21 ms·

Ask HN: What are some niche communities you enjoy?

• gameswithgo 8y ago
  reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration
  • eps 8y ago
    Thanks for this.
• eof 8y ago
  I enjoy lurking some niche subs /r/waifuism is probably my favorite
• pmoriarty 8y ago
  Muff Wiggler - a forum for modular synth enthusiasts https://www.muffwiggler.com https://www.muffwiggler.com
  • jerluc 8y ago
    Just came across this yesterday while planning my new rig!
  • l33tbro 8y ago
    That's a great community. Everyone's level-headed (no pun intended) and not at all snobby or elitist about various modules.
  • vincentriemer 8y ago
    One of my favorite (and most expensive) hobbies!
    • bitL 8y ago
      Neverending GAS...
  • sbtrct 8y ago
    You may also enjoy lines: https://llllllll.co https://llllllll.co The main focus was/is Brian Crabtree’s Monome modules (https://monome.org https://monome.org) but it’s a fascinating community generally. I can’t really afford any of this stuff (I use VCV Rack and Reaktor), but the design quality of Monome’s hardware is simply staggering.
• maury91 8y ago
  Not sure if is a niche, I enjoy reading about well-reasoned fights between characters: http://vsbattles.wikia.com/ http://vsbattles.wikia.com/
• larrydag 8y ago
  Makerspaces are fun place to find all sorts of niches in the DIY community.
• Findeton 8y ago
  https://hackaday.com/ https://hackaday.com/
• durdn 8y ago
  Top Chess Engine Championship: http://tcec.chessdom.com/season13/live.php http://tcec.chessdom.com/season13/live.php and the amazing community project of LCZero to replicate Alpha Zero results in Chess: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lczero https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lczero
  • djflutt3rshy 8y ago
    Is there a sense that LCZero will eventually catch up to the top traditional contenders like Stockfish, it is there a possibility of a bottleneck with the machine learning?
    • asparagui 8y ago
      I would argue that the Alpha Zero algorithm does well at learning chess via self play to get to a master level, but the high level chess engines are super-optimized for their specific domain problem and so will remain out of reach.
      • thom 8y ago
        Leela and AlphaZero are already comfortable beyond master level and into the 3200s in ELO terms, at least. As for the best engines today (who I've no doubt we'll see win out at TCEC - Wasp has already been holding its own in division 4) I think they're super optimized on one axis - search, but not optimized very much (in the grand scheme of things) on the other - evaluation. AlphaZero and LCZero show have orders of magnitude better evaluation is available and can go toe to toe with existing engines despite radically fewer nodes searched. I wouldn't be surprised however, after this current generation of NNs get good, if the traiditional Alpha-Beta engines can't encode _some_ of the more subtle positional knowledge they've picked up, in a way that works quickly with their current architectures.
        • thom 8y ago
          And I expect the flip side is also true - radically better hardware and algorithms for both training and executing neural networks. Even after that, I think there’s a huge gap in the market for a system that not only sees tactics deeply and had an almost flawless positional sense, but can explain and train humans in what it sees.
• kache_ 8y ago
  rizon ircs for programming. People make fun of this place a lot
  • juancampa 8y ago
    Why do people make fun of it? Never heard of it
    • andrepd 8y ago
      Mostly the insufferable Silicon Valley entrepreneur stereotype.
• zengid 8y ago
  Xenharminic has a lot of nice info about alternative musical tuning systems. (Note: they are in the process of migrating away from wikispaces. I'm not sure what the current state of the processes is.) http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/ http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/
• henriquemaia 8y ago
  I like to stay updated of what the Kindle hacking community is up to. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150 My PW3 Kindle got way better with the many hacks I've learned there.
  • dstroot 8y ago
    I was looking at this yesterday and I also use a PW3. It seemed you actually have to open the case for physical access to jailbreak it. Did you do that? I punted.
    • henriquemaia 8y ago
      Since it is somewhat risky if you’re not completely sure of what you are doing (as is my case, since I would be almost blindly following steps), and since there is a software hack to jailbreak it, I preferred the latter. But the community there is very helpful and I’m convinced that if I were to physically hack it, I would find enough help there to guide me through.
  • curiousgal 8y ago
    What can you do with a jailbroken Kindle?
    • dominotw 8y ago
      There was a frontpage yesterday about literary clock. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17688324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17688324
    • henriquemaia 8y ago
      With a jailbroken Kindle you can, for instance, install koreader[1], a feature-rich alternative ebook reader application that enhances the somewhat limited capabilities of Kindle’s native reader. For instance, with koreader you can open djvus, epubs, fb2 (if you’re onto those formats), but what makes koreader especially appealing to me is that it is a far better pdf reader than Kindle’s native. Or you can look for a pool of available hacks[2] that make Kindle’s overall usage far more suited to your own particular needs. One example is the screensavers hack that allows you to choose either to use your own images (somewhat interesting if you’re onto customizing them to your tastes); or you can, as I prefer, to use that last displayed screen as the screensaver, as this allows you to keep a book’s opened page in display while you are taking notes or doing some other book research related task. Some of these new features are now so essential to my Kindle’s experience that I can’t imagine myself using an original one without jailbreaking it. Also, I have my Kindle since 2015 and I’m in no hurry to get a newer or more capable model. As it is, it is very tailored to my academic needs. [1] https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader [2] https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180113 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180113
• coherentpony 8y ago
  Not sure if it's considered 'niche', but I enjoy /r/mechanicalkeyboards
• rainbowmverse 8y ago
  Furries The best part is you not only get to hang out with lots of fluffy animal people (who often share your variety of not quite cis and straight), you get to bring all your hobbies along. Lots of furry musicians, programmers, writers, etc.
  • xena 8y ago
    Furries are basically the bulk of my usable professional network. It's great.
    • mr_overalls 8y ago
      Now I'm curious about what you do professionally.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  • jmcgough 8y ago
    My furry friends throw awesome parties and are some of the most creative people I know. I've gotten a lot better at DJing thanks to them :)
  • SCUSKU 8y ago
    Sometimes I wish I was one because it seems like in a tight knit community like that you can make some really good friends that will have your back and help you out.
    • rainbowmverse 8y ago
      There's no entry fee or test. Sometimes furries will even adopt people! Go look up Boozy Badger for a recent example. You can just decide you're a furry and find an entry point into the community. There's even a furry making new ones with every match in the fighting game community.
    • LeoPanthera 8y ago
• lkurusa 8y ago
  http://osdev.org/ http://osdev.org/ Hobbyist Operating Systems Development! We also have forums: http://f.osdev.org/ http://f.osdev.org/ and IRC: Freenode/#osdev !
  • osrec 8y ago
    I have always wanted to be part of something like this, but didn't know it existed! Thanks for sharing, you might see me there :)
    • lkurusa 8y ago
      Glad to hear! Feel free to ping me on IRC (nick: lkurusa) anytime you feel stuck or just want to chat. We are happy to help you get going!
      • osrec 8y ago
        Such a welcoming sentiment - makes me really want to be part of #osdev!
  • bitcoinmoney 8y ago
    Hey man, I always wanted to write my own OS like xv6. Can I bother you?
    • lkurusa 8y ago
      hey! of course, join us on Freenode's #osdev channel :)
  • messe 8y ago
    Came here to post this. I've been lurking (and occasionally, although rarely, posting) on that site since I was a teenager. It got me into low-level programming to the point where I even bought some ARM boards and a Sunblade workstation just to play around with different architectures—I have got to refurbish that Sunblade at some point; OpenBSD ran fantastically on it, and being able to code bootsectors in Forth was pretty cool. Haven't been on there as much since I started university though, my interests shifted towards physics/maths. I'm trying to get back into it because it's a fun hobby and I need a distraction from work/college; I started a kernel towards the end of spring, but unfortunately got distracted by exams. I want to try get in running userspace programs as soon as possible, but I'd like to get the syscall API nailed down first as I don't want to have to rewrite drivers (it's a microkernel) if I decide at some point to rewrite the kernel in rust (currently in C, but I like rust's type-system—the combo of a rust kernel + haskell userspace is also something I've been contemplating, but will probably have to wait a few years)
• waznx 8y ago
  Halal market
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  Mastodon is basically like Twitter was 8 years ago. Except it’s also a really cool tech platform as well.
  • rainbowmverse 8y ago
    Mastodon is what Twitter could have been without having to serve the interests of people shoveling millions into it. The interests of people shoveling ones and tens of dollars into Mastodon are well-aligned with the users because they're the same people.
• OscarCunningham 8y ago
  Searching for interesting patterns in Conway's Game of Life, and other cellular automata. http://conwaylife.com/forums/ http://conwaylife.com/forums/
• farbrortumm 8y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/ Ultralight backpacking. Gets you outdoors, can get quite nerdy though!
