What fascinates you?

ricero

The Nazis fascinate me. I find it intresting in how they brainwashed so many and their beleifs and secrets they kept

applehunter

The human brain.

eyesight.

Comedy.

Geography.

Princess Peach

ricero wrote: »

The Nazis fascinate me. I find it intresting in how they brainwashed so many and their beleifs and secrets they kept

I used to be really fascinated in serial killers. Watched loads if documentaries and movies and read a fee books on the subject! It's so interesting to see how they got to that point in life. Ted Bundy was my favourite.

anniehoo

Novella wrote: »

Airplanes. I actually think they're amazing.

Completely OT but had this conversation with my flatmate and she says "airplane" and me "aeroplane"!

I'm right...amn't i

girlonfire

krudler wrote: »

Space, its mind boggling how insignifigant we are in the universe, we're nothing, a speck on a speck somewhere in a galaxy, look at this picture:

I beg to differ! We are not insignificant.
Watch this fascinating video

Airplanes have always fascinated me

Pushtrak

Before coming in to this thread, I had two things in mind. Space and the depths of the oceans. The unknown, in other words is what fascinates me. krudler already emphasised the space bit really well here:

krudler wrote: »

Space, its mind boggling how insignifigant we are in the universe, we're nothing, a speck on a speck somewhere in a galaxy, look at this picture:

http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

thats 1% of our galaxy, and it contains over a billion stars. there are approx 300-400 BILLION stars in the galaxy. and thats one galaxy. then this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/HubbleUltraDeepFieldwithScaleComparison.jpg

is the Hubble ultra deep field, which is over 10,000 galaxies, each containing up to billions of stars themselves. mind=blown.

The depths of the oceans is fascinating. I haven't looked much in to the topic, but further to what krudler pointed out here:

The sea, only a tiny percentage of it has been explored by man, its inhospitable to our species yet it has the greatest amount of life on the planet in it. from barely visible organisms to something like the blue whale, its a good thing we still dont have massive sea creatures like in prehistoric times, 50 foot sharks? no thanks : http://orangemonk.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/megalodon_scale1.png

I will show what awe-struck me. http://i.imgur.com/ESp2j.jpg

What is pretty funny about all this is I can't swim, and all I don't react well to heights. Well, more the fear of falling from said heights would be more accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Neo_1LGVqE

The Wow Signal is fascinating. Though not so much as the ones above. An interesting discussion could be had on it, but this isn't the place for it.

Eve_Dublin

South America....yep...the whole continent. Spent 11 months there and have been obsessed ever since. The music, the people, the history, the landscape, the languages, the food, their way of socialising and their way of interacting...


I'm forever reading up on it...thought Spain would be kind of similar before I moved here but it's not in the slightest...lots of South Americans here though, which I love.

Hopefully when I get the funds together, I'll head over there again for while...



And I've recently become a little obsessed with the writer Colm Toibín. Have almost finished all his books. He's phenomenal. I might even reread them all.

paul_mcshane

the size of the universe and how astronomers can really know how far away stars and plannets are , i sometimes think they are spoofing when they say it would take fifty thousand years to get to the nearest star , how can they be sure its not forty five thousand , big difference

Enkidu

paul_mcshane wrote: »

the size of the universe and how astronomers can really know how far away stars and plannets are , i sometimes think they are spoofing when they say it would take fifty thousand years to get to the nearest star , how can they be sure its not forty five thousand , big difference

By measuring the distance by a variety of methods, triangulation ,e.t.c. Same as knowing how far away the moon is or New York.

Randy Anders

Drugs like lsd and dmt really fascinate me

It is absolutely bonkers that people who smoke dmt have such similar experiences. An extremely high percentage of users experience a completely different world where they feel like they have being in contact with an 'alien' life form

It may sound really wierd but when I tried dmt it genuinely felt like the most real feeling ive ever had, the visions blew my mind open and to this day I'm still in awe of the whole thing

Theres a really interesting documentary on youtube called 'Dmt- the spirit molecule' I'd recommend it to anyone interested in how psychedelics work on the brain

St.Spodo

Probably above anything else, I am fascinated by the question of how humans came into existence.

