[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
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Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
I'm looking for something novel and interesting, that isn't
absolutely crowded that I could meaningfully contribute to. In
2022 I was toying around with OpenAI's RL Gym, right when the first
non-instruct GPT3 model came out. I was thinking about getting into
ML a lot more, but hesitated. Before that it was 3D printers,
mechanical keyboards, drones, etc. All of these have exploded, and
while they are still very interesting, I do love my Browns and
manage Prusas for my local hackerspace, they have just, for the
lack of a better term, industrialized. I'm also now in a position
where I have time and money for it, not like when I was 15 and
rating Ender motherboard upgrades I knew I'd never buy. Right now
I'm making a chess engine, but that's already a solved problem.
There's also biohacking, and while designing chips to go into my
body is really interesting, I only have one, and don't want to push
it too far. One promising idea is a kind of 'Personal Computer 2',
where people try to innovate HCI, and while I really like that and
do have some research ideas, I'd like to explore a bit more before
delving deep into it.
Author : e-topy
Score : 212 points
Date : 2026-04-05 21:30 UTC (3 days ago)
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| You mention chess, Chessboxing is an interesting niche hobby
| where you play both chess and boxing.
|
| I play chess but not chessboxing but hey, you asked for some
| interesting niche hobbies!
|
| It seems that what you do is mostly related to computers within
| the niche hobbies but what if you can do something else too?
|
| > Right now I'm making a chess engine, but that's already a
| solved problem
|
| Not everything should be done for the end-result, sometimes its
| the process which matters, there was a great hackernews post
| about it (https://ergosphere.blog/posts/the-machines-are-fine/)
|
| If you want something niche, perhaps make some portal-2 mods or
| make more efficient versions of using GlaDOS TTS within browser
| etc. (this is just something that I want to be honest, but I feel
| like it can be a niche hobby in its regards seeing your
| interests)
|
| Let me know if you want more ideas and have fun and have a nice
| day man!
| e-topy wrote:
| I do boxing as a form of cardio so I'm not weightlifting all
| the time. So I've just invited a friend for a 1v1 and he
| accepted, time to start training both properly I guess.
|
| I do want something related to computers because that's where
| I'm skilled the most, but it being mixed with something else is
| fine (i.e., biohacking). But computers generally are becoming
| stale, considering how much money has been poured into
| everything digital, it's going to be hard to find something
| novel. Maybe the next frontier is becoming an electrician?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > But computers generally are becoming stale, considering how
| much money has been poured into everything digital, it's
| going to be hard to find something novel
|
| I feel like it depends, there are many sorts of projects
| which are still low hanging fruits. you might not get
| appreciated to do things anymore because of the amount of
| competition but you can feel proud of yourself.
|
| Breaking NATs without root permissions (try searching
| dropbear without root and building it and running it with
| something like pinggy to then make a minecraft server beneath
| a nat work), making a free crypto chain have data embedded
| within a loop of transactions to embed data on crypto for
| free, recently using single-file to somehow archive
| archive.is pages on archive.org* anonymously using piping-
| server.
|
| I have used AI/LLM assistance in most of these but I feel
| like aside from being frustrated at the code aspects, I had
| some good ideas and even with everyone else having AI, I
| didn't see anyone else doing these things (the reason I say
| this is because if they did, I would've just used their
| services :] )
|
| Not sure if a lot of these things sound novel,
| programmatically not, but idea-wise I think* they might-be
| novel.
|
| A lot of my novel ideas come out of proving things. Can I
| prove that I can run minecraft on a free intel server that me
| and my friends can play on? Can I prove that I can save
| archive.is pages on archive.org anonymously-ish since the
| issue with archive.is
|
| So my point is, out of personal experience, there are so many
| novel-ideas within things which seem obvious but nobody has
| really implemented them and to be honest, everyone is just
| creating yet another chatgpt wrapper with AI. Much of these
| experiments are prototyping/proving these ideas and I believe
| that there are some low hanging fruits in such sense of these
| ideas which can be interesting to think about.
|
| So I don't suppose that you have to go bio-hacking to find
| things which pique your interest, there are some practical
| things too in my opinion which can pique your interest.
|
| Not sure if this might be the answer you are looking for, but
| I hope this helps within the context you asked it. Sometimes
| two normal things combined together can be the novel thing to
| do.
|
| My opinion is that people with money chase money oriented
| things, the people with passion/hobby-tinkering will do
| things that chase passion and so sometimes you have nothing
| to worry about :-)
|
| So are there any things that you feel is similar to this for
| you, perhaps?
| e-topy wrote:
| What you're doing is interesting but those are side-
| projects. I have plenty of random side-projects, just now
| after reading Gibson's Burning Chrome, I'm making an
| OpenBSD server where you can only log in using SSH keys in
| my implant, and logging in makes you a completely new but
| very restricted user with 1GB of free storage. Kinda like
| Johnny Mnemonic.
|
| But I feel very disorganized when most of my attention is
| on distinct one-off side projects, I want to work on
| something novel and big. But thanks for your suggestions.
| It is true that most industries begin when passion oriented
| people finally meet money oriented people, but most time
| they are separate.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| My hobby is organizing in-person meetups for random people to get
| together, chat and make friends. Barely structured, if at all.
| I've found this rewarding and ended up making friends this way.
|
| You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to
| something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want
| to be around. And another 10% at any given meetup are autistic or
| neuro-divergent but well-meaning, kind and full of interesting
| insights and hobbies, although perhaps difficult to socialize
| with, at least until they get to know you're well-meaning too.
|
| These challenges come with the territory. You end up talking to
| people you'd otherwise never meet in the normal course of your
| life, and it's neutral at worst and wonderful at best.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| How do you do this? And do you find people within tech industry
| or just random-people, I am sort of curious to know!
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Just random people, but because of where I post my events I
| tend to get about 30% ~ 50% tech-adjacent people
| e-topy wrote:
| This reminds me of [0], basically just inviting the most
| interesting people I know (also transitively the most
| interesting people they know), and just getting to meet people.
| I would really like to do this, but half the most interesting
| people I know are PhD professors I rant with because I'm next
| to them in a lab. Maybe once my network gets bigger. But I
| would still like to know more about how you do this, as other
| people doing this accidentally made me some good friendships,
| and I'd like to repay this favor to others
|
| [0] https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-might-be-
| oversharing
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| How I do it is context-specific. I used to live in a place
| where it's undoable and I was very lonely there. I moved to a
| place where people are much more open to it culturally and
| there's enough population to +/- bring in a constant flow of
| 4:1 regulars to newbies.
|
| I advertise on local meetup platforms and in local social
| media. And I go to so many meetups myself that when people
| ask me what my hobbies are and I tell them, they get curious
| and self-invite.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Easy two-part process: First part is putting our "feelers",
| ask/tell a bunch of people "You know, I'm thinking of maybe
| hosting a dinner party/barbecue/beach day" and see what
| reaction you get from people. If sufficient people (sometimes
| just 2) give somewhat interested vibes, ask again what dates
| people could do it at, then you send out an invite.
|
| You'd get a bunch of people who say yes but then don't show,
| this is normal and don't take it personally. Secondly, maybe
| the first 2-3 times it'd be hard to get people to commit, but
| once you do it more regularly, people will find it easier to
| commit to something they know you're already committed to.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| Great idea - a lot of the problems in the world are from social
| isolation, and people finding silos online
|
| I think the 10% neuro-divergent is a positive as it being ND
| can be very isolating for people
|
| Makes me think a focus around ND alone would be a great idea
| cableshaft wrote:
| I'm on the other side of this, in that I attend a lot of these.
|
| I made a big effort about 12 years ago to go to a bunch of
| these (like three meetups a week and trying out a variety of
| different meetups), but now I mostly stick to a couple of them
| as I don't have as much time or energy for it anymore. But I've
| met most of my current friends through those meetups.
|
| Find one you like and keep showing up until you're a regular,
| and get to know people slowly, and if they like you they start
| inviting you to things outside of the meetup, and then
| eventually you end up being friends.
|
| I've done this with three different groups over the years and
| despite naturally being shy and an introvert I've ended up
| making friends at each one.
|
| At the height of me doing this (like ten years ago), it got to
| the point where I'd go about my daily life and about once every
| other month I'd run into random people I've met at meetups also
| out and about. Like go out to dinner and spot someone I knew
| from a meetup also showing up to the same place, or run into
| them shopping at a Best Buy or something.
|
| Meetups where you do a shared activity seems to be the best,
| like hikes or movies (+ dinner afterwards) or board games,
| since you can always focus on the activity if you don't feel
| like being social, and you have that activity you can always
| talk about as a subject.
| gaws wrote:
| > You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up
| to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't
| want to be around.
|
| How have you handled this in past meetups?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Be courteous, kind, don't accept invites, tell them you're
| not interested if they're making unwanted advances, and treat
| them as humans. If they seem receptive and able to handle
| constructive feedback, tell them what sticks out to you,
| otherwise just ignore it and move on.
|
| Basically the same way you handle the exact same situation
| outside of organizing meetups, but maybe a bit extra on the
| friendly-and-try-to-not-traumatize-people-who-might-be-trying
| side of things.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| What are the meetup themes? What brings the interesting people
| in?
| Gooblebrai wrote:
| I organise events as well and I'm wondering if you ever charged
| for them. I used to do them for free but so many people signed
| up and didn't attend later that it was hard to put numbers to
| book a venue to meet. How did you solve this?
| em-bee wrote:
| i would do free venues only. usually restaurants are free
| because you consume food. if that is not an option, it
| depends on the cost. i have seen events where people were
| asked to contribute something when they arrive. you can
| usually announce the cost of the venue and ask everyone to
| contribute appropriately. if you fall short then next time
| ask people to contribute more. or keep a running tally during
| the event until the venue cost is met. from my personal
| feeling, if it costs more than $1-2 per person the venue is
| too expensive. find a cheaper one.
| ngokevin wrote:
| I use Blood on the Clocktower to do this, it's a social
| deduction game (that's just not randomly accusing each other)
| so it gets everyone talking easily
| Triphibian wrote:
| It has been my experience that social deduction games are
| very attractive to folks who have problems socializing in
| day-to-day life. You can see them almost come alive when they
| are given the permission.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think a lot of people need prompting for something to
| talk about. They have no confidence that topics they bring
| up will be interesting to anyone else. So any kind of
| gathering that takes that pressure off will be attractive.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Yes and the reverse is also true. I don't like to play
| social games at my meetups because that's a framework that
| seems to stifle genuine conversation. I do sometimes
| provide hypothetical questions as a bit of scaffolding.
|
| > You can receive $1 million immediately for every 1 year
| of your life you are willing to give up (taken off the end
| of your life). How many years, if any, do you sell?
|
| > You get to ask a "Cosmic Google" one single question
| about any mystery in history (e.g., "Who was Jack the
| Ripper?" or "Are we alone in the universe?") and get the
| absolute truth. What are you asking?
|
| > If everyone in the world had a floating stat above their
| head (like "lies told" or "pizzas eaten"), which stat would
| you want to be able to see?
| Triphibian wrote:
| Same. I don't like to yuck other people's yums, but I
| don't get a lot from those kinds of games. Talking to
| strangers is not a problem for me.
|
| I have been spending a bit of time at the local board
| game shops and the crowd sounds quite similar to the
| crowd you are attracting. On a very basic level I just
| try to model being a social adult and hope it rubs off.
| ariuser8434 wrote:
| the one and only meetup i ever went to (that wasn't something
| vaguely work-related) was a Werewolf meetup (the game). It
| actually wasn't very social, but it was a bunch of people who
| were really into Werewolf. Which, really, was what it was
| meant to be (and it was fun, because i love to play Werewolf)
| hackrmn wrote:
| Between the genuine weirdos, the autistic and/or the neuro-
| divergent, is there anyone left, really? Do the "normies"
| genuinely exist? Happy-go-lucky, knows a bit about everything
| but doesn't nerd out on anything, picks up every conversation
| subject and listens and holds their own in a manner that is
| just right? I am genuinely curious about the existence of these
| "superhumans".
| munificent wrote:
| There are many many of these socially-skilled normies. But,
| by virtue of being socially skilled, most have already pretty
| much filled up their social capacity and don't tend to show
| up at the kind of venues dedicated to helping under-
| socialized people meet up.
| joewhale wrote:
| that describes me but i would never say i'm a "superhuman". I
| feel like i'm a boring glue guy.
| xpe wrote:
| While there is often a "normal" (bell-curve fitting)
| distribution for individual factors, putting them together
| can be counter-intuitive.
|
| > Even when considering just three dimensions, fewer than 5%
| of pilots were "average" in all. [1]
|
| I would guess many/most people probably _think_ they fall
| into either (1) the normal bucket or (Bian ) the weird
| /fringe bucket. Either "I am pretty normal" or "I am an
| outsider". How many think "We're all fairly different once
| you cluster in any 3 interesting dimensions!"?
|
| But people feel that dichotomy, which makes me think it is
| largely about perception relative to a dominant culture: the
| in-group versus out-group feeling. For example, atheists
| might feel like outsiders in many parts of the U.S., but less
| so in big cities and in other countries. In dense urban
| walkable cities (like NYC), people _see_ diversity more
| directly and more often. Seeing a bunch of people is
| different than seeing a bunch of cars.
|
| [1]: From "Curse of Dimensionality: Lessons from the U.S. Air
| Force Cockpit Design" by Maciej Nasinski (2025):
| https://polkas.github.io/posts/cursedim/
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| > Between the genuine weirdos, the autistic and/or the neuro-
| divergent, is there anyone left, really?
|
| Heh this has a total "nobody goes there anymore, it's too
| crowded" vibe.
| allenu wrote:
| Sounds like a really cool idea. How do you organize the meetup
| and promote it to people if it ends up being random people? Do
| you set it up on meetup.com and have a theme at the minimum?
|
| I've been to a lot of meetups and it's definitely hit or miss
| and obviously depends on the sociability of the people that
| show up. The better ones I've attended are generally ones where
| people aren't trying to network for work purposes and are there
| literally to just socialize. The networking ones I find very
| dull as it's people just talking shop and career and if you've
| nothing to offer them on the career front, they move on
| quickly.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > ones where people aren't trying to network
|
| I have literally never been to any kind of organized
| gathering where this wasn't the objective of most of the
| people there. Family and children's events excluded
| (sometimes).
| MidnightRider39 wrote:
| That's crazy, you've never been to a party?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Sure. Most people are there with an agenda. ABC.
| MidnightRider39 wrote:
| Do you mean most people go to parties to close deals?
| bluGill wrote:
| Commonly - though the deal to close is marriage (or
| sometimes a one night stand).