  • Kagerjay 8y ago
    Reminds me of r/edc, and r/buildapc
    • tyrust 8y ago
      I feel like r/edc and r/buildapc run against r/ultralight philosophically. The first two are about having a bunch of stuff you don't need: for r/edc, stuff like multiple weapons and tools that rarely ever see use; for r/buildapc, excessive hardware ("futureproofing") and furniture for playing games. On the other hand, r/ultralight is about reducing your kit to the actual essentials that will be carried over nontrivial distances and used daily.
      • Kagerjay 8y ago
        r/edc is more like r/guns but I see your point most of the stuff people "carry" about them is absolutely absurd. I just carry my carkeys, a decadent titanium wallet, and my phone. I mentioned r/buildapc because the way the table layout specs on r/ultralight feels similar. People have a goal and layout everything they use inside of that backpack or pc-case. There's not much else the same besides that.
        • cheeze 8y ago
          /r/edc is a thinly veiled /r/iamverybadass "22/SDE, my EDC" - proceeds to have a Leatherman, 2 knives, a phone, wallet, gun, and 2 mags...
          • Kagerjay 8y ago
            True its also onpar with r/insanepeoplefacebook too
• __s 8y ago
  Elements is an old card game, http://elementscommunity.org http://elementscommunity.org is a community I enjoyed for years, enough to create an open source offshoot of the game https://etg.dek.im https://etg.dek.im since its developer went AWOL
• qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago
  Paper notebooks and wood cased pencils. Writing with natural things knowing they’re not 1’s and 0’s and they will likely be around for a long time is fascinating.
• rootsudo 8y ago
  Cell phone "phreaking" and ESN/MEID/IMEI crew, they're fun but it's now gotten to the point where it's for profit vs how Qualcomm doesn't care. Half the people are privacy adverse, the other half just profitters. Still, interesting to modify and manipulate hardware and software on cell phones, although the scene is very different (and more complicated) then 05 (where you could replace the $SYS.ESN file in Hex and checksum to get a new valid ESN)
  • confounded 8y ago
    Any links?
    • bookofjoe 8y ago
      Does the name Mark Bernay ring a bell? He was one of the giants of the "blue box" era. From Slate: "According the New York Times obituary of Apple founder Steve Jobs, after reading [Ron] Rosenbaum's [Esquire] article, Jobs and his partner in founding Apple, Steve Wozniak, 'collaborated on building and selling blue boxes, devices that were widely used for making free — and illegal — phone calls. They raised a total of $6,000 from the effort.'" Rosenbaum article: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/the_spectator/2011/10/the_article_that_inspired_steve_jobs_secrets_of_the_little_blue_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/the_spectator/2011/... IRL Mark Bernay (http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/; http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/; https://twitter.com/phonetrips?lang=en https://twitter.com/phonetrips?lang=en) is Richard Kashdan: https://www.facebook.com/PhoneTrips https://www.facebook.com/PhoneTrips Very cool guy, alive and well in San Francisco
• arcticfox 8y ago
  https://aoezone.net https://aoezone.net , home to pro / semi-pro Age of Empires 2
  • samstave 8y ago
    to me, Pro == making-a-living-at How does one be Pro at AoE?
    • desdiv 8y ago
      Some are casters, like T90[0]. They stream a couple of hours of AoE2 commentary every day on Twitch. They collect income from Twitch subscriptions and donations and also Youtube ad revenue. It's very hard work for not a lot of money. A very small handful of top players plays it full time. Viper[1] is the "top guy" currently and he streams on Twitch. So his income is Twitch + Youtube + tournament winnings. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZUT79WUUpZlZ-XMF7l4CFg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZUT79WUUpZlZ-XMF7l4CFg [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/TheViperAOC https://www.youtube.com/user/TheViperAOC
    • arcticfox 8y ago
      There are about ~5 people that do AoE2 full-time. The #1 player in the world, TheViper, has over 1000 subscribers on Twitch (~$4 / mo each after twitch fees). So that's $50k/year just in Twitch subscribers. He probably averages another $25k/year in tournament winnings, and at least that in donations, probably a lot more. So at least ~$100k / yr. T90Official (USA) and MembTV (Spain) are both full-time casters of pro & semi-pro matches, and they probably make $75k and $50k respectively per year, based on their sub counts and what I know of their donations.
• mulander 8y ago
  https://reddit.com/r/openbsd_gaming https://reddit.com/r/openbsd_gaming We just (10 minutes ago) finished playing a round of Quake 2. Some games are streamed (https://www.twitch.tv/thfrw/videos/all https://www.twitch.tv/thfrw/videos/all | https://www.twitch.tv/communities/openbsd_gaming https://www.twitch.tv/communities/openbsd_gaming | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF2MeFBWJoFZtz0ADX3Us0Q/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF2MeFBWJoFZtz0ADX3Us0Q/vid...), we even have some more modern FNA games and a list of games available on GoG for the platform (https://www.gog.com/mix/openbsd_engine_available https://www.gog.com/mix/openbsd_engine_available). We generally hang out on irc #openbsd-gaming @ freenode.
  • brynet 8y ago
    This is a great community, very welcoming.
  • kipari 8y ago
    Thank you for posting this! The tenacity of the OpenBSD community keeps on impressing me.
• some_random 8y ago
  Maybe a bit unusual for this community, but Historical Firearms and the Development thereof: /r/ForgottenWeapons as well as /r/guns in general. Also, https://www.reddit.com/r/aimdownsights/top/?sort=top&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/aimdownsights/top/?sort=top&t=all is worth checking out.
  • nateberkopec 8y ago
    I love Forgotten Weapons. I'm not even a gun nut, never owned one, but something about watching him explain the history and mechanical functioning of each firearm is so relaxing and satisfying.
  • cheeze 8y ago
    Same here. Can't stand /r/firearms though. I wish there were better gun communities out there. And I wish guns weren't so expensive. I'm at the point where I have insurance on my gun collection alone.
    • noonespecial 8y ago
      I'm the same. I'm a leftie who enjoys guns (the machines themselves and the physical discipline to use them safely and effectively), but I despise what you might call "gun culture" especially here in the USA. I wish I could find a good group of like minded who could just focus on the sport without descending into endless political posturing.
      • cheeze 8y ago
        /r/guns is great for that reason exactly. You get some annoying folks in the comments, but never anything about politics and the whole "libtard bashing" thing isn't done there. Im with ya. Live in one of the most liberal cities in the states, definitely lean liberal, but love guns too.
    • yontherubicon 8y ago
      /r/weekendgunnit ?
• ada1981 8y ago
  Ultimate Frisbee. Psychedelics. Relationship as a Path. Majagual.org
  • smcameron 8y ago
    cyclekarts: http://cyclekartclub.com http://cyclekartclub.com
    • ada1981 8y ago
      ?
• mattyb678 8y ago
  Trail and ultra running
• bemmu 8y ago
  Ludum Dare. Four times a year a few thousand people create an entire game in 2 or 3 days, and then spend around a week playing and judging all the games made by others.
  • fenwick67 8y ago
    Ludum Dare is fun but it feels too vast sometimes - very rarely do I interact with a person more than once.
  • slazaro 8y ago
    And for anybody interested, next one is this weekend!
• dominotw 8y ago
  /r/ElectricUnicycle/ local facebooks groups are more active than than reddit though.
• roryisok 8y ago
  Nanowrimo, I love trying to write 50k words in 30 days every November. I usually fail but there's great camaraderie and a year long build up
  • wallacoloo 8y ago
    I've found my way into a vaguely similar group lately. Fairly even split of writers, artists, readers, and people passionate about typesetting. Some people use it for help in editing, or proof reading, etc. But the most interesting thing the group does is to take stories in an existing digital format (could be something somebody there wrote, or more frequently something that was written elsewhere but shared in this group), make cover and/or chapter art for the book, typeset it, and then crowd-fund a small printrun. Sometimes whoever deals with the actual logistics of the printing and shipping will throw in something extra. In one case, the story was centered around a musician, and the guy who shipped the books also included an audio CD with his interpretation of the songs the character would have performed. In another case, there have been riddles and puzzles included on the first or last pages.
• dvirsky 8y ago
  Weather forums run by serious weather geeks, some of which are actual professionals. Especially towards and during extreme weather events these are a lot of fun.
  • undoware 8y ago
    Oh damn thats my jam. Which ones do you recommend?
  • indytechcook 8y ago
    I'm also interested in knowing these communities. My brother is transferring from storm conversion research to data science and statistics.
