Special Interests thread

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COOOOL!
What's your favourite species?

A wide variety of long term and short term interests. I also liked legos, I played with them very much. Later came astronomy, basic physics that I understand well and some advanced physics like quantum physics for fascination, some maths too. Computer programming (Commodore 64 and Plus4 basic and assembler, Turbo Pascal on DOS, Visual Basic on Windows). I was clumsy at playing with those early computer games, I was rather interested in how they worked.

I always liked to play with and listen to audio equipments like tape recorders, amplifiers, tuners. I've made some modification to them, and built a RIAA corrector for turntables. Real to real tape recorders are my childhood favorite, I'm still in love with them... I'm fascinated with sound quality, so I tune my system according to my taste to get the highest possible sound quality out of it. I can hear so little change as a small alteration in earthing or replacing a single capacitor or transistor. I've built a simple FM transmitter, I like to play with radios too.

My current interests differ substantially to what I used to have, I don't know if its a development or simply a move sideways. I'm more interested in such things as Asperger's, knowing more about how people think and apply it in practice, I read books in English (at least I'm trying) for fascination and practicing. The interesting thing that these interests are all from areas I'm weak at by my born abilities, as if I was to prove for myself I can deal with them.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention sci-fi books. I've almost read everything from Isaac Asimov and Stanislaw Lem, this later being my absolute favorite. I only say almost because I'm not sure I've read all, including several non-fiction writings from both of them.

Last edited by OJani on 08 Jun 2011, 6:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

As I'm sure some of you already know, my special interest is linguistics, especially historical linguistics, and the subjects closely related to it: etymology, phonology (sound change), and comparative linguistics. I also love learning about the morphology and syntax of any and all languages.

While I have studied dozens of languages over the 3 years it's been my special interest, I would never say I'm fluent in any language besides English. As evidenced by what I said previously, I am more interested in linguistics than learning languages (although frequently I incorrectly use theme two terms interchangeably...), and thus do not speak any other language fluently, yet. I am learning Basque well, and am sticking to it, unlike all the previous languages I've studied, so eventually I'll be able to say I'm fluent in another language.

Currently I am trying to decide what language I should start studying in addition to Basque (if any). Since my interest lies more in learning about languages rather than just learning them, I am prone to becoming very interested in a language, but then shortly finding out that I don't want to learn it, for whatever reason. Also, I am very indecisive. But, currently I'm pondering over learning either Faeroese, Latvian, or Turkish. All three are very interesting, and all have their pros and cons, so to speak, but I'd love to start learning another language.

Which, in my mind at least, brings me to my other, albeit minor, special interest, which is video games. There is possible overlap in between these two interests, as of course many games are available in more than one language, but so far I have not utilized this to its full potential, only briefly. Since the vast majority of the languages I'm interested are ancient and minority languages, I don't have much chance to play games in other languages, since there is usually a very small market for translated games. I have played some games in German and Portuguese though. One advantage of choosing to learn Turkish would be that, since it has almost 100 million speakers, many of which like playing online games (and there are same games completely in Turkish, like the MMOs Sonsuz Macere and İstanbul Kıyamet Vakti, so I could easily immerse myself in Turkish while playing one of them, talking to other players in Turkish and reading all the text in it and whatnot).

My interest in video games lies particularly in (MMO)RPGs. Apart from playing them just because I find them enjoyable, I also like learning about them. I would explain what I mean by that, but suddenly my mind is shot, and I can't think of how to describe it. But an example of that is reading things like this; it's about video games but none in particular. Also, I like metagaming a lot, both doing it myself and reading and learning as much as I can about what people have come up with for the game, sometimes even ones I don't play myself, just for fun.

Ok, that's enough for now!

May I suggest Hungarian? You won't find another language with so diverse origin and so much difficulty to learn...

(Javasolhatom a magyart? Nem fogsz találni másik olyan nyelvet, amelynek ilyen változatos az eredete, és amelyet ilyen nehéz lenne megtanulni...)

I studied Hungarian briefly in the past, and it was fun, and I actually have quite liked it for a long time, and looked into it a month or so ago. It is quite complex, but not as much as Basque. I have always loved the sound of it, and it's a very interesting language. There are quite a few games in it (like The Witcher, which I have), and lots of other media of course, and an interesting culture and history. Ok, I'll consider it. I'll see what Hungarian resources I can procure, and see what I'd have to do to get enough to learn it well with.

I love listening to this recording in Hungarian (the first of the two texts); I love the speaker's ultra-deep voice.

Something interesting about that recording that I noticed, is that the <m> is "barátaim" sounds like /b/, and the <n> in "-ban" after 'Világ hangjai' sounds like /d/... I don't know if this is common in Hungarian, or just because of this speaker's deep voice, although if that's the case then it doesn't seem to be consistent. Perhaps you could say which?

(to others: sorry for the tangent...)

I think it's more the individual. His voice is somewhat "nasal", I can't describe it in details, sure not standard. I'm glad you consider my suggestion! Anyway, my voice is more like what you hear on the second recording...

Sometimes a song sounds better in its native language. Like 99 ballons is better I believe its german.

Ah, along these same lines, my current special interest is also linguistics, though I haven't gotten into it as much as you have, dunbots... yet.

