Mine would be creating pen and paper ciphers for my made up secret communication needs.

  • I am learning lockpicking for fun. It helps me relax. I used a practice lock at first, then a cheap real lock. I’ve just learned that my firearms lock…yup, can be picked open in about 10 seconds. Equal parts cool and terrifying. Locks are waaay less secure than people think.

    It has the same “internet hacker” stigma so I avoid talking about it.

    • I miss lockpicking, it’s so cathartic. I used to have a small set of picks and folks near my desk at the office would often try to pop a padlock I kept around when we were bored. I liked how everyone seemed so interested in the ease with which you can pop many locks.

    • That’s forbidden knowledge among the mechanics in my union local, lol. One of the shop mechanics at my training center was teaching some of my peers how to pick locks when we had completed our training and were just killing time helping the shop guys out. Had some downtime and he brought out a couple sets and some locks.
      Apparently it’s sort of an unspoken tool of the mechanic trade when you work around machinery like that. Never know what you’ll have to get access to and you never know if anyone will have the right key. You’d think the ignition key would suffice to open, say, an access panel or storage cabinet, but some of these machines use a different key entirely for such a thing.

  • I like learning about random ass hobbies without ever indulging in them.

    I watch an ungodly amount of aquarium / terrarium videos, lurk a ton of aquascaping communities. I owned a betta fish in an empty bowl when I was 12 and that’s it. (poor fish)

    I read all you could know about book binding fanfiction, never done it.

    I read a hundred pages long horse breeding guide for the game black desert online and I have no idea why. I only played the game for a month, spent most of it reading a google doc about horse. I’m not even sure I owned a horse in the game.

    Sometimes I try the hobby, for example mini painting, and don’t have the patience for it. But I still watch some random dudes on youtube paint for hours and sometimes they don’t even talk!

    No idea why I am like this

    • I do the same! And you know, I think this is a hobby by itself. It’s also very useful when talking with strangers if they tell you they practice one of the hobbies you’ve binged on. You can ask them more pointed, interesting questions and it makes for great conversations!

        • I also did well in school (have my Masters too!) and I got diagnosed with ADHD at around age 30 (I’m female so that made a difference in people’s expectations of how it presents). Totally no need to pathologize a trait or to pursue a diagnosis even if the traits do fir you, but I did just want to chime in that there are plenty of us who managed to defy the trope of “doesn’t apply themselves”.

          For me, I totally do what you do with hobbies! It’s actually why I went into library science - ADHD is my superpower that allows me to be a generalist :P

          I spent last night learning about wood pit clay firing techniques and learning about table saw safety. Why? Idk. I have Ehlers Danlos and I’ve had to give up sewing, spinning, etc, so it’s not like I’m going to be out there making slab tables or digging my own clay but… It’s REALLY fun to imagine and learn all about!

          I love learning about new hobbies and I so rarely find the hobbiest of… Hobbies! Thanks for sharing :)

    • I like learning about random ass hobbies without ever indulging in them.

      I do this too! I love watching like videos where people make jewelry or phone cases using resin. It requires a ventilated area though and I live in an apartment with no patio so I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.

      I also watch nail polish videos cause nail painting is an amazing artform that is really difficult to do because its painting with material that hardens when exposed to oxygen or UV lighting. It also takes a ton of skill to get really good at it and people use all kinds interesting methods to get different results or looks. But yeah, I don’t have the patience to learn that beyond just painting my own nails and maybe some decals but that’s all I could handle.

    •  megane-kun   ( @megane_kun@lemm.ee ) 
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      410 months ago

      I read all you could know about book binding fanfiction, never done it.

      Found it hard to parse, and my mind immediately went with “Yeah, of course people have written fanfics about book binding,” foolishly extending rule 34 to cover it. Of course, there might have been that one fanfic about bookbinding.

      But yeah, of course people have printed and bookbinded (bookbound[ed]?) fanfics. But for that to have a community? That’s unexpected.