  • froindt 8y ago
    Because it's been a nagging question of mine...would you have any general guidance on where to find historical weather forecasts for a particular location? I'd like to look at how accurate the forecasts were n days out, but I'm not having any luck so far. I can grab historical actual temp data, buy I can't figure out what the weekly temp forecasts were 3 years ago today.
  • crehn 8y ago
    Also interested, any pointers?
    • dvirsky 8y ago
      I'm in Israel so they're just local ones in Hebrew.
    • redisman 8y ago
      This one is pretty good for Pacific Northwest http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ Another interesting specialist weather site to look at (not a community per se): https://www.windy.com/ https://www.windy.com/
  • interactivecode 8y ago
• undoware 8y ago
  The trans community. A lot of us are nerdy as hell and we're consummate biohackers who can tell you shit about your endocrine system that will astonish.
  • rainbowmverse 8y ago
    One of the oldest hacker communities.
  • kungtotte 8y ago
    What's that one biohack that's universally applicable that everyone should do, and what are the enhancements you'll see from it?
    • undoware 8y ago
      There isn't one, at least not straightforwardly. There's a meta-hack, of sorts, however, that is: "You don't have to be this way, and you don't have to do what others expect of you. You can change, and you don't have to ask permission. They will make you pay for it -- your friends, spouses, colleagues, institutions -- but the cost of the alternative can be higher still. Be free."
      • undoware 8y ago
        Everything else is just causistry and tactics, and must be tailored bespoke.
  • nirav72 8y ago
    Link?
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • jmcgough 8y ago
    Trans engineers (myself included) are basically my entire social circle at this point :) there's lots of us in the bay and most of us are awesome
• cm2012 8y ago
  /r/parahumans /r/starcraft
  • shiny 8y ago
    I prefer /r/broodwar
• ydnaclementine 8y ago
  /fit/ and /g/ on 4chan
  • testicon 8y ago
    S I P B O Y S 2 0 1 8
  • drngdds 8y ago
    /g/ is great if you enjoy being called a soyboy pajeet cuck for liking or disliking literally anything (I don't)
  • BOGDANOFF 8y ago
    if you arent 1234 yet then im going to have to make a phone call...
  • cheeze 8y ago
    I'm a fan of /k/. Definitely more juvenile but a great place to go to get an honest opinion with a surprisingly knowledgeable community.
  • confounded 8y ago
    I’ve always been horrified by the white supremacism, homophobia, sexism, etc. ad nauseam on 4chan. To the extent that I don’t want to poke around it too much. What are those communities like? What’s the benefit compared to Reddit/wherever else?
    • andrepd 8y ago
      It's cancer. I like the idea of 4chan, but when you experience it you realise it's full of the most nasty, unpleasant, vile, and very childish people online. Among those, some truly wonderful and knowledgeable people. You grow out of it.
    • awirth 8y ago
      The amount of garbage is pretty highly dependent on the board - the entire site isn't /pol/. If you're willing to be your own content filter and can handle a lower signal to noise ratio than a curated community there are a lot of good posts. It's DEFINITELY not for everyone though. For example, 4chan has some of the most up-to-date English language discussions around for a lot of Japanese fandoms. If you want to discuss new releases of obscure japanese noise bands, you probably want to be /mu/. If you're not on /mu/ and are on some other platform, you're probably just going to get a regurgitated version of the discussion from /mu/ anyway, with an increased propogation delay and someone else doing the cherrypicking. (Note: I'm just using "Japanese noise bands" as an example, I don't know if that particular discussion on /mu/ is good, or if the relevant low-latency discussion is on Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, etc these days)
• motiw 8y ago
  Stair Climbing https://www.meetup.com/Stairclimbers-LA/ https://www.meetup.com/Stairclimbers-LA/
• TeMPOraL 8y ago
  SCP Foundation. Never really participated, but I love to read them. http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ It's basically a group of people writing formal reports on various paranormal things that the fictional SCP Foundation Secures, Contains and Protects (us from). Kind of like reading the paperwork and after-mission reports of SHIELD. From Wikipedia: The SCP Foundation is a fictional organization that is the subject of a web-based collaborative writing project of the same name. The stories generated by the project describe the exploits of the Foundation, supposedly responsible for containing individuals, entities, locations, and objects that violate natural law (referred to as SCPs). The main written works on the SCP Foundation website are articles written in the style of structured internal documentation about the contained SCPs. The website also contains thousands of "Foundation Tales", short stories set within the universe of the SCP Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_Foundation
  • derefr 8y ago
    > Kind of like reading the paperwork and after-mission reports of SHIELD. A comparison to SHIELD would be misleading, I think, in that it would suggest an aesthetic/ideology of "heroism" behind the work that's not there. SCP paints a picture of a cynical and dystopian organization, with little concern for loss-of-life of its test subjects. I would compare SCP more to the Half-Life universe's Black Mesa and Aperture Science research facilities. Or to the Cube movies. Or, I suppose, to The Syndicate from the X-Files (though in that case the comparison would be to the parts of the military doing security and ops under them.)
    • TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Good point. I was thinking just of 084s, but you're right that SCP is very unlike SHIELD. Your comparisons are much better.
    • a1369209993 8y ago
      That's a little unfair, insomuch as one of the main premises of the SCPverse is that the monsters and phenomena they're fighting really are bad enough to justify that level of cynicism and paranoia. I'd say it's closer to (the paperwork and after-action reports from) The Laundry Files by Charles Stross.
• GoRudy 8y ago
  Https://advrider.com adventure motorcycle riding community
• drakonka 8y ago
  I like /r/mechanicalkeyboards and /r/fountainpens; I'll have a few weeks where I'm really active (at least consuming) there and then I'll kind of leave them for a while. Recently I've been getting involved in indoor vermicomposting and browsing some forums on that. I also tend to keep an eye on communities related to snails, since I'm working on an amateur snail simulation in my spare time (and just like snails).
  • Scene_Cast2 8y ago
    You might like /r/mechanicalheadpens
    • drakonka 8y ago
      This is...eerily perfect. It's so interesting that these interests overlap frequently enough to warrant their own subreddit.
    • HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
      Wow thank you.
    • mclehman 8y ago
      There's a good chance you could finally be the push to get me to post on /r/mechanicalheadpens and subscribe. I've been on all three individually for years and known about /r/mechanicalheadpens for about as long, but never really thought about it as being its own community rather than just a novelty until seeing it in this context.
    • wrp 8y ago
      I've long noticed the connection between liking fountain pens and mechanical keyboards, but never noticed the tie to head phones. (I'm sitting here wearing some.) Maybe the personality trait influencing this is a higher sensitivity to tactile experience. I wonder what other tastes this group might share. Of course, nice notebooks/pads go with the pens. I have an inclination toward boardgames with hefty dice, and I'm very choosy regarding my coffee mugs.
• CM30 8y ago
  Okay, there are a few here, so I apologise for how long the list might be. Either way: 1. Wario Forums https://warioforums.com/ https://warioforums.com/ A site I run about the Wario Land and WarioWare franchises, which covers everything from the games content to their universe to the tech involved in the games and their design. The level of dedication to the series honestly surprises even me sometimes, especially given that we've done stuff like reconstructed the soundtracks in original quality by seeking out the samples used from commercial sample packs and merging them with the MIDIs from the games, found tons of unused content in the games by datamining the files and what not and are basically working on a complex level editor for Wario Land 4 right now, basically disassembling the whole game in the process. 2. Various fan game development/ROM hacking communities (Mario Fan Games Galaxy, SMW Central, ROM Hacking.net el all) Because to me, the world of fan game, ROM hack and game mod development feels a lot like the web development scene in the 80s and early 90s, where everyone was building interesting things for the fun of it rather than because there was a commercial incentive. The fact you legally can't make money in these fields may have actually helped keep them interesting, and to some degree makes them a bit like the open source community for game development. 3. TCRF https://tcrf.net/ https://tcrf.net/ What can I say? It's fascinating to see all the early unused ideas for games, as well as old data found on the discs/cartridges/whatever. 4. The Lost Media Wiki https://lostmediawiki.com/Home https://lostmediawiki.com/Home For much the same reason as above, except instead of focusing on unused content, it focuses on unreleased or hard to find works instead. It can be interesting reading about media that say, aired once about 20 years ago and hasn't been seen since, or what not. 5. Hacker Forums https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/ What? It's basically Hacker News in traditional forum form, and was launched here a few months ago. But yeah, those are just a few of the ones I enjoy.
