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

[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.