My two are:
Making sourdough. I personally always heard like this weird almost mysticism around making it. But I bought a $7 starter from a bakery store, and using just stuff in my kitchen and cheap bread flour I’ve been eating fresh sourdough every day and been super happy with it. Some loafs aren’t super consistent because I don’t have like temperature controlled box or anything. But they’ve all been tasty.
Drawing. I’m by no means an artist, but I always felt like people who were good at drawing were like on a different level. But I buckled down and every day for a month I tried drawing my favorite anime character following an online guide. So just 30 minutes every day. The first one was so bad I almost gave up, but I was in love with the last one and made me realize that like… yeah it really is just practice. Years and years of it to be good at drawing things consistently, quickly, and a variety of things. But I had fun and got something I enjoyed much faster than I expected. So if you want to learn to draw, I would recommend just trying to draw something you really like following a guide and just try it once a day until you are happy with the result.
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Reading
Thanks to e-books and the Libby app you don’t even have to physically go anywhere or pay anything to find a good book these days.
Also Anna’s Archive!
Playing older video games via emulation. The barrier to entry gets easier and easier as time marches on. And as long as you have disc space to download the games, you’ll likely find a repository somewhere on the Internet.
Oh yeah some even let you play in browser now. Crazy how it takes seconds, and most peoples phones can even play most everything game cube and earlier.
That is a particularly handy feature for older computer games from DOS and C64.
Chinese handhelds (sbcgamings) are an interesting rabbit hole.
Modding my Vita blew my mind.
Miyoo Mini Plus!!!
My childhood dream.
Anbernic handheld consoles are awesome and inexpensive.
I recommend the RG35XXSP. It’s shaped like a Gameboy Advance SP and plays lots of Dreamcast & N64 games plus everything below that.
$60 + Shipping Directly from Anbernic
or
$90 with free 1 or 2 day shipping from Amazon
And if you don’t flash drives/micro SD cards are dirt cheap and stupid fast these days. May as well be external storage in an easy to loose stick or microSD card.
I’ve never had a problem playing my collection of old games I used to own externally.
This was awhile ago, but playing dungeons and dragons! I showed up one night at the local gaming store, asked the group playing that night if they had space, and bam! I’m playing a terrifying monk in World’s Largest Dungeon!
But you see, I wanna git gud immediately
- Print one
, or something like 
- Get a scale/ruler, a pencil and an eraser
- Use the above to draw, first a
and then a 
- Then imagine and draw stuff like
The last one is not true isometric, but has a perspective. But you can make similar good looking stuff in isometric too.
To do perspective, you can’t use the Printed isometric line/dot paper.
Instead, it has an additional step of choosing the infinity points and making your own lines for it.
I tried to find a good instructions page, but unfortunately, search engines just prefer YouTube videos (which I don’t like to recommend).
Either way, this is one method that lets you
git gudpretty fast, albeit in a different drawing form.
Another thing: The last example picture I showed, has circles and semi circles. Avoid those in your drawing at this stage. That requires you to learn an extra method.
/restofthefuckingowl
Nah, these instructions are pretty clear. It’s just the same lines on a grid, but more and better arranged.
Take 175 lbs of chemicals and turn it into a human being!
Add some sugar and spice and everything nice. Leave out the chemical x
Essentially how that works.
At least in this case, you are using the same basics over and over again.
What to put where, is your imagination. The first 2 steps just explain how to put the stuff there. And since I recommended an eraser, I would expect you to know to use it when it comes to the point.
Since you desire togit gudat drawing, I would expect you to be good at imagining, which is the prerequisite.So yeah. I this case, the rest of the owl is the same as the first circle and ellipse.
Oh and ignore the shadows. That comes in a completely different territory. You will need to learn shading, first. I’d never bother with that and just use a CAD software.
Highlighted dimension is not provided.
Drawing implosion imminent.
Ah right, I should have said that too: don’t care about the dimensions. Just make a shape similar to that, which can be done using the vertices/dots in the provided paper (otherwise the print will be useless for the purpose of making the learning process easier).
You are just trying to learn how to draw nicely, right? You don’t really need to care about properly matching some random example I casually picked off google images. You can change the dimensions at will as long as you understand what you are doing.
That intermediate step is amongus sitting down.
- Print one
Game Mastering for TTRPGs. Set up can take some work, but it’s a great creative outlet and, once you find the right group, soooo much fun. I personally started off with Paranoia XP and moved from there to a couple different systems before landing on D&D 5e. There are some great rules-light systems like Kids on Bikes/ Kids on Brooms or Paranoia Perfect Edition if the behemoth of D&D (with its multiple text-book sized rule books) seems daunting.