• hpincket 8y ago
  I get a kick out of pinpointing the exact location of photos or paintings. A couple of communities exists for this: * Geoguessr (I don't participate in this one much, street view is pretty limiting) * The Dish's "View from My Window" archive. A now defunct blog series where readers would submit photos from their window. Very difficult. Users often pinpoint the exact window from which the photo was taken. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/vfyw-contest/ http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/vfyw-contest/ * SkyScraperCity's Guess the City contest. A daily contest to guess the city. Also this is a precious internet 2.0 forum. https://www.skyscrapercity.com/ https://www.skyscrapercity.com/ * North Korea enthusiasts pinpointing the exact location of Kim Jung Un in official DPRK photos. * r/whereisthis helps Reddit users locate photos, also allows content just for fun. * r/PictureGame a more open contest, not necessarily a geolocation task.
  • djflutt3rshy 8y ago
    What kind of tools do you generally use? I’m assuming a search engine to identify particular landmarks/stores/etc, and personal knowledge, but what else?
    • gregschlom 8y ago
      I heard of people looking at the position of stars (on night photos) and the sun to guess the latitude. There was a story during the 2016 US election campaign where someone had a webcam pointed at a flag for some of the parties, and some folks managed to find the location by observing the stars and drove there and changed the flag, or something like that. Edit: link to the story: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good-thing-pulls-off-the-heist-of-the-century1 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-g...
      • noir_lord 8y ago
        My favourite if a little harsh description of 4chan is weaponised autism. Literally in one case https://www.quora.com/How-did-4chan-get-the-coordinates-of-an-ISIS-training-camp-and-send-them-to-Russian-officials https://www.quora.com/How-did-4chan-get-the-coordinates-of-a...
• anon1253 8y ago
  CloudyNights/Astrobin for astrophotography
• intellectronica 8y ago
  http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/ although I wonder if it's still considered niche.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• linsomniac 8y ago
  Various youtube metalworking channels including AvE and This Old Tony: https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil https://www.youtube.com/user/featony https://www.youtube.com/user/featony Smart, unusual, and entertaining.
  • raverbashing 8y ago
    I would also add the Beyond the Press channel (especially some of the older videos) and Project Farm
  • cheeze 8y ago
    Same. Abom as well and /r/skookum a bit.
  • Dowwie 8y ago
    AvE is hilarious!
  • JshWright 8y ago
    Surely that list includes Clickspring as well.
  • simongr3dal 8y ago
    Stefan Gotteswinter also does some very fine and interesting work, though his videos are a bit more long-form.
  • jcims 8y ago
    If you like watching chips fly I’d add Edge Precision and NYC CNC to the channel list as well.
• praptak 8y ago
  The local community of Ingress players in my city. It also acts amazingly well as a human-powered search/recommendation engine and mutual help community.
  • djflutt3rshy 8y ago
    I love Ingress for the discovery factor (there’s many works of public art that simply aren’t indexed anywhere else), unfortunately our local community is a bit toxic so I play solo and use it as an enhanced map more than anything these days. Maybe when 2.0 comes out...
    • praptak 8y ago
      Just out of curiosity, what do you think 2.0 could fix in terms of community toxicity?
• gmays 8y ago
  The WordPress community.
• munificent 8y ago
  The set of people building their own roguelike games must surely be one of the smaller subsets of humanity, but if you're in it, the r/roguelikedev subreddit is great.
• simple_man 8y ago
  The skyscraper aficionados at skyscrapercity.com
• awirth 8y ago
  The best niche communities on the internet would get worse if attention was drawn to them. They're good because they're hard to find and membership is self selecting and/or invite-only. This is true, as far as I can tell, for communities on nearly any topic/subject matter.
  • Torwald 8y ago
    The idea behind HN is to prove your assertions wrong. I would say at least until now it is working well.
    • awirth 8y ago
      If you're suggesting hacker news is a "niche" community, then we're likely talking about different scales of niche-ness. HN has a few orders of magnitude higher traffic and larger target audience than the types of communities I had in mind.
  • foobarchu 8y ago
    I disagree. The best niche communities are good because they are niche, not because they're hard to find. It's the focus and passion of the members that makes them what they are, and the ultra-niche nature of those communities is what ensures that people who aren't actually interested will stay away. If it's impossible to find outside of word of mouth with acquantainces, then the purpose of the internet has been defeated. Why have the ability to connect all of these people with a common interest if you're going to refuse to let serendipity happen?
    • awirth 8y ago
      I said "hard to find" not "impossible to find". Start with being in the subreddit or relevant other high-traffic high-SEO community for the subject, and see what other places the good members are discussing (often a discord, IRC channel, Slack, forum or similar). Recurse a few times, and each time you do you'll get a higher signal-to-noise ratio, higher expertise, lower abuse/garbage behavior, etc If you just link random people directly, you'll inevitably get some folks that can't read the atmosphere and just generally walk all over the flowerbeds without realizing what they're doing. AKA they need to "lurk moar"
• dchuk 8y ago
  It’s quieted down a lot in the last few weeks, but I set up https://hackerforums.co https://hackerforums.co to compliment this site for longer running/traditional bulletin board style forum conversations.
  • samstave 8y ago
    Just signed up!
    • dchuk 8y ago
      Welcome!
  • pandasun 8y ago
    Your forum is very fast, did you do anything specific to make it that way? :)
    • dchuk 8y ago
      That’s just the magic of using old php forum software. This is just phpBB running behind nginx on a cheap digitalocean droplet. It’s just not using a bunch of heavy JavaScript or anything like most modern software, so even though it’s not a SPA it is still very speedy.
• neom 8y ago
  Charged Tech is good: https://community.char.gd/ https://community.char.gd/ - forum/newsletter/chat. Psychedelic Experience Discord- https://discord.gg/8vS9gCt https://discord.gg/8vS9gCt
  • vitaminCPP 8y ago
    This guys has an interesting business model. Just curious: With all the free online content, how do you justify paying for this service ? I wonder how do you get your initial userbase with this kind of model...
    • neom 8y ago
      He's a known quantity, and has spent a long time building a community for free - I've been reading his newsletter for a long time. The folks he has in the forum are cool and smart, and also I know he does his research so I trust what he writes. Worth the cash.
    • jdietrich 8y ago
      €80/yr is about the same price as a magazine subscription. It's a fair price for good content. Free content is an inherent compromise - the creators are always splitting their attention between creating content and raising revenue. Patreon has had a hugely positive impact on a lot of content creators. They're not worrying about the latest algorithm changes on YouTube or AdSense, they're not chasing down sponsorship or shady native advertising, they're just doing what they do best.
• djflutt3rshy 8y ago
  Geocaching! Along with the already mentioned Ingress, it’s helped me find so many obscure yet beautiful and interesting locations. The local community is great too, and there is a certain thrill of mischief snooping around for a tiny magnet inside a city trying not to be spotted.
• gavanwoolery 8y ago
  Back in the day, I loved flipcode (https://www.flipcode.com/ https://www.flipcode.com/), for pure, development-oriented content. r/gamedev was pretty good in the early days, but quickly turned into something I no longer read (reasoning here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3zd4nq/my_opinion_on_what_is_wrong_with_rgamedev_and_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3zd4nq/my_opinion_...)
• cbHXBY1D 8y ago
  Amateur radio! There's a growing interest in it from the Maker movement and people interested in SDR. It's a really great community as long as you avoid the bands where boomers complain about the VA, liberals, and young people. If you're looking to test the waters - RTLSDR is cheap and a good place to start.
  • jdietrich 8y ago
    The teams behind WSJT and FreeDV are doing some very exciting stuff with digital modes. There are a proliferation of affordable, capable SDRs including the RTL-SDR, the SDRPlay RSP and the HackRF One. We might be in a solar minima, but it's a great time to be getting into amateur radio. http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/ http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/ https://freedv.org/ https://freedv.org/
• facing_worlds 8y ago
  Lucid dreaming - https://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/
  • senatorobama 8y ago
    No way of verifying user's experiences :/ Could be just a bunch of roleplayers.
    • wholinator2 8y ago
      I don't necessarily go there to read other people's stories. My interest was in learning how to do it myself and once I successfully experienced it a few times my perspective on the possibility of other peoples stories was changed
• dartac 8y ago
  telnet telehack.com
• enthdegree 8y ago
  Lately i have become obsessed with the internet of artisan horticulture. Just fruiting plants so far: > exotic banana cultivar discussion >> bananas.org > exotic fig cultivar discussion >> ourfigs.org >> General tropical fruit discussion > tropicalfruitforum.com > weird explorer, a (semi)-edible fruit reviewer >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChsbD6Clp-ZPqKwXJR3V7DQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChsbD6Clp-ZPqKwXJR3V7DQ > the amazon of rare and unusual plants >> logees.com (although for more obscure plants you often have to find a more local seller on a forum) So far I have bought a bunchosia armeniaca (a fruit that supposedly tastes like peanut butter) and a petite strain of figs which I am currently trying to fruit. This does not even touch obvious subcultures like bonsai trees.
