For example, I’m sure the average joe doesn’t know just how expensive calligraphy pens can be, or how deep the rabbit hole goes on video game speedruns.
Sim racing. An entry level wheel cost 100, an okay one 300 and the most expensive I’ve seen is 100,000
https://www.f1authentics.com/products/red-bull-simulator-championship-edition
Same thing with flight sims
There are people who recreate complete cockpits from old or newish parts…
If you can buy a decent car for the cost of your sim racing rig, it’s time to evaluate.
I know people with real race cars, it’s lots of breaking down and hitting things for big money.
A full sim rig with VR and motion is probably cheaper with the same brain chemicals, and you can just do it whenever.
Mechanical watches. Most people don’t understand just how expensive they can get, outside of the ones with diamonds all over them, nor why they’re so expensive. Most people also don’t understand how expensive it is to be allowed to buy certain models, depending on the model and the dealer you’re buying from. Also, watch repairs and regular servicing of mechanical watches is something most people don’t consider, and the price of tools if you want to do it yourself can be very expensive and require a lot of skill.
Fancy watches are just jewelry, so just like all jewelry there’s no cap on how much money someone will sell it to you for.
Maybe not as expensive as the others, but crochet/knitting/sewing all start off fairly cheap, and then the next thing you know you’re offering to service old men behind a Joann’s fabric because you need this particular fabric and you need an entire bolt of it, and it’s the one fabric in the entire fucking store that isn’t on their amazing buy one get 73 free sale for the week.
The problem is not the price of the yarn, the problem is that none of us have self control and will hoard thousands of dolars in yarn in a closet and not use it because “it’s too pretty I need the perfect project for it”.
…and then we go out and buy more yarn
I do not appreciate you spying on me and posting about it. Rude.
I just started crocheting this week 🥲
Its so good. I’d recommend you get cotton yarn. It tends to fray less than acrylic and easier to get your hook in and see stitches. Also, amigurumi for making toys is really cool.
There’s so many options for amigurumi I don’t know where to start! I just need to pick something and go with it haha
It’s a wonderful habit! Don’t listen to me. Haha. Fiber crafts are seriously awesome. I’m a total novice at crochet, an intermediate knitter (Portuguese style), and I sew half way well. It’s so much fun, and so worth it. … Just read your coupons carefully.
After one project I’m already feeling that about the coupons 🙃 But it’s really fun and I enjoy it a lot! I can’t wait to dive deeper into it
Nothing like spending $100 and 80 hours on a pair of socks for yourself because they don’t sell the ones you want.
Those are gorgeous though. I don’t have the skill to do anything like that yet. I’m mainly stuck on sleep masks and warshrags. Haha. That cabling looks amazing
I feel like there’s a collision of fetishes here about to start paying for your yarn habit.
Do you have a link to this pattern? I like the heel here and I don’t love the one I currently use.
Pattern? No, I never use patterns. The heal is a standard “afterthought heal”. You can find instructions on YouTube and other sites. It is my favorite heal and the easiest to darn when the time comes.
When doing socks I do a test swatch to figure out my stitches per in for rows and columns. Then the rest is all math. Once I finished the first I just started cabling the top of the foot. When I got to the ankle I started cabling all the way around. I kept going until they were as high as I wanted them.
When I learned to knit my instructor was pissed by the end of the fist days lessons because I had knitted several things with no patterns. “How do you know what to do?” “Math.”
Thank you so much for the name of it! I’m a beginner and only knit the same socks over and over again. I have been experimenting with different sock patterns without a guide, but not the heel construction.
Wow, these look amazing! Great job :)
Those are gorgeous!!
Yep! Especially buying like ethically sourced yarn and stuff. It’s why I buy acrylic yarn because buying yarn from local dyers is difficult as.
Same boat. I’m poor as fuck. I hate that I make so many decisions to buy things I know aren’t the option ethically, and that applies so hard to yarn. Really anything in the textiles industry. I try not to buy animal fiber at all unless it’s thrifted.
Keyboards are generally known about, but the ergo part of it is a rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. Some people literally design, 3D print, wire up, solder and program one-off keyboards because they don’t like the ones made by other people.
Oh hey, you called? https://imgur.com/a/INk7FzQ
O good lord, the way those wires are bundled is porn to me.
that is a fantastic build. and the wax lacing! It’s such a lost art, but it works so damn well! Next PC build I do I’m lacing all of my cabling.
You’re very brave showing your wiring.
Just built a simple 3x3 macropad and I spent several hours trying to keep every last bit of the wiring clean and I still have a rats nest…
Love the wires (that are hidden) also fit the color scheme
Woah…
The nice thing is that it’s possible to find your “endgame” where you are satisfied without spending a TON. I’m happy with my Drop ALT, stock key caps, and Zeal Zilent v2s. Mind you that was my 3rd or 4th board of varying “depth” in the scene. 🤣
Have run across a community for that a lot since coming on Lemmy. It is pretty crazy and I had no idea.
They were/are one of the largest enthusiast groups on Reddit, so it makes sense they have a large presence on Lemmy too.
