Ask HN: What hobbies do you pursue in your free time | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What hobbies do you pursue in your free time

19 pointsmraza00741 comments

I’m planning onto learn more about golf and learn how to play

What hobbies do you guys pursue

I've dabbled in each of these over the last few years, but COVID has shutdown some studios and cut back on how much:

weaving: I have a rigid heddle loom, and I've considered building a pvc loom. I'd also like to play around with tapestry weaving

generative art/creative coding: Processing/p5js, primarily around plotter art

metalsmithing: Did a class focusing on jewelry, but I'd like to dabble a little more in small sculpture pieces, especially incorporating the weaving

sewing: Mainly made shirts, want to explore adjustments to my own clothes as well

lifting: currently running a hypertrophy program. Probably do more conditioning/cross-modality training next spring

Looking to explore:

I'd like to pick up arduino for some interactive sculpture pieces

Lasercutting/cnc routing, once again to tie into some mixed-media sculpture work

Nice How did you get started with creative coding that’s on my bucket list

I signed up for a workshop with Jessica In(shedrawswithcode on social media). And then found a class by Matt DesLauriers on Frontend Masters. The Generative Art podcast is a pretty good resource too.

Hey man thanks I’ll definitely check it out

So... we got a child. And that's it. Get's all the time we can spare. But it's extremely rewarding as well. Due to him I am back at drawing. This time colored pencil. Mostly pets in comic style since he enjoys watching and recognizing them in the end. By the way... drawing really forces you to concentrate and observe a lot the details.

I have a variety of hobbies. Maybe to many. I like to rotate hobbies to keep things interesting. My hobbies usually interest and complement each other in various ways.

- Film photography. Photography is probably the first hobby I picked up. I have a variety of older film cameras in 35mm and medium format. Planning to convert an extra room in my basement into a darkroom in the near future.

- Blogging. I have been running my blog for a few years now. Most of my post are long form on technical subjects that interest me. I don't post often though. Maybe once a month or less.

- Game dev. I picked up Godot about two years ago. I've been working on and off on a simulated life game since October. I spent this week redoing the UI and adding more features to the game.

- Arduino. I tinker with Arduino dev boards. Lately I picked up Forth and have been teaching myself how to program the ATMega328 with FlashForth.

- Weightlifting. I suppose you could call this a hobby too. Working from home has allowed me to replace my commute time with lifting and I'm very thankful for it.

- Mushroom identification. For anyone interested I recommend the books "All that the Rain Brings and More" as well as "Mushrooms Demystified" by David Arora.

- Journaling. I like to organize my thoughts in a notebook on a regular basis. This hobby is probably the genesis of my other hobbies as I usually develop what I want to do with pen and paper first.

Really interesting hobbies man.

Honestly i picked up photography by taking a class and it really sparked my interest in photography and then I went onto do light paint photography and I loved every bit of it. Light paint photography allows you to be really creative as you are basically using the light to paint the picture.

Furthermore I also do blogging but got burned out now I’m trying to get back into blogging

I also tinker with my laptop such as trying out different linux distros or building out tools or even learning about linux internals and commandline tools

For physical activities I usually go out for a run but it’s too cold where I live now and I’m also exploring about golf

Anyways I would love to see your photography work if you have published online

Light painting can be very fun. I have a place that I would like to try this at the next time I am able to.

For blogging, I always make a point of not putting too much pressure on myself to write. In fact, the first article I planned to publish on my blog has never been finished. My interests changed and it is left nearly finished and unpublished. Many other articles suffered similar fates. Many more never made it out of my notebook. Maybe someday. Keeping it low pressure makes it easy for me to sit down and write something when I'm in the mood.

Let me think about sharing my photos. Unfortunately, this is pseudonym account and I haven't associated it with my real name at this time. All of my photos are published under my real name.

Could you be convinced to play disc golf?

Not quite sure with disc golf but I’ll definitely look it up

Great list!

What do you mean by a life game in godot?

Also do you eat the mushrooms?

(Could you be convinced to take up bird watching?)

  What do you mean by a life game in godot?

I wanted to make a game where the player can combine simple elements to create complexity. In this case, it's a 2D game where the player can "transport" humans and other animals like cats and dogs into the simulation. The player can confine the humans and other animals by drawing walls and fences.

Each animal in the simulation is an actor with a base set of rules that apply to all actors and a species specific set of rules that extend the base actor. For example, a dog will follow a human when they meet and return to the human when they are hungry. If humans meet they will share where to find food if they know of a location.

I'm still working on getting the game to a point where I feel like I can share it. The UI work was important for this because honestly my first attempt was not very good. However, I have reworked it and am much happier with it even though it is still very basic in appearance. At this point I am only using Godot's built in UI tools and draw functions rather than building from assets.

EDIT: I should probably clarify that the game itself isn't related to or inspired by Conway's game of life. It's more like the Sims or Sim Ant.

  Also do you eat the mushrooms?

No. But I don't necessarily look for edible mushrooms. Usually what I do is go for hikes or even walks in my neighborhood and look for mushrooms along the way. If I find one I have not found before I take a sample for a spore print. Then I write up a bit of info on where I found it and if I was able to ID it.

  (Could you be convinced to take up bird watching?)

