What is your current special interest?

[Sunny1]

My current special interests are tesselations and Mike Posner's music which I have been listening to on loop for weeks. What are yours? And do you have a long-standing special interest that you revert to as a default?

 

[Forest Cat]

Since it's spring, I'm deeply immersed in my garden. I have done a lot in a few weeks and I have high hopes of getting almost everything done and finished this summer. It's a lot of work but I love doing it.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

The fact is,...most things interest me. My internet and streaming viewing is 90+% documentary and/or scientific in nature. It's a knowledge hunger that cannot be satisfied.

Lately, though
1. Collecting rare, unusual, and beautiful orchids
2. Neurally Adjusted Ventilatory Assist (NAVA) and understanding how brain signals propagate and can be analyzed graphically during various respiratory activities.
3. The technologies that will assist us in our transition away from a "fossil fuel"-based energy economy.

 

[LuxLuca]

My current special interest are some online games. Most notably Sky; Children of light.

 

[Thinx]

Gardening. Raising plants from seed. Compost. Poly tunnels. Cold frames. Autism. Diversity. Creative writing. Psychology Fiction/fantasy fiction. Films. The weather. Wild flowers and herbs. Books. The sea. Beaches. Maps.

 

[KimS]

Watching Andre Tarkovsky's films
Learning Russian for several reasons, including to watch Tarkovsky without subtitles because I don't want to miss a word of his genius
Reading The Story Paradox by Jonathan Gottschall
Rereading The War of Art by Steve Pressfield
Researching animal cognition for next book, particularly hive insects

Oh, I'll happily talk Bridgeton, but I'll try to talk you into watching Sanditon, too!

 

[Nervous Rex]

My current special interests are tesselations and Mike Posner's music which I have been listening to on loop for weeks. What are yours? And do you have a long-standing special interest that you revert to as a default?

I'm still stuck on Rubik's cubes - making one spreadsheet after another to model different types of Rubik's cubes. I am considering making a Tutorial spreadsheet - enter in a scramble and it will walk you through how to solve it.

Regarding tessellations, do you get into Penrose patterns?
Have you gotten into 3D tessellations?

I once messed around with a "Fibonacci walk" where I converted a Fibonacci word (see here for a definition) into a series of left and right turns, e.g. 0 for a left turn and 1 for a right turn. I created settings where I could decide how many degrees to turn on each turn and how far to travel after each turn. And the result was... a tessellation!

I could get different tessellations by varying the degrees and lengths. I could get a grid of squares or a tessellation of small squares and large squares like this:


I could get a similar tessellation with three different sizes of triangles, or a hexagonal tessellation. I had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

My special interests are trilobites where not only am I learning to infer habits from morphology, I am getting together at least one from each family from the Devonian to donate to a school. And with May here, I will be doing insect surveys on local streams for a measure of water quality. That gets me back to the basis of biology . . . . taxonomy.

 

[Sunny1]

I'm still stuck on Rubik's cubes - making one spreadsheet after another to model different types of Rubik's cubes. I am considering making a Tutorial spreadsheet - enter in a scramble and it will walk you through how to solve it.

Regarding tessellations, do you get into Penrose patterns?
Have you gotten into 3D tessellations?

I once messed around with a "Fibonacci walk" where I converted a Fibonacci word (see here for a de

I'm still stuck on Rubik's cubes - making one spreadsheet after another to model different types of Rubik's cubes. I am considering making a Tutorial spreadsheet - enter in a scramble and it will walk you through how to solve it.

Regarding tessellations, do you get into Penrose patterns?
Have you gotten into 3D tessellations?

I once messed around with a "Fibonacci walk" where I converted a [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_word']Fibonacci word (see here for a definition)

into a series of left and right turns, e.g. 0 for a left turn and 1 for a right turn. I created settings where I could decide how many degrees to turn on each turn and how far to travel after each turn. And the result was... a tessellation!

