My walk was the walk of a human child, but my heart was a tree.

You know how sometimes people on your friendslist post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Well, here is some completely irrelevant information about me. Copy it to your own journal if you like, delete my answers, and substitute your own.

1. What toys did you take to bed with you when you were a kid?

A teddy called David, a squirrel called Mrs Squirrel, and a cat called Joanna. I wish I knew where Mrs Squirrel is now. Here is a picture of me with David.



2. What is your favourite colour?

Orange, then black, then green.

3. What was your first experience of computers?

When I was about five, my parents took me along to a computer course they were attending at Hitchin Technical College, for which I will be forever grateful.  A short while later, my headmaster bought a BBC Micro for the entire school, and invited me up to his office.  "I've noticed", he said, "that your handwriting is the worst in the school.  This computer has a thing in it called a wordprocessor that might help you."

4. When you were a kid, who did you want to win the Boat Race?

Cambridge, honestly!  It was because they lost about a dozen times in a row and I always cheer for the underdog.

5. What was the title of your first book?

"The Squirrel Army".  I was about seven.  It was the first of a series of four.  I'm sure my mother still has them.

6. What was your favourite Christmas present ever?

This thing.  I spent hours solving all the levels.  You had to solve ten addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems in four different levels within a certain time limit.  I loved it.

7. What clubs did you join as a kid?

The Puffin Club; Mensa; the National Association of Gifted Children; the Vegetarian Society.

8. What was your favourite part of Christmas?

I was asked this by a teacher once, and after some thought I said it was Boxing Day, because you had plenty of time to look at all the things people had given you.  She stared at me and said "That's rather boring."

I can't promise to give five good questions to everyone who comments, though.

1. Who would win in a fight, Delirium of the Endless or Cthulhu?

This is one of those "irresistible force meets immovable object" questions. But thinking over it carefully, I reckon it would go something like this:



2. How would you explain copyright/copyleft and the open source movement to a slightly slow 16-year-old?

That's a great question.  I think I will actually try to write something up as a good explanation aimed at middle-school kids.  But a good start on the answer was already made by Chumbawamba:

The Boy Bands Have Won, and All The Copyists and The Tribute Bands and The TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture To Be Shaped By Mimicry, Whether From Lack Of Ideas Or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try To Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, Or Hold Art And Music And Literature As Fixed, Untouchable And Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try To ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form Of Music Are, Like The Copyists And Manufactured Bands, Doing It The Worst Disservice, Because The Only Thing That You Can Do To Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and The Boy Bands Have Won.

3. Which was your favourite Narnia book?

"Dawn Treader", because of all the wonderful geography and the living stars.  It's followed closely by "The Magician's Nephew", but that's not surprising:  I realised many years ago that most story books hold my interest insofar as they are similar to the works of E. Nesbit, and "Nephew" is almost entirely ripped off from "The Story of the Amulet".

4. Are there any recurring themes in your writing?

Both personal autonomy and Cambridge University Library tend to crop up over and over.

5. When will Joule be back up? (Sorry, sorry!)

Well, I need to wind back the database to the old format.  Then I need to decide whether we're going to host it; we possibly will, but someone else has also quite generously offered us space, so maybe it'll go there instead.  The weekend's coming up, which would seem to be a good time to put in the last few hours on it.  I know a lot of people are being very patient.

Leave a comment on this post. If I've ever dreamed about you, I will tell you about the dream. Otherwise I will make up what a dream with you in it might have been like. You can guess which it was.

( ) Gone on a blind date

I've never really dated.

(x) Gave blood

I used to do this all the time. I can't now for two reasons.

( ) Skipped school

I don't think I ever did this.

( ) Watched someone die

I've always been somewhere else when people I knew died.

( teal deer )
(x) Ridden a Subway

Gee up, I want a veggie delight.

( ) Been to your High School Reunion

I don't think there was one, I'm in the wrong country, and I don't want to go anyway.

Ask me a question, and I'll answer it. (Or I'll answer to the best of my ability, depending on the nature of the question). Any question is fair game, no matter how awkward it might be, unless it is about someone else. (For example, "Is so-and-so sleeping with so-and-so?" is right out, even if you think I know the answer.) Comments are screened, answers will be posted without identifying the questioner.

Marn adds: Anything covered by NDAs, or anything such as passwords, is also out, obviously.

Poll #1461080 When we were astronauts
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

If you were an astronaut, your mission would be called "The _____ In Space Program(me)".

And this skill of yours would come in unexpectedly useful on the mission:

And you would request this song for a wakeup call from Mission Control.