Also, as people have said, the universe is fascinating. If it is expanding, what is it expanding into? How did it come into existence? Is there someone else?

weemcd

The human brain and how people operate.
When you can see someone, but they can't see you and they start messing around because they think no one is watching.
Hip hop. Spend days listening to records over and over again, trying to decypher lyrics and take meaning for myself from them.
Professional fighting, boxing, mma, kickboxing etc. I love analysing how everything comes together, there is no answer to who is the best because it always keeps evolving. Someone is the established best, until the new guy comes along with some insane skill no one has seen before, then he becomes the established guy and the cycle repeats itself.

paul_mcshane

Enkidu wrote: »

By measuring the distance by a variety of methods, triangulation ,e.t.c. Same as knowing how far away the moon is or New York.

hardly comparing like with like , now is it , you can physically travel to new york and the moon

clintondaly

Tracker Mortgages

Boom to Bust-who has all the money?

Where is Wally

If Space is expanding-what exactly is it expanding into?

Pushtrak

paul_mcshane wrote: »

hardly comparing like with like , now is it , you can physically travel to new york and the moon

Something about establishing the distance between planets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjmjEDYqbCk

Edit: Or in text - http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/planet-distances.html

LittleBook

Bookworm85 wrote: »

From 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson. Mindblowing stuff!!

That book fascinates me, after I read it I felt like I never knew anything before.

I never get tired of this quote (and share it at every opportunity ):

Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly in ... you.

At risk of getting too philosophical, the fragility of it all, how randomly lucky each person is to be here, the ridiculous set of absurd accidents and events that created this planet and wtf we've done with it ... fascinating.

sbsquarepants

Randy Anders wrote: »

Drugs like lsd and dmt really fascinate me

It is absolutely bonkers that people who smoke dmt have such similar experiences. An extremely high percentage of users experience a completely different world where they feel like they have being in contact with an 'alien' life form

It may sound really wierd but when I tried dmt it genuinely felt like the most real feeling ive ever had, the visions blew my mind open and to this day I'm still in awe of the whole thing

Theres a really interesting documentary on youtube called 'Dmt- the spirit molecule' I'd recommend it to anyone interested in how psychedelics work on the brain

Psychedelics fascinate me also, i've never tried DMT although it's definitely on my to do list. But i've had some amazingly realistic experiences on acid, mushrooms, salvia and even ketamine though it's not strictly a pschedelic. "Reality" is only perception in any case, if psylicibin for example was present in potatoes we'd all see the world like we were on mushrooms all the time - that would then be "reality". It doesn't make "reality" any more or any less real. In fact when you get right down to the very building blocks of matter, everything appears to be made from more or less nothing, atoms are almost entirely empty space - when you go deeper again to sub atomic particles, they can just pop in and out of existence willy nilly. Despite all our science we still haven't got the foggiest idea what we are, what we are made of, or where we came from. (well the religious ones claim to know, but they tend to be liars!)
I know it sounds like hippy bullshít, but psychedelics really do expand your mind..........in my opinion

link_2007

North Korea

Mance Rayder

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I know it sounds like hippy bullshít, but psychedelics really do expand your mind..........in my opinion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

yuppies

Here's another space analogy to put our place in the universe in perspective:

The distance between the earth and the sun is 1 AU (astronomical unit). The difference between earth and the next closest star is about 268,000 AU. So if we say that the difference between the earth and the sun is 1cm, the sun is about 1/10th of a millimetre in diameter, the earth is probably not visible to the naked eye and the nearest star is about 2.68km away (like walking from the far end of o'connell street in dublin to leeson street.)

Capt'n Midnight

flutterflye wrote: »

Except boobs - they're kind of boring.

I know a girl who got a blouse for Christmas. It's got ten buttons, but she can only fasten eight

Capt'n Midnight

Princess Peach wrote: »

I used to be really fascinated in serial killers. Watched loads if documentaries and movies and read a fee books on the subject! It's so interesting to see how they got to that point in life. Ted Bundy was my favourite.

Never understood this interest is sicko's

What's worse is the way they are glamourised. In a Deliberate Stranger the notion is given that Ted somehow wanted to be caught !

In reality he was using fake tan in prison, perhaps plotting to escape when extradited to Florida.

