Hacker News Reader

Comment by incanus77 | Hacker News Reader

I first learned about the ability to apply for custom aliases at my university after noticing a guy I knew didn't have the usual pattern — first 5 of last name, first name initial, and nothing or else numbers 2+ depending upon your order in line. So I was 'millej3'.

Then I thought about the guy's name: D___ Hoover.

He had applied for, and got, 'hoover'.

View on HN

I had a colleague, also at a university, where the policy was first 4 of surname, then first name initial. Her name was S____ Cuntin. Yes, they actually issued it.

I'm in my 40s so bit of a grey beard now, but I worked with the real grey beards at University of Michigan. Something like 75k active staff and students, and more than 600k living alumni, yet their email addresses were like bob@umich.edu. Setting up the first campus email server came with privileges.

I got an alias setup for my uni address. Although it asked where it should go, so I just directed it directly to my Gmail.

My inbox was closed after graduation. My forwarding alias worked for years after.

Unrelated fact, a university ending email domain is enough to prove student status for a lot of software.

>Unrelated fact, a university ending email domain is enough to prove student status for a lot of software.

When Facebook first came out, it was the only way I could get an account.

I don't get it, what's wrong with "hooved"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com