MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I've been doing the ole online-online since 1986 or so, first on PLATO and Usenet and then the WWW when that finally became A Thing. I have a PhD in anthropology (UIUC 2001), hence the DrLith, but now work as a freelance translator and occasional academic editor.

I think metafilter has finally become my online home for the time being, since the demise of alt.support.*, because lord knows, I likes me some support.