What hobby of yours do you wish more people were into?

SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 119 points –
135

Lemmy.

Telegram.

Telegram Will die, Matrix will takeover

Why is it dying? Is matrix as easy to use? telegram is very user friendly but matrix from what I remember has you use servers or something else and it gets complicated for normies

Bro, it's same as lemmy. In few years it will be more advanced, and users too. Why bigger communities risk to be banned on telegram? Maybe more better to host your community on matrix?

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telegram is unencrypted by default. Use something else if you value your privacy

I am willing to sacrifice my privacy for accessing the 2nd largest chat mobile app.

None of my family, friends or assosiates uses Telegram as a main chat platform.

So i use Telegram as my space to exchange and talk about NSFW content.

I second this! That being said, I've been successful in recruiting almost my entire friend group over the last few years. All of the people I talk to daily or regularly are on it. Once people use it they realize how superior it is to anything else we've been using and end up staying.

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Honestly, hope more people start fixing their own stuff

This has inspired me. My Instant Pot has been throwing a lot of errors lately, I bet I can rig something up...

You know, of all the things to fix, an instant pot would make me nervous. Don't mess with the safety valve.

I've recently been trying to focus on this! A few years ago I looked at my collection of various things I don't really need and realized how little I know about maintaining them properly; I just bought things with no regard to how long it would be around. If I were to actually do the recommended weekly maintenance on everything including home, it'd probably be a full time job. I've since taken a step back and slowly worked one thing at a time into my weekly schedule while minimizing, and it feels pretty rewarding. It changed the way I value things, both at their peak of function and that have a small issue I wouldn't have considered fixing before.

It's so satisfying fixing things

Especially when I find them near a dumpster or on the curb

Most of my hobbies are geared toward getting away from people so not sure how to answer this one.

Lol do you ride motorcycles because that's how I generally feel.

Learning how to get better at critical thinking.

I study rhetoric and argumentation for fun. Rhetoric is for understanding how people persuade me, argumentation is for understanding the tactics they use to achieve that goal. I've developed a certain style of rhetoric and argumentation that I like a lot. Essentially, I think people should learn to identify their own assumptions and make them explicit. Far fewer misunderstandings would happen if people know wtf they themselves were saying.

That's a hobby?

Why wouldn't it be? It's not something I'm doing for school or work. It's purely for personal growth and enjoyment, like writing and/or reading.

Well, to me it sounds more like a skill rather than a hobby.

Getting better at a hobby makes it a skill. Get better at pottery and its a skill, doesnt mean its not a hobby.

Yeah, fair. What I thought was that critical thinking is a skill that everyone should have, which makes it a life skill rather than a hobby where everyone has a different one and its fine not to have.

Though something like learning multiple languages or even just a second language is another example where it could be classified as both hobby and crucial life skill in my books.

It shouldn’t be just a hobby. I think it should be taught in schools. It is the source of most of the world’s problems.

I got recommended to read Thinking Fast and Slow on lemmy and I've been really enjoying it, much of it is about hidden assumptions and critical thinking

How would someone get started doing this?

I really got started by reading Thank For Arguing. It was a quick and dirty introduction to rhetoric. But what struck me was quotes like

A successful argument, like anything about the future, cannot stick to the facts.

or

The audience's beliefs are at least as important as the facts

I grew up in a world were facts and logic were esteemed, but, for whatever reason, people don't even know basic logic and facts are selectively chosen. There was an obvious disconnect that this book explained really well.

And then it went on to explain how to do it yourself. So, that was nice, too.

Check out David McRaney if you haven’t already. I have the same interests. Most people don’t explore what actually motivates their beliefs. It’s a fascinating subject.

That articles reminds me of when I listened How to Talk to a Science Denier. They're fascinating because their beliefs are so obviously wrong even as they proclaim the real facts and flawless logic are on their side. It's a wonder how people end up believing what they believe.

And then I take a step back and wonder...what am I motivated to believe? And I get where some of my axioms come from.

In any case, that looks like a useful book! Thanks for the recommendation.

Maybe this isn't a hobby but just hanging out. Video games, movies, road trips, or any type of activity without it being a big deal. No agenda or expectations. Just being social. I miss that from my younger years. Now everyone is busy, tired, and getting together takes a lot of prep.

Once a year, my friends from high school and I go up to a cabin and do just that. Play games (board and video), D&d, watch movies etc. Now that we're older we also throw some nice cuts of meat onto the smoker and eat fancier. But the nice part is being isolated from our responsibilities. We've been doing now for 25 years.

Basically being single, and 18 to 25 years old, about 20 years ago. I remember those days.

