So, there are some things that most people do, playing games, watching movies or television, playing music. So let’s get specific.
What are some of your favorite things to do with your time? The more hyper specific the better?
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I like sewing - I make a few pieces of clothing once in a while but usually I’m just mending things or adjusting the fit of store-bought clothes so that they look better on me.
I also love gardening - growing vegetables outside and mushrooms inside. I’m pretty new to both but the mushrooms in particular are really fun - many of them grow a lot faster than vegetables, so it’s exciting to have a faster feedback loop and try little experiments to find what works.
I really hope the sewing communities take off on here.
Yo I also do sewing and mushroom growing nice :D
Sewing is one of the things I always wanted to get into, but I never found a good hook to pull me in. Any tips?
I think starting with alterations to clothes I bought at thrift stores or sales helped me a lot - I did a lot of that before I ever tried making something from a pattern. Even making a simple garment from scratch can feel like a big project, but if you’re just taking in the sides of a shirt (for example), it’s easier to get it done and feel good (even though picking out the seams first is so annoying)
Ohhhhh, I could tailor my t-shirt… Thank you :)
Urban exploring (for lack of a better term) with no purpose other than to discover. I live in a city and I’m constantly just wandering around going down streets I’ve never been down or into alleys I’ve never been in or checking out stores I’ve never been to. This is my approach when I travel to other cities and other countries too, I often don’t have a plan for my trip/vacation, I just arrive there and then start to wander and see what I find.
Arguing with people on reddit.
Hardware modding. Consoles, handhelds, old computers, RC cars… whatever.
I’m interested in learning how to solder, but not really sure how. I’m not a DIYer when it comes to electronics, so I don’t know what to practice on. I just feel like it’s a skill I should at least be familiar with.
I always recommended finding an old Playstation to learn on. They are incredibly simple in layout and the points take solder very easily.
Be sure to use some flux and you shouldn’t have too much of an issue.
At my company we have soldering station for learning purposes and when someone has never soldered anything we will just find some old/broken electronic device and let the person desolder everything on the board (and maybe solder some stuff back on). It’s great way to get a feeling for it and also is a good opportunity to learn about different components on the board. It’s less interesting than making something “functioning” but helps to reduce the fear of soldering “wrong” or breaking something.
Lately it’s been collecting Indie Perfumes. They are much more adventurous and complex than most mainstream scents. It’s really fun to pair scents with experiences or moods. I’ve roped my husband into it and it’s like a puzzle game to find scents for him as well.
Any favorite I could use as a present?
Not the op, but I really like Imaginary Authors scent lines. Specifically A City On Fire which smells like you were sitting next to a campfire for hours on end before you arrived wherever you are. Cape Heartache is also a really unique scent with strawberry and fir, so like a masculine sweet scent. And for something a lot less challenging, Fox in the Flower Field is also amazing. It leans more like a Chanel N°5 but cuts it with an ozone note that takes away the aldehydic note and replaced it with a darker undertone. I’d love to hear some other good scent houses people have used though too as I’m always looking for something new/exciting/different.
Painting expensive plastic with expensive paint.
Quite a few, actually
- Artisan Keycap collecting, to a lesser degree mechanical keyboards (I usually use them as displays to showcase my artisans)
- Boardgame collecting and playing. I’m a big fan of modern area control games. Also trying to design some. Slowly.
- I curate a magic the gathering commander cube. Hopefully mtgcube gets a community somewhere around here
- Reading, lots of fantasy there.
- EDM shows and festivals, recently. Probably have been going to too many, but I always jump in with both feet
Ohhhh, the keyboard thing sounds neat. I know some of my friends really love mechnical keyboards, but I haven’t see a lot of cutstom keycaps.
Got any favorites you’d like to show off?
Roller Derby - I strap on skates, pads, and helmet and then knock people on their ass. It’s great fun.
