What's your special interest?

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- Coding, especially audio DSP code.
- History, especially the local history around places that I've lived; the old industries, buildings, street names, railway lines etc.
- Words and etymology (how a word comes to have the meaning it does.)
- Stripping and re-building just about anything mechanical. I can't resist looking inside to find out how something works.
- The never-ending mystery of what goes on in other people's heads to make them act the way they do!

Virtual Reality!

I'm very obsessive about this topic, I buy and use a lot of the equipment. Lucky for me it's actually useful because I create stuff for VR that other people get to enjoy. And I get to show people VR because I hang around a lot with my equipment at a local maker space. Seeing people reactions to it is very fun

When I'm inside VR I spend most of my time in VRChat and similar social worlds where I get to see a lot of interesting and crazy things, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8R1eYGXRso I'm the skeleton peeking in trough the door to the restroom in that video

What is all this VR stuff? And the headsets? Explain it to me, I'm a technophobe. What do people use it for??

You're using a computer device to write this so that big of a technophobe you can't be

Well with a VR headset you can plug it in to you're computer (though you need a very powerful computer) and than you put it on you're head and now you're in Virtual Reality! It's like being inside a computer game/world if you have ever played or seen one. Thought it doesn't have to be games, there's art programs where you can draw and make stuff and all kinds of experiences. A lot of people including myself use it to connect to virtual worlds where we meet up and talk to each other or participate in social activities of different kinds. I like to watch what other people do and listening in on their conversations or watch movies together with people in the public cinema. I also like role playing as whatever character I'm looking like, something I would never have dared to do in the real world. In VR it's easy I can be whoever I want because I'm anonymous.

Though you have to be able to handle the unfiltered internet if you connect to the public social worlds. The internet can be crazy, and even more so inside virtual reality. Though that is also what I like about it, the unpredictability of people. Because it's just virtual I feel safe It's a lot easier to be an outsider and strange in VR

I also have a digital SLR camera that I use to take pictures of our real world and than I translate those pictures in to a 3d model I can upload to the internet that people can visit in virtual reality. It's like you can travel instantly to anywhere in the world without actually travelling in the real world.

Usually when I show VR to old people or people not used to technology I show them this relaxing underwater experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGEZy0MI0H8

Though what you want to use VR for is entirely up to you and what you're interested in

Sounds cool. I feel old. Even though I'm not that much older than you ha

I have a fascination with abandoned buildings too. I've never entered one, I just enjoy watching photos of them and videos online. I've found quite a few on YouTube.

Just yesterday I showed the underwater experience to a 70 something year old man. And he was inside it for like nearly two hours haha! I think it's safe to say he liked it

And about two weeks ago I did the same to a very sceptical 50-60 year old lady. Once I showed her the underwater stuff and some of the art experiences I had turned her from a sceptic to someone very interested in buying on herself

It's never to late to learn something new. A lot of the people I meet at my local makerspace is much older than me. People there make all sorts of things, from clothes/costumes and furniture to advanced computer stuff, and then we get to learn from each other. I'm the local VR guy and get to tell everybody about my special interest

I hear that.



YAY! Big cats are the best. I started writing a novel about 15 years ago about cats, all stemming from my special interest... It will never see the light of day most likely (if it takes you more than a decade to write a book, you risk becoming a different person before you finish... and as much as I love it, the story is something I would rather not see published anymore)...



I used to be really unfair to people who played apps... as I've been a gamer since elementary... but I hear this entirely, family, work, etc... I now play ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY apps on my phone... so much so that I've thought repeatedly about writing a blog or something on the subject... I still think Candy Crush is a crime against humanity...

That sounds so neat!!

I could get into a hyperfocused state when coding in my teens and twenties. I didn't "feel" good or bad... or anything really... but I just got so deep into it that I stopped being/seeing/feeling anything but the code. Weirdly zen, meditative and content... and I was good at it, so losing 16 hours was a point of pride because of the product I would have coming out the other end.

Historically I've had to edit myself when talking to psych's about it because I describe it in a way they UNIVERSALLY assume is bi-polar... I don't think I'm amazing in the moment, I have to explain, I come out the other side, and look back on what I did, and I was f*****g amazing. That confuses them... makes me sad not everyone experiences hyperfocus, but also glad that I ever did.

I lost my hyperfocus when I got medicated for my ADD, and it never came back. Worthwhile trade-off... but I miss it all the same.

I find it fascinating that Lego is not in your special interests.

I was just thinking about Legos today when playing blocks with my daughter. I devoted many days of my childhood to Legos. Good times.

Current most intense ones:

The 1970s
Tower blocks
Brutalism
Despicable Me
Minecraft

My main one for the past few years has been powerlifting.

I didn't recognize it as being a special interest until I was talking to someone about my hobbies and they mentioned that I'd taken my own powerlifting way past the point of calling it a hobby.

Which I guess is true. It's like 75% of what I talk about and think about and I'm ridiculously obsessive about it.

Painting. It often goes along with small bursts of temporary interests, mostly something with biology. Last year I was obsessed with painting human anatomy, especially brains, hearts and lungs, and the muscular system. Right now I'm really into mushroom-species, so I paint them and put it together in classification maps.

My longest is psychology and psychiatry. Lately I think ADHD has sort of been one. I'm blanking out on others right now.