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| actually its true, I guess:
|
| I have been in partying in my teens and twens, 3 years
| somehow "heavily". When I turned 40, I found out the only
| reason I went to parties and clubs for me was to meet
| girls.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| In one way or another, yes.
| throw83940449 wrote:
| Write explicit rules about dogs. Many "weirdos" just like their
| boundaries and basic hygiene. It is hard to socialize, over
| barking contest and rar dog humpimg your leg.
|
| It will save both sides a lot of time.
| nutjob2 wrote:
| > You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up
| to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't
| want to be around.
|
| Yep, thats me.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| What locations do you recommend to emulate this? Coffee shops /
| libraries / your home?
| MrDresden wrote:
| Have you done any write ups about how best to go about doing
| something like this?
|
| I'd love to organize something like this in my local community
| but somehow am not sure where or how to start really.
| powerbroker wrote:
| Hang gliding. It's good if you are in an area with some hills and
| consistent winds. There are maybe a dozen well-established launch
| sites around the U.S. Sadly, I broke down my glider around 2001
| -- and did a post-mortem on it to discover it had a minor dent in
| it.
|
| Recommendation -- don't stall the glider at heights between 10
| and 25 feet from the ground. Also, avoid barbed wire fences.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| My brother-in-law did a lot of hang gliding, and was part of a
| big community that did.
|
| That community had a tendency to walk around - if they _could_
| walk around - in casts for a large part of their life.
|
| He also ended up having a heart attack mid-glide, which was no
| fun at all. (He survived it, though!)
| DigitalArchivst wrote:
| If chess is a solved problem, think about skating to where the
| puck is going to be, an interest area a bit further away from
| relatively easier verifiability such as coding, math, and hard
| sciences.
|
| Do you have any interest in digital humanities? Knowledge work
| where verification is still important but not as black-and-white
| as does the math check out, does the code run.
|
| Do you have any interest in family history or genealogy?
|
| https://vibegenealogy.ai/p/the-genealogical-research-assista...
| caprock wrote:
| You might look into applying RL in the domain of low cost
| robotics and drones. That would draw on some of your past
| experience but applied to a domain (robotics) which I perceive is
| seeing renewed interest.
| Blackstrat wrote:
| I view hobbies as something that I derive value or pleasure from.
| I do not approach them from the perspective of "meaningfully
| contributing". IMO, that sounds more like compensation for career
| dissatisfaction. I'm not being critical. I just recommend
| choosing hobbies that you derive value and meaning from,
| regardless of what the world may think of it. For example, a
| friend of mine, with high pressure tech management job, quilts in
| the evening. He says it helps him relax. Doesn't matter if anyone
| likes what he does or wants to buy it. As for myself, now that
| I'm retired I delve into a number of areas, just for me, and
| absolutely have no interest in sharing them or being recognized
| for what I do. Good luck on your quest.
| skyberrys wrote:
| I'm into innovation in HCI as a hobby, but it does get expensive
| so I would like to bring in some additional financial support for
| my unusual builds.
|
| I didn't really plan to build HCI as a hobby, but I have a strong
| interest in hardware engineering and eventually I wanted to
| switch back to building things that anyone can physically see.
|
| Years ago I built a hemisphere keyboard and now I've built an LED
| globe with a viewing portal. I started building visible things
| again because I had a vision and it's very satisfying to use the
| result. I spend more time using it now than I did originally
| building it, although it is definitely a work in progress. I want
| to build it again for a 2.0 version.
| ZTX wrote:
| HCI innovation is definitely an interesting hobby - anything
| you can share or point me towards?
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > that isn't absolutely crowded
|
| I'm sure there are field that should be absolutely crowded but
| where you can do something meaningful.
|
| If I had free time, I would write an app to learn foreign
| languages I'm interested in. I'm pretty sure that there are good
| apps, but I tried a few ones, and none really fit my needs.
|
| There are also software that I use a lot, like transcribe! which
| works well, but that I could see how to improve.
|
| So as others mentioned, do something that you would be interested
| in.
| ApolloRising wrote:
| After binging on youtube, I am working on learning to do
| leatherwork, small stuff at first like making your own wallet
| etc.
| mkbkn wrote:
| Postcrossing
| xoxxala wrote:
| I had no idea such a thing existed until this post a few days
| ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47631515
| abadar wrote:
| I used to play Pokemon cards competitively. It was fun going to
| local tournaments and flying with friends for Regional
| tournaments. I stopped to focus on night school, and I want to
| pick it back up with the card legality change happening Friday.
|
| Pokemon Champions just came out, so I might give up cards for the
| video game. We'll see.
| shivekkhurana wrote:
| I started designing my own clothes. The insight was that I spend
| 80% money on suits that I wear 2 times a year, and the rest was
| low quality clothing I actually wore.
|
| I flipped it, and made suits and pants that I could wear
| everyday.
|
| The fast fashion stores were crap quality, my body is not a
| template size and I care about fabric and comfort.
|
| The process was to learn how to sketch, to determine fabrics,
| colors and fit. I made pants that stay comfortable even after I
| eat food, I made suits that I can wear casually.
|
| I don't stitch myself, for that I worked with multiple workshops,
| until I found one that works for me.
|
| Took me about 3 years to reach a point where all my wardrobe is
| designed by and for me.
|
| There were multiple side effects on my confidence, my life, and
| the opportunities coming my way.
| ribs wrote:
| I want to hear more
| shivekkhurana wrote:
| Fast fashion forces you to dress for the masses. Loose
| shirts, baggy pants and shallow pockets is not fashion, its
| cost optimisation for brands.
|
| I didn't want to dress up like a boy. Me and my friend were
| in Paris when we got inspired by the floor(fashion_sense). I
| was already working on my clothing, but that day we promised
| each other that we will not be underdressed anymore.
|
| He opted for off-the-shelf formal clothing: high quality
| shirts, and pants. I went all in.
|
| First I found markets that sell cheap fabrics, so I can
| experiment. I travel a lot, so my clothing had to be designed
| for all weathers. I'm Indian (Bharat), but look racially
| ambiguous, so I also wanted my clothing to reflect my roots
| and culture, yet be modern enough for any room in the world.
|
| I run a company, and write code, so comfort was paramount.
| But I also had meetings or presentations so I wanted to be
| presentable.
|
| Started with pants, because I thought pants are easy to
| optimise, and I just need a black, gray and dark blue one.
| Over 5 iterations, I reached a design with elastic straps on
| the side (because when I eat food, my tummy bloats a little
| and its uncomfortable to sit down), and loose on the thighs.
| Imagine pyjamas, that look like pants.
|
| Then next step was to experiment with jackets and shirts. I
| played with fabric, patterns, and finish (zippers, titch
| buttons, different cuff lengths and styles, different
| collars).
|
| My friends started noticing, and I also consulted some
| clients. Then I gave a talk about it. This is one of my
| skills that I discovered by first principles. The best part
| is that I met my girlfriend because she noticed my
| aesthetics, and she told me that she makes her own clothes
| too.
| mastermedo wrote:
| Was the talk recorded? I'd love to see it. No pressure if
| it isn't public.
| testycool wrote:
| +1 also very interested
| csallen wrote:
| Have you shared any photos online? Id love to see
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| Put it on Etsy and see what others are willing to pay! :))
| AuthAuth wrote:
| they are customized for his body. if he started catering
| to a mass audience he'd be creating the exact thing he is
| avoiding
| trollbridge wrote:
| That's pretty neat, and we should talk. In my household we are
| currently producing about 75% of our clothing, mostly out of a
| desire to avoid using fabrics that generate a lot of
| microplastic waste + observing that newer clothes/fabrics wear
| out quickly.
| duckkg5 wrote:
| I was into woodworking, then I got into building fly fishing rods
| from bamboo.
|
| Fly fishing has been around for a long time. They used to build
| rods by hand out of bamboo - a specific species of bamboo native
| to southern China - before factories started making them out of
| graphite, fiberglass, etc. for cheap.
|
| Modern fly rods are a few hundred bucks. If you try to buy a
| bamboo rod in a store, they run $2K-$5K. They take a lot of time
| and meticulous work to build, and the result is a functional work
| of art.
|
| Woodworking is a ton of fun, and challenging. Bamboo rod making
| is a niche within a niche, and there are not a whole lot of
| people who still do it ... mostly retired guys with a lot of
| time. It's a great tradition, and it's about as far away from
| computers and technology as I can get.
|
| I didn't even know how to fly fish until I built my first bamboo
| rod.
|
| Here's a great video showing the process:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfTvRxcTuV0
| getlawgdon wrote:
| This is very cool. Thank you. ...and that video is a pill-
| quality destressor. thanks again.
| duckkg5 wrote:
| I come back to the video every once in a while and it is
| total zen.
| oddsockmachine wrote:
| That's a wonderful video, thanks for sharing
| munificent wrote:
| I love how every hobby has its inner nested hobbies and you can
| seemingly go infinitely deep.
|
| I got back into making electronic music a while ago, and you
| can dig in deeper by getting into hardware synthesizers. And go
| deeper by getting into hardware _modular_ synths. And go deeper
| by _building modules_ from kits. And go deeper by learning
| electronics and designing your own modules.
|
| It's like a big branching tech tree or tech graph.
|
| With fishing, you can get into fly fishing. And when that's too
| easy, you start tying flies, or maybe tenkara, or, I guess in
| your case, making fly rods.
|
| I love it.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| I decided to run for congressional representative.
| forshaper wrote:
| How's it going?
| xnorswap wrote:
| My strange hobby was going on what I called "leak walks".
|
| I lived in a town where on any sunny day I could go for a walk
| and be almost guaranteed to spot a water mains leak I hadn't seen
| before, which I'd then report and see how long it would be before
| it was fixed.
|
| The record was over a year for one of them.
|
| ( Yes, it was a Thames Water area. )
| hermitcrab wrote:
| If it is a Thames Water area, you are lucky if the leak is only
| water...
| xnorswap wrote:
| There was one I thought was maybe a waste-water leak from the
| smell, but generally wastewater leaks are much harder to
| spot, and it's generally CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows) that
| are the main problem there, which happen in heavy rainfall
| and not so much in residential areas.
|
| Mains-water leaks however are easy to spot, because they're
| damp patches (or flowing/trickling water) in otherwise good
| weather.
| femto wrote:
| Railway preservation (full size, not model). It looks crowded
| when a steam train is running and the moths gather around. The
| reality, when the trains are not running, is typically quite
| different, with a small dedicated group. If a place looks too
| crowded, pick a smaller museum.
|
| Think of all the jobs that have to be done to run a railway and
| you will be able to find a museum that does it: heavy
| maintenance, boiler work, fitting and turning, blacksmithing,
| woodwork, upholstering, painting, catering, engine driving,
| fireman, signalling, customer service, ...
|
| It's a great way to meet people, learn new skills and work with
| physical things.
| bluGill wrote:
| Only problem is this really depends on where you live. There is
| a nice museum 45 minutes from me - far enough that it is hard
| to get there for a quick evening after work...
| laydn wrote:
| Hydrophonic farming at home. You can play with sensors (acidity,
| humidity etc), LED lighting (frequencies, intensity, etc), vision
| processing (maybe throw in some AI buzzword here) to keep track
| of your plants and do some decision making.
|
| Bonus: You get to eat the stuff you grow :)
| sscaryterry wrote:
| Or smoke it...
| Tade0 wrote:
| There's a surprisingly high number of people in my extended
| social circle who picked up archery as a sport.
|
| It's actually a complex discipline with a huge range of bows and
| projectiles to choose from, each having unique characteristics
| you have to train for.
|
| Training using VR equipment is picking up steam, as typically you
| need a sizeable amount of real estate to practice when the
| weather is bad.
| peishang wrote:
| Archery is a lot of fun - I go to a monthly archery gathering
| where the host has a bunch of really nice recurves.
| munificent wrote:
| Archery does seem like it's having a moment right now.
|
| I wonder if it's some combination of people wanting a more
| tactile hobby plus some vague apocalyptic undercurrents in
| society today.
| bwv848 wrote:
| I always shoot 12 grains per pound, it usually gets me around
| 150-160fps, marginal weather is where the fun begins.
| dmoy wrote:
| > Training using VR equipment is picking up steam, as typically
| you need a sizeable amount of real estate to practice when the
| weather is bad.
|
| I always wondered, how does that work?
|
| Over in bullseye rifle we live and breathe dryfire (no ammo),
| but I understand the equivalent (no arrow) with a bow is a
| recipe for breaking the bow.
|
| Like my brain just cannot comprehend how to get enough reps to
| get good enough at a thing without being able to do dryfire at
| the volume we do for rifle.
| cmdrk wrote:
| Bellringing, specifically change ringing. It's a type of church
| bell ringing that is rather algorithmic in nature. Tends to
| attract mathy types. Religion not required or expected!
|
| If you have English-style tower bells near you, it's worth
| checking out, even if only to listen.
| mastermedo wrote:
| Rest assured, my mind is blown.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lyDCUKsWZs
| davenporten wrote:
| Animal tracking. I picked it up in college and it has been a real
| source of joy and a true challenge. It's also something you can
| do almost anywhere: urban, suburban, rural, out in "the wild."
|
| A lot of people think of it as looking for paw/hoof marks in the
| mud, but tracking can actually be quite involved, requiring you
| to understand the environment and ecology as a whole.
|
| For example, tracking birds is outrageously difficult and when I
| first started out I didn't think it was possible. But the more I
| learned about birds, their habits (per species), their
| environment, I started to see signs everywhere. It really got my
| eyes open and I started seeing the same old places in completely
| new ways!
|
| And in terms of contributing something, there are all sorts of
| apps/organization that can help you identify different species
| and in turn you give them data in the form of pictures, location,
| etc. I use iNaturalist myself, but there are others.
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| Sounds fun! Do you have resources to get started?
|
| I do gundog work, it would be fun to do the tracking together
| with the dog. (I don't hunt, it would just be to make some
| walks more interesting)
| patapong wrote:
| Synthesizers! I like it because it's tactile and immediate, and
| you're not glued to a screen, but can create fun-sounding beats.
|
| Nowadays there are nice, cheapish groove boxes that are perfect
| for noodling on the couch. I started with the Novation Circuit
| Tracks, and also really enjoy the Teenage Engineering EP-133. Not
| to say that I am any good at this, but it's an enjoyable hobby!
| Bonus if you are friends who are also into it and you can jam
| together :)
| vectordust wrote:
| > Bonus if you are friends who are also into it and you can jam
| together :)
|
| How does one find these people? Asking for a friend! :D
|
| I've also gone down the synthesizer rabbit hole: prophet-6,
| full modular setup (rip bank account), subsequent 37. It's
| great fun!
| rumori wrote:
| Go to modular meets, music instrument expos like Superbooth,
| dj sets and live concerts. I met all my best friends this
| way, everybody is a record collector, beat maker or techno
| producer. Record conventions are also fun, after couple of
| occasions you will realize how small the scene is.
| elric wrote:
| Deep in the Eurorack rabbit hole myself. Trying to avoid
| anything that has a screen and anything that requires a
| computer to interact with. Patching cables and twiddling knobs
| is great fun. Sometimes it even sounds good xD
| jerrysievert wrote:
| another eurorack rabbit hole is patch.init() - prototyping
| module. I have 4 and have built:
|
| - an amazing crazy chorus module based on one I built for
| vcvrack
|
| - a pad synth using the PADSynth algorithm
|
| - a pulsar module
|
| - a fun pitch shifting heavy reverb
|
| endless hours of fun!
| joshuakcockrell wrote:
| Someone needs to solve barbecue. The entire industry is based on
| feel and experience. Why can't a beginner replicate Franklin's
| brisket by following a recipe online?
|
| It's probably because the main measuring instrument (a probe
| thermometer) doesn't provide any feedback about fat rendering,
| moisture, etc. Plus, every brisket cut has different fat ratios
| and thickness, which means a recipe can't guarantee identical
| inputs like bread baking. I'd love for someone to throw some over
| the top engineering & experimentation at this.
| nschampions2004 wrote:
| The hobbyist cannot replicate Franklin's brisket because
| Franklin's knowledge, ingredients, tools, and their
| corresponding interactions are largely not attainable to the
| hobbyist. Franklin has better smokers than the hobbyist and
| knows how to use them better. Franklin also has dibs on the
| premier runs of Creekstone Farms briskets that the hobbyist can
| hardly come by.
|
| The hobbyist can approximate that brisket to a reasonable
| degree. However, that involves smoking a, hopefully not
| literal, ton of brisket. Given the cost of beef, time to smoke,
| and effort it takes to meal-plan brisket throughout the week,
| attaining Franklin-level quality consistently is a tough row to
| hoe.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| Traditional archery.
|
| I started a few years back and have been doing it off and on
| since. It's challenging but a lot of fun.
|
| I shoot a lot of older style "recurve" bows, but the main style I
| shoot are horsebows, that is, bows that were historically shot
| from horseback.
|
| They're very lightweight and you can shoot much more rapidly than
| you can with a more modern/mechanical recurve or compound. Right
| now I shoot around 20-25 arrows a minute. Not amazing compared to
| experienced archers, but a lot of fun.
|
| I have a number of bows, but here are my favorites:
|
| Assyrian:
| https://www.bogararchery.sk/image/cache/catalog/product/boga...
| Buryat: (No longer available)
|
| I also shoot an English longbow from time to time.
|
| The horsebows use a technique called "thumb draw" which is very
| different from the way most bows are shot in the west.
|
| Here's a great YouTube channel if you want to explore getting
| into it: https://www.youtube.com/@ArminHirmer
| bwv848 wrote:
| Try instinctive aerial shooting with spiral flu-flus.