Reading math books, Linux, Lemmy, and Extreme metal. I have nothing to talk about with people IRL other than the fucking weather (that I actually want to talk about).

Death, Black, Grindcore, Slam, blackened deathmetal, shoegaze, Deathgaze…hit me up :D

RPGs that aren’t dnd

I was literally going to post that exact thing.

Like every part of DND has something that makes me grind my teeth and yet it's so popular! People say it's "easy" and simple and I'm like "WHAT BONUS IS 15 STRENGTH? WHY??"

Does Pathfinder 2e count?

That's like the blues brothers bit "we've got both kinds of music here. Country and western".

I think pf2e is better in many ways but it also has a lot of the same stuff.

Aha, that's fair. I got a friend to join my PF2e campaign by saying "the mechanical building blocks are all the same. Roll a d20 and a number, total determines success." which is, I think, an accurate description despite what a lot of PF2e players will say.

That being said, you have any suggestions for someone who likes the the tactical nature and crunch of PF2e and doesn't really have an interest in rules light or narrative driven games (my hot take: narrative drive exists independent of rule set - you can have a narrative driven PF2e game or any other rule system). I feel like Lancer or 13th Ave are probably the most likely candidates, but wondering if there are others.

I've heard 13th age is good, but I haven't played it.

I haven't been in the market for a big crunch fantasy game lately. There's always GURPS, which can get extremely crunchy and detailed. I played it once and had fun, but only for like two sessions.

I do really like Mage: The Awakening 2e, but that's a completely different game. I used to hack the underlying rules system into fantasy sometimes and it worked well.

I'm not sure I understand your hot take. I've done DND games that were very plot driven. The system just didn't help very much.

I wish there were more normal people who play magic. Going to any shop to play is always a gamble, half the time the people you end up playing with smell bad or are socially inept, sometimes both. It’s a fun game if you have actual good people to play with.

I don't play Magic, but that issue definitely overlaps with tabletop gaming. Early into my start into the hobby, I played in a public campaign at my FLGS and the whole table was kind of sad stereotypes. Thankfully on my way out that night, I met some other folks who were looking for another player in their private game and they were all more socially adept, sanitary, and welcoming.

I unfortunately had to stop going to our local board gaming meetup because of this.

Most people were fine but there was this one creep who kept making weird comments if I did something like, you know, be a woman and dare to bend over to get something from a bag. And then a guy who smelled like pretty much the worst thing I've ever smelled and always wanted to be in the same games as me.

I was so excited to find the group but I did not last long there.

I feel ya man. I refuse to play with “my mat is literal Hentai” people and “I don’t shower ever and think it’s okay to subject other people to that” people. Don’t show me your weird fetish porn when we are playing games, and don’t gas me out with your filth, because I will absolutely say something and you won’t like it.

Juggling. Friend decades ago taught me how to group juggle with other people. Lots of fun. But I've learned never to admit I'm into juggling, cuz apparently it's serial killer weird

I can juggle 3 balls but no more, its quite intuitive once you try! I know 3 is basically nothing, I just learnt it when I was like 10 and never took it up.

But that is a great hobby man, join a circus or smth idk.

Honestly I can't narrow it down to less than 2:

  • Australian Stingless Bee "farming": as the hobby is niche, even in Australia, there isn't much publicly available advancement in hive designs, propogation methods and care techniques for native bees. This makes the barrier for entry high, and the chances of losing a hive when inexperienced is moderately high too. More people in the hobby would hopefully bring in more discussion and experimentation, and make the hobby more accessible to others by hopefully bringing the price of hives down.

  • TTRPGs/Wargaming outside of the big 2 games: if its not 40k or D&D, you are unlikely to find anyone that knows of alternate systems, let alone wants to play them. Makes it a lot harder to find a group outside of a game over discord or similar

Can you elaborate how much is stingless-bee-keeping different from apis-mellifera-beekeeping?

Honestly, they are extremely different, and while there are transferable skills from apis beekeeping to stingless beekeeping, it is different enough to be a separate hobby entirely.

Apis bees use a wax based honeycomb structure for brood, pollen and honey, whereas stingless bees around the world use tree or plant resins based structures for brood and different resin structures for honey/pollen, and keep them totally separated. As these structures are not as orderly as apis bee frames tend to be, it is much harder to harvest the honey from stingless bees (in Brazil where the honey pots are larger, they use a syringe system to vacuum the honey out of the pots. In Australia where the pots are much smaller, we use a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it to smash all the pots and drain the honey). It is also harder to clone hives due to these structures, as in apis bees you can just take some frames with a queen cell or two and put them in an empty hive and they will hatch into a new hive. In Australia, the most popular method is to literally rip the hive in half and hope both halves survive. You also have to monitor the temperature, because stingless bees have less bees to cool or warm up the hive, and may need help during heat waves or cold snaps to survive.