  • tricky 8y ago
    Wow! If you know how someone in the Midwest USA could get a Gros Michel or two to eat, contact me.
    • Baeocystin 8y ago
      You can get some from https://miamifruit.org/products/gros-michel-banana-box-pre-order https://miamifruit.org/products/gros-michel-banana-box-pre-o... . They are very expensive, but if you're in to trying different varieties, maybe worth splitting it with some friends. FWIW, I think you would have a more satisfying taste experience with one of the dozens of varieties you'll find in a Thai/SE Asia-focused grocery store.
  • plumeria 8y ago
    You might also enjoy: - Baobabs.com aka Le Jardin Naturel - RarePalmSeeds.com - PalmTalk.org - Palmpedia.net
• priyadarshy 8y ago
  the youtube rollerblading community is pretty interesting. it feels like everyone knows one another even though they're spread across the globe.
• pm24601 8y ago
  fetlife -- Like a kinky facebook, where everyone can ask really embarrassing questions and discover: 1) misconceptions 2) that there are others like them. 3) others have the same problem as well. I have found good work-related question discussions like: "How can I say something nice to a woman without crossing any personal boundary lines." (A question that is hard to get a good answer from HR training); "How can I break up with someone I work with" There is also the "Kinky And Geeky" group: (https://fetlife.com/groups/81 https://fetlife.com/groups/81) and the "Kinky & Geeky Convention Circuit" (https://fetlife.com/groups/121830 https://fetlife.com/groups/121830) which are good for meeting up with others randomly.
• spudlyo 8y ago
  SONGFIGHT![0] This is a shameless plug for the venerable bi-weekly songwriting and recording competition known as SongFight! The idea is, every couple of weeks over at the SongFight website they announce a new song title, from then you have roughly 10 days to write and record an original song with that title. After the deadline expires, the new songs are posted to the site and voting begins. Anyone on the Internet with a unique IP address can vote, and there are usually anywhere between 75 to 250 votes cast for a given fight. Also at that time the votes for the previous competition are posted and the winner(s) are announced. Winners enjoy the smug satisfaction of a job well done. Everyone who participates enjoys the benefits of having a firm deadline, and a good reason to write and record a song, as well as a motivation for doing a good job. Members of the SongFight community often review the songs submitted for the fight over on the forums[1], so it can also be a place to get detailed feedback and constructive criticism about your songwriting. [0]: https://songfight.org https://songfight.org [1]: https://songfight.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=3 https://songfight.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=3
  • wallacoloo 8y ago
    5-6 years ago I was a part of a 30-ish person Skype group that organized a weekly "30 Minute Music Challenge". Every Sunday, a loose theme would be announced ("loss", "slow music", etc), and then you had 30 minutes to write, perform, and mix/render a song and drop it into the Skype chat. After 30 minutes, we'd all join a voice call where each song would be played in succession and anyone could give short impromptu feedback (usually just in the form of encouragement/amazement at whoever managed to pull off something decent in such a short timeframe). It was pretty great because it was small enough to where we could have special themes like "imitate the style of another artist in the group" and we actually knew each other well enough to where you could do that, and then when listening, you could tell pretty easily "ah, this person is imitating Wallacoloo's style". And even though what you make over the course of 30 minutes is undeniably crap, sometimes the core of it would make for material that you could expand into an actual song over the next week. The bronies also had a similar take on this type of thing titled Toast Beard. Whenever a new episode of My Little Pony aired, you'd have a week to create an "episode response" - e.g. remixing any musical acts from that show, vocal splicing the characters, or original works that were related in some other way. Both of these are, to my knowledge, defunct (although, it's possible they just evolved into different things; I didn't keep up). But they were really fun because they were small groups both with a lot of personality, not serious in the least, and they encouraged a good deal of experimentation. It certainly was something you did for the experience and where the outcome really didn't matter a whole lot.
• piinbinary 8y ago
  r/programminglanguages along with the associated IRC channel, #proglangdesign. I'm working on building a compiler, so I'm interested in learning more about newly built languages and related topics (e.g. type theory).
• qznc 8y ago
  Lobste.rs Hacker News with less Silicon Valley culture.
  • nickpsecurity 8y ago
    Hacker News and Lobste.rs are my favorite, tech forums. Quite complementary. For those unfamiliar with Lobste.rs, it's a smaller, slower-moving, mostly-tech-focused forum. It has many low-level hackers and CompSci people, too. So, we have more in-depth submissions on those topics. They also might survive on the front page longer just due to less competition for it like HN has. Occasionally, we also have highly-educational comments from those people that I don't see elsewhere. I always compare comment sections of anything on both HN and Lobsters to spot that. There's also some folks that just don't like really-big, fast-moving sites. They submit exclusively to smaller communities like Lobste.rs. So, those are the main benefits of the site for anyone interested.
    • jonnismash 8y ago
      Would love an invite to lobste.rs my man.
      • nickpsecurity 8y ago
        I don't do invites right now. The best place to get one is just ask nicely in chat: https://lobste.rs/chat https://lobste.rs/chat If you get on, send me a message through the Lobsters site saying so. I'll reply with something to help you get started.
  • ojuara 8y ago
    great! thanks
• hsljekskfh 8y ago
  there’s a weird card game in alpha right now where the cards are all made by the community and people vote on which cards get in using their subreddit. it’s the first thing i’ve seen using reddit not just as a social network, but a platform for balancing a game. i’m on the waiting list. https://reddit.com/r/collectivecg https://reddit.com/r/collectivecg
• madnerd 8y ago
  Samplerbox (python raspberry pi synth using wav files) http://www.samplerbox.org/ http://www.samplerbox.org/ A little known fact is that it is cross-platform, I manage to build a executable version with pyinstaller for windows. Some day I'll take some time to release it with a minimalist gui (just to select the soundcard).
• myle 8y ago
  r/bikewrench
• barrkel 8y ago
  Motorcycles. It's a passion that cuts right across society and political outlook. There are people of almost every persuasion into bikes. You end up communicating with people who do very different jobs to you, vote very differently, in fact view the whole world very differently. Gets you out of your bubble.
  • cgoecknerwald 8y ago
    Are there any online communities you can recommend?
    • 2dollars27cents 8y ago
      Adventure Rider (advrider.com) is a fun one if you're interested in that niche of the already niche motorcycle hobby.
    • nihil75 8y ago
      Thumpertalk is great for offroad, supermoto and such. Gixxer.com is for Suzuki GSXR, but great people and a lots of knowledge
    • chriselles 8y ago
      We are trying to build one for the global Harley-Davidson community: https://porky.co https://porky.co It’s just in live MVP right now, but launching in September down in the Southern Hemisphere market by market, then hopefully up north for 2019 Spring if we can scale down here.
  • gnordin 8y ago
    I agree. I do a lot of dirt biking (off-road motorcycling), and absolutely love it. Lots of great people to meet and ride with, fantastic exercise, and you see lots of backcountry that very few people ever experience. Also, if you maintain your own bikes, you learn how to do mechanical things.
• TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  Reboot.love I operate a community for robotics hobbyists interested in doing work for social change. Want to work on cool robots while contributing to open source hardware and software for robots that can help people? If so come check out http://reboot.love http://reboot.love
• hutattedonmyarm 8y ago
  https://pnut.io/ https://pnut.io/ It’s a kind of unofficial App.net successor, created by one of ADNs former users
• decasteve 8y ago
  Various Land Rover forums [0], [1], [2] for keeping my 17 year old Discovery 2 running. I don't think I could have owned a vehicle like this (and done work on it myself) without the knowledge shared through these communities. [0] https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/ https://www.landyzone.co.uk/forum/ [1] https://landroverforums.com/forum/ https://landroverforums.com/forum/ [2] https://discoweb.org/ https://discoweb.org/
  • ehnto 8y ago
    Practically a spring chicken! Online car forums are so often amazing. I probably knew enough to pull down an Nissan PS13 engine before I had even bought the car, simply through absorbing hard earned knowledge in discussion boards. Something about car nuts makes them compulsively share their experience in the area.
• westoque 8y ago
  Coffee. https://www.home-barista.com https://www.home-barista.com Love how interactive the community is. Everybody is pretty much obsessed with coffee and you learn so much. From water, to coffee beans, to machines.
  • Animats 8y ago
    On that, read "Extracts from the Club Diary", by Charles Stross.[1] [1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/coffee.html
• stefantheard 8y ago
  /r/bjj is my favorite, it has the perfect balance of extremely useful discussion and knowledge sharing along with some percentage of shitposting to keep it interesting.
  • itnAAnti 8y ago
    bjj = Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
  • tsumnia 8y ago
    To add to this, martial art communities are great because you get to meet all types of people. I train regularly with an Uber driver and a professor. You get to have serious in depth conversations and goofing off cause at the end of the day, you just like beating up your friends!
