IvyMike

I want to be unique! Or: The original IvyMike

My friend recently spent a while trying to think of a name for his blog, but he quickly discovered that it's hard to choose an online username, handle, blog name, or identity. You want it to be cool, but I'm learning it's probably even more difficult to keep it unique, and that problem gets worse all the time.

I feel sorry for the kid born twenty years from now that finds that the only gmail addresses left are random strings of letters and numbers. (Or better yet, Unicode. "Visit my blog, http://www.![ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH MADDA ABOVE FINAL FORM]! ![PILCROW SIGN]!.com")

Back when I chose "IvyMike", I searched to make sure that it was relatively unique, and at the time, it was. I wanted to keep it that way, so I was fairly aggressive about making sure to sign up on most of the web sites I visited. It never occurred to me to sign up on sites I don't use, though. For example, the IvyMike on Slashdot and DailyKos is me. The IvyMike on FreeRepublic is not.

Since "Ivy Mike" was the name of the first true H-Bomb, I guess I never should have expected uniqueness to last. The photo is of the original Ivy Mike fireball.

Tags: identity, digital identity, blogging

posted by IvyMike @ 8/21/2005 10:19:00 PM