Digital Brainwaves

This weekend is another “Ask Me Weekend.”  With a little luck, it won’t turn into a month-long extrrrrrravaganza(!!!) like the last one did.

Leave a comments asking me something you’d like me to write a post about.  Can be about pretty much anything, but I reserve the right to decline to answer a question.

Due to technical issues with the keyword tags, Q&A Weekend has been retroactively renamed Ask Me Weekend. Readers watching on LiveJournal may (or may not — LJ is fickle sometimes) see a sudden backlog of syndicated entries soon.

EDIT: Yep.  LiveJournal users can now see all of my entries back to September 29th now on their LJ Friends pages.

Why do you blog? (This is not rhetorical - I’m really genuinely interested, because I often ask myself the same question…)

– Dave

I have a lot of friends, both in real life and on the Internet, and with large numbers of people comes many varying viewpoints. Interestingly, though, a great many of those viewpoints appear to differ significantly from my own, meaning that, in a lot of cases, I’m surrounded by a great number of people who disagree with my political/religious/musical/what-to-eat-for-dinner point of view.

As a result, be it the actual case or not, I end up left with the sensation that I’m being surrounded and silenced by the rest of the group — a group that is working from the assumption that they know how it is, and no other. That’s not a slight, insult or accusation against any person or group, only a perception. — that’s just the way my silly little brain works in this situation.

Therefore, in addition to the “I went to work/to school/to the mall/to hell/batshit crazy today” stories that tend to show up in some most personal blogs, I look at my blog as a place to express and explain my point of view on news, politics, technology, et cetera without getting shouted down by a mob telling me I’m wrong. Which is, of course, not to say that I don’t value other opinions — I welcome comments, will often answer back and continue to discuss my blog topics, and I don’t delete (non-spam/non-abusive) comments.

I just think of this as my own little soapbox on the web — a place where I can say, “Hi! This is what I have to say on this matter.”

Ok, after Googling “question”, here’s a more interesting one:

“What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”

– Nate

I have seen, read, and heard reports of planets not of our solar system, orbiting around far-off stars. I can’t imagine that our world would be so unique as to have provided the only environment anywhere in our universe to evolve a living sentient being. Therefore, I cannot prove it, but I believe that another planet somewhere in our galaxy contains intelligent humanoid life. I also believe that some day in the future — hopefully, when both our civilization and theirs are ready — we will meet, and cooperate.

Though, I must say, I’m really liking Seth Lloyd’s answer:

I believe in science. Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can’t be proved.They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them.

I cannot prove that electrons exist, but I believe fervently in their existence. And if you don’t believe in them, I have a high voltage cattle prod I’m willing to apply as an argument on their behalf. Electrons speak for themselves.

(emphasis mine)

Life has been busy this month so far, so I haven’t been by in a while. I haven’t forgotten, and I know I still have Ask Me Weekend questions to answer. So, it’s been a long weekend. Go have a look at what’s been asked, and if you’ve got anything else to add, go for it — I’ll try to answer them this week.

It’s that time again…

Ask me a question you’d like to see answered in its own post.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere we go!

———

Andy: “WHAT is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

The top speed of the species varies with their habitat. Evidently, there is a difference in airspeeds between the African and European varieties.

———

Kandi: “What are mechanically seperated chicken parts, and what exactly does this entail?”

I have no idea. I’ll stick to “All white-meat chicken” any day.

———

Yvonne: “Question.”

Snide remark.

———

Tune in next time, when questions on my thoughts and opinions won’t tax me so much.

We’re gonna try it again.

Use the comment section below to ask me my opinion or thoughts on just about anything. Kinda like the interview memes that have bounced around LiveJournal and the like. I’ll post answers as the questions come in.

…aaaaaand, go.

I see Ask Me Weekend went over like a lead balloon. Maybe you were all busy this weekend. We’ll try it again another time.

(I’ll number this in the hope that this idea works, so there’ll be more of these…)

Digital Brainwaves is going to try an experiment. Similar ideas have seemed to work well on larger blogs and sites, and while I know I’m not going to get nearly their traffic, I’d like to try it once and see what happens.

Therefore, this weekend is a Ask Me Weekend. Ask me most anything (so long as it doesn’t stray into the realm of bad taste) in the comments below, and I’ll answer, if not all of them, at least the most interesting ones in entries through the weekend. (Yes, it’s me that gets to choose the definition of “interesting.” Sorry. :-P)