What is your special interest?
What is your special interest?
Mine is mapping. I am a big OpenStreetMap contributor and I have mapped many towns near me that were previously completely unmapped.
Metal guitar, comic books, epistemologies. A lot of people write off metal as just distortion and shouting but it's a huge genre like jazz or classical without as long a history. Comics interest I stopped for awhile but got back into it and helped me learn drawing and story writing to better appreciate the artistry. Epistemologies from an interest in reading philosophy books and that was just the subtopic that always held my interest most.
I have a weird obsession with fonts. I love a good, well designed font. How it looks on the screen, how it looks in print. Nothing too gaudy or showy, but a really good League Spartan or Lato Light. (Not a fan of serifs)
Other than that, normal stuff; 3D modelling, writing, etc...
My other interest that might fall "outside the norm" is that in University, if I had continued beyond my bachelors my primary focus would have been studying the Bronze Age Collapse, and that topic still fascinates me to this day.
Edit: Oh...and spreadsheets. There's no problem in the world that can't be fixed with a well designed spreadsheet. All problems come down to data sorting.
I've had several multi-year long ones:
- As a child: Stargate SG1
- Adolescent: paraphilias
- Young adult: the care of high violence risk and cluster b psychiatric inpatients
- As I'm entering middle-adulthood: western esoteric spiritual tradition and philosophy
This week? AuDHD doesn't let me have one for long.
Fountain pens and inks
Picking up new hobbies, investing in them far beyond what would be considered a casual interest, then getting bored or disillusioned with the community after 6-24 months.
See
- Foam dart blasters
- yo yos
- magic the gathering (This was like 15 years)
- coin collecting
- juggling
- pocket knives
- archery
- running
- Currently working on 3D printing, though that's been more of a means to get back into foam blasters because it's far cheaper to print your own blasters and mod parts.
What are you doing with your time this week then? 😬
We love OSM for finding gravel routes for our bikes. However, since no bike maps ever say the state of the gravel, and mark many as paved, we've been pre-driving and contributing. It's fun!
In any event, my interest is serial hobbying. I'm a maker, so my site is full of random projects. I'm in a techy phase right now, so just released some Steam Deck accessories, the Only Sensor, and am now working on a DIY solder extractor and building a Voron.
Thank you for your contributions!
I love learning about Chinese culture both real and mythological. I am learning some mandarin on the side and hope to take a trip to mainland China someday.
Do you have any favourite facts or stories?
Learning about Chinese culture is lowkey a little hobby of mine too, I'm mainly into it for the cuisines and food side of things though.
Journey to The West was my gateway into Chinese mythology. It has been retold many times in many different ways and languages. It was an introduction to a fascinating world very different than (for me) worn out western tropes.
Aztec history.
I've been pretty into four things lately:
- Healthy cooking, from scratch as much as possible. I got into a rut trying to maximize protein intake, so now I'm trying to find different recipes that don't compromise on macros but still offer variety in flavors and textures and won't bother my IBS.
- Nail polish and nail art. I have probably about 300 polishes at this point, which sounds like a lot to most people, but it's a tiny collection compared to some I've seen! Last year I got really into nail stamping, which lets you create neat little designs, and you can get really creative with it.
- Working out. I recently moved, and designed a power rack for my basement which is pretty fully featured. My goal was to be able to do all the exercises I could do at my previous fitness club (within reason - no way I'm buying a tank sled and a billion 45 lb plates!). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and so is my husband, which I'm glad about because he's a tall dude and working around the low-ish basement ceiling was a challenge.
- Indie makeup! Holy Moses I love makeup, and indie brands are killing it. My most recent favorite palette is the Cosmic Brushes Winter Wonderland palette (which came out last year, but is new in my collection). Just look at her!:
Gorgeous, right? No way I'm ever going back to boring neutrals.
Are there any good nail art or makeup communities on the fediverse yet? I love seeing how creative people get with these art forms.
Those iridescent shadows! The teal/purple shift is so pretty!
