The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#161

Post by xorvoid » Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 3:01 AM UTC

Thank you thank you for this perspective!!

I've always had trouble finding community in some groups that are so focused on gear. I rarely know enough about gear to carry on a conversation for more than a few minutes, and even if I did I'd be soooo remarkably bored. I’m the kind of person who puts on an ordinary pair of beat-up old shoes past their reasonably serviceable limit and goes on a hike over terrain that really should require spikes.. (shrug)

This "gear as a hobby" carries over to computers too. People who get into custom keyboards, tweaking every detail of their work setup, nerding out about an extra X or Y on some machine. Rarely do these excitements seem to align with important engineering constraints. But it's a collecting/gear hobby. Hmmm, interesting..

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#162

Post by stefandesu » Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 6:39 AM UTC

mock-possum wrote: post #59

gensym wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I switched my sport of choice from cycling to running. In cycling, I kept getting pulled into the gear and tinkering. (It didn't help that I raced cyclocross, so during race season, every Monday was spent cleaning and repairing the result of the previous day's races). TBH, it was fun, but if I spent as much time training as I did tinkering, maybe I would have had some decent race results. With run…

For rock climbing, stick to bouldering. All you need for bouldering is shoes. The situations where even a chalk bag is required are very particular outliers, as are situations where gloves would be a consideration. You could spend plenty of money on shoes of course, same as running, but once you find comfy ones you tend to invest in them over and over again. Like running, it really does come down perseverance - I do…

I do enjoy bouldering because of its simplicity (little gear, no need to coordinate with others), but sport climbing gives me something that bouldering does not. Maybe it has to do with flow, as it's easier to get into some kind of flow on a 15 meter wall compared to a 4 meter wall. I'm not sure what exactly it is though that makes sport climbing more attractive to me than bouldering.

(I admit though that due to bouldering's simplicity, I do it much more nowadays compared to sport climbing...)

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#163

Post by stefandesu » Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 7:00 AM UTC

FPV drones are a super interesting extreme example for this. If you want to be in the top left quadrant, you only have two options:

1. Also be in the top right quadrant and probably spend more time on gear than actually flying. 2. Have a shit-ton of spending money for replacement drones.

I have a friend who chose number 1, but ended up being burned out by the constant tinkering and not being able to fly that he gave up his bigger FPV drone. He's still into the hobby, but restricting himself to smaller, easier to maintain drones.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#164

Post by gumby » Wed, Apr 26, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

addled wrote: post #148

gumby wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't possibly be old enough to have met him in person, so I consider you impertinent in using the author's given name. Have a bit of respect and use his last name!

Perhaps they're the time traveller in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Say_Nothing_of_the_Dog ?

Had not considered that possibility, perhaps because I don't remember a traveler to that period, thinking only of plague era.