The Never Ending Toadfish Interview Cycle!

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

1. Coconut--love it? Hate it? Can live with it? Your true feelings about the stuff.
I like it--the real stuff, anyway.

2. Do you have any food allergies?
No, thank goodness.

3.Choose a spot for a two week holiday. Now tell me, why there? And what would you do there?
Just ONE spot? Ach. Mmmm, in country, I vote for Mesa Verde National Park. Honestly, it's more gorgeous than Yosemite or nearly any other national park I've been to (though Sequoia and Zion come close). It completely stunned me when we crested the top of the road and the landscape for miles around was just laid out. I would like to spend more time there, with my camera and at the pueblo houses.

Out of country...I don't know. I've never left the country, but I've always kind of wanted to go the Elephant Mountains in Thailand. They're supposed to be utterly, utterly gorgeous. Camera + Scribble = pure JOY!

Bonus: Can I come with??
Of course.
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1. Ever stayed at a cabin?

2. Where?

3. Wold you ever go back?

[beagle]

Do you think the current Pope should resign his office since he is still stuck in the middle ages and didn't get the memo that the Church has no temporal power anymore???

Given his authoritative knowledge it's odd how rarely the Pope is cited in the medical literature.  Are Papal Bulls the R.C. form of Colemanballs?

[Opsa]

1. Ever stayed at a cabin?

A couple.

2. Where?

Little one in Glacier Park, Montana. Huge one in Northern Virginia.

3. Wold you ever go back?

Yes. The little one was rustic, remote and fun, and the big one was luxurious.

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1) Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

2) Name five things you would absolutely have to have in your dream house.

3) If you could choose a talent that you don't now have, what would it be?

[beagle]

1) Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

Not me, though I did put the feck in feckless.


2) Name five things you would absolutely have to have in your dream house.

Sex, drugs, rock & roll.  If rock and roll counts as one then food and water would be handy too; otherwise, very wet food.


3) If you could choose a talent that you don't now have, what would it be?

The ability to forge Bill Gates' signature.

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1 Should IBM take over Sun?

2 Is there a market for Java on MVS/TSO?

3 Do you remotely care one way or another?  About anything?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

1 Should IBM take over Sun?
Mmm.. given that the spark architecture is in its deathrows and Sun is living by making Opteron blades and racks, it's only value added is OpenOffice and Java. I guess as long as IBM commits to keep the open source developments from Sun I don't care if it's swallowed whole or in pieces.

2 Is there a market for Java on MVS/TSO?
Gee... I think its, well, a bit off, but what do I know about mainframes? Intuitively it would make sense to transform a mainframe into a webserver (making it a requirement) but it sounds like overkill to me, unless you can prove that a mainframe is more economical to maintain for that purpose that the current distributed paradigm.

3 Do you remotely care one way or another? 
About the above? In principle? No. I'm not a client or user of either IBM, Sun or mainframes, but things change in this business enough to at least keep an eye on it.

About anything?
I care about a few things, like the server I'm running or the videocard in my rig but those large behemoths that are likely behind my banking are, well, the problem of the IT departments of the banks. 

1. Does it make sense to prepare for SLI/Crossfire when buying a motherboard?

2. Is running physics on videocards the next big thing?

3. Is mutithreaded programming a requirement nowadays?

[beagle]

1. Does it make sense to prepare for SLI/Crossfire when buying a motherboard?

Don't know much about this so I'll pass it on to the next eager participant.


2. Is running physics on videocards the next big thing?

I had to look this up too. As an ex-Physics student I love the idea that Physics is so important it warrants it's own co-processor ("All science is either Physics or stamp collecting" - Ernest Rutherford, before genetics). I pity the poor bloke who has to do the microcode for relavity and quantum mechanics though. Perhaps the chip should stay Newtonian for the first few centuries, though a relativistic effect visualization tool for students would be cool. From what I remember it was hard to imagine what things would look like at near warp speed, and we just ended up believing whatever the Lorenz equations said for a particular dimension, rather than try and picture it.


