The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#51

Post by irrational » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:28 AM UTC

gensym wrote: post #5

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…

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…

This is one thing I appreciate about swimming. I don’t own the pool, so no fiddling there. My swim trunks require no fiddling. The only thing that could possibly require fiddling are my goggles, but I use Swedish goggles that are so simple (two pieces of plastic and a piece of rubber - there isn’t even a gasket), they don’t require any fiddling.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#52

Post by atorodius » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:34 AM UTC

Interesting framework. My 2c is that some hobbies are harder to do (top left corner) than others. Many listed in the article, eg, hiking, photography, climbing, etc: you can’t just do it always. I find I enjoy making music at home since I can just sit down for any amount of minutes and engage.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#53

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

atorodius wrote: post #52

Interesting framework. My 2c is that some hobbies are harder to do (top left corner) than others. Many listed in the article, eg, hiking, photography, climbing, etc: you can’t just do it always. I find I enjoy making music at home since I can just sit down for any amount of minutes and engage.

Making music is one where the gear is a huge part of it. I have some electronic music making gear (midi keyboard, drum computer and a synth), but I like tinkering with the gear and fiddling more than actually making music, lol.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#54

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

Collectible hobbies like Warhammer and Magic the Gathering are interesting in that regard, in that... nobody really cares if you only do it for the collecting, painting, making money off of it or playing the actual games.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#55

Post by irrational » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:43 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #33

dan-g wrote: post #2

I feel like this is me spinning in circles deciding on “the best language” to use for a side project, never committing, and then inevitably losing momentum. Frameworks and languages are a software engineer’s “kit”, I guess?

This is why you should about companies touting their choice of an exotic language as a perk. Rather than hiring people who want to build a product, they hire people who bikeshed language debates. Choose Java and move on with your life.

You had me in the first half.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#56

Post by amoss » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:46 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #33

dan-g wrote: post #2

I feel like this is me spinning in circles deciding on “the best language” to use for a side project, never committing, and then inevitably losing momentum. Frameworks and languages are a software engineer’s “kit”, I guess?

This is why you should about companies touting their choice of an exotic language as a perk. Rather than hiring people who want to build a product, they hire people who bikeshed language debates. Choose Java and move on with your life.

I choose not to choose Java. I choose life.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#57

Post by nescioquid » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 6:52 AM UTC

finitestateuni wrote: post #48

nescioquid wrote: post #35

An essay, an attempt, a try at something. Promising premise immediately deflated by the four-square (and then the paragraphoid to over-explain the four-square). Fine, let's scan over text because the four-square was over-explained. Groan, "Kit heads" -- that's the agon in this essay? Creators vs. consumers, artists vs. amateurs...or something else? >> Kit heads will often say (or imply) that having the best kit leads…

You’re rude, which is why people aren’t responding. Marc is a well respected engineer who has worked on multiple foundational services at AWS and probably doesn’t want to go on the record saying he’s sick of rust fans, so he made the essay nominally about photography. This essay is saying, “Fuck rust. We used java to build S3, DynamoDB, ec2 and everything else the internet runs on. Kitheads, please stop joining aws a…

[dead]

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#58

Post by layer8 » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 7:00 AM UTC

dan-g wrote: post #2

I feel like this is me spinning in circles deciding on “the best language” to use for a side project, never committing, and then inevitably losing momentum. Frameworks and languages are a software engineer’s “kit”, I guess?

The solution, of course, is to start making your own kit.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#59

Post by mock-possum » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 7:00 AM UTC

gensym wrote: post #5

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He…

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 think there’s a creativity I didn’t expect in bouldering.

Re: The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

#60

Post by atorodius » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 7:04 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #53

atorodius wrote: post #52

Interesting framework. My 2c is that some hobbies are harder to do (top left corner) than others. Many listed in the article, eg, hiking, photography, climbing, etc: you can’t just do it always. I find I enjoy making music at home since I can just sit down for any amount of minutes and engage.

Making music is one where the gear is a huge part of it. I have some electronic music making gear (midi keyboard, drum computer and a synth), but I like tinkering with the gear and fiddling more than actually making music, lol.

Yeah I enjoy that part also :) But it certainly feels like you also just need some of the gear (eg keyboard), whereas maybe with photography you could use the phone to start?