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Post something that you want to get into but don't know how, and have other people give you advice
Example: I'd like to learn more about wine1, but it seems very complicated and its hard to tell what's "real" and what's just stuff people have made up to be pretentious.
- I recognize this isn't a "hobby" per se but I think it fits best in this group
This is nothing against you OP, but this reminds me about Askreddit. Because you have 'answered' your question in the post, lots of posts on here are about your answer (wine). It would be good to have a seperation of answers to the initial question and responses to that (maybe by commenting on your own post)
Yeah I should have anticipated this. I was going to make my question a comment, but you can’t submit empty posts and I thought doing something like “title.” would be looked down on.
Maybe posts tagged with “ask” could be except from the body requirement?
About wine - on my first date with my now-wife, she was drinking wine and I said, "I don't know how to tell if a wine is good." She looked at me in a zen-like way and said, "You'll know it's good if you enjoy drinking it."
It's actually the best advice starting out - if you want to know about wine, drink wine and try to remember what you like and don't like. You can write it down to help you remember if you're forgetful like me.
Another great tip from a frenchman - whenever you don't know what wine to pair with food, just get wine of the same region as the food. So if you are making a meal from the south of france, get a wine from the south of france. You can't go wrong!
Another tip from a ritzy lady friend - if you're buying wine as a gift and you're unsure, get chardonnay. It's the most inoffensive wine you can buy.
The first point applies to pretty much anything. You'll meet a lot of people who tell you some things are just inherently better than others. Those people are wrong. Taste is insanely subjective.
Although obviously a little guidance doesn't hurt. So long as whomever is guiding you is more interested in finding what YOU like, rather than making you like the right things.
The same rules apply to a lot of things. Getting into beer I just sort of didn't like stuff so I bought more, different stuff and kept doing that adjusting to what I liked and didn't like. So now I can pick out beers pretty easily that I know I will like or at least not hate based on what's in it and a pretty good success rate.
Same also applies to coffee for me.
Interesting you say chardonnay is inoffensive. It's basically the only wine I don't like.
I'm still starting out on the Wine journey, but chardonnay feels to me like it's a white wine pretending to be a merlot.
Coding/other computer stuff. I'm a college student and I'm planning to take a CompSci course in the next year or so, but this is a skill that I'd love to develop but don't know where to start.
On a similar note, 3d printing. I'm really into tabletop gaming and the thought of being able to print my own minifigures is insanely appealing to me.
Hey, something I can answer. I do network automation for a living, and therefore spend the majority of my time writing code.
Teaearlgraycold is right in that you should try to be flexible, and not tie yourself down to one language. Python is a great place to start, as is Vb.Net. I also suggest that you just ignore the criticisms and elitism that people have regarding the languages and frameworks that they prefer. Use what is right for you, and what is right for the specific task. No one wins points for complexity, only for writing clean and efficient code.
Learning the theory behind software development will save you a lot of time spent pulling your hair out. I recommend learning the basics of planning something out with pseudo code, and how to draw up flow charts. Before you start writing your code, you should know what you need it to do, and roughly how you want it to do that.
I find that the easiest way to get in to scripting and programming is to identify something that either interests you, or would make your life easier. If you're into tabletop games, maybe look into making something like a basic character creator, or something to keep track of damage and buffs.
Also, start building up a library of code snippets you've made, that you can refer back to. That is unbelievably handy, when you want to do something similar in the future.
One of the most intimidating parts of getting into development is version control, and picking an IDE. While they're important, don't stress about them while you're first learning the language. Just pick and editor like Atom, which can use plugins to run your code, and start making things.
Thanks for all the information! I'll start thinking of some programs that I could use and maybe try and eventually make them.
Well, first you need to learn the basics. You could wait to do that in your class or follow an introductory programming course online. After that you need to write a lot of code. The more you write the better. Write code in as many languages as possible - don't just stick to Python or Java or C++. Most importantly, write code for something you'll actually use. Write code you care about.
