Ask HN: What are your Hobbies? - lainon
======
mindcrime
It varies from time to time and I haven't been spending a lot of time on hobby
stuff lately, but some things I drift in and out of time permitting:

Bicycle riding: Road, MTB and BMX

Powerlifting

Trail running

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu / submission wrestling

Tinkering with old cars.

Hobby electronics / hanging out at the hackerspace messing with random
projects. I started an effort to build a Z80 based 8-bit "retrocomputer" a
while back.

Lately I've been picking at learning to play keyboard / piano.

I've also been dabbling in trying to learn to draw.

I also like to read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction.

And last but not least, going to heavy-metal concerts.

~~~
King-Aaron
What's your flavour of cars?

Personally I'm into older japanese makes, currently playing with circuit
racing in an early model mx5 (miata).. But also a big fan of Australian and
American muscle.

I find it really good having a physical/mechanical hobby outside of the on-
screen work I do during the day. It's like sorbet for your brain.

~~~
mindcrime
_What 's your flavour of cars?_

American muscle-cars from the 60's / 70's mainly. I own a 1968 Camaro that was
my first car (a gift from my dad) but it's been parked for a while with a
blown engine. Lately I've been thinking a lot about trying to find a cheap
1970's era pickup, maybe a Chevy C-10 or something, to play with. I get tired
of newer cars and how complicated it is to work on them. Take my RX-8 for
example: you have to jack the car up and crawl underneath just to change
spark-plugs. Uuugh. OTOH, take something like a 1975 C-10 and you can almost
get inside the engine compartment and stand on the ground _with the engine in
place_. You also don't need a lot of special tools, secret manufacturer codes,
etc. to work on something like that.

Honestly, I spend enough time during my day job doing "computer stuff". I'd
rather have a car to mess with that's old enough to be pre ECM era. No fuel-
injection, just a plain old Holley 650 or something. :-)

~~~
King-Aaron
I totally get the idea of avoiding computers in the car side of things. My Dad
and I used to work on old Holdens (GM) when I was a kid, and I ended up with
carburetted Datsuns for a long time.

I wish we got some of the cool 70's American products down here in Australia,
though we get some equally neat imports to make up for it I suppose. But it's
certainly a good hobby to have outside of work I reckon.

And haha, yeah the rx-8 probably isn't the best example of a newer car in
terms of maintenance or reliability :) But I do love rotors!

------
khedoros1
Posting in a Raspberry Pi Facebook group. Mostly information on how things
work, some Linux education, etc.

Reading (mostly SF)

I've been teaching myself reverse-engineering of DOS games, and I've had one
project in particular going on for a couple years, with numerous branchings,
experiments, side-investigations, etc.

Learning languages, on and off. German, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese,
and Arabic, in rough order of how much time/work I've put into each.

Collecting (computer and video) games. I only play a couple hours a week these
days, but I can still rarely resist if something interesting-looking comes up
for a nice price on GoG, or somewhere. Or a sudden yen for a childhood console
game.

I suppose I've made a hobby or a game of coming up with novel ways of making
my son laugh, and to (mildly) embarrass his mother.

------
jakebasile
Gaming. It’s by far my largest expenditure of time and discretionary income.
Despite that I still have quite a backlog. I’m working my way through the
original The Witcher right now.

------
david-cako
Music, photography, video games, coffee, hiking.

I spend ludicrous amounts of time reading wikipedia (technology, psychology,
philosophy, science, design).

I wish there were more single player video games that I found interesting. The
only stuff I can enjoy are competitive multiplayer games. Antichamber and Soma
are the only two single player games that come to mind that were incredibly
good experiences.

I think and read about software/computers about 12 hours a day too if that
counts.

~~~
chadgeidel
I've toyed with reading "A Wikipedia article a day" with the intent of
broadening my knowledge. I'm just clicking articles (reading through the US
Presidents right now) and gathering articles for later.

Do you use any tools to streamline reading Wikipedia or are you just using the
site and following interesting links?

