Let’s find out more about Tacit!

And let’s do it via an Internet meme, because if it’s on the Internet, it must be true! Cut for memey goodness, and as usual, with plenty of additional commentary

Name three things that are physically close to you:
1. My iPhone, upon which I have just installed a program called Air Sharing. This bit of software, which you can get from the App Store, sets up the iPhone as a file server and allows you to copy files directly to and from the iPhone filesystem. It rocks. if you own an iPhone, get it.
2. A plastic Ziploc baggie full of CDs. Some are music CDs, some are CD-ROMs, some are blank CDs, some are CD-Rs with stuff burned on them. All of them are in the baggie without jackets or covers. Most are unlabelled. I have no fracking clue what is on most of them.
3. A set of floggers hanging from my bed.

What’s your favorite sport?
Sport? Sport? As in, games played by teams of people for the entertainment of spectators? You’re joking. Might just as well ask “what is your favorite Olsen twin” or “what is your favorite contagious disease that causes you to bleed from your eyes.”

Do you enjoy sleeping late?
Oh, yes. In fact, if I get up before about 9 AM, I’m miserable for the entire day. Makes no differnce how long I’ve slept the night before.

What’s the weather like right now?
Pfft. Is that even an interesting question? I mean, c’mon. Who talks about the weather? It’s warm. It’s dark. It isn’t raining.

Who tells the best jokes?
George Carlin. He had a gift for telling unpleasant truths about the human condition in the form of comedy. He was brilliant and he was funny and he is sorely missed.

What was the last thing you dreamed about?
The last dream I can remember was an erotic dream about Gina, as a matter of fact. It started out in an enormous, unfamiliar house whose master bathroom was a huge room entirely enclosed in glass walls, the way some conference rooms are in fancy high-rise office buildings. The whole house was dark save for a light in the shower, a walk-in unit in the center of the master bathroom with a rain-style showerhead mounted directly in the center of the ceiling and a light above it. You know, the kind of place where people spend hirty-five or forty thousand dollars on the bathroom alone. Later, the dream morphed into a situation where I was trying to drive across a bridge to get into town, and I kept taking the wrong turn. Yes, on the bridge itself; it was a multi-decked, complex structure with many parallel side roads and twists and turns. A lot of my dreams end up that way, in fact; trying to drive across an impossible bridge of some sort or other–bridges six hundred miles long, bridges that have fifteen or twenty levels, bridges that slope up nearly vertically, bridges with sections missing. These bridges occupy a prominent part of the landscape of my dreams.

Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
Yes, I drive. I was just recently involved in my first crash, though I wasn’t driving at the time. My roomie David was driving, and an unlicensed driver came flying through an intersection in the wrong lane and plowed into the side of David’s car while we were stopped at a light.

Do you believe in karma?
As in, a supernatural or metaphysical force that gives people what they deserve? No. As in, your life looks the way it does because of the choices you make, and those choices, good or bad, tend to be self-reinforcing? You bet.

Do you believe in luck?
Nope. At least not as some entity or force that controls the destiny of humans.

Do you like your eggs scrambled or sunny side up?
Scrambled, mostly.

Do you collect anything? If so, what?
I don’t intentionally collect anything, like stamps or coins or whatever. However, stuff does tend to accumulate around me, because once something finds its way into my possession I have difficulty letting it go. Even in completely virtual, totally fictional environments like World of Warcraft this is true. My characters always have inventory problems.

Are you proud of yourself?
I’m proud of some of the things I’ve done. As for myself, I’m still a work in progress, but I do very much like who I am as a person.

Are you reliable?
I can be relied upon to procrastinate, to have difficulty doing things on a schedule, and to tend to get stuff done in a more or less haphazard manner. Whether that makes me “reliable” or “unreliable” depends on the nature of your expectations, I suppose.

Have you ever given money to a bum?
Yes.

What’s your favorite food?
In a bizarre and dramatic reversal of my tastes throughout most of my life…sushi!

Have you ever had a secret admirer?
Well, if I knew about an admirer, that person wouldn’t be secret, hmm?

Do you like the smell of gasoline?
Not particularly, no. What kind of question is this, though? Are there folks who do?

What’s your favorite invention?
That’s an interesting question. I could say “agriculture,” or “the steam engine,” or “steel,” because without these, I’d be living in a pre-industrial or pre-agrarian society and I’d likely have been dead two decades ago. Plus, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If, err, you can call this a conversation. I could say the transistor, or the integrated circuit, because without those, ditto. I could say public sewer systems, without which you and I and most of the rest of the species couldn’t be here. But honestly? My favorite invention hasn’t been invented yet: a general-purpose, programmable, atomic-scale assembler. The nation that gets that one first, wins. Forever.

