[OT] Posting under ones full name (was: How to uncompress a VOB file? (Win XP))

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> It was a joke, implying that my mother uses the same "truly unique"
> handle as you.
>
> With over 7 billion people on the planet, and no upper limit on the
> number of handles anyone can take, together with the lack of any
> definitive central registry, I wouldn't put money on any one of them
> being unique.
>
> It wouldn't surprise me to learn that now you have claimed Rosuav is
> unique to you, some wag (or wags) have rushed out and registered it on
> whatever Internet forums you haven't already done so on and are already
> posting "I am [insert childish insult of your choice]" in your name.

Ah. Sure. I get that.

But "Rosuav" is, as far as I know, unique to me in the entire English
language. (I checked once, and there's something in Italian that uses
the same letter combination. Not a person, though.) Yes, it's entirely
possible that someone will deliberately try to sully my name like
that, but I can't imagine that anyone would accidentally hit on it as
an internet username, given that it hasn't happened yet. And sure,
someone might be using it offline that I'm unaware of. I'm prepared to
chance that. :)

So yeah, I probably shouldn't have said "truly unique", but
"effectively unique". Pretty much anything you find on google.com or
duckduckgo.com with the name "rosuav" has come from me, or is
referencing me (and this would include the wag/s you describe, though
I've not seen that happen, and I've been using and claiming this name
for a decade or so - and that's only counting on the internet).

ChrisA