I wish! Every now and again I search "polish" and "lacquer" hoping a new community will have been made, but so far no luck, though it's been maybe a month since I checked. I keep trying to talk myself into starting one, but I don't know if I have the patience for modding.
My most stereotypical special interest (in that it's something really random that you might assume there's not a lot of depth to) is artificial lighting technology.
But I have a lot of stuff I could infodump about: computers, video games, TTRPGs, world building, neurology, etc.
Could you tell me some cool stuff about artificial lighting technologies? That sounds interesting!
linux
My main one is vegan food. Before I had access to a kitchen to make my own food, it used to involve collecting, curating and creating recipes, but has since moved onto creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain flavour and texture profiles.
The current big one I've been very obsessed with making and eating for the last few years, is variations on hoisin mock duck wraps.
The latest iteration is a salad wrap, with leaves of nappa cabbage as the wrap, a layer of vegan garlic mayo with chilli crisp, mock duck, green onion, cucumber, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, hoisin sauce, corriander leaves, and another cabbage leaf to cover/ close the wrap. This probably has the best textures so far and tastes really good!
Making/eating kimchi is a similarly intense interest/obsession. So is hotpot. I fucking love hotpot.
My secondary major interest fluctuates between several different things, but is currently perfume.
I'm very into creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain scent profiles, and collecting perfumes.
I like to do this through layering different perfumes on my skin and clothes, so I can highlight certain notes/sensory aspects for myself (that may not be apparent on other people's skin chemistry, so this, like with my other interest, is a very subjective fascination!).
Over the span of three days (between showers) I like to start in one place with my layering combinations and go on scent journeys as the notes morph and fade, and I add to them with other complimentary scents and see how far I can go. Notes linger on clothing longer and differently to how they do on skin, so as I'm layering over several days it builds up in fascinating ways. It's very interesting to me too finding which layering combinations work one way but not the other.
Lately I've enjoyed starting with a base combo of Mauboussin Mauboussin (resinous yet juicy plums and lots of ylang ylang) and Musamam White Intense by Lattafa (juicy spiced oranges and too much ambroxan)- and then taking that in interesting directions as it fades over the day, like layering on more spices and wood notes, and then when that fades, onto various ouds and roses.
Or adding a Stronger With You flanker (sweet and aromatic with chestnuts + individual flanker variations), then when that starts to fade leading it with fragrances full of ginger, vanilla, lactonic nutty notes and patchouli.
Being enveloped in layers of beautiful fragrances is such big sensory good times for me and discovering new combinations is so pleasing.
Also before anyone comes at me for this, I live alone and don't wear any fragrance when I go outside, so I'm really not hurting anyone with this hobby!
Oh man I've recently started getting into fragrances... I'd never realized how complex (and expensive) they can be! I discovered Kayali's Yum Pistachio Gelato from a makeup youtuber I follow and it's all been downhill from there. Lately I've been layering Ellis Brooklyn's Super Amber with Phlur's Heavy Cream, and I keep sneaking little sniffs of myself throughout the day... and sniffing my bra when I take it off for the night... send help!
What are some of your favorite unexpected notes to combine?
Ugh, I know right?! All my spare coin is going towards perfumes!
Yum Pistachio is gorgeous! I love all the dupes of it too, all the Arabic houses are on top form lately.
Your combination of Super Amber and Heavy Cream sounds hella sexy!
Ok, so here's a REALLY strange but beautiful scent combination I've found, let me try and set the scene it makes for you first:
You're in an coastal pine forest during a lightening storm. It's night. You can smell the wet earth underfoot and the forest behind you. Just before the rain starts up again, you're looking out over the sea as it crashes against the cliffside, sea water mists the air and sheets of lightening illuminate the world.
This was from about 5 spritzes of Vanilla Vibes by JHAG (salty non-gourmand vanilla) with a modest spritz of Quorum by Antonio Puig (beast mode aromatic oakmoss) over it. Encre Noir by Lalique could probably be substituted for the Quorum for a similar affect, but you'll need to spray a lot more of it as Quorum is very, very strong.
