What are your hobbies? And how do you get into them?
I think having a hobby, something outside of your work that you enjoy doing and/or are simply just good at, is kinda important, and fulfilling. And so, I wanted to make a topic in general about what hobbies you might have and why that particular hobby appeals to you (along with some tips as to how a newcomer might be able to introduce themselves to the hobby).
For myself, I have recently gotten into the Rubix Cube and have had a lot of enjoyment learning some different methods and improving the time it takes me to solve it.
Started out with a non-descript cube from a supermarket and have recently purchased a GTS3M which I am enjoying a lot so far (plenty of online stores in a variety of countires that will deiver quickly and cheaply). I was able to find a plethora of tutorials on youtube (jperm and brodythecuber in particular) that I found very helpful. For any other cubers: favourite perms, methods, do you compete, tips?
Something, something first post, may not be perfect, but I want to be more engaged.
I've got a whole bunch of hobbies l switch back and forth between, having to blame the adhd for not really being able to focus and wanting to do all the things. So far l'm actually doing decently at doing all the things at once, it's fun. The nice thing is that broad interests give room to start combining knowledge.
I could probably design and build a lot of things now given time, money and a place to work.
It's just that l don't actually quit most of them but rather put them on hold, so slowly but sequentially improve skills in them. I'm trying to focus more though.
My main hobby is repairing electronics; l fix people's broken appliances, like phones, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens and whatever else breaks honestly. Also a little PC maintainance on the side sometimes.
I've been doing repairs for at least 8 years now, together with many other volunteers in a monthly local gathering where people can get their things repaired for free. We get many interesting things like old tape recorder audio equipment. I really like listening to people's stories as l repair, since one rule is that customers have to stay while their stuff is being fixed. Last time l had a man with a magnetic tape recorder and player which didn't have consistent sound. He had some tapes with pretty fun fiddling music on it from ~1960-ish which turns out was from his own band from back then. It was really nice to see him cheer up when l finally managed to get the sound right after about 45 mins of work. It's the thankfulness of people and the fun of detective work for finding and fixing problems that make this so fun.
Lately the focus has been figuring out website stuff; running a shitty semi broken DokuWiki on a painfully slow old NAS and learning ssh access and linux in general. Might want to do some programming too but l do need to focus on other things too.
I bought a welder and some other tools and am trying to learn to weld in my spare time. I don't really have a safe space to do it yet since l have neighbors, but l might have something soon. I'd like to build things out of metal because l think designing making your own stuff is really fun and rewarding.
On the same topic of DIY: l'm learning bits and bobs of electronics and microcontrollers, the things l need to automate stuff around the house or possibly machines l could build once l got the workshop up 'n running.
I've also been doing painting lately; built myself a lightweight, compact and decent-looking sketch easel last year which use to go out and paint en plein air (outdoors on location). It's a fun little CNC-cut wooden thing that folds for storage and can be snapped onto a camera tripod for use, which make it really easy to adjust its height and angle. It can hold small canvases and boards but not very well, so l need to make some modifications once l got a place to work, likely very soon.
Another thing l've been doing is vector graphics, mostly for uni classes but for fun too. Throw in a bit of digital painting for good measure.
I'm also doing 3D modeling and rendering in Blender, starting to get the hang of Cycles and it's lighting system. A company l know people at wants me to make product renders for them which is a pretty neat free time side project.
Edit: some others:
microscopy, looking at things up close and taking pictures of them. Last year l timelapsed the growth of gallium crystals under the microscope, l'll post it if l can find it.
chemistry: doing experiments, making compounds like dyes l can use to make paint.
drinking tea: l've got a small collection of loose leaf teas, teacups and teapots. I pretty much drink a full litre of tea every day, lots of tieguanyin lately. Past winter season l drank a ton of puerh, l love that stuff.
listening to music: earlier this year l got the opportunity to buy second hand but hardly used and 1-year old Sennheiser HD660S headphones together with a headphone amp for really cheap from a friend. Since then l've been into high end audio, which l really love so far. The depth and quality of some bands is just so amazing and l often just lean back and listen. I've also borrowed my mom's old record player and bought some records which l listen to pretty often. I'm running out of shelf space though so l likely won't buy too many albums.
