I love tech too much and would like to find something social or at least different in my spare time that pulls me away...
But no matter how you slice it, two of my top hobbies are definitely fishing (mostly freshwater fishing, mostly for bass) and bike riding (mostly MTB, some road, some BMX). Both are hobbies I took up when I was very young and have been with my basically my entire life.
There are "tech" things that could also be considered hobbies, like messing around with discrete electronics, working with Arduino's and other microcontroller platforms, goofing around with Raspberry Pi, etc. But to some extent I have interest in those things simply for their own sake, but also for a career / financial / commercial sake. That is, I have ideas about building things to sell, or at least to learn things that will advance my ability to build other things to sell, etc. So "hobby" I guess, but not "pure hobby" if that makes sense.
I started after enrolling my children in it, and then figuring "why the hell not, I should train too."
The two downsides are: * It's easy to want to buy all the shiniest tools, which are expensive * I don't want to buy furniture anymore, I want to make it. But there just aren't enough hours in the day.
https://www.ableton.com/en/live/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iuRsiKtObw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxY0x1i3XhY
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9oiyAGA6zOTSPR5-ttojODT4...
Getting some teenage engineering pocket operators is also something I'd strongly recommend. Check out this 8 year old building a tune with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhFIUdICYSA
It's been a dangerous addiction at several points of my life, but in many ways has revealed to me more insight about myself than any other activity.
There is so much variation and nuance, there's always something to learn. For a naturally curious and slightly competitive person, it's quite an intoxicating cocktail.
Been an awesome journey and just about to learn my first Bach Violin Sonata!
I find it creative, beautiful, practical, and an opportunity to be outside
Get a good pair of binoculars, a bird sound recognition app for your mobile[1], and a bird field guide (as a European, I prefer [2]), and you're good to go.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.tu_chemnitz...
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.natureguid...
Woodworking
Playing music (guitar, piano, sax, drums, and Audulus 4)
Programming (started around 90 in qbasic)
Gardening (simple stuff these days, herbs and peppers, tomatoes; I make a lot of sauces to add to meals)
Engine repair (started with tractors, now I just fix small engines)
Building building (just built a greenhouse for friends; designing mine now)
Logic circuit design (EE started in motherboard design as a career, switched to software as hardware went overseas)
I went deep on all these at various points. Anymore really only spend enough time on them throughout the year to keep a connection, muscle memory.
If I had to recommend any I’d say gardening and music. Learning a musical instrument fosters connectivity between both sides of the brain in a way no other skills based learning does[1].
And a fresh sauce makes boiled potato taste like Michelin star cuisine.
Started playing very casually before stepping into a more competitive scene. It's both strategic (intersection between poker and chess) as well as creatively expressive (deckbuilding/theorycrafting).
Downsides: $$$
- Theater: got into it in middle school and never looked back. The way to get into it now is either to just audition for community shows, or take classes somewhere.
I have found that cooking, building furniture, sewing and other forms of craft are interesting for the same reasons coding is interesting, but without a group of friends who do that stuff I've found it hard to maintain momentum.
Writing helps me think and really satisfying. Writing is thinking.
I hope you choose to do something good and positive for your spirit and full of love - something that gets you away from the computer screen, such as study God.
I can't spend one day without it, as a break every few hours of coding or meeting, it's really great
It's quite a lot of work, but really the best way to make your brain two sides work together - as well as your fingers, arms, body...
I started 5 years ago, with some prior knowledge of music from being a kid.
Oh, and now I can play with people, to people. I started in my mom's retirement home - she loved it, and other residents too, and even the staff, because all the residents would be so quite after that... and now that I play better I can play to my friends, family..
It changed my life.
I’ve invested a fair amount of cash in the equipment (4x CDJ-1000 mk2, 3x PLX-1000, a DJM-750mk2 mixer, etc - c. €8-9k all in) but it’s fun to have friends over for B2B mixes (or B2B2B2B depending on who’s around!)
I enjoy the ability to easily switch styles/technique. Quick-mixing d&b every 16/32/48 bars or looping techno over 4 (digital) players is a very different experience to the tactile, analogue - and brutally unforgiving - world of vinyl.
Thanks to DVS (digital vinyl system) technology I can also mix/manipulate digital music as if it was vinyl.
When I finished my undergraduate degree, I found I had a huge vacuum of time. So, I started running. I signed up for a marathon with some friends and the training was fun, because I was running (!) the show. I ended up running pretty well, and kept it up.
Nevertheless, I met a girl while running who really put me through the ringer on a "running first date"-- She turned out to be an Olympian in track. This past week, I actually got to watch her compete at the World Championships in Budapest in the 5000m, and was even luckier to propose to her about two days ago.
I still think it's kind of funny, as a guy who really hated exercise growing up. She's a great foil to my dorkiness. Anyways, feel free to ask us anything about running. We're just killing time right now.
Later I picked up Basic, which was coincidentally used by the Basic Stamp that my school had a few spares of, which led to my software career, but hardware is still taking up my benchspace.
