INTRO THREAD THE THIRD

[jimrandomh]

I'm Jim. I'm a Master's CS student (on leave) at Cornell University. I'm on season five of Beauty and the Geek, which starts March 11th. I program both for money and pleasure; most of my hobby projects have been games, but I'm doing more serious stuff now. When someone asks what's up, I tilt my head back and describe what I see.

[CovilleR]

13/ffff/calllllllllliiiiiiiiiiii

CovilleR reporting in here.

Let's see. I've been teaching myself web development related languages since I was around 12 with a lot of knowledge in the basics (HTML, CSS, etc.) along with quite a bit of PHP+MySQL knowledge and some other things I don't use much (JavaScript, DHTML, AJAX, etc.) that are still nice to know. I'm currently a sophomore in high school taking the usual classes along with a few other engineering courses sponsored by RIT. I've been studying Physics a lot on my own and have recently started reading a lot on metaphysics, linguistics and philosophy. As for religious views I'm a Buddhist. I think that about covers it.

[d00mkitt3n]

i am an alice.
i sell my art & am currently a bum looking for more money.
i take classes when i can, with a focus on languages; end goal is translation, editing.
i have a weird nerve disorder, naturally red hair, a hamster named Bela (for Lugosi)
& an obsession with sci fi novels, rp games, & awesome socks.
i take a lot of pictures; & spend a lot of time on my pc messing with them or gaming.

everyone i find out reads xkcd, i like a bit more than the average human.
so i decided to try the forums, hoping for similar result.

[Eon_Enigma]

I am a 15 year old male from Seward AK i enjoy fire, anime, video games, books, cartoons and other stuff. Any other interesting stuff about me will most likely pop up in different topic's at some point in the future.

[SpitValve]

Time to catch up!

Hi! I am a music student and trombone player. The bass trombone is way awesomer than the ordinary trombone, by the way. And the oboe is the sexiest instrument *ever*. I also like programming, but only know HTML, Python, BASIC, and sort of PHP. I run Linux sometimes.

woo! Trombone! I've just been getting back into it after a few months without major motivation. Also, I do Fortran and a bit of C/Java etc. Yay for programming trombonulators!

) I am a 24-year-old male geek/nerd currently living within 700 billion light-years of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, and I like to exaggerate my knowledge of trivia by mentioning things I actually know little about. (I hope I live close enough to the Cloud to be correct.)

You're correct, seeing as 700 billion light-years is further than the currently theorised furthest distance we could ever observe

[musicmunky]

Hi,
I'm Tim and like Greg from a long time ago I'm also addicted to bacon. Moving on...
I'm a 27 year-old computer science/math major.
I like math.
I also like girls, video games, music, guitar, reading, humor, self-deprecating poetry, and kiwis. The birds, not the fruit or New Zealand native. Oh and munkies, as you may have gathered.
I like trying to figure out really hard conjectures and failing miserably. The Reimman Hypothesis is my current favorite.
You all have a good day...
tim

[Zug-Zug]

Hey,
My name's Alex and I'm a (disillusioned) 19 year old male. I'm half-Dutch/half-Lebanese, with English as a first language and Dutch/Arabic both as a second.
Currently, I'm (back) in school due to complications with my International-Baccalaureate diploma after having done Astronomy for about 5 months at Uni, but then had to stop due to said complications. I'm trying my best now to get myself a dutch diploma so that I can re-enroll at Uni. I've always been interested in all Sciences (apart from Chemistry, just doesn't reach out to me at all), but studying Astronomy had always my dream. Now however, I've kinda lost interest in the whole research thing and I'm thinking of doing a BA in English and become a translator, or something along those lines.
My (other) interests include: Reading (of all sorts), Biking, Music (ranging from Clasical to Jazz to Industrial to Hard Rock), Cooking, Sitting in trains, Flying in planes, Watching sunrises, Staring at the stars and Mythology.
You can recognize me anywhere because of: The Maori necklace that's been around my neck (and under my shirt) for the past 8 years, the Headphones (which only come off when I go to bed), and the fact that I tend to talk in English no matter where I am (to the annoyance of everyone around me), because I feel so conscious of my accent in other languages. I eat my Kiwi's unpeeled. I never drink straight from a bottle, I always pour stuff into my mouth without touching my lips with the opening of the bottle.
Random things I want to say about myself still: I sometimes attempt to play my Dijeridu, but I don't practice enough to have that whole circular-breathing technique under control. Whenever I'm out for drinks with friends, I end up talking to girls that seem out of place, just for the sake of an interesting conversation (and nothing more, which usually makes them think I'm gay). I've been able to end both my relationships till now mutually, but I still don't talk to either of my ex-girlfriends, just feels uncomfortable. I can dislocate both my shoulders at will (great party trick).

