PM me, Ben, or Tim if you’d like to be included in the beta group.

Special thanks to johnpowell for the kick in the pants.

We may or may not have spent the afternoon looking at profile pages.

Enjoy!

Other times you see a question and think, “I have no clue how to wax a piano, but my friend Rupert is a master piano-waxer!” This feature is for one of those times.

Now you can click that little “Send to a friend” button and move any question into another user’s Questions for You list! The Jellies are now part of the Algorithm!

This is a feature Andrew and I intended to make years ago, so it feels great to finally push it out. We hope you like it as much as we do.

During all this (and completely unrelated to the shenanigans on Fluther), we’ve been reworking the avatar engine to rescale all the pictures so they’re bigger on profile pages.

We’ll switch over later this week — so get ready!

Recently, he was kind enough to submit to the torture of being my first interview subject. I’ve learned a lot from Chuck in the past, but he still has things to teach me. As always, he’s the funniest smart guy I know.

What first drew you to Fluther, and what keeps you coming back?

In the beginning I came for the free doughnuts but the great coffee and lurve kept me coming back. Okay, I’ve got the smartass answer out of the way, which is what everyone is going to expect from me. And now for the serious response. The real truth is that I honestly don’t remember initially signing up. All I remember is sometime in Spring 2008 looking at all the iPhone web apps on the Apple site and finding different ones of interest, one being for Fluther. When I attempted to sign up I was told that there was already someone with the account name AstroChuck. I thought, ‘How odd.’  I decided to try and log in using the password I knew I would have used and discovered that I had created that account a couple months earlier. I have no memory of creating the account but ever since my “rediscovery” I haven’t missed a day on Fluther.  I suppose both the sense of community and quality of its members have kept me coming back. Basically, Fluther feels like home.

What is the best experience you have had on Fluther? What has it been like watching Fluther grow up?

Making friends and the feeling of community has been the best experience I’ve had here. (Also, great pancakes!) As to the second part of the question, I’d rather know what it’s been like for the collective watching me grow up. (Which is something I still haven’t managed to do.)

What, if any, is your favorite Fluther question?

I don’t know which one I would call my favorite (possibly whatthefluther’s marriage proposal to sccrowell. How can you beat that?) but I think the most fun I’ve had participating in a thread was the one where my head exploded.

Favorite question asked by you?

Hard to say but my first, “How do you visualize the calendar in your mind?” was one of my favorites. I always felt that this was a pretty good question but apparently nobody else thought much of it. I just don’t think many understood it. I suppose not many people have a visual image of the year. I tend to apply visual imagery to non-material things. Anyway, I still think it was a good question. And although it’s not really a question, I have to include this one as I believe it still has the most responses on any thread on Fluther: The Song Title Game.

Were you always the class clown?

Not really. I was the kid who found things funny that others didn’t. I ran with a small, strange group of friends who shared my sense of humor, or at least enjoyed mine. I did get in trouble a lot for talking in class though.

Do you feel like people have come to expect a certain style of answer from AstroChuck?

I think most people expect I’m going to be a wise-ass with every answer I give and I suppose that’s because I usually am. Every now and then I like to pull the rug out from under everyone and give a serious response. Also I tend to give short answers. That’s mostly because 99% of my time on Fluther is spent using my iPhone. I’m pretty lazy and hitting that little keyboard is a lot of effort for such a lazy ass.

When and why do you choose to be funny rather than serious and vice versa? How do you make the choice?

I don’t know. If something pops in my head I’ll usually post it. Usually it’s some quip. Then there are those rare times when I actually can be of service and provide help. Also there are a few topics I am passionate about, such as adoption, civil rights, vegetarianism, politics, and making shrunken heads.

We know you are 6 years old in the Flutherverse, but how old are you really?

Well, let’s see. I was born in 1961 so that means this December I’ll be turning, uh, six!

Tell us a little about your family life.