I'm very late on this reply because I forgot tildes existed...my bad. But this sounds like good advice, I'll probably start looking into it when I have more time this summer. Thanks!
Since you’re into tabletop gaming, maybe do a small tutorial with python and try to draw a little battle map using text as your first project?
This is a great suggestion! Projects are how you grow as a programmer, and tying your projects into other personal interests will help you persevere when you start coming up against roadblocks.
A lot of it is purely pretense:
California wines were disregarded by the experts until Sonoma blew away the french wines in a blind taste test.
Wine experts will rate a cheaper wine better if it is served to them from an expensive bottle.
Restaurants sometimes list a very cheap bottle of wine as the most expensive, for those who blindly order the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu.
When the sommelier at a restaurant offers you a sip, he isn't asking if you like the wine, he is asking you if the wine is corked. If the wine was corked, you can request a different bottle. I've never seen anyone do this.
There some fundamentals:
Can you taste the difference between a $5 cab sav vs a $20 cab sav?
Can you taste the difference between a freshly opened bottle of cab sav vs a day old bottle?
Can you taste the difference between a cab sav vs merlot or sauvignon blanc vs chardonnay?
Does the same wine from the same winery of the same vintage have a different taste if you drink it on a different day or with a different food pairing?
In parting, know you dont need to spend a lot, you can find amazing bottles of wine for twenty dollars e.g. a bottle of cab sav from sonoma/ napa valley or a sauvignon blanc from marlborough.
There's also the study where white wine dyed red was described as tasting like red wine.
Stealing this to post on ~food
Hey! So I'm something of a wine aficionado. I'm still early in my life/career so I don't have an extreme amount of diversity in my experience like some other people do. I am, however, a DINK, so I travel for wine and have a wine collection that some may consider excessive (>$5k).
What's "real":
A few things, but basically only labeling laws. They are extremely complex and not even remotely similar region to region. Much of the Old World has restrictions on the grape varieties AND the production methods AND tasting results to meet the criteria for various labels phrases like "Saint-Emilion Premier Grand cru classe A" (Most expensive classification of wine from my favorite Bordeaux, France region). New World rules are more relaxed typically just related to % of grape varieties/years/region in a particular bottle. I would find a kind of style or region of wine you like and then investigate the appellation (legally recognized wine region) rules. The rule of thumb here is that the smaller region that is referenced on the bottle, the higher quality of wine you will find, as appellations are often nested within each other.
The difference between a $5 bottle and a $20 bottle is massive. The difference between a $20 bottle and a $70 bottle is large. The difference between a $70 bottle and a $200 bottle is small. The difference between a $200 bottle and a $2,000 bottle is minuscule. There is no way to make a high qualify (red) wine at $5 a bottle, there will be some very significant flaw(s) in it, or at least I've haven't seen one yet.
In the United States: Fancy words like reserve, private reserve, ancient vine, old vine, special selection, etc. mean exactly dick besides how much money they want you to pay. The only words on the label that matter are varietal or blend (Cab Sav, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Red Blend, etc), "Estate Bottled" (The grapes came from that particular estate property only), vintage (year that the grapes were harvested), Appellation/Location (the AVA, i.e. Napa Valley, California), and %ABV. https://www.ttb.gov/pdf/brochures/p51901.pdf
Keep in mind though that the Old World has stricter rules so fancy words like "reserva" in Spain actually have significant quality and process meaning.
I thoroughly enjoy heavy reds so my story will be skewed to the expensive side as whites are generally much cheaper, but it is extremely rare for me to a find $20 bottle that I find "great". ~$40 bottle is where I start finding wines that I love and ~$70 a bottle is about my cutoff for "general use" wines. The average bottle in my collection is probably $60 and it tops out at ~$200 per bottle.
