A Tour of Grant Imahara’s Shop [video]

two thoughts floated by in quick succession when I read this

1: whoa like a hobby library?

2: that's a hackerspace

The thing is, it doesn't even have to be cheap if the gear is durable. The problem is many hobbies are sized to the user (eg bicycles, wetsuits, snowboards). It would be lovely to drop a few k into one hobby and be able to transfer it back out for the next if it turns out that hobby isn't a good fit.

It's all just personal experience, but it's quite easy to move from "having hobbies" to "collecting hobbies". Speaking from experience here, the difference between me and my father (who do this) and my brother (who doesn't) is stark.

Perhaps, but I'm constantly reminded how trivially my personal situation can become indistinguishable from that of any other hoarder should my discipline to finish what I've started wane.

I think anyone who takes on large costly DIY projects taking months to years for completion can relate. Sometimes I feel the only thing driving me to finish some projects is the fear of falling into a hoarding pattern while I tell myself the project is just on the backburner. If I became comfortable with letting outstanding projects enter a backburner mode indefinitely, it'd just be mental gymnastics enabling hoarding IMNSHO.

Edit:

I'm reminded of an interaction I had recently with customer service @ Home Depot, while I was returning some unused tools and materials for a project I changed directions on and no longer needed.

I'd mentioned to her how close I'd come to just keeping it all instead of returning, despite not needing any of it now, since it wasn't a large sum of money. But that a fear of becoming comfortable with such a rationalization to not return things would just enable a form of hoarding.

It apparently struck a nerve as she entered into some kind of confession mode. She enumerated a bunch of projects she has bought everything needed to do from tools to materials, sitting collecting dust for years, and never finds the time to actually start, let alone complete.

Eh. I'm a scale-model builder, and that community is full of people who build amazing models...but even more full of people who just collect kits. Kits that they'll build "someday."

The existence of dissimilar extremes doesn't prove that the line in the middle isn't thin.

I can relate and I think that's because with the projects that I'm most passionate about, I can't wait to set up the infrastructure and do it right. I want to do it now! But generally, if there's a project that I'm struggling to find motivation with, I'll start the long process of setting up the infrastructure, hoping that I'll get motivation in the meantime and it sometimes helps a little but often it just ends up with me constantly pushing it back.

> If I have to choose between thorough testing and being able to finish the project at all, testing can wait.

The way I look at it, you can't test anything until you know what it's supposed to do. You won't know what it's supposed to do until it's at least close to being done. No sense in testing until you get there.

If you want to have a head start on testing, making sure to write your code so it's easy to test is probably fine, even if it's not what I'd choose.

My impression has certainly been that everyone expected them to be best friends, and then when they stated that basically, no, they've got professional respect for each other but aren't at the level where they're seeking out joint projects for post-mythbusters projects or having frequent social contact, people started interpreting it as the other extreme and assuming there was animosity there.

Basically on the level of that guy you worked with in a previous job that you're not really going to put in the effort to reach out to as much as you both said you would.

As a matter of fact Adam said that its because they had different approaches and characters that contributed to show being interesting.

Personally I dont see them not being friends as something bad, they definitely respect each other and their respective skills, they just don't have compatible characters.

Its actually a great example of how people who dont 'gel' can work and create amazing things together, as long as they are capable of communicating respectfully with each other.

One of my friends played college football in the USA and then went to play in the NFL for an elite team. I spent a lot of time “behind the scenes” with him in both cohorts—-at first I was surprised by how cool and impersonal the NFL cohort was.

As soon as the game/practice was over, the players would snap into a completely different kind of person, and go back to their own private lives, which was very unlike the college environment where the players spent almost all their waking hours together always during the season.

It took me a while to realize that the NFL players were just doing what most people do when they ‘grow up’ and become professionals—they were colleagues, not necessarily friends.

I know that there’s good reasons why this happens, but I can’t help but feel that there’s a bit of tragedy in it. We gain personal freedoms as we mature into these types of professional relationships, but lose that unique experience of ultimate comrade-ery, and descend into a ruthless world of competition, even with others on your own team.