Interview lemming

[ewx]

In case you've been hiding under a rock lately: if you want me to ask five questions say so in a comment, and I'll see what I can come up with; then you answer them in a new item and make the same offer to your readers.

marnameow asks...

1. If you could gain just one learned ability, overnight and as if by magic, to a competent level (not amazing genuis or best in the world, but still good at it, and better than average), what would that ability be, and why?

Tempted to say "maths" given my poor performance at degree level. But a better answer would be some language, since I'm interested in languages but only currently have good English, poor French and scanty German and Latin. Something non-indo-european perhaps - Turkish, say?

2. Would you like to be able to erase one memory from the minds of everyone else in the world (but not you)? If you did, would it be something connected with you, or something bigger? And (if you don't mind saying it here, given what I'm asking) what would it be?

Although having such an ability would be kind of cool I don't think I'd actually want to use it. Sure, some memories doubtless cause people pain and upset but I can't bring myself to think unilaterally tampering with other people's minds so directly can possibly be ethical. Perhaps if enough people specifically asked for the removal of some memory?

3. If you were offered the chance to live 100 years in the future for a week (fully mortal, mind), would you take it?

Absolutely, yes! I'd love to find out how things turn out. (And no, I wouldn't be able to resist looking up a few interesting things to bet on once I got back.) "Mortal" implies risk - doubtless even the safest of futures will have its unpredictable dangers - but it's one I'd certainly be prepared to take.

I think I'd make a point of not seeking out my own grave or whatever - I probably won't be alive 100 years from now but I'd rather not know for certain.

4. Why do you think good people do bad things? And do you think that the concepts of good and bad exist in reality?

I think they are cultural concepts, as opposed to existing in the real world. Obviously this is one of a number of possible positions at one end of the physics/religion debate.

Also I think they are cultural concepts as opposed to merely facts of individual experience (which might be another it's-all-physics position): what I think is good and what you think is good may differ, and society as a whole has something between a consensus and a compromise.

Anyway the above is why I think good people (or indeed any people) do bad things: everyone has different priorities and standards and the ways they differ intersect with the areas we think are covered by terms like "good" and "bad".

Hope that makes sense.

5. Can you remember the plots of any stories you wrote at school? If you can, would you summarise one or two here?

Yes, some. The earliest one I remember concerned someone called Jax going on some kind of quest, doing something and coming back home. I think it was probably written in a blue exercise book, and was made up more or less as it went along. I was quite proud that it was seven page long.

A later one was a shared project with a friend and was a sort of future history, influenced more than would normally be thought usual for a new work by the SF series we'd been reading recently. (The increasingly strange sex found in the books never made it into the school work, though.)

Perhaps this offers a hint to the kinds of books I read when younger l-)

Comments

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

Ask me some questions.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. Would you rather have certainty and security or excitement and adventure?

2. Do you believe in love at first sight?

3. What, exactly, is so good about beer anyway?

4. If you had to live on a real world (including moons, asteroids, etc) other than Earth, which one? How about fictional ones (including artificial ones)? Why? (Assuming that technology has somehow made you able to live comfortably there.)

5. For how long do you think there will still be humans?

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Go on, ask me some questions :)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Yes please to the questions

[lnr]

It's only fair: ask me too!

[j4.livejournal.com]

Go on then. :) Though I'm still struggling with kaet's questions, so you're unlikely to get a rapid response...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. What are the foods that you can and will eat? (Feel free to apply De Moivre when answering!) I know that there some things that you shouldn't be served but I don't seem to have the details in my head.

2. What place do you most consider to be "home"? If you could live any place you liked, where would you choose?

3. What's your favourite book, not counting anything by JRRT? (Feel free to ramble about good books if there's not one clear favourite, it's what I'd do.) What's a good mnemonic for remembering the spelling of JRRT's surname anyway?

4. What's your favourite time of day?

5. If you could, would you?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. What material object (not person) is most important to you?

2. If you could bring about any one change in me, what would it be? And what change in yourself?

3. If you had three wishes, what would the last one be?

4. What's your favourite alcoholic drink?

5. Why me?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. Who?

2. Why?

3. When?

4. How?

5. Where?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. What thing could someone do in a minute or less that would make you happiest?

2. What's your most recent memory not in any way involving livejournal?

3. What's the root password to the most important UNIX system you have root on?

3a. Should I dye my hair blond?

4. Where would you most like to be right now (excluding anywhere with a 100m radius of your current location)?

5. Pick any comfort food that comes in different varieties (I'd probably pick ice cream, for instance): which is your favourite variety? Which varieties would you most avoid (purely on grounds of taste rather than e.g. allergy or moraly driven choice)? Which variety did you have most recently? Any variety you've never had but would like to try?

[cjwatson]

A bit late, but I've been doing a good impression of hiding under a rock. Yes please ...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

1. Why did you take the job with Zeus, way back when?

2. First impressions matter - or reserve judgement for a bit?

3. Flowers or sunsets: you can't have both. Which do you keep?

4. Supposing you had children, what might they be called?

5. What would it take to make you move away from Cambridge? (AFAICT you're not fed up with the place and looking for an escape route...)