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What's Your Special Interests?

Luger999

Active Member
Hi everyone, I created this thread to know more about everyone here. So what subjects do you like?

I like animation, western martial arts and fantasy/scifi stories.
 
I love literally any activity where I get to build or make something. At work, it's programming and math. At home, I write children's poems, I bake cookies, I build stuff for our yard (shed, play set, patio covering, etc.). Lately, I've gotten into Metal Earth models. I also love playing with the "Ball of Whacks" magnetic toys and buckyballs (magnetic balls).

Anywhere we travel, I look for used bookstores. I'll buy and read any old books on math or poetry.

I like old math books because they have tricks for doing math in your head that we have forgotten since calculators came out.

I don't like serious, deep poetry. I like the silly, nonsensical stuff, like Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, Gillette Burgess, etc. When I like a poem, I memorize it so I can have it anytime I want.
 
I love literally any activity where I get to build or make something. At work, it's programming and math. At home, I write children's poems, I bake cookies, I build stuff for our yard (shed, play set, patio covering, etc.). Lately, I've gotten into Metal Earth models. I also love playing with the "Ball of Whacks" magnetic toys and buckyballs (magnetic balls).

Anywhere we travel, I look for used bookstores. I'll buy and read any old books on math or poetry.

I like old math books because they have tricks for doing math in your head that we have forgotten since calculators came out.

I don't like serious, deep poetry. I like the silly, nonsensical stuff, like Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, Gillette Burgess, etc. When I like a poem, I memorize it so I can have it anytime I want.
Dam you must be genius. Im starting to think that your a reincarnated polymath from the Renaissance period :)
 
Machinery, the bigger and more complex, the better. See avatar.
 
Dam you must be genius. Im starting to think that your a reincarnated polymath from the Renaissance period :)

Like most of us here, I have my gifts and my deficits. The nice thing about being diagnosed is that I get to keep my gifts and try to improve my deficits.

I used to think I was a one-trick pony - that all I was good for was programming. Then I had to build a play set for my son and I discovered how much I enjoyed it. And one day, I couldn’t get a phrase out of my head, so I wrote a poem about it. Over time, one situation after another forced me to try to do new things, and I discovered how much I can actually do.
 
Sports, sports statistics, film, and health diseases. I learned how to make iPhone apps, but I don’t have the programming obsession. I wish I do, but when the idea I have isn’t working or the app crashes, it’s emotionaly and physically painful. I really wish I get obsessed with programming, but I can’t.
 
Like most of us here, I have my gifts and my deficits. The nice thing about being diagnosed is that I get to keep my gifts and try to improve my deficits.

I used to think I was a one-trick pony - that all I was good for was programming. Then I had to build a play set for my son and I discovered how much I enjoyed it. And one day, I couldn’t get a phrase out of my head, so I wrote a poem about it. Over time, one situation after another forced me to try to do new things, and I discovered how much I can actually do.
Have you tried creating a project for people to use regarding your programming?
 
Have you tried creating a project for people to use regarding your programming?

No. Most of the programs I write in my free time are to try to solve some interesting math problem.

As for writing something for others to use, I'm genuinely terrible at any UI (user interface) work. I can make the program run and do its thing, but the UI would need to be defined by someone more artsy/visual than me.
 
No. Most of the programs I write in my free time are to try to solve some interesting math problem.

As for writing something for others to use, I'm genuinely terrible at any UI (user interface) work. I can make the program run and do its thing, but the UI would need to be defined by someone more artsy/visual than me.

What language do you use for the math problems? I learned a little bit of Python when I wanted to make a program for predicting sports results from the betting spreads, but I couldn’t find a free API. I realized if someone has figured it out how to beat Vegas it would be breaking news, so I gave up on that idea. Do you have an opinion if that’s actually possible? If I accumulate enough info about, let’s say 5 years worth of betting spreads, is it possible to make a program that can possibly beat the betting lines of Vegas?

I’m sorry, sports and gambling is one of my obsessions.
 
What language do you use for the math problems? I learned a little bit of Python when I wanted to make a program for predicting sports results from the betting spreads, but I couldn’t find a free API. I realized if someone has figured it out how to beat Vegas it would be breaking news, so I gave up on that idea. Do you have an opinion if that’s actually possible? If I accumulate enough info about, let’s say 5 years worth of betting spreads, is it possible to make a program that can possibly beat the betting lines of Vegas?

I’m sorry, sports and gambling is one of my obsessions.

Python is great for little projects. You can get started immediately and just start writing code without setting up project files and stuff. It's an Interpreted language, not a Compiled one, so running something that does a lot of math won't be as fast. Python has some terrific libraries for doing math (NumPy and SciPy), but I'm not fluent enough to use them. I write all my personal projects in C or C++.

