What does your username mean?

I was into lucid dreaming in high school and flying is like one of the first things you try to do. My name is a reference to that. Well, that and rocket jumping in video games like TF2. Turns out it's also a game company...
 
combatentropy said:
I don't care! It's not about regaling us with your stories. It's about ending the wondering, so I can at last start thinking about more important things, like that script I was gonna write.

Anyway, my half-dozen paragraphs just make me look like a narcissist.
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Well you had to lead off the thread with some content to get people's attention!
 
From the Roman family name Paulus, which meant "small" or "humble" in Latin. Adding to that, the suffix of my last name also means small. So my name is Small Small.

I'm happy to say that the diminutive meaning of my names has not affected me. Everyone I know calls me dumbsh*t.
 
JPNola- John Pope, and I live in “NOLA” ( New Orleans, LA )

I’d prefer this forum be a “real name” forum as is Reduser. For one thing, it is awkward when speaking to another user or speaking of another user to call the user “combatentropy” or for that matter “JPNola”. Secondly, I think real name user names promote better behavior because there is more accountability than with user names that for all practical purpose are anonymous. You tend to be better behaved when it is your name on the line. Real name use also makes it possible for others to look up your work or check you out if you are selling something.
 
combatentropy said:
What's wrong with Publimix? And anyway what does it mean? :)



And what about 0b57? Is that hexadecimal?

In all seriousness, this is totally optional, but you wander into this thread with a cryptic username, it's like an elephant wandering into the living room.



I don't care! It's not about regaling us with your stories. It's about ending the wondering, so I can at last start thinking about more important things, like that script I was gonna write.

Anyway, my half-dozen paragraphs just make me look like a narcissist.
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Publimix is the name of my company. Publish a mix of media. Books and Some video. I wantend to use my own name but could’t change it after registration. In real live my name is Peter Bosman
 
combatentropy said:
You can call me Combat ;) I guess your power's not out, but how's the flooding over in NOLA?
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Thus far we’ve dodged any heavy rain or wind beyond gusts. Thanks for asking. I declined the inquiries from Weather Channel. While it can be fun at times doing storm coverage it is also a pita keeping gear dry and your person dry. I’ve been blessed with a ton of work lately and thus can have the luxury of being selective in what work I take.
 
JPNola said:
[...]I’d prefer this forum be a “real name” forum as is Reduser. For one thing, it is awkward when speaking to another user or speaking of another user to call the user “combatentropy” or for that matter “JPNola”. Secondly, I think real name user names promote better behavior because there is more accountability than with user names that for all practical purpose are anonymous. You tend to be better behaved when it is your name on the line. Real name use also makes it possible for others to look up your work or check you out if you are selling something.
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Every policy like this has its pluses and minuses. You did a good job enumerating the pluses. Which is great, we’re all appreciative of these benefits. So, if I may, modestly suggest there may be benefits for keeping pseudonyms/anonyms/nicks as separate from your identity IRL. You say one tends to be “better behaved” with a real name. I find it a dubious benefit, because the same can be provided by strong moderation enforcement - if somebody is being abusive, or is spamming or whatnot, well, that’s what moderation is for. So the same benefit can be provided without the negatives. The negatives in my view are multiple, and are the flip side of “better behaved”, which is “inhibited, insincere, muzzled”.

To begin with, for someone in my situation, I don’t think I’d even participate in most such boards. I worked for one of the three big talent agencies. I know, personally, many well-known industry figures. Do you imagine for a moment that I’d be honest about the work of an actor, or director, or writer, or DP if they were either a former client, or merely an acquaintance? Sorry, but no. And it goes beyond just the first layer - we have friends in common. How do you imagine that goes if someone now can’t invite me to a party/event/project because X is going to be there, or vice verse? It’s B.S. It’s all fine to talk of being “real”, but there’s a very good reason why you can’t do it to the degree that is sometimes necessary - that’s what social skills are to begin with. A world where everyone tells their 100% honest feelings would collapse in 5 minutes. Let’s get real indeed.

And a lot is lost when we can’t be honest when it is sorely needed, a point of view that is different is going to be sometimes hard or impossible to express, with a great attending loss to the quality of any endeavor. The concept of “whistleblower” exists for a reason - and that’s both for more formal settings as well as more mundane ones like a message board or film discussion forum.

You say “accountable” and I say “suppressive”. Sorry, but I’d rather live in a world where people are free to reach for their heights without regard to social niceties of local mores. As long as it’s not abusive, of course - and that can be taken care of with responsible moderation (and while we are at it, can I just give a shout out to a fantastic moderator Barry G. here on dvxuser?).

