Did you play with girls as a kid?

Do you want to be a father?

Can you usually tell when a non flamboyant guy is gay?

Can you usually tell when a flamboyant guy is not gay?

Beutiful island.
Will u answer the questions you skipped earlier?

Is there's such a thing?

Sook,

Tell me a fun fact about your area of interest - that I can bring up in conversation and spark an interest.

In other words, tell me why I should feel good about you pottering about with rocks

Very cool Suq - I've been to Catalina a few times and also think it's beautiful. Thanks for answering my Qs.

Suq, given our discussion about Astronomy earlier and your obvious interest in it, what are your thoughts on the fact that Geology is basically just Planetary Science but on Earth.

I mean Engineers make fun of Physicists and all I tell them is that they're our Earth-bound baby brothers. Engineers understand how a bridge works. Physicists understand how the Universe works.

Why study one thing on Earth, when you can study that thing throughout the whole Universe, I guess is my question.

i love your answer re both being a top or bottom -- i never understood why one would be only one

to the best of your knowledge, is anyone else in your family gay

Unfortunately i have not. I know there are a couple pretty good ones in DC, but i just haven't really put in the effort to try it (i've never eaten Ethiopian food before)

You're missing out.

Play.. as in.. hang out? Yes, of course. I had a pretty even mix of friends when i was younger

As of right now, no, i do not want to be a father. But i ascribe most of that feeling to my age (i dont think the majority of 24 year olds have a strong desire to be fathers). I do however have a pretty thin level of patience for children, and i'm just not sure if i'll ever get over it and want to raise kids. Who knows. Ask me in 10 years

Edit: this is actually an interesting topic. The guy i'm dating right now is 12 years older. I dont think either one of us wants kids, but if he ever does, it will be an interesting mismatch in life status

I consider myself to have a very strong 'gaydar'. But there are of course guys that act completely masculine/normal/whatever that honestly no one would expect unless they told you or unless they were flirting with you.

The converse is equally difficult to discern. The majority of flamboyant guys are in fact gay, whether they say they are or not. There obviously is a small percentage that are in fact straight, but its rare. Usually when i hear a high pitched voice and a subtle lisp etc, i snap assume they're gay until i'm told otherwise

I will. Part of my personality is the more daunting a task i'm given, the more i will procrastinate completing it

That op pic is adorable, that is all

Hmm. There's so many cool little facts!

Gemology- One that i enjoy is how asterism (a type of chatoyancy where, when placed in light, a star is reflected) is formed in minerals. The most common example of this is seen in star sapphires and rubies. Sapphires and rubies are the mineral corundum, which has a chemical composition of Al2O3 (aluminum oxide). So, when these minerals are forming, they are just a solution concentrated in aluminum and oxygen ions before molecules start to form and precipitate out. In certain instances, there may be a higher proportion of titanium ions in the solution as well. Sometimes these titanium ions will bond with oxygen atoms to create the mineral rutile (TiO2 - titanium oxide). If enough rutile molecules are formed while the corundum is forming, lines of them will begin to orient themselves in the distinct star shape within the sapphire or ruby. However, in order to actually see the star pattern, the mineral must be cut a specific way. Think of a vertically oriented cylinder as the crystal. The rutile will orient itself perpendicular to that (ie flat across). Now in order to see the star, the gem must be cut and polished in that vertical orientation along that growth axis. If not, the asterism wont be apparent because you'll have either cut edge on or at some angle. Hope i explained this somewhat interestingly

I would actually say the converse- that planetary science is just geology but applied to other celestial bodies. You need to have a strong fundamental understanding of the principles and processes that govern the Earth in order to create analog models applicable to other worlds in our solar system or beyond.

I don't know if i understand your last point that well. Most planetary scientists will inevitably not only have a background in astronomy but also a strong background in geology. Learning about volcanism on Earth can then be applied to learning about it on Io. Learning about plate tectonics and brittle/ductile deformation can then be applied to Venus. Hydrology and geomorphology can be applied to Europa. Etc etc

Ya. I mean, some people are primarily tops or bottoms. But i think the majority of guys are willing to go both ways

No one in my immediately family is gay. I think one of the cousins (in his late 40s maybe?) is gay, but kind of isolated himself from the extent family a bit. I'm not too sure of his story, i've only met him a few times when i was younger ish at family events and we've never discussed the 'gay thing'

I would not normally ask these things of you Sook. But I am interested in your view: how much of human personal identity (from your own personal experience/perspective) is sexuality a part of? or asked another way - Do you think that it is, something to do with being an oppressed minority, that the gay community puts so much emphasis on sexuality in self-identification partly to breakdown the oppression or alternatively this is super-imposed by the larger dominant cultures to overly define your difference in potraying your public self?


I mention this - because it is kind of strange that (although you are quite, obviously entitled and can be quite rightly proud of being a gay man, willing to discuss most aspects of your sexuality) so many people focussed and asked - what I normally presume to be not really polite or socially acceptable - questions about gay life in this thread.


On a side note - I told my father about asterism (not a geologist but a chem eng) and he went into a long side note discussion about the properties of quartz - and said I should pose to you the teaser...
Explain why quartz sometimes refracts light to the right and sometimes to the left...

Which country that you haven't been to would you most like to visit?

will try to answer you guys tonight or tomorrow morning!

Ya, tomorrow someone new goes up so try to wrap up early if anything.

I think there's a large proportion of the gay community that correlates self identity with their sexuality. For lack of better phrasing i would deem them to be 'stereotypical'. Throughout high school and college i was completely out, but i still just did my own thing. I never did things as a consequence of my sexuality (except having sexual relations with guys lol). I was never interested in the 'gay lifestyle' as some would call it. After graduating and making more gay friends who are clearly part of the gay community that i never really delved into, there was definitely a subtle hint of social pressure in terms of upkeep, appearance, socialization, etc.

I dont think any of the questions posed in the thread so far have been impolite or unacceptable. I'm a very open person, so i'm happy to answer any questions that people had whether its in regards to my own life or just being gay in general

I'm not quite sure what you mean about quartz refracting in two directions. You might be talking about dispersion? where when light travels through the crystal it will split it into different colors. This has to do with the three-dimensional unit cell of the crystal structure of the mineral, also known as the 'optical indacatrix'. Light rays will be split into two rays, a slow and fast ray, once inside the crystal (this has to do with the refractive indices of the axes of the crystal cell). The larger the lag between the two rays, the stronger the 'birefringence' of the mineral. Calcite, for example, has a super high birefringence (the light rays have a large gap between them), and if you take a clear piece of it and put it over text, it will actually show two separate images (double refraction)- one from the fast ray and one from the slow ray. I took an entire course on the optical properties of minerals, which was actually super interesting. I guess what you may be asking might have to do with the orientation of some of the crystal faces, which may refract the light differently.

I really want to visit Australia. A few island nations. Finland i think would be cool. Lots of countries in Europe (I've only been to Spain) that arent terribly high on my list but i just want to see them and have been to them once in my life. Scotland and Ireland both have really cool columnar jointed basalt structures (Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave) which would be neat to see.