I’ve been getting into primitive technology lately. It all started when I looked at my back yard and thought hey, if we call it red clay, then I should be able to make it into pottery. I take dirt from my yard, levigate it, add grog and wedge, hand-build pots, and fire them in my fire pit. Been making sharpening stones from river rocks. Crafting replicas of Roman machines. That sort of thing.
That is an epic niche. Primitive skills are awesome. Have you ever read The Toaster Project? It’s a story about the attempt to build a ‘simple’ modern appliance starting with raw materials and only using primitive methods. Very insightful look into how complex our built environment really is.
Okay, this sounds cool as hell. Please post photos of this.
are there other people doing it?
would be cool to see what you do and the various techniques!
Yessss. There’s somethig incredibly satisfying about understanding the raw materials around us.
I’ve been on a hiatus due to some medical stuff making it hard for me to concentrate, but I’m a lock nerd. I collect cool locks (“cool” being very subjective here 😅) and pick / manipulate them.
edit: here’s a tiny part of my collection. I’d upload more but I’m having a hard time with the mobile site and image uploads
what’s up fellow locksport nerd?! I think people would be shocked how easy rudimentary picking is.
A-ha, I knew there have to be lock nerds on Lemmy.
But yeah the basics are dead simple, you just need to have a light touch and listen to your fingers 😄
And so much of the stuff applies for the majority of lock mechanisms. A lot of it boils down to “apply tension, feel for pins / disks / sliders / wafers / whatever that don’t want to move and then you make them move, while leaving the other pins / etc. alone. Repeat until done”
These look so cool!
Right?!
The coolest one I have is probably this weird prototype lock called the RKS or “RoboKey System”, which is sort of like a cross between a regular door lock (it’s in an Abloy body) and a safe combination lock. The idea behind it was that you’d have a small portable device (only slightly larger than a key fob) that would be used to dial open the lock, and that device would be remotely programmable, meaning access could be granted and revoked remotely (you’re just sending ). The prototype locks are cutaways so you can see what’s going on inside, but the “real” ones would have been completely sealed. Basically they’d have lots of the pros of electronic locks but without having to have powered and/or complicated locks that are sensitive to environmental conditions, so they would have been great in challenging environments where you’d want the upsides of electronic locks but can’t use the current ones (I think marine shipping was one thing they envisioned could benefit from them.) Unfortunately it didn’t take off, so some hundreds of prototypes are all that exist. They still make them on occasion, purely for us lock nerds 😄
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you’d be shocked at how easy it is to grow most edible mushrooms. all you need to grow oysters is a syringe full of spores and some uncle bens pre-cooked vacuum sealed rice. If you want to do lion’s mane or other more complex growing cycles like that, just add a rubbermade tub half full of vermiculite and coconut coir. You can be in this hobby for like $100 up front and then like $30/batch. And yes you can grow those mushrooms, where legal of course. I haven’t tried it but it seems to be no more difficult than the ones I’ve successfully grown, and the rice trick actually comes from that community (google “uncle ben tek” for more info)
Really like most of the hobbies from comments, you guys are interesting!
Mine are (I’m not sure if they are niche but):
Fountain pens. Writing with them feels very nice and smooth and it’s a little piece of “retro” even though I don’t have time for any other kind of “retro”
Lucid dreaming. It’s an exercise of control over your dreams and a chance of doing something you like when you sleep. Or experience something new. There are forums with quests like “go to an art gallery in a dream and explore what your brain can give you as a painting” or “build yourself a dream homebase with all your favorite pieces of dreams from childhood” or “jump into a chalk painting and describe your experience”
As someone who writes left handed, I’ve always been envious of calligraphers and fountain pen enjoyers
I’m a leftie too, also as I understand my grip is wrong, I’m a sidewriter. Writing with a fountain pen is still easier for me, you just have to use smaller nibs to avoid smudging. But yeah, calligraphy and pretty handwriting is not my strongest suite. You don’t have to write nice though to use FPs. Just write :3
I practiced lucid dreaming a long time ago, I still have my old dream diary somewhere. But that thing was why I quit. To get better you need to write everything down after waking up. And with better rememberence you also know more details and at some point Inwas sitting 20-30 minutes in my bed writing, and that’s not my favorite thing to do after waking up Ingottansay haha. How’d you motivate me to start with it again? Do you mind sharing you favorite forum on that topic?
Yeah writing down my dreams is hard for me too especially when you just woke up in the middle of the night. But i found that it helps if you don’t write it down in every last detail. I only jot down a few keywords when I wake up and that usually works, then I can flesh it out it later in the same day when I have time. Takes less effort. If you don’t remember - guess, that’s a good exercise too! Don’t do it tomorrow though, never works :'D Also it can help if you’re forced out of the bed somehow for a couple of mins (drank too much water and have to go to the bathroom, for example), then just take your journal/phone with you. It also helps with WBTB (wake back to bed) by the way.