As to being able to “look up work” - I find that frankly 100% useless, unless you are going to hire that person. If not, and you just want to see if this guy/gal who expresses an opinion has work you like or not? Bollocks. You don’t have to be a competent artist, or even an artist at all to be a critic or indeed just an audience member who is expressing an opinion. And the validity of an argument does not depend on the source - that’s the “authority fallacy”. Judge the argument on its merits not on who is making it.

So, while I can see some marginal benefits to real life names, I find the drawbacks overwhelming. I much prefer the freedom of anonymity or pseudonymity in a well moderated environment. Dvxuser strikes a good balance in that regard. No single policy is going to be without its critics and its genuine pros and cons, but at the end of the day I am very happy with the one here regarding names. YMMV, and all only IMHO, of course.
 
Lying is a disease, honesty is the cure.
Secrecy promotes deception, transparency promotes truth.
 
jcs said:
Lying is a disease, honesty is the cure.
Secrecy promotes deception, transparency promotes truth.
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Agreed 100%. That’s why anonymity is so important in promoting truth. Using real-life names as the poster said wrt. Reduser IMHO is a good example of how it promotes the opposite of honesty, instead it inhibits honest expression of opinion, and has a tendency to promote a cult of personality. What is worse, that such honest criticism would actually help the product and the users, which is why it is important to allow for anonymity. I am not going to get political, but we all know how there were many examples in history when someone from a secret agency or government body blew the whistle anonymously, thus sparing lives and allowing progress. The greatest advocates for total transparency are always repressive systems, where all-seeing guardians can always say “if you have nothing to hide...”. Those are enemies of freedom - and enemies of privacy which is an inalienable right of every human being. A nightmare system of total transparency is obvious, but we sometimes forget the value of anonymity.

As an example even from this board. How many questions we’ve had where a user asks about advice on a client, or business situation or work situation. It is completely unworkable for a user not to be able to ask such a question anonymously. We see the proof of that constantly.

Lies should be countered with truth, and often the only way to counter an official lie is to anonymously counter with the truth without fear of repercussion (one reason why anonymous crime tips are a thing - repercussions!). The harder you make it to tell the truth, the more you promote lies. That is why privacy, anonymity and secrecy is so vital to balance out the Power that always has more tools and more lies on its side. Long live Anonymity and Truth!
 
Love all the "real name" stuff. Mine is Michael Smith- no one ever believes me. I started using other monikers early on- just because my name was usually already taken, and I'm not fond of numerical suffixes and the like~ I chose voxwerx in the mid 90's because I was doing voice work- and a little Latin, plus some tweaked German (I lived there 7 years as a military dependent) got me to voxwerx. Must've been pretty good- a few years later several places had registered it as part of their URLs- and there's a fellow in Canada that does voice work using what had been my original pseudonym creation.
 
My username = I'm a Mac user, that might be somewhat difficult to deduce without punctuation or spacing. It originated from debating with friends who insisted that their eMachines PCs were better than my Mac.

I'm not opposed to using my real name, but when I started on online forums, all the other kids made unique usernames, and I just assumed that's the way it's done.
 
voxwerx, cool name. Care to share any of your work? I admire voice-over acting. I got a kick out of your bio:

Old man with too many expensive hobbies-
Former member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers
Former Mass Comm instructor
Former radio announcer
Formerly had hair

imamacuser, areyoustillamacuser? Their products have been a bit controversial lately, at least their laptop keyboards. But I guess for video editing they're still an especially stable choice.
 
I'm still rocking a mid-2012 13" MBP, because the new ones dropped the ethernet, firewire, and SD port. I don't really like the direction Apple has gone in the last few years, it seems like they've jacked up their prices way beyond the rate of inflation and made too many compromises in the name of thinner products. On top of that, windows computers aren't nearly as crappy as they used to be.

I'm going to use my MBP until it dies, and then I don't know what I'll do, because I'm not a fan of the current MBP lineup. In the future, I'll begrudgingly build a windows PC to utilize multiple GPUs with Resolve.

P.S. I'm also sill on an iPhone 5, as I don't like the large phone sizes. I was perfectly content with the iPhone 4's 3.5" screen, and only upgraded to the iPhone 5 for 4G LTE speeds.
 
My VO work was all commercials- and only regional at best. I showed other people how to do it, and now they make money with their skills. I'm blessed now to work for a large-ish (50,000+ students) school district where I shoot and edit videos about the goings-ons at our 90+ campuses. On the side, I play guitar (through a roland synth) in a dance band that plays bars and other establishments. I've been lucky to not have work too many grown-up jobs. I edit on a Mac pretty much every day at work- but PC at home. As someone who used to have to shuttle-search and mark ins and out- I love editing on any non-linear device!
 
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