Mine is mapping. I am a big OpenStreetMap contributor and I have mapped many towns near me that were previously completely unmapped.
I just become “good” compared to someone who never tried and then lose interest and try something else.
For those who jump around too much like I do, remember:
That has some truth for career/professional skills, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a lot of hobbies. Most people won’t achieve “true greatness” (whatever that means) in their hobbies whether they have one or hundreds, so why not just focus on doing what you enjoy?
Low level C programming.
And also I know a lot about breaking video DRM.
Philosophy and some sciences, but I’m not very knowledgeable. I know people say you don’t need to be an expert in order to enjoy things, and I agree, but then those aren’t special interests either, right? I love my music, but I know few bands. I love singing, but I lack technique. I like horror stuff, but I’m pretty picky. I’d like to be fit and practice sports, but my health is an issue. I like some beauty topics, but I’m not interested in applying them. I enjoy eating, simple food though. Some games are fun, but I mostly repeat the same ones. I like mountains and forests, but just for a day or two. I’d like to read more…
I’m really a master of none.
I grow bonsai trees.
Does raising and training ducks count? I’m really good at it. I have care down to a science and I’ve done quite a bit medically because there aren’t any vets that treat ducks around me. I’ve rehabilitated crazy injuries, performed minor surgery, treated severe malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies.
I have trained all of my birds to listen to basic commands and they know their names and respond to them.
I would name a mallard “M’Lord” just to mess with it.
Next mallard I get will be named that. Even if it’s a girl. Gotta do it for the meme
What got you into that? How long have you been doing it? What kind of ducks?
I got into chickens when my sister started 4H, and when our chickens died suddenly, my grandma got us 3 ducklings as a gift without consulting anyone. They imprinted on me immediately and I was like, “I guess this is my new obsession because I’m a mother now.”
That was 8 years ago. I started off with a Muscovy male, a muscovy female, and a mallard female. We rescued a second Muscovy female a couple years in. I moved to my own place in 2022 and brought the remaining birds with me, which were the Muscovy male and mallard female.
I ordered some more ducklings and rescued a couple birds over the course of 2022 and 2023. Right now I have:
2 female muscovies: Mama Duck and Lady. Mama Duck fights me over eggs, so I have to pull a Skyrim move and put a bucket on her head so I can take her eggs without her attacking me. Lady is very sweet and shows me her eggs and acts all happy when I compliment her best and thank her for the eggs.
A tiny male mallard and his mate who is a female mallard that looks like a male but has laid eggs. Little guy is Sonic (because he runs SO FAST) and his mate is Amy. Amy went through duck menopause about 6 months after I got her, so that’s why she looks like a male in terms of feathers. Without her ovaries producing female hormones, her feathers defaulted back to mostly male. She and Sonic were rescued from a local family who couldn’t care for them anymore.
A male Pekin that doesn’t have male traits but I’ve seen his dick a few times. His name is Salt. He is a lil chonky.
A male khaki Campbell named Pepper. He was purchased with Salt as a baby. They were on sale for 25% off and were 100000% an impulse buy. They’re besties and don’t leave each other’s sides.
A female khaki Campbell named Capri-Sun who yells a lot
A female Pekin named Judy. She’s named after judge Judy because she’s always squinting at me in a judgmental way and interrupts me with sassy quacks any time I talk to her. She’s done this since she was literally only a day old. She has a distinct quack that has a squeak to it.
A female golden layer named Cayenne who is hella chill.
A female Cayuga named Fashionista who is slowly turning from black to white with each molt of her feathers (that’s normal)
Where can we sign up for duck tales?
For awhile there it was light sport aviation. I’m a CFI-SP and an LSRM-A. I’m a walking flight school, just add airplane. Been out of the game awhile but that was my specialty for much of my 20’s.
3d design & printing, electronics, cooking, in-person RPGs, woodworking, old time radio, sci fi, bookbinding, comedy… I got a million of 'em.
I also woodwork. Hand tools in the japanese style (im part Japanese). Are you a powertool user, hybrid or also hand tool?
Mostly power tools, but I’m decent with a few hand tools when necessary. Recently I mortised some door hinges with a chisel. But for the vast majority of my projects, renovating our house over 35 years, I wouldn’t have had the patience without power tools - I can barely hit a nail with a real hammer anymore lol. What kinds of projects do you do?
Tool making, and eventually furniture. Recently built a very large toolbox, chisel tray, lay out tools, marking gauges, couple plane bodies, saw vice, planing board (atedai) and saw horses.
Those sound like cool projects. Make any xmas gifts?
I am a spring of knowledge about all of the domestic Real Housewives franchises (though I did just pick up Dubai recently).
I know all the lore behind all their relationships/alliances/enemies and off season shenanigans.
Its legitimately stupid how much I can talk about rich women who flaunt their wealth and then do trashy shit like throw wine in one another’s faces or flip tables (or scam the elderly out of their retirement funds to fund their own lifestyle).
