Seems like every hobby is too obscure for most to care at the level I do. Sim racing, rtlsdr, self hosting, ANY kind of motorsports, home automation, blogging, DND, video games… At the surface these are not too obscure but I find very few people in my day to day life that care about them in detailed way
I get the idea and finding the right audience in real life can be tough, but I am, like many others I’m sure, just curious and like learning new things. Hearing someone talk with passion about something they are interested in can be engaging, and you get to learn a lot.
Running. Ok, I know it’s not obscure, however, if you say you’re a runner, or that it’s a hobby, you’re frequently met with hostility, or people trying to talk you out of it. The amount of times people have said “running is bad for you, you need to stop” is insane.
I genuinely like to engage with video games as an art form and I think some of them are among the actual best works of art there is.
It lands like absolutely nowhere. EIther people see you as a capital G gamer, but even the capital G gamers hate you because they want to enjoy product, not art
You know, I went out with a guy recently who was like super into videogames, and we even went to like a barcade for our date. And then he says to me “I don’t really like art”
like dude… videogames ARE art. So many artists work on them. My mind was blown that he saw it that way.
What games you like? I do like indie artsy games but my favorites are games with it’s medium in mind. Things like Undertale or oneshot, Or games that blend their motif wi incredibly well like the binding of Isaac.Or just extremely good ga like ultrakill and Skullgirls.
It’s a sort of you know it when you see it (play it) thing. Something along the lines of becoming more than the sum of their parts and also using the interactivity that the medium provides.
When I played TLOU I enjoyed it but I kept thinking “this might as well be a TV show and lose nothing for it”. It’s a well made story, presented with technical prowess in an interesting setting, then it’s also a sort of well made stealth cover shooter but it just doesn’t come together. That’s not to denigrate the individual efforts and art made there, I’m not saying it’s shit, but there’s just so much potential left on the table there. If you can 1:1 translate your game into a TV Show, like TLOU, why was it ever a video game to begin with, if you come at it from an art standpoint.
I don’t know if you played Gothic or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., those are quite similar in how it’s a great setting, well made (well, bar eurojank), the story is serviceable at best and for stalker especially veers off into nonsense at the end but crucially neither games would work as a book, or a film, or a visual novel. You could use the setting, sure, the art design and lore and stuff is solid enough to carry lots of interesting stories and have been used as such but it’d lose such a tremendous amount of what makes it great that it just doesn’t work. The first episode of Gothic (TV Show) is a man who walks into a city after pullign some beets and buying his way in. Or possibly sneaking in. Or maybe he murders someone and steals the uniform. Sure, that can be well made, but the point of Gothic is that you have all these options, go nuts. Fuck, transform into a raptor and cause mayhem then revert to human in the confusion, game will let you, but that’s the sort of thing that can’t be translated to other mediums well.
I’m currently playing through Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, that certainly goes more the indie artsy route, and I love it because again, doesn’t work in another medium. What makes it great is that it hits the line between the trash collection being tedious and frustrating, but still engaging enough, that it conveys the feeling the little sanidrone would have through interactivity. It sucks, but it is your only hope. And then the rest of it is also just very well made.
so the guy who’s hobby is “ethical philosophy” gets no judgement, but when i find a topic that touches on ethics, ecology, economics, anthropology, biology, nutrition, and politics, i’m a reactionary if i use it as a hub to reach all those other discussions.
are you afraid i might actually know what i’m talking about?
“Are you afraid of my debate prowess?” debate-me-debate-me
You don’t get to act so smug and assured when you’re going to bat for the dominant ideology.
No, you’re a reactionary because vegans are right and you’re starting right off with the slimy “debate” techniques. It’s very clear to me that your only goal is to “look right” in front of everyone, rather than actually engage.
No, you’re a reactionary because vegans are right and you’re starting right off with the slimy “debate” techniques. It’s very clear to me that your only goal is to “look right” in front of everyone, rather than actually engage.
this thread is about what i enjoy. you’re derailing.
Thanks for the dozen replies. I never expressed any intention to engage with you about veganism only to point out the reactionary tendencies you’re displaying.
Yes I’m ad homing you right now. That’s the purpose of my interaction and you’re actually the one derailing, from my perspective.