But if I (Marnanel) was an astronaut, I would be on "The _____ In Space Program(me)"

And this skill of mine would come in unexpectedly useful

And I would ask Mission Control for this song as a wakeup call.

Go on, what would I never say?

Meme: Leave a comment asking me for my top five things in a certain category.  (I will answer anything that doesn't involve breaking confidences, but perhaps not in public posts.)

People don't usually answer this any more when I post it, but it's going round again. Go on, knock yourselves out.

Ask me a question....

AND

...tell me a secret.

All comments are screened and I will answer all questions in another post, but not state who asked the question.

I've got a giant cardboard box, what could we make out of it?
One of my siblings, when they were a toddler, had a giant cardboard box and called it "Harold the Fishing Boat".  When it was taken away, they complained that it had been their favourite friend.

Do you hang your clothes in your closet, all facing in the same direction?
No.  I keep them in drawers.

Why would the F.B.I. be after you?
I hope they're not: it would be very inconvenient for everyday life.

Apart from a car license, do you have a license for anything else?
I don't have a "car licence".  I don't actually have a licence for anything.

The new law is: Everyone must have a word tattooed on their forehead, what's yours going to be?
"Civil disobedience".

Are you any different than you were a year ago?
I hope so.

Everybody has a little "what" in them?
...one million Hows, two million Wheres, and seven million Whys.

Are you a talker or are you a listener?
I am a talker.  Telnet to me!

What do you shake?
Milk.

What is the one thing you know is true?
λxy.x

What do you do when you sit out on your deck or porch alone?
Walk around twiddling pipecleaners and designing systems.

What would make it a better day where you are right now?
Nothing, it's night.

Okay, bored of this, and I have other things to do.  May do some more later.  (Fin's answers are here.)

Life: It's been a busy few days, and I should have been blogging every evening in order to keep up.  (But I didn't, because I was busy.)  I've been packing and getting ready for GCDS and trying to finish off some things before I leave.  I did find time to go swimming with Rio one evening, and yesterday we all went to the fair.  I won a fluffy penguin playing darts.  (I was playing darts, not the penguin.)  Thanks to Alex for the photo on the right.

The future of Metacity: It is fairly clear that Metacity will be replaced by its fork Mutter in the near future: Mutter is effectively Metacity 3.  Although I have some loose ends to tie up in Metacity, it doesn't seem worth continuing hacking on Metacity 2 when the life is in the other fork.  In addition, there are over five hundred bugs open against Metacity, more than I (as the only active maintainer) can humanly deal with.  Mutter has far more contributors and the bugs will be far more easily dealt with.

CADT: However, this raises a problem.  I can't just close the bugs because there's a new version: that would be repeating the GNOME 2.0 mistake which jwz called "cascade of attention-deficit teenagers".  Therefore I will have to go through several hundred bugs and decide whether they are reproducible with Mutter, and if so reassign them.  This will be a long and dreary job, and if anyone wants to help out I'd be happy to assign them a block.

Nargery: There is also a discussion about whether windows should be able to indicate to compositing managers that they are still working on drawing a window, to save the compositor diving in and drawing the existing pixmap, which may be uninitialised garbage.  Some people question whether compositor-specific hints belong in the EWMH at all, or whether they belong in some separate spec.

Meme: Someone is asking "What was your first word?" Mine was "gone." My grandfather used to play a game with me when I was a baby. He would take an object, like a building block, and then hide it and say "Gone".

Links:

• freedesktop.org is in bad shape.  We can all help.
• The building that fell over.
• Giant dominoes: Symbolic toppling. I keep reading that as "symbolic topping", which must be good on representative cake.
• The longest known word in ancient Greek.

Are there any words you can't stand the sound of?
No, not really.  I think each word has its own special beauty and is useful in its own place.  I don't have the revulsion to words like moist that some people claim to have.  Even a word like phthisis (presumably the source of "phtheezles" in Christopher Robin), though a name for a horrible thing, has its own strange beauty as a word.

If you are a colour, which colour are you?
Orange on some days, black on others.

What is your comfort food?
Hm.  In this country, gummy bears and milk chocolate.  In England, probably jelly babies, pickled onions, licorice allsorts, softgrain bread, and milk chocolate.
                                                                                                                              
Do you consider yourself comfortable in your own skin?
Not really.  I tend to think it's rather ugly skin, covered with plaque as it is.  But a friend of mine took some pictures of it to show me it could be beautiful, and sometimes I look at them in order to remember.
                                                                                                                              
Tell me something true.
The Scottish parliament has the legal ability under the Scotland Act to raise or lower income tax by 3%.  This is theoretically called the Tartan Tax, but the power has never been used.  (I'm not sure whether this is the sort of thing you were looking for.)

