
Ask HN: What is the newest hobby you have picked up?  - kzisme
I&#x27;m generally looking for new things to try and things to get into. I&#x27;m just curious what others do in their spare time.
======
ende42
Swimming in the river Rhein before going to the office. I started last Summer.
And just didn't stop as it got colder. I just wanted to know if I can pull
this. This winter was pretty mild but still the water temperatur "peaked" at
4°C (39°F) in february. Now it's getting warmer again. Yay!

~~~
kzisme
What made you want to do this? Exercise?

~~~
ende42
No, not exercise. It was just refreshing in august. Then for some time there
was no reason to stop. Like "it's one degree less than last week. Why should I
stop now?". At some point I just wanted to know if I could keep on doing it
throughout the winter. When it was 4° I wasn't in the water for longer than 30
seconds. Just a few swim strokes, a dunk the head and out again. And it feels
really good right after. A little bit like right after sauna.

------
CatsoCatsoCatso
Bird watching. I'm no huge enthusiast but I've found it enjoyable to learn the
names & calls of the wildlife around my house. It's nice to get away from
anything technology related too.

Otherwise, I'm tempted to purchase a short-wave radio. It would be great to
hear a numbers station live rather than through poor internet recordings.

~~~
kaoD
Check out web software defined radios. There is a very good one at the
University of Twente (Nederlands)
[http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/](http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/) which
runs on a very fine piece of equipment and has a wide range of bands to listen
to (probably much wider than you could install at home.)

The only drawback is you're listening to signals somewhere else in the world
instead of your very "own" RF spectrum, but it's very convenient where
installing a gigantic antenna might not be feasible.

~~~
CatsoCatsoCatso
Oh fantastic! Thank you for sharing this.

------
T-hawk
Rubik's cube twisty puzzles. Far beyond the original 3x3x3 cube, which I've
known for years. There's been a boom lately in newly designed puzzles of
pretty much every polyhedral shape you can imagine. It feels amazing to deeply
grasp the mathematics of them and see patterns in generalizing and applying
techniques from one puzzle to new variations.

Here's some recent examples:

[http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&categor...](http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&category=13&id=171)

[http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&categor...](http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&category=13&id=327)

[http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&categor...](http://www.mefferts.com/products/details.php?lang=en&category=13&id=397)

Best community site: the forums on
[http://www.twistypuzzles.com/](http://www.twistypuzzles.com/)

------
Todd
3D printing with my kids. We built a RepRap Prusi i3 and have had a lot of fun
printing printer upgrades and other fun things. We've designed a few things
ourselves but often someone else has already designed something that we can
use on places like Thingiverse.

~~~
dm2
Printing 3D printer hardware upgrades from the same 3D printer is an
incredibly cool concept.

How much did it cost you to build?

What kind of materials does it use? Does it heat up plastic or apply something
to get the material to harden or how does it work? Are the input materials
reasonably priced?

I've found: [http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3](http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3)
which says ~$150, is that accurate from your experience?

Also:

[https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3](https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3)
[http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3_Build_Manual](http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3_Build_Manual)
[http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3_Buyers_Guide](http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_i3_Buyers_Guide)
[http://www.ebay.com/bhp/prusa-i3](http://www.ebay.com/bhp/prusa-i3)

Does anyone know of any similar or better types of open-source 3D printers?

------
robgering
What a great question. Other people's hobbies are always so diverse and
interesting. I like to joke that once you have kids, _they_ become your only
hobby, but seriously, that's far from the truth.

Right now I'm trying to get into wood turning (essentially making bowls and
things by spinning wood really fast and then carving it). My father is a
master wood turner so it's a great way to spend some time with the old man.

~~~
kzisme
That's really cool! I've only tried my hand at some small wood working tasks.
The price of tools makes me stay away from it generally.

------
scottrb
Weight lifting specifically, but trying to be more healthy generally speaking.
I'm addicted. I feel great, and am starting to change appearance. If anyone is
interested, I use bodybuilding.com's excellent database of exercises and try
to avoid injury with good form, low weight at first, and watching out for bad
pain.

Highly recommend it to all. Especially mostly sedentary knowledge workers like
myself.

