Skip Navigation
212 comments

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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

    • As a long time, daily bong smoker you have my attention, got any pictures of your creations?

      I have made a few in my time with varying degrees of success but I'm intrigued as to what variables you consider and what "best performance" looks like to you?

      • I can only show you the two I have left, because I give them away constantly. That's part of the whole "must be recycled" thing... after this comment I'll come back with some pictures just give me a moment...

        In 20+ years of stoner engineering, I feel the most important thing is to keep the cloud chamber much, much, much, much smaller than you'd think.

        We often see these huge "frat boy bongs" as I call them with huge bases and like 40cm tall throats. That's an absolutely insane amount of wind to have to suck before you can even get the hit. Our lung capacity is limited, even moreso when we abuse them regularly with smoking. A hit from a bong is totally "broken" if the user has to stop, exhale to open lung space and keep going. That's a fail.

        The more time smoke has to sit around in or pass-through parts of a vessel that are colder than the smoke itself, you're going to get a shitload of condensation. All that resin you see caked allll over your bong is evidence of excess condensation and reveals product being wasted. And that makes the hit wayyyy harsher too.

        So the number one thing which runs counter to what people expect, is that "bong power" comes from keeping the vessel small, limiting the filtration, and ensuring the path from the smoke chamber to your lungs is a short as possible. When I say limit the filtration, passing the smoke bubbles through a few inches of water is sufficient, more than that just robs the smoke of its THC and defeats the point.

        My homemade ones hit so hard people are blown away. It's kinda crazy when you learn how to make them hit harder... the best one I ever made was made in a 250ml mason jar - it was tiny but hit like a TANK. Plus once you master the art, you discover you now need half the weed... not because it becomes "stronger" but now you find you're smoking it at double the efficiency.

        The other thing is NOT to select a vessel that is narrow on the bottom and widens as it gets to the top. There are some "fancy" bottles like from Crown Royal and such that just don't work properly. There is something about fluid dynamics and how turbulence flows at boundaries... I don't fully understand the hows/whys but I know the vessel needs to taper smaller. (The part with the water needs to be the big part of the vessel)

        edit: Here are pics of the 2 I've still got. The one in the Crown Royal bottle is neat and it delivers good hits but my neighbor fucked up the bowl (and my cutting bit!) when I was teaching him how to cut glass. Also I'm going to throw this one away (keep the components just chuck the bottle) as it's incorrect shape. I just wanted to play on this one because I found some discarded paint markers. The skull jar was given to me by the same alcoholic neighbor that wrecked the bowl and my cutting bit, and I'm just carving a nice custom tiny glass bowl for it now. The pieces on it were actually repurposed from the Mason Jar one I mentioned earlier.

        Pics all out of order because I'm feeling lazy RN

        https://postimg.cc/gallery/mHqq4GV

  • 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?

  • 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!

    • Oh man I've recently started getting into fragrances... I'd never realized how complex (and expensive) they can be! I discovered Kayali's Yum Pistachio Gelato from a makeup youtuber I follow and it's all been downhill from there. Lately I've been layering Ellis Brooklyn's Super Amber with Phlur's Heavy Cream, and I keep sneaking little sniffs of myself throughout the day... and sniffing my bra when I take it off for the night... send help!

      What are some of your favorite unexpected notes to combine?

      • Ugh, I know right?! All my spare coin is going towards perfumes!

        Yum Pistachio is gorgeous! I love all the dupes of it too, all the Arabic houses are on top form lately.

        Your combination of Super Amber and Heavy Cream sounds hella sexy!

        Ok, so here's a REALLY strange but beautiful scent combination I've found, let me try and set the scene it makes for you first:

        You're in an coastal pine forest during a lightening storm. It's night. You can smell the wet earth underfoot and the forest behind you. Just before the rain starts up again, you're looking out over the sea as it crashes against the cliffside, sea water mists the air and sheets of lightening illuminate the world.

        This was from about 5 spritzes of Vanilla Vibes by JHAG (salty non-gourmand vanilla) with a modest spritz of Quorum by Antonio Puig (beast mode aromatic oakmoss) over it. Encre Noir by Lalique could probably be substituted for the Quorum for a similar affect, but you'll need to spray a lot more of it as Quorum is very, very strong.

