Mark Painter, From San Francisco Bay Area, 1 Fans, 0 Hubs, Joined 7 days ago
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HubPages Interviews Mark Painter
An introduction to one of our newest engineers!!
What was your first impression of HubPages.com?
I first saw hubpages.com near the holidays. So, most of the featured pages had to do with food and I thought maybe it was some kind of on-line cookbook, and it made me feel hungry, but I soon learned that it had a much wider variety of content. I also started to think that I liked the idea that it might be able to help me make money by publishing to the Web. How one does that is still a bit of a mystery to me, I am afraid.
What sparked your career as a software engineer?
When I was an undergraduate in College, I was a math major and I discovered that programming computers was like math- you could wind up and watch them do something. It's fun. I could also understand the CS lectures while they were being given, rather than copy everything on the blackboard to figure out later. One thing led to another, and, well, here I am.
You've done quite a bit of travel in China - could you tell us a bit about it? What is your favorite region or city? What was your best ever experience while traveling there?
I have travelled to Greater China several times, but I have only been to a few cities. My first trip to China was to attend an internal meeting, for my then employer, in Nanjing. It was the first time it really sank in that not everyone in the world speaks English. I felt left out of most of the conversations there and started trying to learn a few words of Chinese when I returned home. I since attended similar meetings in Nanjing and Taipei about half a dozen times each. The opportunities for tourism at such meetings are limited, but I explored when I could. I had a one day stop over in Singapore, in eked out a couple day trips to Suzhou and Hualian, but mostly just explored the city I happened to be in during the evenings or on weekends, if I stayed over a weekend. I also spent a month in Beijing this summer on my own time and took my family to Taipei and Tokyo a couple years ago for vacation.
China is fascinating to me. When I was growing up, it was a mysterious forbidden country. Now, it seems to be perpetually under construction and is a very interesting mix of developed and under-developed; a very dynamic and vibrant place. What I have enjoyed most, though, is having an opportunity to make friends with people from another culture. My interest in learning a few words of Chinese took root and sprouted. While I speak very imperfectly, I can now converse in Chinese (either in person or via IM). This has led to quite a few life enriching experiences. As to scenery, Hualian is in a very beautiful area. It is sort of the Yosemite Valley of Taiwan. I also hope someday I can see the strange looking mountains in Guilin in person.
BTW, I think that Mandarin is the perfect language for rap music, because syllables are pronounced more distinctly than they are in English. So, it is easy to really stress the beat without having to say something ridiculous. Unfortunately, there aren't that many Chinese people who like rap, and non-Chinese speakers don't seem to appreciate rap they can't understand.
China travel aside, what do you enjoy doing?
When I am not posing is places with grandeur greatly exceeding my own, I am a kind of nerdy guy who who can pleasurably focus on fixing a software bug or learning the constellations in the sky.
Do you have a favorite food?
My favorite food - that is kind of a hard one. I'm pretty flexible about what I enjoy eating. Maybe, sushi, at the moment. Also, be warned, I like really, really, really spicy food.
How about any favorite jokes?
My favorite joke - life as a human being?
What are you most looking forward to at HubPages?
What I am looking forward to at HubPages - Most of my family were writers. The publishing industry is in turmoil, now. I like implementing Web applications, and if I could help build a new way for people to make a living by publishing their ideas, that would be cool. Otherwise, maybe, I can be as happy as a pig in mud trying. Maybe, I can make some new friends.
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