The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise

Now I say: “You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head off.”

“three men on the bummel”, 1914

I stopped buying new kit and started going on lots of holidays. No regrets so far. I just wish I had the budget for a Nikon Z9 and a holiday, but I don't work in Silicon Valley, so...

Most hobbies don't literally have a "killer" group (I hope), but maybe the real-world analogous thing is people who enjoy telling other people they suck at their hobby. The other groups seem to apply. You have the people who want to know everything about the hobby, the people who want to be the best at that hobby, and the people who like interacting with that hobby's community. (And just like in online games, too many "killers" can ruin the fun that the socializers are there for. We all know communities that fell apart because they were overrun by snobs and trolls.)

This is something that's been debated over the years, but I think Bartle missed a fifth type, which is people who want to create. In online gaming, these could be the people who actually programmed the game in the first place, or it could be players who are very into user generated content (especially in games like Minecraft where that's a big part of the game).

Similarly there are people who are into gear to the point where they're building their own gear, or even designing original equipment.

I'm that way with music. I'm not very good at guitar or piano or any other instrument and I don't know how to compose, but I got into microtonalism and just intonation, and since proper instruments for that don't really exist (save for continuous-pitch instruments like violin), I've been adapting guitars for a variety of different tunings and building electronic instruments. When you think about it it's pretty weird that I'm learning Kicad and PCB layout because the major third on a 12-EDO instrument is out of tune by about fifteen cents (because the 12th root of 2 to the 4th power is a very crude approximation of 5/4), but sometimes that's just how it goes.

They are often my “go to” people, for things like the correct way to do stuff, or for rabbithole exploration of technology/technique, but it comes more from a place of theory, than it does, from practical application.

This is not always a bad thing. In fact, it can be a very good thing.

I’m very much a “get the job done” type of chap. I get my hands dirty, and regularly get stuff out, and into the world.

But I don’t give myself a lot of time to learn esoteric theory or optimization. I do the thing, but maybe not as well as it could be done, or as effectively.

That’s why I appreciate some of these folks that spend all their time, exploring the whys of the techn[ology|ique]. I’ll buy their books, take their classes, or read their posts, and apply the fruits of their work to mine. One of the authors I respect the most for his amazing knowledge of the depths of Apple tech, had, the last time I checked, just one, rather silly, app on the App Store; but he’s written multiple books, and been a major presence at a lot of conferences.

There’s also a lot to be said for effective communicators. Knowing stuff can be worthless, if there’s no way to transmit the information. Writing books is really difficult. Writing books that people want to read, even more so.

Being a good speaker is also a valuable skill. There are folks with minimal expertise, that I can listen to for hours, and people that really know their stuff, that are great soporifics.

If someone can explain something to me, quickly and clearly, so I “get it,” then that person is valuable to me.

In turn, someone like me, can take their theory, and turn it into a real “thing”; handling all the repetitive, “boring” stuff that is required to get it out the door.

There’s a lot of looking down of noses, between “doers,” “talkers,” and “thinkers,” but I’ve found it’s best to have respect for each other, and combine our strengths.

Then it dawned on me, what joy I initially had when I started fishing had run it's course. So, I moved on and was relieved of almost forcing myself to have fun at fishing. My hobby thrill now is computers and electronics. After many years I still am having fun and don't see any changes in future, but who knows?

Frameworks and languages are a software engineer’s “kit”, I guess?

On the otherhand I love tinkering with motorcycles. Not buying gear so much but researching and restoring them in my shop. Maybe its that engines are so much more technical or maybe its the slight spectre of death or serious bodily injury that keeps me from enjoying riding them as much. But I always feel a little disappointed when its all fixed and back together.

I looked at this and immediately squinted, because it looked like doing the gear was the thing we should all be aiming for. Switch hobby and gear and talk about how to move activities up and to the right and it makes more intuitive sense.

Yes, I realise the irony of discussing the gear of an article that’s trying to encourage us to do the thing, but trust me, this will make it so much better :-)

For me, when it comes to hobbies the it’s pretty sequential. I usually start with discussing, then start doing/gearing while discussing, then abandon the discussing and forget most of what I learned about gear, but usually keep doing.

I spent a few months reading about bicycle sizing and components and geometries and etc., and got a lot of joy from all of that. Then at some point I got a bicycle, and now it’s like 7 years later and I barely remember anything from that first phase, but I still ride the bicycle.

