11 ms·

> have something to do on evenings. Something for yourself, something not related to your job I'm curious what everyone does for this. I've attempted to find a

by ioddly 8y ago

> have something to do on evenings. Something for yourself, something not related to your job I'm curious what everyone does for this. I've attempted to find a few things but nothing has strongly clicked with me. Most of my interests right now are on the computer, which makes it hard to disengage, and I definitely need to do more to get a handle on it.

dpc59 8y ago
sports and art
gordaco 8y ago
Personally, I study physics and maths. And read, and listen to weird ethnic music on youtube. And play videogames. I mean, there are so many things in life. You already spend 8+ hours a day at work, there's no point in spending even more when you get home.
- exikyut 8y ago
  I'm not sure whether you intended what you said to be read this way, but I took "there's no point in spending even more when you get home" to mean "stop watching the clock when you get home, and just chase stuff." My words, unsure if yours.
  - gordaco 8y ago
    Yes, it's more or less what I meant. As long as you go to bed and eat at the right time, otherwise forget that clocks exist. And maybe more importantly, forget that your job exists.
thx11389793 8y ago
fabrication, welding, juggling, playing music, working on and riding motorcycles, doing acid in the woods. it takes some doing but it's well worth the effort to move your leisure time away from device-focused activities. the sense of life balance gained is palpable.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  We have sort of overlapping interests haha. How did you learn to weld? Any advice on getting started? It's been in the back of my mind for a few years now. Would love to get started but have no idea where/how to start.
  - MrLeap 8y ago
    I'm not the guy above, but my "unwind" hobbies are all metalworking related (silversmithing / blacksmithing are my primary, but if I can ever save the money up for a bridge-port i'll be doing a lot more welding... So, I'll give you my unsolicited advice! You've got 3 major types of welding you can learn (I'm going to skip torch welding, most people on HN can't keep a 45 in. tank of acetylene in their 4500$ a month studio apartments. ;D) Stick welding - this is like the "low level language" of welding. Lots of greybeards recommend it to start with because if you suffer through getting good at it, you'll breeze through all the other weld types. The rig is also the cheapest way to start. You hold some plastic and copper salad tongs with a stick that looks like a sparkler in it. Then you spend ~20 hours trying to strike an arc on steel to get the stick melting without getting your stick stuck. It's a pain in the ass. If your primary goal is gaining non-developer related expertise through practice, get yourself a stick welder, I guess. If you goal is to affix two pieces of metal together, and you don't necessarily want to find a mentor or take a class, ehhh.. I'd skip it. Mig Welding - The batteries included, jQuery of welding. Greybeards and enthusiasts will often guffaw at it, saying it ruins you as a welder (sound familiar?) while still owning one and using it whenever they put a trailer together. Instead of holding a stick you hold something that looks like a gas pump that feeds wire from a spool in the machine. You pull the trigger on the pump and wire comes out and gets all sparky. Oxygen is the enemy of good welds so you've got two subtype solutions to deal with this: flux core wire and gas. Flux core welds tend to look dirtier, but it's fewer categories of consumables to work with. Get the argon if you want to maintain some level of street cred with the "real" welders. 99% of welders are terrified about being excommunicated from the church of welding by real welders. The last 1% just want to go home and think only of retirement. If you just want to buy a thing and stick metal together, get a Mig welder and some spools of flux core. Also get an angle grinder, because your welds are going to be covered in flux crap. When you get tired of grinding, graduate to shield gas. Most good machines support both. Tig Welding - This is the cool kid welder. You hold something that looks like it's straight out of a dentist's catalog. It's got a tungsten pencil tip inside a cup. Tungsten gets real hot cup directs shield gas around tungsten, you hold filler rod in your other hand. Filler rod, tig welder, and workpiece meet in a symphony of UV light, stacked dimes and magic. Tig welders are like distributed, containerized microservice developers. Their rigs accrete complication as time goes on. They get foot pedals to control amperage, whammy bars to add that rock flavor, flight sticks they can't even use because their hands are full. It's like spinning plates while chewing bubblegum. If you'd like to be able to turn filler rod into a Norman Rockwell painting, get a tig welder and take a class. Torch welding. - Okay I've typed this much. Replace the fancy tig torch rig with an acetylene gas torch. Get this setup if you'd like to build a battleship in your backyard. Here's the one thing that really does piss off the grey-beard welders worth listening to: do not endanger people by doing welds a professional should be doing. Say you get your steal-me-red lincoln electric and you get pretty good at it over a few weekends. Say you even make a nice bird house with it. Do _NOT_ weld your neighbor's bisected lawnmower blade back together no matter how much he asks you to. Your weld will fail and he will lose his foot. Do _NOT_ weld your neighbor kid's swingset back together. The weld will fail and a kid will end up in the ER. The kid's parents will come find you and try to beat you up. Latch come off someone's chain link fence? Go ahead and weld that if you want. Basically just get a professional involved if a failed weld means injury / death.