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| Yeah, too easy.
| ribs wrote:
| I had a route around San Francisco that I would visit, and all
| the places on the route were where there were good blackberry
| bushes. I'd take a bucket. Around Golden Gate Park and the Inner
| Sunset mostly, heading down into the Forest Hills area as well. I
| did that for a few years. Would pick up some plums along the way
| as well.
|
| Now on the other side of the Bay I have a couple spots, not as
| dense a network. About an hour away there are masses.
| Findeton wrote:
| Nowadays, apart from stockpicking as a value investor, I use LLMs
| to develop AIs that don't use backpropagation and that support
| continuous learning.
| vectordust wrote:
| Despite AI starting to crowd this space, I've been spending all
| of my free time learning music production (doing it the old
| fashion way without AI). It's a great mix of technical and
| creative problem solving. Mostly focusing on dark
| ambient/cinematic composition, playing around hardware synths
| (Prophet 6, Subsequent 37, modular / eurorack, Digitone II).
|
| If anyone is curious, I put out a single recently (remaster from
| last year): https://soundcloud.com/vectordust/ion-dunes-1
|
| My main personal goal right now is to release a full length album
| this year.
| genewitch wrote:
| you know the OP has "ion" and "dust" in the middle so this was
| hard to find.
|
| I normally can't stand ambient, but you went a different
| direction in the middle there. You should put out an album,
| that probably no one will buy, but maybe eventually you get
| asked to do soundtracks for things.
|
| anyhow, i used to write music. a lot. sometimes you just have
| to get it out of your skull...
| https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/valley-boulevard-0237
| gglitch wrote:
| Ion Dunes is outstanding. Very nice work. I would be happy to
| hear more, and would very much enjoy a writeup too.
| sm001 wrote:
| Design whistle sequences to get dolphins to respond in ways that
| will help you figure out their meaning. A few multi-million $
| projects could use that, such as Google, Baidu, and SDRP.
| thom wrote:
| I don't think chess engines are a solved problem for some use
| cases. Yes you can make something strong, maybe even the
| strongest, but can you create a chess engine perfectly tuned to
| actually teaching a player? Instead of superhuman perfect lines
| and inscrutable long-horizon strategy, can you teach nearly
| optimal human play in a way that's actionable, modular and
| memorable? Can you improve on tournament prep for players against
| particular opponents or within a particular metagame?
|
| Also, obviously it's your life, and we're here on Earth to fart
| around, but I have spent a good portion of my life dipping into
| one hobby after another, as my dad did before me, so I'm half
| speaking to myself when I ask this: why do you think you can't
| meaningfully contribute to any of these realms, even now? To me
| that sounds like some deep seated fear or doubt, some aversion to
| competition, some overriding bitterness. I'm slightly worried
| you'll just be back here in another couple of years trying to
| find another new hobby, unsullied by the efforts and achievements
| of others. You won't find that! I would actually suggest a
| particularly expensive hobby: going to therapy. Try that, and
| learn that you're already enough, and if your contributions are
| meaningful to you, that's all that matters. Happy to be way off
| the mark here though.
| elcapitan wrote:
| This. For those more into reading instead of straight to
| therapy, Barbara Sher's "Refuse to Choose!" book about living
| with a multitude of interests can be a good starting point.
|
| Also, making (or maybe tuning) a chess engine to teaching
| sounds like an interesting challenge, actually.
| mleroy wrote:
| Since you mentioned biohacking but are wary of "wetware" risks,
| consider Personal Bioinformatics via 30x Whole Genome Sequencing.
| Now that sequencing costs have dropped significantly, you can use
| AI to take a deep dive into the latest research surrounding your
| own genomic data.
|
| While severall open medical databases and open-source tools
| exist, they are often fragmented or built for academia. There is
| significant room to contribute by hacking together better
| toolsets, localized databases, or AI-driven interfaces to make
| this data truly accessible.
| warpech wrote:
| I got into improv theatre. There are groups in every city, at
| least here in the EU. It is both fun and developing creativity,
| alertness, etc.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I'm obsessed with powerlifting. Not only because big numbers get
| bigger but also the physical changes that occur with a healthy
| dose of lifting each week. It's also easy to track lifting stats
| and there are tons of analysis tools out there if data analysis
| is something you enjoy.
|
| Also, I'm trying to learn guitar - right now following the
| Justinguitar.com lessons
| rahulgoel wrote:
| +1 on this - powerlifting is great due to 1) Rapid, specific
| initial progress, 2) Highly structured programming (e.g., RPE
| based), 3) Focus on strength vs. aesthetics is a great way to
| be more holistic about health & performance, 4) Forcing
| function on all downstream decisions (diet, sleep, alcohol).
| Adding +15 lbs on your deadlift can become strong motivation to
| drive discipline, 5) Drives the importance of recovery/rest on
| long term progress
| boogieknite wrote:
| one of my favorite parts of powerlifting, opposed to hiit or
| other fitness lifting, is the lack in physical change. i feel
| like i look the same but can point to numbers that show im much
| stronger
| Ancalagon wrote:
| True - I guess I am more of a power-builder. Which for those
| that don't know is powerlifting but also incorporates a lot
| of bodybuilding-type rep work for aesthetics. You lose some
| specificity doing this arguably so you're expending energy
| that would be better spent powerlifting if that was your true
| goal but this trade off is worth it to me.
| avianbc wrote:
| When I started stronglifts, I didn't tell anyone and people
| noticed just from my physique after like ~5 weeks of
| training. Noob gains are insane and definitely cause physical
| change.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I do powerlifting 3x a week but I don't otherwise view myself
| as obsessed with it. I don't have a coach, I don't enter
| competitions. I know my PRs in my head but I don't keep
| spreadsheets or stats or have any kind of real programming. I
| don't video my lifts, I don't post about it on social media.
| I'm just content with getting stronger.
|
| I really don't get obsessed with anything, which might be a
| fault as that seems to be a trait of people who are really
| successful in what they do.
|
| On the other hand, it's the one type of exercise I have
| actually been able to stick with for any length of time.
| Started about 5 years ago at age 55. So never too late to try
| it, even if exercise has never been appealing to you.
| avianbc wrote:
| I am 2/3x more productive on days that I get a powerlifting
| session in before work. There is no better feeling than
| overcoming a plateau through hard work and dedication.
| jcims wrote:
| Put it down over winter but just picking it back up.
|
| Bat detection/identification with ultrasonic recordings. It's
| been fun building the data pipeline to manage the ~30GB+ of WAV
| files generated every night, run through some identification
| processes (currently using https://github.com/rdz-
| oss/BattyBirdNET-Analyzer) and build a UI (mostly vibe coded lol)
| to help with replay, cataloging, etc.
|
| I'm using an AudioMoth currently
| (https://www.openacousticdevices.info/audiomoth), am thinking
| about extending it to do some of the preprocessing in the field
| to scale things up a bit.
| functional_dev wrote:
| really cool, data pipeline alone sounds like fun challenge
| jcims wrote:
| Yeah there's quite a bit of opportunity to reduce processing
| time along the way.
|
| Couple cool things I've learned about bats.
|
| - They are *extremely* loud in the ultrasound range, 130db
| echolocation calls from something the size of a mouse.
|
| - On an average recording, the ultrasonic range is almost
| exclusively filled with sound from wildlife (bugs, birds,
| etc). I'd expected to see lots of harmonics and whatnot from
| human-generated sounds but there just aren't that many. It's
| quiet up there.
|
| - You can leverage these two in combination for sampling by
| just strapping the recording device to the roof of your car
| and driving around. The wind and road noise is basically
| absent and the echolocation calls come through loud and
| clear. The AudioMoth can be fitted with a GPS receiver to
| correlate the calls to location (and time ofc)
|
| - There are three primary types of echolocation calls: Search
| - Semiregular calls just to see what's out there. Approach -
| Faster rate of calls once prey has been identified. Terminal
| - Aka feeding buzz, very high rate (200hz) of echolocation
| calls in the last meter or so of approach. Most of the
| recordings of bat calls you see on YouTube are slowed down
| 10x to bring the audio into listening range, but this also
| slows the call tempo by just as much. They make lots of
| calls.
|
| - Most bat calls use frequency sweeps rather than continuous
| tones to pick up both distance and relative velocity of the
| target (akin to FMCW radar).
|
| - There are more bats around than I realized. I started off
| by looking for 'good spots', but now I just set the device
| out on a porch. Many times you'll hear me walking up to the
| recording device at the end of a recording and there will be
| 2-3 bats overhead that I was perfectly unaware of.
|
| - Some moths have developed jamming calls that confuse the
| standard echolocation calls of most bats -
| https://www.illinoisbats.org/echolocation-jamming-moths/ Some
| species of bats have developed countermeasures to that.
| sanjayjc wrote:
| Thanks jcims for sharing this amazing info! However, I
| wonder how these very loud bats, all in close proximity,
| don't get confused by each others' calls? Is the answer
| their frequency sweeping? Or does each have something
| analogous to a unique "voice"?
| 101008 wrote:
| Sorry if this is not the place to do it. I live in a city that
| has bat at nights, so if you live above 6th floor and you leave
| your windows open, there are chances some confused bats go into
| your apartment.
|
| Even worse, they can go into the blind box of your rollover.
| After two traumatic events where I had bats going into my
| apartment (and it took me 5 days/nights where I didnt sleep at
| all to take them out alive), I put something in the opening of
| the blind box to avoid them getting into it.
|
| However, I don't feel safe. I wake up in the middle of the
| night with any sound thinking they are trying to get into.
|
| All this introduction is to ask if there is something that
| detracts bats going near my window. Maybe some kind of
| ultrasound (that I could play with some kind of speaker), or
| odor? I don't know, but I'd like to try something that could
| make me sleep more relaxed.
| ffsoftboiled wrote:
| Fishing. But not just regular fishing, life listing. I catalogue
| and detail ever fish I catch; the conditions, the type of lure or
| bait, the rod etc. From there you can get into microfishing with
| tanago rods, surf fishing etc. It's can get quite deep and a good
| additional hobby for people who love to travel.
| lurkingllama wrote:
| You have an app for this? Been wanting to do something similar
| ffsoftboiled wrote:
| Warning I am not a developer. It could be better.
|
| https://github.com/MichaelAPerry/FishDex
| munificent wrote:
| I also take notes when I fish. It's less about recording a life
| list, and more about trying to collate what is otherwise very
| thing spotty data enough to get better at fishing.
|
| As someone who has learned a _lot_ of skills and hobbies online
| and likes sharing info, fishing has been a really interesting
| different world. Because anglers are effectively competing for
| a scarce resource, specific information about good fishing
| spots is understandably not shared widely.
|
| So you have to put in the time yourself to try spots and see
| what produces. But in order to catch fish, you need to be at
| the right place, at the right time of year, at the right time
| of day, with the right lure, and the right technique. Get any
| one of those wrong and the only signal you get is "no bites".
| That makes it really tough to learn and improve.
|
| I've found that taking detailed notes helps me see patterns in
| what works that would otherwise be hard to see.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I fish for salmon. In my past of the UK it has become very
| niche due to the scarcity. I joined clubs and never went, but
| now I'm in a syndicate where I fish one Saturday per month for
| the season, and never miss it. I'm years in and still never got
| one into the net! Fishing for migratory fish that don't feed
| once they are in the river is mad. On my fishing days I don't
| think of anything else
| gritspants wrote:
| I'm big into anti tech/work related activities. It reminds me
| that no matter how much I know, or think I know, that I have so
| much more to learn.
|
| I got into scuba diving while living in NC, and it just happens
| that there's a lot of it off the coast! The other problem is that
| it's deep. Diving down to 130 feet sounds cool until you
| experience hours on a boat only to get a few minutes at the
| bottom. Eventually I got bothered to learn more about diving.
|
| I headed down to northern Florida to dive with GUE. My instructor
| was a person who regularly got hit up to dive to exotic places
| all over the world. Missions like collecting/deploying samples,
| archaeology, recovery. Here were people meaningfully impacting
| the environment, science, and keeping technical know-how alive.
|
| I don't know how to convey a the wonder I feel in text. Check it
| out maybe.
| swalberg wrote:
| GUE Fundies is on my bucket list. I don't think I'd be
| interested in cave diving or deep stuff where I need helium,
| but the level of skill that tech divers show is something I
| want to be able to do.
| gritspants wrote:
| Do fundies! We all failed, initially. We had a blast bunking
| up and spending days in the water though.
| eranation wrote:
| Not a new hobby per se, but the combination of
|
| - a good audio book
|
| - a massage chair
|
| - a mindless idle game that you don't need to think of while
| listening to a good book and getting a massage
|
| Priceless.
| kacesensitive wrote:
| massage chair recc?
| koeng wrote:
| I do some synthetic biology as a hobby - genetically engineered a
| baker's yeast to produce grape aroma and then baked bread with
| it, and gave it to like 100 people at an event I was at.
|
| Also do a few others - learned Esperanto (exclusively through
| listening and speaking with people), beekeeping, woodworking,
| etc.
| marshymarsh wrote:
| do you have any writeups or resources on that yeast?
| vonneumannstan wrote:
| Perhaps feeding strangers homemade GMOs isn't the best idea...
| serf wrote:
| FDM 3d printing is still a wild-west and there are plenty of
| avenues to explore. Not sure what else to say about that other
| than as someone with daily and close personal proximity to the
| 'industry' that cropped up I am well aware that there is plenty
| of work to be done by enthusiasts and niche-people.
|
| Engineering and machinery is still a place full of exploration if
| you have the chops. If you don't have them yet then there is
| plenty of topics within that domain to explore; you'll never run
| out of things to learn there.
|
| My 0.02c : learn to disregard the crowds and focus on your own
| work. Just because people are doing something you used to do
| doesn't mean they have anywhere near the depth of understanding
| and 'freedom of movement' as you do as a 'resident expert'.
|
| also : the fact that no one is doing something _may be a signal_
| ; crowds form for a reason. Very few hobbyist bomb-squad folk and
| rabid-racoon-caregivers, get what I mean?
|
| the GPT3 models didn't keep you from learning about ML. The
| industry didn't push you from keyboard and printers. You did
| these things.
|
| If you're trying to lead an entirely one-off human life with
| total uniqueness from other people then all I could suggest is
| hallucinogens , but personally I think that the goal of just
| being unique for the sake of being unique is ludicrous.
|
| Just find enjoyment, that's the goal for me at least.
| switchbak wrote:
| I knew a guy who found an interesting 3d printing niche: 2 way
| radios for professionals (mainly SAR crews) are always getting
| fetched up on clothing, and you're often finding the radio
| turned off because the knobs got moved. Dumb problem, should
| have been solved by fundamental engineering years ago - but
| whatever. He built a 3d printed shroud for a variety of popular
| radios, and now makes a living selling these.
|
| He's a tech guy, but no engineer. He saw the need (he works on
| a SAR team), saw the solution and made it happen. Inspiring,
| really.
|
| I do a bit of 3d printing stuff myself. Personally, I'm
| attracted that it's getting more professional. I can use it as
| the impetus to learn real engineering/CAD, etc. Not in an "I'm
| an engineer" way, but still using real principles to make
| better things. You don't have to be intimidated if you keep
| your identity small and let it inspire you instead.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| There's a lot of legacy / retro coding out there that despite the
| output being used by anywhere from hundreds, to thousands to even
| millions of end-users, it still involves small tight night
| communities per project, sometimes they overlap somewhat. I've
| mentioned it before, if you follow people reverse engineering
| Shockwave, you will note that they are all on the same
| communities to capture as much wisdom from others as possible. In
| niche reverse engineering communities, the smallest thing can be
| a life changer.
| embwbam wrote:
| Not sure if you were looking only for indoor hobbies, but I
| picked up Kiteboarding recently, and it is the most outrageously
| fun thing I've ever done.
|
| It's like being a kid and jumping off the house with a bedsheet,
| except it works. Most mistakes are laughed off by splashing in
| the water. I'm 3 years in and I can jump 7-10m then fly like a
| bird for 5-10 seconds without consequences.
|
| Even as a beginner, sailing around or just feeling a kite pull
| you around is such a blast. Keep in mind it's really difficult
| and pretty much requires 10-20 hours of private lessons.