I don’t know is links are allowed but here’s the forum with fun dream tasks I mentioned: https://www.dreamviews.com/tasks-month-year/
I don’t read a lot of forums but this one motivates me because users create this witty unexpected tasks I could never think of myself. And you get to feel accomplished when you finish them XD
thanks alot, seems like it’s time to dust of my dream diary then
Glad it helped <3
I build guitar pedals! I don’t design them, but I order the PCBs and solder the components myself. It’s significantly cheaper than buying them premade, and how many people can say they made their own pedalboard?
I’m also an amateur Fossil Hunter. The area I live in is filled with fossils from the Ordovincian.
Looking for and archiving recordings of old and modern announcements in commercial and industrial settings. Like mind the gap on trains or there has been a broadcast tower failure in your area or Pan Am boarding call welcome and instructions. these can be on reel to reel or 8 track tape.
Do you just record them with a mic, or do you track down the actual audio files/records/tapes/etc?
both
Sounds like a great resource for game devs.
Ham radio! It’s relaxing. My favorite activity is to take my portable gear to parks and operate Parks on the Air.
My brother used to be really big into his ham radio. It got smashed in his move and he never bought another one =\
I had no idea about Parks on the Air. Thanks! I’ll be checking out.
Just getting into Ham radio and SDR myself as of late, so cool and so fun to tweak around with. Got any recommendations for guides or articles to read and learn from? I’m brand new just got a SDR-RTL dongle 📡
You should check out Ham Radio Crash Cpurse on YouTube. Lots of great info there.
I am waiting for my exam. After that I will have my own call sign. Ham radio is cool
How do you decide on a call sign?
It is assigned to me I cannot choose call sign unfortunately
What do you think about the baofeng radios with ham? Pretty good to start out with?
They are fine for starting out with, but you’ll probably want to upgrade soon. There are better radios for around $75 if you can afford it.
What would you recommend? Is there a good mega thread here?
Most activity, I’ve seen here: !amateurradio@lemmy.ko4abp.com but there’s a lemmy bug that’s not showing a bunch of posts. That should be resolved soon.
These are good cheaper radios (The price has gone up a bit)
There’s also !amateur_radio@lemmy.radio which is reasonably active.
Ima be honest with ya, I believe those cheaper yaesus are actually practically baofengs component wise. But, they are still a bit better due to some higher quality components and wayyyy better QC. Just wanted to throw this out there.
They’re pretty much baofengs with much better filtering, so you don’t get front end overloading which can be frustrating.
yup
Hell yeah, came here to say this. 73 friend.
Just getting into this myself! Got any recommendations for guids/videos/articles? I’d be happy to check anything out 👍
I fly paramotors. Imagine a fan you strap on your back, a paraglider that goes overhead, and you run run run until you’re airborne! Never fails to put a smile on my face when times are tough. And maintaining the engine and planning that next flight keeps me occupied when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
Does this require any type of license?
Nope!
Been thinking about this. Did you train anywhere or just get a wing and motor and just go for it?
Training was the way for me! I was a pilot beforehand, but it’s such a unique and rather awkward movement that I probably would have really struggled without training.
I just like to experiment with Linux distros. I like to get into a problem and then fix it, even if it is really annoying. After solving a problem, it’s satisfying to watch the Program or something like that run like a charm.
Some of mine maybe aren’t that niche anymore, but:
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Retro computing: no one needs more than 640k. Maybe no one needs more than 64k. Those old systems were the last time a single programmer could have control over the entire machine at a low level.
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Ham radio: Oftentimes called a dying hobby, but a great foray into electronics in general, and also a pretty nice community (save for a few curmudgeons).
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Analog audio: often thought of as a boutique thing, but really isn’t. Lots of old equipment ready to be restored that can give you really unique auditory experiences.
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Plastic modeling: especially if you start from a kit but add things to it, or if you build from scratch, or hell, even if you just build a kit as intended, there is a huge amount of personal expression and creativity.
I really want to get into HAM radio. Is it something thatcan be done on a budget? Do you have any resources for a interested beginner?
Yes it can be done on a budget, although the more you get into it, the more alluring the expensive stuff is.
Even without a license, you can get started with some listening only stuff. For me, I picked up an rtl-sdr off Amazon for pretty cheap and started listening to NOAA weather satellites.
Before you start transmitting, you’ll need to get your license. Hamstudy.org is a great place to start practicing for the exam.
