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Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

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Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#521

Post by eru »

afc wrote: post #179

I got into designing my own knitting patterns. I enjoy that I can customize everything — the yarn material, color (including marling, helix knitting, double knitting), yarn weight, needle size (e.g., resulting in "airy" vs "packed" textures), knit textures (e.g., stockinette, linen, miss, etc.), construction process (e.g., can I figure out a way to knit in the round vs flat?), cables, gradual increases/decreases, sel…

A few years ago I helped the wife write her own Haskell software to help her generate her knitting patterns in LaTeX. Fun times.

Should be much easier these days with all the AI help available.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#523

Post by eru »

rbanffy wrote: post #89

How niche is retrocomputing? I absolutely love my ancient machines, and I use them to explore period applications, much more than games. I also love to restore and preserve them. There’s something magical about a Sun workstation Solaris 2 a Frog Design Trinitron monitor. or a Microvax running VMS and DECWindows. Or a multi-user Altair Z80. I think it’s sad a lot of software was lost and some platforms were denied the…

You call that retro? ;) I have a Curta sitting on my desk. Not as fun to toy around with as the electronic computers from a few decades later, though.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#524

Post by croemer »

xpe wrote: post #103
hackrmn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the genuine weirdos, the autistic and/or the neuro-divergent, is there anyone left, really? Do the "normies" genuinely exist? Happy-go-lucky, knows a bit about everything but doesn't nerd out on anything, picks up every conversation subject and listens and holds their own in a manner that is just right? I am genuinely curious about the existence of these "superhumans".

While there is often a "normal" (bell-curve fitting) distribution for individual factors, putting them together can be counter-intuitive. > Even when considering just three dimensions, fewer than 5% of pilots were “average” in all. [1] I would guess many/most people probably think they fall into either (1) the normal bucket or (変) the weird/fringe bucket. Either "I am pretty normal" or "I am an outsider". How many th…

Curious how that character 変 made it in there. Is that a typo for 2?

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#525

Post by exDM69 »

codazoda wrote: post #378
bluGill wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would start smaller though. There are a lot of half finished airplanes (where the last 20% takes 80% of the time...) and the maker is dead. I've been working on a ukulele for over a year now and it isn't close to done yet, and this is a much smaller project. (Or maybe I should say I've been working on raising kids for a decade and there is another left?).

Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to build an electric ukulele. I’ve built some handmade electric guitars, slide guitars and similar. Mine are rudimentary, more akin to a cigar box guitar (if not less complex). Examples: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPmHtIa9vAm8wNPeTXP4MoZ...

Great looking instruments.

I've built half a dozen similar box guitars, it's such a fun little thing to build.

Do I see a piezo disk under the bridge in the 3rd instrument? Do you use some kind of preamp with it?

I have been recently experimenting with different kinds of piezo pickups [0] and preamp electronics for them. I've figured out a pretty nice JFET based circuit for the preamp and ordered tiny 13x13mm PCBs with tiny SMT components assembled and it works pretty well (but needs a second revision). They mount directly on the volume potentiometer and fit in a small space.

The one thing I haven't figured out yet is grounding the electronics. In a typical electric guitar you ground the electronics by touching the (grounded) strings, but that doesn't work very well (at all) with slide guitar when your left hand has got a bottle neck slide on it (made of glass or ceramic which is an insulator).

Drop a message below if you want to geek out more about home made guitars and/or related electronics. Depending on your location I could also send some preamp PCBs your way.

[0] https://hazeguitars.com/blog/piezo-pickups-evolve (not my site)

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#526

Post by AussieWog93 »

shivekkhurana wrote: post #434
KellyCriterion wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put it on Etsy and see what others are willing to pay! :))

I do make clothes for close friends and family, but I don’t intend to make money of it. Playing this game for the game sake.

As someone who has monetized hobbies before, I think it's smart to keep doing things the way you are currently.

When you have to start optimising things for efficiency, it generally stops being relaxing and fun.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#527

Post by zwischenzug »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #3

My hobby is organizing in-person meetups for random people to get together, chat and make friends. Barely structured, if at all. I've found this rewarding and ended up making friends this way. You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want to be around. And another 10% at any given meetup are autistic or neuro-divergent but well-meaning…

Similarly, I did group therapy for a few years, and found it highly and profoundly rewarding.

It's much more structured, with a facilitator to help reduce the possibility of dangerous behaviours. It forced me to confront aspects of myself I otherwise might never have. It also (I think) gave me greater insight into what might be behind people's public faces.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#528

Post by croemer »

MrDresden wrote: post #289
unsupp0rted wrote: post #3

My hobby is organizing in-person meetups for random people to get together, chat and make friends. Barely structured, if at all. I've found this rewarding and ended up making friends this way. You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want to be around. And another 10% at any given meetup are autistic or neuro-divergent but well-meaning…

Have you done any write ups about how best to go about doing something like this? I'd love to organize something like this in my local community but somehow am not sure where or how to start really.

In German speaking areas there's an app called Spontacts where one can advertise any sorts of events and people can sign up. Like MeetUp but free and it actually works. Lots of people offer board games, walks, brunch. I got into it recently advertising spontaneous ping pong get togethers. Met some really cool people so far.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#529

Post by AussieWog93 »

croemer wrote: post #524
xpe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there is often a "normal" (bell-curve fitting) distribution for individual factors, putting them together can be counter-intuitive. > Even when considering just three dimensions, fewer than 5% of pilots were “average” in all. [1] I would guess many/most people probably think they fall into either (1) the normal bucket or (変) the weird/fringe bucket. Either "I am pretty normal" or "I am an outsider". How many th…

Curious how that character 変 made it in there. Is that a typo for 2?

My first thought was that they were an LLM, but then checking their profile it seems they've been around since 2012 and have a comment expressing that they seem to get accused of being an LLM a lot, and suggesting people don't do that.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#530

Post by xfce4 »

estetlinus wrote: post #463

Muay thai is my favorite hobby. Two kids later, it’s hard to find time, but I had a time where I went boxing everyday. I can really recommend material arts for those with proper work/life balance. No activity brings you more endorphines than being brutalized under controlled conditions.

Wrestling is my favorite. I'd like to start boxing, muay thai, or BJJ, but it's just a cost issue honestly. I feel like MMA (by extension, kickboxing and BJJ classes) has become a sort of trend, especially among teenagers/young adults, which is probably one of the reasons why classes cost so much lately. I know lots of people at my wrestling gym who do several martial arts at a time and it's got to be pretty hard on their free time.

Outside of drilling and live wrestling, it's really rewarding when I get to teach beginners little movements like relaxing their arms in their stance or different ways to fake shots.

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