Clever stuff for stupid people

[pancreas]

Does this count?

[seepage]

Overnight Oats is bifida tier.

just looked up a recipe for 'overnight oats' and it involved something called 'nut butter' and an advert for Buscopan IBS relief, so tend to agree

[Blue Jam]

There is an oat cafe near where I live. Seriously. I honestly think the Cereal Cafe concept is less twatty.

[The Boston Crab]

Fucking hell. Brochan. Unless that's some Scottish word.


Should have called it PEADOATS

[Blue Jam]

BROCHANS BEFORE HOCHANS

(it's Scots Gaelic for "porridge". Sorry to disappoint you)

[The Boston Crab]

The fact that I even considered it says a lot about that porridge emporium. Let's hope the place doesn't get flooded and then turn into cement.

[Johnny Yesno]

I've actually done a test and apparently I'm an Introvert, but then I looked at the questions again: "Do you do your best work alone without interruptions?"; "Would you rather have your own office than work in an open-plan one?"; "Do you prefer socialising with a small group of close friends to a big group of strangers?"- oh come on, no-one is going to answer "No" to any of those.

I'm pretty sure I don't want my own office.

[imitationleather]

"DO YOU LIKE PEOPLE HID IN BUSHES TO WATCH WHILE YOU BANG RANDOM CHICKS?"

[Johnny Yesno]

"DO YOU LIKE PEOPLE HID IN BUSHES TO WATCH WHILE YOU BANG RANDOM CHICKS?"

I see what you mean. Perhaps I do want my own office after all.

[Zetetic]

Anxiety (social or otherwise) is a real condition with known ... treatments

This is an interesting claim, given the heterogeneity of anxiety.

Nah, it's woo-woo isn't it?

As with almost all psychology, it certainly attracts woo-woo. I'm not denying that.

The definition is so broad and covers so much mundane and normal human behaviour

Well, yes. That's what we'd hope for an attempt to describe a particular dimension of normal variation in human personalities.

It just seems to be a modern update of the old Nerds/Jocks dichotomy. Or like Mark and Jeremy from Peep Show- Mark sneering at Jeremy when really they aint all that different.

Mark and Jeremy are different, which isn't the same as saying that Mark is better than Jeremy.

I think there is something else interesting there, which maybe gets at why this winds you up, which is that people build identities around these traits that do involve self-deception about the nature of the trait. You clearly can be reserved, quiet and not very intelligent or intellectual.

oh come on, no-one is going to answer "No" to any of those.

I would suggest that certainly very few people would (and even fewer on CaB, perhaps).

I can't speak to an anonymous test you found on the internet, but I would note that if you want reasonable test-info across the range of a trait, then you have to ask questions that the vast majority of people will answer in the same way, just as you also need questions that divide the population fairly evenly.

(Or you use adaptive testing and don't ask people questions that - based on their previous answers - you probably already know the answer to.)

I note that most really brief "personality inventories" tend to use rating scales (of agreement, or frequency) and items that very directly about your  perception of yourself. (e.g. BFI-10 has "I see myself as someone who is reserved.") Which I'm astonished works at all (and they're obviously not suitable for situations where there's any incentive to portray yourself in particular way) but you see decent variation and tolerable agreement with others' ratings and the like.

[Zetetic]

I don't want to overstate the state-of-the-art, but clearly there's variation in how gregarious or attention-welcoming or social and so on people are.

And most people can recognise this about themselves or others (without a test that pretty much asks them that). Indeed, it's probably the most intuitive and easily recognised of the traits in the current vogue of "personality" models and - as you effectively suggest - it mirrors existing folk-psychology models like Mark/Jeremy. This is unsurprising given that it's overwhelmingly relevant to social interaction, isn't it?

[Twed]

Adopting an academic mode of speech because they don't understand that they would convey more information if they used simple English.

Sometimes scientific papers are obtuse in a way that is done to make them sound more important, when they would be just as accurate with more accessible language.

