Ask Jonathan Coulton About the Transformation From Code Monkey to Internet Star 122
Even though he created the definitive guide to enjoying yourself outside, Jonathan Coulton is best known for the programmer anthem Code Monkey, his Thing a Week project, and writing the theme song to Portal. In 2005 Coulton left his programming job to pursue his music career, and has since become a successful one man music label. Jonathan has agreed to answer your questions about robots, life, and internet stardom. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply.
Just one question.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Who is Jonathan Coulton?
Loved Code Monkey and The Future Soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Which I heard as the soundtrack to these youtube videos:
"The Future Soon"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDiDK_yBCw0 [youtube.com]
"Code Monkey"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA [youtube.com]
The general truths about loss of freedom as a coder working for others brought some tears to my eyes, after having had to stop running our own company making educational software and work at IBM Research for a time (even if, as places go, that was a nice place to work). It's also easy to turn to junk food when you are under stress -- even as eating a lot of vegetables, fruits, and beans, and getting adequate vitamin D is what keeps us healthier and more productive in the long term (along with stuff like omega-3s and iodine). Did you have any deeper comment in mind about food issues when you wrote that? It really seems like a lot of young programmers don't eat well.
And The Future Soon really gets at some truths about the transhumanist movement. I've sent that link to at least one. I'm not sure if you meant it specifically about transhumanism though?
I guess everyone probably asks you where you get your ideas for those two, or what sorts of things you may have meant, and sometimes art is intentionally ambiguous, so I'm not saying you may want to answer to those questions. I applaud your decision to make that stuff available for free, rather than create more artificial scarcity.
So, I guess my question is, did you have any thoughts when you made those and put them under a free license that someone would make great videos to go along with them? Do you have any comments on the videos?
Also, I'd love it if you did a song in relation to my sig line, which in it' full form is "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity." Feel free to do what you want with that idea if it goes under a free license. :-)