What would you bring to an adult show and tell?

Corroded@leminal.space to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 229 points –

I don't necessarily mean adult as in NSFW.

I'd probably bring in my RG280V. It was my first handheld emulator. I had emulated games on my phone in the past and even used a Bluetooth controller but playing on it felt different. More real in a way.

I grew up with the Game Boy so the idea of having thousands of games on the go is pretty neat to me.

I've since moved on to the RG405M.

What about you? Do you have anything neat or special to you that you could talk about for a couple minutes?

Would love to see photos as well

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My nVidia-branded plastic "sculpture" with a laser-etched 3D Eiffel tower and an actual pre-production GeForce 3 GPU embedded.

In the early 2000s I worked for a small game studio and got the attention from Nvidia for how we used their graphics cards. They wanted us to adapt our game to their new secret GeForce 3 project which was the first programmable GPU (as in shaders).

It was a crazy time with a lot of stories to tell. We got invited to the press conference for the new card, which was held in the Eiffel tower. Yeah, they actually rented the Eiffel tower.

As a thank-you for the work we'd done their developer relations representative had these made for all of the external game developers involved.

Maybe my little DIY walnut cased ESP32 universal remote

I can't tell you how much joy I get at the crossroads between technology and woodworking. This is an excellent choice.

Better charge that thing!

Is this universal remote in terms of IR to your TV, or more like connecting to Plex/Kodi/etc?

Yeah the battery management board is a bit flaky so keeping it charged is a pain! Yeah it's just doing IR for the various living room devices, sound system, TV etc so I didn't have to keep tabs on 4 different remotes

Ah that's really cool!

Is it nice to use? For a bit I used a Kodi app on my phone but it gets annoying having to unlock your phone, open the app, then hit pause or whatever you're wanting to do. I presume this is much nicer.

Its great to hold! Very chunky in the hand. Functionality wise I only gave it the on/off, volume and input selection from the media devices, and then it talks to another esp32 base unit that controls some lighting over WiFi, but as far as actually driving the media controls I shamefully just use the Google Chromecast controls, I'm not savvy enough to set up a FOSS alternative yet

Loving the look is this. Got a guide for making one?

Thanks! Fraid not, it came together pretty ad hoc as I was building it.

Essentially the process was breadboarding the major components to get them talking and sort out the software, then built the main board to hold everything in position, then built the box to fit around it all

I LOVE this. I’m pretty sure I’ve tried every single media/pc remote available, and they all suck for one reason or another. Been thinking about building my own, and this is totally the direction I would go. Thanks for the inspiration!!

This little bronze orc:

It was a gift from my father, who in turn received it from its sculptor, Sterling Lanier. Lanier was a family friend and an editor at Chilton Books, where he insisted that a book he had read in Analog Magazine be published despite it having been turned down by a score of other publishing companies. The book was initially such a commercial failure that Lanier was ousted from Chilton--a grievous injustice, as the book in question is Frank Herbert's Dune.

So I'm trans. And what I would bring is the Christmas ortament I got from a friend after coming out that says "Name's first Christmas".

That's both hilarious and thoughtful. I love it and am totally stealing this idea.

You absolutely should! It's funny because she was kinda nervous about the idea because she was worried that it might be insulting since I'm not like, a baby. But I laughed so hard when I opened the box, and it's slayed everyone I've shown it too. 10/10, best gift ever.

Specially because that was otherwise a pretty bleak Christmas, had no blood family or girlfriend anymore. But my best friend from high school became my new family, so it all worked out I think!

My friends came and threw me an "It's a girl!" party. Friends are great.

Hahaha aww, that's cute and awesome!

The only acceptable use of a "gender reveal party!" 😉

If the timing is right, I would bring a mushroom grow bag with mushrooms sprouting.

