I’ve been getting into primitive technology lately. It all started when I looked at my back yard and thought hey, if we call it red clay, then I should be able to make it into pottery. I take dirt from my yard, levigate it, add grog and wedge, hand-build pots, and fire them in my fire pit. Been making sharpening stones from river rocks. Crafting replicas of Roman machines. That sort of thing.

The most niche thing I probably do (badly) is making chocolate. Not like, just tempering chocolate, but putting nibs and milk powder and sugar and cocoa butter in my countertop melanger and letting it work for like 24 hours until it’s nice and smooth. I haven’t really perfected it at all and my chocolate recipe is currently mediocre, and i need to experiment with better nibs and roasting them myself, but it’s an interesting process that I enjoy.

Otherwise uh, IDK I do everything. I love cooking/baking, and most types of art, I’m huge into fabric arts like nuno felting and needle felting, embroidery is one of my absolute favorite things, I’m pretty decent at sewing, I also like to draw and I am really itching to get into sculpey jewelry crafting and maybe miniatures, I’ve dabbled in wire jewelry (meh at it), I built (with help) a coffee table where the top comes up so you can turn the base on its side to become a dining table, I’m sure there a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting… oh I guess I’m really good at laundry? I can get stains out of almost anything at this point.

I build various random number generators, and then use them in elaborate practical jokes.

Solid-state particle detectors, zener avalanche noise, etc. Many failed designs (or failed… So far).

Sometimes I put them in sinister looking cases. Sometimes behind an API. Sometimes I design a coffee maker that brews coffee in a quantum superposition of caffeination states.

I’m working on one that is a Lemmy bot. It won’t be done particularly soon though.

Brickfilming! I make films with Lego using stop motion animation. Takes a lot of patience and my perfectionism is my worst enemy, but it’s super rewarding, and there’s a really cool community online around it. And yes, my profile picture is from my most recent Brickfilm!

I haven’t done much with it in a while, but I’m also not giving up on it, so I suppose it’s still valid lol.

I collect LaserDiscs

I got started with the format around 2010, and it was super neat to delve into this old, but strangely good, format. I found that most players and films were super cheap, and as a poor family with really no ability to move to HD yet, the SD format picture was clearly worse than DVD, but not so much so that it was unwatchable or anything.

I spent a lot of time collecting new films, looking at players, etc. etc., but I took a break while in college. Turns out that in that time everything went wild, and now the format is expensive to collect for. So much so that I’ve basically stopped at the moment. It’s still a super neat format though, and I’m not about to offload all my kit just yet.

For anyone looking for info about the format, I’d recommend Techmoan on YouTube. Matt does a lot of interesting tech videos, and the handful he’s done on LaserDisc are quite good.

I have a very dangerous and lame hobby.

I forage for food. It’s a lot of fun trying new things. But it’s also really dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing.

If you want to do this hobby safely start small. Identify plants in your own yard/park exct. I use an app called plant net, Wikipedia, duckduckgo, Google Earth, foraging sites, to find out where to go. Knowledge of when they grow and what condions they like helps.

Being 100% sure on what you are going to eat is a life and death choice. When in doubt, throw it out.

Feel free to ask me anything if you have questions.

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I fly paramotors. Imagine a fan you strap on your back, a paraglider that goes overhead, and you run run run until you’re airborne! Never fails to put a smile on my face when times are tough. And maintaining the engine and planning that next flight keeps me occupied when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Ham radio! It’s relaxing. My favorite activity is to take my portable gear to parks and operate Parks on the Air.

I guess blacksmithing would be considered niche? Not doing it very regular. But once every view months.

Can’t believe I got all the way to the end and no one has posted about flight simming.

It’s an amazing hobby, with tonnes of gear, software, community and a wealth of knowledge. I’m nowhere in as deep as some, but find an immense pleasure in nerding out about it.

I was never worried about flying for real (as a passenger) but during turbulence I’d sometimes get a bit clammy-handed. Flight simming has completely cured it. There are SO many layers of safety and the more you understand - and in fact the more accident reports you read and see what the follow-up improvements were - the less I get bothered about even heavy turbulence or unsteady landings. Pilots know their stuff.

I like finding obscure media and curating playlists out of them. Weird old commercials, music videos, tv spots, instructional/training videos, short films and animation, old tv shows.

Yarn dyeing started as a hobby and turned into my job quite quickly :)

It’s fun and satisfying to see the colours evolve on yarn and how the colours act differently depending on the fibre blend you’re dyeing.

stealth camping. basically camping where your not supposed to / normally wouldn’t want to, and have your presence remain unknown. it’s great fun and breathed new life into “the outdoors” for me

Raising ducks. I love it. They’re disgusting creatures, but great.