I'm not good at it, but I like geocaching.

Game preservation. I got into it last fall when I learned about OpenGOAL for the Jak and Daxter games. I grew up with those games and were some of my favorites from that generation.
I then learned how easy it was to rip PS1 through 3 games and how simple it is to set up the emulators for each console. I have a sizable collection of games for those generations, so I started ripping.

I then remembered watching LTT's video about how to jailbreak the Switch. I bought a used Switch from a friend pre-pandemic, but never played the games because I never cared for playing on the Switch itself. So I checked if mine was old enough to jailbreak (Nintendo patched the exploit out of the Switch about a year after it released) and, lo and behold, it was.
It wasn't easy jailbreaking it. It took several hours over 3 days to do it; I would make some progress, then hit a roadblock I couldn't figure out, so I'd stop and come back the next day. I'd get a little further, hit another roadblock, and repeat. Once I managed that, I ripped my (small) collection of Switch games and played them on Ryujinx. Now that I could finally play them on my laptop whenever I wanted, I actually had a desire to play them and managed to get through BotW in January.

Then I figured out how to jailbreak my Wii (which is pretty easy, I recommend everyone do it to theirs), so I could rip those games. It can also rip GC games, so I didn't need to find and jailbreak one of those to do it.

When I learned of shadPS4 this summer and the progress it was making toward playing Bloodborne, I spent $400 on ebay to get a gold PS4 with firmware 9.0 so I could jailbreak it and start dumping PS4 games.

At that point I saw how much space all of the games I ripped took up on my laptop, so I bought a NAS from a friend who was upgrading theirs and set it up with two 8TB hard drives in RAID 1 and stored all my games on there. It's currently about 60%+ full.

Over Halloween I went to a used game store and saw they were selling a Wii U for $160. I bought it and jailbroke that as well and started ripping those games.

I bought an OG Xbox to jailbreak, but I need to open it up to replace the clock capacitor first. Otherwise it could leak and my effort would be for nothing. I just haven't got around to it yet.

I realized this was a passion of mine when I accidentally borked my PS4 and it would only boot into safe mode. I was 100% willing to completely wipe it and start the jailbreak from scratch so I could keep doing it.

All told, I've ripped ~~about 400+~~ nearly 600 games (I finally counted) in the past 15 months, spent dozens of hours ripping them, and have zero intention of stopping. I only think about how I can keep expanding my collection. Right now my next consoles will be the 360, PSP, and Vita.

Edit: rephrasing and adding a little more info

Primary: Disc Golf ❤️

Secondary: As many useful docker containers as I can pack onto my home server

I've had several multi-year long ones:

• As a child: Stargate SG1
• Adolescent: paraphilias
• Young adult: the care of high violence risk and cluster b psychiatric inpatients
• As I'm entering middle-adulthood: western esoteric spiritual tradition and philosophy

my hobby is collecting hobbies

if I could have a special interest for more than a week at a time I bet I'd be good at it ...

I really had to think just to come up with nothing lol

I get REALLY into something for 2 weeks then I drop it and never look back. I was into minerals/mineralogy for a few years I guess, but I'm not all that knowledgeable. I just really like copper bearing minerals like dioptase and azurite.

Making bacon.

!watercolor@lemmy.ml

Love me some watercolour.

Levitation Wand!

I think it is pretty niché as most people that see it have no idea what is going on to begin with and if drugs are involved I love blowing peoples minds with it.

Here is a video that demonstrates what it is.

Metal guitar, comic books, epistemologies. A lot of people write off metal as just distortion and shouting but it's a huge genre like jazz or classical without as long a history. Comics interest I stopped for awhile but got back into it and helped me learn drawing and story writing to better appreciate the artistry. Epistemologies from an interest in reading philosophy books and that was just the subtopic that always held my interest most.

I like making homemade bongs and water pipes specifically from reclaimed materials. I'm not strident about things, but it's fair to say in a general sense that I need them to have $0.00 of material costs. I make "the best" in terms of performance, and people freak out when they use or see them. They are always a huge conversation piece, always creative, and I just give them away. People ask me all the time to make custom ones but I won't. It's free or nuthin'

I know people that still use water pipes I made for them 15 years ago! Sometimes they look a bit "trashy" but they're crafted! And that's the way I like em!

Remember when Homer Simpson made that misbegotten lump of shit called VunderBaat or something? I feel him man

Thank you for your contributions!

