Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Share Your Eccentric Hobby

7 pointsjimnotgym47 comments

I was telling people on a post that got flagged (because the Article had that LLM , one of my eccentric hobbies (restoring paintings). They responded with an equally cool hobby. I bet there are a lot more of us out there, please share. To keep it tidy I'll put a comment about mine below.

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Don't know if it qualifies as a hobby, but I "pursue flavor", not in chef sense but more in ready made products. Every now and then I buy 20-30: cartons of milk, volcanic wines, obviously cheeses, 100% chocolate, specialty coffee beans, niche cigars, chorizos from all over, chili sauces, lambic beers, Chinese high-mountain teas, matcha... but also can go beyond "taste" flavor, e.g. we also do that with arabic ouds (oils, this can get very expensive very fast), indian attars (mitti attar!!!), and so on. We try to sit down and "evaluate" each experience, we used to have a notebook but lately we just wing it.

Do you do this with friends? Like a tasting evening?

I wish. No, I just do it with my wife. We move a lot and we're not very social, so it is what it is. We just spread it over weeks or sometimes months (like with wines, we drink maybe a bottle per 2 weeks).

My hobby is self-hosting.

* I have a dedicated server at the house where I run nearly a dozen services via docker compose.

* I wrote my own audio app for playing my self hosted mp3s because everything I found on the App Store was shit. I wanted something like Winamp: a simple media player followed by a playlist of thousands of items that works equally on desktop and iPhone. https://github.com/prettydiff/mp3-master-list

* I wrote my own server management dashboard utility. There are some really good existing ones but I thought I could do better, particularly around creating new web servers and proxies in seconds. Apache and NGINX busted pissed me off when creating simple ultra fast proxies, especially around web sockets, and also did not provide a dashboard. https://github.com/prettydiff/aphorio

Because I am writing more and more of what I need I can integrate features in ways others cannot. I am trying to figure out SMS protocol right now so my custom apps can text me, and others on my private cluster, app needs or calendar appointments

I'd like to self-host personal projects as well but haven't been able to figure out way to do it behind NAT and also on a budget hardware. Is there a way to get in touch with you and get some ideas?

If you don't want to run your own VPN, there's Tailscale or CloudFlare Tunnel, both widely known and provided by reputable companies.

How do you securely expose your local services through Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel? For eg. Is it possible to expose just web server instance on port 80 and nothing else? Even better if possible to just expose one web service. Also, is it possible to ensure no other local devices are accesible from public?

These services do a couple of things:

1. They provide a VPN for your device to their server.

2. They then map that device to a public IPv4 address they own. The address is not static, but TailScale solves for that with internal DNS.

3. The free tier allows X number of devices to connect via a single account. I am not sure how many. Maybe 6, maybe 20. These devices are able to access each other on a private network only available from the VPN. TailScale calls that a TailNet.

4. They have internal DNS for the TailNet, so that you can map a name to one of those IPv4 addresses they provide and connect to something like http://server

5. I have not tried the others, but the TailScale magic DNS does not fully work on iOS. On iOS its all or nothing in that once their DNS is enabled its all you can access until your bring TailScale down on your device. I don't have this problem on my desktops (Windows or Linux) so my desktops are always connected.

6. NordVPN also provides these same capabilities, but they do not have a free tier. I don't know if they up charge for this capability above standard VPN.

7. Most all of these solutions seem to be based on WireGuard. WireGuard is an open source VPN solution, but it does not provide the extra services: IP address, DNS, service accounts, private network.

In summary, TailScale provides a VPN to a private cluster, your private cluster, that can be accessed from any network, due to the public IP, so long as the given device is on the same VPN account or has received an invitation from that account.

I am on budget hardware. Do not let this stop you. I bought a really crappy cheap box for $300 before hardware prices went crazy. My hard drives don't even fit in the case.

As for NAT I use the free tier of TailScale to expose my home network to specific devices in the public world. This way I can play my media or access my files, that are behind NAT, from across the country when traveling.

If you would like to talk more about this my email is in my HN profile. I am always looking for new idea and use cases to expand my Aphorio dashboard app.

Thanks, I will get in touch.

