio serial; there are five books in the 'Hitchhiker' trilogy; a sixth has been added posthumously by another author; there has been a TV series and a Hollywood movie which most Hitchhiker fans wish had never been made.

My byline 'Life? Don't talk to me about life' is also from the novel; spoken by Marvin, the paranoid android who is one of the main characters.

In short Adams managed to combine sci-fi, comedy and satire in ways that nobody else has done.
Writers such as Neil Gaiman and Eoin Colfer cite him as a major influence on their writing.
Find, read, enjoy. You won't be disappointed!


Morbius

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2020, 05:41:11 PM »
I also love Douglas Adams' work.  The Dirk Gently books were also very funny.  I remember being outraged that his final novel, The Salmon of Doubt, was published unfinished an obscenely short time after Adams' untimely early death.  I've never read it for that reason.

MK, I remember you saying once before that you have another Chi alter ego - Klaatu.  I haven't seen him for a long while, so I'm assuming he's returned to his home planet.  :) 

Jacki

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2020, 06:15:08 PM »
Wow Mike you're turning into a multiple personality Sibyl-like persona! Who is the real Mike?
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mkenuk

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Re: Question about players names
« Reply #11 on: April 09, 2020, 08:11:44 PM »
Ah, all my guilty secrets are being revealed!

Some years ago my computer was zonked by a trojan.
 With Alan's help I was able to re-register for Chi but, for some reason which I can't remember, I wanted to use a different name and password.
Having watched the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still the night before, I chose Klaatu, the name of the film's protagonist as my new user name.
Once my computer was back to normal, I went back to being mkenuk.

 The Salmon of Doubt is a collection of essays, articles and parts of a draft for a third Dirk Gently novel. Apparently Adams himself  wasn't very pleased with what he had written. I have read bits of it, without ever feeling the urge to read it in its entirety.
It seems however that Douglas Adams did want a sixth 'Hitchhiker' novel, believing that with Mostly Harmless the series had ended very bleakly.
After his death, his widow gave permission to the Irish writer Eoin Colfer, author of the 'Artemis Fowl' books, to produce the sixth Hitchhiker novel which is titled  'And Another Thing'.

 
« Last Edit: April 09, 2020, 09:21:47 PM by mkenuk »