So you’re like a modern TV sociologist.
Well thank you very much Emerald for the mapping and the great question.
For me, it’s something much more modest:- Amiga, or retro-computing in general. Not just for gaming. There’s something deeply inspiring about browsing the web or creating spreadsheets with entirely different hardware and software. Hoping to get an Alpha CPU and/ or an Atari soon.
- Dreaming of a better world.
- Amiga, or retro-computing in general. Not just for gaming. There’s something deeply inspiring about browsing the web or creating spreadsheets with entirely different hardware and software. Hoping to get an Alpha CPU and/ or an Atari soon.
Kind of similar but obscure operating systems in general are things I’m a big fan of like TempleOS, HaikuOS, AROS, and MorphOS. OSs that are more than odd Linux distros.
Something about the ARM architecture also seems really neat to me.
Do you have any neat videos or YouTubers that cover Amiga content?
Low level coding and free open source software for me mostly.
I’ve met some people who like to map areas on OpenStreetMap and I’d be interested in trying it myself but like with contributing to anything I’m new to I’m scared of doing something wrong. I understand that with OpenStreetMap there’s a sort of discussion of changes like on Wikipedia?
When you started what resources helped you, did a friend show you? Is there a tutorial you recommend for starting off? (If you explained some of this somewhere else please feel free to link to it or tell me, I haven’t read through all the comments here yet.)
I simply started mapping single family homes. It’s really hard to map those wrong, as its just an outline with building=house. This is the video that got me started. Have fun and don’t forget to square your corners.
Not OP but…
The wiki is a vast resource on every little detail that’s being mapped. I find it a bit difficult to browse sometimes, easier to get to some pages via DDG, but this may just be me. The Beginner’s guide page I imagine might be a decent starting point.
Though I can’t say I myself started there… IMO the easiest way is to just get StreetComplete from F-Droid (or Google Play…), and wing it. That app is extremely user friendly, and literally just asks you a simple question about something in front of you, and as such allows you to fill in or verify some of the details on the map. It’s capable of a lot, but not quite everything, such as adding in new “ways” (roads, structures, anything not a single node).
When you’re not sure about something it’s asking, that’s when “winging it” should be replaced by “wikiing it”. Or looking it up any other way, since there are now decades of confused people asking questions online for your benefit!
Vespucci is the mobile app people tend to use for heavy duty editing, or just to do the stuff SC can’t. This one has a much scarier UI. It takes some getting used to and figuring out, but really isn’t so bad once you know how the app and OSM itself works. You can download it early on, but maybe just to appreciate how easy SC is, at first!
To answer your question about discussions: each “changeset” (SC manages these for you automatically, groups similar quests into the same changeset) can be commented on by any user if they noticed some issue in your edits, or want to ask for clarification. You can go to openstreetmap.org and click “History” up top to see recent changesets that affected the area within your screen. You’ll see that most won’t have a single comment, but if you’re logged in, you can see the option to start a discussion on any of them.
Hedge laying. It’s a technique where you almost cut through the stems of the plants in a hedgerow in order to bend them down. This promotes the growth of new shoots and results in a very dense hedge, which historically was done to make sure animals didn’t escape or enter pastures and fields.
Wonderful! I’ve been hoping to learn to do this to replace my neighbor’s vinyl fence. What’s your preferred style? Do you recommend any resources for learning the skill?
Is a hedgerow more economically feasible than, say, a chain-link fence or any other kind of fence, really (fences are expensive)? About the same? More expensive? What about comparative difficulty? Is it the kind of thing that takes years to grow out?
I’m not exactly sure. A chain link fence is a one time expense as opposed to a hedge which is a living, growing thing and so needs continuing upkeep. And yes, it can take a couple of years before the hedge is ready to be laid… There’s also the used space to consider, as a hedge is a lot wider than a fence.
I guess it really depends on your specific situation.
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Mine is Free software. If I can avoid it, then I avoid nonfree software. This brings me a lot of problems but also a lot of joy.
so true bestie
I know more about the Doom engine than I do interpersonal relations. Did you know you can completely destroy collision physics via writing over memory addresses if you shoot a bullet weapon at a stack of corpses?
What does this even mean
It’s clearly some sort of combination of words but I can’t quite make out what they’re attempting to communicate…
Nevertheless, I am fascinated. And open to more!
I love reading about people’s passions, and I think it adds to it the less I know about the subject, as just sitting back and enjoying how excited and interested someone is in their thing, really is so nice.
Great deep lore of ancient games
Meaning then you just pass through objects rather than collide? Or is it unable to properly calculate the incident & resulting collision vectors, meaning the resulting trajectories are nonsensical?
Everything from projectiles to monsters pass through walls, can do no damage to one another, and can’t interact with stuff like switches. I edited my comment with a poor explanation from memory, alongside a great video explaining that I can’t watch to double check my comment as I’m at work currently.
I’m not good at it, but I like geocaching.
