Who are those certain people?

it is pretty cool how suddenly on the 3rd line it reads very quickly

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=literacy+rates

Yawn. Elementary school psycholinguistics and how there are only a finite number of possible coherent symbols for a certain letter or number.

A written language or notation is not going to assign 4 dots to something that represents 3 of something. The rest is language economics.

General question for y'all: Most of us here with a science background/career consider ourselves a couple of standard deviations above the norm (apologies to the arts/soft "science" students).

What are your thoughts on marrying? Do you want an intelligent woman? How important is it to your happiness? Assume you were attractive and could get a decent percentage of women, so using your intelligence to snag someone above your level is not really an issue. Purely an issue of desirability.

A long time ago there was a Sklansky Minute on that. I think he said something along the lines of "people of similar intelligence cannot be happy together forever". Does anyone remember which episode that was?

My gf is an artist, terrible at maths and knows next to nothing about science, but I'm pretty sure she's just as intelligent as me. I don't objectively know how intelligent I am so couldn't judge whether I need someone close to me in intelligence, but I do know I couldn't go out with someone stupid.

But that makes for a great relationship, right? She's got her myths, you got your maths.

Art and science are just two ways to describe the universe. Not the only two, but definitely the two most important.

Yes and yes.

I've finally realized what fractions are. They're not numbers per se, but exist in the context of a relationship between different number systems. For example, if you embed mod 4 into mod 8 via e(x) = 2x, the number 1 in mod 8 is a 1/2 with respect to e(1) = 2. You heard it here first.

Easy. Marry someone who you won't hate after you get married.

A smart gal who drives you crazy isn't better than a dumb gal who won't.

Similar mental flexibility is probably more important than classical intelligence. For those with limited flexibility, either a dumb gal with no opinions or a gal with exactly the same opinions is the only chance at a lasting marriage.

I mean I don't know about you but I hope I can do better than this in terms of my requirements for marriage

I was setting the lowest possible bar.

Obviously marrying a gal who defies gravity would be ideal.

And another thing on marriage:

My lady found it funny and teased me endlessly (and gently) that this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyjc4...B5bUmng5GN48uW made me cry quite a bit. She is differently smart than I am. She can't do math worth a crap, but she is much smarter than me in other ways. She understands me, which is a puzzle that I couldn't solve without her, and she gives me hints of her understanding from time to time despite the simple fact that I am not smart enough to really get the lessons. She knows somehow when I am out of beer (something I am apparently incapable of predicting despite it being simple subtraction) and stops by the corner shop on her way home. She goes away when I need to be alone. She comes back when I no longer need to be with incredible precision of timing. She calls me to bed when I think I am not tired.

Plus, she has really big boobs.

Patriarchal definition of intelligence is in and of itself pretty stupid and inaccurate anyway.

The more I listen to my women, the happier I am. Some are amazing at certain things and cannot keep books or talk about science worth a damn. Others push my capabilities in philosophy and science.

It all adds up to a pretty diverse group that covers everything I could possibly want and they have always been my motivation, so...

I simply cannot understand monogamy or exclusivity and feel sort of bad for those who live with such dynamics. There simply is not enough for me in such a relationship. I know it works well, but, just not for me.

http://htwins.net/scale2/

Pretty neat browser app that shows different scales of things.

Had a bit of wine tonight and had a random thought. If we figured out a way to make a replicator (star trek style) that ran on solar power and removed scarcity from food production worldwide would we be better off? What would the long term effects of this invention be? Would this 100% allow us to move off this planet? For this hypothetical situation, imagine that we are restricted to being able to produce food only through this device.

Does anyone know if the connotation of 'grey' as 'dull, boring', etc, predates the advent of colour films/TV?

I think it does. Grey is not white nor black. Dull.

All I can think of as a trigger for it is grey skies on 'dull' days, though. Even a grey eminence is secretive rather than dull. The contrast between colour images and black and white seems at least as plausible an origin as the colour of the sky. All I'd need to disprove the theory is a use of 'grey' to mean 'dull' that predates colour film.

F Scott Fitzgerald (1920): "It was a grey day, that least fleshly of all weathers; a day of dreams and far hopes and clear visions. It was a day easily associated with those abstract truths and purities that dissolve in the sunshine or fade out in mocking laughter by the light of the moon. The trees and clouds were carved in classical severity; the sounds of the countryside had harmonized to a monotone, metallic as a trumpet, breathless as the Grecian urn."

Not to critique Fitzgerald here—or rather just that—and keeping in mind that I'm looking at this with zero context, and not much experience, which all but kills my legitimacy, I'm somewhat confident that the passage would achieve a clearer, stronger effect if sentences two and three switched places.

Oh, also, Brian's example demonstrates nearly the opposite of what Flynn requested, which is most amusing. I must remember to mention it tomorrow during tea and bridge.

Why do we have mental blocks, e.g. not being able to remember a particular favourite song?

Rejected flies turn to booze

I like that serious research is being done to one day prove what country western songs already know.

Way less. For a lot of people having less money means they have 0, which means they can't gamble.