Another commenter said this:
If there is anything actually wrong with the bottle, it's perfectly acceptable to say "I'm not sure, what do you think?" after tasting if you think it's gone bad to put it back on the somm. They will usually err on the side of caution, so if there may be some tainted flavors coming from that particular bottle they will be more cautious with their recommendation.
My last word is that you should drink what you enjoy and don't let people look down on you about it. Taste is completely subjective and drinking wine is as much about the experience as it is the actual flavor. Find a local wine shop that is actually tailored to getting different kinds of wine and start experimenting with the different areas. Don't judge an area off of a $5 bottle, though.
Just to give an example of point #2 you made about price vs. quality differences:
Yesterday my girlfriend and I tried a ~$16 bottle of wine, a pinot noir from the local region, which was probably more like a $13 bottle when considering the general price markup at the particular market in question, and compared to the stuff I've been getting exposed to as part of my job, it was garbage. I've been acquiring a taste for red wine over the last couple of months, and my girlfriend had zero prior red wine experience, and neither of us liked it at all. It was flabby, completely lacking any body or presence, and it completely lacked a balance of flavors. In short, it was unimpressive.
Today, we tried a $25 bottle, which--again, accounting for general markup compared to other markets--would probably be around a $20 bottle. Same varietal, same vintage, same region. The difference between the two is like night and day. This wine still doesn't quite measure up to the wines I've been getting exposed to--if we call the other wines "great", then this one is just "pretty good"--but it's still an easy wine to drink and, dare I say, of objectively better quality. Even my girlfriend, who is generally opposed to red wine especially after yesterday, thoroughly enjoyed it.
That $7 difference in not-marked-up value makes a significant difference in quality. Granted, the price vs. quality rule is really just a rule of thumb, as there can be some very impressive wines that go for as little as $13 a bottle (I tried such a wine late last week) and some very unimpressive wines that have fairly hefty price tags, but for a heuristic it works pretty well.
With all that being said, I wanted to add something new to this as well:
If you have the opportunity, go to a local wine tasting event where different wineries come together and you can try tastes of wine for very little money. If you can, try e.g. a chardonnay aged in oak vs. stainless, or a pinot noir from one winery vs. another. Try them back-to-back and try to take note of the different layers of characteristics of those wines, taking note of the things you like and dislike (buttery flavors, spices, types of fruit, acidity, how it feels in your mouth, dry vs. sweet, etc.). The best way to figure out which wines to go for is trying a lot of different things at once so you can compare them while their flavors are fresh in your mind.
That's my opinion, anyway. It certainly works for me :)
Thanks, I'll probably be back to Spain next year. I was just in La Rioja earlier this year.
Why are those specific traditions going away?
I'd really like to learn how to play Classical Guitar, but I just don't have enough money to pay for real lessons. I can scrounge up for the guitar itself though so that's not a problem. I guess YouTube might have something. I'm also wondering how much I should practice and if I'll be able to do it as much as I need to, considering my schedule.
There's a ridiculous amount of tutorials on YouTube. The tricky part is identifying which ones teach you the right way, instead of the easy way.
Probably the first thing to do is get your head around musical theory, and learn some basic chords.
Don't just learn the finger positions though, try to understand the notes which make up the chords, as this will help you with improvising and jamming.
When I was first learning guitar, I would try to practice chords, stunning patterns, finger picking etc while watching TV. I found that it helped me to stop overthinking things and turn the guitar playing into a natural and smooth action, which I could do without as much thought.
Mine's just a variation on yours, I'd like to get more familiar with whiskey. I want to be able to distinguish a bourbon from a rye, to know the differences between highland and lowland scotch and so forth. I've had expensive ones and cheap ones and I can taste that the expensive ones are better, but can't articulate why.
Actually I could probably learn how to describe complex flavors, in general. I've never been very good at identifying different combined ingredients in a dish. Something I'm a bit embarrassed about but don't know how to fix.
