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  • I've been on a hiatus due to some medical stuff making it hard for me to concentrate, but I'm a lock nerd. I collect cool locks ("cool" being very subjective here 😅) and pick / manipulate them.

    edit: here's a tiny part of my collection. I'd upload more but I'm having a hard time with the mobile site and image uploads

    • what's up fellow locksport nerd?! I think people would be shocked how easy rudimentary picking is.

      • A-ha, I knew there have to be lock nerds on Lemmy.

        But yeah the basics are dead simple, you just need to have a light touch and listen to your fingers 😄

        And so much of the stuff applies for the majority of lock mechanisms. A lot of it boils down to "apply tension, feel for pins / disks / sliders / wafers / whatever that don't want to move and then you make them move, while leaving the other pins / etc. alone. Repeat until done"

    • These look so cool!

      • Right?!

        The coolest one I have is probably this weird prototype lock called the RKS or "RoboKey System", which is sort of like a cross between a regular door lock (it's in an Abloy body) and a safe combination lock. The idea behind it was that you'd have a small portable device (only slightly larger than a key fob) that would be used to dial open the lock, and that device would be remotely programmable, meaning access could be granted and revoked remotely (you're just sending ). The prototype locks are cutaways so you can see what's going on inside, but the "real" ones would have been completely sealed. Basically they'd have lots of the pros of electronic locks but without having to have powered and/or complicated locks that are sensitive to environmental conditions, so they would have been great in challenging environments where you'd want the upsides of electronic locks but can't use the current ones (I think marine shipping was one thing they envisioned could benefit from them.) Unfortunately it didn't take off, so some hundreds of prototypes are all that exist. They still make them on occasion, purely for us lock nerds 😄

  • I just like to experiment with Linux distros. I like to get into a problem and then fix it, even if it is really annoying. After solving a problem, it's satisfying to watch the Program or something like that run like a charm.

  • I’m unsure if this counts as a “hobby”, but I absolutely love the Mass Effect series so much that I enjoy just watching it as much as replaying. I love it so much that I’ve been recording my gameplay and editing it into a sort of Mass Effect “show”.

    I could just watch the handful of streamers out there who play it, but few people play as FemShep and I’ve never seen anyone play a Shepard looking anything like mine let alone take the “right” choices and actions, so this Mass Effect “show” gives me a way to watch my Shepard’s story as often as I’d like.

    The whole project has evolved into learning how to polish things in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, so I’m self-teaching as I go.

    • Is this a thing? Editing games playthroughs into tv shows? I'd love to watch this for games I'm interested in but would never play.

      Also, FemShep is the only Shepard I've played (I only played the series the first time when the Legendary edition came out) and I can't image it any other way.

      • Oh man you've never heard of "machinima"? May I introduce you to Red vs Blue. It's going to be a fun day for you

      • Saw this idea and tbh now I wanna do something similar, but for Dragon Age.

        I guess I need to learn how to actually edit this shit together though, I used to livestream, so that kind of editing was never really necessary

      • I know Reddit had/has a GamesTheMovie subreddit. I believe this is exactly what you want, though I've never actually watched any of them.

    • Out of curiosity, how do you select what scenes to keep and what to cut? Are you freecamming things like combat?

      Now you raise this, I kinda wanna try it with the Dragon Age trilogy

      • For Mass Effect, I’ve played the game enough times that I have my “ideal” story in mind each time I play. I’ve had to re-record playthroughs multiple times so that I can maximize the dialogue options and include everything that I’d like. For example, when it comes to the ME1 Virmire survivor, I decided that I liked a mix of the Paragon and Renegade responses when choosing to leave them, so I recorded with the Paragon response and then replayed that mission so I could do the Renegade response. Then, I edited the two so that it looks like a single cohesive scene.

        When it comes to the combat, I’ve had to re-re-re-record some missions to ensure that I 1) didn’t die and 2) didn’t seem to be getting my butt kicked too much that it became distracting. For example, in ME2, I’ve had to record Jack’s mission a nauseating six times because I either got killed or there were just too many instances where I nearly died, even on Casual. I’ve also had to re-record missions because my first attempt had the “camera work” a little too janky and too hard to follow when just watching. I’ve since learned to play with a cinematic eye so that the combat is a lot smoother.

