Mine would be creating pen and paper ciphers for my made up secret communication needs.
Listening to jpop.
I try to make something that looks good (or at least doesn’t look like random static) by running pictures I’ve taken through audio editing software. There are some extra steps that go into it to “trick” the program into importing the picture as if it were a sound file, making sure the header (information that tells your computer that this is a picture) doesn’t get fucked with, and then exporting the data in a way that it will be saved as a picture and not an mp3 or something else.
On the rare occasion I do bring it up, I can literally watch people’s eyes glaze over. Until I show them a picture
Edit: internet is really bad right now, will reply with an image when I can
Edit2: picture was too big at 7MB. Hopefully a screenshot of the picture doesn’t look too bad
This belongs on the better call Saul intro
Ok now that’s really cool
I do a lot of photography and I’ve been trying to find something that I could do with some of my more experimental shots that makes them more… more‡. If that makes sense?
You wouldn’t happen to have more details on how to do it would you?
Edit: ‡ My more experimental shots are more done as like experimenting with how a shot is taken for like evoking a specific feeling or doing something strange in camera or really any number of reasons. Hell some of my experimental shots were accidentally taken pictures that are disorienting or confusing. I don’t share them often, because IDK it just seems like really personal sometimes. Those experimental shots feel less like photography and more like painting with photos.
Absolutely!
I have a bookmark saved on my computer at home to an old forum with the instructions I followed when I started doing this, and I can send that link later.
There are two programs that I use, and both are free.
GIMP - image editing software
Audacity - audio editing software
Here is the basic process from that bookmarked forum post that I can remember off the top of my head. If something is wrong (especially the Audacity import settings, since I don’t ever change them), I will fix it later.
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In GIMP (or other software of your choice) convert the image to a bitmap (.bmp). This step is very important!
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Use the option to import raw data as A-law with “little endian” (I have no idea what those setting do, but I assume it’s for keeping the header intact)
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Change the timeline in Audacity from time to samples and select everything after the 34th sample to edit and add effects (samples 1-34 are the information that tells your computer that this is a picture CHANGING ANYTHING IN THE HEADER WILL STOP YOU FROM OPENING THE IMAGE AFTER THE EDIT)
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Export the audio using the raw data option, selecting A-law again. This should re-save the “audio” as a bitmap image as it will not add an audio file header to the data.
I believe the blue parking garage image uses reverb, or maybe a phasor… possible both to get that effect? But there are a lot of setting to mess with for each audio effect that can dramatically change the outcome. The trees picture was made by putting the original picture in the left audio channel, and putting a horizontally flipped copy of the image in the right audio channel. Delete the header from the flipped copy, and exporting the data smashes them together in this really strange mirror effect. Afterward, I would use GIMP for any color correcting, changing saturation/hue, simple stuff
Edit: spelling and formatting
Thank you so much, I’m going to have to give this a try when I get home from work
Here’s the link to the forum post!
https://empireminecraft.com/threads/tutorial-editing-images-with-audacity.81959/
empire Minecraft
That’s a name I haven’t seen in a long time
Thank you so much, I’m so looking forward to giving this a shot (too much OT this week so far)
Fun fact: Lightroom has no idea how to process the image results in any semblance of consistent way, so literally which sliders you mess with first changes how the image as a whole is effected. And sometimes even moving the slider vs typing a number in does different things. Which leads to more and stranger distortion.
I’m really digging this way of editing pictures
Hell ya dude, that’s awesome!
I’ve done experimental image editing (not like yours) and I appreciate the process.
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Very unpleasant, basically just high pitched static. 1/10 wouldn’t recommend
What about going the other way and turning sounds into images?
I did try that yesterday, and it looked like TV static. Kinda disappointing, but I’ll try some other songs and see if I can messing with some settings
I feel like there is a middle ground where an image looks decent and sounds decent. Probably be really hard to find though.