Hackerspaces and working on physical things in general i think brings the social element, especially when someone needs a tool you have and you need something they have ;)
In the last 26 years or so (man that sounds like a long time), I've learned a number of different DAW's, put a modular system together, learned to play instruments (piano, guitar, drums), and wrote hundreds of songs. It's such a fulfilling hobby. Which has been equally fulfilling every step of the way. From noob to whatever I am now. Can't imagine life without it.
Piano I can't actually get outside 365 days a year, because I need rest days. I also wanted a non-physical hobby to exercise my brain. I played drums when I was a kid and missed making music. I bought a digital piano and dabbled for 4 or 5 months then started taking weekly lessons. If you have any interest in music related hobbies, I'd highly recommend learning piano.
Cooking This is normally more of a winter hobby for me, but I'll try and cook through a whole (or most) of a cookbook. It's interesting to really get into one cuisine or style of cooking for a while, vs. hoping all over the place every couple of weeks.
My work hosts daily lunch hour pickup games on our field. Once a year they sponsored a tournament. We even have a lot of non-employees play with us.
Now I’ve been meeting people outside the work games in local leagues and pickup games through a Meetup group.
Would recommend. The community is really open to newcomers in my area.
I'm at stage 2.
If the alternator on my car gives out, I'll figure out which component failed (brushes? voltage control module?) and I'll replace or fix it.
If my washer acts up, I'll basically fix whatever it is.
My dad's cement mixer stops working ? Take it apart and notice the pulley driving the drum is loose because the set pin came undone.
Basically I'm acting like the typical person outside of cities just a generation or two ago.
The best part is, once you fix something once, you learn about it and then you really don't want to throw the device away when the next thing breaks because you feel like you already know and understand it a bit so might as well keep going.
It doesn't always make sense once you factor in your time, but that applies to many hobbies. Atleast this one technically saves you money instead of costs you money.
Tldr; fixing mechanical things is a bit like debugging and troubleshooting, but instead of just fixing some code that annoyed someone somewhere, I'm fixing things I use everyday.
About a decade ago, a friend of mine got into modular synths and got really good. (He ended up founding New York Modular Synth Society, btw. [0]) I'd see what he was doing and got jealous. So a few years ago I gave it a shot and put together a "small" system for a few thousand dollars. Now somehow I grew that to a $20,000 system. I'm still not "good", but fuck it. It's so much fun. I'm not very social, but there are a lot of modular communities out there, and they're all pretty welcoming and helpful.
It's been a big encouragement too to pick up some other skills - I've been getting into recording and DAWs and even have done some (very noobish) video production.
I was really inspired recently by Ben Levin's music channel, so I cribbed a format he used for a few videos, and recorded myself playing a solo and then did some after-the-fact analysis on it. I really like how the video came out, although there a million things to improve upon, especially in terms of audio quality. (That video is here if that sounds interesting to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2FkjeOXchc)
I have always had a (bad...?) habit of picking up and dropping various hobbies - I love learning new stuff, and I really love how quickly you can get the first 70-80% of a new skill. Over the past few years some of those have been cooking, fishing, weightlifting, and writing. I'm not super active in any of those right now (though I really need to get back on the wagon with lifting and exercise).
Oh, also - pinball. So much fun, I could bang quarters into those machines all day long. One of these days I'll have a table in my house...
I also have three kids, one of whom is a baby, so my time for multiple hobbies is basically nil. I'd love to find more time for all of them!
In my mid-twenties I met a crazy New Zealander at work, got into ski touring after shaking some of the rust off, skied all over Scotland including a bunch of gullies people normally climb and generally got much, much better. Then I moved to Iceland which when the conditions are good is a ski touring paradise. Skied all over here, various bits of the world (Japan is unreal!) took part in the first freeride comp in Scotland and have generally had a lot of fun.
I’ve calmed down a lot with two kids, it’s a bit unfair to everyone to disappear on day+ long trips all the time. I’m really enjoying teaching them to ski and pootling about on the piste as a family.
It’s a sport like climbing or swimming which I also love where you can feel when you’re doing it right and everything flows effortlessly.
You can find swarms pretty easily and it’s very satisfying to save them. A bedraggled clump of sad bees in the rain can be transformed into a productive monster given the right home.
And coffee. I don’t care an awful lot how it’s made (unless it’s instant or pod) as I subscribe to the Gruber rules [1], minus that weird bit about keyboards.
You can have a great coffee very inexpensively and it’s another one that is widely appreciated. I toast the bean and grind them in the grinder I restored and brew on a reproduction Faema E-61 [2]. It’s a massive luxury and is one of the more beautiful bits of engineering in existence.
[1] https://www.foursides.ca/keys-to-success-by-john-gruber/
[2] https://www.faema.com/int-en/product/E61-MONOFASE-ANNIVERSAR...
Piano and Ableton. Also super fun and nice way to meet people
Started with film when I was a kid but was always scared by my parents because of the "high cost" and then when I got my first digital there were no more restrictions.
It opened up other areas of interest that are tangentially related to it: I go hiking/camping, learned Photoshop and video editing, spend time learning about the masters in Painting/Photography/Film making, scouting for locations where to go on holidays. Even started a, not very successful but fun, YouTube channel.
It is also possible to enjoy it daily once you know what is out there.