        In the combat, I’ve also tried to minimize the “game” aspects wherever possible which meant editing around bringing up the different menus like changing weapons or directing powers/attacks. I’ve also spent a lot of time adding in some crossfades to speed up movement where applicable. For example, in ME1, running across the Citadel once can give a nice view for the first time, but there’s no reason to just watch my Shepard running back and forth across missions, so I’ll fade leaving Chora’s Den and running back to C-Sec or other places.

        Overall, it’s been a pretty fun project. I’ve had to teach myself how to play with an eye for cinematography and how I’ll eventually edit things. It’s also been interesting to notice super niche things about how the games are put together because I’m observing scenes down to single frames when I’m editing.

        I’ve been doing my recording off the original Mass Effect games since I’ll likely play Legendary Edition far more often than I’ll revisit the originals, so I’ll have my “show” for some added nostalgia as well. Right now, I’m in the middle of editing a full “re-record” of ME2’s combat to reduce some of the jankiness while also going through a first run of ME3. I’ll need multiple runs off what I loaded from ME2 to get all the right armor and weapons and play/record with reduced pop-ups for leveling up, etc.

        If I can make a recommendation, I’d definitely recommend doing everything on PC if possible. I’ve done mine off Xbox which kept the files limited to 1 hour at a time, which has helped keep things easier to find, but it’s been heart breaking to get through a mission and then realize the recording stopped 10 minutes before I’d finished.

  • 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.

    • What kind of cooking do you do?

      • I wrote out a huge response to this and connect crashed that day and lost it, I meant to reply again but forgot until now. TLDR: everything I can in a home kitchen

        I love most kinds of foods, my favorite food has been steamed artichokes dipped in hollandaise sauce pretty much my entire life. My more recent favorite food is jjajangmyeon, I mostly use Maangchi's recipe but I tried another early on that added mirin and cabbage so I add those now too because they're just so good in it.

        My favorite recipes though are cheap, easy, quick, and delicious. Instant pot stuff has been great as I had a baby in January and it lets me make pretty decent stuff with very little work. The air fryer is also fantastic and we use it regularly for all kinds of things.

        I finally got my 12" cast iron to a great state of seasoning so I've been making omelets and now more recently toast omelet things (basically dip bread in the eggs and flip over, then flip the whole thing once eggs are set, put filings in and close up and cook the bread to a nice golden brown on each side). I also love making beef jerky and oh boy is it way better than store-bought. Grilling is also fun, i smoke our turkey every year in my weber (got a rotisserie thing for it last year!), and I like to bake - pineapple upside-down cake is my favorite, but I'm also partial to sour cream pound cake (served as strawberry shortcake), and St. Louis gooey butter cake.

        I'm always looking for new things to try, and my meal planner has more recipes than I've ever made saved in it haha (I should really clean it up).

  • It's not super niche, but I've never met anyone outside of the hobby that even knows it exists.

    Anyway, I enjoy car audio competitions a lot. One version is SPL (sound pressure level) where the goal is to build a system that can get as loud as possible. Then there's SQ (sound quality) that's more about making the best sounding system you can, which is also fairly artsy (make it look pretty).

    There's a lot of people who are assholes about it, they're the kid down the street blaring his music at 10 o clock at night. Every who does it for a hobby are very respectful of other people and recognize that the vast majority of people don't wanna hear your music.

    I enjoy it for a few reasons. Firstly, I just love music. Music is a while body experience. It's not just your ears, but your skin reacts to the vibrations as well, and you just aren't gonna get that experience with cheap speakers. The car is a great place to feel music because it's enclosed and you can generally go somewhere to not bother people.

    The other part, is that its very hands on and problem solving. You're doing woodworking, electrical design, maybe fiberglass. Lots of different engineering.

  • Lockpicking. I’ve been a longtime watcher of content like the lockpicking lawyer so for Christmas I asked for a set of picks and tools from my wife. Ever since I just sit around and blindly fidget with old padlocks. You can get a decent starter set for $60 and a never ending supply of locks that have long since lost their keys.

391 comments