Ok, I know that was alot, but I somehow felt I owed it to you guys after having lurked about these forums for almost a year now, without an account. So, yea...... Hey!

[SpitValve]

Zug-zug: Astronomy is awesome, don't give up on it

You can recognize me anywhere because of: The Maori necklace that's been around my neck (and under my shirt) for the past 8 years

Out of interest, what is it? A tiki, a patu, a koru? Greenstone, I assume?

I've met another New Zealand guy here in Canada, and it appears you can always recognise the girlfriend of a New Zealander by the greenstone necklace her boyfriend gave her - both his and my [Canadian] girlfriends have them

[Kami888]

Hey everyone.

I'm a new jersey resident (yay new jersey!) and surprise surprise, college freshman and CS major.
Yeah also I'm an immigrant from former USSR.

The reasons I'm registered here are:
1. The comic is pretty awesome
2. Another user suggested I should join

And the reasons why I'm posting in this thread are:
1. Because I didn't find a rule regarding avatars and wanted to ask whether my current avatar is acceptable
2. Just to make sure that the admins don't get a bright idea and write me off as a bot

[Zug-Zug]

Zug-zug: Astronomy is awesome, don't give up on it

I didn't as much give up, as feel cheated by the system. I can still talk about it for hours, it's just that the whole Uni experience put me off of it, and I think I'd rather not "use" my life researching about it in detail. I have a feeling that by doing something more hands on I might be able to help people, or something sympathetic like that.

You can recognize me anywhere because of: The Maori necklace that's been around my neck (and under my shirt) for the past 8 years

Out of interest, what is it? A tiki, a patu, a koru? Greenstone, I assume?

I've met another New Zealand guy here in Canada, and it appears you can always recognise the girlfriend of a New Zealander by the greenstone necklace her boyfriend gave her - both his and my [Canadian] girlfriends have them

Well, I know very little about it's specifics. Got it as a present from a New Zealander friend when she left Lebanon years ago. What she explained to me was that it represented the constellation that we in the west call Orion (seen as I was pretty obsessed with that while growing up, and still am slightly) and that in Maori it symbolized Courage (could've been Bravery, it was ages ago). It's a metal carving, no gems or anything in it, and if I look at it critically, it reminds alot of those pendulum-scythe traps from Indiana Jones, but then much more elaborate.

[Jarne]

I'm Jeff and after lurking for a while, I've decided to be more active hereabouts. I'm responsible for the crazy crowd surfing mattress at the dreamgirl meetup way back. I'm into odd things, music, literature, words, among other things. And I've been homeschooled about half my life, although I might be heading off to college next year.

[romanlevin]

Hey, I'm Roman. As in my name is "Roman". I am not, nor have I ever been, a citizen of either the city or empire of Rome. Glad we could get that out of they way.

I'm 22 years old; I study Aerospace Engineering* at the Technion in Haifa, Israel; I just started learning to play guitar a couple of months ago. Yes, another victim of Guitar Hero.

Discovered the forums recently, though I've been reading the comic for about two years, I think. I love the community that has sprouted around it.

I enjoy reading, gaming, photography and procrastination.

*DON'T DO IT! IT'S HORRIBLE! I would have switched majors if I could.

[Fat Tony]

My little brother's name is Roman; I've never met another one.

[marginally_stable]

Hey there, m/24/virginia here. PhD. student in mechanics/dynamical systems.lurker since 2006.

[SecondTalon]

My little brother's name is Roman; I've never met another one.

