What's a common occurrence in your hobby that you think shouldn't be?
For me it's driving while under the influence. If you couldn't tell, I like me some ganja. However I have long since held the belief that it is utterly insane to drive while under the influence of most substances, with maybe nicotine and caffeine being the exception. All too often I see other stoners smoking and driving, which I simply can't fathom. I've only operated a vehicle once under the influence and it was just to move a U-Haul around the block to a different parking spot, which was such a scary experience while high that I refuse to even consider getting behind the wheel again while high.
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Car culture constantly being irreversibly intertwined with a bunch of right wing redneck bullshit. Its so pervasive that I have to actively avoid most social media car content because it will inevitably contain or be filled with comments of "FJB", "cry about it liberal", "Trump 2024", and repeats of 500 anti gay/trans statements that have literally nothing to do with cars. And if I subscribe to any of it on a mainstream platform, my entire recommended feed instantly gets filled with a bunch of Andrew Tate chud sexism content and a constant barrage of other nazified political spam.
I'm here cause I like things on wheels with vroom engine, not your political pisstakes. Christ. I can barely even go to local car meets either because almost all of the boomers that gatekeep such events can't get 3 words out of their mouth without jumping into a Great Replacement conspiracy. Fuck my life this hobby is a hellhole.
As a result I mostly keep to myself, drive my little shitboxes out in the forest, and work on a couple Goofy ahh engine swap projects without talking to anyone else.
And yes, I'm calling gonna call them a racist if they think the confederate flag belongs on the roof of an orange 1969 Dodge Charger (or on the front license plate cover of Generic Pickup Truck #99,412). I don't give a shit that Dukes of Hazzard was a car culture classic. Get fucked lol.
I feel your pain, I'm a trans woman and cars and motorcycles have been my hobby since I was a teenager but I avoid most car meets like the plague. The import scene seems to be a lot better than the classic and muscle car scenes but there's still a fair bit of right-wing bs. I do find it hilarious when I roll up somewhere in my classic jeep and notice some maga chud oogling it, the look on their faces when I step out is priceless.
Oh yeah I feel a weird version of this, ugh. See, I'm a big fan of going places and I like complicated mechanical toys and I guess I actually know a lot of deep down details about cars especially after a year or so stint doing car-related tech things, but I'm also an environmentalist who hates cars.
So, like, goofy engine swap projects, actually racing the damn sports car, actually taking the SUV off road to see something cool, details required to engineer a V12 sports car that doesn't spin out, et al are all interesting to me but then literally everything to do with car culture seems like folks who are driving their super-fancy tuned vehicle in a traffic jam wasting gas spouting right wing BS.
This was explained to me as being a car person vs a "car person" by a friend who mentioned what giant douchebags car people are, in a group chat with her best friends who are extreme car nerds.
I know it's getting into a sort of strawman/"No True Scotsman" realm, but I've definitely noticed it at a lot of car meets unfortunately. There are a lot of people who are very much attracted purely to the idea that "fast loud vroom car will make me attractive as a person", and those tend to be the assholes who buy a $100k sports car that they won't even take to a local autocross, and will use it solely to terrorize people in surrounding neighborhoods.
On the other hand, there are people who get excited seeing basically any interesting car. It doesn't matter if it's slow and cheap and isn't flashy, it's just a unique car and that should always be exciting to see.
My stepfather very much falls into the 1st category, and going to Woodward (absolutely massive car show/cruise in Detroit) was absolutely painful. He would shit on basically every car that went by, and on the rare occasion a flashy supercar drove by, would be like "I bet my car is just as fast". He's had multiple very nice sports cars, and I've invited him numerous times to autocross/track events, but he refuses it every time questioning why he'd want to. He'd much rather be an idiot doing 3x the speed limit on backroads than just take it to any one of the many nearby track events. Absolute numpty
I imagine going to a track for someone like your stepfather is a rather vulnerable experience. Odds are higher that he might run into someone with a better car than his compared to just toodling around back roads.
Oh, for sure. Likely, it's not even going to be a "better" car, it's going to be a much slower car, but with a better driver. That would be even more galling, to have his flashy sports car passed by some dude in a Miata.
Yeah, like, we've got a fairly nice sporty-ish sedan that's approaching 300k and since we've only got one car we kinda have to be ready to buy a new one quickly, I've done some of the thought process based on our needs and where we are in life. And the thing is, I like a nice car but I'm unclear on exactly how nice of a car I would actually appreciate driving, given that I don't like to die or hurt other people, so I'm not going to go 3x the speed limit on some backroad and have never gotten a speeding ticket just that the upgrade from a 1.8L engine ecomony-ish sedan to a 2.5L engine sporty-ish sedan did feel real nice.
Meanwhile, one in-law got a Porsche so another in-law on the same side of the family had to trade in his Audi SUV for roughly the same SUV on the Porsche side and it's all some douchebag power fantasy.
But, yeah, I like seeing actual-car-persons nerd out because I know enough to get at what they are nerding out about. Joy is much funner than douchebaggery.
This is why I got OUT of the scene. It's a car. Chill with all the hot takes bruh. I just want to have fun with people that know about cars.
That's a really fascinating, if depressing insight. I've long wondered what it's like for "normal" (nah, fuck it, just normal) people in subcultures with so much baggage.
Try being someone on the liberal side of the political spectrum who is primarily into the history and engineering of firearms, rather than the power fantasy of "gubmint and libruls better fear muh guns".
It's an absolute hellscape and it's extremely disheartening to start talking with someone and sharing in a common interest, then seeing "FJB" and 1488 bumper stickers. I refuse to let bigots ruin my hobby though, and make an effort to make the hobby as inclusive as possible.
I also feel that being into planes. Lockheed Martin and the military industrial complex can get fucked, i just like it when they fly around and do cool stuff.
Sounds rotten :-(
It definitely sucks, but there are an increasing number of people like Ian of Forgotten Weapons getting people interested for the same reasons I am, really only getting into the politics from the historical or design perspectives, and always in a very objective manner. I'm also now in a far more liberal area and the local ranges are very inclusive, so that helps immensely.
I love working on my car and taking it to meets and shows, but I have a hard time finding friends in the community for exactly this reason.
I don't know you, but I love you.
Check out the honda insight forum, they're pretty chill over there.
I've got a few other places I can shoot shit with people who know some about my daily driver/project car maintenance and have largely avoided the bigoty shit, largely due to my low bullshit tolerance and gender identity lol
oh man, some "biker dudes" are the worst dude bros in all mankind. And it's like they take pride in committing felony moving traffic violations...
One of my hobbies is the social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower. Heavy social deduction games will draw certain types of people. Many of the people are very nice and inclusive. Others not so much.
I just played a game with a new group the other night - games usually take about 90 minutes in my experience. These people are all about playing super optimally rather than having fun. I made a sub-optimal play as an evil character, solely to create chaos. This led to mass confusion toward the end of the game. When my play was revealed at the end, people were literally yelling at me.
No one cared that it worked, and evil won, and that I completely followed the rules. I just did something no one would expect because I knew it would cause confusion. Some people take all the fun out of the game.
Well that sucks. My favourite moment in a hidden role game was when a player won by misreading their card and convincing both of us that we were allies at the start. They ended up the only evil player for most of the game and then in the last round after we’d worked together to systematically kill everyone else (all weirdly innocents, we were both feeling guilty by this point), when they finally realised they knew there was no evil player they checked and… killed me. Total madness and a glorious victory for them. How can you be mad at that?!
This is really dumb imo (the other people). My friend and I both like to be agents of chaos sometimes, so when we play Secret Hitler it's a nightmare because even if we're not on the same team we just cause so much mayhem and have everyone doubting everything. Isn't the fun in the chaos and confusion???
In most social deduction games, the point of the minority team is to create confusion, since they have all the information. The majority team is trying to deduce roles, so they benefit from players who telegraph their strategy.
Jesus, what a bunch of freaks those people sound.
I mean, set aside that you outsmarted them with an unexpected move, but, oh no, you mean the evil side didn't do things by the book?? Who'da thunk it?
Even my own team was pissed at me because my move was super risky. But because I could see the way people were expecting optimal play, I figured it would work in our favor.
One person said, "WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO FUCKING STUPID? YOU THREW YOUR OWN TEAM UNDER THE BUS"
Yeah, but it worked cuz nobody expected anybody would do such a crazy move.
Exactly - really glad it worked out, especially if that's how the others are going to react! :-)
My nerd herd play this game too, the usual suspects are getting to the point where I worry that will be the problem. Right now the main irritation are meme accusations. 2 players dont trust eachother even if prove they are on the same team.
Lieing about being someones grandmother and randomly guessing a role (and getting it right) has ended multiple games. Its gotten to the point we have to just treat some people as agents of chaos even if they arnt on the evil team. Its still very fun and most people get a laugh out of a good play.
I turned the spent fisherman in between the vigor and assassin into the empath in my game. Not a single person believed the spent fish would suddenly get a 2 empath reading. They got read as a minion panicking in final three when the raven keeper was on the block lol.
I was pretty proud of the psych out play.
My recent claim to fame from this past weeks game, winning our groups first psychopath script. I got to play Patrick Bateman and didnt do anything for 3 turns (Our GM kept calling me crazy) because my demon (the Al-hadihkia) handed me the flower girl as a bluff. Convinced the town fool, who had validated their role worked in front of everyone, that I was above board and proceded to axe the philosopher on the last day to win the game for the evil team. The fool still owes me a beer or sandwich.
I've never gotten psycho yet, which makes me sad. It looks like so much fun to play.
I think playing as a minion is the most fun, demons are too stressful and outsiders usually mean your paranoid or intentionally throw yourself under the bus for the good team.
Some of the most fun I've had has been playing the Baron. Just getting to sew as much discord as possible early game, and if I die? Oh well. I once managed to get into 3 double claims on day one and somehow didn't get executed till day 3 lol.
I've got quite the game collection, and that kind of competitive behavior annoys the hell out of me.
If I'm learning a game, I stumble along, take my turns, and figure out how everything works as we go through the process. I don't expect to win, and if I do, it's probably because I got some lucky rolls/draws.
I have a few friends/family that get angry when they aren't winning, and nothing pisses me off during a game more than that.
Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with getting frustrated with a bad draw, or when someone has the perfect counter in their hand, but, if your enjoyment of the game is solely determined by how much you're winning, you're ruining it for everyone else and you aren't getting invited to the next game night.
Yeah. Even my own team was pissed at me. I took a risky move that worked out in the end because I used their weakness against them. That's part of the reason that BotC is so much better than many social deduction games - it's often not entirely solvable, even with optimal play. And just let people have fun sometimes, who cares about making the "objectively best decision" at all times.
I used to play a lot of TTT (for those who don't know, think Among Us, but its an FPS where anyone can shoot anyone else) and this is what ruined it for me. In the rare occasions where I could get together a group of friends, it was fine, but any attempt to play online was just endless squabbles. Everyone was constantly whining about if X peice of evidence was ligitimate enough to act on, and God-forbid anyone do anything that actually broke a rule, regardless of how fun or funny.
I used to play that with friends, but I knew playing with randoms would be toxic. Glad to know I didn't miss an opportunity lol
Chaos moves are so much fun.
When a friend and I play Coup (hidden role card game), we’ll typically start out playing normally - especially if there are new players - but as things progress, we get into “advanced” strategies. We might not look at our cards at all, and publicly proclaim it, such that nobody can possibly know if we’re BSing or not - since we don’t know ourselves.
My old group loved to do a few blind rounds of coup after we were ready to move onto another game. Made for chaos and great fun for everyone. That was usually our warm up game - still waiting for people to show up, maybe snacks were still being prepared, Hosts walking the dog, etc.
But of course, first round, EVERYONE is a Duke.
Looks like evil won and then some. 'evil laugh'.
