Ask HN: What are your hobbies, and why are they cool?

- Exercise: Running and bodyweight strength training are free (minus clothing), and can be done more or less anywhere. They yield clear results as you get in better shape, and can be really fun when combined with music that pumps you up, letting it drive you towards runner's high. Some take this further than others [0].

- Music: Listening to a variety of music, as well as performing (preferrably multiple instruments) gives you a greater understanding of what is going on and why it works, though practice can be very time-consuming - but ultimately worth it. There are, for instance, very few things in my life that I remember as equally rewarding as trying to learn Metallica records by ear in my early teens. As your technical proficiency and understanding improves, you may gain an interest in complex and/or obscure and/or straight up weird music. Some take this further than others [1]. In addition, experimenting with recording and manipulating/mixing/mastering will give you an understanding of the production-side as well. Knowledge of both performance and production will affect the way you hear recorded music, ideally culminating in an approximate understanding of how the different sounds were made and molded. Combining writing, performing, recording and manipulating - making a piece of recorded music entirely by yourself - can be pretty difficult, but also extremely gratifying.

- Reading literature: A great way to go on an adventure, relate to someone, or see things from someone else's perspective. For instance, I've learned things from being exposed to opinions that I didn't necessarily agree with, like Philip K. Dick's views on abortion, Dostoyevsky's orthodoxy, and various positions of the oft-misunderstood/misconstrued Nietzsche. There are some really great books out there dealing with everything between ordinary people in ordinary circumstances and extraordinary supermen in cooky sci-fi universes. Some take this further than others [2].

- Programming: Picking up and learning some new language or piece of technology can often be rewarding in and of itself, and lead to an added perspective in future tasks. Additionally, programming has the advantage of often giving (more or less) clear feedback. As I'm sure we can all agree upon, no one has ever gone off the deep end with regard to programming.

[0]: https://youtu.be/hKrg_ei96xk?t=88

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4rqXqpLCZ0

[2]: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ayn-Rand/e/B000APYGIW/ref=dp_byline_...

You will need a heat source, something to use as an anvil, a hammer, and some iron.

Trying to figure out how to get an anvil was a hard thing for me when I started. Anvils aren't cheap in the first place, and shipping is usually a pain. Fortunately, you can actually try out a lot of smithing projects without even getting a proper anvil. You just need something heavy with a good striking surface to work on at first. I got my hands on a 12 inch diameter, 10 inch tall steel cylinder which worked just dandy for the things I did. I'd talk with some people in some machine shops or scrap yards to see if they have any large hunks of steel. Also, if you know anyone who is into metal sculptures, see if they could help you out (that's what I did).

The source of heat is something I spent a while trying to get right. I tried charcoal for a while, but then switched to using propane burners and loved it.

Charcoal is nice because it's a lot less intimidating, is easier to work with, and it's easier to achieve higher temperatures with it for if you want to do experiments with melting stuff, so I recommend starting with it. To hold the charcoal, you'll need a fire pot. A fire pot is just a thing to hold your fire and provide airflow as needed. You can get by with a hole in the ground when you're just trying some things out, but making some fireclay bricks is the way to go. I don't remember what recipe I used to make my bricks originally, but it wasn't hard and was super cheap. I used a 120 mm case fan hooked up to a pipe that went under the fire pot to act as a bellows.

Alternatively, propane burners are great, the fuel is cheap and doesn't get you covered in black dust, are surprisingly simple to make, and produce a really satisfying roar when used. I followed a design by Rob Reil https://www.abana.org/ronreil/design1.shtml (all blacksmith sites are ugly). You'll need multiple burners in order to reach a good temperature, but they're cheap to make.

As for the hammer, a standard 25 oz ball-peen hammer from any hardware store will work fine to start with.

You can get scrap iron to play around with at first really easily. I made some of my first stuff out of some angle iron from an old bed frame. Good steel stock costs a lot, but you won't need that for a long time, so just make do with stuff from scrap yards and stuff.

It is a great way to burn calories, and gives me something to focus on/analyze and get better at. Using a body bug to track calories expended, I can burn ~4000 calories during a 2 hour session. It is a lot of fun, and you meet people from a LOT of different cultures. It is very international.

If you are in/near Des Moines, Iowa, check out http://dsmtt.org for the local details.

Also, check out http://pingskills.com for REALLY excellent videos that show you how to improve your game.