Your questions answered, part n

[mangosteen]

Questions from syringavulgaris:

1. Why did you move to Boston? (I'm not sure I ever knew the details.)

I got sick of Manhattan. I was tired of living somewhere were I wasn't making quite enough money, working a job that was 24/7 on-call, and actually just not having all that much fun. I can think of plenty of other ways to not have fun and spend less time, money and energy doing so.

To this day, I still wonder if I would have stayed in Manhattan if my job prior to leaving didn't suck so much. If it hadn't been so horrible, I could easily see myself accepting the offer at Goldman Sachs (and staying in New York County) , instead of the offer at BBN (and moving to Boston).

Oh yeah, there's also that whole "lived in the NYC metro area my entire life and it was time to get out" thing. The nice thing about moving out of Manhattan to somewhere else in the continental US is that your cost of living can go nowhere but down.


2. What missed opportunity in life do you most regret?

1st place: Not taking the NetEng job in Seattle, with Microsoft. Mind you, I'm exceedingly happy with how my life has turned out, but I'll always wonder. The Pacific North West is about the only other part of the country where I could envision living. If you've never made it out to Portland, Oregon, you really should.

2nd place: Not cashing out all my chips from the dot-com revolution when I had the chance. Let's just say that it would have obviated my current obsession with amassing a down-payment on a haus.


3. What moment of your time at Columbia are you proudest of? (Not necessarily academic or even university-related; just during that window of time.)

1st place: Receiving the official word from Dean Kender that I was allowed to return to study at the university. There's a whole raft of things that that symbolized.

2nd place: Receiving a good grade in COMS 3251: Software Design Lab. Why? Very simple. It was the first time at the university where busting my ass and working hard was rewarded with a good grade. After getting blindsided by my freshman year experience, it was nice to actually be rewarded for hard work, beyond feeling like I was treading water for just a bit longer.

3rd place: At an indeterminate time, but near the end of the window, I finally absorbed the all lessons that I learned during a five-hour long conversation I had near the end of my freshman year, with a mutual friend of ours. I still take time to remember, every April 9th.


4. Favorite place for sussuration?

Typically sitting in front of my computer while coding. It's amazing what a constant stream of half-murmured utterances like "order n squared should be okay for this loop and then we'll put you there and goddammn functional programming" and so on can do for being left alone to write code. :)


5. What life-lesson or learning experience do you most hope will stick
when you expound it to your hypothetical child(ren)?

Seek approval in yourself before seeking it from others. I wasted entirely too much time figuring that out myself.


For bonus points, probably not to be answered in public LJ: What was the goofiest wedding present you got? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. ;)

No need for a priavte answer on this one. The gift in question was the epitome of wedding white elephants. A beige-and-gold Lenox porcelain..... thing. Said thing consisted of two statuettes, bride and groom, (originally) glued to a mahogany base. Given exactly how ugly it was, it is no surprise that the US Postal Service's sorting machinery, being so repulsed at the very existence of this abomination, decided to have a little fun with it before it darkened our doorstep. Specifically, it came unglued from the base, and the bride's arms were broken off, resulting in a Venus De Tacky effect. It is currently waiting reincarnation as a set of mosaic coasters, courtesy of bookteacher, and a Really Big Hammer.

Et toi?




Questions from undauntra:

1) Who are you and how did you find my LJ?

Someone pointed me at a comment you made, and mentioned who you were. Hm. I keep my LJ identity (trivially) separate from my actual identity, but yet I desire to identify myself to you. I'm an angry bearded fat guy who helps run the Internet. Does that help?


2) Do you distinguish between what behaviors are morally imperative, morally meritorious, and morally premissible? Discuss.

Yes.
morally permissible: What you could do.
morally meritorious: What you should do.
morally imperative: What you must do.

I assert that they nest within each other. According to your own moral code, the things you must do are a subset of the things you should do, which is a subset of the things you could do. As the gamut of actions is circumscribed by your own moral code, you can even say that those subsets encompass your universe of actions, within the context of moral decisions.

3) Who is your favorite Martian princess?

Hard to tell. I've known so many of them in so many ways.

4) Cheese?

Mango! Carambola, durian jackfruit chermoya; starfruit. Kiwi?

5) Recommend something to me. A book, a band, a city, a syntactic structure. Anything.

That's a no-brainer. The Hyperion series, by Dan Simmons. All four books. The best-executed exercise in world-building I've seen in approximately forever. However, there's a non-zero chance that you've already read those. Ergo, I also suggest the music group Spock's Beard. They're a prog-rock band that has really interesting instrumentation and arrangements. That, and hammond organs are cool, even if it's only a MIDI patch.

Bonus recommendation: Devanagari script. It's a very aesthetically appealing writing system.

Comments

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Oi! Has it been so long that you've forgotten the CU/CS definition of sussuration?

As for the Wedding Present of DOOOOOOM, it would be the goth goblets that Steve's aunt got for us, thinking they were "medieval". Can't remember if you've seen them or not. They're metal, with spiderweb bases, skulls on the stems, and Latin embossing saying "Magnus Sacris Sanguinus" or something very similar.

Re:

[mangosteen]

Oi! Has it been so long that you've forgotten the CU/CS definition of sussuration?

Regrettably, it has been shown that being in the presence of poorly-tuned vocally-produced dialtones has an unfortunate effect on long term memory.

If you define, or give me context, I will answer.

Re:

[akawil]

Traditionally, it occured on 72nd street.

Re:

[mangosteen]

Traditionally, it occured on 72nd street.

Ah! Indeed! Had it actually been spelled with an "h" in the middle (as I recall the pronounciation thereof), I would have comprehended immediately.

Tsunami, 5 Pleasant St., Brookline, MA.
Excellent quality, remarkably good prices, and they'll close the place to the public if you make a reservation for 25+ people.