This is why I get anxious playing with new groups, especially because if I draw a token that let's me try something out of left field, I can rarely resist going for it. Thankfully, so far everyone has been really excellent, but it takes me a while to slip in and get comfortable
This is a great game, people are constantly surprising you
Pishing. Some birds will make a warning call known as a “pish.” Making that call yourself—if you do it correctly and have a bit of luck—can make flocks of tiny, hard to spot birds come close to you as they try to figure out what some ‘hidden bird’ is warning everyone about.
If you’re a bird watcher wanting to spot them this is super exciting! And if it’s in an isolated area or somewhere not many other birders visit it’s not super stressful to the birds. The problem comes with places like Central Park that are bird watching meccas, and suddenly a patch of woods might have dozens of people doing that in the span of a few hours. Repeated or prolonged pishing can stress birds out the same way that playing recorded bird song at them for hours can stress them out, because it makes them think there’s an unseen threat to confront.
To me it’s just disrespectful to the wildlife. They’re not there to be your toys or to fill out your IRL pokedex, and stressing them out because you want a better look is edging into unethical territory.
This is really interesting because I'm a very casual bird observer and occasionally try to whistle to get their attention, but I hadn't thought about this aspect of it!
Whistling is probably fine since it’s not something they’re likely to mistake for a warning call from another bird or as a song from their own species, so don’t feel bad about that! 👍
i try to mimick some bird call but yeah it's usually just to try and get their attention if I'm taking a picture. i don't play bird noises or anything else, just look at them and maybe take pictures
I just want to teach my neighbor crows to bring me shinies for really, really good seeds lmao
You may know this already, but in Scotland, the term "pishing" is synonymous with "pissing" - 'going for a pish', 'he was totally pished' (drunk), 'i pished myself laughing', etc.
Just a heads up in case you ever decide to come here and ask someone where a good place for pishing might be :-)
Also used in Norn Iron.
Also whenever there's a rarity photographers always insist on going off the path to get as close as possible often scaring off the bird which obviously ruins it of everyone else who's just trying to see it from a reasonable distance.
Translation: I can do it but no one else should
Try reading again because I said nothing like that ❤️
Unplanned amputations.
I'm a woodworker.
Table saws are serious shit.
Have a coworker who taught me all he knows bout woodworking.
Have heard way too many times "X is for pussies". Saw guards, riving knives, splitters. "Real men use Radial Arm Saws."
Is that why you lost function in 3 of your fingers? To prove you are a real man? Well slap my ass, and call me Sally because I like having all my fingers.
Carpenter here. I used to get called a pussy by the old dudes all the time. Maybe Jethro, but I've been doing this as long as you have and I have all my fingers still and you can only count to 8 if you take off a shoe.
lol I love this. I wonder if they lost 7 fingers, or some combination of fingers and toes.
I think it means they lost 3 or more fingers
But if they took off a shoe with 3 missing fingers they could count to 12! 😛
And is stupid enough to need fingers to get to ten.
That's actually a perfect retort "You're such a pussy using the guard Zagami!" "Really Jethro? Do me a favor, take your shoe off and count to ten."
A razor sharp 10 inch circular saw blade being spun at 5,500 RPM by an 18 amp motor doesn't care how manly you are.
I worked in a woodshop for a bit too. The story I told new kids is that the band saw a was originally used in butchershops to cut beef sides till a woodworker thought it would make a nifty hobby tool. And that saw wants nothing more than to explore it's roots and get back to its raison d'être of slicing meat into more manageable sized chunks. And you better believe that table saw over there isn't going to be shown up by some hobby tool.
The band saw is deceptively safe. It's a fairly quiet and gentle sounding tool, it doesn't push back on you like a circular saw does, it won't kick back, it's too easy to stop being scared of it.
It does.
Because if it's low enough it can change it very easily (and potentially for the rest of your life)
Fingers are INTEGRAL. Sapphic safety 101
Woodworking hobbyist with an emergency medicine background who worked in a replantation centre for a while: I can absolutely confirm this.
And table saws are amongst the most harmless devices in an average workshop.
I saw some gnarly shit over the years and tbh, I had some near miss cases as well on my own. (like when a milling head died on my DIY CNC and flew through the workshop - close enough to my jugular vein to graze my skin. 5mm to the right and I would have been in a very very bad spot)
You have my attention with that line. I'm used to thinking of the table saw as the most likely amputator of my shop. What in your experience is the bigger maiming hazard?
In absolute numbers the table saw will win because everyone has one. But they can be used in a safe way - with a sliding carriage, a push stick and a cover or even a saw stop(even though that is a ridiculous shitshow on my side of the pond)you have a near 0% chance of hurting yourself. That is different for a lot of other machines. They can hurt you even if you do things right but are unlucky.
Band saws are far more likely to hurt someone and old planes are inherently unsafe as their spindles often are designed in a way that they often easily send their blades towards their operators. Especially when they are older models. And of course mortisers - I saw some really really gnarly shit over the years, e.g. someone who lost control of their mortiser when hitting an knothole and then the machine went towards his groin - still running as he panicked and did squeeze the handle even stronger by reflex. In the end the half groin area was bloody pulp he injured a major vessel that nearly killed him. A friend of mine collapsed (due to a medical issue) on a table mortiser and missed the blade by less than 2cm. With a table saw he would have simply collapsed on the cover, here it was pure luck.
Wow that's nearly opposite of what I've always heard. Like I've never really heard of mortising machines being particularly dangerous. We're talking the specialized cousin of the drill press, right? Like I don't know how to "lose control" of a Mortising machine.
I've actually seen more injuries at the drill press; bits like to grab sheet metal and spin it right at belly level, give you the first half of a tummy tuck.
I feel much safer using a band saw because it won't kick back on me or generate adverse forces, I guess they're fairly quiet and affable that you forget it's a saw until you start dropping phalanges. Table saws can get ornery.
Or does "your side of the pond" mean you're European and you're referring to different tools than I am? Like in America a "plane" is a hand tool., and my thickness planer would struggle to throw its very well encased knives at anyone.
With airsoft, it has to be the fascination with using lasers. There's no such thing as a totally eyesafe laser, just "less harmful ones" and I know that many of the ultra cheap lasers on places like aliexpress are totally lying about their ratings, using lower rating stickers on more powerful lasers. Which is a problem as it's easier to make a brute force amped up laser when you want something bright to appeal to airsofters. The teens buying these lasers have no idea what laser ratings are in the first place anyway, they just buy whatever appeals to their Call Of Duty addled brains.
In addition to being inherently unsafe, which is full stop reason enough, lasers tend to be pretty useless especially in outdoor games. It is very annoying to be in the woods and randomly get swept by a lasers from somebody far away who doesn't even know where I am. I have literally heard people explain that they find where the laser is pointed by looking for it with their magnified scope. Which is completely insane logic.
When the topic comes up, laser users claim that they never aim at peoples' eyes. In a game, that's a completely impossible promise to keep. Also some people do intentionally aim lasers at faces for an advantage, and since it's impossible to avoid this whole mess, lasers should be banned entirely.
(And before anyone mentions the laserbox on my airsoft gun, it's fake. It's a hollow box where I keep the gun's battery for easy access.)
I used to play on an outdoor field over a decade ago and still have a vivid memory of this one guy in particular. I distinctly remember that he had multicam EVERYTHING: full MC clothing, a MC helmet, even a MC wrapped Systema. But the cherry on top was a green laser that stayed on 100% of the time. You could see the fucker coming from a mile away.
He was also a douchenozzle
Airsoft runs on the honor system, and you're relying on the honor of sometimes maladjusted teenagers with access to their parents' credit cards. (Not all teens, and sometimes the older players are problems, but to be real 8 out of 10 times, it's a "that guy" teen causing problems.)
With my 3-power optic I get to see great views of BBs just bouncing off people who are invincible to them.
This is a really interesting one i think for the reasons you pointed out above. There is very little safety oversight for this and these people genuinely have no clue how to actually use laser aiming systems. Not to mention that if you have a laser, it should be set up such that you don't need to look for it (especially not with a scope that's mounted parallel to the laser) because it's to help your fine aim. Oh well, i was young and thought tacticool stuff was cool once too.
There are these amazing laser based aiming systems out there called "red" "dots". They have the advantage of being better AND not flashing people in the eye.
exactly!
A lot of the tacticool is just dumb and awkward; that's sort of just good fun LARPing nonsense. Some poor choices like not wearing mouth protection are flatly stupid, but at least it only punishes the person making the choice. My problem with lasers is that the person making the dumb choice isn't affected, only people otherwise doing everything right.
I've actually asked a few fields about implementing no laser policies, but unfortunately owners seem apathetic about having to enforce it.
Another hobby, though I haven't been in a few years is SCUBA diving. I learned how to dive under people who took all of the safety limits and procedures quite seriously. I was always diving in a pair with a person I knew, and we always had a comfort level of communication and teamwork based on familiarity with each other.
I left that constant diving life, and later to scratch the diving itch I decided to go do a recreational dive in the US. I showed up to the place and got on the boat. On the ride out to the dive site, I was expecting a pre-dive meeting where details would be gone over, and I'd be assigned my partner so we could interact at least a little bit before getting in the water. That never happened. I was waiting and waiting for the meeting to start when the boat just stopped, the people running it announced we were at the dive spot and just started pointing to pairs of people to be "partners" basically as they were jumping off the boat. I'm used to doing an equipment shakedown with a partner, but my assigned partner was some guy who just hopped in the depths and was gone before I could do any of that.
This was a simple dive to a flat sand bottom. People were mostly looking for trinkets down there. That said, the lack of organization was shocking. When time was up, people just started shooting to the surface. Nobody else was doing safety stops on the way up, and because of me doing it I was the last person out of the water. It was very scary sloppy and I did not go back to any open-to-the-public recreational dives after that.
Thats terrifying, especially given that the ocean is potentially more dangerous than space. the power of water is not to be underestimated
It was really scary. I'd shadowed some recreational groups before to help out with the shop I'd been close with and a reoccurring theme would be that customers who dived for maybe one week a year were so caviler about safety because they were "very experienced", while the people who dived so much they were having to calculate their weekly limits were abundantly respectful of the depths.
As one person working there would say, "You never get a brain aneurysm until you do."
Can you explain what the weekly limit is about? I know very little about scuba.
There's a lot of biology involved that I don't understand the intricacies of, but basically the more time and at more depth you are underwater the more your body is dealing with changes in the density and makeup of your blood. You need time on the surface to normalize. For a similar reason you need to do safety stops to allow your body to adjust to the changes.
For normal recreation dives, it's pretty simple that people are limited to (IIRC) two dives/two hours per day as a general guideline. Once you get into deeper dives, using different breathing mixes, and other stuff people have to start doing a little bit of double checking to make sure they don't overdo it.
I'm not sure about the weekly limit, but I guess it has also to do with the absorbtion of nitrogen into your blood, which is why you make safety stops after going deep and why there are daily limits.
Depending on how deep and how long you dive, more nitrogen will get dissolved in your blood due to the increased pressure. It stays there until you get into lower pressure ( ascending to the surface). If you do that too fast, the nitrogen will build up bubbles. And bubbles in the bloodstream is really really bad, hindering the flow of blood. Doing safety stops in lower depths gives some nitrogen the time to leave your body through the lungs while breathing. Not diving for a certain time after your dive sessions will give time to release all additional nitrogen from the blood, preventing a builtup over each dive.
How deep was the dive? Thinking that these guys do these dives regularly without ever doing safety stops is giving me decompression sickness by proxy
I honestly don't remember. It wasn't notably deep, but I had 100% of the time always done a safety stop and a controlled ascent in all my dives. The part that made this especially bad was people would go absolutely flying from the bottom to the top, with no attempt to control their speed.
My ears are very sensitive, that shit would burst my ears. In a normal swimming pool, I would still need to equalize.
