Supergrunch

This. It's awful that some activists think damaging GM crops is forward-thinking, when it's actually quite the opposite. For nationalistic reasons, too! Although of course whether or not artificial selection is the same as genetic modication depends on your definition.

Like Flink says, there are interesting people who are generally willing to talk about anything, who I've also got to know pretty well. And this is the only forum I know of that seems to have a reasonably sized core community and decent posting rate - it's neither too fast nor too slow. That said, like lots of people, I've not got neraly as much free time as I used to have, what with work etc., and so my posting rate has dropped off pretty horrendously of late. I still read the forums unless I'm horrendously busy, but a lot of the time (especially in term) actually posting takes a degree of energy that I don't usually have left. Which is why I use the chat room, which allows for a relaxed conversation much more easily, but people don't seem to stay there unless you regularly prod them too. If you want to talk to me, join me and Magnus there! (now #n-europe, it would seem)

I need about 12 hours of sleep, but usually get about 5...

I thought employers were more into integrated approaches these days.

That knocks my 9 into obscurity. What I really need is an Erdos-Bacon number.

This looks even more promising than I thought! And hopefully it'll convince you Wire heathens to watch the show. Vote: Nobody in particular.

Slightly further from autistic on the spectrum than the average individual.

I've been Reddit pretty excessively for the past year or so, but largely only as a lurker outside of r/linguistics. And I just checked, and it turns out my first cake day was 15 days ago and I missed it.

I'm pretty sure from the half-remembered zoology bits of my degree that only chelicerates (e.g. spiders and scorpions) naturally have 8 legs, unless there's something else really rare I don't know about. So I'm with you taxonomically pedantic chaps!

I'll sign up!

I very much approve of baked cheescake! Here's tonight's dinner - rib-eye steak with sautéed thyme potatoes and buttered asparagus:

So, my attempt at Chinese fish-flavoured aubergine (which never contains fish, or fish flavouring!): It seemed to go okay for a first attempt - a bit dryer than I liked, and not as spicy, but the right kind of taste was there! I still have some pork left, so I might try it again soon.

Mine remains the same as in that old thread: I don't see how it could be anything else really, but maybe one day I'll be surprised.

Flock to me, my chatters! You know you want to.

Ghostwritten is amazing, and easily Mitchell's greatest book in my opinion, and certainly one of my favourite books. There's a crazy amount of stuff (in fact something of a meta-story) going on between the lines, but you have to read it several times to work this out. Jacob de Zoet is also pretty brilliant, and Cloud Atlas is good, but maybe ever so slightly too perfectly structured to quite go in the top category. But yes, few authors reach the heights of David Mitchell. Edit: Not sure whether or not this is common knowledge, but I found a trailer for the new Cloud Atlas film: My feelings are kind of split after a brief watch - some things seem to be well-realized, but I hope the Hollywoody feel of the trailer is reduced in the actual film. And please say they didn't cut Timothy Cavendish! Edit 2: Oh wait, he's quite transparently in it. All the more reason for me to go to bed now.

That's because you abandoned me when I abandoned you for a couple of weeks! I'll return to lurking there, although sporadically for the next couple of weeks.

I'll have some more when I think of them. Edit: Oh, and one for Magnus:

Yeah, I think a week is too short a deadline - I'm really busy for the next couple of weeks, but would certainly like to submit something for challenge #1 after that. Could we make it a month maybe? I guess we could always have rolling challenges if people want more.

That's more psychopathic than autistic. :wink:

That means you're unusually non-autistic in that you display hardly any traits of it, so it's like you say. I think my mum has a score a bit like that too.

One of the standard tests used for autism (of which aspergers is a high-functioning form) is the autism-spectrum quotient, which you can take here. As it says in the link, the average score for non-autistic people is 16.4, and autistic people tend to score 32 or higher - I tend to get around 30, so I'm pretty borderline. Some members of my family are more clearly autistic though. Edit: So this time I only got 25. I guess it depends a bit on how I'm feeling at the time, but I probably am slightly less aspy than when I was younger.