Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

I’ve spent a half months salary on literature auctions. French, latin, english, swedish, 1700s and up. History, memoires, philosophy, religion, science and math, poetry, stories. Art as well, happened to buy prints of Girodet and Dürer that I enjoy very much.

Did some duolingo for french just recently and already did for latin two years ago. It’s difficult to read them but broad context is enough for an overview understanding and I feel a detailed understanding increase by the chapter from exposure alone.

Apart from the actual books I enjoy bidding, similar to but healthier than gambling on stocks, and “winners curse” of overpaying for stuff I really like eh I’m aware of it but the dopamine is worth it too. Some arbitrage opportunities as well, as in finds on local auctions and selling online internationally, but usually international shipping for heavier stuff like entire œuvres and just the time investment to pack and ship something deters me from doing that. Wouldnt want to damage 1600s books in shipping I suppose as well, they look quite cheap locally but fetch more internationally.

This is the one!

Same here.

Life happened.

What I told my dad would never happen (not using Linux From Scratch or Gentoo - like how can he use Windows and like just get things done instead of digging deep and solving problems all the time?) did happen.

I now use Debian derived but more up-to-date and easy to use for mainstream people distros (like shudder Ubuntu) and they're relegated to server and TV duty and I hope nothing breaks when I upgrade from LTS to LTS version coz "I don't have time for this!" and I play a few games here and there on my Windows laptop.

But I think it's important to have gone through the "rabbit hole" in the middle. All the digging and understanding I did I still do all the time at work. I just no longer spend the other half of my life on it. I spend it digging into other things.

I did not realize that learning Fusion 360 was going to be such a huge chapter in my current journey. Looking back, I'm kind of stumped at how I avoided it as long as I did.

I would now put learning CAD in the same category of mandatory life skill as learning to code. The ability to translate what you see in your mind to something that can be repeatably fabricated is an incredible power move, akin to learning how to communicate complex ideas with empathetic language.

My advice is to start by following this tutorial step-by-step. It's a 90 minute video that took me ten days to get through. Step two is to take an existing project and change it in a significant way. Step three is to create something from scratch which solves a problem that you have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK60ROb2RKI

I’ve fallen into the plant tissue culturing rabbit hole. I was selling excess trimmings of aquarium plants locally on Facebook marketplace and made a surprising amount of money, and my kids really enjoyed it (they got a cut for helping me out). I thought hmm, this could be a great excuse to make a little business around this, teach them some skills, get them thinking more constructively and feeling a sense of agency and ability, etc. Plus earning money is really nice when you’re a teenager.

The challenge is that in an aquarium, plants grow reasonably fast but not fast enough to sell regularly for a decent income. You need ways to produce more plants faster, more reliably, and without taking up too much space. That’s where tissue culturing comes in.

It has reaaaally sucked me in. I’m culturing everything I can find. I’m also propagating aquatic plants through more typical means, and that’s fun too. I’m out of space though.

Tissue culturing is a really fascinating science and practice. I love keeping track of the media recipes, results, growth rates, etc. I’m too early to have had meaningful results, but I look forward to tracking those as well.

I wish I could do this, but the financial aspect just isn't working where I am.

I've been looking at digital backs for old cameras such as the blad I have taking dust. Sadly, either they're completely impractical or they're way above my budget. Hopeful that some day, something better than a polaroid back can be used to resurrect my old hassleblads.