tayo42 8y ago
what have you tried and failed with? though i like cooking, surfing and Brazilian jujitsu. recently started skating again. thinking about getting into yoga. going to a class like martial arts or something similar where there's a teacher, you can improve, socialize and go regularly might help.
- mnsc 8y ago
  Don't know if this applies but there's a small supportive forum for old farts that like to have fun^h^h^hpain over at. https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSkaters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSkaters/
chrisper 8y ago
Gaming for one. Watch TV. Spend time with my dog. Go shopping. Promise myself that I will keep the apartment clean...
robinwassen 8y ago
I started most of my non-computer hobbies at 25. One piece of advice is to find something that you think might be fun or cool. Then stick to it for a while even if it's not that fun to start with. For example most sports are quite miserable when you start out, but when you start to do progress and get a bit hang of it, it becomes fun.
tluyben2 8y ago
There are many things; family, friends (go somewhere to meet up, less chance ending up sitting behind a computer if your friends are like mine anyway), read books, sports, electronics (soldering things and testing takes forever and it's fun), cooking, ... Even computer stuff can force you to disengage; like gaming (especially on a console; it doesn't do mail or anything else productive :). But also, I like, as a hobby to work on small programming languages, type systems, proofs etc. Those things will never make it to production and will never make money, which is the point. I find them a lot of fun and during those it is very hard to get me to do anything work related as they all suck me in and keep me there until I sleep.
- mindentropy 8y ago
  Similar to you I like to work on things which are very intricate. In the quietness of my home I really like to spend long hours thinking about it like you have mentioned on some hobby electronics or mathematical proofs. Unfortunately most of the people in my social circle do not understand why I open a book or am at my computer again when I come home. It is very hard for them to understand that I really love to get lost in my own thoughts or at the very least daydream.
noufalibrahim 8y ago
Reading, calligraphy, martial arts mainly. These days, spending a lot of time with our young son (less than a year old).
konschubert 8y ago
Reddit and YouTube and whatever are great if you just want to forget about your job but if course they are also black holes for time.
ereyes01 8y ago
Become a photographer. Learning about the gear and the mechanics of taking pictures will appeal to your geeky side. Going on photo walks helps you connect with nature and be outside, if your climate allows it.
- underlines 8y ago
  music and or photography are two things that programmers can be really good at. music is really counter-intuitive, but think about it: creative thinking is essential to come up with programming solutions. and photography is very geeky indeed, with comparing all the specs, learn about the relationship of aperture, shutter, iso, some optics, and the creative side. also you'll be outside in nature and still have a geeky little computer (if you're not shooting analogue)...
mikeymz 8y ago
I had same problem for years. I am in my late 30s now and I got a dog. She is a source of constant rage but going for a long walk every day has been great to get me away from my machine
- privateprofile 8y ago
  Off-topic, but dogs and rage aren't really a healthy (or necessary) combination...
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I leave my work laptop at work, and have my personal laptop at home. That way I can't do work stuff at home, even if I wanted to. The only thing I have access to at home is my work email, so that I can email in sick if need be.
- wallflower 8y ago
  Some of us are jealous of you. Never ever get into DevOps where being ball-and-chained to your laptop (having to have it with you, not necessarily on it) when primary on call is part of the job.
domepro 8y ago
I was always a gamer and therefore a lot of my time at home is spent at my computer. I have a neat trick that I started doing during my university time (ymmv as not everyone will be able to use it). I started with using exclusively linux for any programming and/or homework assignments. When I'm at my personal desktop - it's always windows, at work I'll use linux or OS X, depending on what my options are. It works pretty well for me, as it's a context switch for my brain - native terminal = work, windows = fun. As an additional bonus, a dog which I can't reasonably leave home for extended periods of time (bringing her to work would never be an option, even if my workplace is dog-friendly) and have to walk so that gets rid of anyone (including myself) trying to squeeze OT out of me, and gets me out of the house for regular walks.