Hey, that’s me! There’s actually a “debate a vegan” muni on lemmy, if you didn’t know. I almost subbed. I’m a three-time former vegan. Sounds more impressive when you say it like that, doesn’t it?
No but I get you. Arguing is fun as long as the stakes aren’t too high (pun intended).
The thing is that on leftist forums, the stakes for a veganism debate are pretty high cause it easily causes a 50-50ish flameout.
Mods would appreciate if people like OP didn’t intentionally troll to stir that sort of thing up (if the discussion takes place organically and respectfully, then whatever).
Mods would also appreciate if people didn’t feed obvious trolls who are just starting things up, like you pointed out, there are specific places to post about that sort of topic.
they could have actually said something on the topic instead of trying to cast me as some kind of malicious actor. or they could have just moved along instead of attacking me personally.
as i mentioned in my other comment, i am the authority on what i enjoy. my utterance alone is all the evidence anyone can demand, but a trip through my comment history would provide plenty of supporting evidence as well.
you can disagree all you want: i am the authority on what i like to do. i can’t even concieve of evidence that would disprove my position. even evidence that i have done things other than those i mentioned is not evidence that i don’t enjoy arguing with people online, particularly vegans and liberals.
I play bagpipes semi-professionally. The overwhelming majority of people do not like bagpipe music, and even if they do, they don’t want to hear much about my bagpiping antics. One good thing is that I will never struggle to answer the dreaded “what’s one interesting fact about yourself” icebreaker.
Bagpipes are sweet and I could listen to some bagpipe antics for sure. What’s the best one you would share if you could find someone to care about it?
Also, does semi pro mean you play for money? Last year I learned from a former co-worker that you can actually play marching band instruments for money. I thought the only musician folks making $ were in a band doing gigs, or in an orchestra style gig.
Pretty much all of them at this point, I’m in the construction industry. Video games, reading, computer repair, anime, dungeons and dragons, miniature painting, watch making, chess… There are a few brave exceptions, but most people give me that glazed over look when I bring it up.
Chess is such a great game, it has it all. History, drama, things to learn, things to figure out, attacks! and defences, in an everlasting suite of games…
It’s free online at lichess.org too!
Fun fact ; when you exit the opening sequence (3-4 moves for beginners, 20+ for grandmasters) the game quickly becomes a game never ever played in the entire history.
I just posted a similar response but I think the issue, at least for me, is how deep into the weeds I get with each subject. Anyone can be into coffee for example, but it’s the ones who do the research and watch the videos about the subject in their free time, that make a simple thing such as coffee become more of an obscure thing. 🤷♂️
The example I like to give for coffee is that I watched James Hoffman sift coffee grounds to eventually brew a cup with all the same size grounds. With no intention of ever doing that myself.
I went searching, but all I could find is his review of the sieve, which I’ve never watched. But, I know 100% that it was him and this sieve just in a different video…
I’ve done research on ciphers and cryptography a little bit, so based on my understanding I made up some operations you can do on paper (not needing a computer) to transform text into something seemingly random, but also it has to be reversible with a key. I try to make it so that it doesn’t fall into the common traps that some older ciphers fell into like double letters are the same like with simple substitution ciphers. Also I wanted it to be reusable unlike with a one-time pad, in my case I like when the key is hidden in the encrypted message.
I haven’t found anyone to test out any ciphers yet, but I also haven’t looked too hard. I’m sure some people enjoy deciphering for fun (I don’t have the smarts or at least the time for that).
ha yeah. I don’t do anything that complex, but I suppose I could just drop everything and dedicate my life to it now and I might get 1/10th of the way there
I do that too. But when I show it to other people, I usually get “Eww why would you show me dick pics you disgusting pig I’m calling HR you twisted muppet”
Often out in nature, but certainly not always. One of the cool things about macrophotography is that you can do it just about anywhere as long as you know where to look. I vary rarely stage things, but I used to work as a photojournalist so I think a disdain for staging pictures is kind of part of my photographic foundation.
I am learning lockpicking for fun. It helps me relax. I used a practice lock at first, then a cheap real lock. I’ve just learned that my firearms lock…yup, can be picked open in about 10 seconds. Equal parts cool and terrifying. Locks are waaay less secure than people think.
It has the same “internet hacker” stigma so I avoid talking about it.