Dactyl manuform user here. Can confirm
yup. [email protected]
It’s infectious too. I REALLY want to get good with one! and don’t get me started on the absolute craziest style: chorded keyboards! Insane!
Have you tried one? I’ve been pretty curious about them
Not yet but I am seriously considering building a badass ergo keyboard at some point once I see a good enough design to copy.
Oh my gosh, I searched it and it looks hard to use but once you get good, you can type faster than the fastest typist using a regular keyboard.
Interesting!
I wonder if someone could outperform a Stenographer with a chorded?
Stenographers usually use something pretty similar so I doubt it. The ones I’ve seen (to be fair, live captioners, not stenographers) use something that’s closer to a piano than a normal keyboard, and it types full words rather than letters, but also has a regular typing functionality. Pretty cool to watch honestly.
No way. Stenographers can transcribe speech live. Some have been timed at close to 400 wpm. While the top chorded typing is closer to 250wpm. Good, but nowhere close to a stenotype. Both are pretty ridiculously fast though. A pretty fast typist can barely approach 100.
Steno machines are also “chorded”, and they type in a form of shorthand where sounds, words, and phrases can be represented by just a few characters. My guess is that given equal skill levels, a steno machine would still be faster.
I switched to colemak-DH a while ago and it’s been great. Much more comfortable than QWERTY even on a standard keyboard.
I wish there were keyboards with smaller keys. I feel like keyboards and pianos are made for people with huge hands. For some chords (in my beginner’s book) there’s just no way physically for me to execute them. I think if I had had a smaller keyboard I would have had a much easier time and would have stuck with it longer.
I would never program and build my own keyboard but I get it.
check out Drops Preonic. because it is ortho, all the keys are much closer together. I have one at home and at work.
There used to be smaller keyboards. Chyrosran22 reviewed one from the 80s, but I can’t find the video right now. Maybe someone else remembers the model.
I did exactly this! It was super fun! Ergodox keyboard is very expensive. I spent about $40 on my custom one. It works great too :)
How did you spend only $40 on a custom ergo? When I built mine, I 3d printed the cases myself, but it’s still $30 for cheap key switches, $20 for cheap keycaps, $20 for a pro micro, and at least $40 for PCBs,unless you handwire.
Or did you reuse existing switches and keycaps?
Sorry, forgot to mention, I handwired and reused key caps. I have a lot of extra sets from liking keyboards for a while lol.
I also used a pi pico which took some extra tlc but saved a good chunk of money (1 pico is 7 dollars and only one is necessary).
The DIY fallacy. “You can do this yourself for just $20. You only need some string, a plastic bottle cap. And $5k of equipment and materials that have accumulated in your garage from around a decade of on and off hobbyist hoarding. Then you too can own a solar powered battery 3D printed fusion ferromagnetic screwdriver.”
I get it, but to be fair, the keycaps I already had were only about $20 on Amazon. So if you want to be pedantic I spent $60 total. Still beats the $300 plus for the ergodox. Also, if you really want to get into it, it took me around 25 hours to fully complete since I opted to hand wire. So factor in whatever your hourly rate is times 25 hours to get the opportunity cost of the diy job. Maybe you’re right and it just makes sense to buy the darn thing. At least I had fun though.
Most people don’t even own a soldering iron to wire it all. That’s another $20 right there. Just, it’s fine to say DIY is about the fun. And by all means, anyone who wants to have fun tinkering with some tech, go ahead, it’s a blast. But it’s never about the money. It’s disingenuous to tell people, “Oh I did this $300 at retail machine for $10”. No, you didn’t, you are just doing creative accounting and failing to report previous expenses. Because if it could be done for $10, big manufacturers would be doing it for $7, because they have the advantage of economics of scale.
Gymnastics. The skill part is obvious but monetarily its more than i expected. I thought it would be like going to a regular gym but its usually much more expensive to use the gyms and thats if you can find a time slot where adult males can train.
Randonneuring.
Randonneuring
long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. This style of riding is non-competitive in nature, and self-sufficiency is paramount. When riders participate in randonneuring events, they are part of a long tradition that goes back to the beginning of the sport of cycling in France and Italy.
Thank you for this
Rock climbing. To start out you basically just need $150 worth of shoes and some $5 chalk. Trad climbing or big wall climbing can be 5 figures and a dozen years worth of experience. And the skill ceiling is probably obvious, but it’s become an Olympic sport for a reason.
Bouldering here in the Netherlands can start pretty easily:
- € 10-15 entry
- € 5 to rent shoes, although you can bring any clean sport shoes yourself
And that’s it!
You can look into buying shoes and memberships if you’re really into it, but even then € 150 for shoes and € 40-60 a month for a membership is cheaper than my idea of an expensive hobby, like Magic the Gathering or PC building and gaming.
I think rock climbing has a fairly interesting cost curve, you’re right.
- Bouldering in the gym: Membership fees, shoes, chalk bag.
- Bouldering outside: Crash pad, gas to crag, shoes, chalk bag.
- Sport climbing in the gym: Rope, belay device, shoes, chalk bag, membership fees.
