I got myself involved with a nonprofit local group preserving local pioneer era apple trees. They've been DNA testing and cataloging the trees, and had all the info stashed away in google drive and onedrive folders. The founder was looking to step back so they asked me if I wanted to step up as project lead, which I did.

I took the info and organized it into a nice wiki-style site with maps and descriptions so everyone in the community can learn about the old orchards.

https://heritageapplecorps.org/index.php/Main_Page

I've also learned how to prune and graft hundred year old apple trees and now have a couple dozen young grafted trees growing in my garage, all clones of local hundred year old trees, some of which genetically tested unique and are of currently unknown varieties.

Thats awesome! I'm doing apple stuff on the other side of the Cascades (Eugene), starting a cidery and trying to find rare varieties to graft. And doing little software projects like https://pomological.art/. Would love to get in touch if you want people to propagate these varieties you're finding and would potentially be interested in sharing some scion wood!

Oh cool! I've used pomological.art! Great site!

I'm in the middle of building out a similar big project that takes a different tack: looking through every period pomological text (e.g. Apple of New York, Fruits and Fruit Trees of America) and pulling the images, descriptions, etc for every heritage apple variety. Includes the watercolors too. I also pull in every scanned catalog from nurseries selling fruit trees in the PNW from the late 1800s.

The goal is a tool we can use to identify apples, and also have comprehensive info on every variety, using public domain period content.

It's not fully done yet, there are bugs/issues right now but you can take a look here: https://heritageapplecorps.org/varieties/

I think we grafted ~90 scions this year. A lot of them we haven't actually DNA tested yet so no idea what they are. So many of these trees are on their last legs, so our priority is cloning them first, and then once the clones grow, DNA test those as funds are available.

I make my own cider too (though as a hobby). If we ever find ourselves in the same city I'd love to meet up and we can swap scions/cider/etc.

I love that idea, actually started something similar awhile back but didn't get far and ran out of time/energy. If you need any help/contributions I'd love to pitch in. And sounds great! I'll shoot you an email with my contact info

You’re in Eugene!? Me too. I’d love to meet up some time to talk about your software over coffee.

Small world! I’m doing it on the mid/south Oregon coast! Started with a late neighbors trees and went from there!

My work and operation is small, limited to residential yards/gardens and particularly focused on dwarf and columnar varieties.

Used your site quite a bit! Thanks for making it.

Chuck Wendig's 2023 novel Black River Orchard has an apple historian as one of the protagonists. Lots of talk of scion wood and girdling and colonial era apple varieties. You may find this interesting.

That sounds really cool, how did they do the DNA testing out of interest?

We work with Dr Cameron Peace's lab at WSU. They send us test tubes, we send the tubes back with leaves in them, they run the DNA tests and compare against an apple ID database they've built. We pay ~$50 per test, which is what most of the groups budget goes towards.

Put it down over winter but just picking it back up.

Bat detection/identification with ultrasonic recordings. It's been fun building the data pipeline to manage the ~30GB+ of WAV files generated every night, run through some identification processes (currently using https://github.com/rdz-oss/BattyBirdNET-Analyzer) and build a UI (mostly vibe coded lol) to help with replay, cataloging, etc.

I'm using an AudioMoth currently (https://www.openacousticdevices.info/audiomoth), am thinking about extending it to do some of the preprocessing in the field to scale things up a bit.

Sorry if this is not the place to do it. I live in a city that has bat at nights, so if you live above 6th floor and you leave your windows open, there are chances some confused bats go into your apartment.

Even worse, they can go into the blind box of your rollover. After two traumatic events where I had bats going into my apartment (and it took me 5 days/nights where I didnt sleep at all to take them out alive), I put something in the opening of the blind box to avoid them getting into it.

However, I don't feel safe. I wake up in the middle of the night with any sound thinking they are trying to get into.

All this introduction is to ask if there is something that detracts bats going near my window. Maybe some kind of ultrasound (that I could play with some kind of speaker), or odor? I don't know, but I'd like to try something that could make me sleep more relaxed.

Can’t you do some kind of mesh? For bats, it doesn’t even have to be very fine.

I asked about this to people who put meshes but they said the mesh goes into the window (it's mostly for mosquitoes), and the open would be outside the mesh, so it wouldn't cover it. I would be OK but I can't find anyone who would be willing to put the mesh on the outside of the window.

any particular microphones you can recommend?

or did you buy one and it was "good enough" ever since?

really cool, data pipeline alone sounds like fun challenge

Yeah there's quite a bit of opportunity to reduce processing time along the way.

Couple cool things I've learned about bats.

- They are *extremely* loud in the ultrasound range, 130db echolocation calls from something the size of a mouse.

- On an average recording, the ultrasonic range is almost exclusively filled with sound from wildlife (bugs, birds, etc). I'd expected to see lots of harmonics and whatnot from human-generated sounds but there just aren't that many. It's quiet up there.

- You can leverage these two in combination for sampling by just strapping the recording device to the roof of your car and driving around. The wind and road noise is basically absent and the echolocation calls come through loud and clear. The AudioMoth can be fitted with a GPS receiver to correlate the calls to location (and time ofc)

- There are three primary types of echolocation calls: Search - Semiregular calls just to see what's out there. Approach - Faster rate of calls once prey has been identified. Terminal - Aka feeding buzz, very high rate (200hz) of echolocation calls in the last meter or so of approach. Most of the recordings of bat calls you see on YouTube are slowed down 10x to bring the audio into listening range, but this also slows the call tempo by just as much. They make lots of calls.

- Most bat calls use frequency sweeps rather than continuous tones to pick up both distance and relative velocity of the target (akin to FMCW radar).

- There are more bats around than I realized. I started off by looking for 'good spots', but now I just set the device out on a porch. Many times you'll hear me walking up to the recording device at the end of a recording and there will be 2-3 bats overhead that I was perfectly unaware of.

- Some moths have developed jamming calls that confuse the standard echolocation calls of most bats - https://www.illinoisbats.org/echolocation-jamming-moths/ Some species of bats have developed countermeasures to that.

Thanks jcims for sharing this amazing info! However, I wonder how these very loud bats, all in close proximity, don't get confused by each others' calls? Is the answer their frequency sweeping? Or does each have something analogous to a unique "voice"?

My hobby is organizing in-person meetups for random people to get together, chat and make friends. Barely structured, if at all. I've found this rewarding and ended up making friends this way.

You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want to be around. And another 10% at any given meetup are autistic or neuro-divergent but well-meaning, kind and full of interesting insights and hobbies, although perhaps difficult to socialize with, at least until they get to know you're well-meaning too.

These challenges come with the territory. You end up talking to people you'd otherwise never meet in the normal course of your life, and it's neutral at worst and wonderful at best.

I'm on the other side of this, in that I attend a lot of these.

I made a big effort about 12 years ago to go to a bunch of these (like three meetups a week and trying out a variety of different meetups), but now I mostly stick to a couple of them as I don't have as much time or energy for it anymore. But I've met most of my current friends through those meetups.

Find one you like and keep showing up until you're a regular, and get to know people slowly, and if they like you they start inviting you to things outside of the meetup, and then eventually you end up being friends.

I've done this with three different groups over the years and despite naturally being shy and an introvert I've ended up making friends at each one.

At the height of me doing this (like ten years ago), it got to the point where I'd go about my daily life and about once every other month I'd run into random people I've met at meetups also out and about. Like go out to dinner and spot someone I knew from a meetup also showing up to the same place, or run into them shopping at a Best Buy or something.

Meetups where you do a shared activity seems to be the best, like hikes or movies (+ dinner afterwards) or board games, since you can always focus on the activity if you don't feel like being social, and you have that activity you can always talk about as a subject.

Between the genuine weirdos, the autistic and/or the neuro-divergent, is there anyone left, really? Do the "normies" genuinely exist? Happy-go-lucky, knows a bit about everything but doesn't nerd out on anything, picks up every conversation subject and listens and holds their own in a manner that is just right? I am genuinely curious about the existence of these "superhumans".

There are many many of these socially-skilled normies. But, by virtue of being socially skilled, most have already pretty much filled up their social capacity and don't tend to show up at the kind of venues dedicated to helping under-socialized people meet up.

> Between the genuine weirdos, the autistic and/or the neuro-divergent, is there anyone left, really?

Heh this has a total “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” vibe.

that describes me but i would never say i'm a "superhuman". I feel like i'm a boring glue guy.

While there is often a "normal" (bell-curve fitting) distribution for individual factors, putting them together can be counter-intuitive.

> Even when considering just three dimensions, fewer than 5% of pilots were “average” in all. [1]

I would guess many/most people probably think they fall into either (1) the normal bucket or (変) the weird/fringe bucket. Either "I am pretty normal" or "I am an outsider". How many think "We're all fairly different once you cluster in any 3 interesting dimensions!"?

But people feel that dichotomy, which makes me think it is largely about perception relative to a dominant culture: the in-group versus out-group feeling. For example, atheists might feel like outsiders in many parts of the U.S., but less so in big cities and in other countries. In dense urban walkable cities (like NYC), people see diversity more directly and more often. Seeing a bunch of people is different than seeing a bunch of cars.