Speaking of which, l go to a lot of concerts, mostly progressive metal. I've planned a bunch for this year which means there's always a next concert to live towards.
Yikes this one got long lol. l really need to learn how to "focus" more :p
Yeah I'm big into my music too. I bought a pair of the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro's, and the sound quality is just phenomenal.
I had this one song with a thunder sound effect in it that sounds like "pretty realistic" thunder on decent midclass audio but phenomenal "did my house just get bombed wtf" on the 660S.
That went from 0 to 1000% dynamics and l nearly jumped off my chair because that scared the hell out of me.
Where do I find one of these 'fix up old electronics!' places around me? I've got a few things (Ipod classic, old stereo receiver, etc.) that I'd love to try to revive and not have to throw away
Check here.
Awesome!! Thank you!
Not OP, but thanks for the link. The public library one town over from me apparently has one. Next time I visit my sister there, I will have to pop in and check it out.
I spend the majority of my time on the computer for work and pleasure, so I wanted to find a hobby that would get me out of my chair.
For about a year now I have been refinishing furniture. I don't know if I would consider it woodworking, as I do not have the skills to make original pieces. What I simply do is find furniture and sand/stain it. I am currently working on a new desk for myself.
Getting started is pretty easy. Figure out a piece of furniture you currently need or want to replace, find an old beat up version at a thrift store/Facebook/Craigslist, etc and start sanding. You'll need an orbital sander, various sand papers, a dusk mask, and possibly something to hold the furniture on such as saw horses.
I made a post a few days back, but recently I've gotten into miniature painting. I've been playing D&D for the last year and enjoyed it thoroughly so thought it was time to take the plunge and have a go.
Our DM normally paints any minis we throw his way but it's something I wanted to have a shot at myself, it hasn't been as costly as I first thought it would be. Like yourself I went for all the YouTube how to videos I could find for a newbie then just went for it.
I've found if you make a mistake or aren't happy there is nothing a bit of thinners or base coat can fix! I am hoping to get into the more technical side of things now, shading and lighting is my next goal.
One thing I have found is brushes are definitely key, without a decent brush man things get frustrating fast.
Sorry if this is wrong but D&D is dungeons and dragons or something else? If it is, it sounds like something that would be really awesome with the right group!
Do you have any links for any of the youtube vids that you liked most?
Edit: I had a brief stalk through your comments and see your a fellow Aussie, hey there!
Didnt get a chance to read all your comments but saw that you posted an album of some of your work, did you have a favourite one, or one that you were most proud of?
Another Aussie!!
Yep Dungeons and Dragon's, I've always been interested but never really put that much thought into it, mostly because I didn't think any of my friends would be into it. Turns out that was massively wrong.. Coming up with backstories has been a bit of a challenge, all the fantasy books I've read have helped a ton with that thankfully.
The Dwarf I just painted I am really happy with and can't wait to play him, one of our group is going to try his hand at DM so our current DM can play on this side of the screen. Only one of our players has any experience so he had guided us a little but mostly we are all learning together.
This guy is the one I first watched I found his videos to be the easiest to listen to, a few of the others I have on my saved list are a bit more intense. One guy gets distracted a ton with the cleaning up of his mini before laying any paint. Others go well over the 1 hour mark lol
The Warlock is my latest and the one I will be trying to shade the most, I've got a few ideas on what I hope I can do.
I have a handful of hobbies that I pursue when I’m feeling productive in my free time:
Piano
I’ve been playing for 20+ years. Originally I was classically trained, with the past 5-10 less formally taught, but perhaps the most advancement as well.
I enjoy learning new jazz standards, or covering songs I enjoy, but without the time (or maybe patience) to learn every detail of a song, I’ve gotten more comfortable coming up with my own. I started writing music after jamming with others and I find this is when I enjoy music the most, so I’ve tried to make it productive by recording (audio or writing it down) as much as possible.
