Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Is Your Hobby?

20 pointskerrsclyde40 comments

I read hobbies are in decline.

Do you maintain an interesting hobby?

Golf. I understand the image it has, and it's somewhat well-deserved, but the munis are teeming with fascinating people from all walks of life. I've made more friends in the past 5 years since I picked the game up than I did in the previous 10+ years of my post-college life combined. I love the ego check it gives me while rewarding real practice and patience. I also carry my clubs every round which makes it effectively a 5-7 mile hike each round.

I picked up golf in March with some second hand clubs from a car boot, I've probably played 50 rounds since then and I love it. I've been asked if it's boring and it's anything but , Hitting a clean flush is the best feeling ever even if i only hit a handful over a round the satisfaction of improvement is huge. I try not to carry if i can for courses with lots of walking. I want to invest in a trolley

I like thinking and blogging [1] about electronic circuits despite lack of formal education. It being a hobby, I must concede that my involvement and proficiency remain well below industry standard.

[1] https://blog.georgovassilis.com/category/electronics/

I like that.

This looks like some creative effort, are you building lots of prototypes?

When I can, I tend to use the guitar as my equipment so I can get creative with my instrument; the amplifier.

And of course the soldering iron.

It took years but within a certain range of audio circuits including the relatively high-voltage vacuum tubes and associated components I worked with since childhood, I trained myself to design with the soldering iron until satisfaction has been achieved, then document later if at all.

Using surplus or scrap components which I might have unsoldered by hand before being able to recycle them, in advance of taking the risk with relatively expensive new components :)

You come up with all kinds of things when you concentrate on getting the most out of what you have an abundance of, even if it is far from perfect.

More complex things, I'll study drawings or make my own crude schematics for more than one session before accumulating specific parts and plugging in the soldering iron.

I had a lot of math & theory as a kid, which I've forgotten most of, but came out pretty good when you look at it and apply it like "tin/lead sculpture" ;)

No PCB lots of times so with point-to-point, more than one prototype per day was common, or for pedals I would make a PCB in the wet lab because it was more of a chem lab anyway.

I had scopes and test gear and it was all mainly needed for troubleshooting & repair, not design. A huge milestone was to go from components to defect-free operation, consistently the first time you plugged one in, using only a minimal DVM along the way. You can't expect connoisseur sound the first time at all, but as long as it works and nothing smokes you can go from there.

I have said before that you can't start building proficiency early enough, and it's never too late, especially for detailed traditional discrete analog component work.

Unless you count netflix or social media doom scrolling as a hobby, our old idea of hobbies are in decline because people are busy making a living.

Cooking is sort of my everyday hobby, climbing & skiing are my weekend/seasonal hobbies.

It seems like the Netflix and social media doom scrolling has more to do with the decline of hobbies rather than day jobs.

Once we have kids we are now more involved with our kids. For better or for worse. We sacrifice time so our kids can have hobbies and extra curriculars. We work hard so we can afford it all. Violins aren't cheap.

- making music, making musical tools (soldering together pedals, making VCV rack modules etc.

- Longboarding

- Gaming (Minecraft, MiniGolf Games, and RoR2, mostly - all socially)

- Writing, mostly for my website ( opguides.info ) but the ocassional fiction story too

- Fursuitting and attending furry events

- Projects? Just like, generally making things. I'm always happiest when I have a few things in the works. It's usually one-off. Like, recently I did acrylic pour art. I'll probably never do it again, but it was fun.

Reading books. Browsing Reddit and Hacker news.

Coding.

Twitter. Facebook used to be here but I got suspended unfairly so I no longer use it.

Working out.

Watching movies, TV shows, Ufc. Used to watch Rap Battles, but my interest died.

Reading about drugs.

Listening to podcasts.

Edit: Writing too.

Reading and writing about old books and articles [0]. It's a nice distraction from work while still being mentally stimulating.

I'm increasingly thinking about mowing the yard and managing the garden. That's a hobby, right?

[0] e.g. http://bcmullins.github.io/research-from-1825/

I don't think hobbies are in decline. Anywhere I go, anything I do, it's packed with people, with a backlog of reservations that spans months. So I guess it's the "doom and gloom" of MSM.

As for me: programming, hiking, board games, reading, blogging, sports (martial arts / gym). And I'm trying to pick up some more.

Creative writing! I mainly do scifi & fantasy (I love combining my technical background with artsy stuff). I'm currently working on a silkpunk (Ancient China setting + retro-futuristic technology based on Ancient Chinese science) science fantasy multimedia webnovel. I'm in the middle of inventing my fictional computing system (tentatively named rune engines) that ties into the magic system. I think, for a lot of science fantasy, the creators tend to keep the science and magic quite separate (ex: the science and magic of Star Wars is pretty clearly distinct) and I'm trying to create a system that combines the both of them. It's been super fun to prod at the question "how would I approach this fantastical universe using the scientific method".