Is your room messy?
Surprisingly, no.

Do you give in easily?
Depends. On things I don’t much care about? Yeah. If I’m not invested in the outcome, then whatever. On things I do care about? I’m stubborn. Really, really stubborn.

Are you a bully?
No. I have punched bullies in the nose, though.

Do you have a job?
Heh. Three! At least. Seriously. Though they’re not “jobs” in the conventional sense; two of them are businesses I own and run myself, and the third is a business I’m a minority partner in.

What time did you wake up this morning?
Morning? Methinks someone needs to check his assumptions. I got up at one o’clock in the afternoon, thank you very much!

What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
THE SOULS OF UNBAPTIZED CHILDREN!
No, wait, that’s not true. Actually, a sub from Subway.

When was the last time you showered?
Shortly after I got up this afternoon, and shortly before I went to Subway. Wow, talk about a boring question.

What do you plan on doing tomorrow?
Working! Seriously. Going in to the office tomorrow, goddamnit. After that, raiding! My World of Warcraft mage is going back into Tempest Keep. We need to get a couple more folks in the raid geared up for going back into Hyjal next week.

What’s your favorite day of the week and why?
I’m fond of Fridays and Saturdays, mostly because I don’t usually have to be up at any particular time on Saturdays and Sundays. See reference to “being miserable all day” above.

Do you have any nicknames?
Tacit. Used to be Turtle, and a handful of folks (hi, jonnymoon!) still call me that.

Have you ever been scuba diving?
Nope. I hate water. Words can scarcely express how much I hate water. I hate swimming (and in fact I don’t know how to swim), I hate the ocean, I hate salt water in my eyes… Scuba diving? You can keep it, thanks.

Would you ever go skydiving?
I have. I thought it’d be great. You know what? It wasn’t all that. Not really interested in doing it again. In all honesty, I thought it was kind of boring.

Do you enjoy challenges?
That’s a difficult question to answer. I like some kinds of challenges; I like challenging work, and I like a lot of variety in my daily life. I like intellectual challenges, but don’t like things like logic puzzles, crossword puzzles, or number puzzles.

What’s the worst injury you have had?
When I was a young kid, I tried to build a fort. One wall of the fort was made from an old barn door. Those of you who’ve never lived in the country probably won’t appreciate that, but for the benefit of those of you who do, I’ll repeat it: One wall of the fort was made from an old barn door. Barn doors are HUGE. And they are HEAVY. And they are VERY DANGEROUS for a YOUNG CHILD to be playing with. Especially a YOUNG CHILD who knows nothing about STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING. The barn door, which I had precariously balanced on its edge (quite a task for a young child, I assure you) and propped in place with a single bit of scrap 2×4, came down on my head. Hysterical parents, a gallon of blood, and a 20-minute dash to the closest emergency room later, I was screaming in a hospital while a doctor stitched up my head. I still remember how bad it hurt. To this day, my hair tends to stick up funny in that spot.

What’s the last movie you saw?
Babylon AD, the new Vin Diesel flick. It was awesome. Cyberpunk updated and done right. datan0de, you will love this flick.

What do you want to know about the future?
Everything. Everything. In fact, I want to be there to see it. I want to see if we as a species live up to our potential. I want to know what we get wrong, and what we get right. I want to know what it’s like to see the rings of Saturn with my own eyes. I want to know how it feels to live inside a computer. I want to know what it’s like to extend my senses, modify my body at will, remove the inevitability of old age and death. I want to know if we will learn to build on the scale of atoms and the scale of solar systems. I want to know if Einstein’s laws about space and time have a loophole.

Who was the last person you spoke over the phone to?
figmentj. We talked about the amazing ability gifted by God to a select few college professors who can take the most interesting and fascinating of subjects and grind it down to a boring, dull, joyless paste.

What is your dream vacation?
Six weeks in my private yacht in the Mediterranean, surrounded by all my sweeties and all my friends.

What is your favorite animal?
I don’t know that I actually have a favorite animal, at least in the general. In the specific, I’m quite attached to Liam the kitty.

Do you miss anyone right now?
Oh, dear God, yes. All of my lovers and most of my friends are long distance. I don’t much like Atlanta, truth be told.

