1. List your special interest(s) 2. Give 5 facts about each

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(Orthodox) Judaism

1. The curls/long locks of hair that Orthodox Jews have by their ears are called "Peyot" or "Peyos".

2. It is the year 5773 in the Hebrew Calendar.

3. There are 12 months in the Hebrew Calendar; Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar. Though an extra is added on leap years.

4. The fringes that Orthodox men and boys wear under clothes their clothes are called "tzitzit".

5. The Rambam- the 13th Century Philosopher outlined the 13 principles of faith.

Programming ( C++ )

A pointer and an array is basically the same thing.

The only difference between a class and an array is that a struct default to public access / inheritance whereas class defaults to private access / inheritance.

The compiler will optimize const members

C++ does not check your boundaries for you, meaning you can access a memory location where anything can be stored

Preincrement ( ++i; ) is always faster than postincrement ( i++; )

I love going to Jerusalem to take photos of them, also of Christian and Muslim religious clothes. It's one of my special interests.

But my main one nowadays is STRAY CATS.

Cats are autistic in that:

1. they don't comprehend hierarchies and they believe circumstances change all the time and with them who is in power.

2. they don't like to look you in the eye and they hate it for you to look in their eye. It's a threat.

3. they don't love unconditionally - logic overrides feeling in cats. If you treat them bad, they'll leave however much they love you.

4. they have no group-think. They're more drawn by their inner truth than the opinion of the group. They don't lose their unique personalities in the group.

5. they have a rich enough inner life that they can be alone even forever without going crazy.

6. they have hyper-focus and get confused when there's stimuli coming from more than one source.

7. they're mesmerized by running water.

Sorry I posted more than 5...

A certain bus company (will not mention any names because I know some smart-arse will come along and say ''oh I heard of that company, and I heard it's [insert bad news here].'' It's just that sometimes I believe that ignorance is bliss).

1. The people running it are w*kers and have altered the driver's contracts so now I can't see my 3 favourite ones that I talk to

2. It's rather a small company but seems to have so many drivers I've never seen before each week

3. It's a rather reliable company, their buses generally run on time

4. It is not a snobby company, like FirstGroup

5. The drivers (who they've changed around) are the most friendliest bus-drivers you could ever wish for

My current special interest is in fact ASDs, so I will skip that one as you all know that stuff I am sure

Another is fertility/pregnancy:

1. A woman ovulates once per cycle, though sometimes they can ovulate twice at the same time - if both eggs are fertilised then this becomes fraternal twins.

2. It is said that women ovulate on cycle day 14, yet this is not necessarily true. Women can ovulate on any cycle day, and if a woman is irregular, then it is her ovulation date that generally changes. It is usual that a woman's cycle ends 14 days after ovulation, however not always either. The time between ovulation and the end of the cycle is called the LMP - some women can have a short LMP which makes it harder to get pregnant. Some women can have a longer LMP.

3. A woman can chart her cycles by taking her temperature every morning - her BBT (basal body temperature). This is taken as soon as one wakes up as it is the closest accurate temperature. Generally speaking, there is a shift in temperatures after ovulation. There should be a certain level of temperature before ovulation, and then, the day after ovulation, there is called a "temp spike". This is where the temperature rises around 0.4 of a degree (celcius). Temperature then generally stay elevated after ovulation until a "temp dip" around the end of one's cycle [generally]

4. There can be certain events on a chart if a woman is pregnant (these can also happen in a non-pregnant cycle too). There can be what is called an "Implantation Dip" and "Implantation spotting". After conception of the sperm and egg, it then needs to implant into the wall of the uterus (some women can conceive, but then have issues with implantation and hence lose their "pregnancy"). Sometimes there can be a small spot of blood from the implantation process between days 6-11 days post ovulation (dpo). There can also be a huge dip in temperature on one day around this time. Women can feel excited by this event as it can indicate pregnancy. There can also be an event named a "triphasic chart". This is where, after implantation, the temperatures can go up to a new higher level than before creating a new temperature shift.