[1]: From "Curse of Dimensionality: Lessons from the U.S. Air Force Cockpit Design" by Maciej Nasinski (2025): https://polkas.github.io/posts/cursedim/

Sounds like a really cool idea. How do you organize the meetup and promote it to people if it ends up being random people? Do you set it up on meetup.com and have a theme at the minimum?

I've been to a lot of meetups and it's definitely hit or miss and obviously depends on the sociability of the people that show up. The better ones I've attended are generally ones where people aren't trying to network for work purposes and are there literally to just socialize. The networking ones I find very dull as it's people just talking shop and career and if you've nothing to offer them on the career front, they move on quickly.

> ones where people aren't trying to network

I have literally never been to any kind of organized gathering where this wasn't the objective of most of the people there. Family and children's events excluded (sometimes).

That’s crazy, you’ve never been to a party?

Do you mean most people go to parties to close deals?

Commonly - though the deal to close is marriage (or sometimes a one night stand).

actually its true, I guess:

I have been in partying in my teens and twens, 3 years somehow "heavily". When I turned 40, I found out the only reason I went to parties and clubs for me was to meet girls.

In one way or another, yes.

This reminds me of [0], basically just inviting the most interesting people I know (also transitively the most interesting people they know), and just getting to meet people. I would really like to do this, but half the most interesting people I know are PhD professors I rant with because I'm next to them in a lab. Maybe once my network gets bigger. But I would still like to know more about how you do this, as other people doing this accidentally made me some good friendships, and I'd like to repay this favor to others

[0] https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-might-be-oversharing

How I do it is context-specific. I used to live in a place where it's undoable and I was very lonely there. I moved to a place where people are much more open to it culturally and there's enough population to +/- bring in a constant flow of 4:1 regulars to newbies.

I advertise on local meetup platforms and in local social media. And I go to so many meetups myself that when people ask me what my hobbies are and I tell them, they get curious and self-invite.

Easy two-part process: First part is putting our "feelers", ask/tell a bunch of people "You know, I'm thinking of maybe hosting a dinner party/barbecue/beach day" and see what reaction you get from people. If sufficient people (sometimes just 2) give somewhat interested vibes, ask again what dates people could do it at, then you send out an invite.

You'd get a bunch of people who say yes but then don't show, this is normal and don't take it personally. Secondly, maybe the first 2-3 times it'd be hard to get people to commit, but once you do it more regularly, people will find it easier to commit to something they know you're already committed to.

> You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want to be around.

How have you handled this in past meetups?

Be courteous, kind, don't accept invites, tell them you're not interested if they're making unwanted advances, and treat them as humans. If they seem receptive and able to handle constructive feedback, tell them what sticks out to you, otherwise just ignore it and move on.

Basically the same way you handle the exact same situation outside of organizing meetups, but maybe a bit extra on the friendly-and-try-to-not-traumatize-people-who-might-be-trying side of things.

I use Blood on the Clocktower to do this, it's a social deduction game (that's just not randomly accusing each other) so it gets everyone talking easily

It has been my experience that social deduction games are very attractive to folks who have problems socializing in day-to-day life. You can see them almost come alive when they are given the permission.

I think a lot of people need prompting for something to talk about. They have no confidence that topics they bring up will be interesting to anyone else. So any kind of gathering that takes that pressure off will be attractive.

Yes and the reverse is also true. I don’t like to play social games at my meetups because that’s a framework that seems to stifle genuine conversation. I do sometimes provide hypothetical questions as a bit of scaffolding.

> You can receive $1 million immediately for every 1 year of your life you are willing to give up (taken off the end of your life). How many years, if any, do you sell?

> You get to ask a "Cosmic Google" one single question about any mystery in history (e.g., "Who was Jack the Ripper?" or "Are we alone in the universe?") and get the absolute truth. What are you asking?

> If everyone in the world had a floating stat above their head (like "lies told" or "pizzas eaten"), which stat would you want to be able to see?

the one and only meetup i ever went to (that wasn't something vaguely work-related) was a Werewolf meetup (the game). It actually wasn't very social, but it was a bunch of people who were really into Werewolf. Which, really, was what it was meant to be (and it was fun, because i love to play Werewolf)

Have you done any write ups about how best to go about doing something like this?

I'd love to organize something like this in my local community but somehow am not sure where or how to start really.

If you had to guess how I'd suggest you start, what would you think I'd say? My advice is probably just that or something no better that what you'd guess.

You start by starting. The first meetup will have a couple people and you let it be awkward and not quite right. Then you do a second, and a third...

I organise events as well and I'm wondering if you ever charged for them. I used to do them for free but so many people signed up and didn't attend later that it was hard to put numbers to book a venue to meet. How did you solve this?

i would do free venues only. usually restaurants are free because you consume food. if that is not an option, it depends on the cost. i have seen events where people were asked to contribute something when they arrive. you can usually announce the cost of the venue and ask everyone to contribute appropriately. if you fall short then next time ask people to contribute more. or keep a running tally during the event until the venue cost is met. from my personal feeling, if it costs more than $1-2 per person the venue is too expensive. find a cheaper one.

What locations do you recommend to emulate this? Coffee shops / libraries / your home?

Great idea - a lot of the problems in the world are from social isolation, and people finding silos online

I think the 10% neuro-divergent is a positive as it being ND can be very isolating for people

Makes me think a focus around ND alone would be a great idea

What are the meetup themes? What brings the interesting people in?

How do you do this? And do you find people within tech industry or just random-people, I am sort of curious to know!

Just random people, but because of where I post my events I tend to get about 30% ~ 50% tech-adjacent people

> You have to accept that 5-15% of the people who would show up to something like this are genuine weirdos you probably don't want to be around.

Yep, thats me.

I started designing my own clothes. The insight was that I spend 80% money on suits that I wear 2 times a year, and the rest was low quality clothing I actually wore.

I flipped it, and made suits and pants that I could wear everyday.

The fast fashion stores were crap quality, my body is not a template size and I care about fabric and comfort.

The process was to learn how to sketch, to determine fabrics, colors and fit. I made pants that stay comfortable even after I eat food, I made suits that I can wear casually.

I don’t stitch myself, for that I worked with multiple workshops, until I found one that works for me.

Took me about 3 years to reach a point where all my wardrobe is designed by and for me.

There were multiple side effects on my confidence, my life, and the opportunities coming my way.

That's pretty neat, and we should talk. In my household we are currently producing about 75% of our clothing, mostly out of a desire to avoid using fabrics that generate a lot of microplastic waste + observing that newer clothes/fabrics wear out quickly.

I want to hear more

Fast fashion forces you to dress for the masses. Loose shirts, baggy pants and shallow pockets is not fashion, its cost optimisation for brands.

I didn't want to dress up like a boy. Me and my friend were in Paris when we got inspired by the floor(fashion_sense). I was already working on my clothing, but that day we promised each other that we will not be underdressed anymore.

He opted for off-the-shelf formal clothing: high quality shirts, and pants. I went all in.

First I found markets that sell cheap fabrics, so I can experiment. I travel a lot, so my clothing had to be designed for all weathers. I'm Indian (Bharat), but look racially ambiguous, so I also wanted my clothing to reflect my roots and culture, yet be modern enough for any room in the world.

I run a company, and write code, so comfort was paramount. But I also had meetings or presentations so I wanted to be presentable.

Started with pants, because I thought pants are easy to optimise, and I just need a black, gray and dark blue one. Over 5 iterations, I reached a design with elastic straps on the side (because when I eat food, my tummy bloats a little and its uncomfortable to sit down), and loose on the thighs. Imagine pyjamas, that look like pants.

Then next step was to experiment with jackets and shirts. I played with fabric, patterns, and finish (zippers, titch buttons, different cuff lengths and styles, different collars).

My friends started noticing, and I also consulted some clients. Then I gave a talk about it. This is one of my skills that I discovered by first principles. The best part is that I met my girlfriend because she noticed my aesthetics, and she told me that she makes her own clothes too.

Was the talk recorded? I'd love to see it. No pressure if it isn't public.

+1 also very interested

Put it on Etsy and see what others are willing to pay! :))

they are customized for his body. if he started catering to a mass audience he'd be creating the exact thing he is avoiding

Have you shared any photos online? Id love to see

It's a great time to get into programming languages stuff: designing domain-specific languages, building new tools/abstractions and, especially, formal verification. If you're mathematically oriented, you can explore formalizing mathematical proofs in Lean.

LLMs have really revitalized interest in these areas. AI can really help navigate the initial learning curve, can do a surprising amount of "heavy lifting" and can make tedious but useful work much easier. Do you want your little language to have a language server and nice editor-specific syntax highlighting? Do you need to write a parser with decent error messages? Do you need to prove a bunch of largely straightforward lemmas to get to the proof you actually care about? All of these things are easier (and, hopefully, more fun) than they were a few years ago. But, at the same time, there is still a lot of room for human insight and design in this process. There are a lot of areas that AI can't handle (or, at least, can't handle well) and, of course, nothing stops you from doing the fun stuff by hand even if you could hand it off to Claude.