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| Really fun! I used to do it too, and I miss it.
|
| How do you combine it with work? Where I live in NL, there are
| few days where I'm able to go kiteboarding and I probably won't
| know until the day off if it's possible or not.
|
| Very hard to schedule!
| embwbam wrote:
| I work remotely, and my schedule is flexible. I live in
| Squamish BC all summer which is great for wind. In the winter
| we are in UT but my friends take lots of kiting destination
| vacations.
|
| I'm fairly late in my career though (44yo), so I've opted for
| a lower salary, low stress and flexible job.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Kitesurfing is insane yes! I can jump up to ~6m in 1 year.
|
| Really efficient adrenaline with relatively very low risk.
| microscoper wrote:
| I always thought that looked fun but I would worry about being
| blown away up too high or into some obstacle like rocks
|
| Is that something that happens to people?
|
| Also how dependent is it on weather? Do you have to monitor the
| wind to know if its worth going out?
| vishkk wrote:
| Not sure if it is niche, but focused on one South Asian music
| genre -- been working on this personal project to compile, and
| collect resources from reliable sources along with mapping
| lineages of people. Also, I archive a lot of music for this genre
| from different sources before it vanishes from internet!
|
| https://www.qavvali.com/
|
| EDIT: I have one more page but that is not in navigation yet for
| people not familiar with the genre. The site is still work in
| progress -- if you have any feedback, please do leave it here, on
| the website if you can. The content curation is the most tedious
| part! https://www.qavvali.com/tradition/
| system2 wrote:
| I am trying to build microphone capsules in my garage. Trying to
| go below 14dB (Primo EM272 level), under 1". It is difficult but
| rewarding. I do not expect any financial benefits from it, even
| if I make it under 10mm, because it is very time-consuming. Big
| players already have massive factories doing 10,000x of what I am
| doing.
|
| This is the most niche tech-related hobby I have currently.
| cadr wrote:
| Ooh! What kind of capsules?
| system2 wrote:
| I am trying to dial down K67. I am thinking about gold
| plating myself for the diaphragm in the future, but I am not
| ready for the expense. It is the hardest part of the project
| because the sound quality mostly depends on the diaphragm
| quality, and the rest of the capsule is literally a
| container.
|
| I started the hobby a while back when I tried to create an
| ESP32 field recorder, but the sound quality was terrible with
| the MEMS style micropones. I ordered the Japanese Primo mics
| (14db for 10mm is crazy), and said if Japanese dudes can do
| it, I can do it too.
|
| I was trying to create a visualizer tool for my steps in the
| backyard with ESP32 microphones, which sync perfectly and
| analyze the sound locations with Time Difference of Arrival
| (TDOA) methods. I got close, but mic sensitivity, even at
| 14db is not 100% unless I place the mics 30-40 inches apart.
| I am still working on that project, but that also got
| expensive because $28 for ESP32-S3 POE and $25 primo mic per
| node got very expensive quickly as I wanted to cover more
| areas. I hope to share it soon with HN.
| cadr wrote:
| I hope I don't miss it when you post!
|
| I've wanted to make a ribbon mic but haven't gotten around
| to it. I've seen where people use Mylar emergency blankets
| as the membrane for condenser mics. The closest I've gotten
| is accidentally having a capacitor in a radio act as a
| microphone where it shouldn't :)
| rahulgoel wrote:
| If you like music and technology - there's a massive world of
| possibilities out there (e.g., software based music production,
| tone.js, music programming with Strudel).
|
| If you have more money - 1) DJing/mixing on vinyl + record
| digging, 2) Modular synthesis (your wallet will hate you your
| soul will love you)
| dr_robert wrote:
| I'm a paraglider pilot and powered paraglider recently. Totally
| recommended, you get to connect with nature in a meaningful way.
| Also people who practice this kind of sports are nice. From a
| tech perspective there are a lot of data generated on each flight
| you can create your own way to capture that data or use already
| existing apps.
| Deanallen wrote:
| i've always been interested in para-motoring. how safe or
| unsafe is paragliding? do you think about that aspect before
| going out for a flight?
| dr_robert wrote:
| I've been flying since 2012 and I always think about safety.
| Safety is relative but if you do the things the right way you
| will be ok. A good common sense is super important, and then
| keep on your progression, there's no need to skip steps.
| Knowing the air is a lifetime journey so there is no rush.
| Also I feel paramotor is kind of safer because you get to fly
| with light wind or not wind at all, mostly early in the
| morning or near sunset. In my personal experience this sport
| change my life.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I've known 3 people that were into paragliding. 2 of them had
| near misses from chute collapses and the other flew into a
| stationery car (he was saved from more serious injury by
| wearing a full face helmet). So definitely not risk free,
| based on that sample.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| I got to do this a couple of years ago. It's super cool! Very
| much recommend it.
|
| But I'll note that it's super...weird? in the sense that it's
| like halfway between being both relaxing and excitative, nature
| and machine. I went in expecting a thrill ride and it wasn't
| quite that, but it wasn't quite relaxing either (though I'd
| imagine the more you do it the more it feels like the letter!).
| tristanb wrote:
| Me too! I love the view up there.
| dr_robert wrote:
| Totally worth it
| c0nfusedpengu1n wrote:
| The best part is when you can combine your love of engineering
| and flying and work on your own electric paramotor. Highly
| recommend paragliding as an affordable and safe way to
| experience flight
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I've been doing photography for a long time but over the last few
| years had phases where I got bored of it and tried something new.
|
| I had a long time when I was bored and carried the camera in my
| pack but never took any pictures, then one day I looked out at
| the sports center out my window and decided to start shooting
| sports.
|
| Posting photos to socials I found flower photographs were popular
| so I take a lot of them and find ways to not get bored. (Maybe I
| will start focus stacking one of these days)
|
| Since the beginning of the year I have been "going out" as a
| character who is a bit like a Disney cast member who gets photos
| like
|
| https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116326541009492328
|
| from people who recognize my character. Like the Disney cast
| member it works better when people have seen the movie so i hand
| out these tokens
|
| https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116086491667959840
|
| which spread virally around a university campus, particularly
| among Chinese students who recognize the _huli jing_ and all the
| time I have experiences "that could only happen in a manga"
| when, for instance, somebody who's heard the rumors is waiting at
| the bus stop for me. Laugh but all my marketing KPIs have an
| extra zero on the right!
| eitally wrote:
| Same, but not the same. I've also been doing photography for a
| long time and when I had kids I added some gear & skills to
| shoot them playing sports. After a few years of this I realized
| since I was already there I might as well shoot the whole team,
| or both/all teams, since everyone's families would value the
| photos.
|
| When I was laid off at the end of last year I decided to
| formalize this and now have a side gig (real, insured business)
| where I shoot local youth & high school sports for free, but
| make a few bucks (to cover my equipment costs plus spending
| money) doing portraits, headshots and team media days. It's
| proven fulfilling, mostly because since I do the events for
| free I tend to receive a lot of goodwill and word-of-mouth
| referrals. Far more than I can handle given my day job.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| That gig is something I tried to do w/ my daughter's sports
| for the past 5-ish years. I loved shooting her games and
| distributing the photos both teams. It was so much fun.
|
| I had a nasty altercation with a parent last fall and now I
| can't pick up the camera w/o getting PTSD-like symptoms. I'd
| love to know how "pros" handle dealing with that kind of
| thing. I had a similar situation years ago w/ a guy who got
| in my face for shooting on the street at a festival. My
| solution there was to just stop doing it.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| You need to be extremely careful about taking photos of
| children without explicit permission from the parents.
| eitally wrote:
| You need to know the law. That is being careful, but it
| doesn't mean it's always illegal to photograph children
| in public.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| For sure, but it didn't help me because I don't have the
| fortitude to stand my ground. I'm very non-
| confrontational.
|
| (Yikes-- I feel my pulse in my neck and chest just
| writing about this.)
|
| I likely need to see a therapist about it. Wow.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| At least on the street and in sports my experience is
| people using purpose-built cameras get harassed.
|
| People using cell phones as cameras get a pass (at least
| in sports).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's common that they don't even let you into the venue
| if you have a interchangable lens camera. I wouldn't even
| try going into a pro game with a camera if I didn't have
| a credential.
|
| At my Uni I usually go right in without any trouble, the
| only case I got hassled was a woman's hockey game and
| that time I kept repeating "I've never had trouble
| getting into a game before" (true) until they gave up and
| let me in. (Which doesn't leave me inclined to try again,
| but I'd already bought a ticket and didn't want to back
| and stash my gear in my office) I hear in hockey they are
| really worried about wildcat video streams.
|
| Some of the sports at Cornell are exceptionally laid
| back. We are one of a few schools that plays sprint
| football which is 100% the same as regular football
| except players have to weigh less than 178 lbs [1], I
| know the head coach, I know people in the parent's
| association, they leave the gate unlocked and i go right
| down to the sidelines.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_football
| rationalist wrote:
| Make up an official-looking "Event Photographer" vest, hat,
| lanyard with "Photographer Pass" on it, etc?
|
| People generally ignore or even help workers with a bright
| vest, carrying a ladder, etc. So I imagine you would get a
| lot less suspicious looks doing something like that versus
| looking like an Average Joe.
|
| Maybe with a polo shirt and embroidered made-up photography
| company logo and name on it.
| eitally wrote:
| It depends on the type of experience that altercation was.
| If it was you being confronted about photographing their
| kid without a model release, that's one thing, but if it
| was a more general unease of a photographer being present
| at the event, that's different.
|
| For the latter, make sure you don't need a media credential
| (you probably don't) and get one if you do.
|
| For the former, if _your_ kid is competing, the odds are
| good that you already are acquainted with their teammates '
| parents so you can just ask directly, especially if you
| intend to share your album with them afterward.
|
| My experience is that, with littler kids, if a photographer
| is _not_ in the parent sideline /area, parents may wonder
| who they are. With older (high school) kids, they expect
| some media coverage so that part isn't a big deal. What
| they _do_ care about is being able to reshare your shots to
| their socials or use them for other personal reasons.
| Depending on the high school or club, you may or may not
| need a media credential. If not, it 's usually up to the
| coach (for high school) to decide whether you're allowed
| on/next-to the field/track/court. It's helpful to build a
| rapport with the coaches. It's also helpful to be able to
| show that you're a legitimate business and not just some
| rando.
|
| In my case, I do events for free and provide full-res post-
| processed albums via Google Photos. This is a labor of love
| because I know athletes and their families (not to mention
| yearbook staff!) appreciate it. Maxpreps, SBLive and others
| contract with local photogs to cover events, too, and those
| sites aggregate and host the albums... but downloads
| average ~$20/image. It's not hard for a decent local
| photographer to favorably compete against those
| freelancers. Then it's also easier for me to upsell on
| portraits and media days. Media Days for school teams I
| typically charge ~$35/kid. For club teams it's usually
| $50/kid. For that they get a guaranteed 3 poses each plus
| leftover time for fun poses. Unlike a lot of commercial
| photogs, I charge this flat rate per athlete instead of a
| booking fee + per-image download or print packages. My
| experience is that they really just want digitals most of
| the time anyway, and even if I net less I don't really care
| because this is just a labor of love where I can cover my
| expenses and earn some spending money (~$10k/yr is
| acceptable given the time I'm putting into it).
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Insect macro photography is an interesting and challenging
| niche within photography. Trying to find insects and then get a
| sharp photo, when you have less than 1mm depth of field, is
| quite a challenge! It also opens up a whole world that you
| wouldn't normally see.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I've seen photos by people who use the native focus stacking
| in Olympus Micro 4/3 cameras to get awesome shots of insects.
| I am firmly in the Sony camp but I have been thinking of
| getting an Olympus body and a lens or two for birds
| (lens+body is much less than the Sony lens and _it can be
| hand-held_ ) and macro work... Like once I saw focus stacked
| flower pictures I couldn't be 100% happy w/ the ones I take)
|
| See https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/om-system-
| ambassadors...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Stacking is difficult with insects. Unless you kill them
| first, which I don't want to do.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| https://dejabru.org - The Homebrew Competition Remembering
| Historic and Long-Forgotten Beer Styles
| evklein wrote:
| Not sure if this is an established hobby or something I've just
| come up with myself, but I've been "dashboarding." Essentially I
| have a Blazor webapp that integrates lots of data sources (some
| manual, some automatic) from areas of my life and I use that to
| visualize and analyze goals and habits. The main page consists of
| rolling-weekly stats that deliver "integration scores." Each
| score contributes to an overall score that gives me a general
| idea of how I'm doing on all my habits and goals.
|
| So for instance, I use YNAB for our family budgeting, and I have
| it setup so that if I go a whole week without performing
| reconciliations, I get dinged -1. Otherwise this sits at 1.0.
| Then I have a score for journaling - my goal is to journal 4-5
| times per week, so each time I journal it resets the score to 1,
| and then slowly ticks down to 0 over time. Then I have a number
| of Apple health scores that get imported automatically via REST
| API. This part compiles all the data on calories, relevant
| macronutrients (I mostly track protein and fiber currently),
| steps, workouts, etc. and builds a nice visualization. I consider
| a total integration score of 0.8 to be pretty good - keeping at
| that level is actually better than seeking for a perfect 1.0 all
| the time as my theory is that it will prevent burnout and allow
| for some forgiveness, because I can't be perfect.
|
| It's been a fun project, and one that I generally try to avoid
| any AI use. Fun to just build and because the stakes are so low I
| just chip away at one feature at a time, carving out 15 minutes
| here or there.