Creative Coding
One of my more recent endeavors has been setting up a website where I can focus on artistic creation. Not willing to share as I’d want to build it out more, but the general idea has been creating looping images through p5.js and then pairing music I’ve written with it.
Eventually I would like to have the music be the driver behind the animation so it would all sync, but that would require more familiarity with the process that I’m just not at yet.
There isn’t an ultimate goal, but having gone to school for engineering I wanted to find a way to keep up my skills even though I don’t have a true outlet at work. Perhaps it’s a portfolio that will be useful later, or maybe it’s a fun thing to show at a bar. Either way, it’s art for art’s sake (and maybe my own interest).
Obscure Media
I enjoy finding and curating a collection of media that is off the beaten path. This could be anything from silent films, art house, SlowTV, out of print magazines, etc.
There isn’t a specific criteria any of them must meet, but I do look for more through-provoking, boundary-pushing pieces. The obscurity is also subjective, as even a classic can fit in if it seems to stir the right kind of emotions up in its presentation.
My god. This might become my new hobby!
Aww what was it?
Most of my hobbies are collecting things, starting with rocks when I was at the beach in southern Oregon when I was five. So I guess I've always had 'the sickness', as we wryly call it...
At fifteen I was walking to the pool we belonged to, in the next subdivision over, and saw a glint of glass inamongst the leaf litter in the little tag end of unbuilt land between the two developments, and being curious, went over to investigate. It turned out to be a patch of rusty cans and old bottles thrown out from some former homestead many years ago, with a few things unbroken, including a blue-green Ball Perfect Mason jar and a cream-top quart Chestnut Farms Chevy Chase Dairy milk bottle. At that instant, my fate was sealed, and to this day, 44 years later, I'm still a collector of antique bottles, though my area of collecting has migrated back considerably further along the timeline, centering most on pieces blown from about 1815 to 1875, with a few earlier and a few later. My collection isn't very big, only about a hundred items, but is quite carefully picked.
One of the more interesting qualities of being a serious collector is that, in addition to getting to own (read: caretake, for the brief span of my life) these beautiful and historic objects, learning about them casts an immensely wide net of interest into obscure sidelines of knowledge, building a picture of the mercantile and manufacturing realm that created them, as well as the social fabric in which they were embedded. The day-to-day realities of ordinary people aren't much touched on in the history books, which more focus on pivotal events like battles, treaties, major inventions and such, but those common, unremarkable realities comprise the vast majority of our collective history, and it's endlessly fascinating to find out about them. It paints a picture of life in our ancestor’s time, of the small daily rituals and needs and worries, the sadnesses and travails of a harder time, the simpler joys they sought.
One obscure example of a difference between the then and the now is that, in those pre-electrified times, the vast majority of bottles containing anything poisonous were covered with embossed textures like ribbing or cross-hatching, or were shaped like coffins or skulls, so as to be readily identified by touch, after dark, avoiding accidental poisonings. We just flick on the light and read the label...
And I still collect rocks, especially agates, as well as tools, stamps and books :)
I'd love to see a pic of your glass collection -- that sounds so cool!
Not sure we have a way here yet to post pictures, but I'd be glad to share some :)
People usually just use imgur, some other free image host, or even google drive/OneDrive/iCloud, and share images and album links that way. Tildes will probably never host user images since it's exceedingly expensive to do so, and doesn't really fit its goals either.
But I too second seeing pics of your collection. :) One of my favorite YouTubers, aquachigger, is primarily a metal detectorist and collects civil war relics, but also regularly finds super old bottle dumps and collects them too.
Since I don't have a job or a profession per se, everything I do is a hobby. Sounds pretentious as all get-out, but that's what I'm dealing with.
Coding, design, writing, systems design. That's as wide as it is. I'd like to learn to cook decently-well – well-enough to make it into a hobby – and maybe a few other things.
