LJ Interests meme results

1. computers:
   When I was in high school, the computer lab got upgraded from BBC Micros to 286s. I'd always thought computers were cool; and when it came to choosing what to study at uni, I thought: Maths? Physics? No… how about Computer Science: that sounds fun! Perhaps it was because my school didn't offer Computing that I found it so interesting. I bought 3 books off the pre-course reading list, and never looked back.
2. cryptography:
   At university, one of my lecturers was (noted computer security expert) Ross Anderson. He's responsible for my interest in crypto: that and it goes together with computers, networks and operating systems. And of course, my politics are libertarian.
3. gadgets:
   Goes with the territory. But I'm not so swayed as I used to be. I own an iPod: I don't own a PSP. But I'm a big fan of kitchen gadgets too!
4. jazz:
   Something else I discovered in my late teens. I worked my way through Ragtime, Dixieland and standards before finding Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. Contrary to the thinking of a certain person, Jazz is not “music played in the wrong order”. Getting into Jazz requires effort at first, but the payoff is huge. There's nothing else like it: it makes most other music seem trivial.
5. linux:
   On and off for over 10 years now. Currently very much on! Free Software is one of the great things to have happened in the world in the last quarter-century, and I'm happy to have seen it and been a part of it.
6. mathematics:
   I wish I was as good as I once was at calculus. But I can still hold my own in most areas, especially algorithms or recreational mathematics. I had a “recreational maths” class when I was 12: only years later did I realise that some of the topics explored were actually very deep and at the heart of arithmetic et al. Schools don't teach enough arithmetic these days.
7. programming:
   I like programming: by now I'm pretty experienced at it, too, which helps. There are tons of languages out there. Some are born great (Lisp), some achieve greatness (C++) and some have greatness thrust upon them (PHP).
8. table tennis:
   When I was a teenager, I took a holiday to Cyprus with a friend of mine and his family. 2 weeks in a 5-star hotel. I don't suntan easily, so most days I hung around the table tennis table, taking on all comers. Table tennis is great fun, especially doubles (if you play properly with alternate hits). It's also pretty easy to get to a certain standard – although I have no illusions about my skill. A real player would wipe the floor with me. But I have my moments.
9. trivia:
   Well I just have this brain that seems to remember trivial things. I can't remember my cellphone number, but I have no problem naming famous Belgians. A friend of mine once resolved to find a topic I didn't know any trivia about. He asked me to name famous people from Uzbekistan. Did he know that Uzbekistan was one of only two landlocked-countries-surrounded-by-landlocked-countries in the world, I replied. He gave up. Oh and while I'm at it, I might as well say that Jeopardy, the crown jewel of US quiz shows, is laughably easy by comparison with University Challenge. I'd like to see Ken Jennings play that.
10. video games:
    Well, I was finishing college and wondering what to do in the real world. A bunch of companies came along for the careers milk round, and as luck would have it, a certain Peter Molyneux had decided to hire a bunch of graduates that year. I got the job, started renting a one-room-where-I-could-touch-all-4-walls-from-the-bed apartment, and the rest is history. 10 years later, and I've been credited on a dozen games which between them have sold n million copies. You might even have heard of some of them…

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