| THansenite wrote:
| Do you have more details on this project anywhere? I've been
| working on habit-building and tracking in my journal for the
| past year and a half or so, but I'm looking to amp it up a bit
| more. Your project appeals to my software developer and hobby
| collector mindset and would love to learn more about it.
| evklein wrote:
| Not really, but I'm happy to share more here :)
|
| In all honesty, under the hood it's a bit of a mess. I may
| have eschewed some of the software engineering best practices
| in lieu of building something quickly that I wanted. I'll get
| around to going back through and retrofitting the app with
| some cleaner code, but for now I couldn't even open-source it
| without a self-perceived hit to my portfolio.
|
| The project largely started out as something else. I
| initially wanted a combined TO-DO list and journal. Rather
| than checking things off I would run the journal content
| through a local LLM and have it check things off for me based
| on what I wrote each day. That's yet to be implemented. Then
| I moved on to an "ordering" system - I was inspired by the
| way that medical practitioners put in orders once they
| determined a course of treatment, and thought that might be a
| useful model to help motivate me to get things on my list
| done more effectively. I built this, but have utilized it
| less than I thought. Since then it's mostly been focus on the
| integrations and scoring system. The whole thing is highly
| modular, so for each integration I grab a template for the
| visualization I want to build and then need to reason out how
| to get the data into the system, which usually involves an
| API integration, scraping from some online data source,
| and/or data engineering. It's very fun, because each
| integration module has its own challenges.
|
| I built the app using a standard stack of .NET core, Blazor
| server, and the data is stored in SQL server and data
| operations are handled with EF core. I use the Radzen
| component library, which I like a lot from a developer
| perspective but it's challenging to retheme and I'm largely
| unhappy with the look/feel of the app. This is something I
| plan on getting to eventually.
|
| Happy to answer any/all questions. It's such a personal,
| homebrewed app that I can't imagine anyone else would get as
| much use out of, but it's very powerful and I think the hobby
| aspect of it could translate to pretty much any other
| developer.
| jakescustomshop wrote:
| Somebody already mentioned "Modular Synths". There's incredible
| resources for building your own synth modules for everything from
| circuit design to simple kits. Check out LMNC on Youtube:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTLeNxge54
| rbanffy wrote:
| How niche is retrocomputing?
|
| I absolutely love my ancient machines, and I use them to explore
| period applications, much more than games.
|
| I also love to restore and preserve them. There's something
| magical about a Sun workstation Solaris 2 a Frog Design Trinitron
| monitor. or a Microvax running VMS and DECWindows. Or a multi-
| user Altair Z80. I think it's sad a lot of software was lost and
| some platforms were denied the documentation that'd enable their
| preservation (looking at you, IBM - document the AS/400 and
| release old OS to hobbyists).
| jakerubo wrote:
| I have a working Apple II with some of the original games,
| manuals, etc. Let me know if there's a way to contact you.
| Happy to send it your way if you cover shipping or something
| along those lines.
| dare944 wrote:
| I have a lot of fun with my old PDP-11s. Being able to run an
| original version of Unix on a machine with actual core memory
| (that I restored to working order) is a real kick for me. Gives
| a sense of depth to the software I run on my modern Linux
| laptop.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Recreational mapmaking.
|
| Every couple of months the family and I will book out some long
| weekend to just go to an Airbnb in some random town with some
| copy paper and just go around trying to draw what we think is
| around us. Inevitably the lines collide and we have to ask some
| local passerby for help, and if they know any interesting places
| nearby, and before you know it they're following along with a
| colored pencil and some copy paper against a hardcover book too.
| rationalist wrote:
| Now that's a niche hobby that sounds interesting.
| auditnews wrote:
| It has been learning ,learning &exploring new platforms lately
| .Well also interesting in Substacking .Do give your precious
| reviews.https://fortauderdaleseo.substack.com/
| ggregoire wrote:
| I've been playing exclusively CRPGs for the last 12 months or so,
| which was kinda a niche genre before the success of BG3. There
| are tons of way to beat those games and optimizing how you build
| your party and characters (what players call "min-maxing") while
| following a highly narrative story is a lot of fun. Most of them
| are quite old and often on sales for like 5 bucks on Steam, for
| which you get hundreds of hours of gameplay. A few
| recommendations: Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Owlcat's
| Pathfinders & W40K Rogue Trader, Larian's Divinity 1, 2 & BG3,
| Bioware's BG1 & BG2, etc...
| g00z wrote:
| These are a blast. I went through a phase in highschool where I
| exclusively played 90's CRPGs. There are some real gems that
| find a unique playstyle with tons of freedom due to how low
| fidelity the games are, while still being visually engaging and
| beautiful. Definitely check out fallout 2 if you haven't tried
| it yet, it's one of my favorites!
| drchickensalad wrote:
| Check out the Epic Encounters 2 mod for D:OS2. Best tactics
| experience I've ever had. Runners up are LWOTC for XCOM3 and
| Homebrew for BG3.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I always meant to go back to Wizardry 7 I think it is. (Or 5, I
| forget)
|
| I was convinced that a party of all Ninjas and Samurai would be
| unstoppable, but I never could make it work. I recall leveling
| up to a point where a high enough character would get 3 attacks
| per turn, and then when hit counterattack twice. Multiply this
| by the whole party.
|
| But realistically, at some point this flurry of attacks every
| round just fell over because you need better magic users for
| enemies with certain weaknesses. My memory is fuzzy, but it
| also may have related to the increasingly large hordes of
| enemies which would dilute the effects of so many attacks.
| mkjs wrote:
| Nice to see people discovering these games. I wouldn't really
| say it was niche until BG3 though, there were plenty of highly
| acclaimed games long before that.
|
| You might like this blog, the author plays through CRPGs in
| chronological order. Currently they're at the mid 90s.
| https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/
| avisser wrote:
| Fallout 1 & 2! Formative titles for young me.
| xpe wrote:
| Invasive species removal, bird identification, trail running,
| mountain biking, audiobook listening while walking. All are best
| done out of doors. :P Most are teh opposite of the posture and
| brain patterns that intensive computer usage encourages.
| jeremymcanally wrote:
| I got into HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) fencing last
| year through a club in my little town. Olympic/sport fencing is
| fun, but imagine (safely) swinging a 4lbs. steel longsword with
| two hands at your opponent instead. It's a ton of fun, a great
| workout (I burn ~1500 calories per class), and competitive so it
| keeps my interest.
|
| Then there's the whole nerd layer of reading all the original
| sources from the 15th century, attempting to retain the
| historical character of the techniques while engaging in real
| combat, etc. It's both intellectually and physically stimulating.
| elric wrote:
| +1 for martial arts in general. Depending on the art it might
| not be niche (I'm sure karate and taekwondo are too big for
| that). But things like HEMA, iaido, eskrima, all kinds of
| archery, ... are great fun and typically come with smallish &
| fun communities.
|
| Edit: before you think these arts are immune to tech, I once
| had a student who built a (truly awful) sword fighting "robot"
| to help train deflecting strikes. Not quite up to par with
| Dune's robot swordmasters.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| HEMA looks much more interesting than olympic style fencing.
| dmoy wrote:
| Olympic style fencing is pretty interesting too, to be fair.
| Physical Chess
|
| Also it's less... scary? At least you'll get less scary-
| looking bruises (though probably more total number of
| bruises)
| rdanieli wrote:
| very cool post
| anon291 wrote:
| I'm learning to play the accordion
| hermitcrab wrote:
| "A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but
| doesn't"
|
| ;0)
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| I ended up giving up on it because my right shoulder is damaged
| from rheumatoid arthritis. Go where I could not, anon291. May
| your reeds be clean and your bellows free of mildew.
| alexpotato wrote:
| Using crooked knives [0] for woodcarving.
|
| They're essentially a combination of a plane, spoke-shave, draw-
| knife and gouge but all in a one handed tool. They were primarily
| used by Native Americans to build things like canoes, snowshoes,
| baskets etc. I first found about them from reading John McPhee's
| Survival of the Bark Canoe [1] but there are lots of uses of them
| on video on the website below (which I created).
|
| If you want to get into woodworking but want only a few tools
| and/or a very portable tool, highly recommend.
|
| e.g. in theory you could build an entire canoe with an axe,
| crooked knife and 3 or 4 sided awl (and a lot of time, patience
| and materials)
|
| 0 - https://crookedknives.com/
|
| 1 - https://amzn.to/3NSj4T3
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That's pretty niche!
| araes wrote:
| Almost a literal "niche" hobby. Canoe - something that
| resembles a recess in a wall.
| alexpotato wrote:
| I try to give the people what they ask for.
| avipars wrote:
| also an amazon affiliate?
|
| aphackernews-20
| teeray wrote:
| I've been learning Gregg Shorthand (Anniversary) since the start
| of the year. It's a fun challenge even if it feels fantastically
| obsolete at this point with transcription models getting better
| and better every day. I've always liked paper-and-pen notes, so
| the idea of basically learning analog Vim was appealing :)
| guywithahat wrote:
| I've been making a seabed simulation of the seabed for
| interacting with polymetallic nodules. The idea is these nodules
| contain a lot of cobalt, but due to their location on the
| seafloor they're had to access, making mining difficult.
|
| It took me a while but I finally got my hands on some
| polymetallic nodules (basically the rocks you find on the seabed
| that contain cobalt) which I'm scanning and will hopefully have
| uploaded soon. Tragically the nodules were damaged through
| shipping but it's all I have, especially since the first shipment
| was stolen off my porch lol. It's build with Project Chrono using
| C++ https://github.com/thansen0/seabed-sim-chrono
| JanMa wrote:
| I don't think it's a niche hobby, but I really enjoy cooking.
| Trying out new techniques and receipts, cooking dinner for
| friends and family or just preparing a delicious meal in advance.
| guardian5x wrote:
| I wouldn't say that chess is a solved problem. Just a hard
| problem to make a better chess engine than current Stockfish.
| derekered wrote:
| Holograms! It's fascinating how they are made and how they can
| serve as a metaphor for how the universe might work.
| specproc wrote:
| I've designed jewellery for my wife's last few birthdays. Nothing
| fancy, geometries, square kufic and such.
|
| Very crude approach: I've been doing it in Blender, if you've 3D
| skills should be easy. I've got a friend who does the printing
| and casting, so there's more I could explore there later.
|
| I also do dioramas, which grew out of 40K. Got bored with hench
| guys with guns and moved to 6mm, it's been great fun focusing on
| buildings.
| bulte-rs wrote:
| I'm a football/soccer coach (youth, U12 and U19).
|
| Got started as a "temp" for my sons mini-team (back when he was
| 5). Temporary turns into UEFA certified youth trainer/coach real
| fast. It's no longer just about the kids (sorry guys), but a
| really awesome hobby with lots of personal development paths.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Not niche, but photography has a way of opening doors because you
| push yourself to get to places you might not otherwise.
|
| Maybe learn a new language that isn't European or Japanese.
|
| If "niche" matters to you, anything currently receiving any type
| of investing (ML etc) is probably not gonna work.
| tverbeure wrote:
| Is buying hopefully broken electronic test equipment at the flea
| market, fixing it and then blogging about it a niche hobby?
| Theodores wrote:
| Baking bread, albeit with a (Panasonic) bread making machine.
| Might not be niche, however, traditions of giving bread to guests
| runs deep and people are always delighted if you give them a loaf
| of extremely fresh bread.
|
| There are different directions that bread making can go. During
| the pandemic there was a rash of people making rock hard
| sourdough, and sourdough is still the magic word for 'higher
| status' bread, even though almost every commercially available
| sourdough loaf is faked with enzymes added to a regular
| 'Chorleywood' loaf.
|
| I gave sourdough a go but I prefer my bread making machines
| creations that are definitely not sourdough. I like to fortify my
| bread in two different ways, either with fruits and nuts to make
| a 'fruit loaf' of sorts, or with seeds and wholemeal flour to
| have bread that covers many a niche nutrient.
|
| Commercial bread in the UK comes with government issued
| fortifications of folates, B vitamins and whatnot. This might be
| fine for pregnant mums that can't cook, but I am not one of them!
| So the challenge is to do a better job of the fortifications,
| mostly with seeds and choice of flour.
|
| Commercial bread is also not very real, with lots of additives
| that I don't seem to need in my own creations. Emulsifiers,
| preservatives and everything else are needed for commercial
| bread, if it is to have shelf life and appeal, but my intestines
| are not crying out for these sorts of additives and I seem to
| still be alive without them, with improved digestive tract
| functionality.
|
| Although we have more interesting things to eat than bread, our
| history in the West is the history of bread, we would not be here
| without it. Once you start baking your own, albeit with a
| machine, history becomes so much more interesting.
|
| The other optimisation I try is cost. It is easy to produce a
| decent loaf with very expensive ingredients, however, on a budget
| it gets to have a different challenge to it.
|
| I introduced my uncle to the hobby and he is a meticulous record
| keeper, so I wrote a simple app for him to record his bakes and
| ratings. This enables him to make fine adjustments to quantities
| so as to improve on his creations.
|
| I did look for an app before I wrote my own, and the app was
| called 'Microsoft Excel'. I am sure that could be customised with
| recipes and whatnot, but I wanted to reinvent the wheel, hence my
| own app, just for myself and my uncle.
|
| With some hobbies that is all you do and an obsession. Bread
| making is not like that, you can have plenty of more strings to
| your bow. As mentioned, people are always impressed if you give
| them a loaf, or if they learn that your sandwiches are made with
| your own bread. You can insist that it took three minutes with
| the machine, to downplay everything, however people stay
| impressed.
| deviation wrote:
| I've been pretty obsessed with FSRS in general (tldr:
| https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/awesome-fsrs/wiki/...)
| It's a fantastic new-ish scheduler for spaced repetition -
| basically a machine learning model which adapts to you, and
| schedules flash (or anything, really, it's an algorithm) cards
| according to how well you are personally performing - surfacing
| data like retention, stability, recall, etc. It's a massive jump
| over previous "learning algorithms" like
|
| For the past 60d I've been using Anki (a flash card program) and
| it's FSRS setting to learn my French deck (5000 most common
| French words) and I'm absolutely zooming. I can already follow a
| fair chunk of conversational French.
|
| I've also been using the same system to learn Chess more deeply
| (endgames, tactics, openings) through Chessable and a few other
| websites that offer FSRS. It's levelled up my chess game _a lot_
|
| Basically - the thing that hooked me was the data. Being able to
| see how many cards I've reviewed, how many cards are at 90/80%
| retention, the stability of every piece of that knowledge, the
| decay rate, etc... It's really cool.
