Archives for December 2009

I normally don’t do these meme things, but I was very curious to find out what kind of questions jesus_jeff would ask me.

Leave me a comment saying “Resistance is Futile.”

* I’ll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
* Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
* Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

Here are his questions for me and my answers:

1) Excluding family, who have you known the longest that you are still in fairly regular contact with?

I’m notoriously bad about not keeping in regular contact with people. Given this fact, I suppose my answer has to be my friend Ian, from high school. There are a few people who I talk to now and then that I’ve known longer, like Jeff Mach, but I don’t really maintain regular contact with him.

I wonder if this answer will cause people I’ve actually known longer to come out of the woodwork. Interesting …

2) Iphone, Droid, Blackberry, or good old-fashioned “my phone just makes phone calls, thankyouverymuch”?

I own a BlackBerry, now. The Droid has tempted me, and I refuse to take the iPhone as long as it lacks a real physical keyboard. I’ve got high hopes for the Nokia N900, but apparently it’s fallen short. I gave up on Palm after replacing my aging Treo 650 with my first BlackBerry.

3) If your kids (once of appropriate age) expressed an interest in joining the peace corps or the military (i.e., doing dangerous work in dangerous far-away places) would you encourage them or try to convince them to pick a safer path?

I’d like to believe that I encourage them to pursue things that they love. Life is dangerous and learning to handle it is an important skill, not something to be avoided for the sake of avoiding.

That being said, I’d rather they not enlist in the military. While I’m thankful that there are people who do so on behalf of the rest of us, I would rather my kids pursue careers with an organization that has more accountability.

4) What do you think the next big thing technology-wise will be?

Realistically? Probably something truly boring like “wireless electricity“.

My personal imagineering? I call it “personal interactive television”. It changes the way we watch television: the shared screen (the traditional TV set) acts as an interface hub, while individuals use their handheld devices (phones, remotes) to interact with the content programming without disturbing the shared experience of the other participants.

I suppose I should describe this vision more clearly in a separate blog entry, but maybe this hints at the potential of such a paradigm shift.

5) If you were a craftsman in the middle ages, what craft would you practice?

If I had to pick an established craft, I would probably be a butcher or apothecarist. Butcher, because I enjoy dealing with food and especially meat. Apothecarist, because I enjoy the diagnostic process of medicine but would prefer to deal with the common folk rather than solely royalty.

However, I suspect if I actually lived in the middle ages, I would probably be a agricultural scientist: experimenting with growing plants to increase their yield, be more resistant, come up with ways of dealing with pests, etc.

…

That was fun answering Jeff’s questions. If you’d like to participate, just leave a comment for me and I’ll try my best to come up with interesting questions for you!