5. Sperm can remain inside a woman for up to 6 days. If an egg is released (ovulation) within this time, a woman can fall pregnant. The egg has got 24 hours to be fertilised. Some women can get very in tune with their bodies and "feel" symptoms around the time of ovulation. There is a pain called "mittelschwertz" where a woman can feel the pain of the egg being released from one side of her ovaries (it alternates side to side each cycle). There can be other signs also, different for each woman.

Those were hopefully the non TMI facts (though maybe still TMI for some ). I spent 15 months trying to conceive my Son, so in typical Aspie style, I was completely and utterly obsessed with it It is amazing how few women know all of this though, and how important it really is!

Playgrounds
1) Every playground must have safety surfacing.(Mulch, wood chips, rubber pieces, pur n'place, synthetic turf)
2) There are special ADA accessible swings and monkey bars.
3) There are different play structures for different age groups.( 2-. 2-5. 5-12. 2-12)
4) Some playground have musical instruments such as rain wheels, bongo drums, whistles, and horns.
5) Playgrounds cost $1,000's for even the smallest play structure.

Toilets
1) There are urinals for women.
2) Urinals for women were created in the 1950's and are very rarely seen but few are still in working condition.
3) In Asia, the toilet is a squat toilet or a ceramic coated hole in the ground with a flusher where you put your feet on the sides, bend and squat.
4) There are special plugs to temporarily stop automatic flushers. These are used by sticking it on the automatic scanner to stop.
5) There are some energy saver toilets with green handles or 2 buttons to save water when going #1.

Music
1) The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located in Cleveland Ohio.
2) Chicago the band was never accepted into the rock and roll hall of fame despite having 21 top 10 US singles.
3) The Eagles was the most played band back in the 1970's.
4) Elanor Rigby was the B side to Yellow Submarine
5) CCR had 10 certified singles. They are in order of release:
a) Susie Q pt. 1(Gold)-68
b) Proud Mary(Platinum)-69
c) Bad Moon Rising(Platinum)-69
d) Green River(Gold)-69
e) Down On the Corner(Platinum)-69
f) Traveling Band(Gold)-70
g) Up Around the Bend(Gold)-70
h) Looking Out My Back Door(Platinum)-70
i) Have you Ever Seen the Rain(Gold)-70
j) Sweet Hitch Hiker(Gold)-72

School
1) An=A1+(n-1)d Finding the Nth term
2) Speak easies were used during prohibition by the general public and officers to secretly have alcohol. Only certain people who wouldn't blow their cover were allowed in.
3) A Sonett has 14 lines.
4) When writing a balanced chemical equation, always write cations first, then anions. If there is more then one of the same element remember these endings: ous is the smaller number, ic is the larger number. EX Pb is lead. Plumbous and Plumbic.
5) The French college entrance exam is called le bac. There are three different exams. One focuses on science and medicine for people who want to be doctors, scientists etc. The second one is math, business, and law for people who want to become accountants and lawyers. The last one is art, music, history, language for people interested in because teachers, social workers, or artists etc. If you pass your test then all of your college is paid for by the government.

Schizophrenia
The main reason why this is one of my special interests is because I have a form called "schizoaffective disorder."
1. Schizophrenia occurs in 1 out of 100 people worldwide.
2. Schizophrenia is one of the most debilitating disorders in the world according to the World Health Organization.
3. Schizophrenia is caused by excess Dopamine in the brain, causing delusions and hallucinations.
4. There is much more involved than just hallucinations (which 70% or more hears auditory hallucinations) and delusions (typically the more bizarre types), but can also include severely disorganized speech (clanging, incoherence, loosening of associations, etc.), negative symptoms, and catatonia.
5. Schizophrenia is seen on the streets because they have no job, are completely disabled, not trusting of the government (even getting SSI), and have socialization problems. But at the same time there can be some successful stories with schizophrenia such as John Nash.

Star Citizen (an upcoming PC game.... in 2014)
1. Its being made by Chris Roberts, the man behind the amazing series of games such as Wing Commander and Privateer.
2. It will be able to use Oculus Rift, a virtual reality system to look around your cockpit... to put you RIGHT in the cockpit.
3. The money is being raised through crowdfunding (Kickstarter and their own site) and within a week on Kickstarter it met its goal of $500,000.
4. It has a single player campaign, typical multiplayer and also MMO like multiplayer.
5. It is being developed on the CryEngine 3, which makes for some awesomely realistic graphics (CryEngine 3 was used on Crysis 2 and the upcoming Crysis 3).