If you wanted to, you could start with cheap whiskeys. If you want to learn to taste, you could just start comparing things on the lower end (Jack Daniels vs Evan Williams (different blended Kentucky whiskey), Johnny Walker Red vs Black, Pig's Nose vs Sheep Dip (cheaper blended Scotch vs slightly more expensive blended Scotch), Bulleit Rye vs Bourbon) to get some of the major characteristics out of the way. The most expensive I mentioned is Sheep Dip which cost me $50, I think, at Total Wine, or the Johnny Black, which is 1/5gal for probably $60 at Target. I was surprised at how inexpensive just trying and comparing different whiskeys is.
Psychedelics. no idea on how to grow anything or order materials apart from like TOR. never taken any before either, not sure where to start.
This a big topic.
Do you have experience with weed? It's good to feel comfortable being high before venturing into more intense experiences.
Shrooms
Buying shrooms is always risky because if you're inexperienced you might not be able to tell if they're the real deal. While I don't think there's a big risk that you'll get poisonous mushrooms, there's always a risk that they were rotten or infected with mold before they were dried and that's a health risk.
If you want to grow shrooms, you can start here: https://www.shroomery.org/13878/The-PF-tek. You can order spores online (legally, because they don't contain any psychoactive substances) - if you need to know where to order them, try looking for that info in shroomery forums. PF tek is fairly inexpensive and not very difficult, but it will take 3-4 months before you have actual mushrooms assuming you do everything right and it's a security risk to have a growing operation like that at home. Depending on where you live this may be a very bad idea. Also, it's difficult to tell how strong the mushrooms are before you try them - the exact variety you're growing and the growing conditions influence psychoactive "strength". If you do go down this path, just one word of advice - be patient. Growing shrooms is 99% doing nothing.
For your first experience take 0.5g of dried shrooms (make tea, there's a recipe on shroomery). It won't be intense, but until you figure out how strong your mushrooms are and how sensitive you are you have to be careful. Having and overwhelming first experience can be traumatizing. I don't mean to scare you; just be sensible and you'll be fine.
LSD
The most important thing with LSD (as with any drug) is to know that what you have is actually LSD. There are RC chemicals like NBOMe which are sold as acid. They're typically also on blotter paper and they have similar effects, but you can actually overdose on NBOMe and other RCs whereas on LSD you cannot. If you buy LSD from a local dealer, there's always a good chance that you're actually getting some RC (because they're much cheaper and therefore the dealer can make a bigger profit). However since RCs come in doses around 1mg and acid comes in doses around 0.1mg (just ballparking here), the tabs/blotters for RCs are significantly bigger. A typical LSD tab (single dose) is around 5mm x 5mm while an NBOMe blotter will be thick and as big as 2cm x 2cm. However the best way to tell them apart is the taste - LSD tabs have no taste (aside from the paper itself being a tiny bit bitter). NBOMe tabs are super bitter. Your mouth goes numb. This never happens with real acid. Also, real acid is active when ingested, but NBOMe can only be administered sublingually. So if you aren't sure if your source is good, swallow half a tab to test it out.
Having said that - I believe the best place to source LSD is darknet. There are some very reputable vendors. I don't know if it's allowed on Tildes to post links and vendor names so I won't do that, but you can try finding The Majestic Garden forum on darknet which includes tons of discussions and vendor reviews. The forum itself is legal since nobody sells anything there, it's just discussions. You might have to wait until registrations are open, but it's worth it.
If you decide to order acid from darknet, here are some recommendations:
*In some cases it's possible to trace the sender of XMR, see https://www.wired.com/story/monero-privacy/. However when you receive XMR and anonymously exchange it to BTC, there's no way to trace that BTC to the original sender of XMR, so it's safe. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)
There's so much more that could be said, but I'll stop rambling now. Let me know if you have any questions.
Edit: Changed The Magic Garden to The Majestic Garden - I confused the name for some reason
I'm not sure how close you are to British Columbia in Canada, but if you can handle noisy music festivals, there's plenty for sale if you just ask around. Everybody has it.