  • Model trains. I don’t bring it up because it’s obscure, but I’ve definitely found there’s a stigma. “Oh he’s the guy who plays with trains”. Screw the haters, I like to relax after work and do a bit of escapism. Eventually I got over it though and talk about it with friends, but it’s not the first thing I bring up either

    • My dad has been into model trains since before I was born. We built a train layout in the early 2000s when I was in middle school or so. Working on that project helped get me into electronics as we made PCBs for signals and control circuits. Now, 20 some years later, I work in software engineering. My dad wanted to get back into working on the layout and I’m helping him with Arduino programming and Raspberry Pi stuff. He built a stepper motor controller for the turntable and then we built some turnout and light control boards that interface with DCC. We set up JMRI on a Raspberry Pi to drive trains from phones and automate stuff. I also got him into 3D printing and he’s printed a ton of new scenery for the layout after buying his own Ender 3 after using mine quite a bit. We’ve learned various CAD/modeling programs to make 3D prints.

      I also finally got to do something I always wanted to do as a kid, which is to drive the trains from a first-person view. We have gone through a bunch of different variations of putting a Raspberry Pi Zero and camera module on an HO scale railcar. We did some different designs. Our latest design uses an SG-90 micro servo to control the camera angle so you can look left and right. I also 3D printed an enclosure for a regulator, battery charger, and battery that takes track power and powers the Pi.

      It’s pretty fun to be able to sit on the couch with a phone, watching the view on the TV, and drive the train from the other room including operating turnouts. Haven’t yet tried to drive the trains over the Internet yet but I want to, since I live a state away from my parents where the layout is.

      Edit: Here’s a video of the camera car in action! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls-Rg1TlDOA

      • Very cool! Sounds pretty much like what I have started on mine, I went the full DCC++ route, have an arduino and rpi running the whole layout, with a few other boards helping along the way. At some point I’d love to do full automation of the setup but that’ll be a while. What camera did you use for the rpi and train? I’m running n scale so I’m assuming yours would be larger

        • We built the layout when DCC was first coming out after going to a train show. We ended up picking up one of Digitrax’s first systems (Empire Builder IIRC, with DB150 base station). That’s still what we use for DCC. I designed a LocoNet to serial adapter (MS100 compatible, but very cheap and simple) in college (2010 ish) and we’re using that to connect it up to a Pi 3 running JMRI. Our layout is HO scale. N scale is probably too small for even a Raspberry Pi Zero with camera module, as the setup barely fits on an HO scale car.

          I have set up a DCC++ Ex setup at my house for testing and experiments. Just got a loop of EZ Track on the floor with an Arduino as the base station and another Pi with JMRI that is configured similarly to the real layout.

          Here is an early picture of the camera car design with the servo. I’ve since condensed everything on to one car with a custom 3D printed design. I want to publish it eventually but haven’t had time. I even 3D printed trucks with power pickups in my latest design (just had to buy metal wheel sets to put in them). I also made a tiny Python webserver that has buttons for different servo positions so you can easily move the servo from a browser.

          https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/456/482/672/249/884/original/398d0e7f581517cf.jpg

          https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/456/483/176/756/180/original/3434f015434fb542.jpg

          https://mastodon.social/@CalcProgrammer1/110456485998532640

          For the DCC controlled turnouts, lights, and turntable, I built up an Arduino Nano based DCC decoder from a design I found online and a DCC decoder library that is available in Arduino. Since the layout spans multiple tables, instead of putting a DCC decoder for each table/PCB I just had the one decoder echo the DCC commands as serial messages over a serial bus that spans all the tables. The other boards (turnout controllers, light controllers, and turntable controller) all just have their RX pins wired to the decoder’s TX and can receive commands that way. Turnout controllers are a mix of SG90 micro servo based ones and L293D motor drivers for Tortoise switch machines. Light controllers use transistors to switch 12V outputs on and off to drive bulbs and LEDs. Turntable controller is an EasyDriver based stepper controller with some pre-programmed position offsets for each turntable track (each track position is mapped to a DCC function address).

