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Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

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Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#101

Post by bluGill »

drewzero1 wrote: post #56
omnibrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear That's something I noticed with a lot of people in my circle and 3d printers. They don't 3d print for their hobby. Most of them have 3d printing or even 3d printers as their hobby.

For a long time I was baffled by the seemingly unnecessary gizmos that are popular 3d print subjects, because to me 3d printing was just a means to an end. Eventually I realized that the printing itself is a hobby for a lot of printer people. Personally I like to use my printer to enable my other hobbies, but along the way I've picked up 3d design and printing as secondary hobbies.

I have realized I already have more hobbies than i have time for. I do need parts to repair my other hobbies, I might get a 3d printer for that, but i'm thinking about using some printing service to make parts for me instead

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#102

Post by samus »

bluescrn wrote: post #74
GuB-42 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome is tied to compulsive buying and hording, both are recognized illnesses (in ICD-11). Of course, just buying an oscilloscope in the course of learning electronics is not getting you in psychiatry. I mean, it is part of the basic toolkit, plus, you are actually using it. But if you start buying 5 different soldering irons with 10 different types of solder, every kind of pliers known to man, so…

> Gear Acquisition Syndrome is tied to compulsive buying and hording, both are recognized illnesses (in ICD-11). Which is a long way from 'throwing some disposable income at a hobby'. If your 'gear acquisition' is getting you in debt, or excessively cluttering your home, you may have a problem. But otherwise, if you can afford it, and it's giving you some satisfaction to collect and fiddle with it, then why not? Spen…

People are treated when they or the people around them can no longer turn a blind eye to the problem. But it can have a very negative impact on people's lives long before it becomes clinically relevant. Just alone considering the vast amounts of time and money that go down the drain.

Similar to how it has long been recognized that modern lifestyle has a negative impact on our physical health if we are not mindful of it, we should start paying attention to mental health. The COVID Lockdowns were a wakeup call for many people.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#103

Post by crashmat »

benj111 wrote: post #62
omnibrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear That's something I noticed with a lot of people in my circle and 3d printers. They don't 3d print for their hobby. Most of them have 3d printing or even 3d printers as their hobby.

My journey into Linux was like this. I decided to install arch once. Didn't have any issues per se, but spent far too much time going through all the window manager options, file browser options etc etc etc. I eventually decided that I needed an os to do stuff, not be the stuff to do.

I think it depends on whether you can do stuff in the os even if it is not yet set up exactly perfectly. If so, then you can do stuff when you need to, and play with the os when you want to. But obviously some will be too distracted from doing anything such that that's still a bad idea.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#104

Post by samus »

kleiba wrote: post #35
lmm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good counter example could perhaps be table top wargaming, e.g. Warhammer and the likes. Surely, people who call that their hobby like to play the (various different) games. But a lot of people love building and painting their miniature armies just as much. And some people hate it. So what's the scoop? If you enjoy the building and painting of new minis more than actually playing the game they're made for, you're…

> If you enjoy building and painting miniatures then it's not wrong. It's a different hobby from wargaming though. See, and here I disagree, and I think at least a non-trivial number of players would too. > If it brings you joy, yes. If it just quiets the cravings for a while, no. Too hard to reliably distinguish between the two.

> See, and here I disagree, and I think at least a non-trivial number of players would too.

Good for them! They are not the ones we should be concerned about.

> Too hard to reliably distinguish between the two.

It's probably hard to distinguish from the outside, but it's important to cultivate that skill [edit: to evaluate one's own habits] if living in a consumerist society where most cravings can be satisfied by going to a shopping mall or to an online store.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#105

Post by giantg2 »

There's nothing wrong with GAS or GFS if done from the standpoint of learning. The joy of learning can itself be the product. Maybe your ok at working UHF/VHF with a handie baofeng and you just found a great deal on an IC-821 that could allow you to learn how to work satellites and other modes in the future...

For GFS, making gear instead of music etc can still be the product. Additionally, if one understands how something works, it could make them better at applying that gear.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#106

Post by gilleain »

genericuser256 wrote: post #100
gilleain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's definitely a kind of pseudo-hobby of buying things that all too often ends up as an addiction-like behaviour For Warhammer, specifically, that's maybe why I've heard the term 'plastic crack' ... That is, buying large amounts of miniatures that never get painted. (Always paint your bases!)

