i found myself explaining the other day why i use this screen name (and now domain name) and it was not the first time and i find it useful to blog things like that so next time i can save my breath and just point...
however, i am not going to fully explain, i have a lot to say about it, i would be here all day...
but, i will copy/paste a couple things...

the first time i tried to briefly explain it was after a couple confusions where people thought it meant i was trouble of some kind, mistakenly thinking that "insidious" means evil or something, so, "insidious_plots" means "evil intentions" to them, i guess... so, i hit a thesaurus and came up with the best synonyms for how i am using the term, then put it in a subtle place on our homepage where i could point to it in the future without it being prominent to every visitor...
(mouse over the underscore in the word "insidious_plots" at the top of our homepage...)

so, here is that...

our usage of "insidious_plots" is meant to denote intentions or motives that are subtle, cunning, seductive, devious, crafty, wily, sly, guileful, circumventive, even dishonest, disingenuous, or deceptive, but not necessarily evil or malicious...
in short, the name is not meant to reflect a desire on our part to do harm...

in fact, it is sort of our public summary of the human condition in general...


and if you really want to hear the details as to why, you can email us or something...

when i explain this elsewhere, i usually end up saying something like "even a person's seemingly kindest deeds are often little more than self-serving insidious plots, at best"...

or, as this guy says it...

"We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them."
- Francois De La Rochefoucauld

i have considered using that as a sig for a long time...

but, read all the above carefully, "insidious" is basically a neutral descriptor, not necessarily defining something as kind nor evil, just probably not what it appears to be, and intentionally misleading, at that...


and i will leave it at that for now...