Why "the House of Lords"?

Actually, I believe it's a reference to Victorian England and the British Parliament.

 

Its the name of the upper house of the British Parliament. You can only be appointed to it, not voted in and a place in the real HoL is for life. Also until recently it was hereditary, being passed down the family line but they've put a stop to that.

The forum here was called the HoL long before I showed up, but I guess it got chosen because it seems kind of Victorian and 'Steampunky' (I think I just invented a word).

But in the case of 1984, despite the fact that the book was written in 1948 (if I remember correctly) and that it predates the internet and all but the most primitive of computers, yes they were talking about us.

I just read 1984 again about 2 weeks ago myself, I even had a quote in my sig for a while.

 

Hokay, so I've tried looking for the arcane origins of this forum's name via the search feature, but that's 10 pages of results I know I won't be able to sift through without a major headache, and regardless, the name of this place was most likely decided upon in some iRC channel or another.

Well, I suppose I could ask Calis...