Let $\mathbb {T}$ be the unit circle and ${\Gamma \backslash G}$ the $3$ -dimensional Heisenberg nilmanifold. We consider the skew products on $\mathbb {T} \times {\Gamma \backslash G}$ and prove that the Möbius function is linearly disjoint from these skew products which improves the recent result of Huang, Liu and Wang [‘Möbius disjointness for skew products on a circle and a nilmanifold’, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 41(8) (2021), 3531–3553].

We conjecture that bounded generalised polynomial functions cannot be generated by finite automata, except for the trivial case when they are ultimately periodic.

Using methods from ergodic theory, we are able to partially resolve this conjecture, proving that any hypothetical counterexample is periodic away from a very sparse and structured set. In particular, we show that for a polynomial $p(n)$ with at least one irrational coefficient (except for the constant one) and integer $m\geqslant 2$, the sequence $\lfloor p(n)\rfloor \hspace{0.2em}{\rm mod}\hspace{0.2em}m$ is never automatic.

We also prove that the conjecture is equivalent to the claim that the set of powers of an integer $k\geqslant 2$ is not given by a generalised polynomial.

We construct a Laplace isospectral deformation of metrics on an orbifold quotient of a nilmanifold. Each orbifold in the deformation contains singular points with order two isotropy. Isospectrality is obtained by modifying a generalization of Sunada's theorem due to DeTurck and Gordon.