Was this ran by a PADI Dive center? I feel like if it was an official dive center they would be more rigorous and Divemasters would be helping you out.
No, I was used to PADI and certified by them (outside the U.S.). The place where I had the bad experience was affiliated with some U.S. organization I wasn’t familiar with.
PADI is international, I feel like most reputable dive shops need to be PADI certified.
I know. Like I said the shop had a US only organization I wasn’t familiar with and it was my first experience with recreational U.S. diving, which is why I specified.
I showed up in the U.S. expecting PADI, but being unfamiliar with how U.S. shops operated, and presumed that whatever non-PADI organization they were with would be similarly standardized. Clearly they weren’t. Which is why I didn’t go back.
Interesting, I live in the US and I didn't know there are different scuba organizations other than PADI and SSI, and NAUI. I would be sussed out at that dive center. I'm sorry you had to experience that.
I have guns. I'm also super liberal. The amount of range patrons, employees or gun shops that talk unprompted about politics to me is disgusting. They just can't understand there are liberal or left leaning gun owners.
I generally don't get people like that. Starting a conversation with a stranger about polarizing topics like politics or religion is just high risk low benefit gamble.
I prefer to start conversations at the range with “ya ever tried riding a dick while high?” It really kickstarts things.
Rage stacking lol
Step 1: work less & join range Step 2: ask dudes about their preferred dildo manufacturers 2a. Wink wink, suggest tentacles
Especially when you know for a fact said stranger is armed.
Yup. Super off-putting. More than half of my local shops all have massive trump banners and associated ephemera along with some form of lib-bashing. Can't be in that space for more than 5 minutes without hearing some fake news, racism, or mockery of some group. It's really killing the sport for me. It never mattered when I first got into it, but the identity politics are destroying just enjoying a good day a the range.
It's like they believe gun ownership is some kind of underground club that is impossible to be a part of unless your republican.
In photography, its overemphasis on the importance of gear. While it’s true that some shots require specific equipment, the average photographer will not improve with better equipment, and an experienced photographer can take brilliant shots with a phone.
You can’t buy skill. It comes with practice.
One of my exes did photography, first as a hobby, then did some weddings and stuff. He went to a class to learn more, and a lot of the more experienced people gave him shit because his camera was "basic". It was a Canon or Nikon DSLR. Sure nothing amazing or super expensive, but he knew how to use it and no one ever complained about his photos they paid for.
People in any hobby that requires equipment draws these people. There were a couple cool people I met that he made friends with though. They had nicer gear, but weren't assholes about it. Let him try them out and taught him about the benefits and use cases and stuff too.
People who gatekeep like that just scream insecurity to me.
Imagine being an asshole to someone who either chooses not or can't afford to, buy very expensive equipment. Utterly pathetic.
this is the vibe im getting too. i just started with photography and am taking a digital still photography class and got a D300 for cheap. My lens is meh and i can't do everything i want with it, but I've been able to take better photos than i ever have been before with a camera a decade plus old.
I'm the same way with networking gear haha
Good for you! The class will help more than a better lens. Learn to stay within the limits of your lens for now, rather than trying to fight it into situations it can’t capture. Think about the light before looking for a composition. Digital photography has the advantage of being able to take unlimited pictures at no cost, so think, shoot, review, and learn. Most importantly, enjoy it!
Oh, and always keep your camera with you. lol
Thank you, i appreciate the advice! i do think about light a lot, and the first settings i change when getting a good photo are the white balance and exposure. i definitely need more practice overall but im enjoying it enough that i brought my camera case with me today instead of my backpack
Nice! While you’re walking with your bag, make note of good shots with undesirable sun position and try to return when the sun is where you want it. There are some really useful apps that will let you track the sun’s path using AR. They’ll also tell you when to find both golden hours every day.
oh perfect! thank you!
I'm in a Facebook group for my camera, and it's full of these people. Every other post seems to be telling newbies that they need to upgrade the camera and lens, or every photo will be awful. They treat buying a more expensive camera as an upgrade, no matter how good the photographer is, or what they're shooting.
I’ve grown a lot over the years through criticism of my photos, not my equipment. Try to find photographers you trust to be honest with you, and ask them what they think of your shots. Criticism of gear is just simply noise.
You’ll know when you need a new lens once you find yourself limited by the capability of your first. Cant get the low-light shots you want without ISO noise? Look into wider aperture lenses. Want to capture the birds you see every morning across the lake? Maybe a telephoto zoom. Need something discrete for city-life shots? Pancake prime time.
The lens bug can bite hard. Try to let your desired shots dictate your next lens, not the sale at B&H or Andromeda, and definitely not Facebook trolls.
I think this is what's going to drive me the most for a new lens. I'm a night owl and I wanna do more night photography, but my aperture only goes down to 3.5 (i think) at 18 mm and if i use any focal length above that I'm pretty much limited to 5.6. Not terrible by any means but i have to spend a lot of time manually playing with the exposure, ISO, shutter speed, and meter before I get the shot I want. But I'm not experienced enough to know what I'm doing wrong yet so a new lens will have to wait until I know I'm actually being limited by my lens and not my skill.
Sure. Kit telephotos typically have a variable aperture (f/3.5-5.6). You may need use of a tripod for crisp low-light shots with one. Over time, make note of your most commonly used focal length. When it comes time for a lens, check out prime lenses in that focal length. They’re fixed lenses (no zoom), but they have the advantage of much larger apertures, and are typically sharper. You can usually get a “nifty fifty” (50mm f/1.8) from most manufacturers relatively inexpensively. It’ll really expand your low-light options.
I'll keep that in mind, thank you! i appreciate the advice!
No problem. Feel free to hit me up if you have a question. Even if I don’t have the answer, I might be able to point you in the right direction. Always down to help a fellow photographer.
The "macho" attitude to safety. From soldering to woodworking. In soldering, there are fumes created when burning a substance called flux. There are commercial fumes extractors to purify and remove these fumes, but many refuse to use them, even if they're cheap. Saying stuff like "What's a little tree sap gonna do to me?. Chances are, none of them could run a mile due to the irritation of their lungs.
Another one is woodworking, especially around power tools. Table saws can shred your fingers before you can blink. It can pull extremities towards itself, and can launch wood fast enough to perforate organs. Yet there are still people who insist "I don't need no push stick", "don't bother with a crosscut sled, just free hand it".
I have a pile of hobbies and I guess one common thread is obnoxious dude shit. And I say this as a male type person.
3D printing is a weird one because 3D printers are hella good for all kinds of stuff, from the more "femme" coded hobbies to the "dude" hobbies. But somehow the not-male people I know engage with some of the same communities as I do and for some reason I always get a lot more useful answers to my questions. There's a certain aesthetic to homebrew open source 3D printers and it's kinda industrial.
Electronics hackery is worse because it's a lot more "masc" coded. Even software stuff isn't quite as bad because at least there there's been concerted social pressure.
Photography is sad because if I work with a female model I have to go through a whole process for her to make sure that she's going to be safe during our shoot, some of which I didn't even fully realize that was part of the process for a while. And pretty much all of the semi-pro-to-pro experienced models have at least one story and sometimes Names Are Named and it's someone I've met, so I have to be constantly on guard.
oh shit yeah i feel you with realizing things you do as habit really are learned because of shitty things that have happened to people.
I knew a few women that played airsoft at a local field I used to play at, who made a habit of wolf-packing around the field in 2s and 3s. I asked them at one point how they learned to coordinate so well, and it turned out that they had to institute an actual buddy system because some players (long since banned from the local community) decided to get handsy with one of them at one point...and got a broken arm for his trouble.
jesus its terrible they had to go to that extent for their safety
You know, we have a word for "male-type person": its man. It doesn't matter if you are not a biological man, or in some kind of transitional stage, or whatever else might be the cause for this awkward phrasing. It is simply how this is called and it isnt discriminatory, you can use it. Also, a "female model" might well be referred to as a woman. That's not discriminatory either.
I don't know what your goal is in being this persnickety about someone else's wording, but you should probably be sure that you're right before you go around correcting people. For example, if we replaced "female model" with "woman", it would make OP's comment way less clear, because a photographer works with people other than just models and that wouldn't be clear with just "woman".
Regarding "male-type person", I would ask you to take a moment to try to imagine a world where "male-type person" is a more appropriate and correct phrasing than "man". Arguing in good faith means temporarily setting aside your belief that "man" is more correct in order to better understand OP's point and their overall point. As an example, OP may not actually be a man at all, but may be perceived as male by people within the hobby, in which case, "male-type person" may not be elegant phrasing, but it's more correct and informative than "man".
You claim your corrections aren't discriminatory, but that's besides the point, because a comment can be "not discriminatory" and also impolite and unconstructive to the discussion.
I also found the wording a bit needlessly convoluted (kinda like gender, amirite). But yours is a really interesting perspective. I'm not sure if I'd write the same way but I also wasn't bothered enough to correct their diction lol
I'm not entirely sure why everyone assumes I have some nefarious bigoted purpose here.
My point is, it doesn't matter for a quick anecdote if the person in question is whatever makes simply “man“ imprecise, and requires the "male type person" (what could that even possibly mean if not man?) specification, be it they are trans or identify as something else.
Is the next step to introduce the reader to the preferred pronouns of all parties involved? I dont know these people and it has no bearing on the anecdote. That is entirely too convoluted and unnecessarily complicated if there is no actual reason.
I would also argue that if they are for example trans they could just reasonably be called man or woman depending on what they now identify as. Doesn't require a specific qualifier. Why all this convoluted doublespeak when there are already normal words for that?
Call women, women. Men, men. Trans women and men too of course, because why not and unless the fact they are trans is somehow relevant, it is fully sufficient. For everyone who identifies as neither, keep it with neutral pronouns (again unless more information is relevant).
They probably likely meant they come off as a typical man. I felt your comment was unnecessary, like stop looking for it and you’ll find it less. You know? You took what was likely poor phrasing into something else entirely.
I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding of some inclusivity in regards to non-binary identities here.
There are a lot of grey areas that use different words very specifically. Masc and Femme for instance describe a wider range of binary and non-binary identities than "Man and Woman" as many non-binary people are closer to binary trans folks but use a different set of mental mechanisms where they don't strictly align with the categories of "man and woman". Masc and Femme can be used with "presenting" to specify what people tend to read someone as based on cultural dress and behaviour or but left as is to describe gender identity.
On the other pole of talking about sex rather than gender or gender presentation some have started to move away from "assigned gender at birth" and use descriptives like " male/female phenotypic (or type for short) when needing to refer to one's physicality to describe aspects when talking strictly about lived experience regarding their body's sexual characteristics.
The trans community particularly has a lot of very specific language regarding how different aspects of our experience impacts us. For instance a male phenotypic person will have certain aspects assumed about them because of their body independent of their gender which given certain circumstances they need to talk about in a neutral way. Talking about sex can be a bit of a landmine situation in trans circles because it's both a touchy subject and it's where the most dogwhistles tend to be. As such it's a bit chaotic... As such Phenotype does not strictly mean "birth sex". It's more about what physical sex characteristics people perceive and react to... Trans language wise it's something not universally adopted or liked but it is consistent with the usage in the above post where the poster is describing people perceived as at least potentially possessing some sexually male characteristics. This covers cis/ trans men/ masc non-binary people, some trans women / femme non-binary and various flavors of non-binary people.
While I can understand feeling like this is a bit much but it's mostly that language and conventions inside the community and inclusivity forward movements changing rather rapidly to account for the way discourse changes from year to year with new dogwhistles popping up with the evolving discourse as more people become knowledgeable about the basics. Less awkward conventions of language are always being tested because universality is likely a ways away. Trying to be pedantic about it might prove to be a losing battle. Give it another decade or two and it might settle into a singular convention once there's more concensus.