Same with wristwatches, mycology, etc. I always open with the obsession/discussion phase before moving on to a more settled doing phase.

Last year, we probably spent 60 hours working improvements and noncritical fixes, 100 hours on discussions and watching videos, and about 6 hours sailing.

I like how this points out that that's a valid hobby -- they're collectors.

But there's also memes that show up every once in a while that say, "You'd be a better musician if you just got off social media and practiced!". People who discuss like these as much as players!

> If each person has a finite amount of time to spend either learning or sharing, we'd expect to find a negative correlation between output and experience. This, in turn, lowers the overall quality of content on any given subject

my counter would be that this is a U shaped curve, not a linear correlation. some reflection is good - you only know something when you can teach it, you dont know what you think until you force yourself to write things down, you learn faster when there are many people to correct you instead of having to personally experience everything first hand, etc - but there's some crossover where you're left not doing enough to support the amount of talking you've committed to doing. (this is related to the general study of optimal overhead, which i've tried to gather https://www.swyx.io/optimal-overhead)

Suddenly you find yourself with too much gear, and you've spent too much time just buying stuff, without putting equal effort into your playing / writing / etc.

Then you speak with the guys that are actually out there playing, and get a refresher to pick up your damn guitar and just play, gear be damned. So you feel very motivated for months...years...and then you're suddenly back collecting stuff, or spending too much time reading about the stuff.

And to be honest, it kind of reminds me of when I started coding. Back then, I had a compiler, a bare-bones text editor, and that was that. I was really productive, creative even. Then I got caught up in the world of tooling, and I spent more time on building my perfect setup, rather than building products. (as much as I'd want to, at least).

Personally, I'm squarely in the "doing it" quadrant for things that involve actual physical activity (woodworking, fruit growing, gardening). I have tried innumerable times to become interested in forums on these topics, and online or in-person, talking about them is of only minor interest to me. And while, I fantasize a bit about the kit involved, I am far more likely to make-do with used equipment, or build my own, than go all-in on kit.

I sat down to introspect, and realised that I was:

- learning the inner workings of various electronics

- learning #![no_std] Rust

- learning about software standards like Matter

- doing projects that I never complete

- reading, discussing, watching

From the 4 quadrants, I don't think I was doing enough of the first, being to produce DIY devices that I can use around the house. It was only when I deliberately decided to focus on the first, that I was able to tame my time spent on the other 3 quadrants.

That has sometimes meant accepting that I should use things like ESPHome, build my firmware/software in C and C++, etc.

Else my expertise will forever be theoretical, not the reason why I got into embedded development in the first place.

There are certainly people who talk about hobbies more than actually doing them (it felt like this article was targeted negatively towards these folks), but often the biggest doers are also the biggest discussers.

I've always had trouble finding community in some groups that are so focused on gear. I rarely know enough about gear to carry on a conversation for more than a few minutes, and even if I did I'd be soooo remarkably bored. I’m the kind of person who puts on an ordinary pair of beat-up old shoes past their reasonably serviceable limit and goes on a hike over terrain that really should require spikes.. (shrug)

This "gear as a hobby" carries over to computers too. People who get into custom keyboards, tweaking every detail of their work setup, nerding out about an extra X or Y on some machine. Rarely do these excitements seem to align with important engineering constraints. But it's a collecting/gear hobby. Hmmm, interesting..

My main hobby is photography. From the minimum viable gear perspective, I had "enough" many years ago. I like taking photos a lot, but I also like the gear perspective. New gear - mostly new lenses - often enough give new angles and inspiration. And I like to discuss gear and techniques. That also contributes to my abilities and also just can be fun, as I am like probably most HN readers quite interested in technology.

Also, at different times in the year and different life situations, the one or the other part of the hobby is more feasible, so it is very nice to be able to follow the same hobby under different circumstances.

And I associated it with MBTI. Maybe the different MBTI type seem to be naturally more interested in one of the quadrants. For example, an ESFP would be more expressive, and an ISTP would be more obsessed with equipment and tools. I'm curious if it's these natural differences in personality that cause people to split into four quadrants when come to a hobby? If so, then such a split is inevitable and indiscriminate. Of course, the MBTI is not a perfect science. I'm just use it to help me understand some of the diversity in human personality.