I only know of one, and I have no idea how much of his name is fakery, and how much is birth certificatery.

[El Senor Fruit Swing]

stuff he said

FOR THE HORDE

[Rocciamax]

Oh hai there!

I'm Max from Italy (Yes, yes, spaghetti-pizza-mandolino and all that stuff. BTW, let me know if any of you happen to be around there, i'll let you have some pretty good home-made lasagna), born in the late 70s and currently employed in a bank back-office (if you notice no activity from me for a few days, you can assume that the boss caught me posting here and hung me upside down in the coffee break area).
Like astronomy, photography, physics, all that stuff. Oh yes and I love cats. And I...whoops sorry gotta go the boss is approaching brb bye

Max

PS. and I think my english is pretty poor, sorry for any... uh... "unpredictable" sentence or "uncommon" syntax... I try not to write like babelfish does.

[SecondTalon]

Oh hai there!

I'm Max from Italy (Yes, yes, spaghetti-pizza-mandolino and all that stuff. BTW, let me know if any of you happen to be around there, i'll let you have some pretty good home-made lasagna), born in the late 70s and currently employed in a bank back-office (if you notice no activity from me for a few days, you can assume that the boss caught me posting here and hung me upside down in the coffee break area).
Like astronomy, photography, physics, all that stuff. Oh yes and I love cats. And I...whoops sorry gotta go the boss is approaching brb bye

Max

PS. and I think my english is pretty poor, sorry for any... uh... "unpredictable" sentence or "uncommon" syntax... I try not to write like babelfish does.

Eh, you write better than the average American high-school student. So.. yeah, there's that. Also, born in the late 70s.. that means you're old, relatively speaking. Average age here puts birth in the 1987-89 range.

[Oozer]

I study Aerospace Engineering*

*DON'T DO IT! IT'S HORRIBLE! I would have switched majors if I could.

QFFT: Quoted for f$#&in truth or Quantam f$#&in Field Theory, whichever you prefer.

I'm Andrew, I'm 22, a lifelong Cleveland resident and I'm now a CS major, though I was a Mechanical Engineering (with a concentration in Aerospace Engineering) major. I'm a bit of a movie buff, and a full blown video game geek. In fact I'm hoping to be able to make entertainment software my career. Somehow, despite the aforementioned VG geekery, I just picked up Puzzle Quest and can unequivocally confirm that the CPU is a dirty, dirty cheater. I can often be found playing Halo 3 and have a highly inflated sense of my talent in that game which is sure to be popped when I play in my first tournament in a little over a week. Other nuggets:

- I'm a big sports fan, especially Cleveland sports teams, so obviously I'm a bit of a masochist. - Musically I like everything from Kanye West to Billy Joel to Taylor Swift.
- I'm a perfectionist/epic procrastinator so I rarely finish any type of "just for fun" projects that I start.
- Despite being a lifelong American, I have defied the stereotype and am a huge soccer fan.
- To that end, one of my lifelong dreams is be part of Sam's Army during a World Cup.

[TheTwinNex]

.

[Sour Apple]

Before anything else, I just want to comment on the fact that all the intelligent men I encounter online all seem to be math majors. Why is this? I really don't understand. It's very disconcerting. I'll never find a normal person to cherish and snuggle with.

Anyway, so my name is Calire. Unlike everyone else here, I'm not going to say that I'm interesting, or witty, or sarcastic, or cynical, or fabulous, because while those things are all true about me, they make me look conceited and I just can't be having with that.

I'm 19, and I go to college in the middle of nowhere (so much in the middle of nowhere that if I were to tell you the name of my university, you'd be able to track me down with ease). I'm planning on majoring in linguistics, or philosophy, or international studies, or business, or economics, or sociology, or French, or German. Maybe. I'm not sure yet. But hey, I have a little bit of time, and I'm pretty good at stalling.

I enjoy people-watching from my dorm window-- the way the courtyard is set up I can see all across the way, and it intrigues me to look in the windows and watch people interacting or talking to their mothers or talking to themselves or taking their clothes off or putting their clothes on. I'm very straight, however, and I enjoy all sorts of escapades with all sorts of boys. Of course, I'm totally bitter and jaded afterwards, but at the time it seems like a good idea.