Ha. Good idea for topic.

Let's go for... science fiction and fantasy books:

1. Robert Jordan is a pseudonym for James Oliver Rigney Jr. He is best known for his many volumed series The Wheel of Time; a series that is now being completed posthumously in his stead by Brandon Sanderson, as Rigney died before he was able to finish the series himself.

2. Larry Niven's Ringworld is speculative take on the idea of Dyson spheres. A Dyson sphere, put simply, is a series of solar power satellites placed in such a way as to encompass a star. The idea of building a habitat of this shape, while not part of the original theory, is popular in science fiction. Niven proposes dispensing with the complete globe (the usual way the idea gets used in fiction) in favour of a narrow, albiet still obscenely massive band-like structure. Ringworld is a good book, but its popularity mostly has to do with the idea of the Ringworld being kinda sorta plausible if it could be built. Plausible enough to pique the interest of people who are really into the engineering and physical parameters of how it might be done if indeed it could, in fact, be done.

3. The next book in James S.A. Corey's Expanse series is due out May 2013. James S.A. Corey is also a pseudonym but I don't recall the actual name of this author off hand. I guess he writes fantasy under his actual name?

4. Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy ends in a flagrant deus ex machina that has soiled my otherwise good memories of reading it.

5. Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is a story written around the idea of human teleportation. It is called jaunting, and is explained by nothing more than people being capable of it if they really truly believe they can do it. Also this book is all around in general awesome <-------- FACT

We need more of these special interest threads!! !! !

I have a large amount of special interests. I'm only going to list facts about the biggest/strongest ones.

I Love Lucy
1. The show debuted on October 15, 1951.
2. Carolyn Appleby had a husband named Charley and a son named Stevie.
3. Ethel really did want a toaster for her birthday.
4. George Skinner's "specialty of the house" is a cheese sandwich.
5. Lucy, Fred, and Ethel all had their birthday mentioned in an episode (#60, 75, and 106, respectively). Sadly, Ricky never had a birthday episode.

Neuropsychiatry/Bipolar Mania
1. Thorazine, the first anti-psychotic medication, was originally designed to be an antihistamine drug.
2. Thorazine's generic name is chlorpromazine.
3. John Cade discovered lithium was an anti-manic agent via experiments on guinea pigs.
4. It was recently discovered by an NMR study that lithium prevents mania by inhibiting the enzyme IPP-ase.
5. The atypical anti-psychotics got their name because they aren't solely D2 antagonists, and up until their creation, D2 antagonism was the "typical" mechanism used to quell psychosis.

Cedar Point's Roller Coasters
1. The Magnum XL-200 has a lift hill of 205 feet and a first drop of 194 feet and 8 inches.
2. Millennium Force broke 10 world records when it debuted in 2000.
3. The Raptor had the world's first cobra roll.
4. The Magnum was the first hypercoaster, Millennium Force was the first gigacoaster, and Top Thrill Dragster was the first stratacoaster.
5. The Gemini is one of only two coasters in the world to have a wooden structure but a tubular steel track.

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)

Child prodigy who was effectively bought by a wealthy land owner called Sir Peter Beckford who took him to England and sponsored him until he was 21.

Have a piano dual with Mozart. It was a draw. Mozart pinched the opening of Clementi's Piano Sonata in B flat major Op. 24 to use as the main theme in his The Magic Flute overture. Everytime Clementi republished his sonata he made a point of saying he wrote the theme 10 years earlier then Mozart.

Had a successful piano manufacturing and publishing company in London. One warehouse burnt down in 1807 and he had the full publishing rights to Beethoven's works in England.

He was one of the founders of the Philharmonic Society of London.

He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Susan Pevensie/ Anna Popplewell (the actress)

1/ The first female archer in english children's litterature

2/ They combined really to have one of the highest 'kill counts' in Prince Caspian the film

3/ The representative of the logical athiests in society throughout the book series

4/ Is the only girl to fight in the battle of the Telmarine Castle and one of few to be involved in the the Battle of Aslan's How

5/ Anna is one of the only actresses to proffesionally play a princess, a vampire, a soldier and an archress.