I could get different tessellations by varying the degrees and lengths. I could get a grid of squares or a tessellation of small squares and large squares like this:
View attachment 78881

I could get a similar tessellation with three different sizes of triangles, or a hexagonal tessellation. I had a lot of fun with it.

finition)[/URL] into a series of left and right turns, e.g. 0 for a left turn and 1 for a right turn. I created settings where I could decide how many degrees to turn on each turn and how far to travel after each turn. And the result was... a tessellation!

I could get different tessellations by varying the degrees and lengths. I could get a grid of squares or a tessellation of small squares and large squares like this:
View attachment 78881

I could get a similar tessellation with three different sizes of triangles, or a hexagonal tessellation. I had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Sunny1]

I love it! I am not even to baby steps yet compared to all of that! I'm going to have to read a lot of subtopics to try and get a lot of it. (-:
"Regarding tessellations, do you get into Penrose patterns?
Have you gotten into 3D tessellations?" I'll have to look those up. Thanks for letting me know that they existed. Thanks for sharing all of that!

 

[Luca]

Does anyone even need to guess at this point?

 

[Sunny1]

My special interests are trilobites where not only am I learning to infer habits from morphology, I am getting together at least one from each family from the Devonian to donate to a school. And with May here, I will be doing insect surveys on local streams for a measure of water quality. That gets me back to the basis of biology . . . . taxonomy.

That is so cool! It sparks joy!

 

[Darkkin]

Tessellation Poetry. Triple prime count. Envelope tercet. Ten minute scribble over lunch. Five minutes here, fifteen there. Snatches of oddments and bits of bright. They add up, steadily. When someone asks what does fifteen minutes yield, this and hundreds more. Pattern after pattern. It is a living logic puzzle.


At Deep End of Ocean

Wander as the sidewalks fall
and listen as a rabbit would—
but few hear Deep End call

The secret of waves passed
through that tide pool door
fables etched in briny glass

Deep End of Ocean calls
as a rabbit cast in glass
leaps to the sky and falls

down…
down…
down…

As clouds of jellyfish fly…

Flocks shepherded by Phi
upon the Maple Ray, Leaf
monsters of marvels freed

A flight of Golden Herons
stroke through Ishtar’s blue
to pass o’er the Lily barrens

Turtle now brings her light
of quicksilver ebb and flow
as Nod the 3rd holds on tight

To and fro back side down
through schools of squid
called by a selkie’s round

In a pelt of odd toxic white
the littlest Glass Girl weaves
a dark tale, wickedly bright

As goats graze in the trees
where Gorse and Heather
frolic running on a breeze

Wander as sidewalks fall
so listen as a rabbit would—
be the few, heed the Call

 

[SusanLR]

My default special interest is rocks.

As of right now, there are bird's nests in the bushes all around the perimeter of the house.
Learning the bird's lives is a specail interest now.
Watching them as they build the nests. Laying one egg per day until there are four.
How they defend the nest and fight off other birds that come near it.

I seem to have a trustful connection with birds and can check on each one's progress up close
daily. They do not attack me nor do they mind I come around checking. They do not run off
or abandon nests as I check them daily.
Mainly there are Cardinals, Mockingbirds, Bluejays, Brown Thrush and a pair of Blue wing Teal ducks.
It is a critical time as they cannot ward off snakes and neither can I.

I have big pots of milkweed on the patio for the Monarchs. Wonderful to observe from egg
to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.

Six tree frogs live in the screened cage around the pool. I raise superworms and the beetles
needed to continue the cycle, so I always have food to give them. The secret life of frogs.
I could write a book. Unbelievable.

So wildlife observation has taken over right now.
Also tending my gardens and growing orchids.

 

[AprilR]

Chinese culture

 

[Forest Cat]

Chinese culture

That reminds me, I do sort of have a special interest in American culture and maybe especially American car culture. I think it comes from growing up in a tiny country with silly, ugly cars and a little less freedom and then I look at the vastness of the US and all the stuff they have over there that we don't have here and I think wow.. I want that.

