Can I ask you a question? (meme-ish)

[drwex]

At my work conference this past week the conversation turned to getting information about... well, everything. I reeled off some of the list of things I know I can ask my friends about - cooking and enterprise software and cosmology and game design and gardening and preservation and economic theory and lots more I'm forgetting off the top of my head. My coworkers were suitably impressed but I don't consider myself to have all that diverse of a social circle.

For myself, I'm always pleased to (and spend time on Quora to) answer questions about intellectual property as well as design and user experience. I do UX for a living, and have for many years; I also used to blog on IP (mostly copyright) and consider myself a knowledgeable amateur. But I bet there's a lot you folk know that I don't know about.

So, dear readers, what are you happy to answer questions about?

Feel free to leave a comment here, or post an entry in your own journal talking about what you like to discuss and how you came to have this knowledge. I am ever curious.

Comments

[badseed1980]

I'm happy to answer questions about cooking, always. I know there are probably a lot more qualified people, but I consider myself a reasonably competent amateur who has done a lot of reading and experimentation, so I have a fair range of knowledge.

Hmmm

[redbird]

Various bits of geography/directions, which people on the street always seem to ask me, including in cities I don't know (like directing a stranger to Boylston Street years ago, on one of my first visits here).

In person, spelling questions. I had a boss, ages ago, who would call my extension and, when I answered, just say a random word, meaning "Vicki, how do you spell $word?" and I would tell him. Some grammar and editorial questions.

Basic Dreamwidth support/how-to questions. I did a lot of LJ support for a while (back around 2005), and while the answers here are often different, I still have the habit, and will poke through the FAQ so other people don't have to.

Probably seventeen other categories I'm not thinking of, because it just comes up in conversation, and cattitude will ask me something, or I'll ask him or adrian_turtle.

[tshuma]

I feel like anything I could answer questions about, you'd probably already know someone who knows it in more depth. But here are a handful of topics I feel competent to either answer questions about or point you to someone else who probably knows if I don't:

- baking, some general cooking
- music theory
- basic Spanish "how do you say?", etc., grammar, spelling and pronunciation
- grammar, spelling, and vocabulary in English
- Irish tunes, English folktunes, etc.
- knitting, crochet, weaving, spinning, some other random textiles

There is undoubtedly more than I can think of off the top of my head, but that's a start.

[jducoeur]

Hmm. I'm infamously happy to blather about almost anything (one reason why I like being on panels at cons), but I'm actually seriously knowledgeable about:

-- The SCA (its history, culture, etc)
-- Programming and Software Architecture in general, and the Scala / Akka / Play / Scala.js stack in particular at the moment
-- History of Games and Dance (pre-1700), and to a lesser degree Cooking
-- Certain forms of LARP (particularly what I still think of as "Interactive Literature": simulated-combat, writing-intensive, limited-time-period games)
-- Online Collaboration, both the technologies and the social realities

Pretty much all of which I've come by through simple experience -- I've been doing all of the above more or less heavily for 30+ years now...

[dpolicar]

I mostly don't... there's nothing I know particularly well. But I'm usually happy to share my thoughts on most topics anyway.

[fenicedautun]

This is how I feel. (I do feel like I have a little bit of specialization on musical theatre, surface embroidery (esp x-stitch in the past 30 years), and my opinions.)

[flexagon]

I know a lot about anatomy for a layperson, from all my years of working out (yoga, circus and weightlifting especially). Acroyoga, partner acrobatics and handstand technique, obviously.

Knitting, from reading an entire shelf-worth of knitting books. This does nobody any good right now, but I used to answer questions on Ravelry.

Spelling and grammar.

Internally to my workplace, I'm a well-utilized reference on exactly how our product's logging works (and what parts are random and what parts it must do and why).

[drwex]

I've been meaning to ask you about the "acroyoga". It's a fairly obvious portmanteau and yet I've not heard or seen it before.

[flexagon]

Acroyoga is its own whole thing now, and is trademarked (at least in the US) by the good folks at http://www.acroyoga.org/. I was in it seriously enough, early enough, and for long enough to know all the founders, and my friend designed their logo. To cover it in a few sentences: it was founded by a yogi and a sports acro champion, and it was always intended to have three pillars or practices: 1/3 yoga, 1/3 acrobatics and 1/3 Thai massage (in which yoga is basically done to you, and the giver is also fairly mindful of their own body). The acrobatics part is done with the base lying down, hands and feet in the air, supporting the flyer on feet or hands, and there are MANY ways to transition the flyer around to different things; you can play and play without ever coming down. Some of this is therapeutic (stretchy and massage-y) and some of it is pure acrobatic.

A lot of my friends from the early days became teachers at one point or another, but I chose to remain as an advanced practitioner instead. I've traveled to a fair number of festivals and trainings, but not so much lately since there's better acro training close to home now, and I've transitioned over to more circus-style standing acro.

[drwex]

That's cool. I've been on the receiving end of a couple of Thai massages, which I found interesting but not terribly helpful for the problems I was trying to solve. And I've seen a number of people doing the partner acrobatics things - I even had one person who was willing to fly me once or twice just for the experience. Just never heard the term before, I guess.

[corylea]

I think you already know somebody who's at least as knowledgeable as I am about most of the things I know much about. And the things where I am one of the world's serious experts on the topic are things that very few people want to know (like how to use the toolkit for the Witcher 1 game).

Vegetarian nutrition, clinical psychology, Star Trek's original series ... you already have folks who know that stuff.

I guess I'm basically useless, then? Hey, good to know! :-)

[gingicat]

Well, my own Quora answers seem to consist mainly of spanking people who are rude about autism.

In general, I can talk for quite a while about the basic human rights of people viewed as less than human for various spurious reasons.

And I can do copy editing, page layout, basic graphic editing, and help people use computers without condescending to them.

[reedrover]

books, farming, geology, the rise of the modern nation-state, teaching English to non-speakers...

Since you've just joined my journal, you've got some catching up to do about me... Relevant to your parents, my mother is going through her hunt for her last move. (Check the Mom tag.)

[drwex]

The rise of the modern nation state in general? Or this one?

(and in what sense "modern"?)

I'm sadly unlikely to read back to anything earlier than this past weekend but if you think there are things I should read I always am happy to be given URLs.

[reedrover]

In general and post Revolution (1800s mostly). How we got from division of labor to a tribal identity chosen through political formations rather than simply race/ethnicity/heritage.

Regarding your parents trying to make a decision, and what informs Mom's: http://reedrover.dreamwidth.org/2042580.html

[drwex]

That's fascinating. On reflection my brain says "of COURSE that's a thing and people would know about it" but it's not something I'd ever considered.

I'll reply to the entry in its context.