Warhammer, we're here to play with over priced miniatures, don't be a Natzi.
i keep up with the lore in a very small capacity, and im confused how they can eat the pasta so hard.
Ah, everyone's favorite game: is this person playing Krieg IG because they like the aesthetic, or because they "like the aesthetic"?
D&D and RPGs in general. There's a lot of loud opinions on what other people are doing.
Yeah, go ahead Simon - teach me the right way to pretend I'm an elf.
DnD is definitely one of those hobbies where each table is different and (as long as no one is being hurt) none of them are wrong. The toxicity some people bring to the table can scare away newer people entirely and that sucks for everyone. Less DnD people means we all get to play less DnD.
Queer TTRPG circles on the west coast got this fixed. I can never go back to playing in Completely straight TTRPG culture. Queer TTRPG tables will be like "Can I be a Merperson Paladin of like... Everything spiritual simultaneously and just have to fluidly sync with the nearest divinity while my hyper intelligent mouse sidekick who dresses in a Sherlock Holmes outfit causes random trouble? Oh and can the mermish language be a sign language? " and 9/10 times the answer is " FUCK YEAH! That's rad! Do you want your mouse to have a tiny magnifying glass?"
Compare that with the grognards telling me sign languages are prohibited because they are " too much of an advantage" and I am just ruined.
I recommend trying to find chill roleplay heavy groups. The tables i ran were never explicitly queer but we were open to anyone who wanted to come and have fun. It was helped by the fact that the regulars at the table would roleplay in character super heavily, but never take themselves too seriously, so it always just ends in stupid shenanigans where everyone's laughing.
We once had a young kid (<10) at the table with their guardian and when they got the final hit on a difficult encounter the entire table erupted in cheers.
The bikepacking community sometimes feels more like a gear flaunting contest than a fun outdoor sport. Particularly amusing are 90kg men obsessing over a 10kg bike to save weight.
Mountainbiking in general. I bought a used rocky mountain slayer. I asked the guy why he sold it, because it was like new. He explained me that he liked the bike, but it's not good for climbing because it's too heavy, and showed off his new bike. I looked it up when i was back home and he bought a 8k dollar bike that was 900 grams lighter.
I know a guy who bought an 10k dollar ebike because of how light it was. He's like a 90kg man as well. He doesn't even really ride it. He also bought some carvon rims for it to shave of a few grams. Bro, lose some weight and save some cash
I mean if the seller is still big into it and his mass is mostly compromised of non-fat body mass I can see how shaving of 1kg of weight for a hike of 5km can be worth it.
Probably the cheapest and easiest way for most people to get into bike camping is by getting a trailer instead of obsessing over squeezing everything you need on the bicycle itself. I imagine some folks would consider that "cheating" but fuck 'em.
i really want to get into backpacking but I don't have a car to travel and the gear is so expensive. it seems interesting. thank you for your perspective
There's a town a few hours from here and I'm certain that some people drive there with all their gear, then ride around town all kitted up, and drive all the way back to the city.
A surprising amount of fire performers think it's perfectly ok to use fire and other dangerous props while shitfaced on whatever substance of choice. They give all the same excuses that drivers with DUIs give. Majority of them I've met like this are from Florida, surprising no one.
Yeah. I did fire eating and related things semi pro for a little while. I was at an event and some hula hoop fire person asked if I could spot her. No blanket, no extinguisher, no plan, no nothing. Just "stand and watch me, if something goes wrong, you know, do something." I said nope. Not gonna be held responsible for your lack of saftey. She was using fucking gasoline.
Eugh yep I know exactly the type of person you describe. I know the title says hobby but it's really a profession for me. The amount of crazy unsafe shit I've seen people try to get away with is insane.
I've had to yell at people for showing up with bags of fuel, for traveling with Coleman in a glass Snapple bottle, and for trying to spin in a polyester onesie. It's even worse where I live since we have strict regulations (NYC, I'm producer licensed)
What the fuck? I’m an amateur in something similar and while I can take stupid risks like going extinguisher only with isopropyl as my fuel, that’s just ludicrous
If someone's using the reasoning of drunk drivers to rationalize their behavior, that's not a great sign.
Not a fire performer, but an aerialist - I love circus arts but some people just should not do it. Not because they suck, or they've got the "wrong body" or whatever other bs, but just because they completely eschew anything safety related.
The number of people who assume they can just pop a hookup in their drywall ceiling, maybe checking for a joist first, and then hang a lyra from it and try to do drops or high speed spins on it is staggering. Or, like, hanging silks from a random tree branch. Or doing anything more than 3-4 feet in the air without a crash mat under them. Or trying to teach themselves from fucking tiktok videos. Please, please just stop. You're going to hurt yourself, and in the process you're also going to make everyone else's insurance rates skyrocket. Hate it so much.
thats also pretty scary. I'll do some stupid shit while fucked up but usually it involves me potentially hurting myself doing something that seems fun. whenever theres a risk of hurting others or being responsible for others i stop that shit quick.
i also don't put my safety in other people's hands without prior agreement (like a trip sitter), especially not without having put safety precautions in place.
Thinking new people are stupid for asking the same questions they asked 3 years ago. My hobby is every hobby.
well put. "New people don't know enough" shouldn't be a surprise, and yet here we are. Online forums should have a FAQ, at least (many do but not all).
"All the gear, no idea".
This applies to pretty much every hobby or interest I've had. It describes people who start a new thing, and immediately go out and buy "the best" equipment, which they do not have the aptitude to use.
For example, a few years ago I started kayaking, and joined a local club which has kit hire available for most kit, especially the expensive bits (kayaks, paddles, helmets, paddles). Kit hire is insanely cheap, literally £1 an item per day, so you'd need to hire a kayak hundreds or thousands of times for it to be cheaper to buy your own boat. Hiring also allows you to play around with loads of different makes, models, and shapes of boat to find what works for you.
When new people join the club they have two intro sessions, in which, in a purposefully stable boat, best case scenario, they do a mile on calm, slowly moving, water, some figure 8s, and don't capsize.
Context for people who have never kayaked before, at this stage literally no one can paddle in a straight line. Hell, most people end up spinning around 180 degrees after 3-5 stokes as their dominate side overpowers. Trying to turn the kayak is scary because you have to lean over (like a bike) but you don't want to go for a swim in the river, so you don't lean far enough, which makes the kayak feel less stable. Overall for most people starting out it's an enjoyable time, but with a lot of nervousness and trepidation.
The club provide a list of kit recommendations for people starting out, all of which is related to clothing to keep you dry-ish, and costs max £100. Both the club officials, and the members, continuously tell people to not go out and buy loads of stuff immediately and how the majority of members hire the boats.
But every year one or two of the newbies decide they absolutely love it and next week come back having spent a few grand on their own kayak, paddle, and high-spec clothing (dry suits, etc), and proceed to spend the next 2 months absolutely hating their lives because they don't have the skill to paddle the kayak they've bought, continually capsize because it's "so unstable", and ultimately quit through frustration.
The record for this is when someone bought three boats - whitewater / river, sea, and playboat - each of which require different skills, some of which are mutually exclusive (in a river kayak you lean left to turn left, in a sea kayak you lean right to turn left). To their credit, they've stuck at it, and were either very lucky in buying boats which fit their style, or are just sticking with them and learning how to paddle them through sheer insistence. Either way, fair play.
Some people are just like that. I knew the words Taschentuch and Gesundheit when I set my major to German, and I’m now getting my master’s in German instruction, married to a German, and I’ve lived here for several years.
I’ve thought about what on earth caused me to choose German so thoroughly and unpredictably, but it’s not actually abnormal for me. A friend took me to a community folk dance and within two months I was dancing 14 hours a week. I, uh, really commit.
That said, I’m not in a financial position to spend that kind of money, so it’s pretty low stakes for me
Edit: I am also autistic and have ADHD, so I’m not suggesting this is standard behavior, but there’s a bunch of us
There's absolutely nothing wrong with throwing yourself fully in to something, especially if you enjoy it.
A different example would be cooking. Most people starting out will benefit from using Teflon-coated pans to stop food sticking and burning. But highly skilled cooks do not use Teflon, and will have pans with very different attributes (thicker or thinner bottoms, stainless steel, copper, ceramic, etc) and choose the best pan for the task. The newbie doesn't know how to get the benefits, and ultimately performs worse.
I guess what I'm describing are hobbies where your interaction with that activity is through the equipment. In these you have to learn two things simultaneously, how to do the thing, and how to do the thing using this particular thing.
High-level equipment requires you to already be able to do the thing. Entry-level equipment helps you learn how to do the thing.
To be clear, I'm not taking price here.
Lastly, I also have adhd, and really wanted to buy a kayak after my first session too, but knowing that impulse is due to my ND I'm able to stop myself (having learnt the hard way a good few times). I appreciate not everyone can do this. Fwiw, I don't think this is the only cause of this behaviour.
Definitely not the only cause of the behavior, no. Excitement, just hitting a nerve in a good way, and lots of other things can make people commit.
But I did miss that the pro gear made things harder for them. I have experience with that too, and I can finally do nail stamping, but shot my self in a foot a little by getting the “nice” set. I’m much happier making that mistake with a $30 stamper than several thousand dollars of kayaking equipment.
Buying a ton of gear to replace skill, or just because all the YouTubers are pushing it is so common.
I’ve made a conscious effort in all my hobbies to push as far as I can with entry level gear. Only upgrade when I’ve worn it out or I can articulate why I personally need better. Helps from ending up with a bloated collection of useless expensive things.
damn that's wild. for hobbies i have experience in and am returning to, like climbing, i tend to rent gear one or two times and see if i wanna get back into it and then buy gear. i prefer to rent but for some things you just want your own gear. im not the most consistent with a lot of things, but when i buy gear i tend to keep returning stuff because i get reminded about a hobby when i see that i have it and then im more likely to do it.
something like your kayaking club though sounds absolutely perfect and i couldn't fathom dropping thousands on a kayak when you haven't even tried a bunch of stuff that's available for you to try for damn near free.
My take on this is that it's a predominately "rich person problem".
Like pretty much all hobbies kayaking can absolutely be done cheaply, with some sensible ways of saving money and some rather dangerous ways.
Because the best kit is expensive, and status kit is even more expensive, rich people presume that because Awesome Person X uses Y, and they can afford to buy Y, they should also use Y.
What they forget is they are not APX, they are a newbie who cannot even get in the kayak without capsizing, and is now resorting to dragging their 3k carbonfibreglass composite beauty over gravel and rocks. We all start here, but most of us are in scratched up plastic boats where 1 more scratch doesn't matter.
This tickled me.
A decade ago, I lived by a little lake. Bought essentially the cheapest single -piece kayak I could find. Fucking loved it. I don't have that one any more but lately since I live so close to a national park it's tempting to get one I can hike with. It never even crossed my mind that there's enthusiast gear, aside from a super cozy pfd, sun protection, and maybe an anchor lol. Maybe it's because I fish, too. I mean, why wouldn't you? You can reach the best spots from the water!
So I’m super involved in my local bdsm community and it’s probably my main hobby. There’s a lot less misogyny than people not in the community think and a lot more than many of the men of the community think.
A lot of guys take that dom/sub dynamic too far, as an extension of misogynist beliefs. Agreed re: your evaluation.
It's also pretty sad - you're in the most permissive time in history for this stuff, someone is giving you a gift that (carefully approached) can let you live out your deepest sexual desires to everyone's satisfaction,, and you're going to treat the person giving you that gift as actually lesser!? For fuck sakes man, not too long ago you'd be thrown in a psych ward for this shit.
That shit’s a problem for sure, but often the community weeds out dominant men who mistreat submissive women. That’s not to say we don’t have broken stairs and whatnot, I run a women’s group, it’s a problem for sure. But in my experience that aggressive of misogyny in such contexts is far more present in online spaces than reputable irl ones.
