Complete Randomness

[Wil]

Apparently men can literally "think about nothing", but women can not. This was shown through CAT scans of male and female brains. When men were asked to "shut their eyes and think of as little as possible", the CAT scan showed that their brains had very little activity. Females, on the other hand, always had brain activity.

So, women, the next time you ask your man what he's thinking about and he says "nothing", chances are he's not being evasive, he's just literally not thinking about anything.

An interesting side note to this is that masculine women/lesbians tested like males did, and feminine men/gays tested like females did.

[Mich]

An interesting side note to this is that masculine women/lesbians tested like males did, and feminine men/gays tested like females did.

I read this as "tasted like" originally, and that lead a very different interpretation of your findings, with, though sourceless, would be interesting if true.

[Rei]

Out of curiosity, Wil, do you have an article or a link of some sort with more details? It sounds like an interesting study!

[Wil]

I'm sorry, I don't. I got the details off of a Gizmodo (or was it Lifehacker? Hell, I don't know, I'm drunk ATM) comment about an article about the brain. The commenter said the original study was in Dutch, and he tried to find it or an English translation without luck. I also looked for probably 20 minutes without luck.

[jotabe]

Sounds reliable to me!

j/k ^_-

[Eaquae Legit]

I'm quite skeptical too. It sounds like a fascinating study, but the conflation of "lesbians" with "masculine women" and "gay men" with "effeminate" make the pseudo-science alarm bells go off in my head. I can't give the "fact" and credence until I can see and evaluate the methodology myself.

[starlooker]

Yeah, but it's feasible that they used the Bem Sex Role Inventory or somesuch to make that determination a bit more objective.

Also, it doesn't sound like they were necessarily conflated -- those might be two separate findings. Seriously, I doubt that most people who are publishing studies in psychology journals, anyways, would be accepted if they simply conflated the two. A person could ask people what sexual orientation they are and also use a separate inventory to estimate the extent to which the person identifies with traditional masculine or feminine roles (there are quite a few to choose from, the Bem being one of the most common). I'd be interested in doing an ANCOVA or something to see if sex role identification basically cancelled out the effect of sexual orientation or not.

However, I agree that I wouldn't give these particular findings much credence without seeing the original study. It's a study that could easily be done in a credible way, though.

[Wil]

Sounds reliable to me!

Thus my usage of the word "Apparently" as the first word in what I wrote! Of course, just because I can't find the study doesn't mean it doesn't actually exist.

I can say from personal experience that I can go lengths of time without thinking about things on what I call the "vocalization and visualization" layer(s) of my brain which, from my experience, is very near a meditative state. I would imagine that actively thinking about something in a sub-vocalized way (such as what you're going to write on a forum or say aloud), or of memories in a visualization way would indeed register on a CAT scan as brain activity over not doing these things.

I suppose my question for the women would be: How often is it that you can go a fairly good length of time without thinking about anything? Do you ever just sit and "zone out" watching TV? Or while driving? Do you go to bed and just stop thinking about the day and what needs to be done tomorrow, or do you actively have to try to calm your mind?

I'm quite skeptical too. It sounds like a fascinating study, but the conflation of "lesbians" with "masculine women" and "gay men" with "effeminate" make the pseudo-science alarm bells go off in my head. I can't give the "fact" and credence until I can see and evaluate the methodology myself.

I actually made that distinction myself in the hopes of making it a little clearer and/or less generalized. My take was that women that identify and present more masculine tendencies (not necessarily just lesbians, though that was the original word used) tested like the average man, and males that identify and present more feminine tendencies (not necessarily just gays, though that was the original word used) tested more like the average women.

I don't have a way to explain it scientifically, but you have to agree that some men, be they straight or not, act and present themselves much more feminine than what I personally would consider an "average male", though gay men, particularly the 'feminine' ones, seem to exaggerate it in their mannerisms and speech patterns. In that say way, some women, be they straight or not, act and present themselves much more masculine than what I personally would consider an "average female".

Of course, you have to keep in mind, even if this study were true (still unable to find a source), it coming from a secondary non-scientific word of mouth (and a third) could obviously cause the conclusion to be reworded such that it no longer uses scientific terminology and could make it seem as if it were pseudo-science.

[jotabe]

I'm quite skeptical too. It sounds like a fascinating study, but the conflation of "lesbians" with "masculine women" and "gay men" with "effeminate" make the pseudo-science alarm bells go off in my head. I can't give the "fact" and credence until I can see and evaluate the methodology myself.

You might like this kind of study, if you haven't heard of it already:
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/20/7356.full.pdf

And Wil, i was just poking a bit of fun, since you had already acknowledged that

[Froth]

I heard that study a long time ago from this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DKk_tdyehA

[megxers]

Or, if you're like me and like a little pop culture with your brain imaging...


On a related, completely random note, I have been noticing how many of my academic research interests/non-fiction books/etc I have selected over the years due to my side interests in pop culture/media/books. But it also goes both ways, because I select tv shows/books that strongly feature my college/majors/towns/etc.