3. Is multithreaded programming a requirement nowadays?

I think it has been on Windows for some time (because process creation is relatively slow).  On UNIX it's been less essential. However on both now it's very embarrassing if your program is keeping users waiting and they can see from top/Task Mangler that you're only using one of the 2, 4 or 8 cores.

Many times in my (alleged) career I've been in the situation where people have tried to shift process/file UNIX-style orientated programs to Windows (e.g. cgi on IIS) without shifting to the thread/memory paradigm, and then wondered why it is slow.

These days I find the UML Activity diagram one of the first and most useful ones (after the use cases have determined what the punters think they want), precisely because it shows up what can and can't be done in parallel, and where the bottlenecks will be.

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1. Does it make sense to prepare for SLI/Crossfire when buying a motherboard?

2. Are you a geek/nerd/anorak?

3. Would you like to *meet other geeks just like you? Or, if you prefer, does geek dating make sense or is it a recipe for endless rows over the the correct indenting of code?


* Note I know nothing about that site, (obviously, I was just referred there by someone desperate to shake me off). You date geek/psycho/dungeon-master/republicans at your own risk.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

1. Does it make sense to prepare for SLI/Crossfire when buying a motherboard?

Only if you don't think single-card video is going to maintain it's lead over software.  So far, software rarely tasks video cards enough of the time to justify dual, triple or quad video cards.   If the only reason you can think of, is that video game, you really ought to reassess your priorities in life....   

2. Are you a geek/nerd/anorak?

I used to be.  But, because I'm not in the game directly any longer, I'm an "old geek".  Heck, I still know what HOLLERITH FIELDS means...

3. Would you like to *meet other geeks just like you? Or, if you prefer, does geek dating make sense or is it a recipe for endless rows over the the correct indenting of code?

* Note I know nothing about that site, (obviously, I was just referred there by someone desperate to shake me off). You date geek/psycho/dungeon-master/republicans at your own risk.


No, not really.  I'm basically a hermit, socially.  What I need is to meet local people of any persuasion... 

                               

1] You are faced with a dilemma: you must loose one of your 5 senses permanently.  Which one?  Why that one?

2]  If you could have a 6th sense, and could choose the nature of it, what would you choose and why?

3] Ice Cream:  super-cold-fresh-from-the-freezer, softened a bit, but still frozen or melted into liquid?  Why?

(If you don't like ice cream, substitute  pie instead:  hot-from-the oven, room temperature or cold-from-the-fridge.  If you like both, this is a bonus question. If you don't like either?  Check your pulse:   you may be dead, and haven't realized it yet.... ) 

[Sibling Chatty]

1] You are faced with a dilemma: you must loose one of your 5 senses permanently.  Which one?  Why that one?

At this point? Touch would be a possible, as I've got 'peripheral neuropathy' from the cancer and have lost quite a bit of it. Taste...can't eat that much and my sense of taste is screwy anyway. (I can taste things like 'palm oil' and the tropical [not good for you] oils in foods, on the other hand, at times, food has no taste whatsoever.) NOT going with sight or hearing...smell? Maybe.

I'll go with touch. Maybe that would also take away some of the pain??

2]  If you could have a 6th sense, and could choose the nature of it, what would you choose and why?

I've already got it, it's my most important sense. It's HUMOR. OK, real answer, I'd want a built-in lie detector...the ability to sense the truth as people spoke.

3] Ice Cream:  super-cold-fresh-from-the-freezer, softened a bit, but still frozen or melted into liquid?  Why?

Super cold, only 'soft' enough to be scooped out. Why? Because I play with my food, especially ice cream, and I want it cold when I eat it, so it HAS to be very hard frozen when I get it. (I moosh up my ice cream and stir it when I get to the later part of it. The early part, I skin off a thin bit of it and slowly lick it from the spoon. A former partner referred to it as my ice cream foreplay...)

(If you don't like ice cream, substitute  pie instead:  hot-from-the oven, room temperature or cold-from-the-fridge.  If you like both, this is a bonus question. If you don't like either?  Check your pulse:   you may be dead, and haven't realized it yet.... )

Bonus: Fruit pie should still be warm if possible. Lightly nuked is acceptable, refrigerated is NOT acceptable. Cream pies? Cold to room temp. "Chess" type pies (buttermilk, pecan, because of the filling, lemon chess, etc, including things like punkin and sweet tater, ones that depend on eggies to make them set up?) fresh from oven, still warm, or else 'frigerated, because of the eggie content, unless eaten within 2 days.