        The way the sea salty solar notes of Vanila Vibes play against the dank mossy woods and grapefruit of Quorum, it's so visual for me. And there's this ozoneic smell they form together that isn't constant but is electric and kinda how I imagine lightening smells.

        Do you have any unexpectedly beautiful scent combinations? Please share if so!

    • What do you use for the fake duck meat?

      I’ve gotten pretty obsessed with making good seitan, but there’s just so many variables. I’m mostly a texture person, and I find that the place where lots of vegan recipes fail is in the texture department. So that’s where my passion for vegan cooking leads me.

      • The Linda McCartney Vegetarian Shredded Hoisin Duck have been my go to for a while as they're in most of the big supermarkets here and I can get them delivered to my house.

        I like to defrost them and use them 'raw' (they're already fully cooked) because I find the texture gets weird when they're prepared according to the package instructions.

        Any Asian superstore will likely have many varieties of better, and probably cheaper, mock duck though. If I lived near one I would be so fat!

        I had a seitan phase a few years back, I got really into finding good spice mixes to include in the dough for maximum 'meatiness'.

        I made and tried to like the 'lunch meat' style seitan a few times, but memories of being a kid having to eat actual lunch meat (and how slimy and sometimes gritty from gristle it was) really put me off it.

        Texture wise with seitan, I liked gently beating the kneaded dough flat with the end of a rolling pin, and then tightly rolling and coiling it up, wrapping it tightly to steam, and then shredding it and adding bite sized bits to hotpot.

        What's your current favourite seitan recipe? What texture do you like your seitan?

  • Fighting games and Riichi Mahjong.

    Believe it or not, this venn diagram has enough overlap that we've got a running joke about how Riichi is becoming the new FGC Retirement Home. We've even got a few people bringing tiles to every major tournament to unwind before/after brackets. I've booked my trip to Frosty Faustings next month, signed up for six different brackets and I'll try in squeeze in as much 'jong as I can too.

  • I have so many interests that it seems impossible to pinpoint one particular interest. My mind is very active and chaotic, partly due to anxiety. I often try to fill an existential void with chaos and randomness.

    That said, I would say that mathematics is one of my main interests, especially the branch of mathematics that intersects with the artistic and experimental. Tinkering with numbers, without a definite purpose (because there is no purpose in my nihilistic mindset), just for the joy of it. There is also programming, which serves as a framework for the mathematical experimentation that I mentioned.

    Then there's also the philosophical reflection, as noted in my parenthetical mention of nihilism. I don't really know if I really enjoy philosophical inquiries into the reality of existence or if it is a consequence of an existence alienated from a social life, perhaps it started as a consequence of my awkwardness until it eventually became part of my interests.

    There is also occult and esoteric studies. Perhaps a consequence of "gazing into the abyss" which sparked my curiosity in dealing with the darker aspects of reality. There is something about beliefs like Satanism, Luciferianism (as a side note, they are different beliefs, for those who oversimplify and think they are all "the same" because "devil"), Chaos Magic, Thelema, there is something there that is attractive to me. The hidden truths of reality, the shadows within ourselves, the cosmic forces that emerged from the primordial chaos. I really like them all, although I don't really belong to any specific belief system.

    And this leads me to scientific interests as well. Particularly studies on the cosmic aspects, quantum mechanics, studies on the origins of the universe, thermodynamics, zero energy universe theory, studies on how everything will end (Big Rip, Big Freeze, Big Crunch...). I don't really delve into the technical depths of science because I'm not a scientist, but it is part of the framework of how I try to see things.

    In a summary, I have many, intertwined, sometimes even opposing, simultaneous interests.

  • Initially thought I didn't have one, because I was thinking it had to be, like, things you do or whatever. Like wood carving or building something. Then I realized I absolutely do. Lol

    Philosophy and religious studies. Non dualism especially, but honestly, I just love learning about different philosophical ideas. I love Anthropology in general, and the differences and similarities between disparate cultures is downright fucking fascinating. People tend to think that the differences in, say, Hinduism and Christianity are pretty great, and they absolutely can be, but if you dive into the deep thinkers of either tradition you tend to find that oftentimes they're trying to say the same things.

  • 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.

212 comments