The way the sea salty solar notes of Vanila Vibes play against the dank mossy woods and grapefruit of Quorum, it's so visual for me. And there's this ozoneic smell they form together that isn't constant but is electric and kinda how I imagine lightening smells.
Do you have any unexpectedly beautiful scent combinations? Please share if so!
What do you use for the fake duck meat?
I’ve gotten pretty obsessed with making good seitan, but there’s just so many variables. I’m mostly a texture person, and I find that the place where lots of vegan recipes fail is in the texture department. So that’s where my passion for vegan cooking leads me.
The Linda McCartney Vegetarian Shredded Hoisin Duck have been my go to for a while as they're in most of the big supermarkets here and I can get them delivered to my house.
I like to defrost them and use them 'raw' (they're already fully cooked) because I find the texture gets weird when they're prepared according to the package instructions.
Any Asian superstore will likely have many varieties of better, and probably cheaper, mock duck though. If I lived near one I would be so fat!
I had a seitan phase a few years back, I got really into finding good spice mixes to include in the dough for maximum 'meatiness'.
I made and tried to like the 'lunch meat' style seitan a few times, but memories of being a kid having to eat actual lunch meat (and how slimy and sometimes gritty from gristle it was) really put me off it.
Texture wise with seitan, I liked gently beating the kneaded dough flat with the end of a rolling pin, and then tightly rolling and coiling it up, wrapping it tightly to steam, and then shredding it and adding bite sized bits to hotpot.
What's your current favourite seitan recipe? What texture do you like your seitan?
Levitation Wand!
I think it is pretty niché as most people that see it have no idea what is going on to begin with and if drugs are involved I love blowing peoples minds with it.
Ooh this is new to me! Very cool.
Hedge laying. It's a technique where you almost cut through the stems of the plants in a hedgerow in order to bend them down. This promotes the growth of new shoots and results in a very dense hedge, which historically was done to make sure animals didn't escape or enter pastures and fields.
Wonderful! I’ve been hoping to learn to do this to replace my neighbor’s vinyl fence. What’s your preferred style? Do you recommend any resources for learning the skill?
I like making homemade bongs and water pipes specifically from reclaimed materials. I'm not strident about things, but it's fair to say in a general sense that I need them to have $0.00 of material costs. I make "the best" in terms of performance, and people freak out when they use or see them. They are always a huge conversation piece, always creative, and I just give them away. People ask me all the time to make custom ones but I won't. It's free or nuthin'
I know people that still use water pipes I made for them 15 years ago! Sometimes they look a bit "trashy" but they're crafted! And that's the way I like em!
Remember when Homer Simpson made that misbegotten lump of shit called VunderBaat or something? I feel him man
As a long time, daily bong smoker you have my attention, got any pictures of your creations?
I have made a few in my time with varying degrees of success but I'm intrigued as to what variables you consider and what "best performance" looks like to you?
I have so many interests that it seems impossible to pinpoint one particular interest. My mind is very active and chaotic, partly due to anxiety. I often try to fill an existential void with chaos and randomness.
That said, I would say that mathematics is one of my main interests, especially the branch of mathematics that intersects with the artistic and experimental. Tinkering with numbers, without a definite purpose (because there is no purpose in my nihilistic mindset), just for the joy of it. There is also programming, which serves as a framework for the mathematical experimentation that I mentioned.
Then there's also the philosophical reflection, as noted in my parenthetical mention of nihilism. I don't really know if I really enjoy philosophical inquiries into the reality of existence or if it is a consequence of an existence alienated from a social life, perhaps it started as a consequence of my awkwardness until it eventually became part of my interests.
