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Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

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Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#41

Post by dofm »

jimnotgym wrote: post #26
dofm wrote: post #6

I hope you are blogging about learning the painting restoration thing; the things beginners learn through practice are every bit as valuable as the things experts know. My weird hobby as I mentioned is that I am designing cheap "art" lenses for my cameras (basically an equivalent of things like Lensbaby or the Lomography lenses) by adapting surplus optics (basic meniscus lenses and achromatic doublets) or DIY telesco…

I love your hobby, because there are so many avenues you could take it down, including as you say cnc. Don't forget that whatever you can design to 3d print you can order from China made of aluminium! I'm not blogging at the moment. I should though as a personal record at least

> Don't forget that whatever you can design to 3d print you can order from China made of aluminium!

Yeah — I still haven't tried this but it is on the cards, and I have a rather lower-stakes (simpler) idea to try it out with.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#42

Post by bhu1st »

jimnotgym wrote: post #31
bhu1st wrote: post #24

I maintain an online playable version of a antique board game called Baghchal [1] which has origin stories about being native to Nepal since 3000 years. I actually launched this website on HN a decade ago. 1. www.baghchal.net

That's epic. That gives so many more people a chance to play. Where did you learn it?

Yes, indeed. I learned to play this board game from my father when I was about 8 yrs old.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#43

Post by bhu1st »

mcsniff wrote: post #25
bhu1st wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to self-host personal projects as well but haven't been able to figure out way to do it behind NAT and also on a budget hardware. Is there a way to get in touch with you and get some ideas?

If you don't want to run your own VPN, there's Tailscale or CloudFlare Tunnel, both widely known and provided by reputable companies.

How do you securely expose your local services through Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel? For eg. Is it possible to expose just web server instance on port 80 and nothing else? Even better if possible to just expose one web service. Also, is it possible to ensure no other local devices are accesible from public?

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#44

Post by bhu1st »

austin-cheney wrote: post #39
bhu1st wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to self-host personal projects as well but haven't been able to figure out way to do it behind NAT and also on a budget hardware. Is there a way to get in touch with you and get some ideas?

I am on budget hardware. Do not let this stop you. I bought a really crappy cheap box for $300 before hardware prices went crazy. My hard drives don't even fit in the case. As for NAT I use the free tier of TailScale to expose my home network to specific devices in the public world. This way I can play my media or access my files, that are behind NAT, from across the country when traveling. If you would like to talk…

Thanks, I will get in touch.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#45

Post by dofm »

bhu1st wrote: post #23
austin-cheney wrote: post #21

My hobby is self-hosting. * I have a dedicated server at the house where I run nearly a dozen services via docker compose. * I wrote my own audio app for playing my self hosted mp3s because everything I found on the App Store was shit. I wanted something like Winamp: a simple media player followed by a playlist of thousands of items that works equally on desktop and iPhone. https://github.com/prettydiff/mp3-master-li…

I'd like to self-host personal projects as well but haven't been able to figure out way to do it behind NAT and also on a budget hardware. Is there a way to get in touch with you and get some ideas?

Some time ago I looked at running this on a very small cloud VM to act as a proxy for pi-based devices:

https://github.com/fatedier/frp

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#46

Post by dofm »

gmassman wrote: post #17

I play in a band called Rare Company. We recorded an album last year and have been playing gigs around San Francisco to promote it this year. We play acoustic originals, with a style that spans bluegrass, swing, folk and rock. I play dobro and fiddle, and it’s great fun to see people’s reactions to my “shiny slide guitar”. Check out our music and come to a show if you’re in the bay area!

Dobro as in squareneck/lap?

I (the user who prompted the creation of this thread, apparently) play a weissenborn (copy). Gigged it once but it is quite fussy about temperature changes, which can make it a bit tricky in a British music venue because (as I am sure you know about weissenborns) they kind of exist at the boundary of common sense, structure-wise. It's a really cheap laminate thing that sounds quite nice, and I am amazed it has not pulled itself apart, but it hates to go from cold to hot in a hurry.

Currently teaching myself some electric lap steel after years of acoustic only, with a gorgeous little Revelation RLS DLX, but I'd be tempted now by a Gretsch Bobtail and that Fishman Aura. (Nearly bought a Boxcar when they came out; played one for about an hour in a shop. Lovely.)

