What are your special interests?

I really love learning about other peoples hyperfixations/special interests and - although I struggle to show it - get so happy and excited when someone shares theirs with me. It's probably one of the only things I like more than my own special interest tbh... I love it even more when someone feels comfortable enough to not only tell me what theirs is, but also tell me every detail about it. Even if I have no idea what any of it means, I still love listening.

I'm rambling so I'll just get to the point; I'm curious about everyone here. I had a *** night and this is the first thing that came to mind to make me feel better so I'd love it if someone would be willing to indulge...

  • That describes me perfectly and also im the same with food too 

  • I’m very cyclical but I keep coming back to:

    - Music (classical, folk, guitar, Japanese 80s city pop)

    - Board and card games

    - Japan (travel, music, food, films, card games)

    - Sci Fi (novels and films)

    - Puzzle games

    - Metal Earth modes

    - Tin whistle

    - Walking

    Also interested in but don’t find the time and/or money:

    - Skiing

    - Scuba diving

  • I find when it’s an adhd hyoerfixrion it will be a case of nah nkt intrested anymore pretty much for ever

    with autistic intrests theyre always there even if dormant and yes one will take most of my time at any time ai right now music takes most of my time but ask me in 6 months it might be sci fi books 

  • The video is from just after fertilisation to implantation and the level of detail is I believe slightly beyond what would be covered if studying embryology as part of a medical degree so the language is a bit technical.  Everything in the video is from the books and research papers I've cited in the bibliography.

  • Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing, human biology is incredible. Nature is pure genius!

  • When I did a part time course on human biology I got really into it and thought I might do a youtube video on embryology using plasticine models as I couldn't find any with the level of detail I would have liked but it was a few years later when for some reason I got interested in it again and actually made the video, by that time quite a few videos had appeared with more detail than was available when I initially planned to make it.  Anyway if anyone is interested in the very early stages of pregnancy in detail then here it is:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zCGXu8jVJU

    I was originally thinking I might do more videos, but as it got hardly any views I decided it wasn't worth the effort involved.

  • Anyone find their focuses on specific interests fluctuate but almost go full circle and repeat over and over? I’ll really be into something for months then lose almost all interest for a few months till I go back to it again. No ADHD here though as been tested for it. 

  • 3 years making games and never finished a single project or released anything on steam as i planned to, kinda why i wanted ADHD assessment

    That sounds so familiar! It helps to reframe it as having had lots of fun doing it, rather than being hard on yourself for not completing it.

    I agree with  about the WCAG. I struggled to read any text on your page. Take a look at things like minimum contrast ratios. If you google "contrast checker" you'll find lots of sites that will help you get the text contrast right for old fogies like me. If in doubt, there's nothing wrong—and a whole lot right—with black on white.

  • I wish you  the best of luck with your course and getting your games finished - I'm sure you will get there in the end.

  • Yes i have, but not when i made these games, just started the course 2 months ago, before hand was kinda just winging it, i re-invented the wheel in some of my games ( back end code wise ) making my own code versions for what is already build into Unity. 

    also most games only work on desktop not mobile or tablet, and all my games are just prototypes next to no views... kinda de-motivating... but i have a issue where i have to many different ideas and struggle to stick to 1 at a time, got like 30 projects on a go and keep jumping from one to another so many unfinished projects.

    3 years making games and never finished a single project or released anything on steam as i planned to, kinda why i wanted ADHD assessment / medication to keep me on track but it will never happen or it will when I'm 97 years old!

  • As part of your course have you covered the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines:

    https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

    I mention it as I struggled to read some of the text on your web page (I'm not colour blind).

    I've always tried to make sure any website I created would work on any device and be readable by anyone.

  • same but with games, my art skills / UI skills are bad! but i love coding so same boat! maybe but i know a few autistic people who hate coding but love making things look good/art side 

    https://zyphullen.itch.io/ for example 

  • I don't know if it is an autism thing or just a personal shortcoming, but I've always been rubbish at knowing how to make websites look nice - I could do the technical bit (what you call full stack), but my websites have always been really plain (I've never done web development professionally, but have created websites for charities I've been involved with, a couple of websites selling products and personal websites).

  • I'm currently doing a Full stack course with Learning People - since i have no proof of skills other then my games released on itch.io to help me through the door since I'm currently unemployed, nearly finished Front end so will be going through the back end soon.

    i appreciate the advise though, but knowing me I'll stick with what i know for now! once i get a model up and running and the basics down move over to python ( but Unity's Inspector to me is like gold dust for reading data ) - old habits die hard!

  • You can do the CUDA stuff in Python, too. If you want a job in the AI field, putting Python on your CV should probably be high on your list of priorities.

    Disclaimer: I don't code in Python, but I do work on the periphery of AI, so I know that Python is the darling of all those AI boffins.

  • I tried using Python while trying to solve the magic square of squares, and that inefficiency really affected it, so I ended up sticking with Unity C# due to CPU parallelization and even tried a GPU method, but the GPU method was like 1000x faster but about the same amount in difficulty ( needing to download CUDA and setup Compute shaders ) setup was a nightmare since it's not built for these types of algorithms ( crashed my GPU like 100+ times due to memory overload and leaks ) so gave up then ended up rapid prototyping so quickly it ended up being better to just stick with parallelization.

    since I've used C# for 3 years it's just easier to edit/improve and maybe better since everyone uses python and if you want to innovate you need to try things in different ways, but both kinda same base language anyways... hmm maybe backtracking but either way just stick with what i know for now, can always just ask Grok to convert A script to B script if needed.

  • Your mention of Ternary made me think of analog computers - I had considered building one a few years ago, but had enough ongoing projects at the time so didn't.  If you are interested I found this relatively recent article (from 2019):

    www.nature.com/.../s41598-019-49204-y

  • current AI uses floating-point weights -1 and 1 binary

    Floating-point values (including their use as weights in neural networks) represent real numbers. They are not limited to -1 and 1. FP8 and even FP4 are common in AI, as they allow more calculations to be done more quickly, while still being "good enough" to represent weights.

    Any ternary CPU can be emulated with a binary CPU. Both are essentially Turing Machines, so they are, in that sense, equivalent.

    If you want to have a go at building your own AI or dabbling with machine learning, I recommend coding in Python. Python has lots of nice libraries for building and configuring neural networks and such. It's the go-to language of AI these days (which is odd, given how inefficient it is).

  • When a new intrest or even just an older intrest thats revitalised grabs me I go into that research mode so much so that I often hold back on getting into stuff 

    right now I really want to learn about horse breeds but I have too much else to do 

    i also have any to learn about different types of bass guitar but it’s best i just learn how to play haha