ETA: there’s also entire libraries of advice on GMing out there for assistance if you need it.
I played D&D for 10 years before I seriously tried DMing. I’m now a year and a half into a 5e game with 4 other players and it’s been great. It helped that YouTube kept sending me Matt Colville videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8
Nice! I’m a big fan of Ginny Di, she’s got some great tips for DMs and players.
Cooking. A lot of really delicious foods have extremely simple recipes and as an amateur you have time on your side. You don’t have to rush anything for most recipes. A lot of times I measure and cut everything before I even turn on the stove and this makes cooking super easy. Sure it takes a while to cook when you are just starting out but you can just go at your own pace. I really feel like anyone can cook almost anything. You don’t even need fancy tools. I got started with a $12 wok and a wooden spatula. These days there’s a huge amount of resources to teach you how to make just about everything. It’s also really rewarding since you get to eat what you make and you get to make things you want to eat. Needless to say it’s also a very important skill.
Gathering, cutting, measuring all the ingredients before cooking is actually a very well regarded French method called mis en place so you’re basically already classically trained 😜
Sewing! My girlfriend is into it and had some machines already. It’s way easier and more fun than I expected.
Any resources to pick this up that you can share?
YouTube, and forums for questions. Many popular patterns have videos.
I think places like apostrophe patterns are good for beginner patterns because they do fully custom patterns based on your measurements.
For a starter machine, definitely do research, because shitty sewing machines suck to use soooo much and pull any fun out of sewing. People online seem to really like Juki. My girlfriend has a brother, and it definitely feels kinda cheap and has trouble with thick stuff sometimes.
If you’re really into sewing, a serger is totally worth it, A cover stitch is nice to have.
Blender. Not great at it, but there’s so many fantastic tutorials on YouTube. I can use it good enough to design and 3d print simple things. Of course, there’s may aspects / layers to it. It’s both broad and deep. So it’s good to kind of focus on one thing at the time, and then break that down even further.
Man, I tried to get into this. Spent months running through the tutorials. I just couldn’t grasp how they design flow of creating a complex shape from scratch. It just didn’t “make sense”.
I’ve found parametric modeling programs like Solidworks far, far more intuitive to use - it’s easier for me to grasp “okay, this thing is a combination of added shapes, extrusions, negative spaces, revolved outlines, etc” than what Blender wants you to do. Unfortunately, most parametric programs really don’t offer good skinning/texturing and only mediocre rendering options.
I totally get that. It’s like finding a programming language or personal information manager app that you like. Have to try a bunch out to find something that works for you.
A long time ago I dabbled in script-generated ray tracing. That was fun, but I never got great at it.
I also learned PostScript for a while, because I wanted to create some very intricate printable forms. Using WYSIWG tools was just not cutting it. I ended up with some large 300dpi forms that I liked, whuch were perfect for the assignment.
Sometimes a different model or approach can make a huge difference to your work flow.
I’ve been wanting to learn blender for the same reason. Complicated models are an absolutely bitch to work with in parasolid modeling engines.
However, for simple designs, parasolid modeling is spectacular for designing models for printing. Fusion360 has a free tier for hobbyists (they hide it and you have to go hunting to find it, but it exists), and I’ve done most of my designs there.
I’ve also used tinkercad for really simple edits. I’ve heard great things about solidworks, but it’s expensive af, even for a hobbyist account.
Not sure exactly what you consider ‘expensive’, but there are ways to get a student edition Solidworks account for $100/year. I consider that a pretty reasonable price.
Personally, I find it infinitely more usable than Blender, but that may just be my personal biases in play. Your mileage may vary.
That’s absolutely reasonable, but I’m not a student. Is that required by the license agreement?
Easily fixable. What you do is go to the Titans of CNC Academy and sign up. Congratulations; you are now technically a student! When purchasing the Student Edition from Dassault, you’ll be asked what your educational institution is; “Titans of CNC Academy” is an accepted answer.
Then you can head over to Titans’ sales page and pick up an annual student license. (Make sure you’re getting the Student version and not the cruddy “3DExperience for Makers”. That’s Solidworks’ cloud-based software, and is a hot mess.)
