Supergrunch

I'd use a chi-squared contingency test.

Happy (slightly belated) Gaggliness!

This meet is looking to be fairly brilliant. And yay for the coming of Jamba!

I just overheard a Japanese girl saying "yatta!" which amused me. Yay for Japanese tourists, although they usually have really boring conversations... Other than that, I haven't done much today - got up about 3pm, bought some screwdrivers from Maplin to open my computer with, went to Subway. Need to do some work and/or more shopping later.

Obviously personality (and intelligence) > looks. Just remembered I got expelled from tumble tots for experimenting with the toys by stacking them up on top of each other and refusing to play normally or take part in any of the group activities ("I don't want to be a stupid train!"). Does that count as rejection?

I find the whole "bad boy" appeal and even the friend zone thing to be massive generalisations - while there may be some truth in them, people complain about them far too often, when they should instead just be treating people as individuals instead of trying to describe their behaviour in terms of flawed (and somewhat misogynistic) archetypes. It's really not like they always hold. With regards to the topic: never been rejected from anything before, mostly because I've never had the chance - never (properly) asked anyone out, never applied for a job, etc.

Aww... :p

This thread is fascinating. Coolness, I think one of the problems is that while conversation comes naturally to many people, to some it really doesn't, and it can be very frustrating if you're in this second group. Nonetheless, it's by no means an insurmountable difficulty, and all the time such people can and do learn to do what others manage innately. While to a certain extent advice can help you here (and the advice that has already been given is very much worth following), the only way you can really learn is by throwing yourself into conversations and just having a go at interacting, and trying to ignore any discomfort you may experience in doing this. Of course some pointers are always useful, and on top of what you've already been told, it helps to try and remember the purpose of conversation, which is largely twofold: to exchange information, and (perhaps more primarily) as a sort of social lubrication device. The first of these is easy - everyone has things they're interested in, and perhaps the only major barrier to talking about such things is how to formulate your thoughts in language, which becomes easier the more comfortable with language you are - perhaps you could try reading a lot of varied things if you're having difficulties with this. The second, however, is harder, as it's proverbially not about what you say, but how (and indeed when) you say it. Hence the rules hear are more difficult to learn, and have to be picked up by observing other people and mimicking what they do to a certain extent. Also try to remember that (assuming it's a friendly conversation), the purpose is to promote amicable interaction, so as long as you're managing this, you can't be going too far wrong. This can still be an incredibly difficult skill to master, and as a result I continue to have difficulties with small talk, especially with people I don't know well. Nevertheless, I'm gradually improving, and I'm sure that with time (and a little effort), you'll also become more happy with having conversations.

Belated birthday wishes to you!

Lol, it read like you guys were all high or something for a couple of pages. The last few days have been good - back in Cambridge, girlfriend and other friends back, many pre-term jollities to be had. And I've been reading a really awesome biography of Wittgenstein. I ought to do some more work though... Also: jayseven = win. trufax.

You might be in full screen mode, try pressing F11. If that just makes things worse press it again to toggle it off.

And I'm finally back in Cambridge, thank God. Much work to do though, and exams relatively soon. Still cool to be back though - for one thing I'm not isolated in the middle of nowhere away from nearly everyone I know any more.

It appears to be an RSS feed (or similar) of new threads. There's also this, which is the same but entries consist only of the time stamp rather than of the whole first post. It's the sort of thing some people might want to use, especially mods/admins to check for rogue threads. Edit: They both seem a bit buggy though, especially the one I found which doesn't work in my reader at all, purportedly because it has an XML error. Incidentally there are also feeds at /RSS3 and so on, but they're just clones of /RSS2.

Hmm, I'd imagine this won't be too hard, let's have a go (in no particular order): My girlfriend, linguistics (this includes English and Japanese), maths, science (including evolution), humour, food, Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein (and philosophy generally), books, knowledge. This is subject to constant change, and could easily include more or less.

Happy (slightly belated) birthday!

The point being that for every 8 times the Earth orbits the Sun, Venus orbits the sun around 13 times, meaning that if we plot the points relative to the stars where Venus lines up between the Earth and the Sun (known as an inferior conjunction, which happens about every 1.6 years in this case), we get five points that form what is almost a perfect pentagon, and so you can join them up to make a pentagram or whatever if you so desire. This is shown here: This is by no means a perfect pentagram (indeed, it rotates by about 1.5 degrees for each 8 year cycle), although it is fairly accurate, but is really just a geometrical coincidence - nothing as exact occurs with any of the other planets. This is unrelated to the shapes of the orbits themselves (which are broadly circular for both the Earth and for Venus, but these too aren't exact for various complex gravitational reasons), but is a result of the ratio of one orbit to the other. Edit: This applet might help you to see why these funny curly patterns result when we're looking at the behaviour of another orbiting object. It also shows more ancient methods for accounting for these observations in a heliocentric worldview know as epicycles, which are fun, but wrong for interesting reasons.

So it does, fair enough. Hmm, how about: Umami, the "savoury" flavour, can be detected by receptors on the insides of your cheeks.

Hmm, I tend to know a lot of random stuff, but it's so random that it's rarely useful in pub quizzes, and I don't really think of it in lists so it's more things that I bring up in relevant conversations and so on. That must be someone other than Socrates, who was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens and made to drink hemlock, as famously recorded by Plato.

Argh, these always end up belated. Happy birthday all the same.

Lol, it's basically a type of academic. Hold some kind of university position, theorise about language/grammar etc. give lectures, and so on.

I can't see myself becoming much other than a professional linguist, to be honest... which would be awesome.

Happy (belated) birthday.