And, of course, all this PL stuff was fun before LLMs. It's even more fun now even if you don't want to use AI yourself, because more people are doing and talking about PL stuff online, and there are more tools and libraries you can use yourself.

I've been working on trying to help fill out the MeshCore network in our area for off-grid communications. Some of us are setting up solar powered, battery backed MeshCore nodes, they have no connection to power or Internet. You can use a small device (like a credit card or a small walkie-talkie) with a phone, or a blackberry-like device, to send/receive encrypted messages, chat on channels, or communicate on BBS-like "room servers".

It's interesting for if there were some sort of disaster impacting the cell network, or for use in the back woods where you have no cell contact. But it's extremely unreliable. My coworker who is into it, he lives 2-3 miles away but we can rarely communicate because he lives in a bit of a bowl that we don't have reachability into. Meanwhile I'm regularly getting messages from 30-70 miles away no problem.

It reminds me a lot of HAM radio, where there are other better ways to communicate, but if those ways broke it would be nice to have an alternative.

https://meshcore.co.uk/

Part of why I'm doing it is my office has a nice, unused tower on top of it. The office itself is ultimately not that high, but the 20ft tower on top of the 3 story building helps a lot. I can JUST reach the 8ft TV antenna mast at my house, depending on tree vegetation (we'll see how much worse it gets as the trees leaf out this spring). It operates in the 900 MHz ISM band, so it can "punch through" more than WiFi can.

Oh this is sooo cool. I want to try and do this in the summer too. This might be of interest to you: https://youtu.be/XTnYVh7K6xQ

I build Tiki Tube Amps - hifi stereos inside carved tiki heads. The tikis are carved from solid logs and hollowed out before I wire up all the circuitry inside. It's all analog vacuum-tube-driven circuits soldered point-to-point.

They're really difficult to make but super fun to listen to. When I'm carving I have to plan out how the circuit will be laid out, ensure there's enough space inside for the transformers, consider grounding schemes, etc. Plus mounting components and soldering inside a cramped log is not easy. But when they're done they have such personality. No other stereo listens to music _with_ you.

I love them because they combine many of my disparate interests - woodworking, tiki, electronics, soldering, music, vacuum tubes, metalworking. They're also an excuse to have friends over and throw parties.

edit: here's a video where I build one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xo-TGkFvOg

Looks like there are examples here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIRDOcSQGe8

If you like to work with your hands and have space, build something physical: big and complex, and actually finish it. I built a single engine two seat kit airplane in my garage, did all the flight testing, and now have an interesting way to travel/commute as a result. The "finish it" part is the most important bit. Computer people spend too much time working on projects that don't have a "done" state. Change that up.

I would start smaller though. There are a lot of half finished airplanes (where the last 20% takes 80% of the time...) and the maker is dead.

I've been working on a ukulele for over a year now and it isn't close to done yet, and this is a much smaller project. (Or maybe I should say I've been working on raising kids for a decade and there is another left?).

Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to build an electric ukulele. I’ve built some handmade electric guitars, slide guitars and similar. Mine are rudimentary, more akin to a cigar box guitar (if not less complex).

Examples: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPmHtIa9vAm8wNPeTXP4MoZ...

How long did it take you to complete this project. How did you maintain motivation?

6.5 years. What helped most was doing a little bit every day. Taking time off the project would probably have slowed my motivation. Also, at some point, you have spent a lot of money on a project like this, to the point where you kind of have to finish it or you've lost a lot of sunk cost.

How scary was the test flight? where did you land?

I was as confident as I could be. Had multiple tech counselors and A&Ps give it a good look over beforehand. Also had an emergency plan for every 100 feet of altitude post-takeoff. Did the first couple of flight tests in the vicinity of a minor (class D) Bay Area airport and then did the rest of them (including the riskier ones) over the central valley.

did you bring a parachute?

In most failure cases, it becomes a glider. I think if it was gonna fall apart around the pilot, it would be obvious long before they got it in the air.

Nope. Given the canopy style of the kit (RV-7A tip-up) and a few build decisions I made (modifications to the original design), actually egressing in-flight would have been infeasible anyway.

I got into fig (and since then, more broadly, fruit) cultivation. Figs have a rich history, lots of variety, and there are very active online (and in-person) communities where you can buy or exchange plants and cuttings, advice, and fruit. This grew out of an initial interest in gardening, and the long-term goal is to create a food/fruit forest around our house where me, family, friends, and neighbors can walk around, spend time, and eat the absolute best fruit possible.

So far I've got about 40 fig trees in containers (~30 varieties), am focusing a bit more on blackberries this year (4 varieties that were planted last year), and we also have strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, as well as a more standard annual garden with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc as well as some wild edibles: mulberries, wineberries, and black raspberries.

There's a lot of interesting angles to this hobby: fruit selection, cultivation, harvesting, pest management (annoying but still interesting), landscape design, etc. Planning cycles are months at a minimum, and but more often you have to keep in mind what you want the landscape and experience to be like years from now.

It makes it more enjoyable to spend time outside doing physical things when the weather is warm, and I mostly take a break from it (or switch to planning) during the winters here.

I started cultivating dewberries and chokecherries because they're dying out near me. The chokecherries are good for like 2 weeks, otherwise they taste like soap.

Dewberries are a real bitch to get started and don't produce a ton of fruit, but are EASILY the best berries you'll ever eat in your life. The native variety are very tart compared to bred plants, but they're legitimately the best things that you can grow. If you have a spot where grass doesn't grow well, plant these!!

I'll check them out - thanks for the recommendation!

You've probably already discovered this, but in case you haven't: watch out for the black raspberries if they're in the ground. They spread at an astronomical rate and are practically unkillable after they're established.

OTOH, they are delicious.

For sure! We ended up learning this the hard way.

We moved into this house partly bc it had an extra ~acre of space beyond the main "yard" which was starting to turn into a forest. We cleared it of woody stuff but left some black raspberries, maybe 10 plants?

2 years later, it turned into an impenetrable ~1/4 acre thicket of mostly black raspberries with some wild blackberries and wineberries among them. We paid to have it mostly cleared again, and now we are occasionally mowing whatever is not intentionally planted or mulched.

I have a volunteer fig tree growing in a container on my patio in the middle of a bunch of onions. I have always heard of people transplanting them from cuttings, presumably because they are difficult to grow from seed. I have no idea how it got there, but I feel fortunate to have been chosen.

Awesome! Curious to hear if it ripens good fruit for you.

In case it's interesting: people normally grow them from cuttings to make sure that the trees will 1. be female (males have figs, but they're not really edible), 2. hold/ripen fruit without pollination, 3. be true to type, and 4. bear fruit sooner (cuttings can bear fruit the first year under the right circumstances).

Almost everything you can do on your own is a "solved problem". Why go into woodworking if you can buy an Ikea stool? The point of hobbies isn't to solve problems - that's called a job - but to learn and have fun.

Find a niche where you can resist the temptation to constantly compare yourself to eight billion other people on the internet. Something where success isn't measured in Github stars, Youtube likes, or Reddit upvotes. Once you get in that mindset, almost anything goes. I know people who collect RPN calculators and are having a blast. All kinds of hands-on crafts are great too. I like making electronic music and I'm pretty bad at it.

I like Kurt Vonnegut's take on this:

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

I totally agree with what you've written - "comparison is the thief of joy" is one of my favorite mantras.

That said, hobbies can be remarkably useful because they allow you to create or engage in something that is uniquely tailored to your own personal interests, and the modern economy often doesn't provide that level of personalization, or if it does it's extremely expensive. E.g. the other commenter that decided to design his own clothes because mass produced clothing is really just tailored to "average".

> Almost everything you can do on your own is a "solved problem".

Not everything. Take cooking, one of the most basic hobbies. It's easy to come up with recipes that you enjoy that you cannot order anywhere.

Or the comment here about designing your own clothes, same idea.

OP's post features he wants "that isn't absolutely crowded that I could meaningfully contribute to."

I could read that as: wanting to do something interesting that others would benefit from.

Though, I don't really think that's a good reason to filter out things to be enthusiastic about.

What defines hobbies is not what or why you do it, but when you do it. The phenomenon of hobbies has been mulled over quite a bit - activities that engage many disciplines of an actual job, activities that for other people actually are jobs. The key difference in the nature of a hobby is that we do the activities on our own schedule - we are in no way compelled to do them but have complete ownership over the execution.

My wife & I are Scottish Country dancers. It's a social dance form (it's traditional to swap partners for every dance so nobody has to bring a partner, though not required). Pretty good cardio, there are groups all over the world, so it's often not that difficult to find a class.

Other similar social dance forms from the UK are Contra dancing, English Country dancing, and Ceilidh dancing. Square dancing in the US developed out of these forms. Many other cultures have their own social dance forms, with varying levels of formalization.

Meaningful contribution is easy: these groups always benefit from more participants. Scottish Country dance has a formalized teaching certificate program, roughly equivalent to a Master's degree worth of work (and if you're a UK resident it qualifies to teach PE in UK schools).

The Gay Gordons have entered the chat..

Using crooked knives [0] for woodcarving.