  • bongo662 8y ago
    Surprisingly a noticeable chunk of the people in my bjj classes were software engineers. A lot higher percentage than in my boxing or muay thai classes.
    • stefantheard 8y ago
      I've noticed that too, especially in the gi compared to boxing. Lots more doctors / lawyers / engineers training in the gi. I think it's because we're all weak and need the grips to slow people down, haha. Well let me speak for myself, I'm weak and need the grips to slow people down.
      • bongo662 8y ago
        Hah, could be a strength thing but most of the guys/gals Ive spoken with about it seem to join choose bjj over another martial art for the brain safety. Way less chance of a concussion in grappling than boxing, kickboxing or muay thai! I prefer the Gi too, work on your monkey grip in no-gi if thats giving you problems though!
• kacy 8y ago
  I'm a homebrew (beer) nerd. The global community is very warm and welcoming for people at all levels. Everyone is interested in building each other up, and it promotes experimentation and precision. As far as niche communities go, there's a very strong but surprisingly small underground of sour beer enthusiasts. http://www.milkthefunk.com/ http://www.milkthefunk.com/ is an online forum and massive wiki dedicated to discovering and sharing new methods into souring beer. Some of the most well known sour beer brewers contribute and use it as a resource.
  • reificator 8y ago
    I made it to "sour beer enthusiasts" before I realized you weren't talking about writing homebrew software for game consoles/handhelds.
    • kacy 8y ago
      haha! I went back and edited it to avoid confusion. :)
  • uxp100 8y ago
    Milk the funk is such a wonderful resource, even if you don’t particularly like sour beers.
• richardw 8y ago
  Hearth.com Crazy fireplace people. They love getting a fire running just so (upside-down of course). Chop down their own wood, split the logs, build their own wood shed. Look: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/show-us-yours-wood-shed.88203/ https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/show-us-yours-wood-shed.... Hidden shelter under wood shed: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/show-us-yours-wood-shed.88203/page-2#post-1144643 https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/show-us-yours-wood-shed.... I live in suburbia, but now I know how to test wood for moisture, how long to season it, how to stack a fire properly, how to keep it running at the optimal temperature range. not very important where I live but I enjoy fiddling with my wood fire in winter.
• mirimir 8y ago
  Extreme privacy :) For me, fortunately, it's just a game. But I like to think that maybe I'm helping people where it's all too real. Bottom line, though, it's just fun :) And by the way, Mirimir is just a persona. In meatspace, I'm a very private person, but not in any remarkable way.
  • bigiain 8y ago
    Same - except I refer to it as "recreational paranoia"...
• vippy 8y ago
  I am a Freemason and I enjoy studying Zen Buddhism.
• zantana 8y ago
  I have enjoyed watching the electronic badge scene at Defcon unfold this year. I don't know how long its been a scene, but some of the badges are pretty impressive mesh networks, blockchains, and breathalyzers. It really brings to mind something like the demo or 'zine scenes of old. It's spreading to the other conventions and meetups it will be interesting to see how far it will go. If you search #badgelife on twitter you can see some of the action unfold. https://twitter.com/hashtag/badgelife https://twitter.com/hashtag/badgelife @hacker_hermit has compiled a list https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NgPj-GdSLcI1Rb2Q2sJ5BP0MO2vm2MXv_sLVqHSL8wM/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NgPj-GdSLcI1Rb2Q2sJ5... Kerry Scharfglass has a video which explains some of the history and process: https://youtu.be/PUvh5-_HJJg https://youtu.be/PUvh5-_HJJg Pretty cool stuff, maybe one of these days I'll find a Conch of Sobriety.
  • beautifulfreak 8y ago
    Are they sold anywhere? I can see them becoming very collectible, and fast.
    • Avamander 8y ago
      Aren't they all self-designed?
    • detaro 8y ago
      Typically only at events, sometimes left-overs are sold or auctioned off or given away otherwise.
  • Fuzzwah 8y ago
    Thanks for the link to Kerry's talk, that was an excellent insight into a cool project that I didn't know I wanted to see until I was seeing it :)
• lsiebert 8y ago
  Does http://www.metafilter.com http://www.metafilter.com count as a niche community? If so, that. Great discussions enabled by a small fee to join and active paid moderators. Also http://www.owbn.net http://www.owbn.net international live action roleplaying (LARP) network of games, mostly in the US and Brazil. I have friends from all over I've made through it, and as an introvert who sometimes struggled socially when I was younger, it's done wonders for my ability to socialize and understand others. Also my writing, persuasive ability, and organizational ability are much much better thanks to having taking part in it's management in the past.
• rmusial 8y ago
  SDF Public Access UNIX System - sdf.org It's a free shell service, with paid addons. It has been around since 1987 and retains a lot of the charm of the BBS world. It does this while offering very modern things like Mastodon federated social media, SQL storage, VOIP, and has amateur radio, minecraft, and a ton of other stuff. There really is something for everyone. I appreciate all of the stuff listed above, but what I personally LOVE most about SDF is that it runs on NetBSD and offers a ton of packages from all the different open source and free software communities. BSD packages, GNU packages, home grown packages. It's just a very friendly and fun place. I am 'rmusial' on there too. Feel free to say hello!
  • nihil75 8y ago
    I am Nihil, Dopewars world champion!!! (SDF holds the only public leaderboard I'm aware of / care about)
    • rmusial 8y ago
      That's another thing I love, I've been on there since 2003 and I had no idea that was a thing. Very cool to meet you world champion Nihil
  • peamapeam 8y ago
    I love it, thanks for your sharing.
  • sjmulder 8y ago
    I've signed up for an account and played around a bit and while I love so much about the whole idea of it I don't really know what to do.
    • rmusial 8y ago
      In my opinion that's part of the fun. SDF is almost like a unix system meets a MUD/MMORPG. You can read through some of the FAQs on sdf.org, but there is so much to just stumble on and discover. Some fun first things are setup VOIP, check out anonradio, and type 'games' at your shell. Have some fun!
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tricky 8y ago
  Some of the DIY car communities/forums are a lot of fun. I spend too much time keeping an old Porsche on the road and the information and comradery available in the community is fantastic
  • korbonits 8y ago
    what model/year? Are you a PCA member?
• tanderson92 8y ago
  bogleheads.org -- DIY personal finance and investing discussion site. Discussions can take you fairly far into the weeds but you learn a heck of a lot.
• yann-gael 8y ago
  Amiga community!
• no_gravity 8y ago
  The #startups irc channel on Freenode.
  • senatorobama 8y ago
    Any job postings?
• epx 8y ago
  I am a train geek. Waiting for the kid to become a teenager and start ignoring his father so I can be a volunteer at ABPF (Brazilian Railroad Preservation Society). Meanwhile, I go to places where there used to be railways or stations, take photos, write about these things and the history. Since it's been a long-neglected subject, people crave for any bits of information.
  • kalyan02 8y ago
    If you post them somewhere, I'd love to read.
    • epx 8y ago
      Sure! https://epxx.co/artigos/ https://epxx.co/artigos/ "Railroads" section. Most material is in pt_BR but I have translated some of them to en.
    • kinow 8y ago
      Same here!
  • sasaf5 8y ago
    This work is even more crucial now that the Brazilian road system is collapsing. I can totally see investment being poured into railways again. Reminding people of how effective that system was can help speeding development!
• stpe 8y ago
  RC racing. Early this year I joined the local RC racing club and bought I used 1/10th scale 2WD buggy kit. I found it amazingly entertaining, almost zen-like, to do racing. It is like a video game, but in real life. And to learn skills, see how you improve, learn more about the setup and technical parts. All in a great, helpful community with a mix of people from all backgrounds. You've got that awesomely fast 12 year old kicking the ass of a 35 year old CEO at the track...
• sarcasm_heals 8y ago
  One of the longer running open knowledge communities still in existence today is the cannabis community. People are growing their medicine at home. How great is that? There's a rather vibrant community of DIY cannabis growers on Reddit. Subforums include /r/microgrowery, /r/macrogrowery, /r/autoflowers, and a very niche /r/spacebuckets. DIY growers cross-bred small lots over years and years, ultimately creating most of the 1000+ strains enjoyed today. A while back, a small group of pot entrepreneurs registered the genetics of these strains in the public domain so that corporations couldn't patent them: https://opencannabisproject.org/ https://opencannabisproject.org/
• andrepd 8y ago
  MUDs. Roguelikes. Dwarf Fortress. Retro games in general.
• hackersac 8y ago
  I'm a frequent at Slickdeals.net. It's not a niche, as it is hugely popular, but it is the best place to find deals on stuffs (electronics, clothes, flights, food, beverages, etc.).