- stemuk 8y ago
  The same thing works perfectly for me as well. I configured my ThinkPad to dual-boot both Ubuntu and Windows 10. All work related things are on Ubuntu, all games and entertainment apps are on Windows. I found that this really helped me to focus on my work when I am on Ubuntu, and in my free time it makes gaming much more enjoyable on Windows without constantly getting reminded of my work.
- izacus 8y ago
  Yep, I did something very similar - I have a separate Windows gaming machine connected to the TV that has only Steam installed (and a PS4 as well). This actually works great for relaxation - I need to physically move to the couch to play games and the machine itself doesn't have any kind of notifications enabled, so I'm not distracted during gameplay.
saiya-jin 8y ago
Tons of good advices here, it really depends who you are inside, and how much you actually know this inner drive. Meaning even you might not know till it 'clicks' as you write. Expose yourself to different things, be relentless - if you don't like some hobby/activity/sport after few weeks once you get a bit of a hold of it, move on. These days, there are way more things to do in life than one can possibly manage, even if not working at all. I found out in my late 20s that adventures are THE drive for me. They have various forms - backpacking in remote parts of the world, doing sports like hiking, climbing, skiing, alpinism, ski touring, paragliding, diving etc. Add rigorous physical training to make this all happen and enjoy in safest possible manner. It was not a sudden revelation, rather gradual process - after spending 16 days on Annapurna circuit in Nepal, something changed in me. Being at the right spot at the right time, meeting the right people along the route. It took a while for me to realize this, and I am continuously changing priorities - paragliding being newest hobby, the goal having pilot license and be self-sufficient. Its a long process, but one I want to undertake seriously. I mean, it's freaking flying! In cheapest manner possible, and for some even coolest. I can't manage to do more, there is simply no more free time. I know I will not look back when dying and cherish those moments spent in front of the screen, in contrary. I will for sure remember every single peak climbed (the harder the effort the fonder the memories), every country experienced, the strong emotions when I proposed to my fiancee on top of Mont Blanc, the tears of joy on top of Matterhorn or Kilimanjaro etc.
- abraham_lincoln 8y ago
  I am not an adventurer, I am an explorer. YMMV.
crocal 8y ago
I thought I was original then I read "Cathedral and the Bazaar". Anyway: martial arts and playing music are two common activities for hackers in needs of disengaging. These activities offer a complete range of possibilities, so whatever your shape / prefeferece is, you will always find something that will eventually "click" with you.
hellweaver666 8y ago
For me, I've recently taken up running. I have a full time job and a wife and three kids so time to myself where I can chill is rare. Running gives me an excuse to literally run away from it all and I can vary the length of my run depending on how much I need to destress. Bonus is that I also sleep better as a result of the extra exercise and I'm losing some of that middle age weight I've gained from sitting at my ass at a desk all the time.
- antonkm 8y ago
  I'm a runner since about 5-6 years. This is really good advice. New studies also show direct relation between running and having reduced stress levels and having antidepressant effects.
mindentropy 8y ago
I used to come home and work on things that I really like and is very intricate. I like to work on core libraries or very low level stuff. I am an embedded dev by profession. In my entire 13 years of my career I always went home to program on something I really like. This helped me destress a lot and also helped me professionally. I really struggle with the office environment. I really love the open source development culture of mailing lists, IRCs etc. Handling different people face to face and their mannerisms always irks me a lot. Also being an introvert in a horribly extroverted workplace really puts a stress on me. When I go home I really love to read and implement something at my own pace. These days I have picked up cooking which is a lot similar to programming and I really love it.
appgini 8y ago
I found that having a long walk in a park or some place with lots of greenery, while also listening to some podcasts, is amazing for relaxation, as well as of course being healthy. Choosing interesting and funny podcasts prevents me from getting bored of taking the same walking/jogging route daily. Some of the nice podcasts I enjoy and learn a lot from: freakonomics radio, tell me something I don't know, TED radio hour.