I've been thinking about getting into writing and I'm really not sure where to even start. Did you just dive in? Or did you take any courses, consume resources etc... to learn?

This is gonna sound super pretentious, but I genuinely don't remember a time in which I wasn't into creative writing, haha! I still have little scribbled pages from toddler-me's stories. Writing is just something I can't stop doing, and my brain will leak out of my ears if I don't get the ideas out of my head and onto (metaphorical) paper somehow

I have no formal training, but I've watched a lot of writing-related YouTube videos and read books on writing. For you, I recommend just opening a blank doc (digital or just normal paper) without thinking about all that. I think consuming a lot of writing instructional resources up front is pretty paralyzing and demotivating, because it's easy to overthink. A trap a lot of writers (including me! Been there, done that) fall into is thinking about writing instead of actually writing.

If you have any ideas at all you wanna explore, just don't overthink it and get some words out (without worrying about stuff like prose or characterization or anything else). When I was younger, I'd browse https://www.tumblr.com/writing-prompt-s a lot as they have really interesting ideas.

Hope this is helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions; I could write about writing all day.

This is great thanks!

Before I married, I played a decent amount of games, but found that I was growing less and less interested. I’ve since stopped entirely.

Nowadays the closest thing to a traditional hobby I have is discovering and reading books off Amazon Kindle Unlimited.

With my wife, we love to travel and spend time looking for new destinations (or rediscovering old ones!) and planning trips. We usually take two international trips a year (Europe and/or Asia) and a few domestic trips (usually to the West coast) as well.

After work I prefer mostly less demanding activities: reading books, playing games, learning from video courses or doing whatever sport is available in the current space-time: riding a bike or a longboard, working out, running, diving, swimming, etc.

Are hobbies in decline ... ? Well, they could be if everyone uses most of their brain cycles "consuming content" online. It is quite absorbing and may result in less interest in hobbies that require higher attention.

Gardening. Just being outside and getting my hands in the soil keeps the happy chemicals flowing.

Lots of opportunity for tech integration as well - between weather/temp/moisture sensing, plant identification, irrigation timing, and season planning, I'm generating loads of data and making better choices over time as a result.

It's so important to have hobbies for personal fulfillment. PSA for past me and future others: not everything needs to be a side hustle!

I haven't seen any signs that hobbies are in decline. Everybody I know well enough to know this about them have at least two hobbies. I have six active ones.

I'm a chorister in a few local choirs, and it's something my wife and I do together. I want to join next year's local amateur opera project.

We recently moved to to a coastal town with a huge river lake, after living all my life 800km from the nearest beach. So I'm thinking of picking up some water sport, such as kite surfing, rowing or something. We'll seem

I am not sure how to separate a hobby from plain interest, the real hobby I do is building scale models, from plastic cars to wooden ships, although I don't have enough time for it. I like to read, and have an interest in watches but don't count those as hobbies though.

I play sports, specifically paintball and hockey. Though, not at the same time, perhaps it's time to introduce paintball to ice.

I'd watch that.

I wouldn't play it though.

CrossFit and other exercise; frisbee golf; figuring out ways to reduce time spent and friction encountered in my routine activities.

Ripping through single track forest trails on 2-stroke dirt bikes

I joke that it’s the most opposite activity from programming

Lifting, cycling, reading historical non fiction, gardening. Essentially anything not involving a screen.

Tournament poker. Great excuse to travel & enter a different world.

Building B2B SaaS is one of mine. I'm not joking.

Walking, hiking, audiobooks, reading, amateur radio.

Martial arts, reading, long walks, lifting weights.

Photography, music, books, cooking

I recently got really into watches.

While I'm into it as well, but how do you define it as a hobby? Some people tinker with watches, building or fixing them, but does owning a few watches and discussing them online count as a hobby?

I always thought if you actually wore more than one watch regularly that was getting there more so than just about anybody.

Formulated by default decades before any idea people would be carrying timekeeping cellphones everywhere at all times.

Now if you simply wear one watch once in a while that's way greater interest than most people have any more.

Most people I know have apple watches so researching mechanic movements and models is enough for hobby status to me. Like any other 'collecting' hobby.

But yes I've taken a few apart to try to fix and service them, even if it's only with my $20 amazon repair tool set.

Cool, when I grow up I plan on ordering one of those "build you own watch" kits

Repairing old electronics and test equipment down to the component level with a friend of mine who's been doing it since the 1950s.

You'd be surprised how many times it turns out to be connections that look ok, actually aren't. I've seen bolted ground lugs that were open circuits. I've learned to despise silver mica capacitors.

Oh, and with vacuum tube based gear, letting some smoke out doesn't necessarily kill things dead. The smoke does help localize the problem though.

I like that also. The smell of some of the old gear is unmistakable a lot of the time too.

fishing, cycling, 3d printing/cnc, and firearms.

cooking food

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