A born-again sceptic!

Forum Related Introduce Yourself
1

Hello all.

I have left behind my old blog and my old identity to start afresh and do some mental spring-cleaning. I have decided that the semi-anonymous AAH character was a bit silly, I was not completely anonymous (people could find me if they tried) so what was the point of the anonymity? Was I ashamed of the statements I was making? Definitely not, but now there will be no doubt of that fact.

My name is James Hough, by the way. Call me James if you’d like or any of the suggestions further down. The whole change goes hand-in-hand with my new blog on WordPress which I created and started on Friday. I have only migrated the content from my previous blog and there is not much there of interest yet (a personal account of sleep paralysis and the state of mind it put me in, a short Danie Krugel post, some Genetic Algorithm and AI posts and a few watery Atheism posts, all in all about ten posts) but I soon hope to remedy that with new content every week :D. Being offline for the weekend at home (I came in to the office to post here on the forum) afforded me time to design my own profile pic. Whadaya think?

So why Acinonyx Scepticus?
I have loved cheetahs (they’re the genus Acinonyx, by the way) for most of my life and I decided to start my own (third - debatable if it’s third or second) species using the root Latin work for sceptic. And because I have a penchant for unpronounceable/forgettable handles ;).

How can you expect us to type that in all the time?
Well I don’t expect that. Just call me James, that is how I will sign each post. There are a few other options:

  • AcinonyxScepticus - if you insist
  • Ass - the abbreviated form, you’d have to be really angry to use that one :wink:
  • Umm, there really aren’t any other optins, try something, I’ll tell you if I don’t like it.

But please don’t shorten James (Jimmy, Jamesie, Jimbo, Jim, I really hate those) unless it’s all the way down to one letter; “J”.

Any other questions?

James

2

Haha! Welcome, umm, back I guess :wink:

Probably too late now, but you can keep the same account and change your displayed name in SMF if you wanted to keep your post count, but the username will stay the same which I guess won’t fit nicely into your transformation to skepticat :smiley:

And nice new profile pics too!

3

Thanks, I did consider that, however, I have been refered to as “AAH” in a number of posts by other members. Renaming my account would make those old posts confusing to follow.

I did find it frustrating that I could not use my same eMail address, but it did force me to open my first gmail account (consistent with my blog name). I suppose that’s a good thing but it is one step away from full disclosure towards anonymity again - but I don’t think anyone minds.

If you really want my home eMail, ask and ye shall receive.

4

Very cool pic!

5

Thanks to you all for the compliments on the profile picture, I was just checking if anyone else thought that it looks a bit … strange, badly-coloured, whatever. Of course I can only see a bunch of flaws but that’s human nature. Some day I want to continue with the original picture and make a full-length version, showing that I’m wearing a purple shirt with a red Out-Campaign “A” on the front and also clearly show that the “blob” on the right is actually the top of my tail (out of focus in the background).

Now talking about that character in the picture in the first person … that is weird. :stuck_out_tongue:

James