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| FSRS is really cool. I'm trying to use it and a modified
| flashcard system to learn more abstract computer science and
| higher math. I hadn't considered it as a way of learning Chess
| - that's really interesting. I'm thinking about expanding my
| system to cover ear-training, birdsong recognition, a few other
| things like that.
| ggambetta wrote:
| I'm into book restoration, here's a gallery:
| https://photos.app.goo.gl/1oNxCfKJp4k6yjoZ9
|
| Much less niche, but I'm also really into acting:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=do5PicgU0Jw
| riffraff wrote:
| That's impressive work! But how come the books are in mixed
| languages? Are they your books? Do you fix books for random
| people?
| ggambetta wrote:
| Hahaha, good observation :) I ran out of my childhood books
| (in Spanish) to fix, then I ran out of my GFs childhood books
| (in Latvian), so at that point I offered my services to
| anyone in the Google Zurich office. I got books in all kinds
| of languages I couldn't read, and a few chocolates and
| bottles of wine for my troubles :)
|
| Some of the most interesting books were especially
| challenging. One in old German that was missing a couple of
| pages. It was a popular fairytale so I found the missing
| content online and a closely matching font, and reconstructed
| the pages. Another was in an Asian script I not only couldn't
| read, I didn't know how to sort or even properly rotate some
| loose pages, so I had to ask the owner. In a few cases when
| bits of the cover were missing, I found photos online, and
| printed a patch. Fun times!
| edu wrote:
| I've recently started making bread, at the moment still with
| fresh or bakers yeast and planning to grow my own sourdough.
|
| It's not very niche, but as a hobby it's pretty fulfilling. It
| allows for a lot of play, and you end with something tasty. Also,
| makes for a great small gift for friends and family.
| __fst__ wrote:
| My wife got a square cast iron dutch oven that she bakes bread
| in. The breads have this nice crust and soft texture inside. To
| die for.
| bluGill wrote:
| I make most of my bread with sourdough. It is really easy, it
| takes a bit longer, but there are less steps - just mix some
| more flour/water (sometimes salt, but I've not had a problem
| when I forget though others say it helps the taste to add salt
| - YMMV) into your starter and wait. Yeast is faster by a lot,
| but it is a lot more complex and so I don't find it worth it.
| achenatx wrote:
| Create custom software for non profits is pretty rewarding. They
| cant afford anything and have process flow needs that are
| completely unmet.
|
| The software wont be sexy, but will help the non profits and the
| people they serve
| dansmith1919 wrote:
| Oh damn, I love this one. I've been vibe coding a 'public
| benefit' app on the side that has a few hundred users but never
| thought of doing something for an actual non-profit.
|
| Care to elaborate on your process? Curious how you approach
| them and come up with the best path forward with limited time
| (assuming you have a full time job as well on the side).
| Thanks!
| bombcar wrote:
| I would recommend finding a local non-profit you're
| interested in helping, and start volunteering. Don't go in
| guns blazing "I'm here from Hackernews to save you" but get
| to know the people and what they do, and then how to help
| will become apparent.
|
| By local I would recommend truly local and not a "division"
| of a national non-profit; those are an entirely different
| beast.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I'd love to get involved with this. How to do you organizations
| that need help?
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I would suggest looking for local charities whose mission you
| are care about. Then just finding out what issues they have.
| I ended up building a simple system based on Airtable for a
| local charity. Although pretty unsophisticated it was
| transformative for them.
|
| https://successfulsoftware.net/2018/02/04/volunteering-
| your-...
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| That could actually lead to a profitable business in the longer
| run: You will have great insights and lots of working code that
| may end up in a commercial product that someone is seeking? Esp
| since you mentioned unmet requirements, thats actually a good
| indicator
| tombert wrote:
| I have been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to find
| the owners of the old Digital Research "Concurrent DOS" operating
| system. There's a lot of interesting turns in the search and it's
| been fun to document.
|
| I've written a blog post about it [1] though there have been a
| few updates since I've written that.
|
| I honestly think it might be a fun thing for me to keep doing,
| whether or not I'm successful with my search. I think there is a
| lot of old software that is just sitting on old hard drives that
| is waiting to be preserved.
|
| [1]
| https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Technical/2026/03-March/The-Q...
| cadr wrote:
| I don't know how niche they are, but a few I've done in the past
|
| - 3D printed musical instruments. Print other designs or
| contribute your own
|
| - lock picking. When you really get into it, you modify locks to
| make them more of a challenge and mail them to people
|
| - Ham radio is hundreds of sub-hobbies in a trench coat. I'm
| currently mainly interested in linearizing switch-mode
| amplifiers, but was doing fox hunting for a bit (radio direction
| finding), and periodically do POTA (transmitting from parks)
| devrundown wrote:
| > Ham radio is hundreds of sub-hobbies in a trench coat
|
| Really good way of putting it! POTA can be a lot of fun.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| HAM radio is whole range of things that were not possible
| when I was getting into it - first of all it's super cheap to
| start now, and you can probably bounce RF signals off the
| moon for less than $100 nowadays. Shortwave radio has always
| allowed signals to go around the world (by bouncing off the
| stratosphere). Most likely the new digital + AI capabilities
| means that a few well positioned relays could make for a very
| independent, low bandwidth Internet. Solar powered BTS or APs
| all kinds of experiments are possible...
| pikewood wrote:
| Any pointers to resources or groups around 3D printed musical
| instruments? Sounds really interesting!
| cadr wrote:
| There is a /r/3dprintedinstruments subreddit that if you sort
| by best of all time has a lot of good stuff.
|
| Fipple flutes like recorders and ocarinas tend to be easy to
| start with. I also had good luck with the Modular Fiddle
| [https://openfabpdx.com/download/modular-fiddle-complete-
| desi... .
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Six months deep now into analog computing. (I have a modular,
| hobbyist analog computer wrapping up--just writing the manual).
|
| Going to have to do something on the other end of the spectrum
| after this. Maybe RISO printing...
| mcnnowak wrote:
| Try playing Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder (or any number of
| other systems.) Pathfinder is super deep and complex.
|
| There's also an entire community of people who play Table Top
| Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) solo and use the outcomes of their
| play reports to blog or write fiction.
|
| Also, the tooling around these games is very interesting if you
| want to build an app: Crafting calculator? Generative hexcrawl
| maps? Random tables? Statistics tools for dice rolls?
| chromacity wrote:
| Almost everything you can do on your own is a "solved problem".
| Why go into woodworking if you can buy an Ikea stool? The point
| of hobbies isn't to solve problems - that's called a job - but to
| learn and have fun.
|
| Find a niche where you can resist the temptation to constantly
| compare yourself to eight billion other people on the internet.
| Something where success isn't measured in Github stars, Youtube
| likes, or Reddit upvotes. Once you get in that mindset, almost
| anything goes. I know people who collect RPN calculators and are
| having a blast. All kinds of hands-on crafts are great too. I
| like making electronic music and I'm pretty bad at it.
| bananaflag wrote:
| > Almost everything you can do on your own is a "solved
| problem".
|
| Not everything. Take cooking, one of the most basic hobbies.
| It's easy to come up with recipes that you enjoy that you
| cannot order anywhere.
|
| Or the comment here about designing your own clothes, same
| idea.
| awkwardleon wrote:
| I like Kurt Vonnegut's take on this:
|
| "When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological
| dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during
| our lunch break and he asked those kinds of "getting to know
| you" questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What's
| your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don't play any
| sports. I do theater, I'm in choir, I play the violin and
| piano, I used to take art classes.
|
| And he went WOW. That's amazing! And I said, "Oh no, but I'm
| not any good at ANY of them."
|
| And he said something then that I will never forget and which
| absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything
| like it to me before: "I don't think being good at things is
| the point of doing them. I think you've got all these wonderful
| experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you
| things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well
| you do them."
|
| And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a
| failure, someone who hadn't been talented enough at anything to
| excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had
| been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so
| inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only
| worth doing things if you could "Win" at them."
| jedberg wrote:
| I make holiday light shows with an open source program called
| XLights[0]. I'm sure you've seen the videos[1] of what people[2]
| can do. Usually the top comment is "man that is cool but I
| wouldn't want to be their neighbor!" followed by "my neighbors
| love my light shows".
|
| Creating the sequences is time consuming, and lot of people end
| up buying them or sharing them, but those are rarely as good as
| the ones you make for yourself.
|
| Some folks have dabbled with using AI to create the sequences. I
| think the biggest issues are lack of training data and it's a
| very visual art, so there needs to be a better feedback between
| the text representation and the visual manifestation.
|
| So if you're into using AI to make physical world things better,
| that would be a good place to look!
|
| [0] https://xlights.org
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/enhhtPZMwCE?t=119
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5dfpe_-Lgg
| rationalist wrote:
| Warning: Do NOT click on [1] unless you have 25 minutes to
| spend transfixed on a video. Holy cow...
| jedberg wrote:
| It takes about 10 hours per minute of song to make a sequence
| like that. Imagine if AI could help speed that up!
| autocorr wrote:
| Echoing others, Chess engines certainly aren't a solved problem!
| In fact there are a lot of niches that are absolutely starving
| for effort. Ones I'm interested in are related to Chess variants
| and puzzles.
|
| Fairy-Stockfish is a fork used by LiChess for the variants on the
| site, but it can now play a multitude of games from Xiangqi
| (Chinese Chess) to Shogi (Japanese Chess) to a crazy modern
| variants. There's a variety of tools to train new neural nets for
| these variants, generate opening books, puzzles, etc. You can
| play some of them on PyChess (pychess.org). These are projects
| basically run by a couple people with huge backlogs of bugs and
| feature requests. An enthusiastic developer can easily get
| involved! Or just enjoy playing different variants and getting
| involved with the player community.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Ohh about fairy stockfish, I had actually looked into it for
| something like spell-chess (which is an completely unsolved
| problem!)
|
| I was playing chess with one of my friends and we played spell-
| chess which is an clash royale/clash of clans x chess thing
| where you get two spells of freeze and jump
|
| Freeze allows you to select a tile and have a 3x3 square radius
| which freezes those pieces
|
| Jump allows you to select any piece (opponent or yours) and it
| will effectively allow you to jump over that.
|
| When me and my friends were playing, I kept trying to do
| something wonky to find the most optimal play. I had thoughts
| for a day or two to find/make fairy stockfish or atleast had
| the idea to do so but not the experience to do so but I
| certainly wished even from the end point perspective as to
| what/if the game was solved. I don't know but these things make
| me feel as if perhaps, just maybe, the game can be played a
| certain way where even in the best game, its not draw but
| rather a particular side wins (effectively solving it),
|
| I felt like these spells were too overpowered so there was an
| possibility about it, you just made me remember a lot of things
| about these things that I had thought. It was these thoughts
| which randomly led me to discover fairy stockfish which is an
| really interesting project!
| VimEscapeArtist wrote:
| Gamey Boy / Modretro Chromatic / LSDJ / Dirtywave M8 / anything
| F# / MiniDisc community
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Hnefatafl, a simple board game that was played by the vikings and
| others who had frequent contact with them. Or rather, what we
| play today is an approximation of what they played back then as
| we don't really know the exact rules they used. It's interesting
| in that unlike chess and others, it is asymmetrical, and there
| are a number of different variants each with their own challenges
| and different balances between attacker and defender.
|
| The main community and learning resource is at
| http://aagenielsen.dk.
| Skidaddle wrote:
| I've started making what I "joy machines" that I am putting up in
| or near my neighborhood. They're some combination of public
| interactive art (e.g. push a button and it prints out a
| compliment) and little art on display that I design and 3D print
| for people to take.
| DeltaCoast wrote:
| Very cool! Any links to posts about some of them?
| jasondigitized wrote:
| I'm intrigued and need to see some images or videos now.
| fsiefken wrote:
| * playing shortlarps
|
| * using short boardgames to measure cognitive performance on
| various metrics
|
| * creating simple 3d boardgames with raylib kolibri_engine
|
| * dancing and studying vajra dance and the vajra song from namkai
| norbu
|
| * reading and studying about: mahamudra and dzogchen vs christian
| contemplative traditions and mystics, and transpersonal
| psychology
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| I do gundog training. When I started with our first dog I did not
| expect to enjoy it that much. It's hard to express how much it
| takes mentally and physically, and the bond you build with your
| dog is crazy.
|
| Best of all, you don't actually have to hunt. You can stick to
| dummies.
|
| In terms of contributing in a meaningful way, your local trainer
| will always be happy with helpers. If you need to setup multiple
| 200m retrieves for multiple dogs, it helps if you have someone
| out in the field doing the work. And lots of stuff to organise
| and help out with.
| alyd wrote:
| Boat building is in a really interesting time with new materials
| allow foiling, along with new battery technology giving new power
| sources.
| lostathome wrote:
| One of my hobbies is organizing events. I, like to think, I am
| pretty good at it. Main point is to create good initial
| conditions, then people take care of the rest.
| racl101 wrote:
| Money to be made there. But then it would be a job.
| notsrg wrote:
| We got into scuba diving about 3 years ago. Have something like
| 200 dives now logged across Southern California, Hawaii and the
| Caribbean. Planning on adding Indonesia to the list later this
| year. That _wow_ factor you experience the first time you dive
| hasn 't gone away after 200 dives and I don't think it'll go away
| after 2000. Probably the most life-affirming thing I've ever
| gotten into and can't recommend it enough.
| dizhn wrote:
| I saw a few videos of making glasses (cups) out of nice liquor
| bottles. Seems like a nice cheapish hobby.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If you like to work with your hands and have space, build
| something physical: big and complex, and actually finish it. I
| built a single engine two seat kit airplane in my garage, did all
| the flight testing, and now have an interesting way to
| travel/commute as a result. The "finish it" part is the most
| important bit. Computer people spend too much time working on
| projects that don't have a "done" state. Change that up.
| bluGill wrote:
| I would start smaller though. There are a lot of half finished
| airplanes (where the last 20% takes 80% of the time...) and the
| maker is dead.
|
| I've been working on a ukulele for over a year now and it isn't
| close to done yet, and this is a much smaller project. (Or
| maybe I should say I've been working on raising kids for a
| decade and there is another left?).
| jcmontx wrote:
| How scary was the test flight? where did you land?
| ryandrake wrote:
| I was as confident as I could be. Had multiple tech
| counselors and A&Ps give it a good look over beforehand. Also
| had an emergency plan for every 100 feet of altitude post-
| takeoff. Did the first couple of flight tests in the vicinity
| of a minor (class D) Bay Area airport and then did the rest
| of them (including the riskier ones) over the central valley.
| kacesensitive wrote:
| did you bring a parachute?
| ryandrake wrote:
| Nope. Given the canopy style of the kit (RV-7A tip-up)
| and a few build decisions I made (modifications to the
| original design), actually egressing in-flight would have
| been infeasible anyway.
| hyperific wrote:
| Get your Part 107 federal drone license and volunteer for your
| local fire department or search and rescue. When the FD responds
| to structure fires they sometimes have to go up on the roof to
| cut an air hole. This allows oxygen into the building which helps
| prevent backdrafts. A FLIR equipped drone can help direct the
| hole cutter around hotspots on the roof. If your local fire
| department has a drone, it might not have the staff to be able to
| use it on calls.
| afc wrote:
| I got into designing my own knitting patterns. I enjoy that I can
| customize everything -- the yarn material, color (including
| marling, helix knitting, double knitting), yarn weight, needle
| size (e.g., resulting in "airy" vs "packed" textures), knit
| textures (e.g., stockinette, linen, miss, etc.), construction
| process (e.g., can I figure out a way to knit in the round vs
| flat?), cables, gradual increases/decreases, selvedge/cord,
| desired ease, etc..
|
| I wrote software to generate patterns given configurations and
| keep track of which row I'm on.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40307089
|
| I am sharing some of my patterns here: https://alejo.ch/2s0
|
| I'm currently working on my second ruana.
| biotinker wrote:
| I got myself involved with a nonprofit local group preserving
| local pioneer era apple trees. They've been DNA testing and
| cataloging the trees, and had all the info stashed away in google
| drive and onedrive folders. The founder was looking to step back
| so they asked me if I wanted to step up as project lead, which I
| did.
|
| I took the info and organized it into a nice wiki-style site with
| maps and descriptions so everyone in the community can learn
| about the old orchards.
|
| https://heritageapplecorps.org/index.php/Main_Page
|
| I've also learned how to prune and graft hundred year old apple
| trees and now have a couple dozen young grafted trees growing in
| my garage, all clones of local hundred year old trees, some of
| which genetically tested unique and are of currently unknown
| varieties.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| That sounds really cool, how did they do the DNA testing out of
| interest?