The area I see it most manifested is in the way dominant women are treated by men, both dominant and submissive. There are dominant men who love and respect submissive women but just struggle to treat dominant women as their equals. And on the flip side a lot of men who submit to women have a lot of hang ups about it and many treat them as sex objects.
There’s also still a problem with people assuming men are dominant (especially if they’re charismatic and/or handsome) and that women are submissive (especially if they’re small, shy, or feminine).
At least that’s what I’ve noticed as a woman who submits to women
Thanks for clarifying. I can't say I've personally seen that to any great degree, but to be fair my experience was more of a toe dip. I can certainly see that being the case.
Yeah there’s definitely a thing where a local community in a good state doesn’t have as much of it, (though it will often exist) but when things get disrupted more can seep through. It’s been on my mind lately as I’ve been befriending a Domme that’s very new to all of this and her experiences are really elucidating the patterns I’ve seen glimpses of, but thought were more of online problems.
I practice BDSM occasionally and i recently did a scene with someone. There were times where boundaries were accidentally crossed, but my reaction to that was an immediate "are you ok and do you need to stop". Luckily the person was very understanding and actually discovered some stuff they liked, but I simply cannot fathom trying to take advantage of someone who is giving you so much already. I didn't like nor enjoy that I had accidentally transgressed on boundaries, and am working to ensure that it doesn't happen again, but the priority is and should always be safety and comfort.
I find this one especially egregious because as a fellow practitioner, my first priority is safety, safety, safety. i hate to see the bigotry and lack or respect
For the more "masculine" ones, say video games and roleplaying games, really wish guys were less fucking rude to me or even just ignoring me. Or also lovely is me suggesting an idea, ignoring me, then agreeing when someone else takes it and suggests it.
Some people online are oddly hostile about American recipes using cups/tablespoons? I do a lot of baking, so much I do have a scale, but that's extremely uncommon here. Most cup recipes are fine. Even weighed recipes need tweaking sometimes.
Knitting is a solo hobby because oh man old ladies can be really weird about what yarn you use or needles you use or even why you're knitting so young. I was 30 when they were saying this. Sure, younger than them but???
For the first point, does it help if the person repeating it acknowledges that they were just repeating what you said? I find that in conversations in general sometimes people don't get heard so I try to repeat what they said so it can be heard but I always try to start along the lines of "Going back to what you said...".
For the other two I completely understand and I think it's just a weird form of gatekeeping.
It's not as bad when it's started with like, "I agree with x" or "What if we did what x said but with " or something, sure. They usually don't though, almost never. And then everyone at the table acts as if the person who said it came up with it and it's infuriating.
Edit - I might not be clear. The person suggesting the idea I had is generally not boosting it so it's heard, they are generally acting as if they came up with it, and then everyone suddenly realizes it's a good idea coming from a guy instead. When it's someone realizing the idea wasn't heard, they usually don't do that.
I can only imagine how frustrating that must be. I'm sorry that a lot of men are probably subconsciously really shitty and just don't have the care and self awareness to do anything about that.
I am just, constantly in awe of how toxic the fiber arts community can be
Like friends
We are making lovely comfort items, random decor, stuffies and just like, silly shit WHY ARE YOU SCREECHING AT ONE ANOTHER
Hence me going to exactly 1 stitch n bitch ever and then quietly doing crochet in my house forever more
Yeah and the elitism. Like I am knitting for a friend's baby no freaking way am I going to make it with a silk merino blend when I know my friend can only machine wash and tumble dry clothes... And that was before they had a tiny human. Some of the local groups were up in arms that I used ACRYLICS quell horror but dude I make kids toys and they literally drag my toys through a mud bath and three years later it's still in one piece and loved. I do have the budget now for the nicer stuff but when I started out, not so much. And you know what a silk is nice but sometimes... I want a shitty fluffy machine washable plush yarn. Fiber people gotta chill and remember at the end of the day we are playing with sticks and string. Be nice.
The problem with cups and tbsp/tsp is that it varies between sets of spoons.
100g is 100g no matter what. And I don't need to look for the damn spoons all the time, I can just mix the ingredients by weight directly into the bowl.
Not just that, when I moved out of my parents' place or out on my own from a roommate situation all I ever needed was my scale. I didn't have to buy wet measuring cups, dry measuring cups, measuring spoons and what have you filling my drawers and cupboards with inaccurate nonsense.
I also have ultra accurate versions of a couple of my friends' grandparents' recipes. Turns out just a dash of this and a dash of that was amounting to up to 50 grams of extra corn flour or whatever. If you can get someone to participate in giving you a recipe you can really just recreate it with zero guesswork.
There are a lot of cosplay elitists, that think you need to be a supermodel or look exactly like the character to cosplay them. Bruh, this is about creating art of our favorite Fandoms. I'm allowed to make sexy versions of characters, people are allowed to cosplay characters of different ethnicities as long as there's no blackface, people can make costumes of anyone, even if they don't know every bit of info from the source material. Let people have fun... this isn't about you and all your gatekeeping is doing, is stopping you from having awesome and talented friends.
Huh, I guess I’ve somehow avoided those jerks
My experience is a very inclusive atmosphere. Everyone I’ve met is interested in talking about the source material, or construction techniques, or just wanting to express their love for the character. Yeah sure, Iron Man looks more “real” if the guy looks like RDJ, but Sexy Iron Man gets just as much of my admiration if the metallic finish is great and the LEDs are poppin
It may be because I do cosplay erotica for a living, so people assume I'm doing it for money or attention. I do love when they try to gatekeep me and I know more about the Fandom than they expected. These costumes are EXPENSIVE to make, so I'm not going to waste my time and money on something I don't love.
I like to play Magic the Gathering. I also won’t play with randos at local game shops because more often than not they’re socially awkward, outright rude and act like 30 year old children if a game doesn’t go how they want, or they fucking reek. You can find actual normal people who play the game, but the amount of fucking weirdos way outnumbers then, to the point where going to events is not an option for me anymore.
Oh, I got one! The hobby is browsing advice subs. The fucked up practice is just how common and easy it is for some people to tell a complete fucking stranger to end a relationship. People are disgusting. I remember way back when Reddit told me to leave my now-wife of ten years because she had the unforgivable condition of... depression 💀 and I still see this shit every single day. OP reported some choice words? Break up. OP isn't sure? Break up. OP loves them but their partner blah blah blah? Break up. Every valley too low, every mountain too high, no relationship can work out to a Redditor. The fucking gall of these people to constantly be telling complete strangers to make a major life altering decision, and how flippantly they do it... it just pisses me off. They don't know a damn thing about "red flags".
Price gouging and “grading” of retro games. I just wanna play some old NES games without taking out a second mortgage.
Same here. I hate how it has become some sort of investment to people that want to sell for profit.
allow me to introduce you to Boardgame Kickstarters
If you don't care about owning physical copies of the games, you should look into an Everdrive. It's a special cartridge that lets you play downloaded ROMs on your original NES.
I’ve gotten to the point that I’m buying things like BennVenn’s MBC3000 and BucketMouse’s Nintendo NES Cartridge Circuit Board just so I can enjoy physical media again.
The problem send to be in the interface of software and hardware. It is cheap to play an NES game on an emulator, but the actual equipment storing the data has an intrinsic value.
In the 3D printing and modelling space there's a growing amount of tribalism amongst people. Its still not too bad, but it seems to be getting worse. It worst with printer hardware and cad software but I see it with slicers, filament, bed material too.
If someone is having issues (and hobbiest grade machines and materials are going to have issues), it's not helpful to say "well your first problem is you bought a _____."
Really? I bought an Ender 3 V2 three years ago which is quite famous in the 'scene' but also famous for a number of issues. As a newbie I asked a lot of beginner questions and I constantly received very supportive and helpful answers.
'Yeah that's a known issue but you can tweak X, change setting Y or replace part Z to work around it'
Same experience with the FreeCAD community. Amazing people and a software that works pretty well with some initial exercise.
I see an increasing amount of Prusa folk vs Bamboo folk (and vice-versa), everyone vs fusion360 folk (and to a lessor extent vice-versa). And very recently I've started to notice a new vocal "I only ever use thangs.com" group starting to sprout.
i don't like bamboo printers very much, just because of the closed ecosystem. the printers themselves are really good, besides being loud.
i would like to switch to a different CAD program, but i couldn't figure out freecad for the life of me. fusion is still my go-to.
thangs is my primary hosting site, just because zack freedman started gridfinity on there. and at the time, thingiverse was almost unusable from my perspective. never really tried printables tho.
There's a lot about the hatred of Bambu that's just sinophobic. Which is too bad because there's plenty of completely rational reasons to avoid Bambu printers.
That's weird because all except prusa are Chinese made. My issue with Bambu is that it is a closed ecosystem, but they are undeniably very capable machines.
God I wish people would shit on the ender 3 V2 more. I wish I would have given up on that pile of junk sooner. “You get what you pay for” absolutely applies. No amount of tweaking could make that thing print consistently unless you could consistently awful.
you are the problem here.
i have and ender 3 pro as well as an ender 3 max. after a PEI coated bed and a second cooling fan, the ender 3 pro curns out the best sub-300€ benchies you've ever seen.
a friend of mine has a 3V2, and it has all the mods i would've done to a 3 pre-done.
for budget printers like the ender series, it's a skill issue most of the time. so teach newbies how to use cheap printers, of course it isn't plug and play. you paid 200€ for it.
Modding only made my ender worse, not better. The PEI build plate only made the problems even more pronounced. At least the Plastic build plates texture absorbed the uneven extrusion.
And I’m not saying you have to pay $500 for a printer to get a good experience. You just need to pay more than $100 for the bottom of the barrel ancient ender 3 pro/v2 with its problems. I spent more money (and most importantly time) trying to fix that printer than if I’d just bought a good one from the start. Even my co workers (some own that exact printer) shat on me for buying the printer because there’s better alternatives, even for the exact same price.
So many bedroom audio producers are all about having the latest and greatest gear, and then don't make shit beyond a tech demo or two. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose. It just seems a bit odd to me to collect a pile of expensive, useful tools, and then not even use them.
Or not even know how to use them. I remember one guy in particular. He had a $10000 Moog One, and used it to make a piece of music where he held an A minor chord for 20 minutes. There was almost no modulation or movement at all. Just the same chord for twenty minutes. I like outre music, but come on!
There’s also a lot of snake oil in the hobbyist/personal hi-fi audio world. I’m a professional audio tech for live events. A lot of people don’t understand how audio works, and why audio gear is built a specific way. So they’re susceptible to bad faith sales tactics, which are oftentimes inventing problems that never existed before the product was being marketed. Or claiming to use manufacturing materials/processes that won’t make a difference on a physics level, but will make a difference in cost to the end user.
Hi-fi audio is a world of diminishing returns. A $1000 system will sound great compared to a $500 system. A $5000 system will sound a little better than a $1000 system. But a $10,000 system will only sound marginally better than the $5000 system, and many people won’t even be able to tell the difference between the two. Or to rephrase, they’ll be able to tell a difference between the two, but won’t be able to tell which one is the “better” system. They’ll simply hear the difference in speaker frequency responses.
Also, that classic rock song you’re critiquing on your $30,000 living room sound system was performed and mixed by people who couldn’t hear fucking anything. Their hearing was shot years before the song was recorded, by decades of crowd noise and stage monitors.
Also, their music sounds the way it does because the band got really drunk one night, spilled beer on the amp and it caught fire, and after that it had a really cool sound.
This one upsets me a lil because I occasionally record the music I write, and recording off a Scarlett Solo is not the easiest experience, especially when I'm only using the that came with it (aside from like my own amps and instrument specific gear).