I love lockpicking! It’s got a really nice tactile click when the lock opens. Too bad there’s not a lot of locks to practice on (legally, anyways)
And yeah, I agree - locks are really more of a psychological hindrance rather than an actual hindrance. Although, for what it’s worth, I don’t know of that many people who can lockpick, so in that sense, a lock at least decreases the number of people who can get through
So got a question for you. I have wanted to get in to this - just as a curiosity. Is there an inexpensive set of picks a person can buy to get started with to play around with?
I tried googling and ran across about a hundred different suggestions and Amazon was the usual (no help).
I’ve had this small 5 piece set in my backpack since before instructions for anything could be easily found on the internet. It had to have been $10 or less.
I’m not getting any sort of kickbacks from the link. I picked one of these bundles up and I like it. The lock it comes with is super handy because it’s designed to be re-pinned. You can change the pins without disassembling the entire lock.
This right here is why electronic locks could be way more secure than mechanical ones, if only their manufacturers would hire well-trained programmers and not boot camp graduates to write the firmware.
That’s forbidden knowledge among the mechanics in my union local, lol. One of the shop mechanics at my training center was teaching some of my peers how to pick locks when we had completed our training and were just killing time helping the shop guys out. Had some downtime and he brought out a couple sets and some locks.
Apparently it’s sort of an unspoken tool of the mechanic trade when you work around machinery like that. Never know what you’ll have to get access to and you never know if anyone will have the right key. You’d think the ignition key would suffice to open, say, an access panel or storage cabinet, but some of these machines use a different key entirely for such a thing.
I got into it a bit during COVID and practiced a bit on a practice lock that I could repin myself. After being able to regularly open it without too much trouble, I decided to try my front door lock - thinking it would be a much harder challenge since it was a real lock.
Nope. Shit popped open almost instantly. It blew my mind! After watching Lock Picking Lawyer, I figured that a skilled attacker could get into most locks eventually, but I didn’t realize that most house locks require virtually no skill to open. And it’s literally easier (and significantly less attention grabbing) than breaking a window!
Sorry police officer, but the door was open ajar so hrem I just wanted to check if everything was alright you see?
Had a guy just being mind blown for the whole evening lock picking my way into my apartment, and then open some lock he had on his luggage (all very basic).
Saw him a year later when I had forgot about it and he still was startled about the evening 😁😅
Lol that just reminded me of something only vaguely related. Back in the day I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft with a friend. One day in the middle of a gaming session, he went “HOLY SHIT! There’s a naked guy sleeping on my couch!”
A couple things to note:
His couch and his gaming setup were both in his living room, barely 3 feet apart.
We had been playing for at least 2 hours at this point.
My friend woke naked guy up, who was very drunk and confused. Apparently my friend kept his apartment door unlocked and naked guy stumbled in at some point, thinking it was his apartment, stripped down, and then passed out on the couch. Still don’t know how long he was there for, but probably several hours before my friend noticed
So yeah, lock your doors people. They might not keep out a thief, but at least you won’t have a random naked dude pass out on your furniture.
I miss lockpicking, it’s so cathartic. I used to have a small set of picks and folks near my desk at the office would often try to pop a padlock I kept around when we were bored. I liked how everyone seemed so interested in the ease with which you can pop many locks.
I like the secondary aspect of coffee, finding niche roasteries and indie coffee shops, talking to the owners about their passion for coffee and to keep buying the expensive beans from them and then drinking them.
Model trains. I don’t bring it up because it’s obscure, but I’ve definitely found there’s a stigma. “Oh he’s the guy who plays with trains”. Screw the haters, I like to relax after work and do a bit of escapism. Eventually I got over it though and talk about it with friends, but it’s not the first thing I bring up either
I’ve found the Kato setups to be a bit more friendly on the wallet and have great reliability. I’d recommend that, a small oval with a kato starter set
Not quite ready unfortunately, still in the “lots of pink fiberboard and paper mache” phase, but oh I will when we’re done. We’re probably too small for a model trains community, but I’ll probably be hanging out in !trains
this is a hobby I would absolutely love to get into but do not have the space (and renting a garage would probably not be realistic at this point for me). looks amazing dude I’m jealous of you! awesome hobby
It’s definitely a space eater, it’s currently taking up half of my bedroom as I build it. I probably should have waited for a bigger more dedicated space but then I’d be waiting another decade.