Considering it’s audio-software, I guess the changes are related to frequency changes. You should look up Fourier transform (the function that allows to see the sound frequencies of music, for example) applied to images and play with it. If you are not afraid to do a little bit of Python coding, you should be able to have much more control on the parameters responsible for the visual effects you’re looking for.
The image equivalent of bass frequencies (long wavelength) are big details (ex: the trees) and high frequencies (short wavelength) are small details (ex: the leaves).I haven’t had to think about Fouier since college, so thanks for bringing up that trauma lmao. I do realize that there are ways to reliably get certain effects or even learn how to do this in Photoshop or GIMP, but I like the shotgunning, spray-and-pray of not knowing what the outcome will look like
I guess I find the process of going back to make small changes to the settings and then seeing how that affects the image more satisfying. Getting something that looks good is just a bonus
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That’s pretty cool and definitely falls under the category of a hobby that you do because you can, although I’m sure there are people in the world who would pay for art like that (not suggesting that you do).
I have had the thought about trying to make money off of this, and some friends have joked that I should be making album art or something like that.
However, I don’t want to feel like I have to meet a deadline or feel the pressure of making something that someone else wants/likes. I just want to make something I like
I completely get that, adding a timeline or even someone else’s opinions changes things
Looks pretty good, like some Rorschach test. War sit a picture of trees?
It was! Taken during the winter so there were no leaves, and at night too
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I am learning lockpicking for fun. It helps me relax. I used a practice lock at first, then a cheap real lock. I’ve just learned that my firearms lock…yup, can be picked open in about 10 seconds. Equal parts cool and terrifying. Locks are waaay less secure than people think.
It has the same “internet hacker” stigma so I avoid talking about it.
I got into it a bit during COVID and practiced a bit on a practice lock that I could repin myself. After being able to regularly open it without too much trouble, I decided to try my front door lock - thinking it would be a much harder challenge since it was a real lock.
Nope. Shit popped open almost instantly. It blew my mind! After watching Lock Picking Lawyer, I figured that a skilled attacker could get into most locks eventually, but I didn’t realize that most house locks require virtually no skill to open. And it’s literally easier (and significantly less attention grabbing) than breaking a window!
Sorry police officer, but the door was open ajar so hrem I just wanted to check if everything was alright you see?
Had a guy just being mind blown for the whole evening lock picking my way into my apartment, and then open some lock he had on his luggage (all very basic).
Saw him a year later when I had forgot about it and he still was startled about the evening 😁😅
Lol that just reminded me of something only vaguely related. Back in the day I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft with a friend. One day in the middle of a gaming session, he went “HOLY SHIT! There’s a naked guy sleeping on my couch!”
A couple things to note:
- His couch and his gaming setup were both in his living room, barely 3 feet apart.
- We had been playing for at least 2 hours at this point.
My friend woke naked guy up, who was very drunk and confused. Apparently my friend kept his apartment door unlocked and naked guy stumbled in at some point, thinking it was his apartment, stripped down, and then passed out on the couch. Still don’t know how long he was there for, but probably several hours before my friend noticed
So yeah, lock your doors people. They might not keep out a thief, but at least you won’t have a random naked dude pass out on your furniture.
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This right here is why electronic locks could be way more secure than mechanical ones, if only their manufacturers would hire well-trained programmers and not boot camp graduates to write the firmware.
If the Lockpicking Lawyer has taught me anything, is that a number of electronic locks tend to be easy to bypass via hardware rather than software
That’s forbidden knowledge among the mechanics in my union local, lol. One of the shop mechanics at my training center was teaching some of my peers how to pick locks when we had completed our training and were just killing time helping the shop guys out. Had some downtime and he brought out a couple sets and some locks.
Apparently it’s sort of an unspoken tool of the mechanic trade when you work around machinery like that. Never know what you’ll have to get access to and you never know if anyone will have the right key. You’d think the ignition key would suffice to open, say, an access panel or storage cabinet, but some of these machines use a different key entirely for such a thing.So got a question for you. I have wanted to get in to this - just as a curiosity. Is there an inexpensive set of picks a person can buy to get started with to play around with?
