So there's a silliness going round LJ at the moment, which is to think up ten (originally six) things you've done which none of your regular readers have also done (or at least you think that's reasonably likely). I normally don't participate in LJ memetic sillinesses, not least because this diary appears on both Monochrome and LJ and a lot of them would look a bit odd to readers on the former; but this one's fairly self-contained, doesn't require much explanation, and is unusually interesting and fun. And in fact I'm startled at how extremely difficult it is.

I'd have thought that being the author of PuTTY ought to have netted me some reasonably unusual things, and indeed I have

• been sent money by the tax office of a country of which I'm not a citizen and indeed have never even visited
• had an e-mail correspondence with a Pentagon official, which was interrupted (thankfully temporarily) by 9/11
• been the sole cause of three computer security advisories
• been personally targeted by a computer criminal.

As a result of other free software interests I have

• been both praised and criticised in unsolicited private email by ESR.

My life outside free software is a lot less remarkable. Let me see. I've

• attempted to start a software company with a friend while we were still in secondary school.

(Outstandingly, we managed to sell zero copies of the program. We had three conditional orders from people who each said they'd buy it if it had one extra feature. So I worked hard to add all three features, but by that time all our customers had gone elsewhere. I've made more money out of free software than I ever did out of commercial!)

After that, though, my imagination starts to run out. The best I can conveniently think of is that I've

• asked for directions in a foreign country from a stranger who turned out to be of my own nationality

although that one crops up so often in elementary language textbooks that although I was very amused when it actually happened to me, it probably isn't all that unusual.

The calibre of my readership makes things difficult as well. I could try mentioning that I'd

• been awarded Certificates of Excellence for two of my four A-levels

but since quite a lot of my readers are Oxbridge graduates at least as intelligent as I am, I actually doubt that's unique.

Beyond that, nothing springs readily to mind. Perhaps I'm being too picky; perhaps there are perfectly normal things I've done which aren't unusual in the sense of being remarkable, but are merely unusual in the sense that not many people happen to have done them. With a bit of preparation, for example, I could announce proudly that I bet nobody else had

• rolled a six-sided die (or electronic equivalent) twenty times and got 43562522633613246253

but it wouldn't be terribly interesting.

Still, it was fun thinking up this many. Perhaps I'll finish the list at some later point…