Having said this, stingless bees are great pollinators, and are totally immune to varroa mites. Their honey is totally different to apis honey due to the flavour contributed by the resin pots the bees store it in and it is extremely interesting (totally worth the extra work to get at). The hives are also much smaller in comparison to an apis hive, so combining their stingless nature into the mix you have a perfect beehive for beekeepers in more urban areas or with younger families.

If you are interested in beekeeping, but not fussed with honey or monitoring for varroa or are worried about getting yourself or people nearby stung by bees, stingless bees native to your region might be be best thing - if maintained, their hives can live longer than we do, and will make you and everyone within half a km of you have great gardens as they go around pollinating everything nearby. Once you have the first hive, you can easily make a second one (the Australian hive design is the OATH and designs for this and upgrades to the standard can be found easily online) and start making your one hive into a ton of hives.

TIL varroas have been found in Australia, I'm sorry for that.
And thank you for the explanation.

The outbreak we have of varroa is being contained but it looks like we may have it spreading to the larger apis community of Australia now as it has been found many kms away from the initial outbreak. Unfortunately, the baits used are just sugar syrup laced with insecticide, so this is currently wiping out stingless bees alongside the varroa infected apis hives. Many stingless beekeepers have started moving their hives out of the containment zone and giving them to friends and family until the baiting process is complete.

If you have any social bees in your area, consider getting yourself a hive! As said its a bit more work than apis bees, but that's because the community for non-apis beekeeping is much smaller. The more people in the community, the more knowledge and the more native beekeeping will advance!

I'm from Europe, so there are only apes, and I don't want to keep theses, as the area aound me is heavilly overbeed. However, I consider keeping/supporting nonsocial bees (or bumblebees), but I haven't started yet.

If you're looking for a TTRPG and not wanting to worry about the lfg hassle, check out Ironsworn! Grimdark low fantasy, playable in solo or co-op. Just takes some getting used to, and reading lots of player advice, but playing solo become very easy if you already have that rpg brain leading the way. Also free materials online, but I bought the core rules and the "dungeon" expansion hardcopies for about $50 (USD).

I've since converted a couple of things and am solo playing to beef up the plot of a book I'm writing in a world I've been working on for about 5 years. Makes that process engaging for the gamer side of me!

Can't help you with the bees, I'm afraid...

I'll have a look into this! I've been playing solo OPR to get the wargaming itch, but I haven't found anything for TTRPGs so Ironsworn might fill that hole nicely.

It did just that for me, gets those creative juices flowing!

Guess i'm the first to say it, sewing. Not necessarily making things from scratch but just fixing what you got and adding features. Fairly affordable hobby, easy to get into and plenty of tutorials.

I learned sewing as a way to bond with my mum, who is a sewist. Im a 35 year old man for context.

I bought an old 2nd hand machine, fixed it after realizing it was broken, and started sewing for under $300

I learned how to make hats and stuff. Now we spend weekends upcycling fabrics from the thrift store into handbags, hats, toolkits, all sorts of things. She wants to start an etsy store, but only after we have made a few hundred items to photograph and list

I am also a 35 year old man trying to learn sewing on a partially busted vintage machine. But i've been hand sewing small repairs for years.

Radio control airplanes. It's being regulated to death since the advent of quadcopters/drones.

This is going to seem odd because a lot of people are surface level into it but if you actually get into it you'll see it's very difficult and most people will tell you that you're wrong. This hobby is game design. It's incredibly hard but everyone thinks they are a master at it. The moment you start building something you see that all of your designs are very basic.

Ooh that reminds me of the fantasy heart breaker phenomenon. It's where like someone who has only ever played DND (and probably just one edition of it) sets out to make their own RPG. They're full of passion and energy!

And the game turns out like shit because all they knew was DND. Like if someone who had only ever watched the Lord of the rings movies went to make their own film, and it has horses no matter the genre because don't films always have horses?

That sounds like a perfect example. I'm not into tabletop but all of the people who I know that are say that d&d is terrible and overly complex. It's a victim of it's own success in a lot of ways because it's meant more as a combat simulator rather than a full adventuring ruleset. Anytime you get into a new town most the rules are shelved for a second as people explore it.

  • Privacy

    Protects one of your fundamental rights, or nearly all of them if you think about it, as well.

  • ham radio

    Getting certified is super easy in many places and there are many hobbies within, such as electronics, building antennas, etc.