The first thing was writing. I wanted to write for as long as I can remember. Started when I was... young: can't remember how young exactly; early middle school, or thereabouts. There were a few stories I never finished – the kind of writing you'd expect from a young-teens boy, so nothing you'd want to read. One I liked so much I wanted to share them with my teachers at school. It was about a band of assassins. (The kind of assassins from Assassin's Creed, sans the Middle-Eastern origins – which is a good way to date the start of the story: it was after AC1 came out and Eragon, the film, first screened. I got some ideas from the film.) There were elves, half-elves (massive difference), secret assassin hideout in the eternal desert outside of magically-shielded oasis cities (which still looked like your typical medieval walled city beneath the shield), necromancers...
My parents never cared much for it. My mother berated me once for even considering writing. Maybe that hurt – I don't remember – but I stopped writing until I was 17 and just rolled into a uni. I guess it was all the excitement and the fresh new livin' that gave me a lot of energy I needed to express. It was then that I wrote about two dozen of short stories (like, 1-page-, 2-page-long), one almost every day. Then it slowed down.
Right now, I'm mostly developing ideas for big, long plots and worlds. Seriously intimidated about writing anything of consequence at this point. Currently finishing a small worldbuilding project called 2011, which is a lot of writing about what the world of Harry Potter could be like if the wizards were more curious.
Design I got into via web design, and there's a years-long gap between my first writing HTML and my first designing anything outside of that. A friend once told me I had a knack for visual design; I didn't think I did, but the encouragement – alone, like a raft in the middle of the ocean – stuck. I first started making web pages because I wanted to make my own website; no idea what for, but it sounded really cool for me to have my own website. Didn't make much progress back then, and it went on the back-burner for a while. Can't remember how I got back into it, but right now I'm making stuff work on the web for myself and a handful of other people.
Coding – as in, JavaScript – came in pretty much as soon as I got back into web design, because I needed to add some interactivity to my private projects, and JS was, apparently, the way. (I recognize in hindsight that I didn't need JS for those particular elements – like a navigation bar that appears when you hover over a smaller bar – but I didn't know any better.)
I've been toying with a handful of other languages: Python, Ruby, C++. None stuck, though I did like Ruby, mostly because it was similar-enough to JavaScript that I could grasp its structure intuitively. Ruby also had a cool tutorial that introduced me to a lot of the features of the language in a paced fashion, which was what I needed. That left a positive mark.
Systems design is the most recent, and the hobby I'm the least proficient at. My thinking was always one of order – how to organize, to direct the flow of work, etc. – and it has recently developed into something more concrete. I'm a man of theory, and systems present a fertile field for theory to develop. There seems to be not much research into system organization – there's plenty in absolute terms, but relatively, it seems to be an obscure field compared to something like mathematics, programming, or languages. I'm hoping to make my contribution in the long-term.
Currently looking into a more systemic way to correct or develop systems – something I call natural systems. Plainly speaking, it's an approach aimed to treat the cause rather than the symptoms, and I think quite a few people in the world would benefit from having the idea laid out in an approachable fashion. (Friction is a big thing stopping us from learning useful things – something that's been talked about a little on Tildes. "Approachable" is the way to go for practices you'd like to see adopted.)
Paragliding. There's something about being able to see nature, the beauty of our planet, and feel the air on your face from a vantage point a minuscule fraction of anyone who's ever lived has experienced—while you soar with the eagles in a thermal, climbing ever higher into the inky blueness of the sky.
It's extremely humbling, and makes me so incredibly grateful I am privileged enough that I live in this tiny window of time where this is possible, and have the resources to make it happen myself. Every time I fly, you leave your normal life behind, to exist in the exact current moment, making instantaneous subconscious decisions which keep you alive, climbing, sinking, landing, launching—with no other cares in the world.
Everyone should do a tandem flight, if only once.
Blender's been my go-to 3D tool for years. I'm not that great and don't use it consistently but l'm starting to get the hang of Cycles and setting up decent and efficient lighting.
It's interface is daunting at first but l really like it because it's 100% customizable, the spacebar quickmenu is something l really miss in other convoluted software like Photoshop and SolidWorks(and Dwarf Fortress since we're on the topic of cluttered UIs :p).
l do need to learn how to make (seamless) textures and bits of programming, since l have a model l'd like to use for a Factorio mod but no programming skills or much texturing experience other than Minecraft mod textures.