A meme from kjpepper and justkimu.  They gave me five words that they associate with me and asked me to talk about them.

hair: I always used to wear my hair fairly long even as a kid, but I last had my hair properly cut in January 2000.  I like the feel of my hair; it's one of the things I actually rather like about my body.  But perhaps if I ever start going bald I may shave it all off like Stuart Davis.

English: Do you mean the nationality or the language?  I love playing with the language.  As for the nationality, I met a deaf person a while ago and realised that they were the first person I'd met in six years who didn't immediately pigeonhole me because of the island on which I was born (so of course I tried to tell them anyway).

Fin: Not just my life partner, but also my inspiration.

messy: Interesting choice of word.  I could probably make money selling books on how messiness should be accepted as a way of life and a challenge, the way people do for change.

poly: I love many people.  Apparently this is not the default and needs a label.

England: already had this one.  I was born there, I love going back, I miss it very much.

livejournal: I have had one since fairly early on (I was one of the first 50,000) and for only the second time in my life, keeping a diary has since become part of my self.  (And it's been a privilege to play a small part in LJ culture.)

tree(s): trees are important to the planet because they refresh the air, and to me because they have the same effect on my mind.  And they are just as important to people I love, which makes them doubly and trebly important to me.

naps: why did you include that?  I don't take naps.

language: a lifelong obsession of mine, in very many ways.

test: test?!

You should feel free to give me five words to talk about, or ask for five words of your own.

Things people asked on the "ask me something that should be obvious" post:

Where do you work? I work for a British open source consulting firm called Collabora.

Who are you currently dating? FSVO "dating": I don't really do dates as such. My partners are firinel, plexq, xugglybug, who are all lovely and wonderful people.

"The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you."

Comments screened; say if you want yours unscreened.

dyddgu gave me five icons to talk about.

8fool - I've always had an affinity for the tarot card called The Fool. Fin commissioned joannabarnum to paint me as that archetype. More information is here. The leading 8 is so that I can select it in one keypress, though I don't currently need to because it's my default icon.
pretty - Having quite a day of remembering wonderful people who are dead. This is me after I'd had my makeup done by a friend of mine here called Chuck, who also went by Princess Titania, and is now no longer with us. I use this for gender-neutral things and just randomly.
Poto and Cabengo were twins who invented their own language. I read their story in the eighties in Reader's Digest and was enthralled. Later, their parents suppressed the language, they grew up, and they were last heard of mopping floors somewhere. Fin made the icon; I use it for language things and for posting to linguaphiles. If anyone knows where I can find the film about them, I'd love to see it.
otp - this is Ace and Seven (i.e. the seventh regeneration of Doctor Who). OTP = One True Pairing; they're my favourite Doctor and my favourite Companion and I have occasionally written slash fanfic about them. When I was younger, I always admired Ace and wanted to be more like her. I use the icon mostly for posting about Doctor Who stuff.
yewenwell - I read somewhere when I was 29 that if you didn't write your first novel in your twenties, you never would.  I therefore made a great effort to start and finish a novel I've been trying to write since I wrote the first version in my teens using DisplayWrite 4.  Needless to say, it ran into problems eleven chapters in and didn't get finished: I've never actually finished any of the novels I've started.  I hope it's not actually an omen.  I wasn't going to post it until it was done, but when I realised it had stalled I posted it anyway (it starts here; people on my friendslist who would like to read it will need to be on an opt-in filter), and this was the icon I used.

wordweaverlynn gave me five icons to write about. Gosh, this is so much easier with the rich-text editor.

This is the oldest icon I still have: I made it in the early days of LJ. It's þ, the letter thorn, as in Thurman.

Fin made a whole lot of Nemi icons for me a while back. This is the one I use when I'm feeling rather HEAD A SPLODE.( three more )

What are your nicknames?
I don't really have any.

What's your Chinese Astrology sign? Be specfic, with the element and stuff!
bunny. more than that, I don't know.

What's the last book you read?
A Child's Christmas in Wales.

What color shirt are you wearing now?
very dark blue with a quotation from Horace on it (not in translation).

Are you an introvert or extrovert?
Intro.

Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer?
Usually Firefox, sometimes Epiphany, sometimes Lynx.

Do you nap a lot?
no.

What was/were your favorite childhood toys?
Mrs Squirrel, David the bear, and Joanna the cat.

What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
notably short of them.

What are you currently reading?
nothing, actually. need to fix that.

What was the last thing you ate today?
Bowl of Weetabix. Thanks, Katie.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
I actually have a list of things to do in the morning called Rhaglen Bore. It takes a bit over half an hour to do all of them, though I sometimes miss some of them out.