If not... probably my radiacode gamma spectrometer and some of my radioactive items. Maybe a clock with radium painted dials and a piece of trinitite. I think that there are many different points of discussion that can be of interest to a broad audience (radioactivity, spectroscopy, electronics, US labor law story of the radium girls, nuclear explosions, background radiation.... etc). As a bonus I can bring a UV flash light and show the radium fluorescence. Adults love UV flash lights.

Reminds me of a prank that a physics professor pulled on us. He put the trinitie sample in a large/elaborate Giger counter and then slyly kicked it into test mode while recounting what Trinitite was. “Oh… wait, that’s not supposed to be radioactive…”

Probably my wheelchair. It's a pretty nifty little chair that has quite a few unique features. Also I would need it to get there anyway. Otherwise maybe one of my drawings.

An amethyst crystal I found in my (gravel) driveway a full 4 years after moving in. It's a good 8 inches/20cm long, and shaped like a tear drop. It's amazing and I love it.

Nice, I love amethyst, I can't imagine how great it would feel to have found one myself. Anywhere.

My custom designed, fully 3D printed analog keyboards (which use 3D printed switches and stabilizers)!

https://imgur.com/CmaEsP6

That's my AHEK-95 (typing on it every day) which was reviewed by a semi-famous keyboard YouTuber 😁

https://youtu.be/iv6Rh8UNWlI?si=vsgg9F5dr1fBagyU

I'd also show off my Low Poly Rose Twist Vase design:

https://imgur.com/bdxnr27

My Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators.

I fuckin love these things. I used to feel left out when my friends would try to play music together, but then I found a way to be involved with a few mini-electronic-drumkits.

You can sequence a bunch of them together and sync them, easily, as well.

Teenage Engineering makes a bunch of other cool shit, too. I'm not much of a musician, though, so most of it is way beyond me.

That stuff is so cool. Thanks! Solved a birthday puzzle for.me I think.

These are so cool, thanks for introducing me to them! Might have to get the sub one

I'd bring my best girl Laika, because she's awesome and I don't have any interesting junk.

Probably, my grandfather's blades as they tell pretty incredible stories. In order of when he was received them:

  • USMC Kabar knife. He was issued the knife when he joined in WW2. He was lucky to avoid combat. Really, really lucky. He was on a troop transport en route to Kyushu when the surrender was signed on the USS Missouri and Operation Downfall was cancelled.

He went on to join the rubber industry, working for a major manufacturer in Indonesia. He kept his Kabar with him and used it a lot but never in violence. The combat knife became a tool of agriculture. The original leather rotted away in the tropical heat and humidity, was replaced with an improvised aluminum one. He was an avid gardener in his retirement and continued to use it somewhat like a hori-hori. The aluminum handle is falling off at this point, so, I'm going to eventually replace it with one made from olive wood to complete the "swords to plowshares" symbolism physically.

  • Indonesian Parang. This blade is similar to a machete in design, about 20-24in (~51-61cm). My grandfather was given this blade at the rubber plantation by a deeply despondent man. The man had been pressured into taking part in an honor killing but didn't have a violent bone in his body. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to murder another human being, he came to my grandfather who was well-respected in the community (he was ceremonially adopted by the local tribe). They came up with a solution. If he didn't have his parang, he couldn't perform the killing. So, he left it in my grandfather's hands, making him promise to never return it.

While that man is probably long gone, I keep that promise myself and strive to ensure that the blade is never used for violence. Perhaps I'll see if I can figure out a good mount for it to permanently prevent its removal from the scabbard. Its continued existence, to me, provides tangible evidence that there's always another way.

I appreciated this comment, that's a great show and tell story.

My favorite rock. Its just neat.

I would bring a bunch of fossil rocks & Petoskey stones!

Or my enormous collection of rare (not gonna say the brand) plushies! I'm one of the handful of people who have a special "good community citizen" plush from them!

Or my dumb lizard who was born without scales. I like to educate folks on why they should never get one.

Never get a lizard or a lizard without scales?