I wouldn't know what to do with a lot of the expensive gear, but I could do something with it and get some genuine use out of it for my music. But at the same time I don't wanna fall into the same trap, so I only buy gear that I need when I need it, and that's usually stuff for my instruments themselves.
I hear you. A buddy gave me a $1000 headphone amp he'd replaced with a newer version. It's the most expensive piece of gear I own and hilariously out of place in my set up. I still use it, though.
Hey that sounds pretty nice! Thats the nice thing about sharing hobbies with friends
I just wish he'd gotten tired of his Moog Grandmother. Haha!
I've recently started putting together a home studio and made the mistake of asking online what I should consider before painting my monitors. Nearly half of the people who responded said, "Don't do it, it'll ruin the resale value." Like dude, I'm not here to be on a god damned gear treadmill. I'm here to make music. Gear is just a necessary evil to me and if I never have to buy monitors again I would be so happy. So, If I can get some extra joy out of them and make them mine, I'm gonna.
Hear hear. I've been using the same cheapo Mackie CR4 monitors for nearly a decade now. It's not like a $1000 pair is going to sound much better in my room without a bunch of baffling or whatever.
With some people it feels like their more gear collectors than producers. Though I gotta admit there where times where I bought a piece of equipment that was kinda outside the scope of what I needed because I thought it was nice to have.
We all get the GAS sometimes.
Ham radio: treating newcomers like idiots, and general gatekeeping.
Archery: spending way too much for stuff and pretending that it'll make a huge difference in your performance.
Cycling: see archery
Backpacking: see archery
Fishing: see archery
Marksmanship: see archery (except kinda true for optics)
Quadcopters: pretending it's easy. It's not fucking easy! You're going to break your quadcopter five dozen or more times before you can fly without crashing if you don't learn on a simulator first.
I guess that's it
ha, the hobby is basically just break-fixing your quad with a bit of flying time in between. And spending hours trying to recover it because aren't sure exactly where you crashed.
I started in the LiftOff simulator and then moved to a TinyHawk Freestyle before moving to a 5", and I've had pretty good luck. But, I put in a ton of practice time to get to where I am, and I still crash occasionally.
The ham radio thing makes me so sad, it really does seem like a dying hobby. But when I took my test the club sponsoring it had guys there who immediately berated me for using a practice test guide and getting a cheap piece of crap radio. Like yeah, I know it's a terrible radio, but it was $70 with the practice guide and I'm a poor af college student. That little radio lasted me years and I only bought a new one cause it's battery died and I couldn't find a replacement
I'm sorry that was your experience. Out where I am all the hams have been lovely people and been very welcoming and open to all people and radios.
It sounds like you are plugged into some great clubs! I will say that I just moved a few months ago, and one of my neighbors is a ham who has been really helpful. She keeps sending me information about local clubs, reminding me that nets are happening, and offering to help me move my antenna from the terrible location it is in right now. I guess maybe most of the negativity happens online, since that's where I usually experience it.
that would make sense. the clubs in my area have been super welcoming and inviting to new people
I'm planning to get into archery but I don't want to spend a fortune, though, cheapest set I've found is $300, what do you think of this?
https://www.htarchery.com/products/recurve-bow-kit
It's hard to say because they don't specify what they'll actually send you. Most of the accessories in that kit are like $10 each, so depending on the bow, it's probably overpriced. I'd go with something like a Samick Sage Archery Takedown Recurve Bow, or a SAS Spirit 6. You want a takedown so that you can replace the limbs with something better if you love the sport and stick with it. Then if you really love it you can replace the riser later and you'll already have the limbs. The finger tabs are like $6, the arm guard is like $8-10. You can get a good softshell case for $20, or a Pelican hardshell case for $35 (I just bought one yesterday). A decent SAS waist quiver is $12 and a good one $25. That just leaves the arrows. I'm using Victory V-force Sport .245 carbon arrows right now and they're pretty good for the money. Only $50 on Amazon. You can get wooden arrows for like $2 each. Field tips are like $6-$10 per pack.
Put that all together and you're still like $50-$100 less than that kit. That'll leave you with some money to get a Yellow jacket or Black Hole backyard target (always shoot with a backstop as a newb). Yeah man, I'd do that. Oh, the bow may not come with a string, so check if it does when you buy it. $20 for a string of it doesn't come with one, and spend $6-$10 on wax within a few weeks of getting the bow. Wax your string every 3-4 shooting sessions. Just make sure you get the right length arrows.
Do it! Welcome to archery! Watch some videos on form so you don't hurt yourself while you build your muscles up, and always quit before you're fatigued. You're going to love this hobby! Once you get everything it's basically free! That is of course if you can stop yourself from upgrading to the next swoopy tier of gear, which admittedly, I'm not very good at. :)
I hear the bolt on limb attachments aren't as good as ILF since ILF has more options available, should I spend more to get a bow that uses ILF instead?
ILF will have better options, but those better options also cost a lot more money. If you can afford it, and you think you'll stick with it, then yes, go with an ILF system. There are some good bows with the bolt on takedown limbs though. My first adult recurve bow is a bolt on system. I used it for years without issue, achieving very tight groups. Now my son uses it. I ended up moving to compound bows, but my original bolt on recurve still sees several uses per season, and is probably 20 years old now.
I do have to say, my experience as a ham has been the exact opposite. I have a BF-F8HP and everyone i met has been awesome so far
That's great! I suppose it's not universal, but I see a lot of bashing on new people for not knowing stuff. There's a lot of material to cover for the technician test, and that's just the beginning. It's easy to forget something, or just have never learned it before.
Like saying 73 at the end. I may just be lucky that the ham organizations in my area are just super nice
Regarding backpacking: I experienced the ultralight community to be a very friendly and welcoming (although a bit nerdy) group of people. Yes, you CAN spend a lot of money on hightech equipment like many people do in cycling, archery etc. but it is also very common to MYOG (make your own gear). You can spend 200 bucks on the latest leightweight highend titanium cook pot. Or you can simply reuse an old fish can to cook in. And while this selfmade gear sometimes looks a bit clumsy, it often beats the hightech stuff. And the lightest gear sets I've seen were mostly self-made.
When I started backpacking I was just a poor kid going with my Boyscout group. I used a WWII rucksack, carried canned food, and had a crappy $5 BSA mess kit. I had cheap boots and always got blisters. I still had tons of fun.
It's worth pointing out that good gear will last you decades if you take care of it, so it's one hobby where spending extra can actually make sense. I just finished replacing my last piece of equipment with ultralight gear last year. Now my whole setup is UL. It definitely makes trips more enjoyable, especially now that I'm middle aged. But I see young people drooling over some lightweight tent that costs a bajillion dollars, and I'm like "dude, you'll get better performance from eating fewer cheeseburgers". LOL
You're right that you can make some pretty sweet equipment if you're willing to learn about it and take the time to craft it. I made a lot of gear substitutions when I was first getting into UL, like using aluminum instead of titanium, and stuff like that, but I never did make any of my own gear. That always intimidated me, so I'd just be really strict about what went into my pack to keep the weight down, until I had enough legit gear to splurge my weight allowance for something like a camp chair.
How did you get started in ham radio? I've been considering it but I keep seeing comments like yours online about the community being standoffish.
I just started using the hamstudy.org website and app, and started participating in the ham subreddit on Reddit. Then I bought a Baofeng UV-5R and got my GMRS license. I used that to learn all about finding repeaters, programming the radio, etc.. Then I kept studying and got a Yeasu FTM-7250DR, a power supply, and a Comet antenna. Once you have a radio you can start learning hands on. It doesn't need to be an expensive radio, and you don't need a license as long as you don't broadcast.
Thanks !
NP. One more thing I did was read a book called Pass Your Ham Radio Technician Class - The Easy Way. Hamstudy is really good for practice, and memorization, but it doesn't really explain the principles behind the answers. That book does a great job of explaining things like bands, frequencies, tones, etc.. You'll have a much stronger understanding of how things actually work, instead of just having answers to questions.
There is an often reposted study that shows people who are worse at video games are more likely to harass women. Though these are some issues with the study and it's scope, this more or less matches my experience. However, this is usually transformed via a game of telephone into suggesting higher skilled players are less misogynistic.
I have played at the top level of multiple games over different genres and it is incredibly misogynistic up there. The key difference is most of the nerds up there are less likely express it so obviously and publicly. In a lot of cases this is purely about self-preservation, teams in competitive games will be collectively penalized so there is a degree of self-policing (nobody wants to have their team disqualified with all that money on the line) and in PvE games there is usually a great deal of time (and lets be real, often money) invested in an account people don't want to lose.
It's gotten a lot better since the "tits or gtfo" and "there are no women on the internet" days, but the last time I was in these circles was only during COVID and it was still wildly misogynistic behind closed doors.
@solitaire @erev Jesus, I had completely forgotten "tits or gtfo." Every now and then I get hit with a reminder of how much more pervasive that kind of thing was as little as 10-20 years ago and it throws me for a loop.
I'm really sorry to hear that. its atrocious to see how many people are comfortable just being terrible to people when they think no one is watching
I do beekeeping with an educational project and my bugbear is hygiene. Bad habits had set in before I joined the group - not cleaning hive tools or beesuits, not properly cleaning and storing feeding and honey extraction kit, it was all pretty filthy and gross. They tease me for being a martinet, but we sell the honey FFS! And the bees themselves deserve protection from people casually risking the spread of disease.
thank you for taking the health of the health of the animals and food safety into consideration.
Common in the hobby of tabletop RPGs, or especially Larping, is Main Character Syndrome. People think that their character is the most important thing in existence. If things don't go their way, they complain, claim cheating or bias. If the larp is setup for it they ask for appeals for the decisions and investigations against the person who wronged their character. They spend more time just arguing over what great things should happen (or what bad things should not happen) to their character than they actually do just ... playing the game.
I used to play a lot of DnD and other TTRPGs. Another thing that annoyed me was people who took the game too seriously all the time. I think it's fun to occasionally do things for the sake of comedic relief. Not something you wanna do all the time, but when I was playing a dumb as shit orc or something, it can be fun to do something stupid to make everyone laugh. I didn't do things that would harm the party or the overall story. But one guy would get so upset and ended up quitting the campaign when people didn't agree with him and said that it's ok to be goofy sometimes.
I had a friend running a campaign where a big part of the local kingdom was that it had a constant, annoying bureaucracy. At one point we were set to meet the king, and the party all had to wear ceremonial scarves. As part of the bureaucratic obstacles the DM had it that we'd been given the wrong color of scarves, and therefore the guards weren't letting us pass.
I instinctively just did the Lionel Hutz "I'm not wearing a tie at all" bit with the scarf. The DM was so speechless that he said the guard was speechless and let us pass out of confusion.
when I used to DM, the rule if cool was king at my table. Like you wanna jump from the airship to the actively rising hot air balloon to sword fight the BBEG? fuck yeah make an acrobatics roll! oh a 19? well you grab onto the edge of the hot air balloon and are barely holding on but he doesn't notice you. you can climb up next turn and kick his ass.
I know somebody who is running a game currently with the opposite problem. None of his players want to step up and have their spotlight moments. He says it's maddening to get them to do anything or say anything.
I'm big into sailing, and the sport still has a major problem with integrating women. There's a lot of (for lack of a better term) mansplaining, condescension, men who figuratively elbow women out of the way to run the boat, and a lot of super-thirsty men who scare women away. Both the 1992 movie Wind, and the 2018 movie Maiden, can give you a sense of the problem.
Don't get me wrong, it's a lot better than it was years ago. Women like Tracy Edwards, Ellen MacArthur, Jeanne Socrates, and Kristen Neushäfer have done a lot to put old prejudices to bed, but still frustratingly common. (Like the commentary on Jessica Watson's circumnavigation attempt.)