I've been pretty into four things lately:

1. Healthy cooking, from scratch as much as possible. I got into a rut trying to maximize protein intake, so now I'm trying to find different recipes that don't compromise on macros but still offer variety in flavors and textures and won't bother my IBS.
2. Nail polish and nail art. I have probably about 300 polishes at this point, which sounds like a lot to most people, but it's a tiny collection compared to some I've seen! Last year I got really into nail stamping, which lets you create neat little designs, and you can get really creative with it.
3. Working out. I recently moved, and designed a power rack for my basement which is pretty fully featured. My goal was to be able to do all the exercises I could do at my previous fitness club (within reason - no way I'm buying a tank sled and a billion 45 lb plates!). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and so is my husband, which I'm glad about because he's a tall dude and working around the low-ish basement ceiling was a challenge.
4. Indie makeup! Holy Moses I love makeup, and indie brands are killing it. My most recent favorite palette is the Cosmic Brushes Winter Wonderland palette (which came out last year, but is new in my collection). Just look at her!:

Gorgeous, right? No way I'm ever going back to boring neutrals.

This week? AuDHD doesn't let me have one for long.

My main one is vegan food. Before I had access to a kitchen to make my own food, it used to involve collecting, curating and creating recipes, but has since moved onto creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain flavour and texture profiles.

The current big one I've been very obsessed with making and eating for the last few years, is variations on hoisin mock duck wraps.

The latest iteration is a salad wrap, with leaves of nappa cabbage as the wrap, a layer of vegan garlic mayo with chilli crisp, mock duck, green onion, cucumber, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, hoisin sauce, corriander leaves, and another cabbage leaf to cover/ close the wrap. This probably has the best textures so far and tastes really good!

Making/eating kimchi is a similarly intense interest/obsession. So is hotpot. I fucking love hotpot.

My secondary major interest fluctuates between several different things, but is currently perfume.

I'm very into creating (and endlessly recreating, adapting and morphing) certain scent profiles, and collecting perfumes.

I like to do this through layering different perfumes on my skin and clothes, so I can highlight certain notes/sensory aspects for myself (that may not be apparent on other people's skin chemistry, so this, like with my other interest, is a very subjective fascination!).

Over the span of three days (between showers) I like to start in one place with my layering combinations and go on scent journeys as the notes morph and fade, and I add to them with other complimentary scents and see how far I can go. Notes linger on clothing longer and differently to how they do on skin, so as I'm layering over several days it builds up in fascinating ways. It's very interesting to me too finding which layering combinations work one way but not the other.

Lately I've enjoyed starting with a base combo of Mauboussin Mauboussin (resinous yet juicy plums and lots of ylang ylang) and Musamam White Intense by Lattafa (juicy spiced oranges and too much ambroxan)- and then taking that in interesting directions as it fades over the day, like layering on more spices and wood notes, and then when that fades, onto various ouds and roses.

Or adding a Stronger With You flanker (sweet and aromatic with chestnuts + individual flanker variations), then when that starts to fade leading it with fragrances full of ginger, vanilla, lactonic nutty notes and patchouli.

Being enveloped in layers of beautiful fragrances is such big sensory good times for me and discovering new combinations is so pleasing.

Also before anyone comes at me for this, I live alone and don't wear any fragrance when I go outside, so I'm really not hurting anyone with this hobby!

Fountain pens and inks

I have at least a couple.

3D printing. But I mostly design my own models and mostly for utilitarian purposes rather than artistic. For instance, my mother's into quilting and wanted a very specialized die for a Sizzix die cutter to use to cut quilt pieces, so I applied my amateur 3D printing, CAD, and mechanical engineering skills to the problem and designed/printed a die. The process also included making a custom tool for precisely bending the die blade.

Second, studying U.S. intellectual property law. I just dig it. And it's relevant to me because I frequently publish software and models for 3D printing under permissive licenses. And I like having at least some amount of understanding of what the licenses really mean and what people will be able and not able to do legally with the works I'm publishing.

My most stereotypical special interest (in that it's something really random that you might assume there's not a lot of depth to) is artificial lighting technology.

But I have a lot of stuff I could infodump about: computers, video games, TTRPGs, world building, neurology, etc.

linux

I want to say selfhosting but that seems not so special on Lemmy. If I can host it myself and it’s FOSS I do it.

Aztec history.

How did you start with that? I've contributed some via Street Complete, but I've never figured out how to contribute directly to OSM.

How do you map

Is there any liability? NSA, angry exes, employer, anybody finding out that you mapped your own town?