It's the easiest way to strike up a conversation while on the road. "Where are you from?" or "How long are you out for?" is all you need, and is a perfectly acceptable thing to ask anybody you see standing by themselves overseas. Everybody feels a bit lonely and out-of-place in Bangkok or wherever, so they're usually happy for a chance to talk.
It works nicely for parties and casual conversations as well. "Got any big trips lined up?" will generally restart a dying conversation that has already used up the weather and other boring topics.
Sadly, "conversations among strangers" is a dying art. It used to be that when you were alone with 10 minutes to kill, the most productive thing you could find to pass the time was to smoke a cigarette or just stand there thinking. Now you pull out your phone and try to look busy. It's impolite to interrupt a busy person on their phone, whereas in certain circumstances it's almost polite to interrupt a person leaning on a post staring off to space. So my theory is that fewer people are meeting each other in real life these days.
- The disappointing and rather uninspiring state of programming language design today.
- Developer's inexplicable love for complexity and their complete inability to recognise it.
- The hypocrisy that's rife throughout the programming profession on so many topics e.g privacy and online tracking; the pervasive lack of quality, the low standards.
- We love to say one thing and practice the complete opposite (while being completely oblivious to it). Beliefs like striving for simplicity and the importance of naming things are dutifully acknowledged and agreed by all developers but make not one iota of difference to the way they code.
- How the foundation of much modern computing is built with sticking plaster and quicksand - but most developers couldn't care less.
Shall I continue?
Edit: Actually just anything involving astronomy
But I also love to listen - especially to people who are passionate about their subject area, whatever that is.
I’d rather be listening to be honest.
Motorcycles