Any tips on making easily UV-mappable models and applying seamless image textures? I like cycles procedural textures but l can't make every texture l need with that.
Outside of practice? Not too much. For mechanical or architectural models, try to make seams at extreme angles if possible. Props can be tricky, if the material changes try to make the seams there. Humanoids, think about where your clothes seams are. I mostly do my texturing in C4D's Bodypaint, or Substance Painter, which makes visible seams really easy to fix up. For Blender, I'm afraid I can't be much help there.
I tried real ginger beer for the first time a few days ago and it blew my socks off with how pungent it was. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely delicious, but I guess I had grown so used to the flaccid ginger flavor in commercially available "ginger ale" here in Canada (e.g. Canada Dry or Schweppes) that I wasn't expecting to be kicked in the sinuses with super spicy ginger flavor and aroma. :P
Similarly, I have never had Mead before... so out of curiosity, what does Mead taste like? Does it still taste super sweet and distinctly of honey, or is it more like hard alcohol, or even a wine of sorts?
Ah, yeah that makes sense there would be a ton of variance depending on the process and yeast used. Thanks for the info.
And, after doing some searching, it looks like there is a decent amount of locally produced Meads available here in Ontario too... so I am definitely going to have to order some to give it a try! :)
http://www.honeypie.ca/mead
http://www.munrohoney.com/store/store-1/mead-3
https://www.rosewoodwine.com/meads/
Yeah, I have to admit that the fruit juice and spiced ones sound incredibly appealing to me. I similarly drink a fair amount of Raddlers, Shandies, etc... (beer + fruit juice) and spiced Abbey/Belgian style beers (e.g. Hoegaarden has coriander and orange rind in it and is my all-time fav commercial beer).
And speaking of blended/mixed drinks, have you ever had a Braggot (Malted Barley) Mead? I noticed the Beer Store in my area carries one, so am tempted to go pick some up... but if it sucks and/or will taint my impression of mead, I will pass for now and just order some "proper" mead instead. ;)
Alright, I ordered some "proper" mead and will probably pick up the Braggot next time I go to the Beer Store too. Thanks again for answering my questions, and this pleasant conversation. :)
p.s. The cyser sounds lovely, especially on a hot summer day (or warmed/mulled on a cold one), so I can totally see why your friends love it. ;)
Cubing, I've been doing since November 2013. Gave up on speed, and have so many puzzles I have to re-learn how to solve them, which is always fun. I figured if Zemdegs could do it in five seconds, I should at least learn. My brother found Badmephisto's guide, and from there I got the hang of solving the puzzle and learning algorithms. I started with the older paper-stickered cubes, and got a Zhanchi to save my wrists, but that would not be a concern now, the current tiled cube is really good. Currently, I mostly use the GAN RSC because it's good enough, tiled, looks like a traditional cube, and just feels nice to me.
I picked up yoyoing in 2016 after this video by Veritasium in which Ben Conde demonstrates off-string yoyoing. Again, one of those simple things where "if he can do that, I can start off with the basics!" Learned mostly via tutorials (yoyotricks.com and yoyoexpert.com have stores to buy yoyos, and tutorials, as well as trick tutorials just spread across the internet).
I've been making electronic music for twelve years, started with a cracked FL Studio in 2007, moved to OpenMPT and free VSTs, and currently use Renoise with Zyn-Fusion and Helm, as well as a bunch of samples, and Supercollider with Tidalcycles (occasionally just Supercollider), but don't really mix the two methods. I also play guitar, mandolin, and ukulele, which are all somewhat similar anyway.
I literally just bought a ukulele today. The boyfriend and I went to a music shop on a whim, and he ended up getting interested. I tried to learn guitar years ago and ended up not enjoying it, but I was surprised at how friendly the ukes were to pick up and play. A decent starter instrument was only $50, so I decided to take the plunge. Today we both took turns learning to play a few chords to play a song.
Vintage Cars and motorcycles. I grew up around a family whose hobby was old cars. I'm in the only one with the bike bug though. I currently own a 1948 Ford 2-door sedan, a 1929 model A, a 1971 Vega that is currently being converted to a drag car, and then about a dozen motorcycles from mid-50s up to my 2004 Aprilia RSVR Factory race bike.