I tried googling and ran across about a hundred different suggestions and Amazon was the usual (no help).
If you’re familiar with the Lock Picking Lawyer, he has his own store and has some good kits.
https://covertinstruments.com/collections/lockpicks/products/learn-lockpicking-bundle
I’m not getting any sort of kickbacks from the link. I picked one of these bundles up and I like it. The lock it comes with is super handy because it’s designed to be re-pinned. You can change the pins without disassembling the entire lock.
I like learning about random ass hobbies without ever indulging in them.
I watch an ungodly amount of aquarium / terrarium videos, lurk a ton of aquascaping communities. I owned a betta fish in an empty bowl when I was 12 and that’s it. (poor fish)
I read all you could know about book binding fanfiction, never done it.
I read a hundred pages long horse breeding guide for the game black desert online and I have no idea why. I only played the game for a month, spent most of it reading a google doc about horse. I’m not even sure I owned a horse in the game.
Sometimes I try the hobby, for example mini painting, and don’t have the patience for it. But I still watch some random dudes on youtube paint for hours and sometimes they don’t even talk!
No idea why I am like this
I do the same! And you know, I think this is a hobby by itself. It’s also very useful when talking with strangers if they tell you they practice one of the hobbies you’ve binged on. You can ask them more pointed, interesting questions and it makes for great conversations!
Well I guess you are acquiring knowledge, and that too is a hobby :-)
Recently I’ve been looking at a guy that makes Damascus Steel weapon. Not that I’m gonna buy a sword or an axe anytime soon, nor am I going to make it
I like learning about random ass hobbies without ever indulging in them.
I write sci-fi/fantasy stuff, and I do this too, but mostly so I can gift this or that character with some plausible insider info on a hobby THEY have.
The trick with creating a fantasy/sci-fi universe is to sprinkle true/plausible things all around the little details, so the obviously fantastical that doesn’t have grounding in reality will be accepted by the reader.
I read all you could know about book binding fanfiction, never done it.
Found it hard to parse, and my mind immediately went with “Yeah, of course people have written fanfics about book binding,” foolishly extending rule 34 to cover it. Of course, there might have been that one fanfic about bookbinding.
But yeah, of course people have printed and bookbinded (bookbound[ed]?) fanfics. But for that to have a community? That’s unexpected.
And you know what? It shouldn’t be called rule 34, but rule 69. Would be much easier to remember that way.
I would be immensely amused if “bookbinding fanfiction” was called Rule 69.
I know that’s not what you meant, but it’s where my mind went, haha. Fanfiction is all about the weird insider eccentricities, and this sounds like it could be one of them.
Makes me wonder why they (the anons who’ve compiled such lists back in the day) didn’t make that way. Perhaps it’s too obvious of a joke, I guess?
I kill and butcher animals for myself and sometimes friends together with my boyfriend. Mostly pigs, some sheep and goats, poultry. Sometimes injured animals who are too injured or in too much pain.
The idea is to save the stress of transport to animals who are raised in good conditions as part of diversified restorative small-scale agriculture.
The killing and butchering is just one part of a circle of activities around the farm throughout the year, but probably the most unmentionable in any social setting other than among meat fanatics.
You do realize this reads like the prolog for a serial killer novel. Innocent couple with a slightly odd hobby attracts the attention of a league of serial killers?
It’s probably why they can’t mention it typically.
Spoken like someone who would rather their meat come plastic wrapped on a foam tray, where they can pretend that these exact things didn’t happen in a much less humane way for their convenience.
I know you’re just trying to be funny, but it’s like drawing an equivalence between grilling meat and torture.
What part of ‘prolog for a serial killer novel…’ makes you think there’s anything serious about my comment?
Almost all meat is factory farmed. Almost all meat animals are killed at a fraction of their natural lifespan. Almost all meat is procured unsustainably, at the cost of the destruction of the biosphere.
Sure, grilling meat is not equivalent to torture, but in >99% of cases it absolutely is.