A lizard without scales! At least this particular lizard. It makes their natural instincts vs. their physical sensitivities a nightmare to balance.

I can think of three options:

My crossbow. I am not a hunter but I thought it would be super cool to learn how to use one. SO got it as an anniversary gift for me.

My horse hair embroidery sculpture things... I am not sure what to call them yet, but I like unusual art and these fit the bill.

My succulent collection . I have many different kinds and love propagating them.

Ps. I don't know how to upload pics to lemmy. Everytime I try an error pops up.

Any propagation tips? I've tried a few times and they just go so slowly!

I mainly just pluck a petal off a healthy one and put it on top of moist dirt

I am gladly going to share my most guarded secret regarding succulents, obligatory "I-am-not-in-the-usa" disclaimer. I live in a place near the tropics but with very cold winters.no snow though.

Neglect is your friend. I forget to water mine all the time, if I find gnats or whatever on one just spray it lightly with rubbing alcohol or pinesol, etc.

Specifically for propagating: Cut your petals/leaves clean off of the mother plant. I use my hands but you can use a pair of very clean scissors, then put them in an empty terracota pod no moisture and leave them be until they can "heal" the "wound", sort of like scarring (spelling?) Then when you start seeing tiny little roots THEN place them on moist soil and proceed to ignore so they start doing their thing. My soil mix is 70 or 80% mineral material and the rest regular dirt. Hope this helps

I can't tell you how happy I am that some of the replies here are about electronic music machines.

I've found it very difficult to find anything like r/synthesizers and it's fellow circlejerk in Lemmy. If I've missed the obvious, please let me know.

For my show and tell I would bring my little analogue synthesiser and my special echo foot pedal. They are very simple but have unusual attributes that are easily demonstrated.

I have a jar of tar sand from the BP oil spill

What's the story behind how you got that?

I went out there as medical support when the event horizon caught fire. Spent some time in the skimming fleet, and found a better role supporting beach cleanup. My brother asked for a jar, so one night I gathered several from one of the tar sand piles.

It was quite an experience, BP was throwing money at the problem and the Cajuns were sucking that teat as hard as they could. The shrimp boats stopped running, not because of the spill, but because the recovery paid double and was easy money.

Let's not give BP any credit there. I'm pretty sure they didn't pay any taxes while they were doing that cleanup.

I'd probably bring this. It's the actual award that the Movie V for Vendetta won for being certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

How did you get your hands on that? Are you James McTeigue or one of the Wachowskis?

At one point when Republicans did their latest shitty thing to trans people the Wachowskis decided to auction off a bunch of props/awards/memorabilia to fundraise for a charity and I won one of the lots with this in it. Amongst other awards

That is simultaneously shitty and awesome! Glad you got some memories and supported a good cause.

I would bring all the different handicrafts I tried... From crocheting animals (amigurumi), needle felting, diamond painting, miniature building kits, tatting (tho I haven't have much experience with this), cross stitching, polymer clay, bracelet making, braiding (Kumihimo), beading, "light" jewelry making - depends how much time I have :D

BTW I am open for more craft ideas - I do try to find new ones I haven't tried before. :)

You and I would get along I feel.

If you are into this stuff I'm sure we could be virtual craft besties :)
I kinda miss this thing from 100+ years ago when women (mostly only women) gathered together and did handicrafts while sung songs or told tales and gossiped about everything :)

We do a lot of hanging out and gossiping on fedi tbf. Mastodon is really big on crafts, and on Lemmy we have places like !knitting@lemmy.world, !crochet@lemmy.ca, !lemmy_stitch@sh.itjust.works, !sewing@lemmy.world etc for specific crafts.

For the crafts a bit too niche to have their own active community, !imadethis@lemm.ee loves to see completed projects!

Gonna tag @DharmaCurious@startrek.website and @OftenWrong@startrek.website too because I feel like a lot of folks don't realise how much craft stuff we have on here!

