- Road cycling (I don't do as much of this and it originally started out just as cross-training for MTB, but I do enjoy a certain amount of road cycling for its own sake)
- BMX (this is where it all started for me. I don't ride BMX much these days, but I keep a bike or two around in case the urge hits)
- Fishing (mostly freshwater, mostly targeting largemouth bass, but sometimes I'll target catfish or crappie or something)
- Trail running
- Bushcraft / camping / etc
- Reading (in terms of fiction I read a lot of sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, spy/espionage stuff, and horror. Non-fiction, aside from tech stuff, I like reading philosophy, history, biographies, pop science (is that too close to tech?) and business stuff (again, is that too close to tech?)
- Shooting (I don't get to the range much these days, but it's something I used to do a lot more of when I lived out in the sticks and had a place where I could shoot on our family's property)
- Tinkering with old cars (this is another somewhat neglected hobby these days, just due to various constraints. But one day I hope to get back to more of it)
- I used to spend some time involved in wrestling/jiu-jitsu and other related pursuits but age and too many injuries (mostly from mountain biking, see above) have caught up with me and I've been away from that stuff for a while. The urge is sometimes still present, but pragmatically speaking, it's not really a realistic pursuit for me anymore)
Strangely, I've always found it easier to tell people I invent my own languages[2]. If I accidentally admit to the poetry thing then people start asking me questions and wanting me to look at their poems, whereas leading with the conlang thing generally encourages them to slowly back their way out of the conversation.
[1] - Of course I wrote my own website to host them - https://rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk/
[2] - The need to show the world my conlangs is what got me into web development in the first place. So something good came out of my weird hobby - https://gevey.rikweb.org.uk/
Indoor rock climbing for fitness. I only do bouldering because no friends and still want to get stronger.
Woodworking.
Various DIY projects.
Motorcycle rebuilding and riding - I only ride sports bikes… they need rebuilding too.
Driving cars and all that goes into making that a hobby (repair, maintenance, detailing, etc.).
Photography - this mostly only gets done while traveling but I’m ready for almost anything. (Ultra wide underwater with strobes to 1200mm wildlife to studio portrait photography to aerial drone photography… I am ready)
YouTube. This is basically a hobby at this point and it’s purely consumption. I watch so much random shit that is focused on teaching and learning new things. I’m not watching people react to stuff or anything like that - instead I’m learning about techniques for building new homes, struggles with rebuilding cars (the more I watch the less I want to do it…), woodworking techniques, etc. Ultimately it all has an entertainment bend and isn’t super dry content but I am also learning way more than your average citizen. I would say youtube is likely responsible for why I’ve been able to hold a conversation on nearly any subject for a while now. I’ll meet someone and can engage with them on their subject of choice because I’ve been exposed to so much. Most people are like - “how do you know all this?? This is what I did my graduate degree on.” If you love to learn - lotta high quality content on YouTube that feeds that addiction.
I sell some of it here: https://ligninandlight.com/
I've run into many former developers, that I know from here and other forums, on Glowforge owner groups -- https://glowforge.us/r/GMSCZQGJ
All of the stuff that sounds cool I want to get into I really can’t for one reason or another. Often this comes down to requiring me to own property or land I can use and modify, which while I suppose I could obtain, would require a level of settling I’m not comfortable with right now.
HIIT, 10ks, resistance training, Yoga
Mindfulness and meditation
Painting and drawing, visiting art galleries
Weekend travel
Playing musical instruments very badly
Similarly started feeling that I was overdosing on tech and becoming a bore with too little perspective and a lack of emotional empathy, so I made a big effort to balance out my life. But the struggle is real and ongoing : )
Writing short stories. Reading a short story by Clarke as a kid is what set me towards science and tech in the first place. I don’t like showing them to people I know and usually just prefer to put them up somewhere online completely anonymously.
Fishing’s great, if you can find somewhere to do it.
Day-sailing is the best. A sailing class and small dinghy isn’t that much iirc, but if you can get your hands on a larger vessel there’s nothing better than the feeling of being on open water. If I couldn’t do tech or anything aerospace I’d 100% be in a maritime profession.
Somewhat tech-related, I like building and repairing electronics and vintage mechanical things (Singer sewing machine, old door latches, old Macintosh; you get the idea).
Bike maintenance is deeply satisfying. Especially when you go camping on a bike you’ve completely overhauled.
Listening to and playing music are important to me in ways that are difficult to describe.
And not really a hobby, but just meeting new people and neighbors and listening to them (especially people not in tech) is very rewarding.
Playing the piano - a great diversion, it doesn't take too long to be able to play chords and sing along to your favourite tunes.
Writing short mysteries - inspired by Two Minute Mysteries. I write short mystery stories where the rest had to solve the story. I put them up online and occasionally someone emails me their solution.
In a lot of areas you can probably find a beginners night and get some quick instruction and play some games.
Also 3d printing is really fun.