I’m married to Parrothead (aka Becky). She’s not on here often but she pops in from time to time. She is also known as Saint Rebecca as she has been putting up with yours truly for over 22 years. We have a wonderfully funny nine year-old daughter named Halle who will be turning 18 (or so she thinks) in January. I also have two beautiful daughters who’ve made the mistake of growing up, getting married, and moving away, one of them 3,000 miles away. That last one, Valerie, has provided us with 7 grandkids (two sets of twins in there) while Maren has been content with just the two. In addition to our family we have 3 indoor cats, a parrot, and a farting dog named Juno. She’s our most recent addition. When she’s around it smells like a bunch of farts got into a fight.

You have grown children, grandchildren, and a younger child… Has your parenting style changed over the years?

Yeah. I’ve learned to be patient. I no longer feel I need to lock my kids in the crawl space.

Has it gotten harder or easier to raise children these days? Is it any different at all?

I don’t know if it’s gotten any harder or not. Each kid has been different. I think if I had had boys it would probably have been easier. With three boys you only have to worry about three penises. With girls you have to worry about all of them.

You’re Fluther’s favorite mailman, and we want the nitty-gritty. How many dogs have you been bitten by?

Three: a boxer, a pitbull, and a medium-sized black mixed mutt. That last one got me in the thigh pretty good. The pitbull was the scariest though. I’m in my 25th year of carrying mail and I’ve only gotten the three bites. I’ve been pretty lucky.

Tell us about your decision to become vegetarian. Was there a critical moment, or did it come on slowly?

I happen to be an animal lover and felt for a long time that I had been compromising my principles by eating them. I’d always wanted to give up meat but the problem was I never really cared for vegetables. At one point I just felt it was time to stop thinking about doing it and just do it. That was in June 1990 and I’ve never gone back. And the good news is that I like vegetables now. Especially dipped in batter and deep-fried!

Outside of Fluther, what is your favorite pastime?

It’s between baseball and pornography. Hmm. Baseball. No, pornography. Nah. I’m gonna go with baseball. And food.

Do you play any instruments? What type of music do you most enjoy?

I do play the guitar, just not very well. I also goof around with drums but I just don’t have the motivation to really learn them. I mentioned earlier that I was lazy, remember? I have pretty eclectic tastes. Beatles, Jimmy Cliff, and Alan Parsons are my favorites but I’m all over the board. I listen to reggae, rock, alternative, r&b, punk, opera, classical, Hawaiian, some hip-hop, and so on. Just no chamber. I loathe chamber music and most country.

What was the last great book you read? What made it great?

I’m reading “Physics Of The Impossible” by Michio Kaku and it’s pretty good. “The Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson was the last book that I couldn’t put down, though. I love language and I love Bill Bryson (both platonically, of course). Put the two together and it has to be great.

If you could live anywhere in the world, and money was not an issue, where would you want to live?

Being as I’m an only child and my aging parents rely on me I’d have to say I’ll stay put here in Sacramento. But if I had no connections here and money was really not an issue I’d move to the Hawaii Kai neighborhood on Oahu. But I’d still miss NorCal.

If you could give us one piece of advice, what would it be?

Okay, I’m going to be serious here. ALWAYS BE HONEST. It’s the way I was raised and it’s the way I’ve raised my kids. There aren’t many things more important than to have the trust of those you love. Also, don’t take the brown acid.

What question were you hoping we’d ask, but didn’t? Will you answer it now?

Q: Is it true one should avert one’s eyes and kowtow when you approach? A: Although it’s not necessary it is always appreciated. Remember, I may be a god, but I’m not the God. A simple hello will usually be met with a kind word.

Thanks so much for being my first, Chuck! Interview, people… my first interview. Sheesh. Get your minds out of the gutter. ~

Thanks also to Dr_C, andrew, SuperMouse, gailcalled, janbb, breedmitch, jonsblond, petethepothead and everyone else who contributed questions!

There also may or may not be tie-ins with the awards system, as well, so keep tuned as we release a new batch of them…

The next Fluther interviewee is the charming six year old mailman - AstroChuck

Please have your questions submitted by a week - 25th October, 2009.

The idea is simple: do all the wonderful stuff you’re already doing (asking great questions, writing great answers, etc.) and you’ll start to get Fluther awards! There are neat and strange awards for all sorts of things–of course, we slipped in some secret ones to keep you on your toes, as well.

