Search results

We had a whole plate of rambutans recently. Yummy but a pain to peel. Custard apples (we call them cherimoyas) are very good but the seeds drive me crazy. I think I'll have to vote for loquats.

I find it hard to imagine Foreman as INTJ. I have never met an INTJ who would falsify research data. They might do other reprehensible things, but they certainly couldn't do that and then be okay with themselves afterward. Foreman seemed to feel justified in doing so. I could see him as an INFJ...

I second what Dr. Freeman said. I have read similar research on emotions being critical to decision-making, and Donald Norman (psychologist/engineer/author) wrote about the need for emotions in his book Emotional Design when he said "Emotions are inseparable from and a necessary part of...

Pasta alla puttanesca.

As usual, Jennywocky summed everything up nicely. "I always enjoy talking to you," is a much better compliment. That doesn't just apply to INTPs, either. Everyone likes to hear that they are interesting and fun. I pretty much agreed with the video. Being female, I have to say I don't really...

Solitaire and Freeman, both of you tend to make thoughtful posts that contribute to a thread. Don't change anything. I hope you recover soon from the back injury, Solitaire.

I agree with Jennywocky - nicely put. There is nothing wrong with you. People react how they react. You eventually came up with an entirely appropriate response, asking "Are you okay?" You said the situation makes you sad. There is nothing wrong with your responses. (I mean, you didn't punch...

Now I am wondering if both kinds of SAD are particularly common in California.

I seem to have a mild case of Summer SAD (I get depressed starting in late April, am at my lowest all year in August, and perk up when the weather cools and the nights come early). It is not at all fun and you have my sympathy. I know different things work for different people, but certainly...

I just came across an interesting article on gestures that - in combination - indicate to others that someone is untrustworthy. There were two studies mentioned, sort of positive versions of the prisoner's dilemma, where they tested how much the subjects trusted each other. In one study...

I didn't hate Republicans, but I am a Democrat in a largely Republican area, and they clearly hate us. They use rhetoric involving violence toward us, implying that Democrats aren't patriotic, or even that we want to destroy our country, and a lot of other hateful stuff. I've heard them say they...

Well, I did say people who love Star Trek. From your opening post in this thread, I guess that isn't you. In Star Trek, the main characters often left the ship with a character we hadn't seen before, or not much. That character would die, often before the first commercial, to show how dangerous...

During the first season, the Vulcan character (I forget her name) said that there was nothing scientifically interesting on a class M planet, and saw no point in going there. This stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit too far, and I kind of wandered off. But the decontamination scene was...

Many people think Trekkies (or Trekkers as some people insist) are losers or something. It's just fun. I love Star Trek (except for the show Enterprise, sorry Scott Bakula). I have a set of Star Trek collectible plates and a bunch of little starship models from the show, which were gifts from...

I prefer that no one know I was clumsy. So if it is extremely painful, I grab my foot and hop up and down for a while, naturally. But if it is not debilitating, then no one else needs to know it happened. Focusing on pain or ignoring it has no effect. I mostly ignore it. Worrying about...

The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue - John Scalzi (up for a Hugo this year) Medic - James White (early story in the Sector General series) The Seventh Voyage of Ijon Tichy - Stanislaw Lem Children's Story - James Clavell

Oh, it was definitely funny. You just didn't get any slack. :p I figured that had to be the case, that you were polite about it, since you said the teachers didn't object.

I didn't have any problem with teachers objecting to corrections, but I was pretty careful how I did it. I was always polite. I was usually willing to consider that I might be the one in error (which I was, a couple of times, because of a missing fact). I never humiliated them. And I only did it...

Like what? What makes language play intelligent, or not intelligent? That is a very interesting comment. Basically I just mean anyone abusing me, or people I care about. For example, I object to threats and insults. (Once two people followed me in my car and then got out and screamed at me...

"I'm sooo going there" is different from "I'm going there." The addition of "so" shows enthusiasm for the destination, and also changes the tone of the phrase to be more musical. The vowel can get drawn out to show the degree of enthusiasm. It can also be used to show sarcasm or other emotions...

I hear a lot of "like" and "all," and not just from teens. He was like, "Look at my new outfit," and we were all, "That's nice, whatever." It doesn't have to introduce a direct quote. Often it indicates an attitude or mood. It is a versatile word. Unless it gets very repetitive, it doesn't...

If you can, watch the documentary Quantum Hoops, about CalTech's basketball team. It is really enjoyable, even if you don't like documentaries or basketball. At least some of the team had to be INTP.

We have some of the hardest water in the US, and combined with swimming in a chlorinated pool (even with a cap on), this dries my hair like crazy. So I have to use conditioner if I don't want a head covered in straw. I don't use anything with plasticizers, though. They are not good for you. I...

Thank you, exactly. That was the first thing I noticed when reading about it: how much the press emphasized the evils of being introverted. To them, quiet = crazy murderer. I hadn't intended to see the movie, because the first one was too dark for my taste, but now it has been ruined for a...

How did you ever come to that conclusion? Of course there is such a thing as incorrect spelling, and as for pronunciation, that varies with the era, situation, and dialect, but there are incorrect pronunciations, too. I'm pretty sure that when I pronounced the "t" at the end of "rapport", that...

You did give fair warning about it being addictive, but I still blame you for my lost time! That is a very aesthetically pleasing game.

