Do you maintain an interesting hobby?
This looks like some creative effort, are you building lots of prototypes?
When I can, I tend to use the guitar as my equipment so I can get creative with my instrument; the amplifier.
And of course the soldering iron.
It took years but within a certain range of audio circuits including the relatively high-voltage vacuum tubes and associated components I worked with since childhood, I trained myself to design with the soldering iron until satisfaction has been achieved, then document later if at all.
Using surplus or scrap components which I might have unsoldered by hand before being able to recycle them, in advance of taking the risk with relatively expensive new components :)
You come up with all kinds of things when you concentrate on getting the most out of what you have an abundance of, even if it is far from perfect.
More complex things, I'll study drawings or make my own crude schematics for more than one session before accumulating specific parts and plugging in the soldering iron.
I had a lot of math & theory as a kid, which I've forgotten most of, but came out pretty good when you look at it and apply it like "tin/lead sculpture" ;)
No PCB lots of times so with point-to-point, more than one prototype per day was common, or for pedals I would make a PCB in the wet lab because it was more of a chem lab anyway.
I had scopes and test gear and it was all mainly needed for troubleshooting & repair, not design. A huge milestone was to go from components to defect-free operation, consistently the first time you plugged one in, using only a minimal DVM along the way. You can't expect connoisseur sound the first time at all, but as long as it works and nothing smokes you can go from there.
I have said before that you can't start building proficiency early enough, and it's never too late, especially for detailed traditional discrete analog component work.
Cooking is sort of my everyday hobby, climbing & skiing are my weekend/seasonal hobbies.
- Longboarding
- Gaming (Minecraft, MiniGolf Games, and RoR2, mostly - all socially)
- Writing, mostly for my website ( opguides.info ) but the ocassional fiction story too
- Fursuitting and attending furry events
- Projects? Just like, generally making things. I'm always happiest when I have a few things in the works. It's usually one-off. Like, recently I did acrylic pour art. I'll probably never do it again, but it was fun.
Coding.
Twitter. Facebook used to be here but I got suspended unfairly so I no longer use it.
Working out.
Watching movies, TV shows, Ufc. Used to watch Rap Battles, but my interest died.
Reading about drugs.
Listening to podcasts.
Edit: Writing too.
I'm increasingly thinking about mowing the yard and managing the garden. That's a hobby, right?
As for me: programming, hiking, board games, reading, blogging, sports (martial arts / gym). And I'm trying to pick up some more.
I have no formal training, but I've watched a lot of writing-related YouTube videos and read books on writing. For you, I recommend just opening a blank doc (digital or just normal paper) without thinking about all that. I think consuming a lot of writing instructional resources up front is pretty paralyzing and demotivating, because it's easy to overthink. A trap a lot of writers (including me! Been there, done that) fall into is thinking about writing instead of actually writing.
If you have any ideas at all you wanna explore, just don't overthink it and get some words out (without worrying about stuff like prose or characterization or anything else). When I was younger, I'd browse https://www.tumblr.com/writing-prompt-s a lot as they have really interesting ideas.
Hope this is helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions; I could write about writing all day.
Nowadays the closest thing to a traditional hobby I have is discovering and reading books off Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
With my wife, we love to travel and spend time looking for new destinations (or rediscovering old ones!) and planning trips. We usually take two international trips a year (Europe and/or Asia) and a few domestic trips (usually to the West coast) as well.
Are hobbies in decline ... ? Well, they could be if everyone uses most of their brain cycles "consuming content" online. It is quite absorbing and may result in less interest in hobbies that require higher attention.
Lots of opportunity for tech integration as well - between weather/temp/moisture sensing, plant identification, irrigation timing, and season planning, I'm generating loads of data and making better choices over time as a result.
It's so important to have hobbies for personal fulfillment. PSA for past me and future others: not everything needs to be a side hustle!
We recently moved to to a coastal town with a huge river lake, after living all my life 800km from the nearest beach. So I'm thinking of picking up some water sport, such as kite surfing, rowing or something. We'll seem
I wouldn't play it though.
I joke that it’s the most opposite activity from programming
Formulated by default decades before any idea people would be carrying timekeeping cellphones everywhere at all times.
Now if you simply wear one watch once in a while that's way greater interest than most people have any more.
But yes I've taken a few apart to try to fix and service them, even if it's only with my $20 amazon repair tool set.
You'd be surprised how many times it turns out to be connections that look ok, actually aren't. I've seen bolted ground lugs that were open circuits. I've learned to despise silver mica capacitors.
Oh, and with vacuum tube based gear, letting some smoke out doesn't necessarily kill things dead. The smoke does help localize the problem though.
