content generator from sola

[the_siobhan]

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

400 blows
One of my ex's once asked me if I had a theme song, and I named this one without even thinking abut it. To me it's always been a song about survival in spite of being on the losing side and about standing apart from other people because of one's experiences.

dutch chicken benchmark
bcholmes has this story she tells about working in Amsterdam and trying to come to grips with how straight forward they are about sex and talking about sex. At one point, she asked a co-worker what kind of topics might be considered to riské for mixed company. The co-worker couldn't think of anything. Gay sex? No, gay sex was fine. Kinky sex? No that was ok too.

"How about sex with an animal?"

The co-worker thought about it. Finally he conceeded that it would depend on the animal.

"So what kind of animal would be considered in bad taste?"

"Say... anything smaller than a chicken."

And so the Dutch Chicken Benchmark was born.

grippy
I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan. At the opening credits of The Colbert Report a bunch of words go by that say things like "INSPIRED" "PATRIOTIC" etc. There's one that hangs out a little longer so you can get a good look at it, and for a long time that word was "grippy".

It has since been replaced by "megamerican", "lincolnish", "superstantial" and a bunch of others. But grippy is still my favourite.

pattern matching
I am fascinated by the fact that people in general have such problems learning from their mistakes, and even more difficulty learning from the mistakes of others. Our brains are supposed to be designed to look for patterns in the way our environment works, but that talent seems to grind to a halt when it comes to human behaviour.

Being able to predict the future by looking at the successes and failures of the past is a process that really interests me.

reluctant messiahs
Originally the title of a book, but I just really took to the concept that certain people have an powerful impact on others through no volition of their own.

urban planning
Mostly because Toronto is so crap at it. There are cities that really work well and ones that really don't, and I'm really interested in how the differences come to exist.

wasp factory
A really cool book by Iain Banks, and a really cool record label in Cheltenham, UK.

Comments

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

cricket cricket
green onions
infinities
naked primes
paradoxen
sapiosexuality
warm things

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

Cricket cricket: short for "Cricket Cricket I'm On Fire", a non-competitie game. Sort of a cross between Pictionary and Telephone/Gossip. Each person gets a vertical half sheet of paper, and starts by writing at the top a phrase, anything that would be good for pictionary or charades or the like. Pass the paper around the table. Each time you get a paper, if you see a phrase, draw a picture to depict it (no letters or numbers), and if you see a picture, write a phrase. Fold so only the part you just did shows, and pass on. End with a phrase. When all are done, unfold the papers and laugh at the results. Next round, pass the papers in the opposite direction.

Hilarious with the right people. Great time-waster with friends. Great break from competitive games.

Green onions: yum! Love them. Dunno why. Addictive veggie matter.

Infinities: My specialization for my MS in Math was Large Cardinals. I don't remember as much as I wish I did (sigh). Fascinating. Mathematical infinities larger than any physical infinities in the universe. How the human mind can wrap around the unwrappable.

For example, consider inaccessible cardinals. An inaccessible cardinal is a cardinal which is uncountable (bigger than the cardinality of the integers) and is bigger than any union or power set of a smaller number of smaller cardinals. The cardinality of the reals is not inaccessible; it is equal to the power set of the integers. Inaccessible cardinals are Truly Freaking Huge. And yet, they are perhaps the smallest -- and easiest to understand -- example of large cardinals.

Zow. Interesting, no?

Naked primes: Came from old flirtations, most notably with australian_joe. Math + nudity, woo! How can you lose with that?

Paradoxen: This statement is false. Consider the set of all sets which are not members of themselves -- is this set a member of itself, or not? Is self-reference really the root of all evil?

Sapiosexuality: mmmmm, brains! Whatever else my sexuality is doing, this part I am certain of: if there's no brain connection, there's no interest (or at least, no lasting interest).

Warm things: and hot things, too! Candle wax, soft blankets, sweatshirts, slippers, flannel, fires, snuggly bodies... I have a couple of microwave-heatable things I like to sleep with, too, especially in the winter. I had a girlfriend who knitted me a blanket... mmm, she knew the way to my heart.