There's many things wrong with me, most of them having confusing acronyms which I mix up all the time. My obsessions: chocolate, sour gummy worms, Interweb, the male species (hot members thereof), foreign tongues (French, German, Chinese, Latin, Italian, Spanish-- working on more), tongues, linguistics, language, books, poetry, words.

I am currently sitting at my computer on the XKCD forum instead of studying for a large French exam tomorrow. That may give you more insight into my personality than everything I've just said combined.

[Zug-Zug]

sour gummy worms

Do you like to eat them until you can't feel your tongue anymore aswell? Just wondering...

[Sour Apple]

sour gummy worms

Do you like to eat them until you can't feel your tongue anymore aswell? Just wondering...

Def. It hurts so good...

The thread deletion, of course, was a great misfortunte that no doubt will be remembered as a dark day that the xkcd fora was able to overcome.

I'm sorry if this has already been corrected or if there's some sort of inside joke, but I just can't let this slide as a grammarian. I'm sure you're a perfectly good person, but fora is the plural of forum. Okay? It's a Latin thing. They enjoy endings. So... now you know better. Thank you all for not mauling me. <_<

[SecondTalon]

Exactly. The collective here for all of the various forums is.. fora.

General is a forum. Serious Business is a forum. Together (along with all the rest) they form the fora.

Like Voltron. But with less flying in space and more raptors. And otter ducks.

[The Skoot]

Hi! My name's Chris. I'm 24, and I live in Bristol in England, where I wage-slave as a data checker (even more interesting than it sounds). I like video games, music, comics and all the usual jazz. I never know what to put in these things.

I'm here because I love the comic, and I need a new forum to post in since my old mainstay keeled over and died, which is easier said than done since most places are full of annoying winy kids who are only interested in arguing and/or insulting people and/or boasting about their imaginary sexual prowess. Of course, when I find a diamond in the rough like this place, I usually get intimidated and only post a handful of times before shying away. So hey, looking forward to doing that here!

I'm about to go into a 90 minute meeting to discuss the results of our Employee Opinion Survey. Pray for me.

[Simbera]

Hey, my name's Ben, I'm 20 years old and from Australia. Been reading the comic for about 3 months now and love it; been lurking the forums for about a month and just recently joined as the nagging urge to put forth my two cents became too much. I did a year and a half of a Bachelor of IT degree then changed to Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Professional Writing and Editing, which may give you some idea of my jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none-ism. I have almost 3 years left in that course, so here's hoping I don't have another change of heart in the meantime.

I love my technology, cars, music, tv, movies, novels and poetry (reading and writing), drinking, et cetera. I also kinda speak Japanese; I've been learning for just over a year and am getting reasonably proficient. I hope to travel to Japan as well as about a billion other places in my life, though as yet I've never left Australia.

<^>

[SteaL7h]

Ok, hope it's not too late to be posting here...

My name is Felipe, currently 23 years old, I'm from Brazil living in San Diego, California.

I dropped out of my Telecommunications Engineering (a Bachelor of Science, read more bellow) course after 4 years on it, only because I suddenly had the opportunity to work on the field in the United States. I can go back to college at any time to finish it, just one year remaining, although it would be cool to finish it here in the US. I saw this opportunity as being better for my career (although what I really want to do is web development with Ruby on Rails).

I like to play computer games (DoTA), some web development, drive, watch movies, visit places, go out (bars, clubs), play poker and also watch tv shows. My favorites are Lost, The O.C. (the first two seasons were the best ones), Two and a Half Man, etc.

I'm a straight guy and I don't smoke or do drugs, and I pretty much don't drink. And I don't like to lie.

I'm shy and I'd rather quality over quantity.

I'm against violence as a means to solve problems, although one of the things I would like to do before I die is to fly on a jet (i.e. F-22).

I intend on living here in California for the rest of my life, although that's not as easy as it sounds, since being illegal is not an option. (The only thing I miss from Brazil is family and friends).

Some activities I would like to start doing is mountain biking, specially since there is so many cool places to do it here in SoCal.