I'm down to be Internet crafting buddies! :D

Also, if you're at all lefty and within a reasonably drive of a major city you can probably find a group of anarchists or communists who still do quilting bees and crafting bees. A lot of what I know I learned from people who absolutely do not look like they'd be sewing and knitting. Haha. Spike mohawks and full punk vibes, plus knitting needles and gossip. It's awesome.

:) Right now I'm back to digital crafting = programming. So nothing to write home about. I did try to find some like-minded people over here, but it's not easy here. I'm living in Las Vegas. And that means we are immigrants from dozens of different countries and basically 10% of born Americans were raised here. No history and virtually no community in this facade of a city. Probably I would have more luck in a small one gas station town :D
What are you crafting these days?

I immediately thought of tatting just because it's kind of interesting that you can do it two such different ways with such different tools, and also because using a shuttle looks like actual witchcraft.

Do you have any projects? I would love to see some of your work

Alas, not really! I have a cheap shuttle and am still trying to get the hang of "the flip" but I'll get it eventually. I did manage a sort of wonky snowflake but that's about it so far. Trouble is, as you know, all the other hobbies getting in the way 😄

Currently working on cross stitching a dragon from the Discworld books, knitting some crazy speckly socks and a shawl that is way behind where it needs to be to be finished on time, and planning various sewing projects. RIP my free time.

Just left another comment with links to some of the more active craft communities on here, we'd love to see what you're working on if you ever want to share!

I'm trying needle tatting, but my experience is to end up with exactly what I started with, namely a thread waiting to be used :) While it's easy in theory, I still have problems of grasping the building blocks.
My last big project was a "never again" cross-stitch from aliexpress. Totally understandable where you are :) And thank you for the links, I missed one of those from my subscriptions!

I just looked up amigurumi after reading it here, how hard is it to get started with 0 experience?

It isn't that hard. You need a crochet hook, some yarn and stuffing. And maybe one needle with a big eye - but that's not that important. I watched some youtube tutorials and learnt that way. The big trick with it is to use the "magic circle" to start the project. Here is a random video for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ushHnIxLdYw&ab_channel=olliehollycrochet Hope you can try it :)

*forgot that you need a marker too to see where the "row" starts. (I usually just use a piece of those twisty ties that comes with packaging, but you can use a simple paperclip or even a big safety-pin.)

I've taught a few people to crochet and all it really takes is patience, and and accepting that you're going to feel like you've somehow got both too many and also not enough hands for the first little while. There's no shortage of tutorials online so it's just a question of finding a beginner one that clicks with you and going from there.

And if you get stuck, need to ask newbie questions, or just want to show off the first few wonky rows of stitches you make to people who will understand what an achievement it is, !crochet@lemmy.ca is the community for you!

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I would bring my modular synthesizers. I brought my eurorack set up to a synth meet up and it was the most popular station next to the theremin

I have a couple ideas though I'm not sure how good they would actually be. I guess anything you use for a hobby or are interested in could be used.

A 3D printer was already mentioned but would probably be the most fascinating (and bulky) thing I could bring. In that case I would probably talk about the workflow that goes into making a part, what to look out for when printing and how a print is actually made.

For simpler stuff I have 2 ideas. Firstly, I am kind of fascinated by pocket watches and have one that belonged to my great grandfather or something and is probably ~100 years old at this point. My grandmother gave it to me on my 18th birthday. The scale of the parts inside such a watch and how they work really interests me but I don't dare take any of the watches I have apart since the parts are so small (though still larger than modern mechanical wrist watches). Did you know there are so called "railroad grade" pocket watches? They were used by train conductors and had to have a certain minimum accuracy since time differences in planning could otherwise lead to train collissions.