Thanks!

~~~
david-cako
No tools, generally just starts off as a tangent on a particular topic and
spirals out from there.

I always have a tab-backlog of wikipedia and HN articles.

------
ekr
Cycling, mountain-biking, XC mostly. I just love being out in nature on a
beautiful trail.

But if hobbies includes academic interests, then computer science,
mathematics, (programming is a given in this community I suppose), rationality
and many other fields of science. Also, competitive programming is something i
do occasionally, the short feedback cycle gives makes it quite addictive.

------
dasmoth
* Gardening (vegetables especially, with a slight eye on moving towards self-sufficiency over time -- although ideally we need a little more land)

* Cycling

* Brewing

The combination of parenthood and my current job seems to have cut into hobby
programming a lot, but haven't given up completely.

------
mrlyc
Photography and weightlifting. Back in the old days of film with two camera
bodies, a motor drive, tripod and five lenses, I could combine the two. Now
that I have a more sensitive digital camera with one zoom lens, I have to go
to the gym.

------
whymsicalburito
-Coming up with date ideas

-Coming up with small talk on dating apps

-Going on first dates

-Wishing there was an app for arranged marriage...

~~~
Cerium
A few years ago, back in 2013, I was traveling in China and joined a tour
group for a few days to go see the high elevation mountains in Yunnan. There
was an interesting couple on the group who told their story of their arraigned
marriage. Up to that point I thought the whole idea was bad and antiquated.
They talked about how they enjoyed both approaching the idea of marriage as a
journey and learning experience, something that I feel has been lost for many
western couples.

I thought there was something beautiful about how two people, who barely know
each other, but have been selected by their parents and match maker both agree
to make the best of it together. They explained that of course they have
differences, but by both putting in effort have made a happy relationship.
They seemed very sweet together and had a nice positive energy.

------
soulnothing
Weightlifting, Dancing, Learning to DJ, Writing, Improv,
Cooking,(Story|Poetry) Slams, Meditation, Video Game Modding, Wood work,
Mixology, Programming, Pro Wrestling, Travel, Learning, etc.

~~~
abhinavkulkarni
@soulnothing: WL total?

------
thorin
Whitewater kayaking, climbing and walking in the countryside. Playing guitar
and reading. Used to enjoy mountain biking but almost given up since having
children.

------
SirLJ
Stock market trading and fishing - not sure why, but I feel they are related
somehow. Also I read a lot - few hours a day, mainly fiction.

------
norea-armozel
DIY Electronics, mostly in shortwave radio listening (amps, antennas, and the
like). And video games (perhaps too much even).

------
stevekemp
* Learning Finnish.

* Taking pictures.

* Spending time learning about hardware, via ESP8266 chips.

* Auditing software for security problems.

* Reading. Constantly.

* Indoor rock-climbing & general gym-going.

------
autotune
Guitar, singing, reading (science fiction + interesting non-fiction), running.
The amount of time and effort it takes to become reasonably good enough to
sound "talented" at the first two items alone is long enough to take a decade
or so, maybe half that if you are good at practicing.

------
apolymath
* Skyrim modding * Cyclocross * Music production * Player Unknown's Battlegrounds * Developing a drag & drop CMS * Smoking Weed * Boxing * Texas Hold'em * CrunchyRoll (anime) * Aggressive Inline Rollerblading * Mobile app development using React Native * .NET Core

------
debrisapron
\- Programming, obv.

\- Coding electronic music / sound design

\- Songwriting

\- Singing

\- Pen-and-paper RPGs (mainly D&D, as a player & DM)

\- Cooking, baking in particular

\- Reading, mainly weird fiction & philosophy

\- Rambling (hiking to Americans, but generally involves more pubs)

\- Real ale / craft beer

\- Trying to read the entire internet

Something I just realised: I am an utterly stereotypical, central-casting nerd
:/

------
oxplot
\- Hacking in general: tinkering with things and modifying them to better suit
my needs from software to electronics to woodwork to sewing and more.

\- Rockclimbing = purposeful exercise with some problem solving for my busy
mind

\- Movies

\- Lot of science/space documentaries and talks on YT

------
guilhas
Meetup philosophy groups; gym yoga class; read; travel, history, science
(space, biology, tec history) documentaries; politics stuff; Twit, hacker
news, coursera; Machine learning tutorials;

------
caspercrf
Motocross, Street bike riding, Desert Racing, Riding in Baja, throwing a
wrench on my bike/truck/RV.

Looking at starting a company motorcycle related...hope it doesn't kill my
hobbies :-/

------
gvurrdon
The ones that seem to take up most time and effort are:

Historical fencing (inc. teaching, wrote a book as well), target shooting,
living history.

These require some reading of sources, language study, and so on.

------
Kevin_S
Watches and watchmaking

Hiphop/R&B music

Baseball/Basketball statistics

Beer

Reading about Philosophy and Religion

Weightlifting