by ioddly 8y ago

dpc59 8y ago

sports and art

gordaco 8y ago

Personally, I study physics and maths. And read, and listen to weird ethnic music on youtube. And play videogames. I mean, there are so many things in life. You already spend 8+ hours a day at work, there's no point in spending even more when you get home.

exikyut 8y ago
I'm not sure whether you intended what you said to be read this way, but I took "there's no point in spending even more when you get home" to mean "stop watching the clock when you get home, and just chase stuff." My words, unsure if yours.
- gordaco 8y ago
  Yes, it's more or less what I meant. As long as you go to bed and eat at the right time, otherwise forget that clocks exist. And maybe more importantly, forget that your job exists.

thx11389793 8y ago

fabrication, welding, juggling, playing music, working on and riding motorcycles, doing acid in the woods. it takes some doing but it's well worth the effort to move your leisure time away from device-focused activities. the sense of life balance gained is palpable.

rorykoehler 8y ago
We have sort of overlapping interests haha. How did you learn to weld? Any advice on getting started? It's been in the back of my mind for a few years now. Would love to get started but have no idea where/how to start.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  I'm not the guy above, but my "unwind" hobbies are all metalworking related (silversmithing / blacksmithing are my primary, but if I can ever save the money up for a bridge-port i'll be doing a lot more welding... So, I'll give you my unsolicited advice! You've got 3 major types of welding you can learn (I'm going to skip torch welding, most people on HN can't keep a 45 in. tank of acetylene in their 4500$ a month studio apartments. ;D) Stick welding - this is like the "low level language" of welding. Lots of greybeards recommend it to start with because if you suffer through getting good at it, you'll breeze through all the other weld types. The rig is also the cheapest way to start. You hold some plastic and copper salad tongs with a stick that looks like a sparkler in it. Then you spend ~20 hours trying to strike an arc on steel to get the stick melting without getting your stick stuck. It's a pain in the ass. If your primary goal is gaining non-developer related expertise through practice, get yourself a stick welder, I guess. If you goal is to affix two pieces of metal together, and you don't necessarily want to find a mentor or take a class, ehhh.. I'd skip it. Mig Welding - The batteries included, jQuery of welding. Greybeards and enthusiasts will often guffaw at it, saying it ruins you as a welder (sound familiar?) while still owning one and using it whenever they put a trailer together. Instead of holding a stick you hold something that looks like a gas pump that feeds wire from a spool in the machine. You pull the trigger on the pump and wire comes out and gets all sparky. Oxygen is the enemy of good welds so you've got two subtype solutions to deal with this: flux core wire and gas. Flux core welds tend to look dirtier, but it's fewer categories of consumables to work with. Get the argon if you want to maintain some level of street cred with the "real" welders. 99% of welders are terrified about being excommunicated from the church of welding by real welders. The last 1% just want to go home and think only of retirement. If you just want to buy a thing and stick metal together, get a Mig welder and some spools of flux core. Also get an angle grinder, because your welds are going to be covered in flux crap. When you get tired of grinding, graduate to shield gas. Most good machines support both. Tig Welding - This is the cool kid welder. You hold something that looks like it's straight out of a dentist's catalog. It's got a tungsten pencil tip inside a cup. Tungsten gets real hot cup directs shield gas around tungsten, you hold filler rod in your other hand. Filler rod, tig welder, and workpiece meet in a symphony of UV light, stacked dimes and magic. Tig welders are like distributed, containerized microservice developers. Their rigs accrete complication as time goes on. They get foot pedals to control amperage, whammy bars to add that rock flavor, flight sticks they can't even use because their hands are full. It's like spinning plates while chewing bubblegum. If you'd like to be able to turn filler rod into a Norman Rockwell painting, get a tig welder and take a class. Torch welding. - Okay I've typed this much. Replace the fancy tig torch rig with an acetylene gas torch. Get this setup if you'd like to build a battleship in your backyard. Here's the one thing that really does piss off the grey-beard welders worth listening to: do not endanger people by doing welds a professional should be doing. Say you get your steal-me-red lincoln electric and you get pretty good at it over a few weekends. Say you even make a nice bird house with it. Do _NOT_ weld your neighbor's bisected lawnmower blade back together no matter how much he asks you to. Your weld will fail and he will lose his foot. Do _NOT_ weld your neighbor kid's swingset back together. The weld will fail and a kid will end up in the ER. The kid's parents will come find you and try to beat you up. Latch come off someone's chain link fence? Go ahead and weld that if you want. Basically just get a professional involved if a failed weld means injury / death.