The second small thing I could talk a bit about are fountain pens. For that I also have an older pen (A Pelikan 140 which was manufactured some time in the 50s or 60s) which is a piston filler pen, meaning it requires using ink bottles to refill. This allows usage of some really nice looking inks. Interestingly, the color of the ink on the paper can vary greatly depending on various parts of the pen (Nib thickness or the feed of the pen impacting the wetness) and the paper which may be more or less absorbant. I have a nice green ink which will have a red shimmer on wetter line parts if I use the correct paper. On other paper types it is just green.

My Bad Dragon collection!

Wait, how adult are we talking?

It's really important you demonstrate the 'show' part to everyone, but I'd be impressed more on the tell. I.e., is using a toy like this more strength focused (dragon bonk feel good) or dexterity focused (filthy dexterity user)?

I built one of those Ben Eater 8 bit breadboard computers, which I'm pretty proud of.

How would you rate your jumper wire neatness compared with his?

An attempt was certainly made to keep it tidy.

Wow I thought you meant the 6502 computer, but it looks like that's the original one made of logic gates and shift registers, right?

Yep, that's the one! I 100% want to give the 6502 a shot too, would be fun to run something more complex than a Fibonacci Sequence on it, haha.

Is a copy of Ben Eaters or did you do your own thing?

I largely followed along with his build, but tried to rearrange everything to be more compact.

I also had to make some changes to get it to work, since there are actually a few well-known issues with the way it's done in the videos.

I have plans to hook it up to a Raspberry Pi Pico, and set up a webserver so people can control it online. Could be a fun mod for sure.

Very cool!

I was recently at a maker space that had thousands of unused ICs and thought this would be an excellent project. I couldn't really interest anyone else. They wanted to just keep hording the things away.

my Akai MPC 2 I've played a bunch of instruments my whole life but this thing was the missing piece that allowed me to record full songs. Wish I knew about it a decade ago so I like introducing it to people.

I was about to answer that I don't really have anything to bring, but the many pointy bits of metal I've stuck in keyways and the many hours I've spent watching defcon talks actually has me ready to give a whole presentation on security

I'm bringing my lockpicks and showing how easy it is for someone to rake a standard kwikset lock. Be aware of your security's limitations. Even if you have the best lock on the world, you do not have plexiglass windows. If you don't have a security system beyond a simple lock, and there are a lot of break-ins in your area, it's time to invest in an electronic security system, and then put a sign out front advertising a different system.

My gitlab repos. There are over 100. Most of which are useless, but those are the fun ones. One of my favorites is called grubbed grub. It's a bash script that adds a picture of a hollow knight grub to your bootloader.

How long did it take you to make that?

I like the idea.

Not long at all. It's less than 10 lines. It copies the image to somewhere on /boot. I don't remember where I'm on my phone. And then it's a grub version of bootctl to refresh the bootloader.

My board game prototypes! Can always use more playtesters :)

I'd bring an amateur radio. Fun device that gives you access to an alternate method of communication. They're old fashioned, but amateur radio gets used here and there in emergencies. I think it's more of a precautionary thing from a practical perspective, but it's still cool.

I have a fair amount of crap, but not a lot of it is of much interest to most people.

Unless someone out there wants me to show up with a laundry basket full of Fumos and subject them to an unsolicited three hour lecture on Touhou lore...

Yes, please! BTW, Marisa is best girl.

What is a Fumo?

Collectible marketable plushies of anime girls from a very specific franchise. Have a bit of a meme cult following. Both the franchise itself as a whole and this product line in specific.

Google will show you what they look like, and /r/fumofumo on Reddit has a collection of memes and shitposts to see, but if you don't get the appeal that wouldn't be surprising.

Fired and unfired pistol, rifle and shotgun ammo. I think I could give an interesting talk on the differences and the history of various cartridges, no fine details, only a broad overview. To keep it fun, I'd sprinkle in lots of things most people probably don't know.

For example, did you know an AR-15 round is actually kinda wimpy, especially compared to a typical hunting round? In some states, ARs are illegal to hunt with because the bullet is deemed too small to make a clean kill. It's basically a hauling ass .22.

