What is something like a hobby or skill that you belive almost anybody should give a try, and what makes your suggestion so good compared to other things?
i feel like this is a descent question i guess.
Biking.
Moving under your own power has so many benefits:
- It’s fun
- It’s cheap (or can be, to be fair)
- It’s good for your health
- It’s good for the planet
It’s fun
My knees disagree but each to their own ;)
I cringe watching someone struggling to turn the pedals when they are riding a multi geared bike.
Cycling is good for the knees, if you’re not staining to turn the pedals. That’s why gearing exists.
Use the gears to make the pedaling easier.
Also to add, the seat height should be adjusted such that your leg is just under full extension when on the pedal at its lowest point. Otherwise you are wasting a ton of power with every stroke, and will feel it in your knees much quicker.
Yep, switch to a low gear and cruise! I love going fast so I’ve always been a high gear guy, love mashing but after a while I could definitely feel it under my right kneecap. I try to take it a little bit easier nowadays and haven’t had that problem
O yes. If you have problems, shift down, pedal faster. Everything above 70 pedal turns per minute is good for your knees. Everything below is bad
My Hemorrhoids also disagree
Wait a minute internet dude, did you make sure your seat was the right height? Having the seat at the right height I.e. fully extended legs, the down like an inch, really helped me out with the joint pain. I mention it because biking is generally considered a low impact activity. Knee surgery haver here, myself :')
I started cycling to commute about a year ago and it’s been such a wonderful thing for my mental and physical health, not to mention my bank account. Beware that you may get sucked down the Not Just Bikes rabbit hole if you’re not careful and end up becoming a walkable/bikable cities advocate as I have.
epic!
UK weather says no
Is there a bike you would suggest for a beginner to buy into that isn’t too expensive but also not junk? Budget of $300 or so, but can flex.
Electra Cruiser 1. I was able to pick one up new for $300 and I’ve been dailying it for about 6 months or so.
Baking - fresh warm bread is so good!
Sewing - it’s nice to add pockets to things 😁
Oh my god yes the lack of pockets! Changed my life when I learned to sew.
Baking - fresh warm bread is so good!
Second this! Just made bread a few days ago using the King Arthur easy bread recipe and sure enough it was super easy and came out really good!
And cooking! Being able to really master techniques and understand the interactions between flavours and ingredients is incredibly satisfying.
Warm bread just out of the oven with real butter is rapture!
Here to second Sewing. I think understanding how to make simple repairs and understand clothing structure better is probably a skill that pays off a lot.
bread is good and sewing you get to make cool cosplays sometimes, so overall bread is good.
I hate sewing, and I’m so glad that I can do it.
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Ditto. Like, I picked it up on the job, but I use it in my daily life all the time. I really like writing dumb little home automation shell scripts to turn lights off/on based on more specific conditions. I was also able to easily snipe an OG ergodox off of /r/mechmarket with praw back when those were all the rage. It’s fun, and the rush you get when you finally solve a tough problem is hard to beat.
This actually got me working in the IT.
ive been wanting to get into game dev but it seems like alot of work and i suck at everything, also im limted with software and im not even sure what game engine or thing to use, if that makes sense. do you hav eany advice or something you want to share?
Take a look at Gadot 4. As a beginner you can think of it like an open source unity. But they just had a major update and seems to make a lot of the tedious aspects of game dev and streamlining them. Everything is an object which is really nice and they have a scripting language based on python. Easy to read and write
Python with PyGame can be quite a good start. And if you’re just trying to build something for fun maybe use free assets from the internet.
Taught myself python at 50 years of age. My God, being able to code is like a superpower. I started out doing some things to make my job easier, later developed an interest in web scraping and data analysis, now I am tinkering with machine learning. I regret listening to people who told me that a strong background in math is required for coding.
I reccomend trying out GB studio. It makes gameboy games and comes as one binary file. Not too crazy to learn. I liked the music player thing.
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I’m a hobbyist game dev also. Main advice would be that yes it is a lot of work and you may suck at everything, but the only way to get any better is to get started.
Pick an engine, it really doesn’t matter which for the most part (I used to use Unity and recently switched to Godot, the way people evangelise the latter can be a bit offputting but as an objective user of both I can say they’ve got pros and cons like anything else). The exception being if you want to make a very specific kind of game like visual novels for example, then you’d be best served learning Ren’Py since that’s what the engine is for.
Other than that, get something installed and hunt down some tutorials for it. Doesn’t matter if they’re irrelevant to what you hope you’ll one day make, you’re just trying to learn the basics here. Take what you learn in tutorials, and modify it in some way, that helps things sink in better and gives you more understanding about what your code (or your blender animation, or whatever) is actually doing and how it works.
