There's something about these basic self-locking/self-unlocking mechanisms that's so satisfying. It's like they exercise my brain in a way it's not used to exercising, like that really good stretch you do sometimes that really hits that spot. Reminds me of knots: I geek out about knots sometimes, and it's just so profoundly weird to think "in knots", I feel like an alien when I'm doing knots, or like my brain is doing cirque-de-soleil-type contortions. I guess this says something about how mundane my usual mental activity is.

I love mechanisms. It's amazing how much mechanical complexity we were able to build before the advent of computers. Even more so when you learn how very minor changes like shaving a few degrees off an angle can be the difference between success and failure. As an embedded systems developer, I've been fortunate to work with a number of talented mechanical engineers over the years and come to realize that the complexity that they have to deal with isn't that far from what we have to do in software.

If you want to think in knots, go down the internet rabbit hole of investigating how the knotter in a hay baler works :-)

When it comes to theorizing/storytelling about humanity meeting a larger galactic society, there are a lot of concepts about different species-character or specializations. I've always been interested in unusual answers to "what might distinguish us."

For a while now, "brains can think of knots" has been on that list. Imagine some aliens who are generally much smarter than us, but they need computers to indirectly create or solve knots, and textiles were a late- rather than early-invention.

Granted, this seems unlikely, but it's still amusing to consider.