5 things meme x 2
Aug. 5th, 2009 02:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattpThis meme seems to be doing the rounds again. (The one where people give you five topic, possibly taken from your interest list, and you write a little about each). ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
valkyriekaren's selection is as follows:
bellringing
This is something I've been doing almost twice weekly for over 13 years. There's one practice night per week (currently a Monday) and then I ring for Sunday services. For the past couple of years I have been training a local group to ring - none of them had tried before and until I turned up the bells had not been rung regularly for a couple of decades.
I sometimes go to advanced practices and also do a lot of outreach work and special events, roadshows and so on. Occasionally on Christmas cards you'll see people dressed in robes swinging on a rope or being hoisted up to the ceiling. That doesn't actually happen - firstly due to the moving rope and for reasons of safety, people wear clothing that's not likely to flap around, and secondly the act of ringing actually requires one to drop the rope, albeit in a controlled fashion. Ask me to take you to a tower sometime - it's the most curious thing to watch.
conway's life
This is a set of rules to simulate reproduction and resource starvation of primitive life forms.
The wikipedia article has some interesting animations on it. Writing an implementation was one of the first non-trivial programs I wrote when learning C in the mid 90s.
Looking at the stars
This interest started when I was a child - my dad bought me a telescope. I learned a few of the constellations and a couple of ways to navigate using the night sky. I no longer have a telescope, but I still get lots of fun from staring up. Years ago when I was on holiday in France I saw my first satellite, and now that I know how to spot them they're relatively easy. It's not so easy now that I live in an area with lots of light pollution.
Rain
I spent the best part of 7 years in Manchester, having gone there for uni in 1998. In Manchester it rains a lot. I learned to like it and rarely carry an umbrella - not least because I'm good at losing them. I don't mind getting wet so will happily walk somewhere when it's raining, not caring.
snakeboards
An interest left over from when I was part of the circus skills society at university. I didn't really get on with the other things, with the slight exception of the Diablo. I soon bought myself a snakeboard - for those who've not come across one, they're like a skateboard but doubly articulated (at the front and the back), and one applies thrust by rotating the footplates in opposition, rather than by peddling along. (It generates a kind of motion called undulatory motion, which also features on my interest list).
* * * *
Several months ago when a variation of this meme was doing the rounds (topics chosen by the asker rather than picked from ones profile),faerierhona gave me these 5:
Maths
A long standing interest of mine. I love playing with numbers and have done for as long as I can remember. I like mathematical puzzles and have recently started working on the puzzles at http://projecteuler.net
Indirectly my love of numbers and calulating found me a housemate. A few years ago someone made a post in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
livejournal_uk when the Euromillions lottery exceeded 100mi GBP and commented that you could buy a lot of shoes for that. I estimated how many, and gave a few examples like "that's enough pairs for a whole year assuming you wear each for 5 seconds and sleep 6 hours a night". I also said that if you were to hire a taxi that flies, drives and swims as appropriate and charged 1000 GBP per mile, that's enough money to go aroud the equator 3 times. They were, admittedly, convoluted examples but it entertained enough that I was flisted by msloz, and one of her friends turned out to be emmavescence. And in small world syndrome, we'd already encountered one another whilst volunteering for LiveJournal all those years ago.
Extra terrestrial life
Something that I've considered but my belief plays no significant role in how I life my life. I think there probably are other planetary systems supporting life - there is such a vast quantity of stars that I consider it highly unlikely that we be the sole planet bearing life. Whether or not they choose to visit us is another matter. It's arrogant to assume that they'll *want* to visit us. They may not be *allowed* to. They may not be technologically capable. They may not know we exist. They may have already set off Earth-bound but not yet reached us (and may not do until our sun goes supernova). Lots of unknowns - I do not consider the apparent lack of ET life to be indicative that none exists.
Music
Music is a strong passion of mine. I've tinkered around with a numer of instruments including drums, guitar and piano to varying degrees of success, but I was never really captivated by any of them. I am quite interested in music theory, surprisingly so for a non-performing musician.
My main preference though is listening to music - I tend to wear headphones at work and often when commuting. Better yet is live music, though I haven't been to many gigs of late. (Levellers and Camera Obscura towards the beginning of this year are the two most recent). My taste (to steal a phrase from someone whose identity eludes me for the moment) can be described as ecclectic but fussy. See my last.fm profile if you want a sample.
As much as I like music, I hate loud music in a pub with a vile burning passion. If it's too loud to hear without having to shout and give oneself a hoarse throat then it's too damn loud. I've ranted about this in the past. I go to a pub to socialise, and a club to dance. Even then I much prefer clubs which have a quiet area, and I make regular use of them (or go outside), lest I get tired.
Spirituality
I am at a loss as to what to write here. I am not a spiritual person, nor a religious one. I am almost anti-religion, but lack the enthusiasm to do anything about it. (To expand on this, I'm more unhappy with the idea of organised religion than I am with the idea of one or more deities.)