I have a shirt that combines tech + dance hobbies. It says "
My dance friends know what "lead" means, but don't know what the extra symbols mean.
My tech friends know it's an XML element, but are unfamiliar with the
What makes it fun is that multiple people have invented a lot of rules around what a good story should be. Aristotle has written what's closest to the Newton Laws. It's badass that Newton's Laws still hold up with astrophysics and it's badass that something someone wrote in ancient Greece still holds up in the modern era of cinema. It's flawed, but it says things straight, instead of lots of maybes, so it's easy to prove true or false.
Megamind is an interesting beginner's analysis. It's very formulaic but doesn't look anything like that. It's subtle too, his cloak changes color according to his progress as a character.
Toy Story is probably the most interesting because it doesn't really fit in any major format. It's a Comedy, there's a misunderstanding, and things go from high to low to high again where enemies are friends. But that's about it. There's a lot of little highs and lows, as opposed to the usual where it's all ascends to one really big high (e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy). In Toy Story, he's about to get home, then things get worse. He makes another plan, it fails. It just gets progressively worse. There's no fixed mentor character too. Buzz and Woody are both protagonists, antagonists, and mentors to each other, except the story is told through Woody's perspective. The most interesting part is that they hatched a formula from it that works, which is used in all other Toy Story movies and a little in other movies. It seems they didn't follow the classical literature analysis and made up their own formulas and it works.
1. Piano performance and music composition (mostly classical baroque, but also ambient electronic)
2. Obstacle course parkour training (ninja warrior type stuff), exercise, ping pong, badminton, tennis
3. Juggling (pins, contact, and soccer)
4. DND adventure writing, puzzle creation
5. Philosophy musing (just finished writing a paper on my thoughts on the physiological constraints of free will)
6. Gaming (spelunky, cuphead, precision platformers), mtg
7. Trivia nights / jeopardy
8. Amateur piloting (Cessna 152)
9. Studying Foreign languages (Traditional chinese, Russian)
Things I'm not into but are (I feel) disproportionately popular among my tech friends
1. Cooking
2. Swing dancing
3. Quadcopter drone stuff
- Hiking: Great way to disconnect from the busy city, see amazing places, get some blood flowing and have a bit of adventure. Bonus, you get fit.
- Gym: You get fit. Bonus, you meet people from around your neighborhood.
* Spending time with my dog
* Drinking with friends
* Eating out
* Watching TV series
* Keeping fit and healthy - I vary what I do. Sometimes running, sometimes weights, sometimes walks and hikes. I enjoy eating well too.
* Travel - mostly international
* EDIT: I forgot to add: cryptocurrency. I spend a good bit of time reading about it on forums.
- Baking: needed some way to still create things that can be immediately enjoyed. I like how most of it is just following a process and learning to gauge the outcome by senses. I also like that you need to practice to fit the recipe to your environment and tools.
- Calorie counting: weird hobby, but it helps me discover which foods give the best bang for my buck. Also helps sharpen my estimation skills, which I know we all need to be better at.
- Summarizing books and articles: I recently got into reading again and now thouroughly enjoy it more because I create something out of it: notes and sharable content.
- Mentorship: more ad hoc these days, but I enjoy helping juniors with their problems.
I do game a bit, but not as much as I would like to.
I am also trying to get into deeper reading where I spend a lot more time on reading literature deliberately with focus (I don't know if that is the right way to describe it).
I think there was a link submitted here a while ago which triggered it, and I realised I read in a very shallow but fast manner just to finish books. So I've been trying to read more consciously. Reading The Brothers Karamazov at the moment.
Boardgames with friends. Building a boardgame table this weekend from an old dinning table.
Dabble with game dev in Unity. Currently playing around with some VR stuff.
* Photography. I used to shoot escorts, for their websites, but these days I just shoot random volunteers for fun.
* Collecting watches.
* Going to pottery-classes. I'm terrible, but it doesn't matter.
* Baking bread.
- Reading old books on Taoism and slowly grokking Zen/Ch'an
- Biking
- Fiction (mostly audiobooks)
- Hiking (not nearly as much as I should)
- Cooking
- Playing with my Cats
- Watching movies/tv with wife
- Playing too many video games
- Trying and mostly failing to get into drawing and music creation
These arent new, but the extra time from not commuting and WFH has allowed me to spend more time doing them.
Currently looking for a dog so hopefully in the future I can add training with my dog to this list :D
Reading
Plants
Cars and motorsport
Photography
Cycling
Running
Swimming
Music productionWant to explore: CNC, penplotting, rug tufting, watch repair
Need to get back into: archery, pool
- Cooking
- Riding my bike
Drawing (on an ipad air as buying art supplies is tiring and I’m not that good)
Birdwatching is a very rich hobby I’d recommend it to anyone.
Woodworking
Radio control aircraft
Amateur Astronomy and telescope building
Walking
Motorcycles
Sailing (inland and Ocean)