[pancreas]

Adopting an academic mode of speech because they don't understand that they would convey more information if they used simple English.

Sometimes scientific papers are obtuse in a way that is done to make them sound more important, when they would be just as accurate with more accessible language.

You are George Orwell and I claim my £5.

[Cold Meat Platter]

obtuse

Sorry, but I think you mean abstruse.

Oh, and pedantry.

[Twed]

Hah, you fell for my trap, it's actually "acute".

[Twed]

(But no, I meant obtuse. I'm afraid that language has devolved. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/obtuse-vs-abstruse-usage-synonym. I think it's better because it suggests a stubborn refusal to be clear, rather than just plain difficulty)

[chveik]

.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Hah, you fell for my trap, it's actually "acute".

Now that's obtuse ;)

[Neville Chamberlain]

There is an oat cafe near where I live. Seriously. I honestly think the Cereal Cafe concept is less twatty.

What on earth is wrong with that?!? There's a similar place near me in Berlin. It's pretty good.

[imitationleather]

At a festival the other weekend I got given a free t-shirt from an oat milk stand which said "POST-MILK GENERATION" on it just for promising to not drink milk from an animal for 72 hours.

I was like "I'm at a fucking festival, mate. Of course I'm not going to drink milk during the next three days. Give me my bloody t-shirt!"

[Cold Meat Platter]

What on earth is wrong with that?!? There's a similar place near me in Berlin. It's pretty good.

I think it's ostentatiously paying through the nose for things you can easily recreate at home for fuck all.

[Neville Chamberlain]

There is that, I suppose. Bit pricey. I don't think it's the apex of culinary twattery, though.

[ZoyzaSorris]

Dire thread, please shut down mods.

[Johnny Yesno]

please shut down mods.

Exactly the kind of submission I'd expect from a rocker.

[Blue Jam]

I think it's ostentatiously paying through the nose for things you can easily recreate at home for fuck all.

This. When I first saw it I must admit I liked the idea of having somewhere to get healthy fast food that fills you up, and then I saw the prices... I'll carry on making my own smoothies at home, thanks- frozen fruit is cheap and a packet of oats costs 75p at Lidl...

Incidentally, I was in Berlin last week and went to a place that did a really nice big bowl of muesli, with walnuts, honey and fresh fruit on the side. Berlin is cheap, and that bowl of oats was worth the price.

[Cold Meat Platter]

It's annoying because like the cereal cafe it's parasitic on the artisan (sigh) food movement but it involves no craft or skill.

EDIT: Sorry to artisan foodmakers I am slightly drunk

[Blue Jam]

Their profit margins must be huge as well- the Cereal Killer cafe have to import all those obscure American cereals rather than buying them in bulk at wholesale prices, I'd argue that they're slightly less likely to be taking the piss. I make my own smoothies for breakfast partly because they're nutritious, but also because they're cheap...

A friend of mine's kids love Cereal Killer... It's good for a treat I suppose, and it makes more sense than ordering a whole box of cereal of Amazon.com if you only fancy trying one bowl.

[imitationleather]

There's a Cereal Killer in Abu Dhabi, isn't there? I wouldn't say my mind was blown when I found that out. I more sort of went, "Oh. Wouldn't have said there if you'd asked me to guess where the third Cereal Killer branch is."

[Blue Jam]

Back on the topic of "overnight oats"- aren't they really horrible and mushy? Also isn't part of the deal with them that you can make them in bulk and they'll keep for a good few days, so you can have cheap nutritious breakfasts and lunches all week? Paying £6 for a pot seems to defeat the point.

[Blue Jam]

It's annoying because like the cereal cafe it's parasitic on the artisan (sigh) food movement but it involves no craft or skill.

Isn't there a toast cafe somewhere in London? I once paid for some toast in a cafe but it was coconut toast (ie, made with coconut flour) and bloody lovely, not just a couple of slices of sourdough with butter.