Rejecting anything so banal as "scott" as a
login name, I was assigned "scrottie". External chronometer
reading 27 years, I just missed the period where where
computers were an extremely serious thing, and my first
"real" job found me in the hands of people holing up
and holding out against The Powers That Be. For the first
time, the dream of running a timeshare system not under
draconian control was within reach of the common University
department.
Earlier on, I was secretative about my name,
for I fanced myself some kind of cracker, and whiled away
the time doing my utmost to annoy BBS sysops. It was a
long dry spell before satire or even humour was accepted
"on line". Next came a period where my Internet access
was via an annonymous "port" on a DEC terminal server,
and my only login name of any sort was what I used on
a Multi User Dungeon - Phaedrus. No one uses their
real name on MUD - MUD is fantasy. Of course, I had no
idea that that book was popular or I would have made
an attempt at creativity. Since MUD stuck with me, so
did that name, for one compartment of my life, atleast.
Next came a phase where I had login accounts, and they
were derived from real names - just not *my* real name.
Point being, it was instilled in me over and over again
that login names aren't permement, and using your real
name is a luxoury unaffordable. With high contention for
the @yahoo.com and @hotmail.com namespaces, and preasure
to change addresses due to spam and the adolescent search
for identity (netters are younger and younger), for many
people, my plight exists amplified.
I've always had
respect for people that used their real names online.
It implies that that you can finger them, take a bus
downtown, walk into an office building, down a hall,
and shake their hand over a messy desk and a large monitor
attached to an expensive Unix workstation. It implies
position and power, and the intelligence and dedication
associated with it. I've always wanted an office and
a nice workstation... | [reply] |
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What if you don't like your real name, and moreover, people keep mispronouncing it and asking what it means in your mother tongue?
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and it has now been 21 years since I posted the above. 42 years slinging bits. >-#
Insert pithy aphorism about the impermanence of transience or sommat
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