Lately it includes growing gourmet mushrooms, re/learning languages such as Russian and Ukrainian, data organizing stuff (such as assigning each horror movie I’ve seen with fears from The Magnus Archives, been fixated on horror movies in general so I’ve also made a tierlist for all the ones I’ve seen), and sewing/making clothes. I’m looking to maybe have an isopod colony again (properly this time), make fursuits, continue studying wicca/witchcraft stuff, as well as finally get back to art once I’m over this burnout ^^;
I build and fight combat robots. Think Battlebots but smaller.
I’m getting my kids started with LEGO Mindstorms! Sumo bots is the first idea that came up.
… I think my 13yo wants to go bigger. Welding, anyone?
I’d go with 3d printing before welding. You can so quite a bit with a 3d printer and the CAD skill you gain are quite useful. I printed most of the parts for my 3lb robot and it heald up quite well.
Thank you! He is actually looking into 3d printing but has not bought anything yet. I’d hate for him to spend too little and have a crappy experience with a poor printer; much rather pay some extra to have a solid start.
They are actually learning CAD/3D drawing at school - how cool is that??! Back in my day we had Commodore 64 and had to remember to press Enter before the line ended, because there was no such thing as automatic word wrap. Times have moved on!!
Do do you remember tamagotchi? The little electronic egg with a pet you should take care of? I collect those. They are more advanced now. They have color screens, they charge with USB, you can connect them and marry, have a whole families.
I do enjoy bouldering and also jump rope. I suppose those are niche…
What’s bouldering? Is it just a different name for rock climbing?
It’s rock climbing but more specifically the type with no ropes or harness. Just the body and your chalk. The height ain’t high of course and there’s safety mats. Fun to solve those short problems.
My most niche hobby is writing ungodly bash scripts, and sourcing them to one of my bash profiles – mingw64 (windows), zshell (OSx), or normal (debian based).
I write in such a way that scripts are separated by concepts which overwhelmingly align with a certain technology or tool (e.g. git) and source whichever functionality I want into the proper profile.
The pain is separating corporate vs personal scripts, which I don’t have a great solution for outside of actually separating the scripts and sourcing in the proper order so that corporate functionality can override personal functionality (i.e. my git commands in corporate environment are still the same but with properly overridden config, etc)
For example, I bought a steam deck and mainly use it as a laptop instead of a gaming device. I created a new bash script
steamosand source to my (new) steamos profile. All my setup is repeatable through scripts to the point I could factory reset, clone my profile repo, run a couple commands, and everything is back where it should be. I am not quite to that state with other environments, but that is my goal.Imagine starting a new job, being handed a laptop you don’t get to choose (probably a Crapbook), and then simply clone and run config command to setup the OS for your personal prefs so you can hit the ground running on week one. This doesn’t mean you clue people in on the fact you are running not walking, however, ESPECIALLY at a new job.
inb4 have you heard of Ansible
I am a looooot more basic. But I see the fun in scripting. I make scripts when I need to do boring/monoton/repeating tasks like setting up a new win env after a new install, Set up test environments or getting info that my customers ask for that is something they will most likely not ask for again or if I need test data (especially files). I am a fullstack developer so that is why I am not doing anything fancy like the sys admins and I am too practical to create something for the sake of creating. But I do love creating things that is being used!
My favorites (right now) are learning to play star wars legion better, getting back into gunpla, finding mobile games that aren’t utter garbage, trying and failing to find decent friends, and sorrowfully watching hasbro destroy magic the gathering.
There are too many sets and spoiler season never ends. I mainly just follow now in case there are any good singles for updating my cube
Yeah I stopped playing about 2 years ago just because of product fatigue. And the new LOTR stuff costing twice as much as a regular set? No thank you. They have also leaned heavily into turning MTG into a weird “investment vehicle” with all these ultra-collectible and exclusive cards, the most egregious of which is the “one of one ring.” It’s pretty gross. It’s much less about the actual game now, which I’m sure would (does?) disappoint Dr. Garfield as he only wanted to make a game. He expected people to play magic at the kitchen table and wrap a rubber band around their deck when done.