They're essentially a combination of a plane, spoke-shave, draw-knife and gouge but all in a one handed tool. They were primarily used by Native Americans to build things like canoes, snowshoes, baskets etc. I first found about them from reading John McPhee's Survival of the Bark Canoe [1] but there are lots of uses of them on video on the website below (which I created).

If you want to get into woodworking but want only a few tools and/or a very portable tool, highly recommend.

e.g. in theory you could build an entire canoe with an axe, crooked knife and 3 or 4 sided awl (and a lot of time, patience and materials)

0 - https://crookedknives.com/

1 - https://amzn.to/3NSj4T3

That's pretty niche!

Almost a literal "niche" hobby. Canoe - something that resembles a recess in a wall.

I try to give the people what they ask for.

also an amazon affiliate?

aphackernews-20

Traditional archery.

I started a few years back and have been doing it off and on since. It's challenging but a lot of fun.

I shoot a lot of older style "recurve" bows, but the main style I shoot are horsebows, that is, bows that were historically shot from horseback.

They're very lightweight and you can shoot much more rapidly than you can with a more modern/mechanical recurve or compound. Right now I shoot around 20-25 arrows a minute. Not amazing compared to experienced archers, but a lot of fun.

I have a number of bows, but here are my favorites:

Assyrian: https://www.bogararchery.sk/image/cache/catalog/product/boga... Buryat: (No longer available)

I also shoot an English longbow from time to time.

The horsebows use a technique called "thumb draw" which is very different from the way most bows are shot in the west.

Here's a great YouTube channel if you want to explore getting into it: https://www.youtube.com/@ArminHirmer

Interesting, how does the draw weight compare? I have to give up shooting bigger compounds because my shoulder couldn't take it anymore unfortunately.

Try instinctive aerial shooting with spiral flu-flus.

Yeah, too easy.

I got into HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) fencing last year through a club in my little town. Olympic/sport fencing is fun, but imagine (safely) swinging a 4lbs. steel longsword with two hands at your opponent instead. It's a ton of fun, a great workout (I burn ~1500 calories per class), and competitive so it keeps my interest.

Then there's the whole nerd layer of reading all the original sources from the 15th century, attempting to retain the historical character of the techniques while engaging in real combat, etc. It's both intellectually and physically stimulating.

+1 for martial arts in general. Depending on the art it might not be niche (I'm sure karate and taekwondo are too big for that). But things like HEMA, iaido, eskrima, all kinds of archery, ... are great fun and typically come with smallish & fun communities.

Edit: before you think these arts are immune to tech, I once had a student who built a (truly awful) sword fighting "robot" to help train deflecting strikes. Not quite up to par with Dune's robot swordmasters.

HEMA looks much more interesting than olympic style fencing.

Olympic style fencing is pretty interesting too, to be fair. Physical Chess

Also it's less... scary? At least you'll get less scary-looking bruises (though probably more total number of bruises)

>Olympic style fencing is pretty interesting too, to be fair.

It just seems incredibly divorced from it's martial origins. To each their own.

Oh for sure it is very gamified. It's still very interesting in its own right though.

Just don't go into it if you are looking for realism.

I like making transit maps in my spare time.

I got into tech by liking data visualization, information design, and aesthetics in frontend. It turns out transit maps and wayfinding is one of the earliest modern attempts at information design that is standardized and legible. And it’s fun to revisit because there’s no objective truth about what kind of map is best.

I highly recommend getting into loudspeakers or audio reproduction in general! Without a doubt the most enjoyable, satisfying, and enriching hobby I've had so far.

A couple years ago I decided to build a pair of synergy horns (look them up!) which included all kinds of interesting stuff! For example, I had to learn CAD, the principles of CNC and how to create toolpaths, what a waveguide is, general woodworking, and lots more. There's also lots of interesting "subhobbies" one may dwelve into such as psychoacoustics, signal processing, LEM/BEM simulations, the optimization of horn geometries (look up AKABAK or Ath4 and their respective DiyAudio threads), analog crossovers, or acoustically treating a room to reduce reverb.

Building speakers and experimenting with bracing and lining/damping have been rewarding for me as determining wether I prefer A or B really requires me to _listen_ in a different way from say, listening to a conversation (or even to music!). It feels very grounding and meditative in a way, and at least in my case, indirectly trains one to notice and appreciate more sounds in everyday life.

A big bonus is that it becomes really easy to throw outdoor parties out in the woods when one doesn't have to rent gear. Loudspeakers and bringing people together is a damn good and rewarding combo.

I was into woodworking, then I got into building fly fishing rods from bamboo.

Fly fishing has been around for a long time. They used to build rods by hand out of bamboo - a specific species of bamboo native to southern China - before factories started making them out of graphite, fiberglass, etc. for cheap.

Modern fly rods are a few hundred bucks. If you try to buy a bamboo rod in a store, they run $2K-$5K. They take a lot of time and meticulous work to build, and the result is a functional work of art.

Woodworking is a ton of fun, and challenging. Bamboo rod making is a niche within a niche, and there are not a whole lot of people who still do it ... mostly retired guys with a lot of time. It's a great tradition, and it's about as far away from computers and technology as I can get.

I didn't even know how to fly fish until I built my first bamboo rod.

Here's a great video showing the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfTvRxcTuV0

I love how every hobby has its inner nested hobbies and you can seemingly go infinitely deep.

I got back into making electronic music a while ago, and you can dig in deeper by getting into hardware synthesizers. And go deeper by getting into hardware modular synths. And go deeper by building modules from kits. And go deeper by learning electronics and designing your own modules.

It's like a big branching tech tree or tech graph.

With fishing, you can get into fly fishing. And when that's too easy, you start tying flies, or maybe tenkara, or, I guess in your case, making fly rods.

I love it.

That's a wonderful video, thanks for sharing

This is very cool. Thank you. ...and that video is a pill-quality destressor. thanks again.

I come back to the video every once in a while and it is total zen.

I got into designing my own knitting patterns. I enjoy that I can customize everything — the yarn material, color (including marling, helix knitting, double knitting), yarn weight, needle size (e.g., resulting in "airy" vs "packed" textures), knit textures (e.g., stockinette, linen, miss, etc.), construction process (e.g., can I figure out a way to knit in the round vs flat?), cables, gradual increases/decreases, selvedge/cord, desired ease, etc..

I wrote software to generate patterns given configurations and keep track of which row I'm on. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40307089

I am sharing some of my patterns here: https://alejo.ch/2s0

I'm currently working on my second ruana.

Consider mathematics. If you already know enough math to derive the quadratic equation, you might make a small change, like adding X^3 or X^4. See where your own techniques take you before looking up the answer. With just a few pen strokes, you will be playing with an equation for which there is no general solution, or no known solution. In mathematics it will take you very little time to start playing at the boundaries of human knowledge, and it's relatively easy to memorize a few starting points that many hours of passenger travel fly by.

I like this. I like crossword puzzles but don't like I'm just solving pre-made puzzles rather than exploring new territory. Math seems the best candidate but are there other fields with similar challenges?

Not sure if it is niche, but focused on one South Asian music genre -- been working on this personal project to compile, and collect resources from reliable sources along with mapping lineages of people. Also, I archive a lot of music for this genre from different sources before it vanishes from internet!

https://www.qavvali.com/

EDIT: I have one more page but that is not in navigation yet for people not familiar with the genre. The site is still work in progress -- if you have any feedback, please do leave it here, on the website if you can. The content curation is the most tedious part! https://www.qavvali.com/tradition/

Railway preservation (full size, not model). It looks crowded when a steam train is running and the moths gather around. The reality, when the trains are not running, is typically quite different, with a small dedicated group. If a place looks too crowded, pick a smaller museum.

Think of all the jobs that have to be done to run a railway and you will be able to find a museum that does it: heavy maintenance, boiler work, fitting and turning, blacksmithing, woodwork, upholstering, painting, catering, engine driving, fireman, signalling, customer service, ...

It's a great way to meet people, learn new skills and work with physical things.

Only problem is this really depends on where you live. There is a nice museum 45 minutes from me - far enough that it is hard to get there for a quick evening after work...

I’m a paraglider pilot and powered paraglider recently. Totally recommended, you get to connect with nature in a meaningful way. Also people who practice this kind of sports are nice. From a tech perspective there are a lot of data generated on each flight you can create your own way to capture that data or use already existing apps.

I got to do this a couple of years ago. It's super cool! Very much recommend it.

But I'll note that it's super...weird? in the sense that it's like halfway between being both relaxing and excitative, nature and machine. I went in expecting a thrill ride and it wasn't quite that, but it wasn't quite relaxing either (though I'd imagine the more you do it the more it feels like the letter!).

The best part is when you can combine your love of engineering and flying and work on your own electric paramotor. Highly recommend paragliding as an affordable and safe way to experience flight

I’m curious, are you working on your own electric paramotor?

i've always been interested in para-motoring. how safe or unsafe is paragliding? do you think about that aspect before going out for a flight?

I’ve been flying since 2012 and I always think about safety. Safety is relative but if you do the things the right way you will be ok. A good common sense is super important, and then keep on your progression, there’s no need to skip steps. Knowing the air is a lifetime journey so there is no rush. Also I feel paramotor is kind of safer because you get to fly with light wind or not wind at all, mostly early in the morning or near sunset. In my personal experience this sport change my life.