I hadn't considered it but I can't see why not. My original motivation for mushroom identification was macro photography. My interest in actually ID'ing the mushrooms came later.

I like hobbies I can improve my whole life and always pick up again after letting it slide a little. Currently, that's cooking, running, and chess.

I like that framing... for me it's playing guitar!

Kettlebell. I don't have a lot of time, but 15 minutes first thing for me makes my whole day better. And I personally enjoy the whole effort.

I've recently picked up origami and love the need for precision

I have too many hobbies and tend to rotate in and out of them on a semi-predictable cycle:

# beekeeping - 2 active langstroth hives atm, but have been on and off keeping for 4+ years

# bonsai tree cultivation - been attempting to learn this craft since I was 12yo. I'm still very much a novice but find it relaxing

# home renovation - custom cabinetry (built a new kitchen) - plumbing (new bathroom) - electrical (installed overhead lighting in house that previously was all outlet/lamps)

# retro computing/gaming: - making hw+software for rom dumping old carts - adapter boards for using old joysticks/gamepads on modern pcs

# farming / gardening - had a 1/2 acre plot but recently downsized to 3 8x4' raised beds, but grow most of the greens my family of 5 eats - been keeping 6-8 chickens for egg production for the past 7 or so years

Playing guitar, it's a great creative outlet when I'm tired of staring at screens. I've been playing for ~15 years but I don't really consider myself a musician - I mostly play for fun and don't bother trying to learn specific songs most of the time. My favorite thing to do is put on a playlist of good music and play along to it, trying to find the key and then playing around with different scales.

There's a great YT channel of rhythm backing tracks which is great for this: https://youtu.be/lCiMlxfLjcU

A looper pedal is a game changer!

True, I really need to invest in some more gear! I have a wah pedal but that's about it.

- blogging - I'm trying to write as much as possible, but never ending feeling of being tired doesn't help

- being a parent of 2 - it's really time-consuming, but rewarding :)

- developing small/silly games with Construct 3

- working out in general, as I've planned to get back to tricking soon (haven't done it in 7 years!)

- playing games (very casually: Stardew Valley, Spider-Man on PS4, etc.)

- programming (some open/closed source projects)

Nice, by the way i just took a look at your website and i just wanna say it looks great

Right now it's bouldering. It's been very fun, and I get full workouts without even realizing that I'm exercising

How often do you fall? There’s that huge mat under you but the thought of falling 20 feet still freaks me out. How do you get past that?

All the time. Dozens of times every time you go out. It’s not a big deal in any way.

Mostly because somebody has given you an exaggerated sense of how tall most problems are and how high the crux moves are. Most falls are a few feet onto flat ground.

Tall boulders make for good photos. But that’s not where you spend most of your time.

I took up bouldering around 2 years ago, despite my fear of heights. I've managed it by sticking exclusively to gyms, and staying well within my limits. What also helps is the gym I started at had a safety orientation that all climbers had to go through before they'd be allowed on the walls. The most important part of this was how to fall correctly.

The gym I frequent also has a great variety of route difficulties and heights (~3m to ~7m), so it really helped me move up slowly along with my comfort level. As for the amount of times I fall, it's far less than I expected, and I've never felt unsafe, even while falling.

Hey that sounds fun I’m just curious to know if bouldering is same as rock climbing

Just discovered Pickleball and it’s a blast. Easy to learn, difficult to master. And I never liked other racquet sports. And in most areas there’s lots of open play so you don’t even need friends to play with.

3d printing is a really fun hobby. And pretty cheap to get started.

Wood working is a good one I’m trying to get into but I still get scared of the power tools.

Any source you would recommend to get started with 3D printing?

I just bought an ender 5 on amazon. But I’m pretty sure the cheaper ender 3 would be almost as good. (And it’s more popular so there’s a Lot more help out there)

Then just download some fun stuff from thingiverse.com, slice it in cura and get printing.

Later on I learned openscad to make some of my own ideas.

Building cigar box guitars ( and other similar ) instruments. Mainly out of scrap parts and wood I find.

Podcasting (software developer‘s journey), mentorship, house renovating... oh and 3-lively-kids

Nice what’s the name of your podcast

I would love some free time.

Then allocate time for hobbies, even if it's for 30 minutes.

Video games: open world action/adventure like gta5 and Witcher. Plus Minecraft online (Reddit server).

Reading

Product building

Meditating

Reading, learning, and sometimes video games.

In the last few years, I’ve realized my love for reading and learning.

I was spending a lot of time on Reddit, HN, and other news sites. It actually led me to discover that while these sites can be enjoyable in moderation, I can also just read books.

I mostly read non fiction - topics in human psychology, history, biographies, and also technical books.

Oh that’s nice What subreddits do you mostly spend time on

/r/personalfinance, /r/books, /r/investing, /r/stockmarket

I also recommend Bogleheads investing forums: bogleheads.org/forum/

Oh okay I’ll subscribe to those subreddits thanks man

I like working on small visuals related to financial independence and personal finance. I use Tableau and other data visualization tools and libraries at work so this gives me the opportunity to experiment a bit more with new tools and get insight in a topic I care about.

https://www.thriftythoughts.io/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com