Ok, I’d like to update the status of my fame to: Famous enough to have been interviewed, but still minor enough to be mis-quoted by the press.
I am paternally descended from (and share a last name with) one of the pioneer founders of a medium-sized US city. Unfortunately, this country being the way it is, hardly anybody outside that city’s local history museum has even heard of him, let alone any of his descendants. The people who work at the Burger King less than a mile of the old family homestead are like “Umm, who?”.
Yes, that can be surprising at times. Once, I sent an email to a university regarding a graduate program that they were just starting up and received a reply from a professor within three hours. What’s somewhat astonishing was that I had sent the email on a Sunday afternoon, expecting to wait until at least Monday, if not later in the week, for a cursory “Thanks for your interest, please find the program materials and application attached”. I got an apparently personalized response that mentioned and responded to information on my own academic background that I had mentioned in the email and that specifically encouraged me to learn more about the program by scheduling a meeting.
Most of those who witness my deeds do not live to tell of it. The rest become stricken with madness, ranting of one soaked in chaos, leaving naught but bloody ruin in his wake.
I suppose I’m well known in some IT circles, but basically just one of the teeming millions, a cog in the machine, a spoke in the wheel, (to paraphrase) a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. I don’t exist; I was never even born. Anonymity is my name. Silence (and Spanish) my native tongue. I’m no longer part of the System. I’m below the System. Under it. To the side of it…perhaps stage left. I’m “them.” (i.e. ‘thos IT rat bastards!’)…I’m one of the Men in Ill Fitting Pants and Smelly Polo Shirts, Snarfing Down Pizza and a Coke For Breakfast!
Well, since I posted this, I’ve been accepted to speak at another security conference (kind of regionally important). And I put some research up on my blog that made a minor to moderate splash in the field. I got cited by some big security researchers and vendors for that. So…
Actually, come to think of it, I read a couple dozen security sites on a near-daily basis, and I can’t remember the names of more than one or two of the writers. So, yeah, I’m still a nobody.
I’m not well known, but several times lately when I’ve been out with the boy I’ve been greeted by past patients, including the lady at the desk at the DMV, where our appointment had been ‘disappeared’. that’s OK, she told us, I know your Dad.
Now he, at least, thinks I’m regionally famous.
People used to stop me on the street because:
[ul]
[li]They recognized me from local theater productions;[/li][li]They recognized me from things I’d written in the local alternative newspaper (yeah, the paper used photographs, barf);[/li][li]They’d attended one of the seminars I taught in my daywalker job.[/li][/ul]
Now I have a nice, quiet job as an analyst in a fairly specified field. Local folks in the field either know me, or are one degree removed.
I’ve written six technical books and I have a blog on computer programming. Nothing terribly interesting.
Are you my brother?!?!? :eek:
It’s a distinct possibility.
I’m not a public figure on any level. I do have an uncommon last name, and if I Google myself, most of the hits are between me, a British pediatrician, and a young woman in Utah.
Last monday I took my friend to pick up his grandkids at school. An 11 year old girl recognised me from a show I did on a Da Vinci catapult several years ago. It shows on reruns quite a bit so she may have seen one. The first year I was recognised several times but none since.
This has nothing to do with me, but it just popped into my head.
There are a few people in this country who’ve had people walk up to them in public in recent months and say things like “Are you that Ebola guy?”
:rolleyes:
I would NOT want to be (in)famous for something like that, that’s for sure. 
I occasionally appear on a nation-wide cable channel here in Canada.
In Canada, we don’t have “reporters of record.” A reported case is just that: it’s been printed in one of the reporter series: Westlaw or another. Could be appellate, could be trial or chambers.