There is also occult and esoteric studies. Perhaps a consequence of "gazing into the abyss" which sparked my curiosity in dealing with the darker aspects of reality. There is something about beliefs like Satanism, Luciferianism (as a side note, they are different beliefs, for those who oversimplify and think they are all "the same" because "devil"), Chaos Magic, Thelema, there is something there that is attractive to me. The hidden truths of reality, the shadows within ourselves, the cosmic forces that emerged from the primordial chaos. I really like them all, although I don't really belong to any specific belief system.
And this leads me to scientific interests as well. Particularly studies on the cosmic aspects, quantum mechanics, studies on the origins of the universe, thermodynamics, zero energy universe theory, studies on how everything will end (Big Rip, Big Freeze, Big Crunch...). I don't really delve into the technical depths of science because I'm not a scientist, but it is part of the framework of how I try to see things.
In a summary, I have many, intertwined, sometimes even opposing, simultaneous interests.
I would call myself a nihlist in a good way. Because life is meaningless, we are free to create our own meaning if we want to.
How did you start with that? I've contributed some via Street Complete, but I've never figured out how to contribute directly to OSM.
Contributing via StreetComplete is contributing directly to OSM, so good work. But like Interstellar said, you can just log in to openstreetmap.org, zoom in to what you want to edit, and click Edit.
You can edit from the OpenStreetMap website, zoom in on an area, click Edit, then it has a nice helpful tutorial. It's very beginner friendly and easy to edit. There are also many other applications for a variety of platforms listed here https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editors
Initially thought I didn't have one, because I was thinking it had to be, like, things you do or whatever. Like wood carving or building something. Then I realized I absolutely do. Lol
Philosophy and religious studies. Non dualism especially, but honestly, I just love learning about different philosophical ideas. I love Anthropology in general, and the differences and similarities between disparate cultures is downright fucking fascinating. People tend to think that the differences in, say, Hinduism and Christianity are pretty great, and they absolutely can be, but if you dive into the deep thinkers of either tradition you tend to find that oftentimes they're trying to say the same things.
Mine is Free software. If I can avoid it, then I avoid nonfree software. This brings me a lot of problems but also a lot of joy.
so true bestie
i upload photos i take of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, fungi, and bugs. The observations (photos + location + annotation) are uploaded to a public database accessible to researchers and universities.
I've been involved in multiple species range expansions, and i've documented both endangered and invasive species. Pretty fun!
The Android app is very good. The iOS app is good for uploads, but lacks a lot of browsing features like search filters and phylogenetic trees. If you are on iOS i suggest using it in a browser except for observation uploads
You can also upload audio recordings for bird and bug sounds. It's amazing what you can learn about your local ecosystem!
I love iNaturalist. I lived out in the woods for several years and would see so many different bugs that I didn't recognize. So when I discovered it about 2 years ago, I started taking pictures of every bug I saw and uploading them to the app to learn what they were. And then in August last year there was an unusual explosion of mushroom varieties in our yard. That's the one area where iNaturalist is a little weak as it really struggled to give me good ID's for a lot of them. But it should only get better with time.
I'll see if I can find some mushroom photos to share here.Edit: one of my favorite mushroom pics I got during the mycological explosion:
With mushrooms i often rely on other citizen scientists rather than the ID robot. There are some very friendly and active mycologists who can be a big help figuring out an ID or telling you what to photograph next time to get better data
iNaturalist
Thx a lot, I did not know about tis website.
Nice! I hadn't heard of iNaturalist. Over where I live most people use observation.org
Thanks! I will check this one out too
Cryptography. If something exists, its very existence conveys something or is about to.
Not the same thing, but steganography seems pretty interesting too.
Game preservation. I got into it last fall when I learned about OpenGOAL for the Jak and Daxter games. I grew up with those games and were some of my favorites from that generation.
I then learned how easy it was to rip PS1 through 3 games and how simple it is to set up the emulators for each console. I have a sizable collection of games for those generations, so I started ripping.I then remembered watching LTT's video about how to jailbreak the Switch. I bought a used Switch from a friend pre-pandemic, but never played the games because I never cared for playing on the Switch itself. So I checked if mine was old enough to jailbreak (Nintendo patched the exploit out of the Switch about a year after it released) and, lo and behold, it was.