Definitely can be done on a budget. As others mentioned, you do need a license, but study materials are free. The Technician license is the most basic.
Generally there will be an amateur radio club around most areas – I’d do a search for your area. If there is one near you, and especially if they hold physical meetings, just get involved!
An SDR (software defined radio) is likely the cheapest way that you can start listening (not transmitting), and that can be helpful to hear how people communicate. Again, do a search and see if there are radio nets local to your area. The most basic antenna is a long strand of wire!
And finally, just a heads up: ham, not HAM. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t an acronym for anything.
Study for your tech license with https://ham.study/ and learn how to use a baofeng uv5r/gt5r handheld. That’s how I started on a budget. Don’t overspend on the baofengs on amazon. They should realistically be around $25 not $60 and they are all almost the same.
I’ll always have a place in my heart for my first computer, the TI-99/4A. (If you really need more than 4k, you can get the 32k expansion!) I eventually progressed to writing programs in 9900 assembly and even sold a few, it was fun.
I got one a few years back. Such a unique machine! The CPU is 16-bit iirc, but the rest of the system is set up as 8-bit. And some kind of strange scheme with shared RAM that makes the whole thing ultimately very slow.
I never got too far into it since I didn’t have a disk drive for it. I hear there are kits available now, since the originals are somewhat expensive.
Yes! They were originally going to use an 8-bit CPU but had to change the design for some reason. It had 64k of addressable memory space, some of which was mapped to I/O and video and whatnot, I’d guess the memory scheme you’re talking about is how it took two clock cycles to read or write a 16-bit data byte on the CPU.
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Is 3D printing still niche? If so, 3D printing, otherwise nothing.
I freeline skate and have recently gotten into surfskating as well. They’re good fun and nice leg workouts. Don’t ask me to do any tricks though, I say “I prefer to cruise around”, but really I’m just too pleb for that stuff.
Haha freeline skates are quite amusing. Never have witnessed them in real life yet though.
Could always start learning them yourself? Then you’d get to see them in action first hand 😉.
It’s quite cheap to buy an off-brand pair on eBay. I got a pair (they’re branded “Drift Skates”) for £12 and have been using them for almost a year now. I also have JMKRIDE skates, but haven’t used them yet. If you do go for off-brand skates, you should probably also get higher-quality bearings and grip tape. The stock bearings didn’t last long for me and I wear down the Jessup Ultragrip I use so quickly that I have to replace it about once every 2 months.
For actually learning to ride, JMKRIDE has a great tutorial playlist for beginners.
Surfskating looks like tons of fun, I’d love to give it a shot. Would you have any recommendations on gear & research for anyone looking to get into it?
I’ve only been surfskating for about a month and had been skateboarding for about another month before that, so maybe take my advice with a dash of soy sauce.
Personally, I currently only have one surfskate. My set up consists of the Waterborne Surf Adapter with their Fin system, with the Fin set to “Super Carver” mode. This was the most expensive part of my set up and cost me ~£90. I’m using a blank, 8.5" popsicle-stick deck I got from Venom for ~£27 and the rest of my set up I got from aliexpress, i.e., the longboard trucks, wheels and hardware as a ~£35 package, and an off-brand Rail adapter (the counterpart to the Surf adapter) for ~£12. The grip tape I already had, as I had been freeline skating prior and go through grip quite quickly because of it (I bought a 60’ roll of Jessup Ultragrip for ~£85).
Regarding research, I mostly watched YT videos to see them in action:
There’s also an app you can to help you choose a surfskate, but I personally haven’t tried it.
Obviously I can’t attest to other setups, but regarding mine, I’d say the biggest issues I have with it are:
- It’s really heavy to lug around. It weighs ~5kg, mostly from the adapters and trucks, so if you’re also hoping to learn tricks with it, it’s likely going to be more difficult.
- It’s a bit tall. I’ve gotten used to it by now, but don’t expect it to feel the same as riding a skateboard. On the other hand, the extra height does aid with making tighter carves.
Aside from the Waterborne, the other surfskate that caught my eye was the Curfboard. I like that its design seems to use something akin to an Ackermann steering system, which apparently is more stable than “turntable” systems used by most other surfskates. Here’s an interesting blog post on it I read which talks about the geometry/physics behind it.
Ultimately, I went for the Waterborne, as I liked that I could use it with whatever trucks I want and because its Fin system provides some adjustability to the truck angle, which allows me to experiment and decide which setting I liked best.
My niche hobby is self-hosting and running my own home computer lab. It’s tons of fun. The only thing I miss about reddit is the community of self-hosters and home labbers.
I like finding obscure media and curating playlists out of them. Weird old commercials, music videos, tv spots, instructional/training videos, short films and animation, old tv shows.
