(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

I've found an amusing feature of lj - you can get it to display the 150 users with the most similar listed interests to you. It considers both raw number of interests shared, and how unusual the interests are (I think it should also consider the total number of interests both users have listed, since people who list hundreds of interests tend to end up with really high scores, which perhaps isn't very useful). Anyway, for me, it told me that the most similar lj users were two undergraduates in Kentucky (index of 17.318) and someone in Cambridge who only knows ghoti out of my social circle (index of 13.716). All three are, rather disturbingly, clearly very Christian (as well as being keen on linguistics and languages). Of people I know, damerell matches highest (number 4), then mrph (11), then _dionysus_ (15). No one else on my friends list features in the top 150, but there are about 5 other people I've heard of in there.
Anyone else found out interesting things through this facility? http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?mode=findsim I think it's only accessible to users with paid accounts, though.

Comments

[kaet.livejournal.com]

Other than meirion at 12, there's no one else I know in the top 150.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Well, six of my top seven are already on my Friends list, and the seventh is someone I vaguely know of from Usenet...

Obscure bands/authors seem to be a good way to skew it.

[zotz]

Morph does far too well on this. He's top on my list, and I think on ciphergoth's also. I suspect a fix.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Which is funny, because we're not that like each other. I boosted myself a bit by going through my friends' interest lists in an effort to think what to put on my own, and a side effect of this is I do quite well on the 'find similar' test.