I've known 3 people that were into paragliding. 2 of them had near misses from chute collapses and the other flew into a stationery car (he was saved from more serious injury by wearing a full face helmet). So definitely not risk free, based on that sample.

Me too! I love the view up there.

My niche hobbies is carving wooden spoons and I think it balance very well with any work behind a computer.

It’s surprisingly deep for something that looks so simple. You can start with almost nothing: a small axe to split the wood and a knife to shape it. That’s enough to make your first spoon. From there, it can become as technical or as artistic as you want, depending on how far you go.

There’s also a whole international community around it. People organize small gatherings and larger meetups where they carve together, share techniques, compare tools, and pass down very specific bits of knowledge. There is a whole series of videos about this on youtube on a channel named "zed outdoors". This hobby also had me look around for wood everywhere, when walking or driving and you can do it almost everywhere as long as you have a small knife with you.

Also, using a spoon you made yourself is genuinely satisfying in a way that’s hard to explain. It changes the relationship you have with a very ordinary object.

It looks like a quiet craft, but you can go very far with it.

Walking and finding history if your location has such history to offer to find.

People pay vast accruing cumulative sums over time to go to the gym and my exercise pays me with every single walk. Some of that modern human history I have found dates back hundreds of years in the form of coins and bottles while some of the native human history I have found dates back 10 thousand years. I cannot neglect the fossils either as the oldest I have found reviewed by an expert is said to be Paleozoic tabulate coral being over 251 million years aged.

Thanks to gravity everything lost in the past is under our feet and as digitalization has taken over our global society, created by some of those reading this here, there are not many folks walking let alone looking. I found my first item over 14 years ago now and while my partner HATES the aggregate volume of the things I have collected she cannot neglect the uniqueness, rarity and value of some of those items. Every single walk inspires real motivation however one needs their health first to take that walk.

Stay Healthy!

Very interested to hear more. Do you live in an (old) city or more rurally?

I’m obsessed with powerlifting. Not only because big numbers get bigger but also the physical changes that occur with a healthy dose of lifting each week. It’s also easy to track lifting stats and there are tons of analysis tools out there if data analysis is something you enjoy.

Also, I’m trying to learn guitar - right now following the Justinguitar.com lessons

I do powerlifting 3x a week but I don't otherwise view myself as obsessed with it. I don't have a coach, I don't enter competitions. I know my PRs in my head but I don't keep spreadsheets or stats or have any kind of real programming. I don't video my lifts, I don't post about it on social media. I'm just content with getting stronger.

I really don't get obsessed with anything, which might be a fault as that seems to be a trait of people who are really successful in what they do.

On the other hand, it's the one type of exercise I have actually been able to stick with for any length of time. Started about 5 years ago at age 55. So never too late to try it, even if exercise has never been appealing to you.

For guitar I followed Justin up into his intermediate level stuff but then switched to in person lesson and they made a big difference for me. I think I got lucky with my first teacher though, as I've not really gelled with teachers I worked with later.

I'm obsessed with Strongman style functional lifting.

I've started going down the rabbit hole with Reactive Training Systems and Emerging Strategies. Been a very satisfying deep dive into all sorts of data, variables, etc. to play with that has me constantly playing around with different ideas. Their free training tracker is just the tip of the iceberg but focusing on RPEs and protocols already feels like a game changer.

Started with Stronglifts 5x5 a couple of years ago and has definitely been one of the best things for me. I don't compete but love seeing the numbers go up.

+1 on this - powerlifting is great due to 1) Rapid, specific initial progress, 2) Highly structured programming (e.g., RPE based), 3) Focus on strength vs. aesthetics is a great way to be more holistic about health & performance, 4) Forcing function on all downstream decisions (diet, sleep, alcohol). Adding +15 lbs on your deadlift can become strong motivation to drive discipline, 5) Drives the importance of recovery/rest on long term progress

I am 2/3x more productive on days that I get a powerlifting session in before work. There is no better feeling than overcoming a plateau through hard work and dedication.

one of my favorite parts of powerlifting, opposed to hiit or other fitness lifting, is the lack in physical change. i feel like i look the same but can point to numbers that show im much stronger

When I started stronglifts, I didn't tell anyone and people noticed just from my physique after like ~5 weeks of training. Noob gains are insane and definitely cause physical change.

True - I guess I am more of a power-builder. Which for those that don't know is powerlifting but also incorporates a lot of bodybuilding-type rep work for aesthetics. You lose some specificity doing this arguably so you're expending energy that would be better spent powerlifting if that was your true goal but this trade off is worth it to me.

Create custom software for non profits is pretty rewarding. They cant afford anything and have process flow needs that are completely unmet.

The software wont be sexy, but will help the non profits and the people they serve

I do this now! It is wonderful. So many unique projects being worked on that you'd never come across in your daily life. It's always fun to experience a world that is so far removed from tech, and see how clever people are at solving problems without SaaS, apps, or spreadsheets. Not every problem has a tech solution.

And it has turned into a decent chunk of business over the long run.

That could actually lead to a profitable business in the longer run: You will have great insights and lots of working code that may end up in a commercial product that someone is seeking? Esp since you mentioned unmet requirements, thats actually a good indicator

Oh damn, I love this one. I’ve been vibe coding a ‘public benefit’ app on the side that has a few hundred users but never thought of doing something for an actual non-profit.

Care to elaborate on your process? Curious how you approach them and come up with the best path forward with limited time (assuming you have a full time job as well on the side). Thanks!

I would recommend finding a local non-profit you're interested in helping, and start volunteering. Don't go in guns blazing "I'm here from Hackernews to save you" but get to know the people and what they do, and then how to help will become apparent.

By local I would recommend truly local and not a "division" of a national non-profit; those are an entirely different beast.

I’d love to get involved with this. How to do you organizations that need help?

I would suggest looking for local charities whose mission you are care about. Then just finding out what issues they have. I ended up building a simple system based on Airtable for a local charity. Although pretty unsophisticated it was transformative for them.

https://successfulsoftware.net/2018/02/04/volunteering-your-...

Synthesizers! I like it because it's tactile and immediate, and you're not glued to a screen, but can create fun-sounding beats.

Nowadays there are nice, cheapish groove boxes that are perfect for noodling on the couch. I started with the Novation Circuit Tracks, and also really enjoy the Teenage Engineering EP-133. Not to say that I am any good at this, but it's an enjoyable hobby! Bonus if you are friends who are also into it and you can jam together :)

> Bonus if you are friends who are also into it and you can jam together :)

How does one find these people? Asking for a friend! :D

I've also gone down the synthesizer rabbit hole: prophet-6, full modular setup (rip bank account), subsequent 37. It's great fun!

Go to modular meets, music instrument expos like Superbooth, dj sets and live concerts. I met all my best friends this way, everybody is a record collector, beat maker or techno producer. Record conventions are also fun, after couple of occasions you will realize how small the scene is.

Deep in the Eurorack rabbit hole myself. Trying to avoid anything that has a screen and anything that requires a computer to interact with. Patching cables and twiddling knobs is great fun. Sometimes it even sounds good xD

another eurorack rabbit hole is patch.init() - prototyping module. I have 4 and have built:

- an amazing crazy chorus module based on one I built for vcvrack

- a pad synth using the PADSynth algorithm

- a pulsar module

- a fun pitch shifting heavy reverb

endless hours of fun!

My strange hobby was going on what I called "leak walks".

I lived in a town where on any sunny day I could go for a walk and be almost guaranteed to spot a water mains leak I hadn't seen before, which I'd then report and see how long it would be before it was fixed.

The record was over a year for one of them.

( Yes, it was a Thames Water area. )

If it is a Thames Water area, you are lucky if the leak is only water...

There was one I thought was maybe a waste-water leak from the smell, but generally wastewater leaks are much harder to spot, and it's generally CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows) that are the main problem there, which happen in heavy rainfall and not so much in residential areas.

Mains-water leaks however are easy to spot, because they're damp patches (or flowing/trickling water) in otherwise good weather.

So interesting to read from other's hobbies!

I believe we all have three major parts: emotional, intellectual, and physical.

I have been very intellectually oriented, meaning I used my intellectual part even when it was not so useful for the thing I was doing. For example, thinking about emotions or how to do something when it is better than just feel or do.

My aim has been to become more balanced human being, meaning choosing pursuits that activate those other parts as well.

What has stayed with me over the years has been couples' dancing, which fits nicely with physical/emotional side. You just need to find a teacher whose apporach is not intellectual, i.e. based on steps and sequences! I am still doing it 2-5 times per week.

I am also doing regularly: - yin yoga - tai chi - winterswimming

I have had several other niche hobbies throughout the years, like: - fencing - improv theatre - leather works -- I ended up on a very demanding leather shoe course and made my own dancing shoes - wood crafting -- wooden spoons - traditional survival skills -- various kinds of traditional fire making skills, making traditional traps, making emergency tents, making emergency drafts, learning about plants, learning to skin/handle game etc.

Something I wanted to try but did not yet: - flint knapping

Recreational mapmaking.