Rhona
Fabulous company, ever so wise, and a great chef. I don't get to see her often enough :-(
Who wants 5?
valkyriekaren's selection is as follows:bellringing
This is something I've been doing almost twice weekly for over 13 years. There's one practice night per week (currently a Monday) and then I ring for Sunday services. For the past couple of years I have been training a local group to ring - none of them had tried before and until I turned up the bells had not been rung regularly for a couple of decades.
I sometimes go to advanced practices and also do a lot of outreach work and special events, roadshows and so on. Occasionally on Christmas cards you'll see people dressed in robes swinging on a rope or being hoisted up to the ceiling. That doesn't actually happen - firstly due to the moving rope and for reasons of safety, people wear clothing that's not likely to flap around, and secondly the act of ringing actually requires one to drop the rope, albeit in a controlled fashion. Ask me to take you to a tower sometime - it's the most curious thing to watch.
conway's life
This is a set of rules to simulate reproduction and resource starvation of primitive life forms.
The wikipedia article has some interesting animations on it. Writing an implementation was one of the first non-trivial programs I wrote when learning C in the mid 90s.
Looking at the stars
This interest started when I was a child - my dad bought me a telescope. I learned a few of the constellations and a couple of ways to navigate using the night sky. I no longer have a telescope, but I still get lots of fun from staring up. Years ago when I was on holiday in France I saw my first satellite, and now that I know how to spot them they're relatively easy. It's not so easy now that I live in an area with lots of light pollution.
Rain
I spent the best part of 7 years in Manchester, having gone there for uni in 1998. In Manchester it rains a lot. I learned to like it and rarely carry an umbrella - not least because I'm good at losing them. I don't mind getting wet so will happily walk somewhere when it's raining, not caring.
snakeboards
An interest left over from when I was part of the circus skills society at university. I didn't really get on with the other things, with the slight exception of the Diablo. I soon bought myself a snakeboard - for those who've not come across one, they're like a skateboard but doubly articulated (at the front and the back), and one applies thrust by rotating the footplates in opposition, rather than by peddling along. (It generates a kind of motion called undulatory motion, which also features on my interest list).
* * * *
Several months ago when a variation of this meme was doing the rounds (topics chosen by the asker rather than picked from ones profile),
faerierhona gave me these 5:Maths
A long standing interest of mine. I love playing with numbers and have done for as long as I can remember. I like mathematical puzzles and have recently started working on the puzzles at http://projecteuler.net
Indirectly my love of numbers and calulating found me a housemate. A few years ago someone made a post in
livejournal_uk when the Euromillions lottery exceeded 100mi GBP and commented that you could buy a lot of shoes for that. I estimated how many, and gave a few examples like "that's enough pairs for a whole year assuming you wear each for 5 seconds and sleep 6 hours a night". I also said that if you were to hire a taxi that flies, drives and swims as appropriate and charged 1000 GBP per mile, that's enough money to go aroud the equator 3 times. They were, admittedly, convoluted examples but it entertained enough that I was flisted by msloz, and one of her friends turned out to be emmavescence. And in small world syndrome, we'd already encountered one another whilst volunteering for LiveJournal all those years ago.Extra terrestrial life
Something that I've considered but my belief plays no significant role in how I life my life. I think there probably are other planetary systems supporting life - there is such a vast quantity of stars that I consider it highly unlikely that we be the sole planet bearing life. Whether or not they choose to visit us is another matter. It's arrogant to assume that they'll *want* to visit us. They may not be *allowed* to. They may not be technologically capable. They may not know we exist. They may have already set off Earth-bound but not yet reached us (and may not do until our sun goes supernova). Lots of unknowns - I do not consider the apparent lack of ET life to be indicative that none exists.
Music
Music is a strong passion of mine. I've tinkered around with a numer of instruments including drums, guitar and piano to varying degrees of success, but I was never really captivated by any of them. I am quite interested in music theory, surprisingly so for a non-performing musician.
My main preference though is listening to music - I tend to wear headphones at work and often when commuting. Better yet is live music, though I haven't been to many gigs of late. (Levellers and Camera Obscura towards the beginning of this year are the two most recent). My taste (to steal a phrase from someone whose identity eludes me for the moment) can be described as ecclectic but fussy. See my last.fm profile if you want a sample.
As much as I like music, I hate loud music in a pub with a vile burning passion. If it's too loud to hear without having to shout and give oneself a hoarse throat then it's too damn loud. I've ranted about this in the past. I go to a pub to socialise, and a club to dance. Even then I much prefer clubs which have a quiet area, and I make regular use of them (or go outside), lest I get tired.
Spirituality
I am at a loss as to what to write here. I am not a spiritual person, nor a religious one. I am almost anti-religion, but lack the enthusiasm to do anything about it. (To expand on this, I'm more unhappy with the idea of organised religion than I am with the idea of one or more deities.)
Rhona
Fabulous company, ever so wise, and a great chef. I don't get to see her often enough :-(
Who wants 5?