  • Working on my (private) servers is a hypnotic activity for me. It can be interesting or I can hate it and still want to do it. It can also be relaxing. Last time when I was sick in bed I played around with wireguard VPN configs all day to get a routed VPN for my VPS. I’m going to fix it today because something doesn’t work the way it should.

    Also, I learn Japanese. 日本語が大好き!

  • Contributing to OpenStreetMap. I try to bring it up because it would be great to get more contributors to the project, but either I have to explain “It’s Wikipedia, but a map” or they come out with misunderstandings about the project that aren’t worth correcting. E.g not liking the icons used to display points on the map.

    • Abandonned Project this year:

      • Get StickBugs
      • Server
      • Building a mechanical watch
      • Trying out Linux (My Linux Journey Journal is 2 page long)
      • Photography with Film Stips
      • Learning Esperanto
      • Learn Korean
      • Learn Fighting Games

      Technically stopped:

      • Audiophily (Didn’t buy anything)
      • Keyboard ( Happy I’m satisfied with mine)
      • Geocaching (Nothing around me rn)
      • Learn Hypnosis (I did it, I can do it, I just don’t go around and train it)
  •  bermuda   ( @bermuda@beehaw.org ) 
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    10 months ago

    Geocaching used to be really big but now is pretty low key and niche.

    A lot of people I talk to have no clue what it is, and the rest know what it is but have some wildly wrong preconceived notions about it. Stuff like “It’s only for hikers” (no it isn’t) or how the geocaches are only in the woods. I had a friend who literally did not trust me to go geocaching with her because apparently she thought somebody would be waiting at the location of the geocache to murder us. I had to sit her down and show her that a large majority of geocaches are located in bustling cities and on the sides of major roads.

    Sucks that a lot of people also just did not understand it. I once told a friend that there’s no monetary reward and they looked at me slackjawed. Like yes you just go find things and then when you find it you have the satisfaction of having found it and shared your find with your friends online. You don’t make money doing it lol.

    • I used to work with the “king” of geocaching in our area. If a new cache went up, he was always the first to get it. I figured out it was him from comments he had made online, not from talking to him. I often thought about ways I could mess with him, like making a new cache and waiting for him.

      •  bermuda   ( @bermuda@beehaw.org ) 
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        210 months ago

        I did it In a rural town and the lack of caches was a bit disappointing but as long as you’re in the us, Canada, UK, Australia, or Europe there’s probably an enthusiast in your town who placed a few. I remember my town had 10 caches and 9 of them were placed by 1 person

    • Hmm, would you happen to have suggestions for smaller containers to use to make caches? I’ve read of like ammo boxes being decent, but that always struck me as working best for more remote spots, or maybe I’ve overestimated their sizes a bit.

      (Also this is how I found that there aren’t many geocaching communities across instances to ask this in, lol)

      • I’ve seen many Bison Tubes sold online, small Tupperware containers that have a locking lid, even peanut butter jars covered in camo tape are somewhat common. The best ones are custom made. Some great ones are 3D printed to fit in (think oversized acorn in a tree). I also enjoy everyday objects that are out of place like a pop up sprinkler head placed in the ground with the log inside. I made one that was a log where I bored out the middle. Those hide a key fake rocks work nicely as well.

  •  stergro   ( @stergro@feddit.de ) 
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    10 months ago

    I speak Esperanto and I am quite active in the movement and write for the Esperanto Wikipedia. In 2011 I had quite a cool trip to an Esperanto Youth Congress in Kijiv. But it’s hard to talk about it because most people see it as a failed project from the early 1900s, not as a modern subculture.

  • In a way, my interest in internet privacy is almost always met with uninterested “ah” IRL. Even when I dont come off as preachy, when I just try to sell it as “watching YT without ads”, people often don’t care.