 

[Luca]

That reminds me, I do sort of have a special interest in American culture and maybe especially American car culture. I think it comes from growing up in a tiny country with silly cars and a little less freedom and then I look at the vastness of the US and all the stuff they have over there that we don't have here and I think wow.. I want that.

And I have an interest in the culture from your part of the world! Especially your traditional music.
And I would love very much to go hiking in Norway. I think Scandinavia is one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

And I’m American, and there are some parts of our own culture that I don’t like Lol

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I'm still stuck on Rubik's cubes - making one spreadsheet after another to model different types of Rubik's cubes. I am considering making a Tutorial spreadsheet - enter in a scramble and it will walk you through how to solve it.

Regarding tessellations, do you get into Penrose patterns?
Have you gotten into 3D tessellations?

I once messed around with a "Fibonacci walk" where I converted a Fibonacci word (see here for a definition) into a series of left and right turns, e.g. 0 for a left turn and 1 for a right turn. I created settings where I could decide how many degrees to turn on each turn and how far to travel after each turn. And the result was... a tessellation! to \

I could get different tessellations by varying the degrees and lengths. I could get a grid of squares or a tessellation of small squares and large squares like this:
View attachment 78881

I could get a similar tessellation with three different sizes of triangles, or a hexagonal tessellation. I had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Nervous Rex]

So, my special interest is always math-related. I always have a small (or medium, or large) math problem to play with. The problem is that I will get interested in one, then find another interesting problem before I finish the first one. So, my list in my head is currently:

1) Finish adding 6x6x6 through 10x10x10 Rubik's cubes to my modelling spreadsheet.
1a) I'm consider making a version of that spreadsheet which will work out how to do any size cube formulaically. Currently, I'm manually creating a model for each type of cube. I might be able to automate it, but it will take hours and hours to work out the formulas.
1b) Consider making a tutorial spreadsheet that will take a scrambled cube and walk you through the steps of solving it.

2) When I finish with all that cube nonsense, I want to return to writing a program to calculate all the possible board states in a game of Quoridor. I have calculations for all the possible wall arrangements, but that doesn't take into account pawn placement. I worked out how to do it, but then I got distracted with Item 1, above.

3) When I finish with that Quoridor nonsense, I want to return to working on my program to use chromatic polynomials to do video poker optimal play. I was making good progress, but then I realized I could figure out how to solve Item 2, above, and started on that.

4) If I ever get that far in my list, I want to see if I can make the my chromatic polynomial engine faster. It does some cool math, but it eats memory like a starving hyena and is way too slow for my liking.

5) Sometime, I want to publish items 2 through 4 - but not until I'm sure they're ready for prime time.

 

[Forest Cat]

So, my special interest is always math-related. I always have a small (or medium, or large) math problem to play with. The problem is that I will get interested in one, then find another interesting problem before I finish the first one. So, my list in my head is currently:

1) Finish adding 6x6x6 through 10x10x10 Rubik's cubes to my modelling spreadsheet.
1a) I'm consider making a version of that spreadsheet which will work out how to do any size cube formulaically. Currently, I'm manually creating a model for each type of cube. I might be able to automate it, but it will take hours and hours to work out the formulas.
1b) Consider making a tutorial spreadsheet that will take a scrambled cube and walk you through the steps of solving it.

2) When I finish with all that cube nonsense, I want to return to writing a program to calculate all the possible board states in a game of Quoridor. I have calculations for all the possible wall arrangements, but that doesn't take into account pawn placement. I worked out how to do it, but then I got distracted with Item 1, above.

3) When I finish with that Quoridor nonsense, I want to return to working on my program to use chromatic polynomials to do video poker optimal play. I was making good progress, but then I realized I could figure out how to solve Item 2, above, and started on that.

4) If I ever get that far in my list, I want to see if I can make the my chromatic polynomial engine faster. It does some cool math, but it eats memory like a starving hyena and is way to slow for my liking.

5) Sometime, I want to publish items 2 through 4 - but not until I'm sure they're ready for prime time.

I think you would love the movies Cube and Hypercube.