TLDR: Just get stuck in!
p.s. there’s a few general “gamedev” communities on here so far but I think the most active one is [email protected] (direct link). Check out the pinned post in there with links to neighbours like engine-specific communities etc. Someone is also organising a Fediverse game jam for next month so that could be a good way to join a team and get started doing small tasks on a game that you wouldn’t be able to make yourself yet.
How hard would it be for a noob to host a Lemmy instance?
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Thinking of learning sign language…
I tried sign language on a whim in college and ended up loving it! It’s really unique and fun to use. It ended up being my secondary focus on my degree. Also, Deaf people are always super happy whenever there is someone to speak with, even if you stumble through it they are always patient and try to help
how long did it take you to learn it?
I studied it for about 4 years doing a mix of learning and being a teaching assistant for the intro classes, but realistically I was conversational after 2 classes or about a year.
Some tips if you want to learn. I learned American Sign so your mileage may vary for others:
-Find out what sign language is primarily used in your country ASL (American Sign Language) in the US, BSL (British Sign Language) in England, I think some parts of Canada use FSL (French Sign Language) but I cant remember. Universal Sign exists, but is never used so dont learn that.
-Use your dominant hand for all single handed signs
-Learn the alphabet, there are not signs for every word that exists. Often times words are spelled out (fingerspelled) instead of having signs. So by learning your alphabet you can always default to spelling things out if you dont know the sign.
-Facial expressions are super important. They feel really weird at first and often times are what beginners struggle with the most, but they are used to show tone in the conversation and without them you are missing a large building block of the language.
-I found the best way to practice was to sign to myself instead of talking to myself. It helped me remember the main signs that I would use in conversation and helped me practice my finger spelling.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out. Im still very passionate about the language and culture.
Thank you for all the tips and everything!! South Africa use their own sign language - went on their website and they offer a course! I enrolled for it.
Interesting what you say about facial expressions - it makes sense!
Can’t wait to start with it.
that would be useful.
An instrument. It’s soul food and extremely therapeutic. Even if you suck, just learn to let it go. I find it’s really good for my mental health. I dunno, it’s music ya know? Lol
I’m really grateful my parents pushed me to start playing the violin at 5, because it massively enriched my life. Even when I was bullied, abused, and miserable, playing my violin would help pick me up just a bit.
I agree, singing does that for me as well. Could be having a shit day but after choir things always seem a bit better
This is the one I was looking for. Everyone should learn an instrument. The struggle is so rewarding. Music is such a natural means of expression; if you’re happy, depressed, in a mood, annoyed… all of that can be put into music. It can be the purest joy or the most intimate therapy.
Public Speaking
You never know when you’ll have to say something in front of a crowd.
I’m so sorry, but I have to reply to this, I misread this as public spanking, and have been giggling to myself for about 15 minutes.
Apologies.
How dare you, you dirty dirty child. You have a dirty, filthy mind. You should be…
Wait, what were we talking about?
that is true.
It really is a skill. I struggle with it, but it just takes practice, outside of extreme cases where severe anxiety are involved, but in those cases it’s a great resource for mindfulness and cbt.
Hiking.
Getting up amongst the fells and mountains, mostly in isolation from noise and other people. Sure there’s touristy spots where alot head to but there’s still plenty of other, maybe slightly more difficult to hike places if you wanted pure zen.
Navigation is important, don’t just go up with Google maps expecting her to tell you when the next left is. Get some research done, and head out. Don’t overcomplicate things with buying loads of gear that youtubers “recommend”, don’t send it up a 3000ft hike either. A slight ascent, around a lake - start small, find your feet and grow from there.
The best thing I could ever have started for my mental health.
Agreed! Just some quick safety tips for people who might be getting into it:
- Always tell someone what trail you’ll be hiking and when you plan to get back. That way, if you get lost, they’ll notice you’re missing and can call for help on your behalf.
- Always bring water, a physical print-out of the trail map, and a waterproof jacket with you. Yes, even if it’s the middle of summer: weather can change quickly in the mountains, especially if you end up going above the tree line. You don’t want to get caught in freezing rain when you’re just wearing a t shirt and shorts because it was 90 degrees and sunny when you parked at the trailhead!
- If you’re in bear country and you’re hiking alone, tie a bell or some other kind of noisemaker to your backpack. Bears almost never want a fight, they’d much rather avoid you, so make it easy for them by giving them plenty of warning you’re coming.
- Wear shoes with good grip for navigating rocky areas. You don’t need expensive hiking boots, work boots or grippy sneakers should be fine.
Self-hosting. You learn how to use Linux, security, managing services, and after all that you have your own little ship on the internet. After all that you gain a massive understanding of how the internet and the technology you use daily work and run (to an extent).
Learning a new language. You learn a bit about how languages work, understand other cultures a bit better, usually learn new vocabulary for your native language, understand the relationship between different languages, learn the roots of loan words and generally helps your brain stay healthy, even by only studying the basics.
what lauguage would you recommend for people who only know english?
