For the record

As far as I know, I was the first to invent and use the alias, phorbin. I invented it in the early 80’s as a pen name. I used it in Ultima 4 or 5 (I forget) as my avatar name. I have been using it ever since, and I am proud to have come up with it long before Phish brought the term to public consciousness and long before I discovered that it was a chemical name.

It was a joke; a not so subtle reference to “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (Find and read the book and you’ll know why.) with a sideswipe cool PH factor; an unoriginal name, I guess, except for the PH and the use I put it to. —Then Phish came along and employed it in a song and a unique alias got handed out to become a common property.

Which leads me to a recurrent thought. “Claim unique ideas quickly and establish your ownership of them early. Unless you’re sending it out to see how far it travels, once you’ve thought it, and especially if you use it and others see it, it gets dropped into the mass unconscious and someone will consciously or unconsciously pull it out and use it because no good idea goes unclaimed forever.”

I am the original phorbin. All others who have taken up the alias are imitators of Phish.