Some time ago I looked at running this on a very small cloud VM to act as a proxy for pi-based devices:

https://github.com/fatedier/frp

That is awesome. It is really cool that your apps are exactly what you want

I hope you are blogging about learning the painting restoration thing; the things beginners learn through practice are every bit as valuable as the things experts know.

My weird hobby as I mentioned is that I am designing cheap "art" lenses for my cameras (basically an equivalent of things like Lensbaby or the Lomography lenses) by adapting surplus optics (basic meniscus lenses and achromatic doublets) or DIY telescope eyepiece lenses, to focussing helicoids using 3D printed barrels; I have then used them for pictorialist-influenced shoots. It has sent me down all sorts of rabbit holes.

I am fitfully working on my own focussing mechanisms; I have had some success with multi-start helicoid threads but they are are a challenge in plastic, so I am currently working on a modestly-precise hybrid plastic and metal mechanism, and daydreaming about CNC-driven solutions in the future when I have the working space.

I am also contemplating a slightly more complex, faster aplanat/rapid rectilinear design but my knowledge of optics is just not good enough to select the right lenses, yet, so it may end up being bodged and only very roughly empirical; a "nice" result rather than an excellent one.

But then any precision of the result is not really the aim; cheap plastic meniscus lenses are as interesting in black and white as anything else.

I love your hobby, because there are so many avenues you could take it down, including as you say cnc. Don't forget that whatever you can design to 3d print you can order from China made of aluminium!

I'm not blogging at the moment. I should though as a personal record at least

> Don't forget that whatever you can design to 3d print you can order from China made of aluminium!

Yeah — I still haven't tried this but it is on the cards, and I have a rather lower-stakes (simpler) idea to try it out with.

I (the OP) restore paintings! I buy oil paintings off FB marketplace being sold for £5-£25 normally or from charity shops, and restore them. AMA

Does poker count?

I'm not sure if I should have gone all in with that full house or if I'd have scared the calling station with my reputation of check raising people into a walk to the ATM.

I only won a hundred and twenty five dollars -- I don't track the tips on drinks and winning hands. (You tip even for a water, coffee, or refreshing tomato juice. You can get alcohol, but I recommend if you sit down with me for a Texas Hold 'Em, you do it with a clear head.)

I was there... about four hours?

Learned a lot, and this week anytime I want, I can have a succulent Chinese meal.

(I don't think it qualifies as an "eccentric hobby", but I like Sichuan food, and it's a shame that in many cities across America, you gotta drive a bit to get a nice cumin lamb or some mapo tofu.)

Sure it counts. I have never played for more than a couple of pounds, but money makes poker. Did you learn online?

No, I only play IRL, I think you need to be able to read people to do well. I also play sit and go as opposed to tournaments.

I play Pro Drums mode on Rock Band 4 on my Roland kit. It's like...85% like real drums, which is close enough to when I just want to play along to something and turn my brain off. I'm probably top 100 or so and have been playing for about a decade now. It's a blast.

That is cool. I play guitar, and I always imagined electric drums giving you so many more options to play than acoustic ones

I maintain an online playable version of a antique board game called Baghchal [1] which has origin stories about being native to Nepal since 3000 years. I actually launched this website on HN a decade ago.

1. www.baghchal.net

That's epic. That gives so many more people a chance to play. Where did you learn it?

Yes, indeed. I learned to play this board game from my father when I was about 8 yrs old.

Astrology. I think there is something to it (and I perfectly well understand if others don't). I've been attempting some "cold" natal readings by having an LLM giving me a person who isn't outrageously famous but has a well known enough life, giving me only their birth parameters and then letting me supply a reading to compare against the details it reveals.

I can imagine that when you are born can effect your life. For instance I was born in the summer making me one of the youngest in my class through school. I read once that professional (association) footballers are much more likely to have been born sept-dec for the same reason.

Here's a recent similar thread that got a lot of traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47654062. I posted about my hobby of banknote collection on there, so won't repeat here.

Cool, I never saw that one at the time. It is 3 months old, and I can acquire a new hobby in that time so don't feel bad about reposting

I collect keyboards (computer). I somehow have collected more than 25 so far with all kinds of different configuration with respect to layouts, switches, colors etc. Not sure if its eccentric enough.

I guess it is. How did it start, just trying keyboards for one you liked?