Based. Kremlo came from space!

Praise frog.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#107

Post by epiccoleman »

benj111 wrote: post #62
omnibrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is collecting guitar gear That's something I noticed with a lot of people in my circle and 3d printers. They don't 3d print for their hobby. Most of them have 3d printing or even 3d printers as their hobby.

My journey into Linux was like this. I decided to install arch once. Didn't have any issues per se, but spent far too much time going through all the window manager options, file browser options etc etc etc. I eventually decided that I needed an os to do stuff, not be the stuff to do.

This mirrors my experience with emacs. I enjoyed tinkering with it but found I'd lose 30 minutes every time I thought "I bet I can make it do..."

Nowadays I'm using Code with the Vim plugin and I haven't tinkered with my config for quite some time.

Emacs is infinitely more powerful - but with Code I was able to set it up once and be done, and there's value in that too.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#108

Post by drewzero1 »

verve_rat wrote: post #48
wodenokoto wrote: post #8

> Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS). A person’s insatiable urge to buy equipment for their art or hobby, distracting them from actually practicing said art or hobby. > It’s driven in part by the belief that new gear will improve one’s art or performance, e.g. I don’t sound like Jimi Hendrix because I don’t have the same effects pedal he used. Bit tangent, but I think one should just embrace it and say “my hobby is coll…

You see this a bit with hand tool woodworking. Some people will restore old tools (hand planes are a popular choice) and sell them on, some will keep then and claim they will use them some day, and others give up on making things and just collect the tools. All of the above is fine, learning the history of and techniques in restoring things is cool.

I occasionally pick up old hand tools at rummage sales, estate sales, etc. just because I like the look of them, but have found that I enjoy cleaning up and using them too. I have an old cherrywood level that is a decoration in the house, but when I need to hang a shelf or a picture it's very handy to have a perfectly good level hiding in plain sight.

I always thought old hand tools were kind of crap to use though until I cleaned up an old block plane and sharpened the blade. With a sharpened blade it made incredibly satisfying curls of wood on my next woodworking project, where I would have normally used my loud and unpleasant belt sander. I think I get it now why some people really love collecting old tools.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#109

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #50
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it short-circuits the licensing cost argument for rolling your own frameworks, but I don’t think that was ever the real reason why devs love reinventing the wheel. I think that building frameworks is just a lot more fun than doing what you’re supposed to be doing, which is usually a soul-sucking grind of boring enterprise tickets.

I am the other way. I like others to make good frameworks and I like building the customer facing thing.

Maybe that’s exactly why they do it. Building frameworks is as customer facing as it gets, because the customers are your coworkers that you can just walk over to and speak directly with.

If one is so insulated from the actual business problem by corporate bureaucracy it may be the only way for developers to do something that matters to someone, no matter how frivolous it is in the grand scheme.

Re: Let me tell you about me Gear Fabrication Syndrome

#110

Post by SanderNL »

speeder wrote: post #39
hnbad wrote: post #24

To steal an old meme: Men will literally come up with new "syndromes" instead of going to therapy. GAS/GFS sounds like a regular Tuesday on ADHD. I want to play a racing sim. Better learn intricate details of electronics, physics and car mechanics so I can build my own brake pedal. Is the brake pedal working? No. Have I spent even a single minute playing a racing sim since starting this project? Also no. But I have t…

I have ADHD and it is bothering me to no end that when people ask me what my hobby is, I find out I have a huge list of half-finished stuff instead. For example I like blacksmithing. Built a simple sword just grinding the metal, then decided to study how to get a proper forge and whatnot. Studied a lot, learning the chemistry of steel, found where to buy the stuff. Never bought it, never made any forged item. Then I…

I have no ADHD but my wife, I know.., keeps me in check in ways I was unable to myself.

It's not that she hates what I'm doing or nags about it, it's just that she'll ask the hard questions. The ones I avoid like the plague.

"What are you going to use it for? .. Ok, cool, so how long will you need? .. So, have you been making progress? Why not? Why are doing something else and wasting time while there is still work to do? .. You are switching around a lot and it seems you are avoiding finishing what you started.. Have you considered therapy?" At this point I'm like, damn girl, you're right. What am I doing.

After a while I learned to ask myself those questions and get some discipline into my (hobby) life.

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