Counterpoint: "Jean Renoir once told us that when his father's friends used to come to the house — all the distinguished French painters of the time — they never talked about grand theories of painting; they talked about where to get the best turpentine"

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/10/20/turpentine/

At many of my previous jobs, I was so frustrated by the people obsessed with tooling instead of doing the work. Like, why are you trying to develop a react application in VIM after you spent months evangelizing VScode to me?? Who cares, ship the thing!

Of course, these were the most visible people to upper management, and the darlings of our department. :/ Meanwhile I was the one staying on task, making sure things got out on time. Lesson learned: be loud. Advertise your accomplishments and advocate for yourself if you’re a do-er.

1. Also be in the top right quadrant and probably spend more time on gear than actually flying. 2. Have a shit-ton of spending money for replacement drones.

I have a friend who chose number 1, but ended up being burned out by the constant tinkering and not being able to fly that he gave up his bigger FPV drone. He's still into the hobby, but restricting himself to smaller, easier to maintain drones.

I haven't used it in 4 years. I think I just enjoyed building it more than I enjoy using it.

The last section on "Communication and Competence" i think becomes most important with experience and age. This also dovetails nicely into "The Athlete" vs. "The Coach" dichotomy embodied in the same person.

Well, you know, except when we look in the forest or upon the course or slopes.

Reddit banter is only visible if you visit Reddit. Otherwise not.

I was a game collector even when I was a child back in the heyday of console generations 4 and 5 all the way into my mid twenties, and also a game player since then up to the present as well. When I was much younger I used to love collecting original hardware and media complete in box and everything, and I kept everything I got when it was new in absolutely pristine condition (I was a very atypical child) but as I got older I grew tired of the collecting aspect of video games and sold everything off. At some point it dawned on me I was just buying stuff and putting it in a box (falling into the kit quadrant) and not really playing the games at all. After realizing all that, and when I had acquired everything I wanted (I tended to collect a mix of only games I liked + genre instead of by system, so my collecting requirements were much smaller and easier to achieve), the fun was over and I cashed out some years later. With retrogaming I now vastly prefer a Raspberry Pi and a gamepad in the living room. Fortunately I was able to get in and get out of the game collecting hobby when it was a fairly cheap hobby to participate in (i.e. when CIB copies of classic games were like tens of dollars at most).

I was also an avid tabletop gamer who was into the playing and collecting aspect of Magic: The Gathering and other TCGs, particularly Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and VS System. I started playing MTG way back in the ancient days and had a particular taste for vintage. I also played standard, booster draft, legacy, and extended, but vintage was always my favorite. Back then vintage was accessible on a high school budget with planning and dedication, and wasn't the rich man's game it now, at least if one is not using proxies. For a long time I was both into the competitive side of the game, as well as the collecting side of the game. Over time I grew tired of the playing aspect of Magic: The Gathering and vastly preferred the collecting aspect of it, before life priorities changed entirely and I lost interest in TCGs completely.

I don't really do the collecting/kit hounding side of any hobbies anymore, I prefer the actual doing of the thing instead, but I am grateful I was able to get in, enjoy it fully, and get out of the collecting aspect of both video games and MTG long before both became impossibly expensive to participate in, though it is fun to dip in and see what is going on with those things from time to time.

Not stated in the article, but I suspect that another big reason a lot of hobbyists obsess over the gear and kit aspect of a hobby is because buying kit is a substitute for not having time or energy to actually do the hobby itself. In some sense, buying kit is materializing fantasies about actually doing the thing, but not having the time or the place to do it.

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 to the best performance. That doesn't seem true. I couldn't ski the Lhotse Couloir even on the best gear ever made.

Did he really take this path to get to the "a good musician can play nice music well on a crappy instrument" insight, even if he doesn't quite reach the shore? Really, he made it only to "violinist holding Stradivarius isn't necessarily virtuoso". Never-the-less, I guess it was wrapped in a fit-for-consumption-by-management homily. Crappy kit for all!

>> I believe that one of the most important things an engineer or technical leader can do for their career is to practice, and develop, strong communication skills. It may seem like this belief is at odds with the point of this post.

Not in the way you think, friend. There is a stark difference between actually having an idea and expressing it well. It is quite another thing entirely for an engineer to sort out the muddled thinking of others (a daily job hazard). But I applaud the attempt, especially because I've been so critical. An essay!

[edit: you philistines! or give a cogent rebuttal!]