Capt'n Midnight

Godsentme wrote: »

The receptionist in my job has about 500 phone numbers in her HEAD!!

Back in the day most people knew lots of phone numbers by heart.

Our memory was essential for our hunter gatherer ancestors enabling them to use all the seasonal resources in a wide area.

Pushtrak

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Never understood this interest is sicko's

There are probably as many answers to that as there are people who read in to this type of stufff... Ok, maybe not, but I'm sure there are a plurality of reasons. For one, it is my understanding that a lot of people have an interest in psychology. And what better way to look in to psychology than those who are clearly damaged.

What's worse is the way they are glamourised. In a Deliberate Stranger the notion is given that Ted somehow wanted to be caught !

Actually, from what I have seen this is a notion I have seen commonly perpetrated by many criminal psychologists. It doesn't seem to be a fringe idea. I'm not going to be one to defend or reject the idea, but it certainly isn't something remarkable in one case.

Perhaps the notoriety from what one does being known, and so for infamy. For that reason, it probably isn't that great that such people attract such media frenzies as it can be a motivator. But, I don't think a lack of attention in the media would really fix anything. As in, while being a motivator, it wouldn't be the only motivator.

Mickeroo

Along with the astronomy stuff some have mentioned I think what little I've read about quantum physics is utterly mind blowing.

af_thefragile

- Space.

Wanted to become an astronaut when I was a kid. Unfortunately as I grew up reality got the better of me and it never happened...

- Ocean.

Love the sea and the mysteries that lie beneath. Someday I'll buy myself a nice yacht and sail around the world!

- Cars.

Since I can remember I always loved cars. One of my earliest memory is of my 5yr birthday cake which was in the shape of a yellow car.

- Places/nature.

Can end up spending hours on wikipedia and google maps learning about different places and landforms. Not much interested in people themselves but more so about the actual natural structures. And put the places on my list of places to visit before you die!

OldNotWIse

Yamanoto wrote: »

Folks who part with actual real money to see Twink sing songs about the menopause.

Folks who part with actual real money to see Twink sing songs about the menopause at all lol

af_thefragile

Bajingo wrote: »

This post reminded me that I have Blue Planet on DVD, started to watch it. It's brilliant, i'll be getting the other sets on Blu Ray when the prices are driven down a bit.

I'm very analytical and driven by the scientific method. I'm interested in ghost stories and things of a 'paranormal' nature, though I don't believe in ghosts and such I think that's a lazy man's approach to try and explain what's going on.

I've got the special edition Blue Planet blu ray. It really is a documentary that is deserved to be watched in nothing other than blu ray. The filming is absolutely breath taking and hands down the best I've ever seen. Even later BBC documentaries like Life and Frozen Planet (both which I have on blu ray too, I'm a sucker for documentaries like that and BBC makes the best ones!), can't get close to the amazing level of filming the Blue Planet guys managed to pull off! Its my favourite documentary of all time. Although unfortunately two of the discs have a blown out contrast issue which is a known issue with the early special edition blu ray discs, I need to return the discs to 2 entertain and they'll apparently send me back the fixed replacement discs. Should do it one of these days...

Also I like ghost and paranormal stuff too... Love reading those scary stories which people post on reddit in nosleep and the other one which apparently contains all genuinely true stories.

flutterflye

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I know a girl who got a blouse for Christmas. It's got ten buttons, but she can only fasten eight

The cardi I'm wearing atm has 7 buttons, but I can only button 5 coz of my preggo belly.

Truly fasten eighting story.
Nearly as interesting as yours.

steddyeddy

I love the natural world and the various ways in which life has adapted to different conditions. I love biochemistry or the way life operates at a chemical level. The reactions that happen in our body happen in a couple of seconds while the same reactions could take organic chemists a couple of weeks to complete.

Conbhar

I know this is gona sound sorta crazy but i really do find almost anything fascinating. Years ago i used to get really into just the one subject and spend my time trying to gather as much info on it as i could.
Now that im a bit older i find myself fascinated by almost everything around me and i spend a good portion of my free time looking up everything i can get my hands on about all sorts of stuff. Dont know if its gota do with me getting older or what, mite have to do some research