| biotinker wrote:
| We work with Dr Cameron Peace's lab at WSU. They send us test
| tubes, we send the tubes back with leaves in them, they run
| the DNA tests and compare against an apple ID database
| they've built. We pay ~$50 per test, which is what most of
| the groups budget goes towards.
| andrewhaupt wrote:
| Thats awesome! I'm doing apple stuff on the other side of the
| Cascades (Eugene), starting a cidery and trying to find rare
| varieties to graft. And doing little software projects like
| https://pomological.art/. Would love to get in touch if you
| want people to propagate these varieties you're finding and
| would potentially be interested in sharing some scion wood!
| biotinker wrote:
| Oh cool! I've used pomological.art! Great site!
|
| I'm in the middle of building out a similar big project that
| takes a different tack: looking through every period
| pomological text (e.g. Apple of New York, Fruits and Fruit
| Trees of America) and pulling the images, descriptions, etc
| for _every_ heritage apple variety. Includes the watercolors
| too. I also pull in every scanned catalog from nurseries
| selling fruit trees in the PNW from the late 1800s.
|
| The goal is a tool we can use to identify apples, and also
| have comprehensive info on every variety, using public domain
| period content.
|
| It's not fully done yet, there are bugs/issues right now but
| you can take a look here:
| https://heritageapplecorps.org/varieties/
|
| I think we grafted ~90 scions this year. A lot of them we
| haven't actually DNA tested yet so no idea what they are. So
| many of these trees are on their last legs, so our priority
| is cloning them first, and then once the clones grow, DNA
| test those as funds are available.
|
| I make my own cider too (though as a hobby). If we ever find
| ourselves in the same city I'd love to meet up and we can
| swap scions/cider/etc.
| andrewhaupt wrote:
| I love that idea, actually started something similar awhile
| back but didn't get far and ran out of time/energy. If you
| need any help/contributions I'd love to pitch in. And
| sounds great! I'll shoot you an email with my contact info
| joshmarinacci wrote:
| You're in Eugene!? Me too. I'd love to meet up some time to
| talk about your software over coffee.
| 1-more wrote:
| Chuck Wendig's 2023 novel _Black River Orchard_ has an apple
| historian as one of the protagonists. Lots of talk of scion
| wood and girdling and colonial era apple varieties. You may
| find this interesting.
| vibe_that_works wrote:
| Try pet biohacking. You can experiment with the food they
| consume, their gut microbiome, you can implant robotics into
| them, so many fun things.
|
| Btw: If you intend to blog about it make sure your alias resides
| in a jurisdiction without conversative laws.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Animal cruelty, what an awesome hobby. Biohack yourself all you
| want, but playing mad scientist on test subjects that cannot
| give informed consent is evil.
| gf263 wrote:
| wtf?
| racl101 wrote:
| Bruh
| blobbers wrote:
| What you're looking for is a research topic, or maybe a better
| way to put it is your hobby is research... if that makes sense?
|
| So for ideas, sorry that's going to be whatever floats your boat.
| You listed a bunch of different things.
|
| But hobby is normally "playing softball" or "guitar", but it
| could be "researching next gen PCs"... but that seems more like a
| PhD lab project.
| davidgh wrote:
| A group of us in our community broadcast many of the local high
| school sports. Our original setup had a scoreboard that was
| really clunky to manage and was hard to learn, so I built a web-
| based version that pretty much any 12 year old with an iPad could
| use.
|
| I have worked with the logs extensively over time to convert the
| simple data inputs from the scoreboard controls into charts &
| graphs that update in real time on the screen to "tell the story"
| of the game, and generate "talking points" from the data. It
| allows us to plug in students as commentators and they can talk
| about the game much more confidently because they can visually
| see the game's storyline that is based on actual data. "The
| Trojans are on a 14-4 streak starting late in the 3rd quarter,
| and that has flipped the lead in their favor" is a lot more fun
| than "the Trojans are doing well the last little bit".
|
| It's been fun (and challenging) to develop the right UI to
| display the game's story in a way that is rich yet easy to read
| at a glance. And it has been cool to see the students increase in
| how professional they sound on the live broadcast.
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Would love to see this in action. Anything you can share? Also,
| what gear is used for this? Having recently been in charge of a
| scoreboard made by Daktronics for high school games, I was
| intimidated by the UX.
| bokohut wrote:
| Walking and finding history if your location has such history to
| offer to find.
|
| People pay vast accruing cumulative sums over time to go to the
| gym and my exercise pays me with every single walk. Some of that
| modern human history I have found dates back hundreds of years in
| the form of coins and bottles while some of the native human
| history I have found dates back 10 thousand years. I cannot
| neglect the fossils either as the oldest I have found reviewed by
| an expert is said to be Paleozoic tabulate coral being over 251
| million years aged.
|
| Thanks to gravity everything lost in the past is under our feet
| and as digitalization has taken over our global society, created
| by some of those reading this here, there are not many folks
| walking let alone looking. I found my first item over 14 years
| ago now and while my partner HATES the aggregate volume of the
| things I have collected she cannot neglect the uniqueness, rarity
| and value of some of those items. Every single walk inspires real
| motivation however one needs their health first to take that
| walk.
|
| Stay Healthy!
| s3tt3mbr1n1 wrote:
| Very interested to hear more. Do you live in an (old) city or
| more rurally?
| ogou wrote:
| Printmaking. In a tiny apartment I did linocuts and Gelli prints
| on my kitchen counter for a few months.
| https://lucidbeaming.com/art/prints
| romeroej wrote:
| im an airsoft nerd. its a fun way to blow some steam with
| friends. not the tight milsim approach just the recreational way,
| _spduchamp wrote:
| I build weird experimental instruments and then play them at the
| local electronic music open mic nights.
|
| My main instrument is the electroduochord, a stereo two-stringed
| instrument played with a drone motor rotary magnetic bow.
| https://youtu.be/G1ftvw-Y6pk
|
| I've also hooked up audio jacks to small solar panels to convert
| vibrations in light into sound. https://youtu.be/ZF2Rn5YfBC8
|
| Now I'm working on cybernetic drumming and rhythm synthesis.
| https://youtu.be/oJZeP4Naqxo https://youtu.be/NwNrJLvHuAE
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| Really dig the sound of the first one, though all of these are
| really cool.
| _spduchamp wrote:
| Thanks! I have some albums that were made using the
| electroduochord.
|
| This one was created autonomously using a feedback algorithm
| controlling the speed of the rotary magnetic bow.
| https://stefanpowell.bandcamp.com/album/autonomous-drone-
| lul...
|
| It's an album meant for falling asleep.
| Nesco wrote:
| Synbio but it's expensive as hell
| jbethune wrote:
| Local urbex and exploration of 'haikyo' areas. Easy for me since
| I am in Tokyo and it's super walkable. I have taken to just
| getting on the train and getting off at random stations and
| walking in a random direction for a couple of kilometers. Every
| now and then I run into interesting abandoned buildings or neat
| shrines. Also makes for good exercise.
| JonathanRaines wrote:
| High altitude balloon launches using weather balloons to get
| photos of the curvature of the earth.
| a3w wrote:
| Lockpicking.
| afc wrote:
| I don't know if it's niche, but I like making granola for my
| friends and family. I give them a big jar and tell them free
| refills are included ("just bring me the empty jar"). I get
| pretty good nuts and tend to make largish batches (around 2 kg),
| and, because of the refills, I get a good sense of who
| appreciates it -- always happy to make more for them. My recipe
| is here: https://alejo.ch/365
| dbacar wrote:
| any chance we got it in English? would love to try
| avipars wrote:
| I design print on demand t-shirts and merch
|
| https://www.amazon.com/s?refresh=1&rh=n%3A7141123011%2Cp_4%3...
| BirAdam wrote:
| I've been conlanging since I was about 8yo or so. This hobby also
| has me randomly learning natural human languages too. I've always
| just enjoyed it. I could make up reasons for enjoying it, but I
| am not certain that any of those would be true.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I'd suggest you try out something completely offline. My next
| candidate is flintknapping, but there are lots of really
| interesting historical crafts that are in need of preservation
| and are extremely interesting to learn and gain expertise at.
|
| Woodworking, oil painting, pottery, analog synthesizers, animal
| husbandry, spinning and yarnmaking, knitting and weaving, sewing,
| pattern making, metalwork, welding, endurance running, rock
| climbing, beekeeping, brewing and distilling, the list goes on
| and on. Contrary to popular opinion they are all extremely
| technical and demanding fields, and getting to reconnect with the
| physical world and the people in it, as well as history, is
| extremely rewarding.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| All primitive skills are great fun to learn. A logical followup
| to flint knapping is arrow making and bowery. There is
| something magical in making lethal ranged weapons with sticks,
| rocks, and string.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Learn how to calculate longitude and latitude by eyesight using
| the Ptolemaic system.
|
| Then add a telescope or sextant.
|
| This is lots of fun, if you're into that sort of thing.
| frabia wrote:
| I recently started looking into hydroponics gardening. You can
| start very easily with a Kratky system and some herbs, and then
| take it a step at the time.
|
| I'm quite at the beginning myself, but I like it so far! It's a
| nice mix of science and craft.
| dan353hehe wrote:
| Yep! I have a small setup with just some used food grade pickle
| buckets, and have been growing greens and things for a bit over
| a year. Going to get some more and expand them this year. It
| literally uses no power as pumps are not used, and water usage
| is very minimal. I live in the desert so low water usage is
| very important.
|
| It's an interesting hobby, as you have to adapt it to the area
| you live, and where you grow the plants.
| elevation wrote:
| Consider mathematics. If you already know enough math to derive
| the quadratic equation, you might make a small change, like
| adding X^3 or X^4. See where your own techniques take you before
| looking up the answer. With just a few pen strokes, you will be
| playing with an equation for which there is no general solution,
| or no known solution. In mathematics it will take you very little
| time to start playing at the boundaries of human knowledge, and
| it's relatively easy to memorize a few starting points that many
| hours of passenger travel fly by.
| jolt42 wrote:
| I like this. I like crossword puzzles but don't like I'm just
| solving pre-made puzzles rather than exploring new territory.
| Math seems the best candidate but are there other fields with
| similar challenges?
| lwarfield wrote:
| I do a lot of lindyhop Swing dancing as a hobby. It's not
| innovative work, but I find it rewarding.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I make my own hot sauce:
|
| https://successfulsoftware.net/2024/08/04/making-your-own-ho...
|
| It's quite easy and you don't have to make it super hot.
|
| I am currently growing chillis for the next batch.
| bgirard wrote:
| I've been using Codex to build a repo that pulls down
| astronomical datasets and runs simulation to try to find
| explanation for the hubble tension. Having an agent to do the
| tedious bits and also having an LLM to bounce ideas has tough me
| so much about astronomy. I don't have serious hopes of finding
| anything new and novel but it's still a lot of fun.
| vandahm wrote:
| I build ukuleles and guitars from scratch. That's not as niche as
| what a lot of people do -- it's just woodworking -- but I do
| software for a living and enjoy making durable, physical things
| in my free time.
| jassyr wrote:
| Very cool! I've been playing uke for a few years to help me
| disconnect from the real world.
|
| Did you go to a luthier school or self taught?
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Hey, I love this thread!! Thanks for asking the question, there's
| _so many_ interesting responses in here!
| Igor_Wiwi wrote:
| I make AI music https://suno.com/@igorstechoclub
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| Not too niche: Traditional archery. Niche: Make wood climbing
| holds.
| aslushnikov wrote:
| I'm very much into niche hobbies: they usually have nice tight &
| friendly communities.
|
| Below are some of my favorite I'd love to share:
|
| - FPV drone flying: once you've spent 5-10 hours to get initial
| reflexes for the controls in the simulator, the first flight on a
| real machine outside feels magical.
|
| - Electric unicycles: the "mind-controlled" PEV, and arguably the
| best way to get around in San Francisco.
|
| - Foiling: the closest feeling to riding a hoverboard. You can
| kite-foil, pump-foil, sup-foil etc, but wing foiling is the
| easiest to get started.
|
| - Knots: tying laces properly just makes life easier, and tying
| tucker's / voodoo hitches for the first few times feels like a
| magic trick.
|
| - Cardistry: learning to do a proper riffle shuffle and a few
| artistic cuts adds some fun to the most boring part of any card
| game.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >FPV drone flying
|
| What sort of set-up would be a good one for a beginner?
| aslushnikov wrote:
| The setup I'd recommend:
|
| - Velocidrone [1] flight sim
|
| - Any FPV controller that connects to laptop. 2 solid choices
| are TBS Tango 2 or DJI FPV Remote Controller [3]
|
| I spent ~20 hours in the sim before advancing to real drones;
| a few of my friends followed this path and successfully
| passed an improvised exam on real drone after just ~10 hours
| in the sim.
|
| As for the drone itself, the easiest setup is probably DJI
| Avata [4], but it's less of the proper "FPV feel". I
| personally fly Flywoo Explorer [5] with DJI system: it's a
| small & nibmle long range drone, easy to travel with, and
| powerful enough to chase kiteboarders even in a strong wind.
|
| P.S. Don't be discouraged with sim flying: it's actually very
| fun, feels similar to TrackMania Nations.
|
| [1] https://www.velocidrone.com/
|
| [2] https://www.team-blacksheep.com/products/prod:tbs_tango_2
|
| [3] https://store.dji.com/product/dji-fpv-remote-
| controller-3?vi...
|
| [4] https://www.dji.com/avata-2
|
| [5] https://flywoo.net/products/explorer-lr-4-o4-pro-
| sub250-4k-1...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Thanks!
| fbd_0100 wrote:
| what FPV drones do you recommend for someone just getting into
| it?
| bramgn wrote:
| Juggling! I used to juggle when i was a teenager, managed to
| juggle 5 balls and clubs. Then after decades of neglecting it, i
| picked it up again and i found the joy in this hobby again! I can
| highly recommend.
| hyperkewb wrote:
| Same! Highly recommend checking out your local juggling club if
| you have one!
| kattjakt wrote:
| I highly recommend getting into loudspeakers or audio
| reproduction in general! Without a doubt the most enjoyable,
| satisfying, and enriching hobby I've had so far.
|
| A couple years ago I decided to build a pair of synergy horns
| (look them up!) which included all kinds of interesting stuff!
| For example, I had to learn CAD, the principles of CNC and how to
| create toolpaths, what a waveguide is, general woodworking, and
| lots more. There's also lots of interesting "subhobbies" one may
| dwelve into such as psychoacoustics, signal processing, LEM/BEM
| simulations, the optimization of horn geometries (look up AKABAK
| or Ath4 and their respective DiyAudio threads), analog
| crossovers, or acoustically treating a room to reduce reverb.
|
| Building speakers and experimenting with bracing and
| lining/damping have been rewarding for me as determining wether I
| prefer A or B really requires me to _listen_ in a different way
| from say, listening to a conversation (or even to music!). It
| feels very grounding and meditative in a way, and at least in my
| case, indirectly trains one to notice and appreciate more sounds
| in everyday life.
|
| A big bonus is that it becomes really easy to throw outdoor
| parties out in the woods when one doesn't have to rent gear.
| Loudspeakers and bringing people together is a damn good and
| rewarding combo.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| My wife & I are Scottish Country dancers. It's a social dance
| form (it's traditional to swap partners for every dance so nobody
| has to bring a partner, though not required). Pretty good cardio,
| there are groups all over the world, so it's often not that
| difficult to find a class.
|
| Other similar social dance forms from the UK are Contra dancing,
| English Country dancing, and Ceilidh dancing. Square dancing in
| the US developed out of these forms. Many other cultures have
| their own social dance forms, with varying levels of
| formalization.
|
| Meaningful contribution is easy: these groups always benefit from
| more participants. Scottish Country dance has a formalized
| teaching certificate program, roughly equivalent to a Master's
| degree worth of work (and if you're a UK resident it qualifies to
| teach PE in UK schools).
| chasd00 wrote:
| amateur liquid bi-prop rocket engines for the High Power Rocketry
| hobby are gaining momentum. There's lot of opportunity there for
| performance profiling and even more if you have access to a
| machine tools like CNC lathes. There's also interest in active
| stabilization of amateur rockets using engine gimbaling which
| would put so much more performance in reach.
|
| These guys are legit and actually flying airframes instead of
| just ignition on a test stand. https://www.halfcatrocketry.com/
|
| The hobby is geography constrained though, you need access to
| large open spaces. Even small engines are spectacularly loud and
| igniting one in your garage would scare the crap out of your
| neighbors.
|
| Edit: if you're in/near LA this club is pretty much ground zero.
| Tom Mueller of SpaceX's Merlin engine series fame was discovered
| here iirc. https://rrs.org
| towledev wrote:
| As a kid, I dreamed of doing this. Some of my earliest googling
| was related to rocket fuel, probably right after October Sky
| came out.
|
| What differentiates High-Power from the other options?