• aaronbrethorst 8y ago
  Large format photography: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/ http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/
  • neverartful 8y ago
    Very cool! I'm into medium format and 35mm, although my cameras need to be dusted off and brought out for fresh air.
  • 4x5_Rules 8y ago
    +1 Try also: http://midwestlargeformat.com http://midwestlargeformat.com
• marksbrown 8y ago
  I live on and repair /removate a canal boat in the UK. It's like a hidden village threaded through London. Extraordinary experience.
  • nihil75 8y ago
    Looks like such a great experience! How are you getting on power-wise? solar panels? Internet connection? Mobile data?
    • aheckler 8y ago
      Not the OP, but you can watch videos of how one guy has his boat configured here: https://www.journeywithjono.com/ https://www.journeywithjono.com/ See the "Fit-Out" section. He goes into a lot of detail.
  • samstave 8y ago
    How can I come stay with you for a spell?
• type0 8y ago
  https://www.discogs.com/ https://www.discogs.com/ https://pixls.us/ https://pixls.us/ https://www.ifixit.com/ https://www.ifixit.com/ https://forum.f-droid.org/ https://forum.f-droid.org/ https://indiewebify.me/ https://indiewebify.me/
• marcelr 8y ago
  Southern Ontario (real / traditional) screamo. Screamo is a very small community but extremely passionate and active. For example a great show with well known out of town bands in Toronto is about 50-100 people. But we have people driving from New Jersey to waterloo (not knowing anyone) to see a show with respire, ostraca and Terry green. I've been involved in music for quite some time but never seen a fanbase this dedicated.. Currently there is a fest in Toronto (new friends fest) where you see people from all over NA with ages ranging 20-40s putting everything into making emotional hardcore. Watching a band play in a small packed record shop where the band has <1 meter space from the crowd, complemented with a slippery floor from the sweat / condensation, talking about growing up and losing their loved ones to mental illnesses while playing their hearts out was incredibly powerful to watch and I imagine therapeutic to the band. I've been trying to start to document the scene via live recordings - here's a shared folder https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KJj448eWVQgXSqw94GfsReUCnOH3GNtl?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KJj448eWVQgXSqw94Gfs... Favourites so far are Dianacrawls, Hundreds of AU, Terry Green But there are many amazing acts
  • fucking_tragedy 8y ago
    I used to follow this community about ten years ago. I decided to try to see what remained and all I could find was the SoulSeek community, which is still around. I'm near NYC, so getting to see Cap'n Jazz last year and the various outfits the City of Caterpillar/pg.99 guys play in has been fun, but I'm out of the loop nowadays. Check out Pianos Become the Teeth if you haven't, they're from the East coast and have followed the typical progression from hardcore to indie emo that seems common in this space. There's a long-held opinion/joke that there's an emo revival about every decade, so I'm holding out. Thanks for this.
  • jackgolding 8y ago
    I'm doing a similar thing with the quite a bit larger Melbourne Garage Rock scene here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL3h3EjrCD3BmsZr1-rXtIA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL3h3EjrCD3BmsZr1-rXtIA Trying to get to some hardcore shows in squats - I've learned a lot about people from hardcore shows.
• jmcgough 8y ago
  Amazed it hasn't come up yet considering the overlap with engineering communities. Video game speedrunning - playing a video game over and over, trying to beat it in the fastest time possible. It scratches an engineering itch to know miniscule little details and optimizations about a game that you love, and be collaborating/competing with others, working to push down times. It has a chill social aspect to it, where you stream on twitch and your friends watch your attempts, talk about the techniques, and hang out with you while you practice. A lot of incredibly bright, talented and kind geeks. Some of the real scientists behind the scenes are brilliant engineers who poke at ram values and theorycraft routes based on manipulated RNG seeds. I got into the scene from participating in a speedgaming tournament (http://speedgaming.org/events/ http://speedgaming.org/events/), which forced me to learn a game and made me several great friends. Since then I've gotten deep into a zelda randomizer (http://alttpr.com/ http://alttpr.com/) that has a vibrant and passionate community. A really smart engineer realized that you could randomize the items in the game by breaking it down into a dependency graph, so that the game is different every time. You race on the same seed as someone else, and you win by efficiently routing your item checks, better faster at the game, and/or making good gambles. It's one part speedrunning, one part poker.
  • jmcgough 8y ago
    There are also those to do tool-assisted speedruns, where they play a game and complete it frame-by-frame, doing precise inputs that a human might not be capable of in order to show the theoretically best time that a game can be completed in.
    • Klathmon 8y ago
      Far beyond what "might not be capable". Some TAS runs do things like abuse the order that the console would read inputs to do multiple inputs in a single "frame".
  • mcast 8y ago
    I didn't realize I cared about speed-running until I saw this YouTube video from Summoning Salt about N64's Mario Kart level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99Wj-NStok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99Wj-NStok
• networkimprov 8y ago
  "Fusion" partner dancing, e.g. https://www.missionfusion.com/ https://www.missionfusion.com/ Re the vid on that page, we very rarely have a live musician playing in the midst of the dancers! Music is generally by DJs.
• huhtenberg 8y ago
  https://reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing https://reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing It's damn impressive how quickly some of the most obscure requests are answered due to the sheer number of eyes looking at them.
• jbhatab 8y ago
  This one :)
• joshu 8y ago
  I race Spec Miata in SCCA San Francisco region. The Spec Miata class has ~35 cars in a given race here in the Bay Area. It's probably the biggest amateur class out there. The community is very vibrant and racing is a blast.
  • Fuzzwah 8y ago
    My hobby is sim racing, because I don't have the time or money to devote to real world racing at the moment. The sim I've put the most time into is iRacing and I'm just wondering if you've ever given it a shot and if so how'd you'd rate the iRacing simulation of the MX5?
    • joshu 8y ago
      I don’t find racing sims very good. Most of the data you have to use is physical - how to balance the car, how the rear end is moving, how the front tires have lost grip and you need to unwind a bit to make the turn...
• joshlemer 8y ago
  I love http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/index.php http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/index.php forums for great information on new local urban planning developments and/or general chit chat and local politics. I find it much better than Reddit, for instance.
• spinningthelock 8y ago
  r/flying
• SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
  I love painting miniatures. It's a kind of meditation for me.. the attentional to detail. It's a little bit like pruning a bonsai tree. The community at http://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting http://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting is wonderful and always willing to provide constructive feedback if you ask genuinely. Also http://www.coolminiornot.com http://www.coolminiornot.com to see some of the amazing work other people are doing (or just to feel bad about your own).
• Joeboy 8y ago
  https://oulipo.social/ https://oulipo.social/ It's a mastadon instance where you're not allowed to use the letter 'e'. Tbh I've not been there much lately, but it's fun and has fun people on it. Although not too many people are active there, because it's quite hard work. A possible winner of the nicheness competition?
  • jmts 8y ago
    Amazing. A friend of mine gave me the book "A Void" [1] by Georges Perec a few years ago that follows the same constraint. A little research and it turns out to be because he was a member of that community [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo
  • yewenjie 8y ago
    reddit.com/r/Avoid5
• stevekrouse 8y ago
  I recently wrote a ranty blog post about how much I love the online “future of programming” community http://futureofcoding.org/essays/sissies http://futureofcoding.org/essays/sissies
• marknadal 8y ago
  Our community originally started around my Open Source decentralized database. But later, we realized that the community of people in it was a lot more valuable than the system itself. Why? They're some of the nicest hard-working problem-solving people I've met. I bet you'd fit right in at https://gitter.im/amark/gun https://gitter.im/amark/gun !
• autarch 8y ago
  I've been playing Go (the board game) for a while now and I really enjoy it. I just got back from the US Go Congress. I wrote a blog post about it (https://blog.urth.org/2018/07/29/my-u-s-go-congress-trip/ https://blog.urth.org/2018/07/29/my-u-s-go-congress-trip/). For more info on Go, check out: * Learn the rules - http://www.usgo.org/learn-play http://www.usgo.org/learn-play * Online Go Server - https://online-go.com/ https://online-go.com/ - my personal favorite place to play online (other servers are not Linux-friendly or their software is awful) * /r/baduk (Go = Japanese, Baduk = Korean, Weiqi = Chinese) - https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk There's been a lot of progress getting computers to play Go over the last few years, and it's only about 2 years since we've had a computer capable of beating professionals (Alpha Go). Nowadays you can run a better-than-all-pros program on your desktop if you have a decent GPU. Check out https://github.com/featurecat/lizzie https://github.com/featurecat/lizzie for a frontend to Leela Zero, the underlying Go playing program.
  • binaryorganic 8y ago
    Online-go.com is, for anyone that played go online before its inception, a breath of fresh air. There’s really no way to overstate how it’s changed the experience of online play.