If I had a nickel for every time someone has been disgusted by the idea of me killing and processing animals, while they were eating meat, I’d have like 3 nickels. Which is way too many nickels.
Fountain pens! And inks.
And quality paper.
I’m an amateur game developer. It’s very, very rare I actually get to meet someone else who’s into it. Everyone else is either overly impressed, thinking I’m some genius making COD or GTA in my spare time (I am definitely not), or some combination of thinking I’m lying/complete disinterest. It makes me quite sad to see that programming is still relatively niche.
3d printing
In general most people have a total misunderstanding about the whole process and it’s boring explaining the basics
Is that so? I have a coworker who’s into 3D printing and he basically created a whole keynote explaining the process and it got me planning to draft a proposal for my SO so I can get a printer.
It’s a lot of fun but it’s is roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I’d suggest a kit that lets you build it. So your better suited to fixing it 👍
I think this is really becoming mainstream. I’ve been
punishing myselfprinting for two years now and aware of it for about 10 years and have seen quite the shift toward mainstream appeal especially with the new crop of printers coming out like the P1P/X1C that are supposed to remove a lot of the frustrating hassle and electronics/CNC knowledge that is/was required. These things were being made out of wood just a little over a decade ago! Now you can get a fully enclosed MMU CoreXY machine for the price of a smartphone. I really hope this extends to CNC and laser cutters soon.
I really enjoy getting the most out of a computer/mobile device that I have. I love trying out different OSes, messing with a video game to squeeze as much as performance possible etc.
I feel like this is a lost art that was huge in the late 90’s. Everyone wanted to see how many fps they could get out of their toaster. Now, it’s not just the users but even the developers don’t care about optimization anymore.
I partly blame the manufacturers for this. With the turbo boost, CPUs and GPUs basically came pre-overclocked out of the box. You’ll just put a beefy cooler so that the turbo boost can be maintained indefinitely.
I still remember when I fried my dad’s CPU because I read a guide in a magazine on how to overclock a CPU.
Guessing you spend a lot of time on XDA as well?
Model Railroading. I went several decades without a layout. Then for whatever reason, I just recently started building an N scale railroad. I’m having fun remembering oops skills and learning new techniques.
I play Mahjong. If I try talking to most Americans about it, they’ll think I’m talking about Shanghai, or Mahjong Solitaire.
I actually play 3 forms of it:
Riichi: Standard Japanese rules. This is what you typically see in anime and mahjong games from Japan.
CSM: Competition rules for Chinese Mahjong. This what you’ll typically see played in tournaments outside of Japan
American Mah-jongg: A ruleset with a lot of unique features. An AMJ set contains jokers that can act as any tile in the set. The game is played without being able to call “chow”(taking a sequence of 3 pieces), You “Charleston” for the pieces you need before the round begins (pass pieces to the right, left, and across from you), and the standard hands you can make change on a yearly basis. This is the version you often see played by the American Jewish community.
I love playing all three, but it’s hard to play them in person, because you need to find at least 4 people who can play by the same rule set.
Riichi is easy enough in Japan, but it’s seen as kinda a sketchy game here, and most places you can play it are at expensive and seedy mahjong parlors. Luckily there are a flood of video games based around it that make it more accessible.
Chinese Mahjong is very regional, and each area can have its own variation on the rules, scoring, accepted hands etc. When playing with Chinese friends, I just kinda roll with whatever variation they’re playing.
For American Mah-jongg, because the standard hands change year to year, you have to buy a new card from the National Mah Jongg League yearly in order to keep up with it, so it’s the only mahjong game with a subscription cost built in. Also as mentioned, the game is very community specific, but also the majority of players are often senior aged women, usually making me the youngest at the table by far.
I love playing all three, but it’s hard enough finding someone else who also likes Mahjong, let alone find someone who doesn’t confuse it for the solitaire game. I’m not saying Mahjong solitaire ruined my life, but if I could Thanos snap a game out of existence…
I need to find an offline hobby, something that doesn’t involve a screen
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Wow, didn’t expect the first comment I see to be my obscure hobby! Do you have places to play nearby or own any games yourself?