The weissenborn copy is mostly in open D or low-bass open G; with Newtone Alohas, which come up to pitch at lower tension, I've pushed it to FACFAC, though I have contemplated getting another to leave in David Lindley's favourite CGCGCE, which is a fabulously gutsy tuning on a weissenborn. The electric obviously can cope with anything from open D to GBDGBD.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#47

Post by austin-cheney »

bhu1st wrote: post #43
mcsniff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want to run your own VPN, there's Tailscale or CloudFlare Tunnel, both widely known and provided by reputable companies.

How do you securely expose your local services through Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel? For eg. Is it possible to expose just web server instance on port 80 and nothing else? Even better if possible to just expose one web service. Also, is it possible to ensure no other local devices are accesible from public?

These services do a couple of things:

1. They provide a VPN for your device to their server.

2. They then map that device to a public IPv4 address they own. The address is not static, but TailScale solves for that with internal DNS.

3. The free tier allows X number of devices to connect via a single account. I am not sure how many. Maybe 6, maybe 20. These devices are able to access each other on a private network only available from the VPN. TailScale calls that a TailNet.

4. They have internal DNS for the TailNet, so that you can map a name to one of those IPv4 addresses they provide and connect to something like http://server

5. I have not tried the others, but the TailScale magic DNS does not fully work on iOS. On iOS its all or nothing in that once their DNS is enabled its all you can access until your bring TailScale down on your device. I don't have this problem on my desktops (Windows or Linux) so my desktops are always connected.

6. NordVPN also provides these same capabilities, but they do not have a free tier. I don't know if they up charge for this capability above standard VPN.

7. Most all of these solutions seem to be based on WireGuard. WireGuard is an open source VPN solution, but it does not provide the extra services: IP address, DNS, service accounts, private network.

In summary, TailScale provides a VPN to a private cluster, your private cluster, that can be accessed from any network, due to the public IP, so long as the given device is on the same VPN account or has received an invitation from that account.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#48

Post by gmassman »

dofm wrote: post #46
gmassman wrote: post #17

I play in a band called Rare Company. We recorded an album last year and have been playing gigs around San Francisco to promote it this year. We play acoustic originals, with a style that spans bluegrass, swing, folk and rock. I play dobro and fiddle, and it’s great fun to see people’s reactions to my “shiny slide guitar”. Check out our music and come to a show if you’re in the bay area!

Dobro as in squareneck/lap? I (the user who prompted the creation of this thread, apparently) play a weissenborn (copy). Gigged it once but it is quite fussy about temperature changes, which can make it a bit tricky in a British music venue because (as I am sure you know about weissenborns) they kind of exist at the boundary of common sense, structure-wise. It's a really cheap laminate thing that sounds quite nice, a…

Yes my dobro is a squareneck built by Richard Deneve. It’s tuned to open G, typical for the bluegrass style. I haven’t ventured into lap steel but I have played a little when friends give me the opportunity. Personally I find acoustic instruments incredible just for their portability. Also everyone and their parents owns an acoustic guitar, so finding people to play with has never been an issue :)

For me, music started out as a practice of getting better and developing my abilities as a songwriter. As I’ve gotten older though it’s shifted more towards sharing the joy of playing with others. Jamming with people and making them happy by sharing songs is a reward in and of itself.

Re: Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

#49

Post by dofm »

gmassman wrote: post #48
dofm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dobro as in squareneck/lap? I (the user who prompted the creation of this thread, apparently) play a weissenborn (copy). Gigged it once but it is quite fussy about temperature changes, which can make it a bit tricky in a British music venue because (as I am sure you know about weissenborns) they kind of exist at the boundary of common sense, structure-wise. It's a really cheap laminate thing that sounds quite nice, a…

Yes my dobro is a squareneck built by Richard Deneve. It’s tuned to open G, typical for the bluegrass style. I haven’t ventured into lap steel but I have played a little when friends give me the opportunity. Personally I find acoustic instruments incredible just for their portability. Also everyone and their parents owns an acoustic guitar, so finding people to play with has never been an issue :) For me, music start…

My picking is not fast enough or consistent enough for bluegrass unfortunately, but I will end up with a dobro one day! The weissenborn type I play has a similar scale length and luckily my lap steel is not the shortest (23") so my brain is not being truly warped by short scale.

Always been a bit of an admirer of Jerry Douglas (and Al Perkins, who I saw in 1992 with Emmylou Harris at the Crystal Palace Bowl in London — AFAIR he also dropped in on Mark O'Connor's set).

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