Cambridge user IDs from that era are at least 5 characters, with the leading characters being initials (mjg in my case), padded out to 5 characters with numbers. The leading number is never a 1, in order to avoid ambiguity if somebody decides to render it in Helvetica. Numbers are then incremented to avoid collisions. I was the 40th person with mjg as initials, hence 59.
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u/mjg59 Social Justice Warrior Sep 03 '14
Cambridge user IDs from that era are at least 5 characters, with the leading characters being initials (mjg in my case), padded out to 5 characters with numbers. The leading number is never a 1, in order to avoid ambiguity if somebody decides to render it in Helvetica. Numbers are then incremented to avoid collisions. I was the 40th person with mjg as initials, hence 59.