Mine would be creating pen and paper ciphers for my made up secret communication needs.
I try to make something that looks good (or at least doesn’t look like random static) by running pictures I’ve taken through audio editing software. There are some extra steps that go into it to “trick” the program into importing the picture as if it were a sound file, making sure the header (information that tells your computer that this is a picture) doesn’t get fucked with, and then exporting the data in a way that it will be saved as a picture and not an mp3 or something else.
On the rare occasion I do bring it up, I can literally watch people’s eyes glaze over. Until I show them a picture
Edit: internet is really bad right now, will reply with an image when I can
Edit2: picture was too big at 7MB. Hopefully a screenshot of the picture doesn’t look too bad
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.
So got a question for you. I have wanted to get in to this - just as a curiosity. Is there an inexpensive set of picks a person can buy to get started with to play around with?
I tried googling and ran across about a hundred different suggestions and Amazon was the usual (no help).
If you’re familiar with the Lock Picking Lawyer, he has his own store and has some good kits.
https://covertinstruments.com/collections/lockpicks/products/learn-lockpicking-bundle
I’m not getting any sort of kickbacks from the link. I picked one of these bundles up and I like it. The lock it comes with is super handy because it’s designed to be re-pinned. You can change the pins without disassembling the entire lock.
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.
This right here is why electronic locks could be way more secure than mechanical ones, if only their manufacturers would hire well-trained programmers and not boot camp graduates to write the firmware.
If the Lockpicking Lawyer has taught me anything, is that a number of electronic locks tend to be easy to bypass via hardware rather than software
I’m a math teacher. I use my video game making knowledge from Godot to make little video games to review skills. Each takes a few weeks to make with game design, making all the art, programming, and making the worksheet.
Here is my Disco Dj-Demo if you were curious what I mean.
I think it’s fun, it’s not something I can really chat with others about.
You’re amazing and your students are lucky to have you. Thank you for being you!
If someone I knew made entire freaking games and didn’t tell me about it I’d be pissed! That’s really cool and you should wear it on your sleeve, imo.
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 install and set up operating systems. It’s something I do to my own computer regularly, but I’ll cheerfully do for someone else because it’s fun.
Linux is my favorite, but I can do Windows, Free/Open/Dragonfly BSD, Haiku, and given time to research others as well. I keep meaning to give NetBSD a shot…
It gives me a focused task with a specific end goal that requires some technical knowledge, but mostly preparation, research, and troubleshooting skills. The activity can sometimes lift me out of a depressive episode for a while.
Contributing to localization in my language. (I use Localizor or weblate) I’ve helped translation for the Godot Engine and many released games. It’s a free hobby granted you have a PC and some knowledge. I’ve always liked translating stuff for those who can’t speak English. And it keeps my language skills sharp in both.
For me it’s being a witch and all witchcraft related things.
Nude hiking. I mean I wouldn’t care if someone I knew saw me, but I wouldn’t be talking about it in most conversations.
I really enjoy getting the most out of a computer/mobile device that I have. I love trying out different OSes, messing with a video game to squeeze as much as performance possible etc.
For me it’s coffee. Most people see it as a daily need. When I say my hobby is coffee they always say things like “that’s not a hobby”.
Starting and abandoning hobbies.
Marxism
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
Ha, and judging by the avatar you play video games with trains too! I adore Satisfactory
Most hours in a game by far, I think I’m closing in on 2 thousand. I’m slowly trying to kickstart !satisfactorygame@lemmy.ml again, come and join us!
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
Train gang needs no justification
Let’s see those train pics, my dude! Let that conductor-freak flag fly here.
Not quite ready unfortunately, still in the “lots of pink fiberboard and paper mache” phase, but oh I will when we’re done. We’re probably too small for a model trains community, but I’ll probably be hanging out in !trains@lemmy.ml
I genuinely like to engage with video games as an art form and I think some of them are among the actual best works of art there is.
It lands like absolutely nowhere. EIther people see you as a capital G gamer, but even the capital G gamers hate you because they want to enjoy product, not art
What games you like? I do like indie artsy games but my favorites are games with it’s medium in mind. Things like Undertale or oneshot, Or games that blend their motif wi incredibly well like the binding of Isaac.Or just extremely good ga like ultrakill and Skullgirls.
It’s a sort of you know it when you see it (play it) thing. Something along the lines of becoming more than the sum of their parts and also using the interactivity that the medium provides.
When I played TLOU I enjoyed it but I kept thinking “this might as well be a TV show and lose nothing for it”. It’s a well made story, presented with technical prowess in an interesting setting, then it’s also a sort of well made stealth cover shooter but it just doesn’t come together. That’s not to denigrate the individual efforts and art made there, I’m not saying it’s shit, but there’s just so much potential left on the table there. If you can 1:1 translate your game into a TV Show, like TLOU, why was it ever a video game to begin with, if you come at it from an art standpoint.
I don’t know if you played Gothic or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., those are quite similar in how it’s a great setting, well made (well, bar eurojank), the story is serviceable at best and for stalker especially veers off into nonsense at the end but crucially neither games would work as a book, or a film, or a visual novel. You could use the setting, sure, the art design and lore and stuff is solid enough to carry lots of interesting stories and have been used as such but it’d lose such a tremendous amount of what makes it great that it just doesn’t work. The first episode of Gothic (TV Show) is a man who walks into a city after pullign some beets and buying his way in. Or possibly sneaking in. Or maybe he murders someone and steals the uniform. Sure, that can be well made, but the point of Gothic is that you have all these options, go nuts. Fuck, transform into a raptor and cause mayhem then revert to human in the confusion, game will let you, but that’s the sort of thing that can’t be translated to other mediums well.
I’m currently playing through Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, that certainly goes more the indie artsy route, and I love it because again, doesn’t work in another medium. What makes it great is that it hits the line between the trash collection being tedious and frustrating, but still engaging enough, that it conveys the feeling the little sanidrone would have through interactivity. It sucks, but it is your only hope. And then the rest of it is also just very well made.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl was really cool
have you played Pathologic or Pathologic 2?
No, definitely on the list though, I hardly find time to game these days
Not too quirky or obscure but I really just like to fix shit. Clocks, washing machines, cars, crooked door, hole in a sweater, electronics… Nothing is outside of my interest.
On the more obscure side I like to fiddle with wrist watches by adding aftermarket parts and modifying their overall look.