Every couple of months the family and I will book out some long weekend to just go to an Airbnb in some random town with some copy paper and just go around trying to draw what we think is around us. Inevitably the lines collide and we have to ask some local passerby for help, and if they know any interesting places nearby, and before you know it they're following along with a colored pencil and some copy paper against a hardcover book too.

You could get a sextant and become an amateur surveyor :)

Now that's a niche hobby that sounds interesting.

Some fantastic hobbies involve learning a new skill that'll serve you in the long run outside of tech, or teach you something interesting that will last after you drop the hobby. I personally love making things, especially food-related things and so I've been a hobbyist baker for about a decade. The Bread Code on GitHub was a fantastic introduction and taught me the basics to branch out and discover better baking techniques. That's the main one I've stuck with.

I've also dabbled in home wine making, cheese making, preserving and pickling, and they've all given me a deeper understanding of fermentation even if I've not stuck with them as much as I did with bread. However, if I go for a wine-tasting or a beer brewery I now know what they're talking about when they go into the process of it, which is a good conversation starter if nothing else.

There's also gardening, but that's mostly something my partner stuck with instead.

I’ve started making what I “joy machines” that I am putting up in or near my neighborhood. They’re some combination of public interactive art (e.g. push a button and it prints out a compliment) and little art on display that I design and 3D print for people to take.

I'm intrigued and need to see some images or videos now.

Very cool! Any links to posts about some of them?

Despite AI starting to crowd this space, I've been spending all of my free time learning music production (doing it the old fashion way without AI). It's a great mix of technical and creative problem solving. Mostly focusing on dark ambient/cinematic composition, playing around hardware synths (Prophet 6, Subsequent 37, modular / eurorack, Digitone II).

If anyone is curious, I put out a single recently (remaster from last year): https://soundcloud.com/vectordust/ion-dunes-1

My main personal goal right now is to release a full length album this year.

you know the OP has "ion" and "dust" in the middle so this was hard to find.

I normally can't stand ambient, but you went a different direction in the middle there. You should put out an album, that probably no one will buy, but maybe eventually you get asked to do soundtracks for things.

anyhow, i used to write music. a lot. sometimes you just have to get it out of your skull... https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/valley-boulevard-0237

Ion Dunes is outstanding. Very nice work. I would be happy to hear more, and would very much enjoy a writeup too.

I don't think chess engines are a solved problem for some use cases. Yes you can make something strong, maybe even the strongest, but can you create a chess engine perfectly tuned to actually teaching a player? Instead of superhuman perfect lines and inscrutable long-horizon strategy, can you teach nearly optimal human play in a way that's actionable, modular and memorable? Can you improve on tournament prep for players against particular opponents or within a particular metagame?

Also, obviously it's your life, and we're here on Earth to fart around, but I have spent a good portion of my life dipping into one hobby after another, as my dad did before me, so I'm half speaking to myself when I ask this: why do you think you can't meaningfully contribute to any of these realms, even now? To me that sounds like some deep seated fear or doubt, some aversion to competition, some overriding bitterness. I'm slightly worried you'll just be back here in another couple of years trying to find another new hobby, unsullied by the efforts and achievements of others. You won't find that! I would actually suggest a particularly expensive hobby: going to therapy. Try that, and learn that you're already enough, and if your contributions are meaningful to you, that's all that matters. Happy to be way off the mark here though.

This. For those more into reading instead of straight to therapy, Barbara Sher's "Refuse to Choose!" book about living with a multitude of interests can be a good starting point.

Also, making (or maybe tuning) a chess engine to teaching sounds like an interesting challenge, actually.

How niche is retrocomputing?

I absolutely love my ancient machines, and I use them to explore period applications, much more than games.

I also love to restore and preserve them. There’s something magical about a Sun workstation Solaris 2 a Frog Design Trinitron monitor. or a Microvax running VMS and DECWindows. Or a multi-user Altair Z80. I think it’s sad a lot of software was lost and some platforms were denied the documentation that’d enable their preservation (looking at you, IBM - document the AS/400 and release old OS to hobbyists).

I have a lot of fun with my old PDP-11s. Being able to run an original version of Unix on a machine with actual core memory (that I restored to working order) is a real kick for me. Gives a sense of depth to the software I run on my modern Linux laptop.

I have a working Apple II with some of the original games, manuals, etc. Let me know if there's a way to contact you. Happy to send it your way if you cover shipping or something along those lines.

I've been playing exclusively CRPGs for the last 12 months or so, which was kinda a niche genre before the success of BG3. There are tons of way to beat those games and optimizing how you build your party and characters (what players call "min-maxing") while following a highly narrative story is a lot of fun. Most of them are quite old and often on sales for like 5 bucks on Steam, for which you get hundreds of hours of gameplay. A few recommendations: Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Owlcat's Pathfinders & W40K Rogue Trader, Larian's Divinity 1, 2 & BG3, Bioware's BG1 & BG2, etc…

I always meant to go back to Wizardry 7 I think it is. (Or 5, I forget)

I was convinced that a party of all Ninjas and Samurai would be unstoppable, but I never could make it work. I recall leveling up to a point where a high enough character would get 3 attacks per turn, and then when hit counterattack twice. Multiply this by the whole party.

But realistically, at some point this flurry of attacks every round just fell over because you need better magic users for enemies with certain weaknesses. My memory is fuzzy, but it also may have related to the increasingly large hordes of enemies which would dilute the effects of so many attacks.

These are a blast. I went through a phase in highschool where I exclusively played 90's CRPGs. There are some real gems that find a unique playstyle with tons of freedom due to how low fidelity the games are, while still being visually engaging and beautiful. Definitely check out fallout 2 if you haven't tried it yet, it's one of my favorites!

Nice to see people discovering these games. I wouldn't really say it was niche until BG3 though, there were plenty of highly acclaimed games long before that.

You might like this blog, the author plays through CRPGs in chronological order. Currently they're at the mid 90s. https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/

Check out the Epic Encounters 2 mod for D:OS2. Best tactics experience I've ever had. Runners up are LWOTC for XCOM3 and Homebrew for BG3.

Fallout 1 & 2! Formative titles for young me.

I make my own hot sauce:

https://successfulsoftware.net/2024/08/04/making-your-own-ho...

It's quite easy and you don't have to make it super hot.

I am currently growing chillis for the next batch.

My hobby involves some of the oldest technology we've been able to find evidence of.

It started as spinning with a hand spindle using prepared (combed/carded) wool, and has evolved into looking for interesting fleeces directly from the shepherds (plenty given away or sold cheaply around here), figuring out how best to wash and process (hand comb? drum carder? spin directly from the slightly-opened locks?), working on which settings on my spinnng wheel will produce the twist I'm looking for, and most recently, dyeing using Easter egg dye and vinegar, which is surprisingly effective.

Oh, and of course, knitting and crocheting with the results.

I still use hand spindles to spin while walking, watching my kid on the playground, or on transit.

Im imterested in hearing more about this. Do you have a YouTube channel or any other place to follow you?

Women's pro soccer. If you're in the US, we have access to some of the world's greatest athletes with World Cup champions and Olympic gold medalists in nearly every match. Even if you're not in the US, yeah you probably do too.

I never feel more connected to my community than when I'm at a game. Supporters groups are welcoming and politically/socially engaged and regularly sponsor community service events. The league is still young and fanbases are small, but it's a really critical point in history to support pro women's sports.

It's definitely worth throwing some of that tech salary at. Bonus: it has none of the drama of the men's game!

Not sure if you were looking only for indoor hobbies, but I picked up Kiteboarding recently, and it is the most outrageously fun thing I've ever done.

It's like being a kid and jumping off the house with a bedsheet, except it works. Most mistakes are laughed off by splashing in the water. I'm 3 years in and I can jump 7-10m then fly like a bird for 5-10 seconds without consequences.

Even as a beginner, sailing around or just feeling a kite pull you around is such a blast. Keep in mind it's really difficult and pretty much requires 10-20 hours of private lessons.

Really fun! I used to do it too, and I miss it.

How do you combine it with work? Where I live in NL, there are few days where I’m able to go kiteboarding and I probably won’t know until the day off if it’s possible or not.

Very hard to schedule!

I work remotely, and my schedule is flexible. I live in Squamish BC all summer which is great for wind. In the winter we are in UT but my friends take lots of kiting destination vacations.

I’m fairly late in my career though (44yo), so I’ve opted for a lower salary, low stress and flexible job.

I'll take whatever lower salary is allowing you to snowbird in squamish!

I always thought that looked fun but I would worry about being blown away up too high or into some obstacle like rocks

Is that something that happens to people?

Also how dependent is it on weather? Do you have to monitor the wind to know if its worth going out?

Kitesurfing is insane yes! I can jump up to ~6m in 1 year.

Really efficient adrenaline with relatively very low risk.

I've been doing photography for a long time but over the last few years had phases where I got bored of it and tried something new.

I had a long time when I was bored and carried the camera in my pack but never took any pictures, then one day I looked out at the sports center out my window and decided to start shooting sports.

