Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 769 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#181

Post by biotinker »

I got myself involved with a nonprofit local group preserving local pioneer era apple trees. They've been DNA testing and cataloging the trees, and had all the info stashed away in google drive and onedrive folders. The founder was looking to step back so they asked me if I wanted to step up as project lead, which I did.

I took the info and organized it into a nice wiki-style site with maps and descriptions so everyone in the community can learn about the old orchards.

https://heritageapplecorps.org/index.php/Main_Page

I've also learned how to prune and graft hundred year old apple trees and now have a couple dozen young grafted trees growing in my garage, all clones of local hundred year old trees, some of which genetically tested unique and are of currently unknown varieties.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#183

Post by [deleted] »

Deanallen wrote: post #101
dr_robert wrote: post #80

I’m a paraglider pilot and powered paraglider recently. Totally recommended, you get to connect with nature in a meaningful way. Also people who practice this kind of sports are nice. From a tech perspective there are a lot of data generated on each flight you can create your own way to capture that data or use already existing apps.

i've always been interested in para-motoring. how safe or unsafe is paragliding? do you think about that aspect before going out for a flight?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#184

Post by nutjob2 »

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…

> 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.

Yep, thats me.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#185

Post by avisser »

ggregoire wrote: post #93

I've been playing exclusively CRPGs for the last 12 months or so, which was kinda a niche genre before the success of BG3. There are tons of way to beat those games and optimizing how you build your party and characters (what players call "min-maxing") while following a highly narrative story is a lot of fun. Most of them are quite old and often on sales for like 5 bucks on Steam, for which you get hundreds of hours…

Fallout 1 & 2! Formative titles for young me.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#187

Post by riffraff »

ggambetta wrote: post #128

I'm into book restoration, here's a gallery: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1oNxCfKJp4k6yjoZ9 Much less niche, but I'm also really into acting: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=do5PicgU0Jw

That's impressive work! But how come the books are in mixed languages? Are they your books? Do you fix books for random people?

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#188

Post by embwbam »

JimBlackwood wrote: post #144
embwbam wrote: post #74

Not sure if you were looking only for indoor hobbies, but I picked up Kiteboarding recently, and it is the most outrageously fun thing I've ever done. It's like being a kid and jumping off the house with a bedsheet, except it works. Most mistakes are laughed off by splashing in the water. I'm 3 years in and I can jump 7-10m then fly like a bird for 5-10 seconds without consequences. Even as a beginner, sailing around…

Really fun! I used to do it too, and I miss it. How do you combine it with work? Where I live in NL, there are few days where I’m able to go kiteboarding and I probably won’t know until the day off if it’s possible or not. Very hard to schedule!

I work remotely, and my schedule is flexible. I live in Squamish BC all summer which is great for wind. In the winter we are in UT but my friends take lots of kiting destination vacations.

I’m fairly late in my career though (44yo), so I’ve opted for a lower salary, low stress and flexible job.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#189

Post by bluGill »

ryandrake wrote: post #174

If you like to work with your hands and have space, build something physical: big and complex, and actually finish it. I built a single engine two seat kit airplane in my garage, did all the flight testing, and now have an interesting way to travel/commute as a result. The "finish it" part is the most important bit. Computer people spend too much time working on projects that don't have a "done" state. Change that up…

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?).

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#190

Post by blobbers »

What you’re looking for is a research topic, or maybe a better way to put it is your hobby is research… if that makes sense?

So for ideas, sorry that’s going to be whatever floats your boat. You listed a bunch of different things.

But hobby is normally “playing softball” or “guitar”, but it could be “researching next gen PCs”… but that seems more like a PhD lab project.

Post reply on HN