HEY! What happened to S.C. Summers, et al?

For a few years I used the pseudonym "S.C. Summers" (and a few others) for authorship of the timeline and related items; you may still see the pseudonym(s) in some references floating around the net.

But yep, it was me all along. Of course, since the copyright post at the bottom of every page was always in my name (J.R. Mooneyham), it wasn't necessarily such a big secret anyway, right?

So why the pseudonym(s) of the past? Well, keep in mind that I first began publishing my timeline-related articles quite a few years ago-- back when the Unabomber was still at large, and mailing bombs at random to folks involved in various technological or scientific pursuits-- fields which could conceivably have included futurism. Plus, even if you ignore madmen like the Unabomber himself, there's plenty of other factions which might wish to 'punish' authors of things like the timeline, due to various predictions they don't like-- or even for the absence of something they think should be there (the occasional delivery of unexpected packages bearing no return address or other identifying marks to my physical address didn't help soothe my concerns either-- luckily none of them exploded).

But hey-- the web is now bursting at the seams with wild and diverse subject matter, thereby hopefully making it safer for folks like me, and lessening the need for pseudonyms.

Or at least I hope so anyway. :-O

There was also another reason for the pseudonyms. Namely, privacy. As friends and family can tell you, I'm not much of one for the spotlight. I enjoy my research and writing, and the feedback it brings me from my readers, but I do not relish the possibility of my work making me a celebrity, with all the new headaches and overhead that implies (the worst consequence might be the loss of free time to continue work on the timeline).

All this concerned me sufficiently to be one of the reasons for my alias(es) early on. However, as quite a few years have passed now with pretty moderate effects in that area, I'm much less concerned than before (Plus, I found it was quite a mess dealing with all that email sent to my various aliases by way of my true identity. Life's much simpler without the pseudonyms).

And besides, being web-savvy I know that pseudonyms alone are now insufficient to protect you anyway-- on the circa 2000 and later web anybody can track you down, if you ever log on at all-- and often even if you don't.

-- J.R. Mooneyham, October 2000