I haz rules on pies...



1. If you had to grow most of your own food, could you?

2. Is there something you've always wanted...not expensive, just 'different' that you've never gotten yourself because you don't want to deal with friend/family reactions?

3. You've got $5,000 (or equivalent) a very dependable fuel efficient car and 6 weeks that you MUST be gone from home. Where ya goin'?? Why? (Can I come with?)

[Griffin NoName]

1. If you had to grow most of your own food, could you?

I'd probably have to live on mushrooms grown in the buckets that were fashionable once. I used to grow peas as a child so perhaps I could manage those as well. Oh and cress in the airing cupboard. Anything that needs digging wouldn't really work for me but I imagine I could happen to live near some pre-existing fruit bearing trees and talk nicely to them. mmmm grow bags..... and I can plant pips in flower pots (once did an avocado). Then there's the abundant foxes (I'm beginning to worry about protein) in the next door wasteland garden..... but I don't have a shotgun.

2. Is there something you've always wanted...not expensive, just 'different' that you've never gotten yourself because you don't want to deal with friend/family reactions?

No. So I'll pass the question on.

3. You've got $5,000 (or equivalent) a very dependable fuel efficient car and 6 weeks that you MUST be gone from home. Where ya goin'?? Why? (Can I come with?)

Given it would take me a long time to get wherever never mind the fuel efficiency due to need for lengthy bed stops, and the need for nearby hospitals, and language stuff, at present I'd probably opt for the Highlands. Devestatingly beautiful and summer approaching so not a bad time to be there re. weather (and the midges not yet out). I always want hills, the higher the better, though not necessarily mountains, and also lakes. I'm afraid the money would be spent on restaurants (but not specialising in Scottish foods such as haggis ! (there are some fabulous eating places if you know where they are). An alternative might be Frech/Italian Alps. Not too far away hills with higher number of good food spots and the languages not totally beyond me. And yes you can definitely hitch a ride ! I love company when travelling.

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I got re-directed from Gk2Gk onto Senior2Senior - outraged - what's the issue with 50+ yr old geeks? ~

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1. Is there something you've always wanted...not expensive, just 'different' that you've never gotten yourself because you don't want to deal with friend/family reactions?

2. If you had to live inside a fictional world which would it be and why?

3. What changes would you make to the human body if you could do it like by magic?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

1. Is there something you've always wanted...not expensive, just 'different' that you've never gotten yourself because you don't want to deal with friend/family reactions?
Mmm, more atheist shirts, a subscription to something liberal enough to annoy my parents, an old type writer.


2. If you had to live inside a fictional world which would it be and why?
One that I make up as I go along.

3. What changes would you make to the human body if you could do it like by magic?
Do some remodeling on cerebral cortex. We could use it. And a few other tweaks, regarding how we walk and what we're immune/susceptible to disease-wise on a physical and mental scale. Oh, and lower our fertility. There's too many people as it it.
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1. Is a black sheep still a sheep?

2. What do you think about memes?

3. Could you make and spread one?

[Sibling Chatty]

Scrib, are you wanting an old manual typewriter??

If so, let me check the barn and the mini-house. I think there's an old Royal, and maybe an Olivetti. Not "old-timey" looking, but more 40's "sleek moderne".

One of them may be pink, however...

[Opsa]

1. Is a black sheep still a sheep?

Yes. All sheep are black when the lights are out.

Oh, you mean the kind of black sheep that is not a follower? That's an interesting question. When thinking in this regard we tend to use the term "sheep" to imply the willingness to be herded. Is the black sheep not a sheep because it won't be herded? Or is it not following the herd because it has all ready been shunned by the rest of the matching white sheep? What about a white sheep from a grey herd?

Yes, a black sheepis still a sheep, but it is one that stands apart.

2. What do you think about memes?

That's another interesting concept that I don't entirely understand.