Funny you should ask about Vegas. I live in Nevada and work in the gambling industry. I work on the math for those games and it's my job to make sure there's no way for players to game the system. I like to tell people: "There are two ways to make money on slot machines - be the company that makes them or the casino that runs them."

If you want to really investigate the odds of specific games:
1) Google "Wizard of Odds". This guy does reviews and math analyses of all the popular games. He'll find ways to increase your payback, but can't get you over 100%.
2) Google "Advantage Players" - there are forums where people share any bugs or unintended weaknesses that slot games have, looking for the advantage that'll tip the scales in their favor. These "advantages" never last long because the slot machine companies also read the forums and fix things as soon as they're discovered.
3) You're right. When someone does figure out how to beat a machine, it is indeed breaking news: Meet Alex, the Russian Casino Hacker Who Makes Millions Targeting Slot Machines (This guy is smart, but not as smart as he says. No one can just look at random numbers and "feel" the what's next or the underlying formula.) This guy was caught 3+ years ago, and the industry has closed that loophole.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...ttery-worker-pleads-guilty-to-xx-in-wisconsin - From 6+ years ago. I thought this kind of stupid only happened in movies.
 
That’s interesting. That’s probably one thing that would make me code all day, if I feel like I can beat a casino and make money. But I guess not with smart people like you guarding against it.
Python is great for little projects. You can get started immediately and just start writing code without setting up project files and stuff. It's an Interpreted language, not a Compiled one, so running something that does a lot of math won't be as fast. Python has some terrific libraries for doing math (NumPy and SciPy), but I'm not fluent enough to use them. I write all my personal projects in C or C++.

Funny you should ask about Vegas. I live in Nevada and work in the gambling industry. I work on the math for those games and it's my job to make sure there's no way for players to game the system. I like to tell people: "There are two ways to make money on slot machines - be the company that makes them or the casino that runs them."

If you want to really investigate the odds of specific games:
1) Google "Wizard of Odds". This guy does reviews and math analyses of all the popular games. He'll find ways to increase your payback, but can't get you over 100%.
2) Google "Advantage Players" - there are forums where people share any bugs or unintended weaknesses that slot games have, looking for the advantage that'll tip the scales in their favor. These "advantages" never last long because the slot machine companies also read the forums and fix things as soon as they're discovered.
3) You're right. When someone does figure out how to beat a machine, it is indeed breaking news: Meet Alex, the Russian Casino Hacker Who Makes Millions Targeting Slot Machines (This guy is smart, but not as smart as he says. No one can just look at random numbers and "feel" the what's next or the underlying formula.) This guy was caught 3+ years ago, and the industry has closed that loophole.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...ttery-worker-pleads-guilty-to-xx-in-wisconsin - From 6+ years ago. I thought this kind of stupid only happened in movies.
 
I used to think I was a one-trick pony - that all I was good for was programming.

I've always been envious of people who can program even simple things. I could never get my head 'round it. What I'm better at though is designing and building if I have the tools that can do the complicated work. Someone once told me that I might be able to wrap my head around assembly if I ever had a reason to do so, but I don't want to tempt that and I see little reason to try at this point anyway.

As my name here implies, I am a musical phonatic. Not so much in bands and groups and songs, but in music-making. I love exploring different synthesizers from the 80s and 90s, and also by extension of that, exploring the sound chips of various third and fourth generation game consoles (nes, snes, PC Engine, Megadrive etc.) I tend to favor things that use samples or short recordings of real sounds as their source, but I am fascinated by all of it. I'm not technical enough to reverse engineer or do fancy things that are on the edges of the design (though I do learn bits and pieces of technical theory as I go along), but I do like trying to design sounds and music for them which sound at least as good as things which inspire me. I like acoustic music too though, so trying to emulate that with synths is also something I find entertaining and fun. Whether that interest in synthesizers will become something is anyone's guess at this point.
 
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As my name here implies, I am a musical phonatic. Not so much in bands and groups and songs, but in music-making.

The stuff I can do doesn't impress me because I know how I do it. Stuff I can't do really impresses me, and that includes all music and art. Anything that you can do with music will blow me away.
 
The stuff I can do doesn't impress me because I know how I do it. Stuff I can't do really impresses me, and that includes all music and art. Anything that you can do with music will blow me away.

Haha you wouldn't be the first to say that. That's exactly how I feel about programming, so if someone decides to criticize something for having all these bugs or not being advanced enough, a part of me wants to side with the developer simply because they've done something I don't think I could ever do, even if in the grand scheme of things they did a very poor job or didn't know at all what they were doing. At least they did something I couldn't.

I often find with video game music at least, where rips of the music data from the rom are available and you can pick it apart and figure out how a lot of things were done, that I find myself becoming less impressed as I become more familiar with how the hardware and sound chip design worked. I wouldn't say I found good music to be boring in any way, just the wow/curiosity factor is gone. I guess that's more a music/art thing though. With that said, I know there is an art and creativity to programming, so maybe those feelings are more similar between the two fields than I initially might've thought.

