Date: 30 September 2008
From: Random Internet User
Subject: I Clicked Your Dippy Imagemap, Whee

Uhhh… Sorry if I’m being rude or anything like that, but why is your site’s name ziggurat.org and it has nothing to do with ziggurats? Just a question.

it’s been twelve years since i first registered ziggurat.org, in October, 1996, when i was working for InterAccess, and domain registration cost $100 for the first two years and $50 each year thereafter, from the one place you could register a domain at, Internic (they were really Network Solutions, but no one called them that) — you had to FTP a form down, and then submit it back to them, and if you ever wanted to update your domain registration information, the change was authorized either by originating from one of the authorized domain contacts, by their alphanumeric nic handles, or, if you were very badass, signed with a PGP key. if, god help you, you ever had to call the internic for anything, you could write off the entire day because you were going to be on hold a while.

if i recall correctly, my nic handle was SD1439. a friend of mine was simply SN, which i thought was super elite.

Date: 1 October 2008
From: sabrina downard
Subject: Re: I Clicked Your Dippy Imagemap, Whee

A long time ago, I bought a computer and it had a chess game on it. When I’d play the game, the computer would call itself Ziggurat. Not long after, I installed Linux on that computer, and it asked me for a name for the computer, so I gave it the name from the chess game. A year or so on, I needed a domain name, so I stuck with it. That’s why.

cheers,
–sabrina