It wasn't easy jailbreaking it. It took several hours over 3 days to do it; I would make some progress, then hit a roadblock I couldn't figure out, so I'd stop and come back the next day. I'd get a little further, hit another roadblock, and repeat. Once I managed that, I ripped my (small) collection of Switch games and played them on Ryujinx. Now that I could finally play them on my laptop whenever I wanted, I actually had a desire to play them and managed to get through BotW in January.Then I figured out how to jailbreak my Wii (which is pretty easy, I recommend everyone do it to theirs), so I could rip those games. It can also rip GC games, so I didn't need to find and jailbreak one of those to do it.
When I learned of shadPS4 this summer and the progress it was making toward playing Bloodborne, I spent $400 on ebay to get a gold PS4 with firmware 9.0 so I could jailbreak it and start dumping PS4 games.
At that point I saw how much space all of the games I ripped took up on my laptop, so I bought a NAS from a friend who was upgrading theirs and set it up with two 8TB hard drives in RAID 1 and stored all my games on there. It's currently about 60%+ full.
Over Halloween I went to a used game store and saw they were selling a Wii U for $160. I bought it and jailbroke that as well and started ripping those games.
I bought an OG Xbox to jailbreak, but I need to open it up to replace the clock capacitor first. Otherwise it could leak and my effort would be for nothing. I just haven't got around to it yet.
I realized this was a passion of mine when I accidentally borked my PS4 and it would only boot into safe mode. I was 100% willing to completely wipe it and start the jailbreak from scratch so I could keep doing it.
All told, I've ripped about 400+ games in the past 15 months, spent dozens of hours ripping them, and have zero intention of stopping. I only think about how I can keep expanding my collection. Right now my next consoles will be the 360, PSP, and Vita.
Edit: rephrasing and adding a little more info
Do you have any kind of backups in place? I ask becuase raid 0 means if either of your disks fail you lose everything. Just wanted to make sure you're aware!
Woops, I meant RAID 1. I'll go fix that in my post. But I do have an external 4TB SSD with all my games except for the PS4 games since they're so large. It has about 750 GB of space remaining on it.
I also backed up my games on a friend's NAS in a separate location.
I also purchased a small rack server that can hold 4 hard drives. I want to buy a few 8 TB drives and set up Gamevault on it to better manage my few hundred games in my collection.
I wish my switch's screws weren't stripped to hell so I could do this too
I know more about the Doom engine than I do interpersonal relations. Did you know you can completely destroy collision physics via writing over memory addresses if you shoot a bullet weapon at a stack of corpses?
Meaning then you just pass through objects rather than collide? Or is it unable to properly calculate the incident & resulting collision vectors, meaning the resulting trajectories are nonsensical?
Primary: Disc Golf ❤️
Secondary: As many useful docker containers as I can pack onto my home server
Primary: flying powered paragliders.
Secondary: diving head first into Linux after 30ish years of being a Windows user, and also hosting every cool container I can find, even a few of my own.
Yay disc golf! What's the best course you've played?
Probably Hillcrest Farm in PEI Canada. Amazing course.
I have at least a couple.
3D printing. But I mostly design my own models and mostly for utilitarian purposes rather than artistic. For instance, my mother's into quilting and wanted a very specialized die for a Sizzix die cutter to use to cut quilt pieces, so I applied my amateur 3D printing, CAD, and mechanical engineering skills to the problem and designed/printed a die. The process also included making a custom tool for precisely bending the die blade.
Second, studying U.S. intellectual property law. I just dig it. And it's relevant to me because I frequently publish software and models for 3D printing under permissive licenses. And I like having at least some amount of understanding of what the licenses really mean and what people will be able and not able to do legally with the works I'm publishing.
IP law sounds so dry to me, but I love it when people are enthusiastic about niche topics like this!
Criminal law. Now that's boring. It's a wonder so many TV shows are based on criminal law.
