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People often ask each other, “What is your favorite _?"
A person’s favorite things can often tell you a lot about that person. When asked/answered in the wrong way it’s not very useful though. Here are some thoughts.
- Why do you like it? What does it mean to you personally?
- “I don’t have a single favorite…” is a common response. Our tastes aren’t encompassed by a single favorite. A better question is “what are your largest eigenvalues with respect to _?" (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_value_decomposition.) E.g. what are the top qualities of music, movies, etc. that make you like them, and are orthogonal to one another?