How to build and print a book.
How to get an ISBN for the book.
How to issue the book as a PDF and as an ebook.
The role of thermal mass in moderating interior temperatures.
Comics in Esperanto.
Actually, I helped Cecil with his articles on all three topics.
Dungeon Mastering in 1st and 2nd edition D&D
Liver/kidney transplant survival and recovery
The history and environment of Indiana County, PA
That would be a good one. I was working in the high-tech field in the mid-90s when the company I was working for decided to seek ISO certification. It was hell. Though I’ve long since left that company, and the high-tech field, I’d still like to know why it was so important, and what exactly we did to get it.
As for me: well, I know the history of pinball pretty well, and have fixed machines before.
The legal side of CPS. What causes children to be removed from their parents and placed in state custody. How it works when children are removed from their homes, the rights parents have, what parents have to go through to get their children back, how it all usually ends.
I am not a social worker and don’t work for CPS, but I do work the legal side of that field.
Programming, including the history of programming languages, the theory of programming and programming languages, and how compilers, interpreters, and various kinds of runtime actually work. I’d have to do some research, depending on the specific topic, but I’d have a pretty good leg up on most people and it wouldn’t take me long to get fully up to speed.
Operating systems, similar to above: history, theory, and practice. I’d be especially comfortable with anything Unix-related, including Linux, any of the BSDs, Solaris, and so on.
Computer networking, same as above, especially stuff about the Internet and modern LAN hardware and protocols (in short, Ethernet and WiFi), and especially especially how to write networking software using the Berkeley sockets API. (Which is to say, how to write software which touches a network in any OS which has a networking API influenced by Unix, which includes most if not all OSes which can use the Internet.)
Practically speaking, I know enough about computer hardware to write a Staff Report aimed at the kind of audience Staff Reports are aimed at, but I know there are real hardware experts on the board.
Similarly, I could write a pretty good report on a range of mathematical topics assuming the audience has a good grasp of high school math but no, or very little, post-secondary mathematics; again, we have actual mathematicians here, so I don’t know why they’d ask me.
Yes, I know but they sounded like the crazy answers they give on Wait, Wait! (Foghorn Leghorn)“That’s a joke son!”
(Maybe you dont listen to Wait Wait?)
I can go back to OD&D. Wrote some of the original stuff.
If it helps, I laughed the first time.
Steam and Diesel Locomotives, as well as general freight and passenger car construction. I’m not a trainspotter or a “foamer”. I just learned it all as I was working on large scale models of same.
I might have a new topic. Cecil, do you need an article on building ugly drum smokers? My instructions for a DIY version is the top search result on Google and Bing. Am I famous?
- Isokinetic source sampling
- Motorcycle operation, handling & performance
Computer stuff, mostly.
Plus whatever random bullshit I could spin long enough to sound good. Hey, I’ve made a pretty good life out of doing that. Why not?
I used to have a list of my Seven Dream *Jeopardy *categories. Alas, the list has disappeared, and what the heck; it’s over 10 years old.
So my new dream categories:
[ul]
[li]Old episodes of Law & Order (the Orbach years);[/li][li]Being an atheist in a psychotically religious area of the country;[/li][li]The psychology of the American house cat;[/li][li]Early 80s haircut bands;[/li][li]Being single on holidays marketed to “couples”;[/li][li]Medical billing and coding;[/li][li]Health insurance/medical industries potpourri;[/li][li]Snark as knee-jerk first response to everything;[/li][li]God, I hate Oprah Winfrey[/li][/ul]
As you can see, most aren’t very useful.
Let’s see…
The pharmaceutical industry;
the cosmetics industry;
quality control;
asbestos testing;
analytical chemistry;
validation (of analytical instruments and software);
and the subjunctive mood (and grammar in general).
I also know enough about law, bankruptcy, and tax preparation to be dangerous, and I think I’m good enough at research to answer questions about nearly anything, but there’s already Cecil, whose keyboard I am not worthy to plug in.
(See that? I ended a sentence with a preposition. I did it on purpose, and there’s nothing wrong with it!)