I (also the OP) am refitting a small (25ft) yacht I bought for £1. Eccentric enough? What if I told you I had never sailed a yacht and it is about a 4 hour drive to get to it? AMA

I salute you sir. Sounds good that.

Why thank you. It saved it from being scrapped, and I have a cosy place to sleep on the other side of the country.

Edit: (Cozy ish. A bit too much water coming in so far)

What's the definition of a yacht? I used to talk about small yachts like yours until somebody called me out and said boats that small aren't yachts. I looked it up and I'm pretty sure they were right.

Buying a boat that size is definitely something I want to do some day.

There is no sticht definition of a yacht. Normally it would be a pleasure craft. Generally a dinghy is anything that doesn't have a ballasted keel. A dinghy sized open boat with a ballasted keel would be called a keelboat for racing, or a dayboat for cruising. I guess a cabin you can sleep in makes it a yacht, although I just as often call it a sailboat. But absolutely it can be a yacht at 25ft in uk parlance. In contrast to an open boat it weighs 2.5 metric tonnes and it wouldn't be legal to tow it behind your car.

Yeah, I would call your boat a yacht too because of the sleeping cabin.

Lots of videos of this on YouTube, I enjoy them. Total money pit but fun to watch

I'm doing lots of unconventional things to keep the cost down. But having a boat in a yard is expensive in itself

The fact there are so many on YouTube is the main reason I didn't do this. I decided noone would be interested in my quirks or my slow progress!

I help a friend repair old radios and service equipment. He's been doing it since the 1950s. We're starting to wind down as his health curtails things.

I love old valve radios. I always say if one comes up for the right price...

I will pray whenever the clock shows 11:11. I just thought it may be a very magic number and I should pray for my family, and sometime for human peace.

I play in a band called Rare Company. We recorded an album last year and have been playing gigs around San Francisco to promote it this year. We play acoustic originals, with a style that spans bluegrass, swing, folk and rock. I play dobro and fiddle, and it’s great fun to see people’s reactions to my “shiny slide guitar”. Check out our music and come to a show if you’re in the bay area!

I never quite get band together. I'm the insufferable guitarist who doesn't learn songs but improvises long solos instead

Dobro as in squareneck/lap?

I (the user who prompted the creation of this thread, apparently) play a weissenborn (copy). Gigged it once but it is quite fussy about temperature changes, which can make it a bit tricky in a British music venue because (as I am sure you know about weissenborns) they kind of exist at the boundary of common sense, structure-wise. It's a really cheap laminate thing that sounds quite nice, and I am amazed it has not pulled itself apart, but it hates to go from cold to hot in a hurry.

Currently teaching myself some electric lap steel after years of acoustic only, with a gorgeous little Revelation RLS DLX, but I'd be tempted now by a Gretsch Bobtail and that Fishman Aura. (Nearly bought a Boxcar when they came out; played one for about an hour in a shop. Lovely.)

The weissenborn copy is mostly in open D or low-bass open G; with Newtone Alohas, which come up to pitch at lower tension, I've pushed it to FACFAC, though I have contemplated getting another to leave in David Lindley's favourite CGCGCE, which is a fabulously gutsy tuning on a weissenborn. The electric obviously can cope with anything from open D to GBDGBD.

Yes my dobro is a squareneck built by Richard Deneve. It’s tuned to open G, typical for the bluegrass style. I haven’t ventured into lap steel but I have played a little when friends give me the opportunity. Personally I find acoustic instruments incredible just for their portability. Also everyone and their parents owns an acoustic guitar, so finding people to play with has never been an issue :)

For me, music started out as a practice of getting better and developing my abilities as a songwriter. As I’ve gotten older though it’s shifted more towards sharing the joy of playing with others. Jamming with people and making them happy by sharing songs is a reward in and of itself.

My picking is not fast enough or consistent enough for bluegrass unfortunately, but I will end up with a dobro one day! The weissenborn type I play has a similar scale length and luckily my lap steel is not the shortest (23") so my brain is not being truly warped by short scale.

Always been a bit of an admirer of Jerry Douglas (and Al Perkins, who I saw in 1992 with Emmylou Harris at the Crystal Palace Bowl in London — AFAIR he also dropped in on Mark O'Connor's set).

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