Posting photos to socials I found flower photographs were popular so I take a lot of them and find ways to not get bored. (Maybe I will start focus stacking one of these days)

Since the beginning of the year I have been "going out" as a character who is a bit like a Disney cast member who gets photos like

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116326541009492328

from people who recognize my character. Like the Disney cast member it works better when people have seen the movie so i hand out these tokens

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116086491667959840

which spread virally around a university campus, particularly among Chinese students who recognize the huli jing and all the time I have experiences "that could only happen in a manga" when, for instance, somebody who's heard the rumors is waiting at the bus stop for me. Laugh but all my marketing KPIs have an extra zero on the right!

Same, but not the same. I've also been doing photography for a long time and when I had kids I added some gear & skills to shoot them playing sports. After a few years of this I realized since I was already there I might as well shoot the whole team, or both/all teams, since everyone's families would value the photos.

When I was laid off at the end of last year I decided to formalize this and now have a side gig (real, insured business) where I shoot local youth & high school sports for free, but make a few bucks (to cover my equipment costs plus spending money) doing portraits, headshots and team media days. It's proven fulfilling, mostly because since I do the events for free I tend to receive a lot of goodwill and word-of-mouth referrals. Far more than I can handle given my day job.

That gig is something I tried to do w/ my daughter's sports for the past 5-ish years. I loved shooting her games and distributing the photos both teams. It was so much fun.

I had a nasty altercation with a parent last fall and now I can't pick up the camera w/o getting PTSD-like symptoms. I'd love to know how "pros" handle dealing with that kind of thing. I had a similar situation years ago w/ a guy who got in my face for shooting on the street at a festival. My solution there was to just stop doing it.

It depends on the type of experience that altercation was. If it was you being confronted about photographing their kid without a model release, that's one thing, but if it was a more general unease of a photographer being present at the event, that's different.

For the latter, make sure you don't need a media credential (you probably don't) and get one if you do.

For the former, if your kid is competing, the odds are good that you already are acquainted with their teammates' parents so you can just ask directly, especially if you intend to share your album with them afterward.

My experience is that, with littler kids, if a photographer is not in the parent sideline/area, parents may wonder who they are. With older (high school) kids, they expect some media coverage so that part isn't a big deal. What they do care about is being able to reshare your shots to their socials or use them for other personal reasons. Depending on the high school or club, you may or may not need a media credential. If not, it's usually up to the coach (for high school) to decide whether you're allowed on/next-to the field/track/court. It's helpful to build a rapport with the coaches. It's also helpful to be able to show that you're a legitimate business and not just some rando.

In my case, I do events for free and provide full-res post-processed albums via Google Photos. This is a labor of love because I know athletes and their families (not to mention yearbook staff!) appreciate it. Maxpreps, SBLive and others contract with local photogs to cover events, too, and those sites aggregate and host the albums... but downloads average ~$20/image. It's not hard for a decent local photographer to favorably compete against those freelancers. Then it's also easier for me to upsell on portraits and media days. Media Days for school teams I typically charge ~$35/kid. For club teams it's usually $50/kid. For that they get a guaranteed 3 poses each plus leftover time for fun poses. Unlike a lot of commercial photogs, I charge this flat rate per athlete instead of a booking fee + per-image download or print packages. My experience is that they really just want digitals most of the time anyway, and even if I net less I don't really care because this is just a labor of love where I can cover my expenses and earn some spending money (~$10k/yr is acceptable given the time I'm putting into it).

Make up an official-looking "Event Photographer" vest, hat, lanyard with "Photographer Pass" on it, etc?

People generally ignore or even help workers with a bright vest, carrying a ladder, etc. So I imagine you would get a lot less suspicious looks doing something like that versus looking like an Average Joe.

Maybe with a polo shirt and embroidered made-up photography company logo and name on it.

In Munich in 1999 I almost got my ass kicked by some guy at a rave for taking a picture of his girlfriend with a frickin' Game Boy Camera. (Got GBC shots featured in Nintendo Power!)

My current style is centered around getting posed group portraits at events and is low risk. My act seems to disrupt people's patterns and drag them along with my script, I suspect a lot of people who might want to mess with a foxographer might think twice about messing with a huli jing (rabies, fleas, ticks, cantrips, curses, ...) and if they aren't afraid of a dangerous beast they might be afraid of a dangerous and delusional therian. I think I run a tiny risk of the sort of violence you might be targeted for if you go out in drag but so what...

I do get harassed by some people online who keep asking if I have consent for my photos and it bothers me more than it should and for now I reply like "notice that they posed for me" or "that person was carrying that protest sign on a busy road with thousands of cars going by". It's a matter of time before they lecture me again that it boggles their mind that I'd take pictures at a No Kings protest and I am plotting how to bait them so that they embarrass themselves enough that they give up.

You need to be extremely careful about taking photos of children without explicit permission from the parents.

You need to know the law. That is being careful, but it doesn't mean it's always illegal to photograph children in public.

For sure, but it didn't help me because I don't have the fortitude to stand my ground. I'm very non-confrontational.

(Yikes-- I feel my pulse in my neck and chest just writing about this.)

I likely need to see a therapist about it. Wow.

At least on the street and in sports my experience is people using purpose-built cameras get harassed.

People using cell phones as cameras get a pass (at least in sports).

It's common that they don't even let you into the venue if you have a interchangable lens camera. I wouldn't even try going into a pro game with a camera if I didn't have a credential.

At my Uni I usually go right in without any trouble, the only case I got hassled was a woman's hockey game and that time I kept repeating "I've never had trouble getting into a game before" (true) until they gave up and let me in. (Which doesn't leave me inclined to try again, but I'd already bought a ticket and didn't want to back and stash my gear in my office) I hear in hockey they are really worried about wildcat video streams.

Some of the sports at Cornell are exceptionally laid back. We are one of a few schools that plays sprint football which is 100% the same as regular football except players have to weigh less than 178 lbs [1], I know the head coach, I know people in the parent's association, they leave the gate unlocked and i go right down to the sidelines.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_football

Insect macro photography is an interesting and challenging niche within photography. Trying to find insects and then get a sharp photo, when you have less than 1mm depth of field, is quite a challenge! It also opens up a whole world that you wouldn't normally see.

I've seen photos by people who use the native focus stacking in Olympus Micro 4/3 cameras to get awesome shots of insects. I am firmly in the Sony camp but I have been thinking of getting an Olympus body and a lens or two for birds (lens+body is much less than the Sony lens and it can be hand-held) and macro work... Like once I saw focus stacked flower pictures I couldn't be 100% happy w/ the ones I take)

See https://learnandsupport.getolympus.com/om-system-ambassadors...

Stacking is difficult with insects. Unless you kill them first, which I don't want to do.

Animal tracking. I picked it up in college and it has been a real source of joy and a true challenge. It's also something you can do almost anywhere: urban, suburban, rural, out in "the wild."

A lot of people think of it as looking for paw/hoof marks in the mud, but tracking can actually be quite involved, requiring you to understand the environment and ecology as a whole.

For example, tracking birds is outrageously difficult and when I first started out I didn't think it was possible. But the more I learned about birds, their habits (per species), their environment, I started to see signs everywhere. It really got my eyes open and I started seeing the same old places in completely new ways!

And in terms of contributing something, there are all sorts of apps/organization that can help you identify different species and in turn you give them data in the form of pictures, location, etc. I use iNaturalist myself, but there are others.

You might really enjoy this book, I really did: https://www.amazon.com/Walkers-Guide-Outdoor-Clues-Signs-ebo...

Sounds fun! Do you have resources to get started?

I do gundog work, it would be fun to do the tracking together with the dog. (I don’t hunt, it would just be to make some walks more interesting)

This is a great book regarding animal tracking and other interesting clues in the outdoors. It’s very British-centric sadly though. https://www.amazon.com/Walkers-Guide-Outdoor-Clues-Signs-ebo...

I don't know if it's niche, but I like making granola for my friends and family. I give them a big jar and tell them free refills are included ("just bring me the empty jar"). I get pretty good nuts and tend to make largish batches (around 2 kg), and, because of the refills, I get a good sense of who appreciates it — always happy to make more for them. My recipe is here: https://alejo.ch/365

FDM 3d printing is still a wild-west and there are plenty of avenues to explore. Not sure what else to say about that other than as someone with daily and close personal proximity to the 'industry' that cropped up I am well aware that there is plenty of work to be done by enthusiasts and niche-people.

Engineering and machinery is still a place full of exploration if you have the chops. If you don't have them yet then there is plenty of topics within that domain to explore; you'll never run out of things to learn there.

My 0.02c : learn to disregard the crowds and focus on your own work. Just because people are doing something you used to do doesn't mean they have anywhere near the depth of understanding and 'freedom of movement' as you do as a 'resident expert'.

also : the fact that no one is doing something may be a signal; crowds form for a reason. Very few hobbyist bomb-squad folk and rabid-racoon-caregivers, get what I mean?

the GPT3 models didn't keep you from learning about ML. The industry didn't push you from keyboard and printers. You did these things.

If you're trying to lead an entirely one-off human life with total uniqueness from other people then all I could suggest is hallucinogens , but personally I think that the goal of just being unique for the sake of being unique is ludicrous.

Just find enjoyment, that's the goal for me at least.

