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    • Audio engineering. How to take a bunch of tracks that sound like hot shit and make them into beautiful music. How to record an awesome performance, probably in a shit space with shit acoustics and shit gear. How to work my "magic" on a track to somehow do the impossible. More recently, how to analyze and design analog outboard gear and digital plugins that emulate them in real time. I would do it for free if I had the time. I used to mix people's tracks on Reddit (different username) before I went back to school.
    • Music, particularly writing and playing shitty bedroom black metal guitar. So I guess not that weird other than the music choice...
    • Automation, particularly AI and Control Theory. I approach AI from a dynamic viewpoint, i.e. using machine learning to analyze and control systems that "move". I'm still working on unpacking the mathematical fundamentals of AI, especially because the dynamic applications I'm interested in require much more careful understanding of the assumptions that typical machine learning paradigms make about the input and output signals.
    • Math. Calculus, linear algebra, dynamical systems, and high- or infinite-dimensional problems. Both theory and applications. I read textbooks and watch open course lectures. I use this math to back up my intuition in all the above subjects. Even people who say they like math find my interest in the subject obsessive.

    • What the hell would constitute an “infinite dimensional problem”?

      • Any time you need to analyze or synthesize a function or signal, rather than just a set finite set of values, the problem will in general be infinite-dimensional unless you choose to approximate it. Practically, most physics problems begin as a partial differential equation, i.e. the solution is a signal depending on both time and space. Hopefully, you can use problem symmetry and extra information to reduce the dimensionality of the problem, but sometimes you can't, or you can use the inherent structure of infinite-dimensional spaces to get exact results or better approximations.

        Even if you can get the problem down to one dependent variable, a function technically needs an infinite number of parameters to be fully specified. You're in luck if your function has a simple rule like f(t) = sin(t), but you might not have access to the full rule that generated the function, or it might be too complicated to work with.

        Let's say that you have a 3-dimensional vector in space; for example, v = (1,0,-1) (relative to some coordinate system; take a Euclidean basis for concreteness). Another way to represent that information is with the following function f(n) = {1 for n=1, 0 for n=2, -1 for n=3}. You can extend this representation for (countably) infinite vectors, i.e. sequences of numbers, by allowing n in f(n) to be any integer. For example, f(n) = n can be thought of as the vector (...,-2,-1,0,1,2,...). This representation also works when you allow n to be any real number. For example, f(n) = cos(n) and g(n) = e^n can be thought of as a gigantic vector, because af(n)+bg(n) is still a "gigantic vector" and functions like that satisfy the other properties needed to treat them like gigantic vectors.

        This allows us to bring geometric concepts from space and apply them to functions. For example, we can typically define a metric to measure the distance between two functions. We can typically define a "norm" to talk about the size or energy of a signal. With a little bit of extra machinery (dot product), I can find the cosine between (real) functions and get the "angle" between them in function space. I can project a function onto another function, or a subspace of functions, using linear algebra extended to function spaces. This is how I would actually take that infinite-dimensional problem and approximate it: by projecting it onto a suitable finite basis of vectors and solving it in the approximation space.

    • Math can be so much fun. I fell in love with math after watching the linear algebra series by ThreeBlueOneBrown. Unfortunately I don't have much time to do math puzzles, because I'm too busy with programming puzzles, hacking puzzles, arduino stuff or building stuff inside or outside the house.

      • I highly recommend checking out The Bright Side of Mathematics if you want to learn more about math in some detail. His videos are a lot shorter than typical open course lectures covering the same material, but you still get the major results and important proofs. He has playlists on linear algebra, real analysis, probability, and tons of more technical topics. IMO if I need to learn high-level math in a short time, he's where I go first.

        Also, despite the channel name, he has both bright and dark versions of all his videos so my eyeballs don't melt.

        3Blue1Brown is great too.

  • I've been out of it for a while now, but I spent a number of years Nerfsmithing. Which is to say, I modified Nerf blasters. I upgraded the internals to get longer range and higher rates of fire. My real fun, though, was modifying the exteriors to see just how silly I could get. I made a lot of different designs, but below is my masterpiece.

    I attached a real red dot sight, after carefully painting it to look like a Nerf accessory. I attached a real laser sight and tactical light, after mounting them inside the case of what had been an official Nerf light. The 10-round straight magazine was replaced with a 35-round drum magazine. A rifle strap (in bright yellow) and a Nerf bipod finished off the main unit (a Nerf Stampede).

    Then I attached a Nerf Magnus pistol, still fully functional, as a front grip. And I attached a Nerf Zombie Strike Machete under that as a bayonet.

    It looks overbuilt and ridiculous, which is what I was trying for, but it was also an absolute terror in the office Nerf wars. I had a lot of fun building it.

  • My actual is philosophy of psychiatry/psychology/science in autism.

    The more I read and learn in this field the more I think people should begin with it before diving in the autism topic itself. Researchers did and still do atrocious research in autism without acknowledging conflict of interest, taking ethics in account, breaking basic human rights, "finding the question when having the answer", etc. A lot of what could be read on autism is just bad.

  • My best friend was an usher at Dollywood, and freaking loves flashlights. Collects them and has a shit ton.

    I like crafting. Anything with fabric or yarn or thread.

  • Restoring and collecting mechanical calculating machines and slide rules. I was abysmal in math at school, but I love those implements.

  • I think I have quite a few perfectly ordinary hobbies that share a couple common odd quirks/common themes.

    1. I like to make things for myself, and

    2, I quite like small, compact things.

    For example, I built my own computer, a Ryzen 3600/GeForce 1080 machine...in a very small case, a Fractal Node 202. I have a gaming PC the size of a VCR. Hell even my keyboard is surprisingly compact. I'm not one of those nuts with like a 64 key board or whatnot, i use a Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro M. It has a numpad, but lacks the arrow keys. They've been grafted fairly cleverly into the numpad to preserve the layout you're used to. It's a fully functional board with 13 fewer keys.

    My wood shop is a 10x12 shed on the corner of my property, into which I have crammed a table saw, jointer, planer, drill press, router table, miter saw, a laundry list of hand tools, measuring and layout tools, clamps, cans of finish, a rack for stock, and a decent workbench. It can be a little difficult to work inside the building, but unpacking into the hard just in front gives me a very functional workspace in which I've turned out a couple of birch bookshelves and a pair of oak and pine end tables, among other smaller projects.

  • Don't know if it's a hobby, but I'm fascinated with exoplanets, specifically exoplanets that might be inhabited with intelligent life (as we know it).

    Every year I will spend several hours catching up on the latest exoplanet discoveries/news, and try my hand at crunching numbers to predict the number of intelligent species in the Milky Way right now.

    The cool thing about this is that each time I play catch-up the numbers get a bit clearer. When I started about 15 years ago many of the nested filters to whittle down the final count were very fuzzy, to the point of just being very vague guesses (I think I usually go with 0.1% of planets from the prior filter in that situation). But it seemed like each time I review the latest data the next filter down gets clear. When I say filter I'm taking about things like: planet exists in the habitable zone of its parent star; planet is far enough away to not be in a locked orbit; planet (or large moon) is big enough to have a molten core (and thus a magnetosphere), etc, etc).

    Of course, none of this means we'll ever necessarily meet another species (space is so absurdly vast). But it's fun to ponder nonetheless.

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