And .22s are a neat topic by themselves. There's crazy variety out there, even tracers!

My fully water cooled itx PC running arch, then I can force my hubby on them 😍

then I can force my hubby on them 😍

Trying to decide whether that was a typo, or if you are into the whole open relationship thing.

He has a water cooled PC running arch, chances for an actual hubby are slim.

Probably a synthesizer. MEGAfm would be the coolest, but I imagine my desktop Hydrasynth would be more impressive.

Probably either a Ken Payne bronze called The Trail of Change or my Ibanez s521 guitar with the ocean fade paint job.

Inherited it from a family member who loved southwestern and native American culture and history they shared with me so it's some sentiment along with an interesting statue.

Most of what I own is minimal and function over form but I just think it looks awesome and is fun

I've got one of those guitars too! Super light, really fun to play, looks awesome.

My knives, because it's sort of weird even for me that I carry these knives around for work, and a weird thing becoming humdrum is the sort of thing I'd like to hear about at the show & tell.

Probably my chi-fi headset. Don't really have anything to show off. And maybe my laptop to show that I use a package manager of the future.

Depends, is it a casual thing or more serious? If it's casual I'd probably just bring a Trading Card Game deck (MTG, YuGiOh, Pokémon). If it's more serious, I'd bring in some of my junk like a broken microwave magnetron, to simultaneously bring attention to the problem of short product cycles, explain a bit about how what most people see as a magic appliance functions, and show that even complex things can be broken down into simple parts.

You know, I think an adult show and tell wouldn't be too different to a kids one, we don't change that much in what we find cool from 7 to 70.

I'd bring some pets, I have geckos that are an all female species and reproduce only through parthenogenesis, most people find them cool.

I play Warhammer and D&D...and have extensive mini collections. I'm envisioning a diorama.

Or a few of my favorite knives and a good whetstone, to show how easy it is to do and teach a good skill!

I'm an antenna engineer. I'd bring an antenna because after hearing a lot of adult show-and-tells I figure people could probably use some sleep.

99% of audience dozing off, 1% fascinated by the mystical art of antennas and radio waves. I know the science behind it, but I still don't know how you guys came up with some of those designs.

To be honest, we learn about the basic antenna designs, and there are many, and then usually new designs come from altering some idea to fit a new need, until there is nothing of the original idea left. LOL. Usually, we're asked to size reduce but it's just not physically possible to do what is often asked of us. There is a running joke in the industry that customers always want an infinitely small antenna with infinite gain. Usually we start with something like a monopole design and change the physical parameters until we can no longer meet the spec. Hopefully the antennas fitsb in the required space. At least that how did it. Necessity is the parent of invention, after all.

Do you still use nec2, or do you have some sort of proprietary thing?

Never used that myself. There are many programs we use depending on what property you are looking to calculate. I'd say the main tool is HFSS. I personally used CST mostly because when I was learning all of the licenses were usually in use and CST was always available since it was not as well known. But seriously, I'd estimate there are literally dozens of programs plus programs that each of us writes, usually in Matlab.

Matlab

That might be the barrier. I seem to remember NEC2 was the only game in town for amateur use, which is why I have it installed. It's the only thing I've used that still expects punch cards.

my laptop so i can show off gnome and emacs (and my trackball!)

I own a sextant. I have other cool stuff, but that's the one that probably has the most universal appeal.

This has been a very cool thread.

I'd bring my Split ergonomic keyboards I've built/am working on.

I'd love to get others into the hobby or crowd source help in coding QMK from those who are already in it. Online forums are a great resource but for some there's no replacing an in-person teacher.

I'll hopefully come back and edit this post when I get home to share a picture.

I'd like to bring a tall ship sailor. Preferably from the 18th or 19th century. I bet they'd have some interesting work stories to tell.

Ma dick

Edit: Buncha prudes...

Are you ready for the critique or is that all just part of the enjoyment? Secondly, if presented with a challenge of sword fighting would you accept?