The major downside to this is that files created in the student edition are watermarked as such, and will open with a warning if you try on a professional-licensed version of SW. You should be able to still 3D print for personal hobby purposes, but it is against the license to make money off of it.
making mead:
honey, yeast, water, shake the carboy, pop on the airlock (fancy cork), wait two weeks.
wine making:
juice, sugar, yeast, water, shake the carboy, pop on the airlock, wait two weeks.
No camden tablets for sterilization?
I’ve never found them necessary.
I use a baking soda/water combo to clean out carboys between uses, and ill dip the airlock stopper in boiling water before attaching it, any cloth i use to wipe things down is boiled beforehand.
as long as everything is clean before the carboy is sealed, you’re good.
I’ve never lost a batch.
knock on wood.
Kayaking was easy. Get one you can afford on FB Marketplace and go. Cheap paddles are just fine to start as are $3 thrift life vests, grab a whistle while you’re shopping. Next thing you know, you’re scanning Google Maps for water and new adventures.
Painting miniatures. Anyone can do it and make their board games look way nicer.
All you have to do is avoid paying New-In-Box GW prices, and avoid/minimize GW paints and the cost of the hobby drops through the floor.
Tons of skirmish games in all settings are around, many of them with free rules. Battletech is cheap because it basically needs skirmish game amounts of minis. Even playing 40k is cheap(er) embracing third party and scratchbuilding.
I managed to sidestep Games Workshop pretty neatly. I’m huge on Battletech and pretty much exclusively use Army Painter paints. I also have a lot of board games like Scythe or Betrayal that have plain gray minis that I’m working on.
Cycling
I started biking to work after we moved closer and next thing I know I’m into mountain biking and have built 2 bikes
The bizarre culture (pun intended) around sourdough is maddening. The obsession over the “ear,” bannetons, lames, daily feeding: all bro club bullshit. This is the bread humans have been making for millennia; the only tools you need are one hot rock and one not-hot rock.
Lul reminds me of the coffee bros. With their 3.4 sec at 666 degrees vs 8.9 sec at 69 degrees pour or whatever they call it.
It’s the exact same phenomenon. Surely astroturf bullshit started by whomever is selling the useless tools.
That and I think there’s a fair bit of elitism as well. Everyone is always trying to one up each other and since you can only go so expensive with the beans and equipment the next step is to be pretentious with the prep.
elitism* pretentious* 🙃
Thanks bud, I be struggling here.
The struggle is real, mang
There is a point of diminishing returns with coffee brewing, and you can quickly spend obscene amounts of money for infinitesimally small increases in quality of the brew.
However, a few hundred dollars worth of investment in a grinder and basic equipment, and you’ll never again be able to choke down the sour, burnt tar they attempt to pass off as coffee in stores and restaurants.
Do you even sour, bro?
There are some serious differences between a badly made loaf and a well done one though. You never stop learning. But yeah, it’s easy to get something passable.
None of the differences have anything to do with the Bro Method.
Uh, I must admit I don’t know about that bro method.
Fly fishing
Got yelled at as a kid for playing with your pole too much? Then it’s the hobby for you. Can practice in your backyard and it’s fun just to whip shit around
The cost barrier of entry is decently high though. Fly fishing is a huge rabbit hole for sure. I’ve never been but one of my coworkers goes almost weekly.
You can buy like $50 kits or go on Craigslist and look for someone selling their impulse bought gear.
Add in a license fee and even then it’s not too bad for time killing hobby.
I think when I first got into it I was put off thinking I’d need like the finest $3k in orvis gear and I’d need to buy $10 flies at my local shops.
Like there’s a weird bougie-classist feeling I think a lot of people have which turns them off of trying to get into the sport.
Sword fighting. I joined an armored combat gym and just went consistently. They provide the equipment, at least til you get to the point you want your own armor and weapon. Good fun, good exercise.
What kind of sword fighting?
Dicks
Armored MMA! Cage fights in authentic armor, with historically accurate weapons. I’ve yet to get in armor, just soft kit sparring and pell work with the real weapons.
Interesting! I looked into it a little (I’ve never heard of this) and didn’t find decent videos of an armored cage match. I wanna see how one goes. Do you have any links?
Here ya go! This was from an exhibition show back in July.
Wow thanks! The vastness of shit people get up to just make me smile sometimes. I’m genuinely ecstatic this exists.
Yeah that was my reaction hahah. It’s getting more and more popular, the gyms are popping up in most areas. Maybe one day we’ll fight :D
Sounds fun!
It’s a good time. Finally giving me reason to get off my ass hahah