What websites do you visit daily?
Mission St Clare, the bank, Planet GNOME, BBC news in Welsh (those are actually in Rhaglen Bore), and LJ and Facebook and of course Google.

What's the last movie you watched?
good grief, I don't remember.

Do you like to clean?
yes. I think my word for this year should be Tidy.

What time is your usual bedtime?
I like it being about twelve-ish.

Do you read any web comics?
yes, xkcd.

What is your favorite weather?
autumn rain.

Where would you see yourself in ten years?
I have trouble seeing myself in ten days. Why should I plan ten years ahead? It would only need to be changed before then when other things came up.

1. Do you ever see yourself taking on another partner?

Who knows? It's not so much a question of "I need 'n' partners and I should add partners until I reach that number", and I'm busy enough with things as I am, but if a friendship worked out that way (after appropriate discussions with existing partners) I suppose it could happen.

2. What one quality do you feel is the most important in a potential partner?

That's a very difficult question. Would it be self-deprecating to say "patience"?

3. Does casual sex (with dear friends but not necessarily a 'partner') appeal to you or something you'd consider getting involved in?

I think if I was having sex with someone I'd have to trust them enough that it wouldn't be casual any more anyway. It's hard to quantify what "partner" means in that sentence if it doesn't mean "close friend where sexual things happen with them", and if it does mean that, such a friend would necessarily be a partner by definition.

4. Intelligent Design or Evilution, and why?

"Intelligent design" is something which is not biology dressed up as biology. It is reasonable to throw around theories of a first cause in the spheres of philosophy and theology. It is utterly irrelevant in biology. That's not to say there isn't an intelligent first cause, and it isn't to say there is, just to say that it's not the concern of science. Evolution is not even what's usually opposed to intelligent design, though those who put forward intelligent design often believe it is by mistaking it for natural selection.

(To the people who are inevitably going to arrive here via Google: I am not interested in debating this, thanks.)

5. What do you most regret?

I regret not getting help with depression much sooner when I was at Cambridge.

6. I wouldn't ask usually but you are inviting questions & someone else asked about relationships so I will: will you and xugglybug just get together already please?! I read what I can of her journal & yours and you both squee about each other so much but it is almost heartbreaking to see you just staying friends. You are so clearly made for each other.

That's very lovely of you to say that, but we've been together for months!

7. Do you ever plan to go back to England?

Yes. I plan it very often, in fact.

8. Where does your love of orange come from?

I decided on a whim to ask for my wallpaper to be painted orange when I was four-ish. The walls of that room are still orange. I adopted it as a sort of totem colour.

9. Why 16? Doesn't that kind of assume that you'll get at least 16 questions, and/or multiples of 16?

khalinche chose the number, not me.

10. If you could be given any item, what would your ideal gift be?

Does it have to be a physical item? I'm not very keen on non-living physical items. I would quite like a dog, but Alex is allergic to them. A magic golden ticket which was an easy way to carry out point 7 might work, if everyone else was good with it. A voucher to study part-time for a BA in Welsh, or maybe a chance to go back to grad school and get my PhD but somehow also not stopping providing for my family (I suspect this won't come true until Rio's old enough to earn her own food).

11. What's your second favorite color?

It used to be green, but now I think it's black.

12. What's your favorite article of clothing?

Currently, an orange fleece with a long pocket in the front to keep stuff in.

13. If you were a flavored condom, what flavor would you be?

... I have no idea about flavoured condoms.

14. Is there a maximum number of people there can or should be in a polyamorous chain? By polyamorous chain I mean subset of people who are connected in some way through simultaneous relationships. For example, a polyamorous chain of 7 might be A-B-C-D-E-F-G where "-" means "in a relationship with", although it could be more complicated e.g. if A and E were also in a relationship with each other, but that would still be a chain of 7. Hope that's clear ... :)

I don't think there's an upper limit on such a chain. I'm sure several exist in the real world with lengths upwards of ten or more. Don't forget that it can fork in places too.

15. Tea or coffee?

Either. Both.

16. What's your favourite kind of Dew?

Orange.

17. I'll ask a cheeky question: when are you coming to Scotland?

I haven't been to Scotland in far too long (also Wales). There's tons of places in the UK I want to go to, which may require point 7.

1. Ask me a question (or two or three). Anonymity is okay.
2. Once there are 16 questions I will answer them all [but not necessarily publicly, or if they involve breaking confidences -M ]
3. You then have 16 statements from me which you might not have otherwise had.
4. Pass it on if you want.