You know the tiny URL thing?
Makes urls to an unintelligable mashup of letters and numbers. Here's a slightly different approach - turn URL's in to Dickens quotes. I'm not sure how it's going to keep them unique, bit here's the one for B3ta (even knows to put in kittens!) - dickensurl.com/62b/I_used_to_sit_think_think_thinking_till_I_felt_as_lonesome_as_a_kitten_in_a_washhouse_copper_with_the_lid_on

Link if you want to use it: dickensurl.com/
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Mon 4 May 2009, 18:48, 6 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I'm not clicking your link
but I always did wonder how you guys changed a url. I still don't understand how it works, but that isn't going to stop me from using it!

Edit: how do you convert one to something you actually do want it to say though?
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Mon 4 May 2009, 19:02, Reply)

FWB
I'll give you a quick HTML lesson here...

To embed a link in general you put down (a href="http://www.whateveryourlinkis.com")whatever text you want it to say(/a). Instead of the parentheses, use the pointy brackets- the "greater than" and "less than" signs above the period and the comma on your keyboard.

This is how you rickroll someone- or in our case, how they horseroll you. So you see some innocuous chunk of text like click here and end up Loving Horses. If they're feeling clever they may use a BBC URL for the text instead.

Apparently tinyurl and dickensurl add another layer to it in that they obscure just where it is you're about to end up, so you don't see the link as purple and know that you've already been there.

ARSE!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 4 May 2009, 19:17, Reply)

Just to further slightly on from Loon
TinyURL is basically a redirection service. You see a lot of websites with stupidly long URL's which aren't suitable for places like forums, so they allow you to shorten (on in the case of Dickens, which I take Herr Loon clicked on, lengthen) it to a more manageable length.If you change the link by pasting in to the address bar, then making it preview.tinyurl.com/xxx it'll show you where you're going to first.
(Potty Jag har smör i min rumpspringa, Mon 4 May 2009, 20:03, Reply)

Thanks Loon
I'll try it out later and see if I understand all those technical words like 'less than' and 'greater than' mean.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Mon 4 May 2009, 21:47, Reply)

less than you say?
these thingumyjigs: < >?
(Shippy likes linebreaks and doesn't care what you think, Tue 5 May 2009, 0:02, Reply)

You've found 'em, Shippy.
On a related note, I've always liked HugeURL.
( twickenhamsandwich, Tue 5 May 2009, 2:38, Reply)