tayo42 8y ago

what have you tried and failed with? though i like cooking, surfing and Brazilian jujitsu. recently started skating again. thinking about getting into yoga. going to a class like martial arts or something similar where there's a teacher, you can improve, socialize and go regularly might help.

mnsc 8y ago
Don't know if this applies but there's a small supportive forum for old farts that like to have fun^h^h^hpain over at. https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSkaters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSkaters/

chrisper 8y ago

Gaming for one. Watch TV. Spend time with my dog. Go shopping. Promise myself that I will keep the apartment clean...

robinwassen 8y ago

I started most of my non-computer hobbies at 25. One piece of advice is to find something that you think might be fun or cool. Then stick to it for a while even if it's not that fun to start with. For example most sports are quite miserable when you start out, but when you start to do progress and get a bit hang of it, it becomes fun.

tluyben2 8y ago

There are many things; family, friends (go somewhere to meet up, less chance ending up sitting behind a computer if your friends are like mine anyway), read books, sports, electronics (soldering things and testing takes forever and it's fun), cooking, ... Even computer stuff can force you to disengage; like gaming (especially on a console; it doesn't do mail or anything else productive :). But also, I like, as a hobby to work on small programming languages, type systems, proofs etc. Those things will never make it to production and will never make money, which is the point. I find them a lot of fun and during those it is very hard to get me to do anything work related as they all suck me in and keep me there until I sleep.

mindentropy 8y ago
Similar to you I like to work on things which are very intricate. In the quietness of my home I really like to spend long hours thinking about it like you have mentioned on some hobby electronics or mathematical proofs. Unfortunately most of the people in my social circle do not understand why I open a book or am at my computer again when I come home. It is very hard for them to understand that I really love to get lost in my own thoughts or at the very least daydream.

noufalibrahim 8y ago

Reading, calligraphy, martial arts mainly. These days, spending a lot of time with our young son (less than a year old).

konschubert 8y ago

Reddit and YouTube and whatever are great if you just want to forget about your job but if course they are also black holes for time.

ereyes01 8y ago

Become a photographer. Learning about the gear and the mechanics of taking pictures will appeal to your geeky side. Going on photo walks helps you connect with nature and be outside, if your climate allows it.

underlines 8y ago
music and or photography are two things that programmers can be really good at. music is really counter-intuitive, but think about it: creative thinking is essential to come up with programming solutions. and photography is very geeky indeed, with comparing all the specs, learn about the relationship of aperture, shutter, iso, some optics, and the creative side. also you'll be outside in nature and still have a geeky little computer (if you're not shooting analogue)...

mikeymz 8y ago

I had same problem for years. I am in my late 30s now and I got a dog. She is a source of constant rage but going for a long walk every day has been great to get me away from my machine

privateprofile 8y ago
Off-topic, but dogs and rage aren't really a healthy (or necessary) combination...

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I leave my work laptop at work, and have my personal laptop at home. That way I can't do work stuff at home, even if I wanted to. The only thing I have access to at home is my work email, so that I can email in sick if need be.

wallflower 8y ago
Some of us are jealous of you. Never ever get into DevOps where being ball-and-chained to your laptop (having to have it with you, not necessarily on it) when primary on call is part of the job.

domepro 8y ago

I was always a gamer and therefore a lot of my time at home is spent at my computer. I have a neat trick that I started doing during my university time (ymmv as not everyone will be able to use it). I started with using exclusively linux for any programming and/or homework assignments. When I'm at my personal desktop - it's always windows, at work I'll use linux or OS X, depending on what my options are. It works pretty well for me, as it's a context switch for my brain - native terminal = work, windows = fun. As an additional bonus, a dog which I can't reasonably leave home for extended periods of time (bringing her to work would never be an option, even if my workplace is dog-friendly) and have to walk so that gets rid of anyone (including myself) trying to squeeze OT out of me, and gets me out of the house for regular walks.