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Very cool!! Nice to be reasonably close to a place like that. Which pins do you play the most there?
I’ve been collecting for years, myself :)
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I do too! From the oldest to the newest, they all have something to offer. I just fixed up a 1976 Williams Grand Prix for a friend’s family and I can’t get over how much action that old game has under the hood. I mean that in 2 ways actually: it’s literally loaded with mechanicals, it’s considered one of the more complex games of its generation… But it also plays strong and fast, just needed some switches cleaned and adjusted and a flipper rebuild and some other odd tweaks/rebuilds and it plays better than it’s probably played in 25+ years. Check out the inlane/outlane setup–it’s pretty sneaky, I still lose a ball occasionally trying to trap it on the flipper :)
Nice variety of games on that list! Wheel of Fortune is a very interesting game, also dig Iron Man and definitely Attack from Mars. Dr. Who is cool too – though I’ll admit I don’t have too much experience with that game. Always loved the multi-level mechanism towards the back of the playfield–very cool feature!!
I’m personally drawn very much towards the late 70’s/early 80’s generation of games. For me, that era captures the perfect blend of art, playfield design, sounds, and nostalgia. Not to mention, they tend to be pretty consistent ass-kickers, not usually allowing very long ball times. I like my games very difficult, lol! Someday I’d like to get a ‘deeper’ game… But space is at a premium at this point and I’m not really looking to get rid of too many of the pins I have, so it’ll probably be a while before that happens…
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pinball
Giant Hexbear emoji below.
I think it’s retro enough you can consider it cool
i love pinball and I’ve found that every single person I’ve introduced it to ended up finding it very cool. most people, like myself before I got into it a few years ago, don’t even know that there are really objectives and ways to advance the game on most tables, so once you start talking about specific shots and what to do people tend to get really excited about it - especially if you act encouraging and excited when your opponents in a hotseat game are doing well.
the tricky part is getting someone to a table to play 😅
Pinball is cool as heck. The only thing I miss about living in Massachusetts is the New England pinball league and all the places the were to play. Looping three-way combos into the piano on Twilight Zone is orgasmic
I like making things. I’m mainly into making costume props and decorations. Basically I’m into making interesting things exactly once, learning a bunch of lessons on what to not do, but never do it again. I’m not a skilled wood worker or metal worker. But! I bound a book myself, coffee stained it, and made the cover out of sewn together leather scraps. It’s a Necronomicon. I made a lightsaber almost entirely out of junk from ReStore (mostly plumbing parts). I made an EL wire tree with a dried tree branch about 6ft tall, a spool of decent gauge metal wire, and 50 10ft EL strands. Sanded and painted toy guns. Made a James Webb looking wall decoration out of black foam board, gold hexagons, and an NFC tag. Semi related, I modified an IKEA table to be a vaulted board game table where the tops mount on the wall via French cleat and it has cup holders to keep drinks out and away from spilling on the inside of the table. I have 3D printed some minor costume bits. Made a bunch of wizards wands out of paint, hot glue, and chopsticks. Made a float lamp (tie a bunch of annoying knots around a sphere). Currently trying to modify toy Poke Balls to have a functioning LED button but I really hate soldering.
I’m a programmer by trade so I also tinker with Home Assistant far too much. I have a jellyfish lamp with an RGB bulb that tells me the weather when I wake up. Just made an LCARS (Star Trek UI) dashboard for decoration.
Starting and abandoning hobbies.
Abandonned Project this year:
- Get StickBugs
- Server
- Building a mechanical watch
- Trying out Linux (My Linux Journey Journal is 2 page long)
- Photography with Film Stips
- Learning Esperanto
- Learn Korean
- Learn Fighting Games
Technically stopped:
- Audiophily (Didn’t buy anything)
- Keyboard ( Happy I’m satisfied with mine)
- Geocaching (Nothing around me rn)
- Learn Hypnosis (I did it, I can do it, I just don’t go around and train it)