~~~
kqr2
Can you give some more details on your watchmaking hobby? What's a good way to
get started?

~~~
Kevin_S
I wish I could, but I am practically brand new to it. The interest in
watchmaking is coming second to an interest in watch collecting.

The advice I got was to get Watchmaking by George Daniels and read that to get
a strong overview.

It's unfortunately currently sitting on my bookshelf, I am forcing myself to
complete the GMAT before I dive into it.

~~~
fosco
I am very interested in watch making and saved these two [0][1] items to come
back to when I have time. I would love to see what resources you have to share
if any at all!

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14610110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14610110)

[1] [http://watchesbysjx.com/2017/05/portrait-masahiro-kikuno-
jap...](http://watchesbysjx.com/2017/05/portrait-masahiro-kikuno-japanese-
watchmaker.html)

~~~
tostitos1979
At maker faire SF there was a $10-$15 kids plastic watching making kit some
association was selling. Search for Horology, AWCI
([http://www.awci.com/](http://www.awci.com/)). I have been obsessed with
lego-based pendulum clocks for a while as well as how cuckoo clocks work.

This is the kit I saw btw (not sure about this particular seller):
[https://www.happypuzzle.co.uk/products/the-amazing-clock-
kit...](https://www.happypuzzle.co.uk/products/the-amazing-clock-kit.aspx)

I will pick one up for my kid when she grows up :)

------
chrisdbaldwin
Killer Queen, the world's only 10 player 5 vs 5 arcade game! I travel the
United States and play this stupid bee game.

------
nategri
Collecting and writing code for Apple II computers.

More recently: 3D printing, and I'm just starting my first robotics project.

------
julian55
Cycling, change ringing, gardening, music.

~~~
julian55
I forgot photography.

------
duckkg5
Woodworking, electronics, 3D printing

------
sheharyarn
\- Programming

\- Programming Hackathons / Conferences

\- Music (Alternative / Indie)

\- TV Shows and Anime (I waste too much time on them)

\- Yoga

\- Cooking

\- Learning other languages

\- Non-Fiction Books

------
mosaiclifestyle
Music and concerts

Maintaining my aging (13 y/o) German car

Watching basketball / F1

Weightlifting

Reading psychology books

Trying to get into guitar

~~~
andyjsong
When you say:

>trying to get into the guitar

just curious, have you been able to play your first song? How long have you
been at it?

------
Taylor_OD
Reading, gaming, performance art, comedy, seeing movies.

------
benmowa
Family, Flying and Fixing things around the house

and gardening

------
patch_cable
Flying, Hiking, Yoga, Reading, Gardening

------
Charlie_26
Acting. It's my retirement plan.

------
fsiefken
theology, monofin swimming in open water, board gaming, reading sf books

------
mpfundstein
my daughter and wife

------
niccl
lighting for bands

------
pyrex
Beer Brewing

Rock Climbing

Radio

------
amirouche
sleeping.

------
AntonyBrown
Birdwatching is my biggest hobby. It's also a wonderful way to relax and take
my mind off things. I've recently bought a cute device to enjoy this passtime
more. Take a look [https://www.atncorp.com/smart-hd-
binocular](https://www.atncorp.com/smart-hd-binocular) .

