I am Rational, Optimistic, and Open to new things.
My Self-Summary
Now in Dutch
Mijn moedertaal is in principe Nederlands, maar sommige dingen zijn
gewoon makkelijker uit te drukken in het Engels. Het is dan ook
goed mogelijk dat ik je een Engels berichtje stuur, hoewel we
allebei Nederlands zijn. Aan de andere kant, er is niks mis met een
goeie blend van Nederlands en Engels :)
"The only way to waste time, is to forget enjoying it." ~
Loesje
Loesje has the most awesome phrases now and then :D
*goes of randomly filling in the other text boxes as soon as
answers to them pop up in my mind* (Should I put "my mind" there?
Officially, I'd say no, but putting "his mind" just looks plain
awkward without a subject.)
Hmm, it seems most of what I was going to say is now covered by the
other boxes. How convenient!
What I’m doing with my life
Currently I'm studying advanced technology (which is basically
physics, material science and electronics combined). I'm enjoying
myself quite well, and the only thing I feel like I'm lacking at
the moment would be someone to love. But no pressure or anything
;)
My long term view would be something like research, basically
discovering things. For example, I recently read a bit about a
group of scientists trying to simulate a part of a rat's brain by
linking thousands of processors together, and just simulating
individual neurons that interconnect. (
link)Those
things interest me greatly. I hope to get somewhere that does
groundbreaking research, possibly in nanotechnology or something
similar.
I’m really good at
Rational
thinking, which comes in handy for what I'm studying.
Enjoying
things: My rational thinking says that doing things just for
the fun of it is a valid reason as well. I've recently taken an
acoustic guitar with me from my parents (it had been there unused
for a while), and now I'm attempting to learn it by myself from
scratch (youtube guitar lessons for the win!). I'm actually putting
more time in than I had anticipated, it's pretty cool! :)
Climbing.
Climbing is fun, be it in trees, up climbing walls, or a form of
urban
exploration that gets you places no-one usually goes. I can,
for example, point out a tree on our university campus where you
can actually sit on the highest point of the tree (it's a kind of
weeping willow, with a very thick branch at the top which curves
downward. The top of the branch is even above the leaves).
Dexterity games on the computer. Somehow, I have the capability of
becoming quite good at things like
Hamsterball,
N,
Frets on fire or
Gish. This, as the other side
of the medal, comes with a drive to be on top of highscore lists if
I know it's even remotely possible :)
Hmm, maybe I can use that drive to keep me going in my guitar
playing... *ponders*
The first things people usually notice about me
It depends on the situation. It could range from "Why is that guy
sitting in a tree?" to "Ack, that was one of the most horrible puns
I've ever heard". (Mmm puns. And self referential statements. This
sentence is only funny because it references itself.
(Also, Gödel's incompleteness theorem is pure genius))
Longer term impressions may include the following: "That guy has
too many random tidbits of knowledge" or "Who the hell would in
their right mind try the
uberman sleep schedule
for 6 months?". (That was a bad idea, by the way. I don't have
enough self-discipline to keep it up consistently; I still get
people that say I didn't look very awake most of the time. I do
believe it's possible though, with enough devotion.)
My favorite books, movies, music, and food
Books:
The Lord
of the rings,
the
Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy,
Harry Potter,
Children of the
earth, the
Discworld series,
The
hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse and its sequel
the
toyminator. Probably more, but I'd have to have a list to
cross. Multiple choice is much easier than open questions.
Moving pictures:
The lord
of the rings,
the
Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy,
Harry Potter (I'm getting
repetitive.. quick, let's fix that),
the Matrix (All three of them. I'm
able to watch a movie without expectations, thus I can always enjoy
a decent movie),
Doctor Who (I said moving pictures,
not movies ;)),
Chuck, probably more as well.
Music:
I'm strange when it comes to music. Up until recently, i did not
care for music at all. Nowadays I sometimes listen to music, but I
equally well enjoy peace and quiet. Quietness can be awesome, by
the way. Being outside before dawn, hearing no human-made sounds.
As for genres, I'm not sure. I couldn't tell rock from classic
(okay, I /can/ do that, but I hope you get my point :)).
I basically like music which I already know, which is kind of a
catch 22, but it's remedied by other people listening to music in
my vicinity.
I'd like to be able to do solos on the guitar in the long run
(which kind of clashes with the fact that I have an acoustic
guitar, not an electric one). This is probably heavily influenced
by playing guitar hero frequently in the last few months.
