The Interview Meme
I'm not big on memes. Really. But this one seemed rather interesting.
5 Questions from Mizuna (who was the recipient of my Sockapalooza socks).
1. The title of your blog? I think it has something to do with Perl and purling.
Well, first off I'm a computer geek. Have been for years. When I was at the University of Surrey I learnt a computer programming language called Perl, which I've used a lot since, in my professional career. Perl has something called Regular Expressions which is basically a very powerful way of searching text for all sorts of different things. The title to my blog is written in perl regular expression format. The slash / at the beginning and end say "hey, lookee here - this thing between the slashes is a regular expression!". The parentheses () group things together (more on that later). The square brackets [] are a character class, which means "if the character in this position matches anything in this character class, then we have a match for that position". So if we were to have "perls of wisdom" in our text, or "purls of wisdom", either would be considered a match. Obviously, "perls" is referring to the programming language, and "purls" is referring to knitting. The phonetic link to "pearls of wisdom" should be obvious. The question mark ? says "match the previous thing 0 or 1 times". Since, in this case, the previous thing is a close parenthesis, that is referring to everything from the matching open parenthesis to that close parenthesis. It is, I suppose, my little joke, meaning "You may or may not find pearls of wisdom in this blog".
2. What are some of the intersections between your interests/occupations (computers, candles, knitting, boardgames, etc.)?
Well, obviously, anything I blog about will intersect with computers, more so if I set up special pages. I write my web pages in text editors, mostly, rather than using a graphical tool to do the layout. I've discovered a number of people who are into both knitting and boardgames, which is quite interesting.
3. What have you got in your pockets?
Keys, an ATM card, my drivers license, a couple of bucks, some decongestant pills, my cellphone, a lenscloth, and a couple of pens. And when I was kneading the bread dough on Saturday, I also had my wedding ring. My preciousssss.
4. If my electric kettle broke, I’d freak out, despite the fact that I am capable of boiling water in a pot on the stove. Do you have a gadget or other item that would cause you distress to lose even if you’d still be able to perform the same function with a minimum of inconvenience?
I too have an electric automatic kettle. I find it so hard to believe that these aren't very popular in the US. It was hard to find when I moved here, but I managed to get one. However, I think the gadget I like most is my Leatherman Micra. Very useful.
5. Do you have a favorite DVD film commentary, or a preferred style of DVD commentary and special features?
Hard to say. I've not really got into the commentaries before Lord of the Rings, and I've been watchnig those because LotR is such an iconic piece of literature. The special features, showing the technical aspects of how the movies were created (such as forced perspective in motion, or Andy Sirkis' motion capture for Gollum) have been very interesting. Hearing the commentaries has been very interesting, so far, because I've learnt a lot about some of the creative and directorial decisions made for the movies. Also, learning of some of the in jokes and cameos is entertaining.
A couple of minor nit picks I have with the editing of the commentaries though, is that it's clear that (apart from the Director/writers), the commentators were not all together when their commentaries were recorded. That shows because in the same commentary, often two or three people will make the same point. It's not overly distracting, but it almost feels that after editing, no-one actually sat down and watched it through in order to see how it hangs together. In one particularly bad instance, the same piece of audio was edited into the commentary in two different places, so it seemed that the same person made the exact same comment about something, with just a few minutes between.
However, that aside, I've been enjoying the commentaries a lot for these movies. Once I've finished those, there'll be the home computer bonus material to check out as well.
Now you've learnt a little about me, be one of the first five to comment and I'll ask you 5 questions.
The Interview Meme: how to play
1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)
1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)
5 Questions from Mizuna (who was the recipient of my Sockapalooza socks).
1. The title of your blog? I think it has something to do with Perl and purling.
Well, first off I'm a computer geek. Have been for years. When I was at the University of Surrey I learnt a computer programming language called Perl, which I've used a lot since, in my professional career. Perl has something called Regular Expressions which is basically a very powerful way of searching text for all sorts of different things. The title to my blog is written in perl regular expression format. The slash / at the beginning and end say "hey, lookee here - this thing between the slashes is a regular expression!". The parentheses () group things together (more on that later). The square brackets [] are a character class, which means "if the character in this position matches anything in this character class, then we have a match for that position". So if we were to have "perls of wisdom" in our text, or "purls of wisdom", either would be considered a match. Obviously, "perls" is referring to the programming language, and "purls" is referring to knitting. The phonetic link to "pearls of wisdom" should be obvious. The question mark ? says "match the previous thing 0 or 1 times". Since, in this case, the previous thing is a close parenthesis, that is referring to everything from the matching open parenthesis to that close parenthesis. It is, I suppose, my little joke, meaning "You may or may not find pearls of wisdom in this blog".
2. What are some of the intersections between your interests/occupations (computers, candles, knitting, boardgames, etc.)?
Well, obviously, anything I blog about will intersect with computers, more so if I set up special pages. I write my web pages in text editors, mostly, rather than using a graphical tool to do the layout. I've discovered a number of people who are into both knitting and boardgames, which is quite interesting.
3. What have you got in your pockets?
Keys, an ATM card, my drivers license, a couple of bucks, some decongestant pills, my cellphone, a lenscloth, and a couple of pens. And when I was kneading the bread dough on Saturday, I also had my wedding ring. My preciousssss.
4. If my electric kettle broke, I’d freak out, despite the fact that I am capable of boiling water in a pot on the stove. Do you have a gadget or other item that would cause you distress to lose even if you’d still be able to perform the same function with a minimum of inconvenience?
I too have an electric automatic kettle. I find it so hard to believe that these aren't very popular in the US. It was hard to find when I moved here, but I managed to get one. However, I think the gadget I like most is my Leatherman Micra. Very useful.
5. Do you have a favorite DVD film commentary, or a preferred style of DVD commentary and special features?
Hard to say. I've not really got into the commentaries before Lord of the Rings, and I've been watchnig those because LotR is such an iconic piece of literature. The special features, showing the technical aspects of how the movies were created (such as forced perspective in motion, or Andy Sirkis' motion capture for Gollum) have been very interesting. Hearing the commentaries has been very interesting, so far, because I've learnt a lot about some of the creative and directorial decisions made for the movies. Also, learning of some of the in jokes and cameos is entertaining.
A couple of minor nit picks I have with the editing of the commentaries though, is that it's clear that (apart from the Director/writers), the commentators were not all together when their commentaries were recorded. That shows because in the same commentary, often two or three people will make the same point. It's not overly distracting, but it almost feels that after editing, no-one actually sat down and watched it through in order to see how it hangs together. In one particularly bad instance, the same piece of audio was edited into the commentary in two different places, so it seemed that the same person made the exact same comment about something, with just a few minutes between.
However, that aside, I've been enjoying the commentaries a lot for these movies. Once I've finished those, there'll be the home computer bonus material to check out as well.
Now you've learnt a little about me, be one of the first five to comment and I'll ask you 5 questions.
posted by Timotab @ 9:32 AM
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