I haven't noticed that my gay friends are any more creative than my straight friends. (I realize that is anecdotal evidence, not real evidence.) This being an INTP forum, though, I would offer the idea that personality type has more influence on creativity than sexual orientation. I wouldn't...

I agree completely. I still think the celebrities who do come out, because, as you say, they are somewhat protected, will have a positive effect. I've seen people act like they know celebrities, even though they don't, because they read autobiographies or watched shows about celebrities...

A lot of the celebrities seem to be coming out as a gesture of solidarity. If they come out, maybe some of their fans who are gay will feel more comfortable with themselves. Maybe some of their homophobic fans will reconsider their stand. Maybe it will feel more normal, as more people come out...

My terrible episode was at age 19, when my college roommate made what was probably not a very sincere suicide attempt, but it scared the hell out of me when she showed me her wrists. When my college's dean of students swore me to secrecy and told me to keep this unhappy minor from doing it...

I know someone who is both an INTP and a hypnotherapist, and he found EMDR to be very useful in a very short time. It sounds like a fairly low-risk thing to try, but make sure you get recommendations from people you trust when picking a therapist. I have been hypnotized, and it can certainly...

I think smartness is orthogonal to goodness. I know some very smart, very good people. They don't make a show of either quality, though, so you have to look hard to see it. I also met a sociopath once, and I hope never to do so again, and he was very, very smart. Being good takes awareness...

I thought STR and DEX dealt damage. CHA doesn't seem that damage-inducing. But in any case, the bonuses paladins get for WIS weren't there, and after a couple of simulations, the DM was satisfied that the paladin was harmed by it. I didn't run the simulations myself, and haven't spent that much...

Maybe there was confusion from the term "dimensional analysis" which means checking your units, so you aren't using kg*m/s as a unit of force, or that you don't have kg on one side of the equation and ounces on the other. The basic physical "dimensions" referred to here are length, mass...

It's not horrendously unbalanced. The paladin was doing less damage than a paladin ought to, and it was somewhat unbalanced. The powers selection annoyed him rather than interesting him. I gave it as an example of a standard class build that I thought was unbalanced, that's all. It did get...

I went to Vegas with my boyfriend. We both knew a lot of math, so we didn't gamble much. Maybe we lost $20 each. We weren't drinkers, either. I think I had one small sangría. We went to a show, some kind of follies, which was fun. We went swimming. All in all, a nice birthday. I am not...

I'm pretty sure you never claimed or even implied that it was the greatest. Its relative merits still seem worth discussing, as long as you are having fun with the topic.

Ah, misunderstood you there. Yep, the entire campaign is crawling with undead. The goddess of undead has made it personal, and we've got necromancers and wights and dracoliches everywhere. Lay on Hands is part of the character's defiance of her. Your proposed solution is, in fact, the one...

Well, for us it is part of the game. Our characters do other stuff than just run around killing things for XP. For us, the story is really important, and each character has their own story going on. They all have their own background, enemies, quests, and reason for adventuring. What they do...

I didn't say they didn't permit me to do something. I said they were inadequate. As I mentioned later in my post, profession skills are completely missing, so that keeping them balanced is a lot of bother. They tend to really matter in our games, and one of the players has a tendency to want it...

Well, eagor's comment that there is no room to just go nuts once in a while seems like an (admittedly vague) complaint about the rules. I know they work well for you, and maybe you don't have any desire for anyone to just go nuts, but I think I know exactly what eagor means, and I agree that the...

What do you mean by combo? Two players in a combat working together or a multiclass? We never used maps before 4e either, because we didn't need them. Sometimes we lined up a bunch do d20's vs our heroic d6's, with random household goods for terrain, especially for the epic battles. But they...

I am sure Yeti will disagree (because he has said so before) but I have some sympathy for this point of view. We had a really funny game last weekend because the DM doesn't care about the rules as much as he cares about the story and characters. We had our most memorable fight in ages, but we...

So how did the game go this weekend, Orja? (Ours was really funny.)

Yep, there are a lot of racist things in older Disney movies. But since I don't watch a lot of Disney movies, the scene earlier today took me by surprise. I've seen Dumbo, but not Song of the South. My daughter hasn't seen a lot of Disney movies, either, except for Pixar. I guess she saw...

A few hours after I saw this thread, I was talking about scat singing with my seven-year-old daughter. She likes Ella Fitzgerald, and I brought up Scatman Cruthers (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, etc.), and then looked for something on YouTube so she could hear how he sang. He did one of the...

There are contexts where it is appropriate. For example: 1. Pointing out that it would be wrong to use an offensive term to describe another person. 2. Quoting poetry or songs (e.g. Ginsberg's "Wichita Vortex Sutra" or several songs from "Hair"). Neither of those is racist. Both contain...

I am assuming you are playing D&D 4E, which does require maps. I don't know of a good place to steal them, as I have not looked. You don't need a map of the whole place, just each location where they are fighting. So maybe you need a big cave, a little cave, a town hall, and main street. A road...

Are you, by chance, an experienced writer or other kind of storyteller? Being a DM is fun, but hard work, and you have to be able to improvise stories. Steal shamelessly. If you use a SF movie plot in a fantasy story, most people won't notice. If they do, just grin mysteriously. It isn't a...

My cat was in pain all week, and he needed major surgery yesterday. Also, we switched to DST. That is my least favorite thing to do. Shoeless, your week truly sucked. I hope you end up getting that massage soon.