What’s the last sporting event you watched?
*blink* Objection, Your Honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.

What’s your favorite season?
Spring. Not too hot, not too cold. That’s pretty much the extent of it. Seasons are something that happen outside. I don’t much cotton to “outside.”

How do you want to be remembered after you die?
Pfft. I don’t want to die.

What’s the main thing you want right now?
Immortality. Main thing I want every day.

Has anyone hurt you recently? If so who?
Not that I’m aware of.

Do like to drive fast?
True story: I once owned a 1977 Honda Civic. Yellow, extensively modified. This was many years ago, when the section of I-75 connecting Ft. Myers, Florida to Sarasota had first opened. My friend Timothy and I were driving up to Sarasota, Timothy in the front seat beside me.
Tim: “Hey, Franklin!”
Me: “Yep?”
Tim: “Are we really going a hundred and forty miles an hour?”
Me: “Yep.”
Tim: “That’s pretty cool.”
Me: “Yep!”
Tim: “Hey, Franklin!”
Me: “Yep?”
Tim: “Back off a little, will ya?”

Are you a night person or a morning person?
I am not a morning person in approximately the same way that I am not a two-hundred-foot tall mechanical fire-breathing dragon with death-ray eyes and steel talons.

Are you happy with the way our country is run?
Sweet Jesus, no. Are you kidding me? This country has become an anti-intellectual, fear-crazed basket case run by a moron. We’re spending ourselves into bankruptcy because we’re scared shitless of things that go “boo!” It;s pathetic and it’s ridiculous.

Do you believe in literal good and evil?
As opposed to what, figurative good and evil? Metaphorical good and evil? I believe that a person can be good or evil, and that a person can make choices which are good or evil, yes. I don’t think that good or evil are divinely determined by some kind of omniscient divinity, though. In fact, I believe that the notion of an external, supernatural entity which defines good and evil is itself an evil belief. I may at some point write a LiveJournal post about that.

Do you believe in the devil?
Absolutely not.

Do you swear?
Oh, yeah. Yes, I do. In this very post, in fact.

Do you believe in the supernatural?
No. I do believe that we do not understand the whole of the physical universe, but I do not believe that there is any part of it not governed by universal physical law.

Are you addicted to Myspace?
I have a MySpace profile. I log on to it occasionally to reject all the friends requests from spammers, hacked accounts, and malware distributors. MySpace is a sewer of spam and virus droppers.

Favorite stores to shop at?
Again, assumes facts not in evidence. I hate shopping.

What’s your favorite holiday?
I have a soft spot for Labor Day, because that’s when Dragon*Con takes place. Dragon is like Christmas that doesn’t suck, with less Jesus and more nudity.

What do you do when you’re stressed and need to unwind?
I play video games. Mostly real-time strategy games. The more complex, fast-paced, and demanding, the better.

Does your curiosity get the best of you ever?
Meh? Curiosity is one of the greatest attributes of the human species. The inquiring mind, the puzzled “Hmm, that’s odd, I wonder what makes that happen?”–this is the cornerstone upon which is built that which is most noble in us. Curiosity is the greatest homage to the wonder and mystery and delight in the universe that I can ever even begin to imagine. It is the impulse that drives us to be the thing that is most precious in all of creation: the part of the universe which understands itself. Intellectual curiosity is the most magnificent, the most beautiful thing which has ever existed or will ever exist; if there exists anywhere anything even remotely to the divine, it is curiosity. Curiosity uplifts us. It draws us out of the muck of mere survival and allows us–compels us–to be more than what we are right now. Curiosity is the most splendid and the most sublime of all human drives, and anyone who seeks to blunt the inquiring mind commits a sin against all humanity.

54 thoughts on “Let’s find out more about Tacit!

  1. Wow.

    I am taking that last paragraph, printing it off, attributing it, and placing it on the wall next to my desk so I can stare at it in wonder and appreciate it repeatedly.

  2. Wow.

    I am taking that last paragraph, printing it off, attributing it, and placing it on the wall next to my desk so I can stare at it in wonder and appreciate it repeatedly.

  3. “As in, your life looks the way it does because of the choices you make, and those choices, good or bed, tend to be self-reinforcing?”

    Good or bed? Are those two things mutually exclusive? 😉

  4. “As in, your life looks the way it does because of the choices you make, and those choices, good or bed, tend to be self-reinforcing?”