------
stevekemp
Growing plants, building furniture, and photography are all minor hobbies.

Over previous years I used to tinker with repairing, building, and modifying
small steam-engines, but I seem to have lost interest in that a fair bit. I've
only got a couple of interesting and unusual examples in my home, and I rarely
fire them up.

~~~
kzisme
What kind of furniture have you built thus far?

~~~
stevekemp
Just simple things so far; desks, tables, and book-cases.

One of the more enjoyable jobs was fitting some bookshelves beneath a recessed
window, complete with a secret compartment!

------
sriram_malhar
Electronics, building an FM transmitter and hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi to
act as a base station for music.

~~~
metachris
You don't even need a FM transmitter for this:
[http://makezine.com/projects/make-38-cameras-and-
av/raspberr...](http://makezine.com/projects/make-38-cameras-and-av/raspberry-
pirate-radio/)

------
stephancoral
I started my own independent press. We have two books out with an anthology of
poetry / prose / visual work on the way plus two more titles before the end of
summer.

It has been a lot of fun and a great way to meet new people as well as be
exposed to a variety of works.

------
joaotorres
Lindy Hop (swing dance) lessons! Great way to meet new people in a very
diverse environment which often lacks guys, and also gets you active. Two
things I think it's safe to assume most here (me included) miss during our
regular routine.

------
ravensley14
you can try dancing,illustration or writing ,me i have always wanted to write
my own comics now i'm trying to do just that,think of something you always
wanted to do or learn and start from that.

------
sevilo
piano improv, used to be a huge enthusiast of that, it's a great feeling
getting to play just about anything that comes to mind. Considering recording
and sharing them on a regular basis too. Then I never realized how this whole
"wanting to be a real programmer" thing have dragged me away from it, or from
any of my hobbies really. Never gained much other than putting more stress on
myself and developed a more negative attitude towards everything. Now I've
decided I should get back to doing things that I enjoy :)

------
collyw
Whitewater kayaking. I used to be damn good, had a spate of shoulder
dislocations which basically prevented me from doing any for around 5 years. I
am rediscovering it as a sport.

~~~
japhyr
How did you deal with your shoulder issues?

I dislocated my shoulder learning to kayak a long time ago, and it popped out
about once a year until I got surgery. I spend a good deal of time in the
wilderness, and I am hoping I never have to deal with a remote dislocation
that won't go back in.

~~~
collyw
Surgery as well. So far so good.

------
geekingfrog
I'm spending most of my time on ice, learning figure skating

------
mattwritescode
Astronomy though its quite limited to the weather.

------
jeromesalimao
Sailing. Small J24's.

I live in Sydney. There's nothing quite like sailing in our harbour. Truly is
breathtaking.

------
abhgh
Archery. But I have decided to take a break because of back problems (which
originated at work)

------
lazyfunctor
Photography and trying my hands at post processing. Bought Nikon D 3200
sometime back

------
suyash
Playing Golf..what a way to relax and have a great game with friends.

------
chris_wot
Hacking LibreOffice.

~~~
kzisme
What specifically are you hacking away at?

~~~
chris_wot
I'm trying to untangle VCL.

------
rainmaking
Playing the banjo

~~~
lazyfunctor
Curious, is it your first instrument?

~~~
rainmaking
No, I already play guitar and bass guitar.

------
gadders
Raising poultry, specificall hens.

------
ddorian43
kickboxing / muaythai

------
alecszaharia
Carp Fishing.

------
cunninghamd
Brewing beer.

~~~
kzisme
Is this hard to do correctly? How did you start?

------
lumpysnake
Speed Cubing

------
cadalac
chemistry

~~~
rainmaking
Consumable?

~~~
cadalac
Not sure what you mean. I'm mainly watching 2 Youtube channels for a refresher
right now (CrashCourse and Periodic videos). I find it captivating like
programming or startups. In fact, if it wasn't for the expensive cost of
chemicals, lab equipment etc I bet a chemistry startup would be much more
exciting then a web startup. :-)

------
schoash
flying

~~~
ryannevius
Airplanes? Helicopters? Gliders? Balloons? RC? Paragliding? Something else?

