Some questions from sciamachy
What’s the best thing about living in Japan?
The girls here are cute. Not that I can really communicate with them very well. I’ve been learning lots about communicating with different people from all around the world.
What do you think will be the Next Big Thing in computing?
Theres got to be some kind of ease-of-use revolution, we cannot carry on the way things are going with everything getting more complicated all the time. We’ve now reached the point where people don’t really care about most of the functionality in their DVD machine or mobile phone, they care whether they can use if for what they want. Maybe this is just a UI revolution, but I hope its a bit more than that. Universities seems intent on churning out more computer science graduates with no idea about user experience, and they will continue to do so while industry doesn’t know any better. The inmates are running the asylum.
How do you rate your childhood – was it a good time overall, a hellish time, or what? What memory from your childhood expresses how you feel about that time the best?
I was glad when it was over, I was always an awkward child (I’m not sure I’m much better now), never really fitting in with social groups or making friends.
What do you really aspire to – when you’re at the peak of your career, where do you want to be?
Why set limits? I’ve already gotten further in my career than I’d ever expected to, so I’ve learned not to set those kinds of goals. If, over the next five years I can get to a position where I choose what to work on and when I work on it I will be happy.
D’you think you’d make a good dad someday – if so, what qualities do you think you would bring to the role, and if not, why not?
No, I wouldn’t be a good dad, I’m too weak on personal relationships and empathy to make a good job of it. It is something I always thought I would do when I was young, and my life was structured around that plan, school, university, work, wife, house, children, retire, cruise, nursing home, die. A couple of years ago I figured out that wife wasn’t going to happen, so I may as well put my all into work, I’ve got potential to do much better for myself than I am now, I just need to figure out how.
(you know the score…leave a comment if you’d like me to ask some questions, or ask me some or whatever)
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