Not OP, but I’ve asked myself this as well. I think it depends on where you live and what you want out of your language learning experience. If your goal is to learn something more useful in everyday life and you live in the southern US, Spanish is a great option. If you’re from Canada, French is probably the most useful. German and Mandarin are useful in the business world, but the latter is significantly harder to learn. If you’re not worried about maximizing the utility of what you learn, Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers, and let’s be real, Norway is awesome.
It’s more important that you stick with whatever you choose though. That’s the part I’ve struggled with.
To be honest I’m not a native English speaker so your advice is probably more useful anyway. My husband is British and has studied plenty of languages, finding Swedish and Norwegian definitely the easiest to pick up. Romance languages have more complicated grammar but you’ll find a lot more TV and movies to watch to casually pick up a bit more of the language, which I find useful because I only speak English as well as I do from watching a lot of TV (first with subs) when I was younger.
do you have any swedish tv shows or movies you could recommend? the more the merrier please, or any resources for it at all?
oh I know this one: danish it is very close to english (and to german, kind of a mix)
Bit of an off-the-wall suggestion but I was having real trouble learning other languages mostly due to all the cases (and sometimes genders). So I started learning Esperanto, which admittedly is not the most practical language to know BUT it really helped me understand languages more in general. It’s very simple to learn and easy for an English-speaker to pronounce, as well as having lots of recognisable words (the Esperanto for “yes” is “jes”, which is pronounced “yes” lol)
Now that I’ve gone back to learning German I’m feeling much more confident about learning in general just because I got some of the grammar concepts from a much easier language. Might be worth a look if you’ve struggled before.
Spanish: it’s the most return per effort.
Esperanto is reckoned an easy pickup, has speakers globally, and will improve your default in most romance languages. The community is also quite nice, in my experience.
Esperanto seems to be pretty useless to invest so much time into learning it. Wouldn’t be learning “normal” language more beneficial anyway?
Depends on your goals. If you’re going somewhere with one language to spend time, or especially value a particular language, studying that language makes sense. If you want access to a global network of the sort of people who would pick up a conlang intended to be a universal second language, one speakers of can be found anywhere, Esperanto’s your pick.
Mi lernis Esperanton ĉar mi volas havi amikojn en ĉiaj la landoj de la mondo.
I am Polish native that can easily read Ukrainian, English and also some German and I have no clue what that sentence means in Esperanto :D. I can only guess that “lernis” is probably something like “learning” and “mondo” refers to “world” (guess based purely on ‘Le Monde’ - French newspaper). Rest looks like some random Lithuanian stuff. I don’t think knowledge of Esperanto could give me any advantage when traveling across Europe. Idea is cool but to be honest English is the new lingua franca and I think that’s good because it’s easy to pick up and already widespread.
If you’re curious…
“Mi” - pronoun meaning I/me
“lernis” - learned (The root is “lern-”. The following rules apply to all verbs: “-i” is the infinitive form, “-is” is past tense, “-as” is present tense, “-os” is future tense, “-us” is conditional tense (kind of like could/would), and “-u” is imperative/command form.)
“Esperanton” - obviously Esperanto, but the “-n” suffix denotes a direct object.
“ĉar” - because
“volas” - (verb, present tense) want
“havi” - (verb, infinitive) to have
“amikojn” - (noun, direct object, plural) - root is “amik-”, the “-o” suffix denotes a noun, “-j” makes it plural, and then the “-n” for direct object again
“en” - in
“ĉiaj” - all
“la” - the (this is the only article in the language; incidentally, there is no indefinite article)
“landoj”- countries (“-o” is noun, “-j” is plural)
“de” - of (there are actually multiple words that can mean “of” but that’s another topic entirely)
“mondo” - worldThe letter “ĉ” is pronounced like “ch”; Esperanto doesn’t do two-letter phonemes because one of its foundational principles is one letter = one sound.
what lauguage would you recommend for people who only know english?
You weren’t the target audience for my initial comment.
“I learned Esperanto because I want to have friends in all the countries of the world.”
Crochet
Pros
- Documented mental health benefits
- Cheap to start, can learn from online tutorials
- Easier than knitting
- Make cool toys, clothes, home accessories, whatever you want
- Get to smush yarn into your face on a regular basis
Cons
- Fibre crafts gateway drug
I like crochet, even though I’m really bad at it. It’s very peaceful (unless I’m counting stitches, then it’s a constant fight against my ADHD), and I have a bunch of cool scarves now.
I think that’s part of why I suggested it over knitting, you can do the complex projects with the counting and the actual effort OR you can just mindlessly crochet a long scarf or a bunch of cotton washclothes and end up with something practical.