Doctor Who

i) including the somewhat canon disputable 1960s films and replacements of deceased actors thirteen men in total have played The Doctor on film. They are William Hartnell, Peter Cushing, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davidson, Richard Hurndall, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith.
ii) Though the character was always called "The Doctor" he was credited as "Doctor Who" until David Tennant a longtime fan of the series insisted on being credited as "The Doctor"
iii) Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker constructed most of Sarah-Jane's farewell scene themselves.
iv) Asteroid 3325 discovered in 1984 is named "TARDIS"
v) Due to a lack of foresight on the BBCs part there are 27 incomplete serials and 106 missing episodes. Attempts to restore these episodes still continue.

I have three special interests at the moment: Star Trek, dinosaurs and Asperger's. I'll give you some from Star Trek:

1. The invention of the "transporter beam" was a last-minute problem fix because the shuttle pods they were going to use on set hadn't shown up by the time they were ready to start filming, so they made up "beaming" as a way of getting the crew from the ship to planets without a space craft.

2. William Shatner (Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock) didn't used to like each other; Shatner was jealous that Nimoy often got more lines per episode than him.

3. Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel and the computer voice) was married to Gene Roddenberry for a time.

4. Shatner and Nimoy both had tinnitus (ringing in the ear), Shatner in his left ear and Nimoy in his right.

5. Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi) and Denise Crosby (Lt. Yar) originally tried out for each other's roles for The Next Generation.

6. Patrick Stewart (Capt. Picard) and Kate Mulgrew (Capt. Janeway) were both in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Oh, and Jediyoda, the actor who played Will Riker on TNG was Jonathan Frakes, not Franks , and Generations is my favourite TNG movie; I love when Data gets his emotion chip implanted.

Oh gosh. I have so many more special interests than these:

1.Middle Eastern History
- There were a few ancient Near Eastern historians. One was Manetho, an Egyptian priest toward the end of the last Egyptian dynasty. Another was Nabonidus, who was the last king of Babylon, defeated by Cyrus (Alexander the Great's father). Nabonidus rebuilt old temples as a testament to an old culture at a time when the Aramaic language was being spread into the area.
- In 642 the Library at Alexandria was burned by the Muslim invaders. Being the largest library at the time, it was a HUGE loss to the knowledge of history. Some say that this is untrue, and that Saladin falsely perpetrated the story.
- It is said that the Apostle Thomas spread Christianity all the way to India, and the group of Persian Christians in modern day Iraq are direct descendants of the first Christians there. They call themselves the Assyrian Christians, and because of conflict with the Kurds take refuge in many other foreign countries, especially Sweden.
- The ancient Egyptians had two calendars - a religious calendar and a civil/political calendar.
-It is finally been concluded that King Tut died from a bone infection after breaking his leg.

2. Archaeology
- Radiocarbon dating measures the amount of radiocarbon in organic matter. This carbon continues to accumulate and maintain a worldwide constant until the organism dies, when then the radiocarbon disintegrates at a constant rate, and the half-life of the molecule is about 5,700 years (est.). Thus, carbon dates measure how much radiocarbon is left in the organism to determine its age. The accuracy can range from + or - 30-50 years.
- Dendrochronology is the practice of measuring tree rings to determine the age of the tree as well as the climate during that tree's lifetime. It has been used on old Renaissance painting backings (where one can still see the rings) to fossilized wood in climates that no longer contain much forests (such as the Levant - modern day Israel, Syria, and Lebanon).
- Measuring isotopes found in teeth that are deposited there in life can help archaeologists determine where a person was born. This is because the oxygen ratios in the isotope remain fairly stable, and are the same as the oxygen ratios of the climate that person lived in.
- Stratigraphy and cross dating is the science of dating pottery sherds by the layers of pottery that have built up over the millennia. The newest (youngest) is on top, the oldest is the layer on top of virgin soil. Pottery that is similar in one site to pottery in another is considered contemporary, regardless of what level each site's pottery was on. This gives us a way to determine cultures that co-existed.
-The first professional archaeologist was William Flinders Petrie, who advised amateurs digging in Egypt and the Near East on how to preserve the artifacts that they dug up. He lived in the last half of the 19th century and was responsible for the preservation of a great many finds in the Near East.