  • poetry

    This hobby has to be the cheapest of all. Go to the park with a pen and paper, bonus points if you leave your phone at home, and let your mind wander :)

Everything I do is pretty nerdy, I just wish there were more women, gaming, chess, progamming, etc.

Ham Radio

Some aren't even aware the hobby still exists.

Easy to get licenced in most places, ham radios are cool pieces of clever tech. So many sub hobbies within. Digital modes, long distance, electronics, antenna design and building.

Unity development. I'd love to work with someone that knows Unity but no one I know knows what C# is.

Look for some good Game Dev discords and you might be surprised

I feel you. I have some friends interested but they don't want to actually do the work. I'll submit ideas for games and actually implement those ideas (even if they suck). But my friends feign interest and just give creative thoughts without rolling up their sleeves and learning the engine or doing any work. Even though they are programmers for their day job.

I have one friend who seemed interested, and I showed him around the software for about 15 min and he was like "that's good enough for the day I think". I facepalmed and was just like... "yeah... we can do more later" knowing full well that wouldn't happen.

It sucks.

Man, I feel you. I bring it up to my friends and they're all happy about it but then I mention programming and turns them completely off...

I'd love to get into learning game development but I'm poor and all the software on HumbleBundle and Itch.io seem to cost money. Know any good free options?

You can use Unity and the Unreal Engine. The base version of those engines are free and are really powerful. I'm using the free version of unity and I already have a playable build of my game and plus there's a lot of tutorials on youtube for both so it's easy to jump into it

Thanks! But where would I even download those two things? I could search "download unity" but I wouldn't even know what to look for.

Gaming, particularly games from 2013 and before. 🎮

Surely that's not uncommon, is it? The more obscure games I suppose but people play stuff like pokemon and mario kart etc all the time.

Mario Kart for sure.

But pokemon "fans" treat me as a dinosaur just because i stayed on 3rd gen.

Learning languages. It'd be nice if I could meet people irl who are interested in learning different languages and it'd probably keep my motivation up as I've been slacking.

Taking classes would basically put you in the perfect situation.

A few years ago I was in some discord servers for language exchange, but I had to put it all on the back burner to focus on job hunting and I lost motivation ever since, but I'm trying to reignite the flame.

Chess. Specifically I wish I knew more people irl like my friends.

Surely not! I play chess and I meet people who play chess everywhere, it has a sudden boom every couple of years. The queens gambit, duck chess etc.

Chess is everywhere now, not too long ago I saw a group of around 10 year olds all huddled around a chess board taking turns playing each other. This was in a somewhat rough neighborhood too. Was crazy, good crazy though, was a happy surprise. I'd have never have seen that growing up.

At work we also have some college kids (15-17 yo) that do work experience with us, they're always playing chess. And my partner works as IT at a school and she says they regularly have had the dilemma of whether or not they block chess.com because kids regularly play in class, but feel like blocking it outright would send the wrong message.

There are a lot of in-lerson chess clubs out there. Ask around at your local library or clubhouse. Ours is at the local Wests club.

I have the same thing but with Go. I barely know the rules but wish I knew someone who would like to practice and learn the game together with me.
No one in my offline life is really interested :(

I had a moment were i really wanted to get into fo but i could only go so far without having real life friends wanting to play

Being poor and feeling sorry for myself

There are lots of us.

We should do meet ups in our tent cities! Start a book club!

Seriously tho... Sending good vibes your way, even though I know firsthand that's a bit condescending and doesn't really help.

Karaoke. After losing my old friends circle, I no longer have anyone to go karaoke with. :(

I feel like I'd absolutely love karaoke if I could get past the massive social anxiety that comes with it. I love rocking alone in the shower or car, but put me around other people and I'd freak out.

You just have to break past it, once you realise no one really cares if you sing badly, they just want more people to take part as well. Hearing someone else sing and then singing a different song to what others sing is always a joy when the regulars seem to just sing the same 2 or 3 songs over and over again. You'll always get cheered too at a proper karaoke night. Feels good, even if you do know that they cheer regardless haha.

Not claiming that there aren't a ton of people who are into RC trucks,but no one I know is into them. Bought one about a year ago and had a blast bashing it around on the beach. It's always cool to see others with similar interests and all the times I took it out, never saw anyone else into it.

Yeah thats good. Its an expensive hobby to get into tbf. Not like going online and playing a game of chess.

Yeah it is expensive, but like a lot of things, it is as expensive as yiu want it to be. Can you go hog wild and spend many thousands? Absolutely. Do yiu need to? No, definitely not.