I've been fascinated with the concept of language since I was an infant; I started speaking quite early, and I've been obsessed with the concept of reading and writing for as long as I can remember. I eventually taught myself (with a bit of assistance) when I was about three or four years of age. But that's English...
I picked up on a bit of Swiss German from my neighbors when I was very young, and I am sure I greatly annoyed my friend (their daughter) in several instances when I requested translations. She's only 3 years older than me (I never played with kids my age), so she was still young, too, and I don't believe she shared my fascination. She just knew both languages.
My reading and writing abilities have always been far above my age.

I renewed my interest in German about a year and a half ago, and I consequently began learning some. Not much, however; just the alphabet, colors, basic phrases, some nouns... I began my more rigorous studies in August of 2010, and I have picked up on quite a bit. I don't know my percentage of fluency, but I'm conversational. I feel that I understand much more than I can speak, though. I still want to improve my abilities in this language to the point of being fully fluent.
My interest in Japanese goes back to early 2010 when I began learning some kanji. I knew about 25 or 30... honestly not that many. I liked the sound of the language, as it wasn't tonal. (I have come across many individuals who perceive all East Asian languages as tonal, thanks to languages like Chinese and Vietnamese... which are both very common where I live. There is a large Korean community, but people just judge and think all languages in Asia are "Ching chang chong." ) I started learning the language more seriously around September or October of 2010, and my friend from Japan (who has since gone back...) taught me a great deal of what I know now. I'm not really conversational yet; I can greet, say "How are you", say what I like/dislike/love/hate, say if I've gotten anything, say if I have anything... etc. Really basic stuff. I plan on studying it more thoroughly this summer (teaching myself with books and such, then my friend), and I hope to be fluent by the winter of 2012.

I would like to be fluent in several languages by the time I am an adult (fifteen years old now.) I want to learn Korean and French as of writing within the next three years.

~

But, languages haven't always been my strongest interest.
In fact, STRONGEST INTEREST EVAR goes to Presidents of the United States, specifically JFK. I could probably still write a 900-page biography on him.
I hope that, one day, I'll have an interest as strong as that one... I don't really know why it subsided.

Oh I loved Red Dwarf. I started showing my teenager Red Dwarf when I saw it on Netflix. Move to Fiji and have a sheep and a cow and breed horses! Also introduced him to Mr. Bean, Black Adder, and Kids In The Hall. I was thrilled when Eddie Izzard's stand-ups tumbled into the Netflix Instant... including the 2010 one! It's my responsibility as a parent to educate my children.

Young Ones is another good show. Hands up! Who likes me! Absolutely Fabulous is one of my all-time favorite shows. I'm very happy Jennifer Saunders prevented Roseanne Barr from creating an American counterpart. It would not have worked.

My actual special interests have little to do with cult television. I love old books, historical documents, cemeteries, and research. I study Medieval history (primarily Germany/France with their changing boundaries), early US history, and theology. I started genealogy because I did my own family history and realized type of research and writing was made for me. I've been a herbalist for seven years so I read a tremendous amount of botany and medical material. Very few of my books are fiction. The ones that are fiction are by Hugo or they're cult favorites from my teen years like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, or Neuromancer. These days it takes quite a bit for me to read something that wouldn't be considered boring by the general population. I was just never a fan of Danielle Steele or whoever is the popular pop authors these days.

Self improvement is also a special interest of mine. It's gotten me where I am, today.

Another special interest of mine is the movies of Tim Burton. I have been obsessed with them since January of last year. My all-time favorites are, in order: Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd. I know loads of trivia about each movie as well as information regarding the actors (esp. Johnny Depp) and Tim Burton himself.

The reason why I neglected to mention this interest in my earlier posts is because it comes and goes, and when I wrote those posts I wasn't into them at that time. I used to be obsessed with those movies 24/7, but after awhile I started getting bored with them and I memorized all the trivia about them, so there was no way to indulge my obsession anymore.

I still love my favorite characters an awful lot though, because no matter how many times I keep trying to will them out of my imaginary world, they keep coming back. Part of me always feels empty whenever they aren't there. It's like they've become a part of who I am. Every fictional character from the movies/shows I obsess over becomes one of my imaginary friends. From the characters of my favorite Tim Burton movies, to the crew of the Red Dwarf, to various forms of the Doctor ("Doctor? Doctor Who?"), and most recently the group of troublesome teens from the UK version of Skins - I form strong emotional attachments towards each of them, and in a sense, they are "real" to me. I feel incomplete and all alone when they aren't in my life.

I feel especially incomplete without Alice, because in the canon of my imaginary world, she is my long-lost fraternal twin sister. I have always felt "cheated" out of having a sister in real life, because there is a sizable age gap between myself and my "real" sisters. They were teenagers when I was a child, and thus they never bonded with me. Even nowadays, I have nothing in common with them and it's so difficult for us to understand each other. Alice fills the void in my life left by my "real" sisters. I love her more than I love them. Unlike my "real" sisters, Alice is always kind, patient and understanding towards me. We share an empathic bond, so she always knows exactly how I feel. Plus, we are the same age, so she has similar life experiences and we have more in common.

Here's a few.

[img][800:702]http://www.tonyrogers.com/images/weapons/m1a1_large2.jpg[/img]

[img][800:768]http://masterkeydalereynolds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/battleship_003.jpg[/img]

You like pictures of different stuff, SammichEater?

What!?!? How did you know that?

Just a wild guess

Calendar math: formulae/equations to compute the julian day number, i.e., the number of days elapsed since 1 January 1 4713 B.C. , which today happens to be 2455721. There is also the Rata Die, the number of days since 1 Jan 1, 734296. At the moment I'm also experiencing a huge interest in cryptography.