I did an ifly 2 minutes flight (indoor skydiving), and my co-worker asked me if we should try to go do a real skydiving. I had 0 friends and knowledge about it. We went to website, looked that you can pay 300 to go solo, and 200 for tandem. Without even thinking, we payed for solo 300, just assuming it is a better experience.
We were sitting in a class terrifying while listening for 6 hours what might kill us. We both jumped the next day after the class (weathered out the day of the class). My friend did not continue. I am getting close to 1400 jumps.
There are several things I like about this sport. Adrenaline. While you skydive, you definitely don’t think about how to fix THAT bug, your focus is on Dropzone. People. 99% of people I have met during skydiving are the best people you can have around you. Various professions, various hobbies, ages, statuses. But in the plane and on skydive we are all the same. Bag of meat falling out of the sky. Some do it better than others.
Skydiving opens the world. There are so many activities around the places, where it is hard to get access to, but people in skydiving looking for various options to jump in those areas. I had one of the best experiences traveling around Iceland in a cargo plane with always open door, so we can jump in various national parks and awesome places where you need to hike for hours. One week trip was 4000 EUR per person, including food, lodging, skydiving and transportation. I definitely want to do similar to Africa and Egypt at some point.
Cooking is something that grew on me, I was a horrible cook when I moved out of my parents house. I just started with simple recipes, learned basic techniques, and expanded from there.
I joined the local climbing association way back in college and loved it. Before climbing, other sports didn't really interest me much. I guess it scratches my puzzle solving itch. I loved being outdoors and travelling to places, but these days I mostly just go bouldering at the local gym.
One aspect I'm enjoying more than I imagined is tinkering with my bicycle. I think that tickles the nerdier part of my personality: comparing different ways to carry cargo, adjusting various things to achieve more comfort, light maintenance like inflating tires and lubing the chain, etc. It's fun.
Historically, a lot of my hobbies involved me sitting in front of a screen (movies, video games, recording music, etc). Now my work is more screen oriented than ever, and I found such hobbies felt a little too much like my work, so I needed to find something very different. Biking has been good for me.
It's great exercise, really joyous, and in my experience the people who go to jams are excellent. A friend told me about it and I just decided to go, knowing that I could opt out of any movement or dance that didn't feel ok. Now I go to the contact improv jams in my city every week and even went to some international jams while traveling recently. There's usually contact improv events near most major cities.
(My involvement in it started at age 4; I had a knack for taking things apart, so my dad bought me a model kit to encourage me to be more "constructive"...)
- Fun social activity if you make friends with other photographers/find a club locally
- Instant Visual creation of something (since my brain rejects spending too much time on something like a drawing, only for it to turn out crappy)
- Fun/Neurotic Tech options when it comes to Lenses/Bodies/Gear. Love the rabbithole of researching exactly what I need/want.
- Lots of technical detail involved in learning different aspects of it, and really understanding properties of light
- I love DataHoarding, so organizing photos on my NAS using Lightroom makes my brain happy too.
- Actually gets me active, outside and moving, which has been a problem for me in the past (since I hyperfocus on logical problems, and loathe the gym as a waste of time)
The only downside is that during the winter I find it harder to get out and take pictures, but at least they're getting warmer!.. :(
Things I like about pickleball are: it’s relatively cheap, easy to pick up, fun to play, highly social/community driven, and just the right intensity level for me.
Motorcycling is a high bandwidth sensory experience both alike and unlike the puzzles of flying a high resolution monitor and keyboard during the day job. It is an endless excuse to explore the endless physical world. It is something for sharing but also fundamentally a personal experience.
Motorcycling was my father's midlife crisis. I learned on dirt bikes when I was 11, riding old Japanese dual sports through closed strip mines and down power line cuts. Getting lost, getting stuck, and then getting home.
You, or anyone in the US, can learn from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course: https://msf-usa.org/start-your-ride/basic-ridercourse/
Someone else mentioned skydiving, and if you want the adrenaline, you can find it in paragliding with acro flying, or just in rougher weather.
But otherwise you can hang serenely below cloudbase, or pull into thermals.
Sailing gives something similar, playing with the wind as it were.
I started when I was writing a novel with swordsmen and want to research historical moves, ended up getting addicted and now am trying to grow the sport in Asia. Guess it is how things start anyway.
I’ve been paying off and on ever since; usually ON when I have money (summer I worked in college and once again when I graduated and started making Engineer money)
I often joke that it’s like Golfing for Tech. I’ve met so many lifelong friends through the hobby. I’ve taught people how to play on first dates (and yes, they continued to date me haha). It’s been a hobby that has helped me establish new friends when I’ve moved cities. I’ve even played semi-competitively in Modern and Legacy, which is just a fun conversation starter.
Nowadays I play Cube and Commander weekly and I buy the yearly Commander decks and play them with my friends that like to play occasionally but leave the Hobby to me.
Build a house, fix a car, pick up an instrument, make a mural, raise children, read books and start writing, paddle a river from source to sea, climb a mountain, build a synthesizer from scratch, start a band, never stop... Don't be discouraged by naysayers, just try until you succeed or decide to move on.