We apologize if this was confusing at first (we’re still working out some kinks). We have many more awards in store; this is just the beginning. Plus, there are more exciting new features coming soon! Goodies for everyone!

We’re working up a storm in here.

Let us know what you think.

We started Fluther a few years ago: two guys who had never done a lick of web coding in their life, with a vision to create a space on the internet with heart and intelligence.

Now, we’ve raised some money from some very, very special people in the Valley. You can see the story here. Please welcome the new jellies that ride in from the swell!

What does this mean for Fluther? Only good things.

First, I’m moving up to San Francisco in a few weeks to join Ben and the rest of the team. Rest of the team, you ask? Yes, we’ve finally added to our Fluther family: please welcome Tim Trueman, our newest developer. You may have recognized him from his excellent posts here or here.

Before joining us, Tim worked for Yahoo Groups and then spent time building his own unmanned flying drones. He fits in really, really, well. Please give him your lurve!

He has played an integral role in Fluther for almost two years now. As an ex-community manager and moderator, he has put in countless hours into helping maintain the Jelly community. As a 19 year old computer genius, he has been interviewed several times for his popular projects, including Cursebird. It’s safe to say that we are very proud to have him as part of our community and this interview sheds some more light into his personal and professional life.

How did you find Fluther and what made you stay?

This really frustrates me because I have absolutely no idea. I don’t remember how I found Fluther at all. I think the conversation I had with Andrew and Ben in the chatroom was what made me stay. They were really honest about their ambitions for the site and how they felt about everything, and I thought it was pretty charming. I wanted to stick around to see how things grew. It turns out very well.

The Fluther women need to know. Are you seeing someone?

I thought me and you were an item?

You are known on fluther for your accent. Is there a particular accent that you really fancy?

Lily Allen.

What field in computers are you involved in? English, please.

I run a small company called Fantastic that recently became a partnership between me and someone else. We hire out to another developer on a project-by-project basis. Basically, we make things on the computer. Mostly websites, and more recently we’ve been working on an iPhone app for a client. These things on the computer are either useful or entertaining, sometimes both, and we make them either for ourselves and for other people. The latter is where the money comes from. Our most fun client so far has been Infinity Ward, the company behind the video game Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare.

What drives you to be so ambitious at an age when many others are so unmotivated?

I want to earn money and to do fun things in the process. That’s it really. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being either motivated or unmotivated, you can have a great lifestyle either way. I’ve decided what I want though, and I have a lot of ideas about how to get there and interesting things to do along the way. I’m so determined because I have a feel for how fun and interesting it can be.

When is Salt in Your Popcorn coming back?

For those unfamiliar, Salt was a “Last.fm for movies” I was working on early last year. In answer to the question, it died. I’m really sorry. We ran out of juice, and man time. I became too busy with other projects to give it the attention it deserved, and Austin (the guy I was working with) went to study some advanced maths course at Oxford. We simply didn’t have the ability to get it done. I’m working on other things, but I think about Salt a lot. It’s my baby, and it’ll happen one day. Watch this space.

Your podcast, “The Tea Talk” with Joe Ribbons, is no longer available on iTunes. If you are still doing it, where would we find it, and if not, any plans to do another podcast in the future?

Ha, we ran out of things to talk about. Maybe there’ll be some variety of podcast-type thing involving me again. More likely to be one involving Joe, though.  Follow him on twitter.

What projects are you currently involved in? And how can the jellyfish keep updated with your projects?

Follow me on Twitter. Be sure to introduce yourself.

Do you have any advice for other aspiring web developers since you have been so successful at it at such a young age?

It’s obvious when you think about it, but people know lots of developers and designers. Don’t just be a developer or designer. Make a niche for yourself. I built Cursebird, a real-time feed of people swearing on Twitter. It cropped up in Wired magazine, landed me an interview, being mentioned on the Twitter blog, and many other things. As a result, I’m a “real-time feed of things happening on Twitter” specialist. It’s what I do. It’s not all I do, but it’s certainly got my name out there. I get an email every day from someone asking something Twitter Search related, and a good portion of them are requests to discuss an idea they’ve had. We cherry pick the most interesting ones and see if there’s a deal in there somewhere. We’re working on a lot of things right now. Part of the success of Cursebird was luck, but if that hadn’t worked out I would have moved onto something else to try and get attention. The best businesses are novel and interesting, and they don’t just do what everyone else is doing. Designers and developers often fail to think of themselves as businesses that need selling points.