I knew a guy who found an interesting 3d printing niche: 2 way radios for professionals (mainly SAR crews) are always getting fetched up on clothing, and you're often finding the radio turned off because the knobs got moved. Dumb problem, should have been solved by fundamental engineering years ago - but whatever. He built a 3d printed shroud for a variety of popular radios, and now makes a living selling these.

He's a tech guy, but no engineer. He saw the need (he works on a SAR team), saw the solution and made it happen. Inspiring, really.

I do a bit of 3d printing stuff myself. Personally, I'm attracted that it's getting more professional. I can use it as the impetus to learn real engineering/CAD, etc. Not in an "I'm an engineer" way, but still using real principles to make better things. You don't have to be intimidated if you keep your identity small and let it inspire you instead.

Guess this doesn't count as a hobby since I switched careers, but I left software recently to attend violin making school. I'm happier than I've been in a long time.

I'd encourage all "mental work" folks to engage with something physical in the 3D realm (art, cooking, gardening, etc.). I really believe humans have a special affinity for creating refined objects, and I don't think software "scratches that itch".

Really cool! I split my time between cello and software so I'm decently familiar with this line of work. What inspired you to switch careers? I imagine it's not easy to get a foothold as a luthier either. Do you feel like you're taking a big risk?

I switched careers because the software and tech world has changed drastically since I first started, and not in ways that I enjoy or that play to my strengths.

Fundamentally I enjoy being a craftsperson. That is, someone who through training and experience gets really good at something, and then uses that expertise to create new things. Software wasn't always like that, but more often than not I enjoyed it, so I count myself as really lucky. I think the business of software engineering has changed in ways that make it much less amenable to the "craftsperson ethos".

It's not really that hard to start as a luthier - there are 3 violin making schools in the US and you don't really need previous experience, they teach you everything (shout out to The Violin Making School of America - violin making as a newbie can be difficult and frustrating at times but I look forward to school every single day). Since I was a software engineer for 25 years with rather inexpensive tastes generally and no children, and a working spouse, I had saved up enough to not really worry about finances (I certainly needed to downshift some of my expenses, but again, it wasn't that hard for me and in many ways I felt it was liberating - I cook a lot more now, I walk to school instead of rot in traffic, I sold my house which I always hated the maintenance, upkeep and expense of, etc.) I certainly don't have "FU money" but I'm fine being in school for a few years and then making much less than I did as a software engineer.

I found out something that was shocking to me about two years ago, which is that plenty of people learn to play ice hockey, of all sports, as an adult. I don’t know about you folks, but I always assumed it was one of those where if you didn’t play as a kid, you missed the boat. I didn’t even know how to skate, I learned on the fly. And this is in North Carolina! 10/10 recommend. I’m actually typing this lying on the couch after playing in a tournament in the Carolina Hurricanes arena :-)

Hnefatafl, a simple board game that was played by the vikings and others who had frequent contact with them. Or rather, what we play today is an approximation of what they played back then as we don't really know the exact rules they used. It's interesting in that unlike chess and others, it is asymmetrical, and there are a number of different variants each with their own challenges and different balances between attacker and defender.

The main community and learning resource is at http://aagenielsen.dk.

I'm into book restoration, here's a gallery: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1oNxCfKJp4k6yjoZ9

Much less niche, but I'm also really into acting: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=do5PicgU0Jw

That's impressive work! But how come the books are in mixed languages? Are they your books? Do you fix books for random people?

Hahaha, good observation :) I ran out of my childhood books (in Spanish) to fix, then I ran out of my GFs childhood books (in Latvian), so at that point I offered my services to anyone in the Google Zürich office. I got books in all kinds of languages I couldn't read, and a few chocolates and bottles of wine for my troubles :)

Some of the most interesting books were especially challenging. One in old German that was missing a couple of pages. It was a popular fairytale so I found the missing content online and a closely matching font, and reconstructed the pages. Another was in an Asian script I not only couldn't read, I didn't know how to sort or even properly rotate some loose pages, so I had to ask the owner. In a few cases when bits of the cover were missing, I found photos online, and printed a patch. Fun times!

I build weird experimental instruments and then play them at the local electronic music open mic nights.

My main instrument is the electroduochord, a stereo two-stringed instrument played with a drone motor rotary magnetic bow. https://youtu.be/G1ftvw-Y6pk

I've also hooked up audio jacks to small solar panels to convert vibrations in light into sound. https://youtu.be/ZF2Rn5YfBC8

Now I'm working on cybernetic drumming and rhythm synthesis. https://youtu.be/oJZeP4Naqxo https://youtu.be/NwNrJLvHuAE

Really dig the sound of the first one, though all of these are really cool.

Thanks! I have some albums that were made using the electroduochord.

This one was created autonomously using a feedback algorithm controlling the speed of the rotary magnetic bow. https://stefanpowell.bandcamp.com/album/autonomous-drone-lul...

It's an album meant for falling asleep.

amateur liquid bi-prop rocket engines for the High Power Rocketry hobby are gaining momentum. There's lot of opportunity there for performance profiling and even more if you have access to a machine tools like CNC lathes. There's also interest in active stabilization of amateur rockets using engine gimbaling which would put so much more performance in reach.

These guys are legit and actually flying airframes instead of just ignition on a test stand. https://www.halfcatrocketry.com/

The hobby is geography constrained though, you need access to large open spaces. Even small engines are spectacularly loud and igniting one in your garage would scare the crap out of your neighbors.

Edit: if you're in/near LA this club is pretty much ground zero. Tom Mueller of SpaceX's Merlin engine series fame was discovered here iirc. https://rrs.org

As a kid, I dreamed of doing this. Some of my earliest googling was related to rocket fuel, probably right after October Sky came out.

What differentiates High-Power from the other options?

Model rockets are classified as 'high power' above a certain impulse. In places like the UK and US you are expected to gradually work your way up from low impulse motors (A,B,C) to high impulse motors (J,K,L+).

Probably better to start with solid fuel motors? lots to learn before progressing onto liquid fuel motors.

There's a lot of legacy / retro coding out there that despite the output being used by anywhere from hundreds, to thousands to even millions of end-users, it still involves small tight night communities per project, sometimes they overlap somewhat. I've mentioned it before, if you follow people reverse engineering Shockwave, you will note that they are all on the same communities to capture as much wisdom from others as possible. In niche reverse engineering communities, the smallest thing can be a life changer.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to find the owners of the old Digital Research "Concurrent DOS" operating system. There's a lot of interesting turns in the search and it's been fun to document.

I've written a blog post about it [1] though there have been a few updates since I've written that.

I honestly think it might be a fun thing for me to keep doing, whether or not I'm successful with my search. I think there is a lot of old software that is just sitting on old hard drives that is waiting to be preserved.

[1] https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Technical/2026/03-March/The-Q...

FYI 4699 OS is based on Concurrent DOS 286 and runs worldwide to this day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4690_Operating_System?wprov=sf...

I’ve recently started making bread, at the moment still with fresh or bakers yeast and planning to grow my own sourdough.

It’s not very niche, but as a hobby it’s pretty fulfilling. It allows for a lot of play, and you end with something tasty. Also, makes for a great small gift for friends and family.

I make most of my bread with sourdough. It is really easy, it takes a bit longer, but there are less steps - just mix some more flour/water (sometimes salt, but I've not had a problem when I forget though others say it helps the taste to add salt - YMMV) into your starter and wait. Yeast is faster by a lot, but it is a lot more complex and so I don't find it worth it.

My wife got a square cast iron dutch oven that she bakes bread in. The breads have this nice crust and soft texture inside. To die for.

Bellringing, specifically change ringing. It’s a type of church bell ringing that is rather algorithmic in nature. Tends to attract mathy types. Religion not required or expected!

If you have English-style tower bells near you, it's worth checking out, even if only to listen.

Rest assured, my mind is blown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lyDCUKsWZs

Fishing. But not just regular fishing, life listing. I catalogue and detail ever fish I catch; the conditions, the type of lure or bait, the rod etc. From there you can get into microfishing with tanago rods, surf fishing etc. It's can get quite deep and a good additional hobby for people who love to travel.

I also take notes when I fish. It's less about recording a life list, and more about trying to collate what is otherwise very thing spotty data enough to get better at fishing.

As someone who has learned a lot of skills and hobbies online and likes sharing info, fishing has been a really interesting different world. Because anglers are effectively competing for a scarce resource, specific information about good fishing spots is understandably not shared widely.

So you have to put in the time yourself to try spots and see what produces. But in order to catch fish, you need to be at the right place, at the right time of year, at the right time of day, with the right lure, and the right technique. Get any one of those wrong and the only signal you get is "no bites". That makes it really tough to learn and improve.

I've found that taking detailed notes helps me see patterns in what works that would otherwise be hard to see.

I fish for salmon. In my part of the UK it has become very niche due to the scarcity. I joined clubs and never went, but now I'm in a syndicate where I fish one Saturday per month for the season, and never miss it. I'm years in and still never got one into the net! Fishing for migratory fish that don't feed once they are in the river is mad. On my fishing days I don't think of anything else

You have an app for this? Been wanting to do something similar