  •  schmorp   ( @schmorpel@slrpnk.net ) 
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    2810 months ago

    I kill and butcher animals for myself and sometimes friends together with my boyfriend. Mostly pigs, some sheep and goats, poultry. Sometimes injured animals who are too injured or in too much pain.

    The idea is to save the stress of transport to animals who are raised in good conditions as part of diversified restorative small-scale agriculture.

    The killing and butchering is just one part of a circle of activities around the farm throughout the year, but probably the most unmentionable in any social setting other than among meat fanatics.

  • I’ve been playing Second Life for almost half of my life. I used to run a blog about it and often spend a few hours every day online chatting with people. Mentioning that I know anything about it inevitably triggers people to either ask “wait that still exists?” or “isn’t that a sex game?”

    •  CoderKat   ( @CoderKat@lemm.ee ) 
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      810 months ago

      I have to admit, I am surprised that still exists, and also a little surprised it’s not considered at least a little bit of a sex game (I mean, every MMO has ERPers, but in my head, I pictured Second Life as a bit more common for that kinda thing).

      • Sex is a thing you can do and it’s part of the world, but it’s as focused on as you make it. You can go your entire SL without having sex or engaging with sexual content if you choose. I know people who are family roleplayers and live their SLs as kids, and people who are just into art, or just into fishing and sailing. Sex is part of my SL but not the entire thing, just like RL.

    •  bermuda   ( @bermuda@beehaw.org ) 
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      310 months ago

      Honestly that just makes me think of the Daniel from SL videos on it. It seems like a neat game but it’s definitely a little strange how every other person Daniel spoke to had a 9 foot tall biker bro with a 16-pack as their character.

      • I’ve never heard of Daniel but looking him up, he seems like the sort I’d avoid. A lot of people use SL as wish fulfilment, making their avatars the way their idealized self would look. You can get really creative with an avatar but it’s less common than big burly biker dudes and girls with giant boobs. I mean, I play a femboy half the time, so that probably says something about me.

  • Downloading and occasionally playing games from the flip phone era (j2me games). They seem to be mostly forgotten. They’re basically the best alternative to the ad ridden, micro-transactions galore of today’s android games and there’s a surprisingly high amount of very high quality games.

        • I went back to PS2 era games. This was the golden era imo, where games came out in a playable state and an amazing amount of content. Right now I‘m playing a completely English translated version of Monster Hunter 2 on a private server that went live about a month ago, it’s amazing.

          • I can’t really relate since I never had a game console aside from a Chinese NES knockoff that was a some kind of keyboard with a slot in the front where you could insert a cartridge with each having 50 games or so (we had two or 3 of those cartridges). It even came with two guns to play duck hunt with.

            But i can definitely understand how it could be the golden era of gaming. The enshitification started when Microsoft(who else?) made playing online a paid feature and sony seeing gullible people paying for it did it to. Then came micro-transactions and shit hit the fan from there on. Now you have to buy half-assed games that are riddled with bugs and got a big chunk of them cut of to sell as a dlc, while also having ads being thrown at your face and the best equipment blocked behind a paywall instead of gaining it in game.

      • I didn’t know much yesterday but your comment sent me into a rabbit hole so here we go : The impressive quality of j2me games is because they ran using java through a middle layer called java 2 platform, micro edition (j2me) that allowed programmer to not care about individual platforms/phones but just use the phones capabilities through APis. This didn’t really work that well because there was all kind of contraints. I vaguely remember reading John carmack rant about developing the doom rpg serie for different resolutions and the sound api being garbage.

        Old Nokia phones ran on serie 20. It didn’t run java games. It’s successor the serie 30 had the capability to run java games but only the serie 40 made all phone run java games. The serie 60 aka SymbianOS was the real deal and kept receiving updated until it’s death in 2012.

        Sony ericsson phones like the k800i ran the java platform 7 (each generation of phones ran a newer version, the last bein java platform 8) directly on an Rtos (real time operating systems)