stemuk 8y ago
The same thing works perfectly for me as well. I configured my ThinkPad to dual-boot both Ubuntu and Windows 10. All work related things are on Ubuntu, all games and entertainment apps are on Windows. I found that this really helped me to focus on my work when I am on Ubuntu, and in my free time it makes gaming much more enjoyable on Windows without constantly getting reminded of my work.
izacus 8y ago
Yep, I did something very similar - I have a separate Windows gaming machine connected to the TV that has only Steam installed (and a PS4 as well). This actually works great for relaxation - I need to physically move to the couch to play games and the machine itself doesn't have any kind of notifications enabled, so I'm not distracted during gameplay.

saiya-jin 8y ago

Tons of good advices here, it really depends who you are inside, and how much you actually know this inner drive. Meaning even you might not know till it 'clicks' as you write. Expose yourself to different things, be relentless - if you don't like some hobby/activity/sport after few weeks once you get a bit of a hold of it, move on. These days, there are way more things to do in life than one can possibly manage, even if not working at all. I found out in my late 20s that adventures are THE drive for me. They have various forms - backpacking in remote parts of the world, doing sports like hiking, climbing, skiing, alpinism, ski touring, paragliding, diving etc. Add rigorous physical training to make this all happen and enjoy in safest possible manner. It was not a sudden revelation, rather gradual process - after spending 16 days on Annapurna circuit in Nepal, something changed in me. Being at the right spot at the right time, meeting the right people along the route. It took a while for me to realize this, and I am continuously changing priorities - paragliding being newest hobby, the goal having pilot license and be self-sufficient. Its a long process, but one I want to undertake seriously. I mean, it's freaking flying! In cheapest manner possible, and for some even coolest. I can't manage to do more, there is simply no more free time. I know I will not look back when dying and cherish those moments spent in front of the screen, in contrary. I will for sure remember every single peak climbed (the harder the effort the fonder the memories), every country experienced, the strong emotions when I proposed to my fiancee on top of Mont Blanc, the tears of joy on top of Matterhorn or Kilimanjaro etc.

abraham_lincoln 8y ago
I am not an adventurer, I am an explorer. YMMV.

crocal 8y ago

I thought I was original then I read "Cathedral and the Bazaar". Anyway: martial arts and playing music are two common activities for hackers in needs of disengaging. These activities offer a complete range of possibilities, so whatever your shape / prefeferece is, you will always find something that will eventually "click" with you.

hellweaver666 8y ago

For me, I've recently taken up running. I have a full time job and a wife and three kids so time to myself where I can chill is rare. Running gives me an excuse to literally run away from it all and I can vary the length of my run depending on how much I need to destress. Bonus is that I also sleep better as a result of the extra exercise and I'm losing some of that middle age weight I've gained from sitting at my ass at a desk all the time.

antonkm 8y ago
I'm a runner since about 5-6 years. This is really good advice. New studies also show direct relation between running and having reduced stress levels and having antidepressant effects.

mindentropy 8y ago

I used to come home and work on things that I really like and is very intricate. I like to work on core libraries or very low level stuff. I am an embedded dev by profession. In my entire 13 years of my career I always went home to program on something I really like. This helped me destress a lot and also helped me professionally. I really struggle with the office environment. I really love the open source development culture of mailing lists, IRCs etc. Handling different people face to face and their mannerisms always irks me a lot. Also being an introvert in a horribly extroverted workplace really puts a stress on me. When I go home I really love to read and implement something at my own pace. These days I have picked up cooking which is a lot similar to programming and I really love it.

appgini 8y ago

I found that having a long walk in a park or some place with lots of greenery, while also listening to some podcasts, is amazing for relaxation, as well as of course being healthy. Choosing interesting and funny podcasts prevents me from getting bored of taking the same walking/jogging route daily. Some of the nice podcasts I enjoy and learn a lot from: freakonomics radio, tell me something I don't know, TED radio hour.