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anoisblue's shower meme, which I got from corivax.
Here's how it goes:
If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, "Interview me." I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.
1. You follow news media religiously: politics, international relations, etc. You're such a fanatic about it that even I have learned something about current affairs via osmosis. What's your utility function here? Why bother?
Hard to say. Nurture probably wins over nature, however. For most of my childhood we didn't ingest a whole lot of media as a family, and most of what we did was news. Nightly CBS news with Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, Mark Russel, NPR. I distinctly remember an occasion where I was watching Mark Russel with my parents, not really getting most of the humor, but really wanting to. I must have been about 8. My dad later took me to a Mark Russel concert for my 12th birthday and I was understanding most of it by that point. After my horrible experiences in 5th grade, I went to a very small private school downtown for 6th. My dad dropped me off in the morning and picked me up at night, and we always listened to NPR. Morning Edition in the morning and All Things Considered at night. The ATC theme is highly nostalgic for me to this very day. I won't claim there is some great utility function to having informed opinions about world events. It just feels like something that well-rounded people should do.
2. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky refers to "the Three [impossible] Dreams": FTL travel, strong AI, and nanotechnology. If you could ensure humanity would reach one of the three, which would it be? Why?
This is my favorite question, btw. I'm going to toss nanotech out immediately. It's a cool toy, but it wouldn't change anything fundamental. The choice between the other two boils down to deciding who I want to give the universe to. FTL gives it to humans, AI gives it to machines. As much as I'd like to be impartial and strive purely for the greater intelligent use of the universe, I have to default to giving it to humans. So the deeper question is: do I think humans would survive long enough to take advantage of FTL. And, um, I'm not sure of that at all. Probably better to be safe and have strong AI, hoping that humans will eventually find a place out there, than risk having what is very likely the only intelligence in the universe die out.
3. What's one area of knowledge that you currently know nothing about that you'd like to learn?
This is a hard question to answer for me. There are actually relatively few areas of knowledge that sound inherently interesting to me, and most of those I've already explored to some degree. However, I have quite a reliable ability to become interested in just about anything once I learn something about it. So I'm open to learning anything, really, because I know it will invariably increase the amount of interesting things in my universe. Just to answer the question, I'd really like to learn blacksmithing.
4. You and I have had interesting conversations about cool mental/sensory skills: tetrachromatism, supertasting, eidetic memory, synesthesia, perfect pitch, lightning calculation/numerical savantism, etc. (Assume for the purposes of this question that savantism doesn't include autism.) If you could gain one such ability, what would it be?
Eidetic memory, hands down. I hate, hate, hate how fallible my memory is. Learning is just about the definition of living, as far as I'm concerned, so forgetting anything is dangerously close to death. Or, as I like to say, the only operation allowed on knowledge should be addition. I try not to get too hooked on the physical form of knowledge (the act of book burning outside of political considerations doesn't bug me much) but actually losing information (burning the last copy of a book) strikes a deep and horrible chord in me. It's... immoral. (I cried at the ending of Name of the Rose.) A large part of my personal efforts over the last few years have been dedicated to recording and archiving my life properly. An extensive personal events journal, image annotation, email archives, log files, all kept on a RAID that will eventually be backed up to tape (in a separate building!) once I can afford it.
5. Share an interesting reflection on the wedding. We've heard a lot fromvixyish, but very little from you.
By the end of the day, all I could say to people was 'thank you'. I had run out of creative things to say. It was very exhausting, that much social interaction, that much smiling.
6. Tell us about your next movie.
Well, the big project I've been planning in my head for the last few months is a 'photo-novel' adaptation of the first half of Beowulf. All still black and white photographs or drawings with a single voiceover reading an old (and public domain) translation of the text. All backstory elements will be done as sketches instead of photographs. I'm thinking that only Beowulf will be dressed in full nordic garb, with his close thanes only marginally so, and everyone else completely modern. This is both for effect (emphasizing his heroic nature, giving him an otherworldly look, implying that heroic figures don't actually fit in this world, particularly not the modern world) and for reasons of simplicity/budget. Last time I talked to him,randomdreams was quite eager to get an armorer credit, probably for a mail shirt, helm and two or three swords. It will be very different from out previous movies, but I'm looking forward to it. It should be our best by far, if only because it completely side-steps all the areas where we have trouble: video lighting and audio. I plan on it being the first movie I really try to get into festivals. I can also work on it very modularly, laying down the voiceover myself and drawing horrible storyboards for the entire thing, then replacing each as it becomes available. I still need to find someone with a really good voice for the narration, and cast it. And work up the treatment of the old translation. And start storyboarding and and and...
So, if you want to be interviewed, post a comment to sign up.
anoisblue's shower meme, which I got from corivax.Here's how it goes:
If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, "Interview me." I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.
1. You follow news media religiously: politics, international relations, etc. You're such a fanatic about it that even I have learned something about current affairs via osmosis. What's your utility function here? Why bother?