3. Could you make and spread one?

I think anyone could if s/he happened to be lucky with timing and exposure. Just look at the "Don't tase me, Bro" guy. He managed to coin that phrase under duress. Other people try hard to create buzzwords and they fall flat. So I don't know.

                                   


I) Is a person who is following a very popular rebellion still a rebel?

II) Can you smell anything right now? If so, can you identify it?

III) What color is your smiting stick?

[Darlica]

I) Is a person who is following a very popular rebellion still a rebel?
Well, as long they are a minority I guess.

II) Can you smell anything right now? If so, can you identify it?
Pancakes! I had pancakes for dinner and the smells linger.

III) What color is your smiting stick?
Plain wood oak or juniper and a little less than 6ft so it can be used as a rokushakubo.

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1) What cause would drive you to pick up a weapon and go to war?

2)Does flowers make you happy?

3) Apples, red green or gold?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

1) What cause would drive you to pick up a weapon and go to war?

Invasion of the US or it's territories.  A failure of the government to fascism or other extreme sort of thinking.  Things like that.

In fact, I attempted to enlist back in 1980's but failed due to health.

2)Does flowers make you happy?

Not by themselves, no.  But in context with other scenery?   Like in a garden or wild in a pasture or woodlot or other setting? Sure. 

3) Apples, red green or gold?

Pie.  Preferably warm.

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a)  Music:  recorded professionally in a studio?  Or a concert recording?  Or live #at# a concert?  Or...you really hate music and wonder what's all the fuss about?  Explain why

b) Whatever the venue, do you prefer professional-with-talent music or amateur-barely-talented?  Or perhaps no-talent-at-all-but-very-cute little kids making the music?   If you answered "hate music" in a) for b) tell us which of the above you hate the most...

c) I like cheese.  Any sort, really, so long as it came from animals and not vegetables.   Do you consider "velveeta" (or equivelent) to be cheese?  Edible?  Something best used to adhere posters to walls?  Explain, please.  Feel free to elaborate at length the virtues of your favorite cheese or cheese-like-substance.

Bonus: if you like cheese, what sort of music do you like to listen to while snacking on your favorite cheese?

[Pachyderm]

a)  Music:  recorded professionally in a studio?  Or a concert recording?  Or live #at# a concert?  Or...you really hate music and wonder what's all the fuss about?  Explain why

Recorded professionally. If a piece is recorded using good quality kit, then the reproduction is better. Then it's up to you how good the kit you play it on is.

b) Whatever the venue, do you prefer professional-with-talent music or amateur-barely-talented?  Or perhaps no-talent-at-all-but-very-cute little kids making the music?   If you answered "hate music" in a) for b) tell us which of the above you hate the most...

Doesn't have to be professional, but with talent is preferable.


c) I like cheese.  Any sort, really, so long as it came from animals and not vegetables.   Do you consider "velveeta" (or equivelent) to be cheese?  Edible?  Something best used to adhere posters to walls?  Explain, please.  Feel free to elaborate at length the virtues of your favorite cheese or cheese-like-substance.

I had to look Velveeta up. It doesn't qualify as "cheese food", legally, only "cheese product". To me, it's synthetic crap. One of the advantages of living in the UK is the proximity of France, a place that truly understands cheese. I love cheese. Maybe I'm spiritually French. I adore creamy cheese, the kind that usually smells like 6 month old socks. And blue cheese. And hard cheese, and goat's cheese, and well, cheese. Godawful plastic blocks, that have had no contact with anything organic are not cheese. They are anathema. (In the modern sense of the word, not the Ancient Greek)



Bonus: if you like cheese, what sort of music do you like to listen to while snacking on your favorite cheese?

As I tend to listen to classical music most of the time, the fact I happen to consuming cheesey comestibules at a given point won't alter that. A liitle Mozart goes particulary well with Brie de Meaux...

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1. Are you scared of spiders?

2. Are you scared of any other animal? (excluding humans)

3. Could you fend for yourself if left out in the wild?


Bonus: Do you know the difference between the Immaculate Conception and the Incarnation of Christ? (without looking it up)