    Good or bed? Are those two things mutually exclusive? 😉

  5. What’s going on with your opinion of sport? There are some completely wonderful sports out there that don’t involve being watched and playing in a team. I do climbing. ‘Tis very very fun. 😀

  6. What’s going on with your opinion of sport? There are some completely wonderful sports out there that don’t involve being watched and playing in a team. I do climbing. ‘Tis very very fun. 😀

  7. “What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
    THE SOULS OF UNBAPTIZED CHILDREN!
    No, wait, that’s not true. Actually, a sub from Subway.”

    What was her name?

  8. “What did you eat for breakfast this morning?
    THE SOULS OF UNBAPTIZED CHILDREN!
    No, wait, that’s not true. Actually, a sub from Subway.”

    What was her name?

  9. I like your definition of functional karma.

    That’s pretty much the basis of my moral belief system: you get what’s coming to you, because your keep setting yourself up until you learn better.

  10. I like your definition of functional karma.

    That’s pretty much the basis of my moral belief system: you get what’s coming to you, because your keep setting yourself up until you learn better.

  11. Re: Wow.

    Gasoline and skunk? *blink*

    True story: Apparently, someone in my apartment complex got nailed by a skunk recently, and washed his clothes in the community washing machine. Weeks later, one washer still gives off a whiff of skunk whenever you open the lid.

  12. I do indeed. Two poi-handled floggers and four conventional floggers, all hanging from the top of the bed (it’s a king-size wrought-iron canopy bed). And, yes, I do sleep there. 😛

  13. Re: Let’s find out more about Tacit

    Wait a minute… You mentioned somewhere that you used to wrestle competitively. Aikido, right? Well, isn’t that a sport? When you were in it, didn’t you watch how other people fight, too? Just curious.

    Another question: if you and person X are offered immortality, but are informed that, no matter what, only one of you can have it — and you decide which one is it going to be, you or X — for how many people in your life would your answer be “let it be them”? Who are these people?

    OK, you don’t have to answer, obviously, it’s a rather personal question, but you gotta admit it beats the weather and gasoline questions 🙂

    – Ola

    • Re: Let’s find out more about Tacit

      Yep, I used to wrestle competitively, back when I was in school. More my father’s idea than mine, honestly; left to my own devices, I’d probably have given it a miss.

      I tend to think of “sports” as “competitive spectator events.” So for that reason, I don’t consider things like Aikido as ‘sports,’ though I can see where other folks might.

      Hmm. That question is a good one. At this point, I’m inclined to say that for any X, it’d be me, but that’s more a reflection of my current relationship status than anything else.

  14. Re: Let’s find out more about Tacit

    Wait a minute… You mentioned somewhere that you used to wrestle competitively. Aikido, right? Well, isn’t that a sport? When you were in it, didn’t you watch how other people fight, too? Just curious.

    Another question: if you and person X are offered immortality, but are informed that, no matter what, only one of you can have it — and you decide which one is it going to be, you or X — for how many people in your life would your answer be “let it be them”? Who are these people?

    OK, you don’t have to answer, obviously, it’s a rather personal question, but you gotta admit it beats the weather and gasoline questions 🙂

    – Ola

  15. Re: Let’s find out more about Tacit

    Yep, I used to wrestle competitively, back when I was in school. More my father’s idea than mine, honestly; left to my own devices, I’d probably have given it a miss.

    I tend to think of “sports” as “competitive spectator events.” So for that reason, I don’t consider things like Aikido as ‘sports,’ though I can see where other folks might.

    Hmm. That question is a good one. At this point, I’m inclined to say that for any X, it’d be me, but that’s more a reflection of my current relationship status than anything else.

  16. Hey…knock off the meme cop-outs.

    I mean…come on. “How’s the weather?” “It’s dark”

    We want more insightful posts, like on the nature of God, The Universe and Everything. (And not on that topic.)

  17. Hey…knock off the meme cop-outs.

    I mean…come on. “How’s the weather?” “It’s dark”

    We want more insightful posts, like on the nature of God, The Universe and Everything. (And not on that topic.)

  18. Per your suggestion, Kim and I went to see Babylon A.D. on Sunday. Yup, you’re right. The storytelling was somewhat disjointed, but it absolutely is cyberpunk done right, particularly the first third of the movie. Thanks for the tip!

  19. Per your suggestion, Kim and I went to see Babylon A.D. on Sunday. Yup, you’re right. The storytelling was somewhat disjointed, but it absolutely is cyberpunk done right, particularly the first third of the movie. Thanks for the tip!

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