I do remember as a child being outright obsessed about why people had different tallents and I asked repeatedly if there was a definitive scientific reason why they existed. I couldn't understand why so few people shared that musical interest with me when everyone else seemed to be finding good friends who shared their interests all the time. I didn't realize that my interest went way deeper than most other kids, that's something I had to learn a little later I think. Anyway, I think my loneliness contributed a lot to my obsession with wondering about why talents existed. Ever since those childhood thoughts, I've always had a special place in my heart for aspies and other people who get really obsessive about a topic and allow their life to revolve around it pretty much. I sometimes wonder if they felt/feel lonely like I did because they just didn't know anyone who could connect with them.
 
Haha you wouldn't be the first to say that. That's exactly how I feel about programming, so if someone decides to criticize something for having all these bugs or not being advanced enough, a part of me wants to side with the developer simply because they've done something I don't think I could ever do, even if in the grand scheme of things they did a very poor job or didn't know at all what they were doing. At least they did something I couldn't.

I often find with video game music at least, where rips of the music data from the rom are available and you can pick it apart and figure out how a lot of things were done, that I find myself becoming less impressed as I become more familiar with how the hardware and sound chip design worked. I wouldn't say I found good music to be boring in any way, just the wow/curiosity factor is gone. I guess that's more a music/art thing though. With that said, I know there is an art and creativity to programming, so maybe those feelings are more similar between the two fields than I initially might've thought.

I do remember as a child being outright obsessed about why people had different tallents and I asked repeatedly if there was a definitive scientific reason why they existed. I couldn't understand why so few people shared that musical interest with me when everyone else seemed to be finding good friends who shared their interests all the time. I didn't realize that my interest went way deeper than most other kids, that's something I had to learn a little later I think. Anyway, I think my loneliness contributed a lot to my obsession with wondering about why talents existed. Ever since those childhood thoughts, I've always had a special place in my heart for aspies and other people who get really obsessive about a topic and allow their life to revolve around it pretty much. I sometimes wonder if they felt/feel lonely like I did because they just didn't know anyone who could connect with them.

You should criticize a programmer for bugs, that’s the most important part of a programmer is fixing bugs. If a programmer leaves bugs in their program, it’s laziness not a lack of skill. If I can’t find a fix on a bug in my program, I remove the feature. I don’t just leave it.
 
You should criticize a programmer for bugs, that’s the most important part of a programmer is fixing bugs. If a programmer leaves bugs in their program, it’s laziness not a lack of skill. If I can’t find a fix on a bug in my program, I remove the feature. I don’t just leave it.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to imply that bugs should stay. I'm just saying that I appreciate the effort that goes into what was already done, and will not just stop using something because a bug isn't fixed. It could be caused by the programmer simply being an amateur, a bug in the language interpreter, or even drivers or operating system etc. Of course they could just as well be lazy excuses. But like you said, removing the feature is best if the bug can't be fixed.

It also depends on how much productivity I anticipate getting from the program. If it's something I absolutely need, then bugs of course aren't taken lightly. For something really obscure and meant just for hobbiest experimentation, you can't be too choosy or you will end up dismissing a number of things that you might find useful, at least in my experience. It's those sort of programs I tend to gravitate towards, so maybe that also contributes to me being more lenient with programmers.
 
I've always been envious of people who can program even simple things. I could never get my head 'round it. What I'm better at though is designing and building if I have the tools that can do the complicated work. Someone once told me that I might be able to wrap my head around assembly if I ever had a reason to do so, but I don't want to tempt that and I see little reason to try at this point anyway.

As my name here implies, I am a musical phonatic. Not so much in bands and groups and songs, but in music-making. I love exploring different synthesizers from the 80s and 90s, and also by extension of that, exploring the sound chips of various third and fourth generation game consoles (nes, snes, PC Engine, Megadrive etc.) I tend to favor things that use samples or short recordings of real sounds as their source, but I am fascinated by all of it. I'm not technical enough to reverse engineer or do fancy things that are on the edges of the design (though I do learn bits and pieces of technical theory as I go along), but I do like trying to design sounds and music for them which sound at least as good as things which inspire me. I like acoustic music too though, so trying to emulate that with synths is also something I find entertaining and fun. Whether that interest in synthesizers will become something is anyone's guess at this point.

What programming language did you try learning programming? Because there are really easy languages that has been released lately. I learned Swift for iOS programmer which was released 3 years ago by Apple, and that’s usable for every Apple product like Apple Watch and Apple TV. For Android device, there’s a new language called Kotlin, which is apparently also very easy to learn. If you’re really curious about programming you should give it a second shot, because there are new languages that are very easy to learn.
 

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