If you can handle the noise and like camping and electronic music, these are the kinds of environments where you're likely to get the most out of your trip.
Okay 1) Have you smoked weed? and 2) Do you know anybody personally that's tripped before?
yes to both
Okay so you have two introductory substances really to choose from. The first is shrooms. Shrooms are easy. You won't get a "bad batch" of shrooms. Start with 2gs. Some people will say to eat an entire 3.5gs but don't listen to them. Start with 2gs.
The second is LSD. Start with 1 tab and always test your source. There are test kits you can buy legally and easy on amazon. I just wouldn't want you getting something like DOC or 25c-Nbome for your first trip and having a bad experience.
Now once you get your hands on said substances you'll need a trip sitter. Preferably someones that tripped more than once or twice. Someone that will know the headspace you are in and can guide you through it without fucking with you.
Now, if you can't get these substances and still want to try psychedelics there are other ways. Specifically designer drugs. For example, 4-aco-dmt is legal to buy online and actually metabolizes into psilocybin in your body. Psilocybin is the active compound in shrooms that make you trip.
Another example, 1p-lsd can't be differentiated from regular lsd. They are practically the same! Plus, if you buy 1p-lsd you know for a fact the dosage. It's usually sold in 100ug blotters which is a perfect starting dose. Compared to buying off the street even if it does test positive for lsd it might be week or to strong for a first timer.
So yeah I could probably write a book on psychedelics for noobs but theres a little bit of knowledge for yah. Any questions?
is 1p-lsd legal in new mexico? i've heard of people getting it but haven't seen it sold. where would you recommend getting it from? PM if needed.
Mods please remove if this violates any rules. But, free speech anyways right? It's legal :)
https://www.smokeyschemsite.com/blotters/1p-lsd-100mcg-blotters
https://bclsupply.com/substituted-tryptamine/8-order-tryptamine-4-aco-dmt-fumarate.html
Thanks!
I want to do cosplay really bad but I have no idea how to make clothing or fake armor or anything like that. If I wanted to do junkrat from overwatch or Isaac from Dead Space I think about it for 5 minutes before determining its impossible.
Do you have any makerspaces near you? Go along with simple projects and work from there. Either learn sewing with a simple sewing project or learn how to 3D Print. You can start with downloaded files then get into modifying them with a CAD program.
It's never been easier to get into custom bespoke manufacturing! Check out xRobots on youtube for a youtuber who does a lot of 3d printed cosplay things.
Genetic editing of food crops for personal consumption. I'll eat damn near anything, so why not have some fun with it?
I am also interested in this, and genetic modification (including via selective breeding, but also maybe something a bit more creative/invasive) of indoor plants in general. This would be very interesting for me to experiment with even if they were not plants intended for consumption.
Wine is not hard to get into. Your distribution should have it, look it up in your package manager and install it. You may need to enable multiarch first.
I really want to get into the ultralight/scrambling/fastpacking scene but I'm not really sure where to start. I already do a lot of trail running (~40 mi/wk), but I've never made the jump to staying out there, as opposed to just running through.
I just joined and saw your comment...
The best way to get started is simple overnights on familiar trails. Even better if you can schedule your first few nights out with good weather (60F+ and dry).
The most important pieces of gear are the pack, shelter, and sleep system. Spend the majority of your budget and research on these items because they have the biggest impact on your comfort.
The common recommendation is to buy the backpack last, because you don't know what features/capacity you need until you own the other gear.
A fastpacker / ultralighter will need to spend a bit more money and research on gear to make sure it is minimal. The #1 suggestion is to not buy items you don't absolutely need. Avoid REI.
Not sure if you have a budget to buy the overnight kit - but understanding what you have to spend will dictate how to get geared up. There are super budget kits or all-out-baller kits.
I have been wanting to get into building electronics, but have struggled to get started. I get the very basics, but can't wrap my head around how to safely build a circuit without destroying components.