    • wingerlang 8y ago
      Could you explain? What was bad before, and what has been solved by this website.
• JustMatthew 8y ago
  Although we refer to ourselves more as an army than a community, I can't stop raving about what's going on over at Cent. I literally can't stop - I am on my 81st blog post about the site (proof: http://kayageetheworld.blogspot.com/search/label/CENT http://kayageetheworld.blogspot.com/search/label/CENT). The sense of community is surprisingly strong at Cent, which is kind of amazing for a site where the stated purpose is to provide a way for anyone to earn income from anywhere by paying users for providing responses that are no different than FB posts or Tweets. The difference between Cent and FB and Twitter though is that users on Cent are responding to posts that have a monetary bounty attached to them, so users are incentivized to make quality responses in order to get a piece of the bounty. Users also get paid for making the equivalent of a FB like or Twitter heart (but don't quit your day job to like responses since we're you'll earn a few cents per bounty). I'd say more, but heading over to https://beta.cent.co/ https://beta.cent.co/ and trying it out for yourself is more effective than any explanation.
• ehsanu1 8y ago
  RLBot: http://www.rlbot.org/ http://www.rlbot.org/ Just got into making bots for a game called Rocket League. The game is physics based (it's cars with rockets playing soccer, if you don't know RL) and it's very early days for botting. The community is pretty great, mostly hang out in the discord. There was just a tournament between all the bots this weekend as well.
• remarkEon 8y ago
  kOS. The in-game programming language for KSP, accessible via a mod. The subreddit is pretty interesting, and folks are always doing cool stuff on YouTube. Also a great way to learn the physics involved.
• mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Oulipo
• dimitry12 8y ago
  @lainon now I am curious why you would ask such a question :D What are you going to do with the answers?
  • dimitry12 8y ago
    I am impressed the number of answers though!
• ValentineC 8y ago
  Private trackers like What.CD and its successors. r/DataHoarder, for how to store everything.
• williamqliu 8y ago
  If you want to be outdoors more, there's the following communities (with forums, maps, and apps): Mountain Project (a Climbing Resource) https://www.mountainproject.com/ https://www.mountainproject.com/ Hiking Project https://www.hikingproject.com/ https://www.hikingproject.com/ Trail Run Project https://www.trailrunproject.com/ https://www.trailrunproject.com/ Powder Project (Backcountry Ski Maps) https://www.powderproject.com/ https://www.powderproject.com/ MTB Project (Mountain Biking) https://www.mtbproject.com/ https://www.mtbproject.com/
  • thesmok 8y ago
    I would add Bikepacking.com
• ydrol 8y ago
  A game I used to play as a teenager: Quakeworld Teamfortress. There are a few discord channels for the various countries where people still play (US: https://discord.gg/FStt9pw https://discord.gg/FStt9pw, Brazil: https://discord.gg/Ew3NY2Z https://discord.gg/Ew3NY2Z, Australia: https://discord.gg/amed6v https://discord.gg/amed6v) with organised games happening on particular days each week. What's great is that development/new maps are still being made.
  • minikomi 8y ago
    Wow, I used to play this all the time in Australia too.. maybe I'll try and join some games.
  • mushis 8y ago
    yep. still alive the QuakeWorld discord is http://discord.quake.world http://discord.quake.world feel free to join
• js2 8y ago
  Ultra running, and well, just running in general. Two nights ago I got to stand on the 5th lane of a track and watch 13 guys run a sub-4 mile. First place ran a 3:57 and missed the NC record by .03 seconds. 5 women ran under 4:30, with first place running a 3 second PR. Earlier, I had run the anchor leg for my local running club in the 4x400. There are few sports so accessible. The ultra community in particular is very welcoming and volunteer driven.
  • krtkush 8y ago
    Would recommend r/running for anyone interested in running. It is a wholesome and very supportive community.
• wyclif 8y ago
  Offset electric guitars. Mechanical keyboards. Ultralight hiking.
• sasaf5 8y ago
  The BMX community. A lot chiller and less competitive than other cycling communities. You are always "hanging out" while riding BMX.
• jimmahoney 8y ago
  Argentine tango : check out the "my double life" TED talk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhdI3FNItHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhdI3FNItHk .
• elijahparker 8y ago
  Birding While recently I've been less involved due to work/family commitments, it's fun to always be on the lookout. I've also enjoyed tallying birds by sound while running outdoors. http://ebird.org http://ebird.org Also, http://xeno-canto.org http://xeno-canto.org (the "mysteries" section can be fun)
• rayalez 8y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/rational https://www.reddit.com/r/rational - a community about "rationalist" fiction, inspired by HPMOR. A lot of amazing authors and awesome stories, also cool discussion on related topics. https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly - a subreddit for 3d low-poly art. Really simple and beautiful artworks. You can easily get into voxel art with MagicaVoxel, or you can try Silo to model low-poly stuff.
  • bmer 8y ago
    /r/low_poly is beautiful! Thank you for that. Why is Silo (http://nevercenter.com/silo/ http://nevercenter.com/silo/ --- is that the right URL?) particularly well suited for low-poly art?
• EnderMB 8y ago
  Two very niche ones I follow on Reddit. /r/CasualUK: Light-hearted UK chat, free from politics. Very wholesome if you're from the UK, and a great distraction from what a shit-show the country can be at times. /r/bjj: The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu subreddit. If you've ever been interested in taking up a martial art I recommend checking it out, and seeing if there are any gyms in your area.
  • RugnirViking 8y ago
    Thank you for introducing me to CasualUK. This looks incredible.
  • dev_north_east 8y ago
    > /r/CasualUK Another plug for this. Always get a laugh from there.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• Regardsyjc 8y ago
  Cross-stitch, crochet, sewing, crafting. I'm in a Facebook group where women share photos or designs of reusable pads they made. It's a great place where women can ask for help, talk about endometriosis or pregnancy, share sewing advice, as well as talk about different types of fabrics. My friend's in a Fb group for mushroom enthusiasts. They share photos of mushrooms they find in their yard and hikes. I joined a sous vide fb group- all food photos. As an Amazon seller, I'm in an Amazon PPC fb group. Troubleshooting Amazon ad campaigns is fun for me. It's amazing to see all the different things people are into.
• matty22 8y ago
  I do volunteer trail maintenance on the Pacific Crest Trail with the PCTA. It's a great way to get outside and do some physical labor for those of us who sit in a cube 40+ hours per week. You also get to see and camp in some of the most beautiful parts of the country and work with a whole host of other volunteers who have been extremely pleasant to the last in my experience. Bonus: For those who want to be very involved, you can get First Aid/CPR, chainsaw or crosscut sawyer, crew leader training/certification for 'free'. So long as you pay it back by utilizing those skills on work parties. Some groups also run a trail steward program where you can 'adopt' a section of the trail to maintain over time.
• craigt00 8y ago
  Parkrunning - www.parkrun.com Community organised free 5km runs every Saturday morning. A great way to get some exercise for all abilities. Even if you walk the route - and plenty do - you'll get support from other participants and the marshalls all the way around. You can make it as competitive as you want.
• socceroos 8y ago
  8bc.org used to be amazing. I loved that place.
• mbym 8y ago
  Podcasters! I'm cheating a bit with this answer, because this is really the industry I've worked in for the past 3+ years. But it still strikes me what camaraderie there is between audio producers, and even great goodwill/respect between tech platforms that are ostensibly competitors. I think both phenomena are a function of the fact that the industry is more concerned with growth, improving podcasting tech, and attracting new listeners/advertisers (rather than just competing for existing ears/dollars). Result: podcasters genuinely try to help each other, and enjoy meeting like-minded souls at meet-ups. Also, see online communities like "Podcast Movement Community - For Podcasters" Facebook group (14,000+ members) and many more online groups with thousands of members. There's a StackOverflow-level generosity of knowledge/advice sharing. Example: I shared this "Grateful for friendships" post after an industry conference https://www.instagram.com/p/BlxX3pjgr06/?taken-by=awesoundapp https://www.instagram.com/p/BlxX3pjgr06/?taken-by=awesoundap...
• annapowellsmith 8y ago
  The Professional Pilots Rumour Network: https://www.pprune.org/ https://www.pprune.org/ Which is pretty much what the name suggests. Airline pilots, both passenger and commercial flights, swapping news and rumours.
• samuell 8y ago
  The Flow-based programming google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flow-based-programming https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flow-based-programmi... It has been a bit less active over the last couple of months, and sadly been plagued by a bit of spam, but historically there have been enormously interesting discussions there, by very insightful IT-veterans.
• webyacusa 8y ago
  Pornhub.
• yasinaydin 8y ago
  HackerNews itself. Everything else falls under subgroup of it.