1. Language (linguistics and modern language) and language preservation
- All Semitic languages (a separate family from Indo-European languages) have a three letter root from which every derivation of that letter comes. These roots are very similar across all of the Semitic languages, from Hebrew to Aramaic to Arabic to Syriac.
- Hebrew has 7 different verb patterns, which are determined by the patterns of the vowels in relation to the letters. The easiest verb pattern is Qal, or light, and is the most common pattern. Another common pattern is often called the hollow root pattern, when the "weaker" consonant in the Hebrew word drops out during conjugation, leaving a previous three letter root with only two letters to use.
- In Egypt in the Middle Ages, Jewish rabbis would place their scrolls upstairs in houses known as genizas. The famous Cairo Geniza has about 200,000 old Jewish Torahs, Mishnas, and other such writings.
- On the Rosetta stone there are three languages, making it a trilingual stone. There is Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and a precursor to Coptic (a religious tongue still preserved by Egyptian (Coptic) Christians), known as demotic. It was the Rosetta Stone that enabled scholars to break the code of hieroglyphs, because Greek was already known.
- Aramaic is an old Semitic language that was introduced into the Fertile Crescent toward the end of Babylonian history. It was commonly spoken by the Jews in the Roman era of Judea, but the Jews also kept Hebrew as their liturgical language. Parts of the book of Daniel are written in Aramaic.

I'll try to narrow it down for your own sake;
1. Atmospheric Sciences
-The most powerful wind ever observed on Earth is suspected to have been inside the F5 tornado that moved near Oklahoma City, OK on May 3rd, 1999 at approximately 318mph. It's not official since it was measured using dopplar radar rather than an anemometer, but it's commonly believed.
-The Columbus Day Storm, which affected Northern California, Oregon, Washington and into B.C., is often considered the most powerful non-tropical system to strike the United States in at least the last one hundred years. Winds gusted to 116mph in downtown Portland, 100mph in Renton, Washington (~100 miles inland from the coast) and over 130mph at multiple coastal stations with suspected gusts in excess of 179mph. It is suspected to have downed more board feet of lumber than any other event in US history and felled nearly three times the number of trees that were lost during the immense Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980.
-Approximately one inch of rain equates to ten inches of snowfall accumulation though this can vary dramatically if the snow is extremely wet or dry and powdery.
-Most people consider dust devils/whirlwinds harmless but there have been plenty of reported injuries and dust devils strong enough to be rated EF0 or low-end EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. One particular incident happened in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2000 causing damage and numerous injuries in estimated 75mph wind.
-Air temperature decreases by approximately 3.6 degrees per 1000 feet meaning that in many cold rain or mixed rain and snow events in Seattle, Washington, the top of the Columbia Center tower (1049ft above sealevel) sees accumulating snowfall.

I decided to spare you my immense knowledge of tree height records, skyscraper information, music theory and other useless crap because the weather rocks!

Psychoactive plants/drugs & Pharmacology.....

-Within us all is an endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter called Anandamide. The name is taken from the Sanskrit word ananda, which means "bliss, delight", and amide.

-LSD is non-addictive, is not known to cause brain damage, and has extremely low toxicity relative to dose, although in rare cases adverse psychiatric reactions such as anxiety or delusions are possible.

-Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust and the phlegm associated with tobacco use. Marijuana smoke effectively dilates the airways of the lungs, the bronchi, opening them to allow more oxygen into the lungs. It is also the best natural dilator of the tiny airways of the lungs, the bronchial tubes - making cannabis the best overall bronchial dilator for 80% of the population (the remaining 20% sometimes show minor negative reactions)

-There are more than 180 species of mushrooms which contain the psychedelics psilocybin or psilocin.

-DMT occurs in trace amounts in mammals, including humans. It is originally derived from the essential amino acid tryptophan and ultimately produced by the enzyme INMT during normal metabolism. The significance of its widespread natural presence remains undetermined. Structurally, DMT is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin, the hormone melatonin, and other psychedelic tryptamines,