I've got quite a few hobbies, some of which others have mentioned but:
1. Tea - I love brewing loose leaf tea and probably have had about a cup a day for the past 11 years or so. I've also worked a bit behind the scenes at a tea supplier so I have a rich knowledge about taxonomies, supply chain, and many other random tidbits.
2. Magic: The Gathering - I suck at it, but mainly just make modern decks at home and play against myself, most of them budget builds. On very rare occasion my friends will want to play EDH, so I have a few decks made for that, too. Along with MTG, I also play D&D and dozens and dozens of different board games!
3. Music! - From listening to records that were given to me by my parents or found at flea markets to organizing over 200GB of music in Winamp, I love SO many different genres of music, learning about the history of the music, and really delving into artists when I find them.
4. Piano - I'm almost entirely self taught and have been playing on and off for ~12 years. The beauty of teaching myself is that I get to play what I want and the music that makes me happy! But the downside is that I really have to be on the ball if I want to progress, which comes very very slowly haha.
Programming was my hobby for a long time, but since I started going to uni and working as a programmer I don't really feel like programming in my free time. Still love programming, but I already do way too much of it haha.
Another of my long time hobbies is playing games, nowadays I don't play them as much as I used to, but I still play a bit almost everyday to unwind.
I also used to do a ton of game dev stuff, which motivated me to learn basics of 3d modeling, 2d digital art and lately music, allowing me to be bad at everything, but maybe a bit better than the average person haha. For like a year now I've been playing guitar and I am still pretty terrible, but it's fun!
The Ludum Dare game jam is probably the only game dev I do now, whenever it's happening. I think I've done atleast 5 LDs now, never really finished too good in any category, but it's still one of my favorite events, that I try to never miss.
I make greeting cards. A friend of mine was getting married and moving over seas years ago, which led to a few of us (friends and family) making a scrapbook for her. That started my collection of random pretty paper. Then one day I decided I had more than enough supplies to stop buying the expensive papyrus cards. A little later I was introduced to Jennifer Maguire's channel and leveled up my cardmaking. Now I have stamps and dies and copics...
Homebrewing, i started after few YouTube videos about people making beer at home, at that time i was aware of few craft beer brands that were not of the big beer conglomerates, but i was amazed you can brew your own beer at home so i bought a cheap equipment and started brewing. Now i am a beer judge and now i can just brew beer i can't find locally and love to drink.
I have a small group of hobbies, none of which I pursue full-time.
Gaming
Specifically Rocket League. I played soccer when I was younger and I still love the game. Throwing flying rocket cars into the mix just adds to the fun. Currently D1 in Triples and Doubles and still play a couple times a week. Looking at my time stats on Steam, I've spent 720 hours on it so far. 0_0 It's usually the online multiplayer that draws me into a game- before RL it was CS:GO, and before that it was TF2. Occasionally I'll get a little guilty that I'm not playing one of my other single player games, so I'll go and spend a month or so on Borderlands, Ori and the Blind Forest, or Hollow Knight, but I always come back to PVP.
Music
Music is a big part of my life, I listen to it a lot. I also "play" the drums. I put that in quotes because I wasn't able to bring my drum set with me when I moved into my apartment. I'd like to buy an electronic kit since I miss my acoustic kit very, very much. It's a great outlet for creativity!
Exercise
I wake up at 5AM (most) every day to go lift weights at a gym in my city. Its worth it in the long run, but sucks when I'm tired and dragging my ass through the streets until the coffee kicks in.
I program as a job and have wanted to get started on a side project for fun, but haven't really thought of or found something that really excites me. Maybe that's just my personality, maybe I want to feel truly invested in something shrug
I'm in a couple D&D campaigns, one on Wednesday evening and the other on Sunday.
I also like to make things. The D&D group is going to Pennsic this year and we're making garb. I'm having fun with that. I've tried my hand at making chainmail. That was pretty cool. I also made a motorized mandrill for making the rings with.