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Model rockets are classified as 'high power' above a certain
| impulse. In places like the UK and US you are expected to
| gradually work your way up from low impulse motors (A,B,C) to
| high impulse motors (J,K,L+).
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Probably better to start with solid fuel motors? lots to learn
| before progressing onto liquid fuel motors.
| Shalomboy wrote:
| You should try getting _extremely_ good at Trading Card Games.
| Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Magic The Gathering all have extremely
| active current player bases and loads of places to play across
| the Americas, Europe, and (mostly east) Asia. Getting deep into
| card advantage, deck construction, and hypergeometric theory has
| been an absolute blast. Plus, the online simulators are free for
| Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon are free and pretty current with the paper
| game. Making new friendships with people not in my usual circles
| has been so rewarding, I can't recommend it enough. Not to
| mention the most meaningful contribution of all - winning events
| moves the needle on the way the rest of the playerbase plays the
| game. I could go on and on about this.
| MandieD wrote:
| My hobby involves some of the oldest technology we've been able
| to find evidence of.
|
| It started as spinning with a hand spindle using prepared
| (combed/carded) wool, and has evolved into looking for
| interesting fleeces directly from the shepherds (plenty given
| away or sold cheaply around here), figuring out how best to wash
| and process (hand comb? drum carder? spin directly from the
| slightly-opened locks?), working on which settings on my spinnng
| wheel will produce the twist I'm looking for, and most recently,
| dyeing using Easter egg dye and vinegar, which is surprisingly
| effective.
|
| Oh, and of course, knitting and crocheting with the results.
|
| I still use hand spindles to spin while walking, watching my kid
| on the playground, or on transit.
| monssooon wrote:
| Im imterested in hearing more about this. Do you have a YouTube
| channel or any other place to follow you?
| johnthedebs wrote:
| I got into fig (and since then, more broadly, fruit) cultivation.
| Figs have a rich history, lots of variety, and there are very
| active online (and in-person) communities where you can buy or
| exchange plants and cuttings, advice, and fruit. This grew out of
| an initial interest in gardening, and the long-term goal is to
| create a food/fruit forest around our house where me, family,
| friends, and neighbors can walk around, spend time, and eat the
| absolute best fruit possible.
|
| So far I've got about 40 fig trees in containers (~30 varieties),
| am focusing a bit more on blackberries this year (4 varieties
| that were planted last year), and we also have strawberries,
| blueberries, raspberries, as well as a more standard annual
| garden with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc as well as some
| wild edibles: mulberries, wineberries, and black raspberries.
|
| There's a lot of interesting angles to this hobby: fruit
| selection, cultivation, harvesting, pest management (annoying but
| still interesting), landscape design, etc. Planning cycles are
| months at a minimum, and but more often you have to keep in mind
| what you want the landscape and experience to be like years from
| now.
|
| It makes it more enjoyable to spend time outside doing physical
| things when the weather is warm, and I mostly take a break from
| it (or switch to planning) during the winters here.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| You've probably already discovered this, but in case you
| haven't: watch out for the black raspberries if they're in the
| ground. They spread at an astronomical rate and are practically
| unkillable after they're established.
|
| OTOH, they are delicious.
| iamjs wrote:
| I have a volunteer fig tree growing in a container on my patio
| in the middle of a bunch of onions. I have always heard of
| people transplanting them from cuttings, presumably because
| they are difficult to grow from seed. I have no idea how it got
| there, but I feel fortunate to have been chosen.
| ky-hy wrote:
| I do wrestling and BJJ, helps me cope with my stressful job and
| besides my joints hurting (especially fingers) from time to time,
| it was great for both my mental and physical health
| nate wrote:
| Taught myself to use a sewing machine. Then I made my own EDC
| wallet thing. Basically a zipper pouch that can fit a lot of
| things while keep them as spread out in my front pocket.
|
| I've got a version of this now in my front pocket for like 9
| months: https://share.zight.com/wbu487ew Yes, it's big, but it's
| the most comfortable from of a big wallet.
|
| It's funny though. I can't help feel the pull to try and make the
| hobby a business. But then it probably becomes unfun. But my
| brain just can't not think that way.
| simgt wrote:
| Did the same two years ago, it's such an underrated skill.
| There's a good amount of complexity that goes into making an
| item without just following a pattern.
|
| I recommend going through the basics (Tock Custom has a nice
| energy [0]), then picking up a fairly complex pattern for a
| common piece of clothing. Of course there's also r/myog.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/@TockCustom
| nate wrote:
| Yeah, it's funny how many times I basically made the same
| damn thing just fine tuning a half inch wider, or seam
| allowance.
|
| I also can't believe how tedious cutting fabric is. Even for
| a tiny project like this it was such a pain in the ass. Even
| with nice circular cutters and mats and rulers. I'm now
| tempted to get a cricut 4 to make the cutting easier.
| sage76 wrote:
| Working through PRML and creating a full solution set, albeit
| very slowly.
|
| https://github.com/abhimanyu-jain/PRML_Solutions
| Arch-TK wrote:
| I don't quite get your point about 3D printers.
|
| I spent many months redesigning, improving and rebuilding a prusa
| clone, not because I couldn't afford anything else, but precisely
| because I could afford to "waste" time and money learning and
| having fun.
|
| Once I felt like the printer was in a useful state, I spent some
| more time getting it to a point where it could print nice ABS
| parts for a Voron Trident. Of course I couldn't just build a
| Trident. That would be too easy. Before I had even finished
| assembling it, it already had a number of bespoke modifications
| that I had designed.
|
| And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Have you ever _looked_ at
| the klipper source code? It's like a fractal of weirdness. I mean
| it works, and clearly the person behind it is very knowledgeable
| about many things. But it makes for such an enormous and fun
| playground for improvements and redesigns. I've redesigned the
| entire build system for the firmware component. I've made the
| host component an actual (almost) normal python package. I
| changed a bunch of core aspects so that it could be packages for
| a linux distro. I am working on making the native helper a normal
| python native extension library too. And I am also writing some
| proper test rig for it.
|
| And while I was at it, I started writing my own display software
| which doesn't use Wayland or X. It is going quite well actually.
| (Writing it in Rust)
|
| This hobby (and, really, any hobby) has as much depth and
| obscurity as you are willing to look for.
| platevoltage wrote:
| My thing right now is Arcade Machines. I cant get enough of them.
| I have a 1988 Sega Aero City cabinet that I'm doing a kind of
| rest-mod on.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I've been working on trying to help fill out the MeshCore network
| in our area for off-grid communications. Some of us are setting
| up solar powered, battery backed MeshCore nodes, they have no
| connection to power or Internet. You can use a small device (like
| a credit card or a small walkie-talkie) with a phone, or a
| blackberry-like device, to send/receive encrypted messages, chat
| on channels, or communicate on BBS-like "room servers".
|
| It's interesting for if there were some sort of disaster
| impacting the cell network, or for use in the back woods where
| you have no cell contact. But it's extremely unreliable. My
| coworker who is into it, he lives 2-3 miles away but we can
| rarely communicate because he lives in a bit of a bowl that we
| don't have reachability into. Meanwhile I'm regularly getting
| messages from 30-70 miles away no problem.
|
| It reminds me a lot of HAM radio, where there are other better
| ways to communicate, but if those ways broke it would be nice to
| have an alternative.
|
| https://meshcore.co.uk/
| linsomniac wrote:
| Part of why I'm doing it is my office has a nice, unused tower
| on top of it. The office itself is ultimately not that high,
| but the 20ft tower on top of the 3 story building helps a lot.
| I can _JUST_ reach the 8ft TV antenna mast at my house,
| depending on tree vegetation (we 'll see how much worse it gets
| as the trees leaf out this spring). It operates in the 900 MHz
| ISM band, so it can "punch through" more than WiFi can.
| andrewrn wrote:
| Oh this is sooo cool. I want to try and do this in the summer
| too. This might be of interest to you:
| https://youtu.be/XTnYVh7K6xQ
| koliber wrote:
| A while back, at a company I used to work at, we did intros of
| new hires. This was one of the questions. One person shared that
| they do composting and worm farming. That was memorable. Sharing
| here since it's about as interesting and niche as I can imagine.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I started hand carving and painting fishing lures a few years
| back, mostly from gathered or gleaned materials.
|
| It started as something to keep my hands busy in the Minnesota
| winter evenings, but there is actually quite a lot of depth to
| the materials/buoyancy/fluid dynamics that dictate how the lure
| moves in different water conditions. Each one is also a little
| work of art which is nice.
| ribice wrote:
| Two things, but mostly revolves around sports. As my job in
| software engineering is very sedentary, I try to remain active in
| my hobbies.
|
| First is gym - I go every morning before work, do a 2-mile run or
| 5k, depending on my mood, and then power lifting.
|
| On weekends I hike or climb. I find it very liberating when
| visiting places without any kind of network and it's me, nature
| and socialising. I've recently also started an outdoor agency
| (it's local to my place) - for when AI takes over my job
| completely: https://boa.ba/
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| I set up trail cameras in remote areas to watch bears, mountain
| lions and other critters. Getting there is very hard so it keeps
| me in shape and I am always fascinated when I can watch new
| footage.
|
| once I have more time I will try classifying and trimming the
| videos with AI so there is a tech component too. And maybe in the
| long run do my own cameras that have better detection than the
| usual PIR sensors that trigger a lot for moving branches or
| leaves.
| zgougou123 wrote:
| My niche hobbies is carving wooden spoons and I think it balance
| very well with any work behind a computer.
|
| It's surprisingly deep for something that looks so simple. You
| can start with almost nothing: a small axe to split the wood and
| a knife to shape it. That's enough to make your first spoon. From
| there, it can become as technical or as artistic as you want,
| depending on how far you go.
|
| There's also a whole international community around it. People
| organize small gatherings and larger meetups where they carve
| together, share techniques, compare tools, and pass down very
| specific bits of knowledge. There is a whole series of videos
| about this on youtube on a channel named "zed outdoors". This
| hobby also had me look around for wood everywhere, when walking
| or driving and you can do it almost everywhere as long as you
| have a small knife with you.
|
| Also, using a spoon you made yourself is genuinely satisfying in
| a way that's hard to explain. It changes the relationship you
| have with a very ordinary object.
|
| It looks like a quiet craft, but you can go very far with it.
| microscoper wrote:
| I think a really underrated hobby is amateur Microscopy, I don't
| know why its not more popular.
|
| Looking at moss, pond water, microbes, tardigrades, paramecia,
| cells, plants, crystals, stuff around the house
|
| You can get a decent microscope for like $250 and just get a
| smartphone mount to take high quality pictures/videos.
|
| I feel like with astronomy/telescopes you spend a ton of money
| just to see a blurry blob whereas microscopes are way more bang-
| for-buck in terms of how much cool science stuff you can see for
| cheap.
| udioron wrote:
| I am enjoying "trigbagging"/"trigpointing" in Israel (look it
| up!). I also built an app for this hobby (currently in open beta)
| gunalx wrote:
| Ham radio, can be either really technical designing transmit
| protocols, antennas, SDRs or really just talking to random people
| as far away as you can reach without being bound to the internet.
| ronjakoi wrote:
| I've been growing bonsai trees for about 13 years. It doesn't
| have anything to do with computers, so it's a nice counterbalance
| to my software job. I don't really even take pictures or videos
| of my trees, I want to keep the subject as analog and simple as I
| can.
| prudnikov21 wrote:
| My wife started reselling vintage furniture as a hobby, but now
| it has become her full-time job and she earns money from it. We
| live in the UK and went to France for shopping for the first time
| last weekend. Happy to answer any questions
| cameldrv wrote:
| Flying sailplanes/gliders. Once you get good at it, you can fly
| hundreds of miles (or more) by understanding the weather and
| figuring out where the air is going up. Lots of opportunities to
| nerd out. Aerodynamics, weather forecasting, remote sensing, in-
| flight user interfaces, strategy, communications, and also just
| satisfying to figure out how to coax the atmosphere to get you
| somewhere for free.
| zippyman55 wrote:
| Artisan pizzas! Local food bank Clothing give--a-way for homeless
| (organized) Toastmaster public speaking Organized a youth chess
| club (great) Lock picking Teaching calculus, physics Exercise at
| the gym Helping a homeless guy get organized Nature hikes in
| groups Dancing Spanish lessons Chess puzzles Chess lessons
| Cooking Making past Home improvement Detail your messy car Take
| an auto class
| romanhn wrote:
| I haven't really had a hobby until last summer, when I took up
| collecting banknotes. Growing up in the USSR, I had a few
| imperial notes as a kid and wanted to expand my "collection", but
| didn't actually start in earnest until decades later. Got a few
| late 19th / early 20th century pre-revolution notes, and then
| found myself in the abyss of Russian Civil War, where every city
| and local municipality were printing their own money. Anyways,
| it's a journey without an end, and I saw an interviewee
| describing this hobby as a "sickness, do not start", which sort
| of resonated.
|
| As a history lover with appreciation for tactile aspects of
| history (love 100+ year old books), this scratches this itch
| better than anything else, while leaving me wanting more. I
| research and write up every banknote I acquire, and the sense of
| history I get from browsing my album is like nothing else.
|
| For anyone interested, here are the photos of my collection circa
| end of last year: https://imgur.com/a/zmCXd8l
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| That's really neat! I have some old-ish Soviet money laying
| around that I brought with me when I emigrated. I should really
| preserve it somehow.
| romanhn wrote:
| I always assumed that newer banknotes are always going to be
| easier to obtain than older ones. But the hyperinflation of
| late imperial, early Soviet times means a ton of paper money
| was printed and is still available at cheap prices. On the
| other hand, Soviet money from between 1922 and before 1961
| can be quite rare and sometimes very very expensive.
| anotherpaulg wrote:
| I've been building quantum photonics experiments. Repeating the
| Bell inequality tests that won the 2022 Nobel, quantum erasers,
| etc.
|
| Probably the coolest part has been automating the optomechanical
| equipment and optimizing physical experiments with Bayesian
| optimization. Similar to hyperparameter tuning in ML, but with
| lasers.
|
| Also, Thorlabs sells some really fun toys.
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