Ultimately, I'd like to be better at real guitar than I am at
guitar hero, but my affinity for dexterity games makes that a
difficult goal .
Food:
Nothing particular, really. Living in a dormitory, I can cook.
Nothing fancy, but I won't die when put on my own next to a
supermarket. I like a quiche one flatmate usually makes: take a
pack puff pastry, some broccoli, an amount of eggs, crème fraîche,
diced bacon, work some magic having to do with cooking broccoli,
baking bacon, mixing egg and crème fraîche, some sprinkled cheese
on top and an oven, and you've got a delicious, easy to make
quiche. I recently made it when I was at my parents' house, got my
little brother to eat it, and he actually liked it! Which, knowing
my brother, is quite a feat, since he'd never eaten anything of the
likes before.
Webcomics:
Xkcd,
Ctrl-alt-delete,
Questionable
content,
Order of the stick,
Looking for
group.
Games with interesting gameplay dynamics:
Gish: Ever played a
blob of tar? You should! Jumping by squishing yourself on the
ground, then rigidifying your blob when it's at its most squished
state is awesome.
http://www.chroniclogic.com/index.htm?gish.htm
Shift: Are you
stuck? Invert the ceilings with the free space, and carry on!
http://armorgames.com/play/751/shift
Bastet: Replay
value doesn't last very long, but having a tetris clone that always
gives you the worst block in your particular situation is some
pretty cool programming. It's fun to let unsuspecting people try to
figure out why they can't get more than 4 rows before they fill up
their screen :) http://fph.altervista.org/prog/bastet.shtml
The list goes on...
Bloxorz,
Ragdoll masters,
Liquid wars,
Bontãgo,
Echochrome, etc
etc. If you know of a cool game, let me know! I like trying new
ones.
The six things I could never do without
Hmm, difficult. I can see myself adjusting to/rationalizing in many
different scenarios. That's at least one thing I can't do without,
ration. It's something that basically defines a great part of me,
and I can't predict the outcome were I to lose that. (I've actually
read a bit about a girl who lost a part of the left hemisphere of
her brain. The other side took over the lost functions, and she
stopped her studies and pursued an art career. The human brain is a
magnificent thing.)
Life without other people would probably suck as well. An
apocalyptic scenario in which I certainly knew that I was the last
person on earth would probably be the only scenario in which I
could seriously break down. Except that in such a scenario, you
don't know if there's more people, and it's actually likely that
there's more people that have survived. Thus, I'd keep going anyway
:)
I spend a lot of time thinking about
Everything.
I think about how things around me work, mostly. This ranges from
actual physical devices that I try to figure out, to the
interesting social dynamics you get from mixing different groups of
people at a party. Basically, I like figuring things out.
When I was young, I was wondering about why, when I squeezed a
bottle and put my hand on the opening, the bottle wouldn't go back
to its original size, but kept looking squeezed. I then figured it
was probably because air couldn't be empty, and for the bottle to
go back to its original size, it needed air to flow in through the
opening. I assumed this as truth, and when the time came that
someone tried to teach me the real reason, it took some serious
convincing before I could disregard my conviction.
It may be possible during a discussion I get distracted into
analyzing the discussion. Did you know that the brothers Wright are
said to be so good at playing devil's advocate that by the end of
the discussion, they had usually switched viewpoints?
On a typical Friday night I am
not really an outgoing type. Nor on any other night for that matter
:) I do enjoy socializing with a group of people I know, but
randomly walking up to people to make new contacts just isn't for
me. That's why I like this site: before you start, you at least
know you have things in common.
So what /do/ I do on a Friday night? At the moment, I usually watch
a movie or something with some of the other people in my
dormitories. Some time ago I threw a birthday party (which indeed
had interesting social dynamics. People seemed to like the party, I
myself got the feeling that I prefer to meet seperate groups of
people separately).
The most private thing I’m willing to admit here
I care not for hair other than on my head.
You should message me if
You should message me if you have some interesting remarks or
tidbits of knowledge to share, if you saw a spelling/grammar
mistake or other point of improvement, if we have a high match
factor, if we have a phenomenally low match factor, or for any
reason, really. You can even message me if you can't think of a
reason to message me.
I'll respond to all messages I get. Your message doesn't even need
to contain a whole lot; starting a conversation is difficult enough
by itself :P Also, if you think the guy should initiate the first
message, not the girl, then you should send me a message saying
that, and I'll send you a message to initiate a conversation :)