My dad has been into model trains since before I was born. We built a train layout in the early 2000s when I was in middle school or so. Working on that project helped get me into electronics as we made PCBs for signals and control circuits. Now, 20 some years later, I work in software engineering. My dad wanted to get back into working on the layout and I’m helping him with Arduino programming and Raspberry Pi stuff. He built a stepper motor controller for the turntable and then we built some turnout and light control boards that interface with DCC. We set up JMRI on a Raspberry Pi to drive trains from phones and automate stuff. I also got him into 3D printing and he’s printed a ton of new scenery for the layout after buying his own Ender 3 after using mine quite a bit. We’ve learned various CAD/modeling programs to make 3D prints.
I also finally got to do something I always wanted to do as a kid, which is to drive the trains from a first-person view. We have gone through a bunch of different variations of putting a Raspberry Pi Zero and camera module on an HO scale railcar. We did some different designs. Our latest design uses an SG-90 micro servo to control the camera angle so you can look left and right. I also 3D printed an enclosure for a regulator, battery charger, and battery that takes track power and powers the Pi.
It’s pretty fun to be able to sit on the couch with a phone, watching the view on the TV, and drive the train from the other room including operating turnouts. Haven’t yet tried to drive the trains over the Internet yet but I want to, since I live a state away from my parents where the layout is.
Very cool! Sounds pretty much like what I have started on mine, I went the full DCC++ route, have an arduino and rpi running the whole layout, with a few other boards helping along the way. At some point I’d love to do full automation of the setup but that’ll be a while. What camera did you use for the rpi and train? I’m running n scale so I’m assuming yours would be larger
We built the layout when DCC was first coming out after going to a train show. We ended up picking up one of Digitrax’s first systems (Empire Builder IIRC, with DB150 base station). That’s still what we use for DCC. I designed a LocoNet to serial adapter (MS100 compatible, but very cheap and simple) in college (2010 ish) and we’re using that to connect it up to a Pi 3 running JMRI. Our layout is HO scale. N scale is probably too small for even a Raspberry Pi Zero with camera module, as the setup barely fits on an HO scale car.
I have set up a DCC++ Ex setup at my house for testing and experiments. Just got a loop of EZ Track on the floor with an Arduino as the base station and another Pi with JMRI that is configured similarly to the real layout.
Here is an early picture of the camera car design with the servo. I’ve since condensed everything on to one car with a custom 3D printed design. I want to publish it eventually but haven’t had time. I even 3D printed trucks with power pickups in my latest design (just had to buy metal wheel sets to put in them). I also made a tiny Python webserver that has buttons for different servo positions so you can easily move the servo from a browser.
For the DCC controlled turnouts, lights, and turntable, I built up an Arduino Nano based DCC decoder from a design I found online and a DCC decoder library that is available in Arduino. Since the layout spans multiple tables, instead of putting a DCC decoder for each table/PCB I just had the one decoder echo the DCC commands as serial messages over a serial bus that spans all the tables. The other boards (turnout controllers, light controllers, and turntable controller) all just have their RX pins wired to the decoder’s TX and can receive commands that way. Turnout controllers are a mix of SG90 micro servo based ones and L293D motor drivers for Tortoise switch machines. Light controllers use transistors to switch 12V outputs on and off to drive bulbs and LEDs. Turntable controller is an EasyDriver based stepper controller with some pre-programmed position offsets for each turntable track (each track position is mapped to a DCC function address).
I only know about it because of my fountain pen hobby; back in the mid 20th C, Esterbrook made fountain pens with replaceable nibs and offered a wide variety including a Gregg shorthand nib. I guess the Gregg shorthand people licensed the name for marketing. It was basically a normal non, but branded.
In my 60’s. According to Internet sources, shorthand was taught in schools until the 1990’s. It’s likely that shorthand use declined as PCs became common in offices.
I think it was still taught to business students up until the mid-90’s in my country. That’s also how I got my hands on an old Gregg shorthand textbook. That, and typing (via a typewriter) which was the one I learned when I was in high school.
Had I had a choice, I would have chosen to learn shorthand instead.
Hey! Someone left an old Gregg Shorthand textbook (anniversary edition, if I remember it correctly) in our house back when I was a child, and I tried learning it. Still kinda interested in it up until now.
Tried learning it again back during the lockdown days, but it went nowhere unfortunately.
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