I’m into cycling and we have the same problem
Fuck yeah. I sailed in my youth (90ies, Optimist,Laser) and it was batshit insane on the Laser. A female friend of mine decided to sail in the Laser team as she enjoyed solo boats and my club did not offer a club owned Europe (the go-to "female solo" class around here). So it was an economical decision as well.
It was a shitshow for her. She literally was asked not to apply for some races as they weren't interested in having to provide a woman the required infrastructure,etc. And once she ignored that our own club leadership put pressure on her not to ruin the good relationship they had with "this and this club".
I quit sailing for the monetary gatekeeping, she quit for the misogyny.
I fly a paramotor. For me, it's reckless behavior. Other pilots doing dumb shit like flying over hazards with no "outs". That just means flying in a way where if your motor were to die, you'd be forced to land in a bad place. Causing you to injure yourself or others, and also potentially damage property. Also pilots who are a nuisance and piss off the public. It makes us all look bad.
A common saying in the sport is DBAD, didyn't be a dick. But some don't abide, and be a dick.
I'm a flight instructor, fixed wing. Spent a lot of my 20s around small airports.
I've seen exactly one paramotor flight in person and it ended 40 feet up a pine tree.
This guy took off from the grass along the T-hangars heading away from the runway, and made a right turn that took him directly under the Downwind leg for the active runway at a fairly busy uncontrolled airport. He was not carrying a radio. I'm not sure exactly why, I don't know if his engine gave out or if he made some glaringly bad decisions, but he wound up in a pine tree. My understanding is this was his first flight of any kind in any aircraft, and it was made solo in a paramotor at a busy airfield.
Completely separate story that is related to this one in my mind: I had a couple men walk into our flight school one day. Just walked in; no appointment or anything. Father and son, one in his mid-20s about my age, the other in his mid-50s or so. Turns out they were both mechanical engineers, and they got it in their head they were going to design and build their own ultralight airplane, and wanted to ask someone about the legalities of such. I pulled a copy of the FAR/AIM off the shelf, pointed them to FAR 103, which is the page and a half of federal laws governing ultralights. I also strongly suggested reading FAR 91 and the AIM, and asked if they would be interested in flight instruction. Got kind of a "lol no we have bachelor's degrees." response from them. That was in 2011. Never heard from them since. I wonder if they gave up, or if they killed themselves.
Probably self-trained, too. That's not uncommon in paramotor. Paramotor can be an incredibly safe, and cheap way to fly. But without good instruction, there's a lot of ways to get yourself killed. Ending up in a tree is probably one of the better outcomes for that guy.
I'm going with poor decision making all around.
I wouldn't be surprised if they got something built, and scared themselves shitless the first time they got in the air with it and never touched it again.
Every now and then we'll see a complete newbie ask about building their own paramotor to save some money which is insane because a full, brand new beginner kit costs in the neighborhood of $10k-$15k brand new. Used gear can easily be half that.
Building your own gear is insanely dangerous, because if it's configured incorrectly, you can easily end up in a dangerous situation like a torque twist where the motor twists the risers of the paraglider and spins you around underneath it. That situation is often fatal. And newbies just don't know these things.
And the icing on the shit cake is that these types often have a chip on their shoulder. They get indignant that we recommend paying for training and tell newcomers that they don't need to waste the money on training.
I have a radio, I know how to use it. I almost never carry it just because my motor spark causes so much interference that it makes it unusable. I'd like to figure out a way to shield that interference, but I haven't done it, yet. I fly out of a small, not-busy uncontrolled airport, but I'd really rather not be near an airport if I could help it. I'd much rather fly from just a regular grass field if I had access to one.
I'm also a ham radio operator, and I once noticed a lot of noise that corresponded with the engine RPM on the VHF radio I had in my pickup truck. Turns out the distributor was overdue for replacement, it was still running okay but the points were so worn it was acting like a spark gap transmitter. The cylinder head should be enough mass of metal to stop you hearing the actual spark plug.
I have little experience with paramotor engines, I imagine it's got a magneto ignition? You might want to examine it.
It is a magneto, and it's a super common issue. I've seen some have success with shielding the wire from the magneto to the spark plug. I just need to try that.
There is a bit of a weird catch, isn't there? It's way easier to find schools and instructors for fixed wing, but fixed wing ultralights are fairly rare and relatively expensive (many things that people called "ultralights" technically weren't, which is why Light Sport happened). Paragliders and hang gliders (and their powered counterparts) are much less expensive and available well inside the limits of Part 103, but it's tough to find schools and instructors who can give you meaningful instruction for them.
This feels like a problem with a straightforward solution.
These days, paramotor instructors are easy to find, and fairly plentiful, especially if you're willing to travel. The real catch is determining the quality of the instruction. There are a fair number of grifters and bad actors in the sport that lure in unsuspecting newcomers.
I think it's a lack of standardization, at least in part.
No, don't do that. It doesn't work. When you combine weather suitability, instructor availability, aircraft availability, and then filter it by "when I can get away for the hours or days I need to set aside for this" you end up spending the one hour of flight time a month reviewing basic maneuvers over and over and never building proficiency or advancing. I've seen this as both a student as an instructor. You need to be able to call up the airport and say "can I book an hour of instruction tomorrow?"
First step: Do not hire an unlicensed instructor. Not since 2004. The Light Sport rule superseded the informal "heavy ultralight" malarky previously intended for non-certified instruction. Ultralight students should seek instruction from a CFI who is qualified in the category and class of aircraft they seek to fly, at the VERY least. Some guy who guesses he'll show you how to handle an aircraft? Nah.
A qualified instructor should be willing and able to present their certificates upon request. It's a credit card sized piece of plastic overall colored teal with an airliner and some Wright Brothers imagery printed on it. It should bear a certificate number, and on the back there should be an Endorsements field that says the kind of aircraft you want to learn to fly. Government speak for paramotors is "powered parachute." The thing that looks like a big hang glider with a little car under it with a propeller on the back? That's a "weight-shift trike." Make a note of this.
The FAA maintains a database of all certified aviators as a matter of public record. Given the instructor's name and especially certificate number, you can look it up in the database to verify that it is not false, expired, or otherwise bogus. Most airman certificates do not expire but flight instructor certificates do.
Second step: Make sure to communicate that you are looking for training to fly ultralight aircraft. Indicate whether or not you are also seeking a sport or private pilot certificate, now or in the future. The ideal instructor will have experience in ultralights (and most powered parachute or weight-shift trike sport pilot instructors will; fixed wing airplane instructors might not). The right instructor for you will be willing to take you through the pre-solo lessons, adding in ground instruction for the legalities and responsibilities of ultralight aviation. The wrong instructor won't listen and insist you pursue an airman certificate. Suggesting pursuing a certificate, and logging instruction given as such, is more than fine, and if you want to solo in the 2-seat trainer you learn in before a single-seat ultralight, you will have to qualify for and get a student airman certificate. But if the instructor will not hear about ultralights and doesn't listen to your needs, he's the wrong instructor for you.
Third step: An introductory lesson/discovery flight/whatever you want to call it. This can be quite the experience for someone who has never flown in a small aircraft before, there's a lot of new stimuli, but pay attention to how the instructor behaves before, during and after the flight. You can tell an instructor who has a cavalier/macho attitude from one who is professional and safety conscious. If you ask about something you see that looks wrong about the aircraft, there's a clear difference between "That is designed to be that way, that weirdly bent piece of metal prevents the lines from tangling in the propeller as we're inflating the parachute" and "don't worry, it's fine." Go with the instructor who wants to show you how safe and stable the aircraft is, not the one who wants to show off wild maneuvers. You're looking for maturity and professionalism, and you'll be able to spot it.
Smoking weed is a hobby?
There plenty of things being a hobby musician that my community does but the one lesser talked about one is Musicians will makes plans and 90% of the time there is no follow through. “We will be in touch” “we should do something” “you would be good for…” “give me your number” “email me” all essentially go nowhere. The only other people who might be less reliable are contractors doing home improvement.
That's why every band has a leader and a handful of other people that don't understand why their ideas aren't being acted on. Same thing happens in other group scenarios
The image this evokes is hilarious
Oops I meant to say "aren't" not "are" but I think you got the idea
LOL, I rely on this behavior.
"Yeah, let's do it. Just text me when you're ready!" Knowing fully that they will never follow through on their idea and I won't have to do the thing.
I've found this to be true in general once I started working. I don't feel kinda this was a thing when I was and was integrating with other students. I had to readjust my "responsible" self who actually would follow up (to people's horror) and tell myself it's a polite saying that people don't mean. Like when people greet each other with "How are you?", they generally actually do not want to know how the other person is doing. You're expected to say "fine" or "good" and deviating from that is violating an unspoken social contract.
If you follow pro wrestling, if you go to small independent shows, there is almost always one guy in the front row, with a WWE belt, taunting wrestlers. Because you see, those wrestlers are nothing, and no matter how cool they are, whether or not they win the match, whether they win that indie promotion's title, they'll never be the WWE champion. And, sure, I guess? But not everyone cares about that. And even if the wrestler isn't going to be WWE champ, they're far closer than that guy is.
I've got friends in a couple different indie wrestling groups. Honestly their shows are way more fun. People don't take things too seriously. It's great for a lot of laughs and watching the fun athletics of it all.
My buddy tried to turn heel at one point but he's such a nice likeable guy, even in character, that it never went over no matter how hard he tried. It was so funny to watch him like talk shit to fans during his entrance, but then just snap out of it to take pics with them lol.
If a wrestler's really well liked it can be really hard to turn them heel, or even stay heel if they were heels in the first place. MJF and Swerve were basically forced into stopping being heels. Even the tradition of assaulting Tony Schiavone only gets boos for a couple weeks.
This is why when I go to independent wrestling events, they are dressed as Kaiju.
Misogyny amongst tabletop gamers. Apparently it's especially prevalent outside of urban centers, and with the kiddies being so into d&d 5e there's less now. Maybe it has to do with mainstreamification or the pandemic? IDK I'm old. The only kids I know are relatives and they were mostly adults before the pandemic turned me into a paranoid shut-in.
I hate when that happens. The groups i used to play in were super open to everyone, kids women queer people anything. If you passed the vibe check (basically are you having fun and helping others have fun) then they were chill. It's awkward for me when I'm playing with someone and suddenly they're being super bigoted
How does someone start being bigoted while playing d&d?
Unfortunately fantasy and medieval settings present a lot of opportunities for people to be racist and sexist
May I have an example?
Someone makes a bit of a bigoted character, which isn't unusual and not necessarily bad. It works when the person isn't a racist because often the joke or point of that character is that being racist is bad and that they're going to grow, or flanderize into an It's Always Sunny character.
But when a racist does it, you start to see real world bigotry inserted into the game and it gets awkward. It's not usually overt but you hear them say something and you feel the tonal shift. I used to DM and I had player characters that were heavily racist, but it was obvious satire and they knew & expected that there would be consequences for their character in the context of the game.
I make content for VRChat. The amount of people that do not do the bare MINIMUM to optimize their avatars/worlds makes me sick. And when you try to give them advice (I really do try to word it nicely) they hit you with the "i don't care lol".
I learned finally to just ignore them and make better stuff then they could ever hope to, cause I actually put in effort.
Not wearing helmets has always been the norm for skateboarders… a shame too because even the well experienced are susceptible to the occasional concussion. All it takes is one bad landing and your skateboarding days are over. Wear a helmet people, set a good example for the younger generations.
Throwing a disc into the first available tree, and/or the only tree in the fairway.
Gatekeeping. :( Pretty much applies to all hobbies.
Funilly enough the historical castle gate-keeper fandom is actually extremely welcoming.
Mine is music. And the common occurrence is the myths. Just sooooo many myths, from tonewoods, to signal chains, to techniques.. if you're into recording in any way typically you have the tools actually in-hand to test these myths and 99% dont. They then get rather angry at those that have and adjusted their outlook.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome is most common problem in most of the hobbies I have had. Folks need to calm down and work with what they have before diving further down the rabbit hole.