What has your experience been “working” for Bendrew?

Didn’t you see the article exposing the scandal?

Moderators live in dormitories on the site, 100 to a room, arriving with a few possessions and a bucket to wash their clothes. “The job here is so-so,” one moderator said. “We have to work too hard and I am always tired. It’s like being in the army. They make us stand still for hours. If we move we are punished by being made to stand still for longer. “We have to work overtime if we are told to and can only go back to the dormitories when our boss gives us permission. If they ask for overtime we must do it.”

Do you miss community management?

Community management was fun, and interesting. I wanted to get behind a reasonably sized community website to get some experience with that sort of thing. I’m glad I got involved. I do miss it sometimes, but I’m so busy now. I put in a year and a few months; I think that’s a good stretch.

Would you like to give any advice to the jellies as an ex-moderator?

The moderators aren’t out to get you. If lots of your stuff gets moderated, it’s because you suck.

You were in USA recently for the first time, what was your impression?

It was great. I’ve fallen in love with Andrew’s cat. Hollywood is crazy.

How cute is Andrew’s cat?

Not cute at all. Basil is a great cat that I like a lot, but he’s also a dick. He’ll bat you with his claws for fun.

What is your favorite life lesson?

More a business lesson than a life lesson. Don’t announce your products or features ahead of time. This is something I’m so guilty of to date, and am in the process of changing. So many things I’ve started have been aborted early on (or even mid-way on). It’s so important that you keep yourself flexible to kill — or shelve, to use a nicer word — ideas when better things come up. When people get excited, it makes it hard to say “we could be doing something better right now”. Remain agile.

Is there an annoyingly American slant to Fluther from a non-U.S. user point of view?

There’s an American slant, I don’t think it’s an annoying one.

You will be moving into your own place soon. Is there an update on that? Are you still planning to get a cat to move in with you?

I will. I’m moving into Leeds city, which should be fun. I know a lot of people there and it’s a fun place to be. I considered moving out to the States through one of my clients, but I don’t think I want to entertain that idea just yet. Plus it would make working sorta hard, because the hours wouldn’t sync up with the UK very well. Plus I love my friends here. The time isn’t right yet. We’ll see about the kitty.

Do you play any instruments? What type of music are you interested in?

Instruments? Nope. I played piano way back, and then I played guitar for a while. For some reason I just can’t get together the patience to learn an instrument. The music I’m most interested in is DJ-set type stuff, and electronica. Remixes. If I had to pick a favourite artist of all time, I wouldn’t be able to choose between Air and Justice.

What song is most often stuck in your head?

“Get a Move On” by Mr. Scruff has been stuck in my head recently. It changes all the time. Oh, and that stupid Mama Do song by Pixie Lott.

Are you still a Lily Allen fan?

The attached photo is just for you. You can use it as the article photo if you want.

What is one country you really want to visit or revisit?

Canada was amazing. I visited after I missed a flight home from LA. I want to visit New Zealand. Japan, simply because it’s so different. I pretty much want to visit everywhere.

Boxers, briefs, or commando?

Boxers. I wear Aussie Bums, or Red Torpedo. Comfy stuff. I hate going commando, with it slapping around and everything.

It was a running joke on Fluther that you would mod at the expense of sleep. How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Anywhere between none and twenty. I do an all nighter probably once or twice a week, either due to working all day and then going out all night, or working all night and then going out all day. Or working all day and night. Feel free to take bets on how long it’ll be before I burn out.

What question did you want to be asked? Will you answer it now?

It was with a friend’s step sister, and it wasn’t that great.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!

Congratulations to eambos, eponymoushipstr, shrubbery, whatthefluther, Marina and everyone else for contributing questions!