Knitting is a lot slower and also less suitable for some of those small projects like washcloths so unless it’s basic garter stitch you pretty much know you’re gonna have to concentrate at least a little bit.
My girlfriend does both, and it’s definitely amazing how much faster crochet is! Like, “oh, here’s a giant amigurumi dragon I whipped up in a week,” or “here’s a poncho made over the weekend for our vacation,” with crochet, versus “I have to frog 4 weeks of work because I slipped a stitch and didn’t notice.” Granted, she’s much better at crochet (by her admission), but knitting seems tough. Love the stuff you can make with it though.
Haha, yep that sounds about right! I do love being able to do both, some things you can do with knitting you just can’t do in crochet especially if you need to create a nice drapey fabric. Being bistitchual is the best of both worlds!
I love the smushing! Find it so hard to learn though
Sounds like you have the most important part of the hobby down already, at least!
(see my reply to the other comment for various maybe-helpful links)
Any online tutorial that could help me get started you recommend?
Well, I don’t want to be That Person but technically I made a (long) video for total crochet beginners that I know quite a few people have used to great success. It’s frontloaded with theory though and more for people like me who learn by understanding the “why” of what they’re doing.
If you prefer to do it in shorter chunks or without all the tedious theory, which let’s face it most people do, I’ve heard really good things about this Bella Coco series which has, um, slightly more views than mine 😅
There’s a fairly new (aren’t they all) crochet community over at [email protected] (direct link) that seems very nice so far, I’m sure they’d love to help with your first attempts too!
Cooking is a very nice, relaxing hobby and you also get to eat some good food!
It’s also very useful and an easy way to impress people.
It’s extremely difficult for me to cook regularly anymore, I just don’t have the energy. When I do choose to, though, I make it a fun event and it’s so satisfying. Put on some music, drink some beers and go to town.
I made Chinese noodles from scratch a while back and while they were SOOOOO GOOD, it was so labor intensive that I would only do it for fun and not to satiate myself lol. They were nice and bouncy noodles, cut a little smaller than chow fun.
noted
Learning to cook can save you money, and make you more healthy. (It can also do the opposite, but thats on you.)
3D printing. Suddenly you are able to fix small plastic shit in your house which would otherwise mean throwing out the whole goddamn thing. Best feeling ever to repair and save stuff.
i wish i could 3d print board games and such but printers are so pricey.
You might want to check out laser cutting. Same prize range and so much faster for board games. (basically works like a 2D lasercutter, most commonly used with wood or plexi glass).
I’ve heard good things about Ender 3 printers and their clones if you’re willing to tinker. AFAIK, the experience right out of the box isn’t great, but they can be modded and upgraded over time and can be fairly capable.
That being said, those might still be too expensive depending on your geo. I seem to recall reading about reprap projects designed to be built as cheaply as possible using harvested components from things like old scanners and shit.
Check your local public library!
Sewing, at least to the level of basic mending. Helps one realize what well made clothes look and feel like.
Some form of metal working, and specifically machining. I really enjoy machining, and I’ve been able to make some genuinely useful things. The tools are actually really quiet and stateful, unlike woodworking power tools which SCREAM at you like horrible demons. Seeing people look at their first top, or pen, or miniature cannon is great. Plus, things made in metal are at least slightly shiny.
For example, you could make dumbbell handles and plates like this: a photo of dumbbell handles and weight plates
Or a metal yarn winder like this: a photo of an all-metal yarn winder
The major downside is that it’s not cheap (not as expensive as boats, possibly more expensive than photography), and it requires at least a bit of space that you wouldn’t mind getting dirty. Luckily, I feel like makerspaces are starting to have more and more metalworking equipment.
you make some really good points!
Thanks! Like, I definitely don’t know that it’s a hobby that everyone should take up, but I think it’s worth trying once. I’m really glad I took the plunge because it’s made such a huge improvement in my happiness.
tying knots. All you need is a couple of pieces of string to get started. The right knot, well tied, is like a good friend - you can count on it. Shipyard workers sometimes make fun of how inexperienced mariners tie up their boats to a dock with “if you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot!?” (full disclosure, I am a sailor).
someone else mentioned sign language - that is also extremely useful sometimes! My wife and I learned it when we learned to SCUBA. We do not have any deaf friends, but sometimes you meet a person who is reliant on sign, and if you can at least spell out some words, ‘they are so grateful’.
You know I’ve often wanted to learn more knot tying options, especially when I’m doing things around the garden. I’ll have to take your advice and learn some!
Do you have an recommendations of which ones to learn or resources?
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=binding+knots&iax=images&ia=images there are so many wonderful choices! The simpler looking ones are usually the best. :) But they are hard to describe with text . . .
I firmly believe that most active people should know how to tie a bowline knot one-handed. It’s not hard, and it could save a life.
More of a double bowline person myself. Less failure issues