Regarding your driving under the influence thing, I am amazed I didn't die or kill someone when driving all over the USA while on LSD after Grateful Dead shows back in the 80's and 90's.
Dangerous and illegal stuff, like:
Let's see if you can guess the hobby
As a hobby welder i have to say its ignoring basic safety for the sake of speed like not having a proper lens to shield your eyes or long sleeves and gloves to keep spatter and slag from cooking you. Even with all that its a dangerous activity but you can extend your ability to do it by protecting yourself
I think the amount of people who just shit on you for an opinion or theory they disagree with that you have for a game is too damn high.
Artists who have to act “out there” because they are an ‘artist’ and seem to be way too intense and anbnoxious about it. Some even abuse others and defend themselves as an artist as if it’s necessary. It is so bullshit and unnecessary.
I know plenty of artists of varying techniques whom you wouldn’t know they are artists until you see their work because they don’t act out.
Great question.
For me it’s homebrewing. It’s so simple yet there is so much disinformation and people encouraging others into following old wives tales that aren’t necessarily proven to do anything.
Also, so many anglophones using imperial measurements it’s ridiculous. Metric makes way more sense especially for volumes.
I’ve had to go through and write my own procedure because it’s just ridiculous otherwise.
I don't even ride a bicycle while I'm on weed, it would be absolute madness to drive a car while high.
right! my feet and the bus get me where i need to go when im zooted
Pillow shading and what I refer to as "dull shading" where a person just exclusively uses pure black to shade. The former can look good in certain situations but otherwise looks a bit odd, the latter can make a picture look dirty if they're otherwise using bright colors.
I frequently lose in Overwatch 2, which is an outrage!
Racism. I play pickup soccer.
I am an ultimate raider in FFXIV. I'll wait hours for a party and people either fuck up and wipe or play way beyond their ability and wipe us. I just want totems or help people close to beating the fights. They are hard. I give them that. But it's super frustrating when you just want people to know what they are doing.
A lot of people in the field of code communication or whatever you call it tend to think of the Turing machine. They think of equations that they're supposed to convert what they say into, only to give the instructions on how to unconvert it to the intended recipients. While that's nice and all, if going by their train of thought (which I contrast with mine, I say all this under the context that I see communication as communication), would it not be more ideal to be invisible than wear a Groucho Marx mask?
As for my other hobby, there's a famous debate about that, with me being the Artist B in question.
I think you should do what you want.
I got a camera for the sake of having stuff to do the math on, so I'm way more A. I also don't care about anyone calling me a "good photographer", though. I've spent some on equipment to get what I want with the time I have to spend on it, I do processing to get color and contrast beyond what nature has to offer, and I do it because that's what I have fun with.
Spices and sauces are part of making good food, so that's a really odd comparison.
The debate, with its smaller sentimental details, does not do anyone justice here. I'm not outright against those who would take that route, just that it's less becoming than the alternative. The way it comes off is Artist A aligners are making up for a lack of inherence.
As someone with 20 years horseback riding in the wilderness, I’ve come to enjoy a joint while out there. While I don’t recommend it by any means,I think it’s very much entirely possible to be buzzed on cannabis and still be safe. 1 joint is like 1 beer with a meal for me.
I think the difference is that if you make a mistake, you hurt yourself and maybe your horse. If someone driving a car under the influence makes a mistake, they might hurt someone else. I have and will chastise my friends and family who drive under the influence. friends dont let friends drive under the influence
i'm really into cars, and want to own (maybe modify) an MR2 1st gen.
problem is: the german government is trying its best to make owning a car impossible or unattractive.
nowadays you have to pay 1.90€ a litre of gas and rent a parking space (the ones that used to be free get converted to charging stations for BEVs or are only for people who live near it)
getting a license has been increasing in cost for a while now, and we're at the point where it's up to 5000€ (i have one already, but it's increasing the barrier of entry)
modifying the cars is also basically illegal, i won't get into it here though. the comment is long enough.
additionally, the only political party that's worth voting (in my opinion) is increasingly making cars the national enemy and is trying to introduce a speed limit on the autobahn.
so the frequent occurence is basically incompetent politicians fucking over the consumer, giving right-wingers even more fuel.
Yeah, but we have a problem with too many cars in germany. We can't continue to give everyone free parking space. Our citys are choking with cars and the quality of life for people suffers.
Same with the fuel prices, the CO2 emissions of traffic are huge and we have to do something against that.
Sucks that it makes your hobby more difficult and expensive, but we can't continue with the status quo.
many parking spaces actually got converted to charging stations. and when building new parts of the city they could've taken the demand for parking into account.
i agree that there are too many cars in the cities, but actively taking away parking isn't how you solve that problem. that just makes people hate your political party.
solving problems like this requires an actual alternative that is as comfortable as a car to use. then people will willingly give up their cars because there is no need.
How many? We have 160milion parking spaces and 115.000 charging stations, which is 0.07%. Compare this to 2.9% electric Vehicles and think about if it's really to many.
What is a solution that is as comfortable to use as a car? There is none. We also don't have space in cities to add other modes of transportation as long as cars take up most of public space.
But we still need to change our car dominant society to a more climate friendly and space and resource efficient one. And this is only possible if we take away privileges cars enjoyed for the last decades and make driving less attractive than public transit and micromobility.
People are lazy and comfortable, they will never give up cars willingly.
Oh now how bad to be only able to drive 120-130 km/h...
At least make the speed limit something reasonably like 160km/h.
🎵Q, R, S...🎶
Some substances help with tasks such as operating machinery for extended periods e.g. stimulants in the amphetamine class of drugs, methamphetamine, dexamphetamine, etc. Cocaine is probably also helpful.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextroamphetamine
It doesnt help with operating machinery, it helps with not falling asleep while doing it. Sleep deprived/exhausted people shouldnt be operating heavy machinery and definitely, shouldnt be taking highly addictive drugs to enable them to do it either. Its sad that their work conditions sometimes forces them to do so.
I don’t even like driving when I need caffeine. Caffeine doesn’t cancel out sleep deprivation. It just masks it.
Cars do be pretty heavy tho
No, they don't. I do believe someone can use drugs without it altering their personality. But you cannot use drugs without it altering your perception. that is the entire point of drugs. you should not be operating machinery while having an altered perception. that is not safe and you cannot trust that you will make the same judgement, actions, and decisions while sober and high. that doesn't mean you will make bad decisions, but you may not make the right decision as quickly. that is a big difference when operating machinery. you can put yourself at risk all you want, i don't care. but i do care about you putting other people at risk for your arrogance.
People should either stop taking their medication or quit driving so you can live in your drug-free fantasy world, is that what you're saying?
Yes, depending on the medication. That is why some medication literally says "do not operate heavy machinery".
So that's no then? Stimulants are well understood to improve focus and reduce fatigue. It seems like you're focusing on the wrong thing here. We want people to be good and safe drivers but how they do that is completely immaterial.
It seems that you are making a case against drug use before you understand pharmacokinetics.
Amphetamine helps people with adhd drive motor vehicles if it’s the right dose and we’re used to it. People without it, nah they get weird on stims
Welcome to the Chinese / North Korean construction industry
I don't think it's confined to just Asia. Construction is a difficult job that requires stamina, strength and mental focus. An ideal application for stimulants.
On the point of driving whilst stoned. Confidence comes with experience. It may not be safe, but i used to smoke at a friends house and had to drive home. Originally we would make a point of giving it a few hours after the last joint tbefore i left so i could sober up a bit. As time went on that last smoke got later and later and i still had to leave by a certain time. Eventually this evolved into me smoking a joint whilst driving because it just made no difference (seemingly) to drive sober or stoned.
To your question i would say learning a musical instrument.
I spent years using a basic yamaha keynoard worth about 200 pounds at the time (when i was young) and until i found i was getting good and was joining a band i just used that. Eventually i bought a much more advanced synthesiser for around 700-800 and still have that 15 years later, im only just thinking about getting a replacement. (I had a few random pianos and synths in between and have a full size (basic) electric piano as well)
I worked in a rehearsal/recording studio for a few years and played in bands there and it was amazi g how many times you would see a new band of kids come in who could barely play baa baa black sheep but had spent easily 1500-2000 on their guitars and amps and insisted on bringing the amps and full drum kits to jams despite there being some fairly decent kits and and amps in the rooms already which were better for practice.
Some of them got good, but most of them would try to sell their gear to us before too long.
Im not saying you need to buy a cheap instrument and use it for a decade like me but dont spend 2 grand out of the gate and expect the skill to just fall into your lap.
I can definitely understand what you mean by this, but I think a certain level of confidence also comes from tolerance.
I don't drive at all, so can't weigh in on that, but I cycle everywhere, and in my youth I would have never considered cycling while stoned, too risky, too dangerous, not fair or safe to others using the paths.
When I started smoking, I stuck by that statement, I'd give it a full 12+ hours between my last smoke and getting on the bike.
But just like your example, 12 hours became 8 hours, became 4 hours, and so on, where now I might have an smoke and 40 minutes later get on my bike to go somewhere.
But then I take a T break, and I pick up a new bag, and I have my first hit in a month or two, and I sit with that high for a while and think to myself "fuck no, I absolutely will not be getting on the bike any time soon, this tiny toke is too much to cycle on"
Then I'll smoke heavily for the next month, and by the end of the month, my tolerance has increased, and I'm back to riding my bike while stoned (or rather, buzzed, because I'm just not capable of getting as high)
Do I feel guilty for these decisions because I know it's a big risk? Yes. Do I keep doing it? Also yes.
But now that I'm in discussions with my doctor about medical dosing, it has raised a very important question - if I use medical marijuana to manage my chronic illness (the one that renders me medically unfit to drive) is the ethical and legal obligation of that treatment plan that I can never ride my bike again? I must always walk or take the bus? The same does not apply for people who use opiate based pain relief or therapeutic ketamine. They are warned not to drive if the meds make them impaired, but ultimately it's their judgement to decide what is "impaired". It will only be externally questioned if there is an accident or a near miss. If I am assessing my level of impairment before I ride stoned, how can I best ensure my capacity to ride in those moments?
Also answering OPs question, I think this applies to a lot of hobbies, but I notice it a lot as someone who likes to sew my own clothes - the pressure from others to constantly get better, try harder, and keep building those skills.
I do my hobby because it's fun, sometimes it's fun to learn new things about it, but sometimes I just want to stick with what I know and play in my comfort zone.
My dad will often look at things I've made this year and say "you made something almost identical 5 years ago, and your stitches are still skew wiff, haven't you learned to blah blah yet?" because his expectation is that I will get better and better with every passing moment as I practice my hobby.
Similarly, people will tell me that I have "clearly got the skills to make xyz" and I should "challenge" myself. And sometimes I will, but most of the time I retreat to my hobbies because I don't have to challenge myself if I don't want to. I like my hobbies to be no pressure (I go to the gym to push myself, I go to my craft corner to relax)
You are allowed to dabble, fool around, play, and have fun with a hobby. You are allowed to decide that "getting better" isn't the goal.
But it seems others will always question this, or suggest you somehow aren't doing the hobby right, or enthusiastic enough about it if you're only ever doing it on a surface level.
Just today, I managed to get hold of a second hand overlocker, I'm really excited to make things with it, and my co-worker who also sews said "oh that's awesome, the quality of clothes you're going to pull off now that you can surge! I can't wait for the fashion show". She meant that in the most positive way, and I know what she was trying to say so I thanked her and promised her to show her what I was making, but part of me definitely heard "if the quality of your final product doesn't improve as a result of this, you're bad at this hobby, now you have no excuse not to be better than you were before" even though she meant nothing of the sort, and a lot of that was internalised shame because of previous discussions with people who were genuinely questioning my lack of improvement.