[Rei]

Oh John Barrowman... Always in front of the camera.

[steph]

Star Wars TomTom Videos:

Lord Vader

Master Yoda

Round-a-bound.

[eggbalancer]

You should have seen his face when I told him I was his father!

[Gravity Defier]

Left, you must keep (Wrong)
Must left, you keep (no)
You left keep must (You're going to kill people if you give directions like that.)
Must you keep left (Oh, come on! I mean how hard is it to read the...actually, that's perfect. I think, I think we're done here.)






You realize it's going to take me forever to get tired of all these, right?

[jotabe]

lol now that really makes me wish i had a tomtom gps XD

roundabound!

[locke]

Oh my god.

I've never had a use for a GPS before.

Want!

[neo-dragon]

If you make a wrong turn Vader should scream "NOOOOOOOO!" and Yoda should say "that is why you fail".

[zeroguy]

what. what. what.

...what.

what

(for those that don't feel like clicking those links or watching them, this is about "Dog Police". I can't really give more of a description besides... "what")

[Rei]

It strikes me as a bit silly that I can read 7 pages of a 10 page NYT article online, and when I try to go to page 8 they require a subscription.

Not that I'm complaining over much, as I got to read more than half the article, but wouldn't it make far more sense to let someone read 1 page and then try to ding them?

[Edit] apparently in the morning I don't read carefully, it's an account they want. Well, perhaps later, but for now I can't be bothered.

[megxers]

It strikes me as a bit silly that I can read 7 pages of a 10 page NYT article online, and when I try to go to page 8 they require a subscription.

Not that I'm complaining over much, as I got to read more than half the article, but wouldn't it make far more sense to let someone read 1 page and then try to ding them?

[Edit] apparently in the morning I don't read carefully, it's an account they want. Well, perhaps later, but for now I can't be bothered.

Wild guess, the 20-somethings article?

Random- My brother's suitemate locked himself out of his room the first night at college and borrowed my brother's phone to text his mom. The boy sent the text to "mom." Which, in my brother's phone, was our mom. Woops.

[Rei]

It was an article on homosexual behaviour among animals.

[zeroguy]

[Edit] apparently in the morning I don't read carefully, it's an account they want. Well, perhaps later, but for now I can't be bothered.

bugmenot.com ? I actually haven't used that in quite a while, but it used to work from what I recall...

[Rei]

Good point; that is useful for these things.

[fawkes]

Bwahahahaha!! Heehehe... ehheh.. ahh. Yeah, go here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9-PG2mADZw

[Phenious]

Ah yes the love of Avatar fan shorts.

[fawkes]

No no, it's the complete ridiculousness of the Airbender movie.

STOM STOMP STOMP *floating rock*

It does not take 5 earthbenders to float a tiny rock 10 feet!!!

[Gravity Defier]

I think everyone assumes my favorite band ever is FOB -and they're pretty close, it's my second favorite- but the real honor goes to Lifehouse.

NoNameFace remains their best album, in my ever so humble opinion, but they're a solid band on all their albums and it is my hope, should I ever get married, for our song to be a (very specific) Lifehouse song. At least, mine for us. While I don't see most guys giving a rat's you know what, I guess it's only fair to give him some say.



Then there's the "I'm admitting I'm in love with you" song that is not by either of those bands. I'd make the playlist for my lovelife up and give it to my brother to pass along for me but it's such a non-issue and I'm so surprisingly okay with it right now.

I should, however, jump on my "I'm in love with life" playlist for the fall; I only have until October for that one. Just thinking about it gets me all excited. Me, Chai, my hoodie, my beanie, gloves, my MP3 player, and a path to walk.

I <3 music.

[Rei]

I do like No Name Face quite a lot. Lifehouse isn't my favourite band ever, but they're still very good and that album is one I do not want to be without.

[megxers]

So I joined an online dating site and have been silently skulking around on it without a picture/much information for...8 months? Now that I'm in California I have been a little bit more...aggressive, but still haven't really tried the whole contact thing. Welllll one of my matches called me today. He's a personal trainer, which I knew from his profile. At my gym, apparently. I spied on him today, he's pretty cute.

Since I have absolutely no cool, I have no idea how to play this. But I am finding it really, really funny.

[locke]

Since I have absolutely no cool, I have no idea how to play this. But I am finding it really, really funny.

Good. Online dating should be fun.

And put up a picture if you're doing it. Its rude not to.

[Gravity Defier]

dating should be fun.

Had to fix that for you. Let me also add: the operative word being "should."

Go get 'em, Meagan!

[ender1]

Slinky cat!

[zeroguy]

Two days ago I jumped out of a plane that was around 2 and a half miles in the air. Luckily for me I was strapped to a guy that happened to have a parachute with him, so I was only freefalling for about 1 and a half miles.

Oh, and I survived. It was pretty rad. :D

[neo-dragon]

Skydiving: that's on my list of things I should try before I die. Though hopefully not right before I die, if you know what I mean.