Anyone else have fleeting special interests? Mine's been air traffic control.

[Megamegablahblah]

I have been watching You Tube videos of interactions between Air Traffic Controllers and Pilots on repeat, some funny ones. Also sad ones. I practically feel like I have learnt how to fly a plane. Clearly I haven't!

The ones I like best are where the ATC puts the Pilots through their paces. They are so good at their jobs. They also have some amusing interactions. I also just really like, I mean love, the sound of a voice over a radio frequency.

I'm not sure but I think historical disasters could become a special interest. There's something so all encompassing about learning everything about a past event from perspectives of different people and also through the lens of technologies.

I wonder how the 'smart phone age' will be studied in future centuries, it's been a mixed bag so far 😂

Some of mine have been:

The Russian Revolution
Abandoned buildings
Nuclear disasters
Missing people
Cults (and people getting out of cults)

I'm late diagnosed autistic.

Ooh this thread took off (excuse the air pun). I'll settle in and read.

Flight radar 24
American politics in the 50s and 60s ( not a really fleeting one, still an interest)
Demolition of buildings, started on a sleepless night, watching a documentary about a company that did this, one of the engineers was a young woman

I think you need to check out Air Crash Investigation (or Mayday, depending on your location)…

You’re welcome!

Ooh I had not, I was just listening to the short clips. He looks a bit more long form. I'll check him out. I think I'd like the commentary.

Yes. My fleeting obsessions over the last few years have been: Mount Everest, space shuttle disasters and why they happened, the Mariana Trench and its aquatic inhabitants, life on remote islands, and 9/11.

Hello, yes.

Current obsessions are badass American rappers and European royal families.

Big crushes on Prince Carl of Sweden and 50 Cent.

Ooh thank you! I often hear people say things like check out X (I'm sure I've heard of Cautionary Tales) but it never resonates unless they explain why I might like it. I am a hard of thinking (cusp of Gen X) Millenial 😂. Adding to my list.

I'd be really interested to know more about working in supply chain.

I've found my people. Great thread OP!

I'm really fascinated by saturation divers (deep sea diving) I find the whole idea deeply unnerving and almost like I can't look away from it so I have to keep researching

Disasters like airplane crashes, oil rig fires, earthquakes. I spent ages and ages reading about piper alpha and deepwater horizon and other environmental disasters. I spent a day last weekend reading all about Tilly Smith that girl who saved all the beachgoers in Thailand from the boxing day tsunami and watching endless videos and trawling forums.

True crime stuff, mysteries as well, I'm just gripped. I love watching all those police documentaries about murders and things.

The hours I have spent on wikipedia!

I have a Virginia car numberplate from 1996 in my cabinet. DF bought the car over to the UK from when he worked there, but the car was shortlived as they did some kind of irrversible damage when it came off the ferry. He was in Virginia working. I went to visit. It was my first time in the US and it was bizarre (I was only 15) how familiar it seemed from TV. I think, as it was so far, I expected it to be very different. I had my hair cut in a small salon in a twee town in Virginia. I am sure we drove down Route 66 but google has just told me there isn't one so maybe he lied about that 😂 I remember being fascinated that he had an auto button and could take his feet off the pedals.

Apparently China own everything?

I feel like this. Same about a 999 call handler. I worked in an inbound customer service call centre once, different obvioulsy but it was genuinely the most enjoyable job ever. I would talk all day then go to do sports in the evening.

I then suddenly one day was bored of it and left really suddenly.

Watching 9/11 footage three weeks ago was how I ended up on the current ATC obsession.

Its crazy really not that I am criticising modern culture but when you consider the level of drivell of some TV shows designed for escapism. I blame it on Chinas exports, we just lost interest in where things are from, how they are made, and how they get here. For an entire generation.

My GF had a saying according to my DF 'you're like shit from China, far fetched you are' when someone was being ridiculous.

I've been a fan of that. After a couple of big disaster movies I'm not sure I can again though, they are like worst nightmares! You know the one I mean I think.

I needed to know how things went from The Waltons to Demon Copperhead (brilliant, brilliant book, must read) via Empire of Pain (ditto). It is sobering to look at those hollers now and know that life on Waltons Mountain would not be so wholesome these days.

Oh that is soooo lovely. They mixed their names up half way through the article.

I'm going to ponder on that story for a long time.

The use of german airships (inflatable) in world war 1 for dropping bombs on the UK. I have tracked every bomb drop and even Googled each area to see what it looks like today vs photos!

Gosh that is awful. I watched some of the British Midlands flight that crashed over the motorway. Miraculously there were survivors and it didn't explode.

I was hospitalised and then watched every episode of 24 hours in A&E. There's 2 that really stick in my mind. One was the Dad whose daughter caught on fire (safety grating issue). She was in hospital and she said it hurts and he said you know what happens when it hurts, daddys here. She was okay.

The other was a cyclist who slipped down a grill in the middle of nowhere. He was badly injured facially and found a pub. As if that was not bad enough, during the CT scan he had a rupture to a vein that needed emergency surgery, so the whole side of his skull had to be removed permanently. I often think about him.

I have found my people. I dont think I am ND but have had a few focussed interests over the years.

I'm currently obsessed with the el nino, watching data, updates and its developments. I've had to learn about meteorology to go alongside as different things will impact it. Loads of hurricaines in the pacific. Im checking it all when I wake up....

Its just so facinating!

I was just talking to DM this weekend about underfloor heating systems in Roman times 😂. Have you seen/heard the funny skit 'how often do you think about the Romans?'. The answer apparently is more often than you think.

I asked DF and he said eh what are you on about. Then called a couple of days later to tell me he was thinking about how Romans lay roads while standing on the drive getting it regravelled, and how he relayed the whole story to his neighbour with him.

That sounds fascinating. I think consuming media from other countries is such a healthy thing to do.

I went backpacking round Europe on the late 90s. McDonalds was everywhere but we deliberately tried to visit as many cultural and historical places and sites as possible. Berlin, Prague, Rome, were particularly fascinating. I'll hunt out that documentary.