Guess that's pretty much it, I have to start doing my daily tasks (I'm at work now).

Wikipedia's entry on Bachelor of Science states: "In Brazil, a Bachelor of Science degree is a graduation degree and is also more specific, usually containing a one-year mandatory probation time by the end of the course followed by relatively elaborate written and oral evaluations (Monografia)."

[DarkKnight045]

Hey there, my name is Scott, 22 and I'm finishing a B.S. in Computer Engineering this semester.

I'm a consumate dabbler, I fiddle with linux, including Ubuntu(and derivatives), Knoppix, Puppy, and others as I get my hands on them. I try to build a working competency with them, but I'm certainly no power user.

I dabble in programming, Java, some 'C', trying to learn Python. I have a decent grasp of the various sciences, compliments of my degree I'm pursuing.

Gaming is my big hobby, tabletop, PC, Console (PS2 and XBox 360 are my staples at the moment). I also follow several webcomics nearly religiously, xkcd.com(obviously), Penny-arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Delete, VGCats, and Order of the Stick. Also when desparate to kill time I'll go to Bash.org and keep hitting random and see what I get.

Great to be here!

[secretaznman]

Hey all,
long time reader, first time registering.
I'm korean, I game, I drink, and I eat rice. That's pretty much me in a nutshell. Oh, and I'm not a bot. That's important too.

[danielbeaver]

Err, I suppose I should have posted here first. Does anyone honestly read this thread?

I'm Daniel Beaver, originally from Puerto Rico. These days I reside in Minneapolis, MN, where I go to the University of Minnesota. I think forums are a gargantuan waste of time, but they are like heroin.

[link removed]

[Chrismclegless]

Err, I suppose I should have posted here first. Does anyone honestly read this thread?

Yes. Hi! You really shouldn't post links until you have a few more posts, though.
The rules

[El Senor Fruit Swing]

Err, I suppose I should have posted here first. Does anyone honestly read this thread?

Yes. Hi! You really shouldn't post links until you have a few more posts, though.
The rules

I find you guilty of posting a link before you should have. I sentence you to read the entire man thread.

[olcaddy]

Well Ive perused the fora for quite some time and the comic for longer. After searching for the fora for this physics simulator that i found. A quick search for 'Phun physics' will turn it up. I must tell the XKCD world about it.
other things Im a mechie at Ohio State University.
-Dave

[MFHodge]

Does anyone honestly read this thread?

Quite a few people actually.

[Mavketl]

Does anyone honestly read this thread?

Quite a few people actually.

And I'm one of them!

(Hmm, I'm not sure if this is getting my post count up illegally... but I just wanted to show my fellow new people that they are interesting!)

[Wythin]

Hi, I'm Wythin, I'm a Junior at the University of Washington. I recently changed my major from Neurobiology to Painting & Drawing after realizing I wasn't having fun and didn't want to be stuck in a lab for months on end. Before I transferred here, I was getting my AA and testing video games for a few years. Six months ago I had a crisis of artistic identity; I have been a voracious writer since I started grade school, but began branching out into music (I picked up the violin) and drawing. I'm also in the process of teaching myself the basic structures of programming languages via LSL in Second Life and script a variety of stuff, mostly objects functional to whatever I need them for (like a slideshow picture panel).

My interested are pretty varied because of this. My roommates and I have been reading XKCD for a long time and I just now checked out the forums. Looking forward to expanding my horizons.

[Patrick Donnelly]

Nice to meet you all.

No, I'm not afraid of using my real name on the internet; I simply don't give people reasons to do anything malicious with it. Openness and honesty is a good thing.

[danielbeaver]

I find you guilty of posting a link before you should have. I sentence you to read the entire man thread.

Never seen the no-newb-links clause before. I understand the logic, though - I have seen many forums flooded by spam to the point of uselessness. I'm so tempted to link to an example, rules be damned (irony be damned too).

[SecondTalon]

Err, I suppose I should have posted here first. Does anyone honestly read this thread?

Hodge is wrong. Nobody reads this thing. Especially me.

[Ren]

I certainly don't read it either. Yeesh.