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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

It varies from time to time and I haven't been spending a lot of time on hobby stuff lately, but some things I drift in and out of time permitting:

Bicycle riding: Road, MTB and BMX

Powerlifting

Trail running

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu / submission wrestling

Tinkering with old cars.

Hobby electronics / hanging out at the hackerspace messing with random projects. I started an effort to build a Z80 based 8-bit "retrocomputer" a while back.

Lately I've been picking at learning to play keyboard / piano.

I've also been dabbling in trying to learn to draw.

I also like to read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction.

And last but not least, going to heavy-metal concerts.

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What's your flavour of cars?

Personally I'm into older japanese makes, currently playing with circuit racing in an early model mx5 (miata).. But also a big fan of Australian and American muscle.

I find it really good having a physical/mechanical hobby outside of the on-screen work I do during the day. It's like sorbet for your brain.

What's your flavour of cars?

American muscle-cars from the 60's / 70's mainly. I own a 1968 Camaro that was my first car (a gift from my dad) but it's been parked for a while with a blown engine. Lately I've been thinking a lot about trying to find a cheap 1970's era pickup, maybe a Chevy C-10 or something, to play with. I get tired of newer cars and how complicated it is to work on them. Take my RX-8 for example: you have to jack the car up and crawl underneath just to change spark-plugs. Uuugh. OTOH, take something like a 1975 C-10 and you can almost get inside the engine compartment and stand on the ground with the engine in place. You also don't need a lot of special tools, secret manufacturer codes, etc. to work on something like that.

Honestly, I spend enough time during my day job doing "computer stuff". I'd rather have a car to mess with that's old enough to be pre ECM era. No fuel-injection, just a plain old Holley 650 or something. :-)

I totally get the idea of avoiding computers in the car side of things. My Dad and I used to work on old Holdens (GM) when I was a kid, and I ended up with carburetted Datsuns for a long time.

I wish we got some of the cool 70's American products down here in Australia, though we get some equally neat imports to make up for it I suppose. But it's certainly a good hobby to have outside of work I reckon.

And haha, yeah the rx-8 probably isn't the best example of a newer car in terms of maintenance or reliability :) But I do love rotors!

Interesting combination. You have hobbies for physical health, creativity, technical knowledge, and mental health. Do you combine them in any specific way when you have time for your hobbies?

Do you combine them in any specific way when you have time for your hobbies?

Not really. Mostly I just have too many interests and not enough time to pursue them all. And I try not to over-think this stuff, but I did make kind of a pointed effort to take up some more artistic / creative things with the interests in drawing and playing keyboard. For most of my life I had no hobbies that really had that artistic aspect to them, so that was something of a conscious decision. That said, I love music and learning to play an instrument was always one of those "I'll get around to it one day" things, and I just finally bit the bullet.

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