I also sometimes release software and 3d models. What's your favorite permissive license? TBH, I didn't know enough about them.
(IANAL, not your lawyer, this isn't legal advice. Heh.)
I personally am a huge fan of copyleft licenses. "Copyleft" means that the licence is permissive in that it allows, for instance, redistribution (sharing) and derivative works (remixes, mashups, etc) but only on the condition that if they share the work or any derivative works, they must do so under the same license terms under which they got the work. That ensures that a) no one can (legally) make a derivative work of your work and put it under a more restrictive license and b) if they publish improved derivative works, you can take those improvements and incorporate them into your work (and the derivative work publisher can't object -- or at least doesn't have a case if they do.)
In terms of Creative Commons licenses, "share alike" means "copyleft." (The other popular family of copyleft licenses is the GNU GPL family of licenses, but those are really more designed for software/code than non-code works. Even OpenSCAD models, I tend to release under a Creative Commons license rather than a GPL license. Though for other, non-3D-printing works of source code, I always use the GNU Affero GPL.)
Aside from that, I tend to go as permissive as possible.
So, in concrete terms, for 3D printed models, my go-to license is the latest version of the Creative-Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license. This ensures I get some credit down the line and ensures nobody can make a more legally-restricted derivative of my work. But it also explicitly allows the creation of derivative works and even sale of drivative works under the condition that a) I, the creator, get credit and b) the buyer gets the same rights to the work.
Love me some watercolour.
Very cool! I think watercolor is neat because you can make really ethereal, abstract pieces, or you can make more realistic (which seems like your style, having peeped a few of your posts in that comm).
my hobby is collecting hobbies
if I could have a special interest for more than a week at a time I bet I'd be good at it ...
I'm not sure about that, I have a lot of hobbies which I have for years like brewing beer, drying meat, making sausages, playing bass in a band, programming, and I'm not really good at any of them.
I think what defines a special interest over a hobby is that you're good at it.
Been really looking at playing bass again ...
I really had to think just to come up with nothing lol
I get REALLY into something for 2 weeks then I drop it and never look back. I was into minerals/mineralogy for a few years I guess, but I'm not all that knowledgeable. I just really like copper bearing minerals like dioptase and azurite.
I'm not really into mineralogy, but damn is it fascinating. I just think all of the minerals and gems look so cool.
My dad and I went to the Smithsonian Natural History museum recently and by far our favorite part was the gems and minerals. I could spend hours in that one part of the museum.
I just think all of the minerals and gems look so cool.
That's where I'm at too. I said mineralogy, but really just because I didn't know a concise way of putting "I just like how minerals look" in terms of an interest. Lol
Definitely agree on the Smithsonian, such a cool section!
God, this is so me. If I had to pick one, I'd say writing/story telling, but I'll never be able to finish writing a book or a script because 2 months is basically my max
Hobby collecting!
I joke that my real hobby is shopping for my new hobby but it's not really a joke is it
I want to say selfhosting but that seems not so special on Lemmy. If I can host it myself and it’s FOSS I do it.
Special to you even if not to others.
Planes and to a lesser extent Cars and Trains. I just love travel, points hacking, and flying!
What is 'points hacking'? Are you moving rails and sending trains off in the wrong direction?!
As someone who no longer commutes, this sort of chaos is deeply amusing. I hope it's this.
I'm not so devious, it's mainly just tricks to maximize the amount of points/miles you can get via credit cards and travel, which you can then redeem for travel. Usually in business class!
Fighting games and Riichi Mahjong.
Believe it or not, this venn diagram has enough overlap that we've got a running joke about how Riichi is becoming the new FGC Retirement Home. We've even got a few people bringing tiles to every major tournament to unwind before/after brackets. I've booked my trip to Frosty Faustings next month, signed up for six different brackets and I'll try in squeeze in as much 'jong as I can too.
Animatronics. I like old school Chuck E Cheese and Rockafire Explosion. Also, urban exploration. Train videos.
How do you even do that?