Hard to say. Nurture probably wins over nature, however. For most of my childhood we didn't ingest a whole lot of media as a family, and most of what we did was news. Nightly CBS news with Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, Mark Russel, NPR. I distinctly remember an occasion where I was watching Mark Russel with my parents, not really getting most of the humor, but really wanting to. I must have been about 8. My dad later took me to a Mark Russel concert for my 12th birthday and I was understanding most of it by that point. After my horrible experiences in 5th grade, I went to a very small private school downtown for 6th. My dad dropped me off in the morning and picked me up at night, and we always listened to NPR. Morning Edition in the morning and All Things Considered at night. The ATC theme is highly nostalgic for me to this very day. I won't claim there is some great utility function to having informed opinions about world events. It just feels like something that well-rounded people should do.
2. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky refers to "the Three [impossible] Dreams": FTL travel, strong AI, and nanotechnology. If you could ensure humanity would reach one of the three, which would it be? Why?
This is my favorite question, btw. I'm going to toss nanotech out immediately. It's a cool toy, but it wouldn't change anything fundamental. The choice between the other two boils down to deciding who I want to give the universe to. FTL gives it to humans, AI gives it to machines. As much as I'd like to be impartial and strive purely for the greater intelligent use of the universe, I have to default to giving it to humans. So the deeper question is: do I think humans would survive long enough to take advantage of FTL. And, um, I'm not sure of that at all. Probably better to be safe and have strong AI, hoping that humans will eventually find a place out there, than risk having what is very likely the only intelligence in the universe die out.
3. What's one area of knowledge that you currently know nothing about that you'd like to learn?
This is a hard question to answer for me. There are actually relatively few areas of knowledge that sound inherently interesting to me, and most of those I've already explored to some degree. However, I have quite a reliable ability to become interested in just about anything once I learn something about it. So I'm open to learning anything, really, because I know it will invariably increase the amount of interesting things in my universe. Just to answer the question, I'd really like to learn blacksmithing.
4. You and I have had interesting conversations about cool mental/sensory skills: tetrachromatism, supertasting, eidetic memory, synesthesia, perfect pitch, lightning calculation/numerical savantism, etc. (Assume for the purposes of this question that savantism doesn't include autism.) If you could gain one such ability, what would it be?
Eidetic memory, hands down. I hate, hate, hate how fallible my memory is. Learning is just about the definition of living, as far as I'm concerned, so forgetting anything is dangerously close to death. Or, as I like to say, the only operation allowed on knowledge should be addition. I try not to get too hooked on the physical form of knowledge (the act of book burning outside of political considerations doesn't bug me much) but actually losing information (burning the last copy of a book) strikes a deep and horrible chord in me. It's... immoral. (I cried at the ending of Name of the Rose.) A large part of my personal efforts over the last few years have been dedicated to recording and archiving my life properly. An extensive personal events journal, image annotation, email archives, log files, all kept on a RAID that will eventually be backed up to tape (in a separate building!) once I can afford it.
5. Share an interesting reflection on the wedding. We've heard a lot from
vixyish, but very little from you.By the end of the day, all I could say to people was 'thank you'. I had run out of creative things to say. It was very exhausting, that much social interaction, that much smiling.
6. Tell us about your next movie.
Well, the big project I've been planning in my head for the last few months is a 'photo-novel' adaptation of the first half of Beowulf. All still black and white photographs or drawings with a single voiceover reading an old (and public domain) translation of the text. All backstory elements will be done as sketches instead of photographs. I'm thinking that only Beowulf will be dressed in full nordic garb, with his close thanes only marginally so, and everyone else completely modern. This is both for effect (emphasizing his heroic nature, giving him an otherworldly look, implying that heroic figures don't actually fit in this world, particularly not the modern world) and for reasons of simplicity/budget. Last time I talked to him,
randomdreams was quite eager to get an armorer credit, probably for a mail shirt, helm and two or three swords. It will be very different from out previous movies, but I'm looking forward to it. It should be our best by far, if only because it completely side-steps all the areas where we have trouble: video lighting and audio. I plan on it being the first movie I really try to get into festivals. I can also work on it very modularly, laying down the voiceover myself and drawing horrible storyboards for the entire thing, then replacing each as it becomes available. I still need to find someone with a really good voice for the narration, and cast it. And work up the treatment of the old translation. And start storyboarding and and and...So, if you want to be interviewed, post a comment to sign up.
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no subject
1. Look out! Vikings are coming! What do you do?
2. Invent a pseudo-science. Give annecdotal proof that it works and defend the basic premise using circular reasoning.
3. What's the weirdest interaction you've ever had with a random stranger?
4. You're in charge of a revised draft of the Bill of Rights. What goes and what stays? What gets added?
5. Friendly aliens visit Earth and decide it is a facinating tourist destination. Soon middle-class aliens by the thousands are coming for affordable vacations. You're hired by one of the cruise lines as a native guide. One of your clients is pretty cool and you end up bringing it to compline. It has a good time, but is obviously confused. Afterwords it asks you to explain your social group. What do you tell it?