- Sport climbing at the crag: Rope, belay device, quickdraws, shoes, chalk bag, gas to crag
- Trad climbing: Rope, belay device, rack, shoes, chalk bag, gas to crag
And then if you add ice climbing and mountaineering you’re really screwed. Thousands of dollars in goretex, travel, supplies, rescue kits, avalanche training, etc
Mountaineering was the next level I couldn’t afford to join my friends on.
“ice climbing” “screwed” Oh youuu
This is how a friend of mine got into ice climbing. They went to work as a glacier guide and got a avalanche training for free. They work to find their ice climbing hobby.
Modular synths, eurorack is where you find the most accessible modules than the other formats. Sometimes you go and spend 600€ in a module without batting an eye.
Also you have to count the case, patch cables, etc.
It gets expensive quickly if you can’t fight the GAS (gear acquisition syndrome)
Also it is a musical instrument so you need to practice many hours to play it affectively.
It is really cool, I do enjoy myself playing with my modular, but would love to have more time to spend with it.
From what I’ve seen, modulars tend to attract people that love to tinker but aren’t necessarily very musical. They spend 30k and years on their setup but when they actually play something it’s just space soup. There are exceptions of course, some respected producers do use them, but that’s just my casual observation.
Absolutely. I love audio design, synthesis and making music, but I have rarely released anything. It took a long time for me to realize and accept that I do this for my own entertainment and not to be a successful musician. Its just a hobby.
And there’s nothing wrong with that! Music has also always remained something I did for fun, I have a different creative field as my day job and I don’t want to do the same with music nu-hu.
Apparently fur-suits are ~$15,000. You could buy a car for that and still have enough money left over to drive for a year.
I just ordered a second one a couple months from a top-tier maker and it was pretty expensive.
The first one I got back in 2008 was $1450. I don’t think it’s possible to get a descent one for under $3000 these days
That’s about the most expensive fursuit you can buy, it goes much lower than that. Still low car money though
I feel like games workshop table top games(e.g. Warhammer 40k) would fit in to this description if an individual had never heard of table top wargaming, or their reputation.
They’re made of plastic? It can’t cost that much right!?!?
but the rules, they can’t be too complicated? It’s just game !?!?
Oh you wanted to understand the story? Well let me show you a library on the first ten thousand years after the dawn of time to get you started
1page rules!
Photography can start with your smart phone and get expensive in a hurry.
Digital SLRs begin at $2k and the lenses range from $400 to $3,500. The more you try and break into high end photography the more insane the costs are.
I probably dumped about $10k into cameras and realized I still wasn’t that good at it. That’s the painful thing. Realizing your skill doesn’t match your fancy tech.
That phenomenon is known as GAS, Gear Aqcuisition Syndrome. I sold all my shit and just have a 1" sensor compact now. I take a lot more pictures ironically.
DSLRs start at like $400-500. Bought a Nikon D5300 years ago and the part that makes the biggest difference is the lens.
Yes, I should have written full frame DLSRs
EOS RP (full frame) with the starter lens is only (lol) about $1300
Fair enough, I’m not in the business anymore and no doubt competition and innovation has dropped prices significantly
But there is a low entry point with this one. I bought a used Canon Powershot that has a 50x optical zoom. Only stores JPG. Can’t swap out the lense. But it was $200 and now I can zoom in on birds. Since it’s digital I don’t have to pay for film or prints.
What is challenging in photography? Point and shoot.
What is challenging in photography?
To get the shoot you want it to be in the best possible quality.
My semi professional advice would be to point and shoot.
I have some pictures of my kids that I love, you should absolutely listen to me.
Some people prefer accidental strokes of luck, others enjoy planned projects. 😎
composition
What is challenging in art? Just put a pencil on paper and move it around.
The old adage I learned when I first got into photography (that I’ve only just started following) is that if you have $5000 to spend, spend $1000 on camera gear and $4000 on plane tickets. You’ll end up with my better photos that way.
Warhammer 40k. I heard about the game years ago and thought it sounded pretty cool. Didn’t realize that unlike D&D, it’s not something generally played without minis. And it’s a massive war game. So you need a lot of minis. And it’s a massive war game. So you need to know how to strategize or you’re gonna suck. High cost and high skill.
I just read the lore instead. 🤷🏻♂️
Wargaming is something I’ve always wanted to try but don’t want to spend the time and money to actually try it. It’s just way too high of a barrier.
There’s a cool game called Moonbreakers that has great model painting tools. I hope someday Warhammer 40k gets a tabletop accurate video game with model painting and everything. I can see why they wouldn’t, because it may take away from tabletop, but I’d bet it’d work the other way. It’d create a way for people to try it before committing that much to it, instead of seeing the barrier and backing out.
Skydiver here.
It’s not just money, it’s not just skill that makes you a successful jumper.
It’s a certain type of attitude and the ability to think when you’ve aimed yourself at a planet. Not everyone can do it. To be blunt, there is a large part of the population that shouldn’t do it, because they have terrible decision making ability.
As far as money, I went through the student program in the mid 90’s and it cost me about $1200, if I recall correctly. My first rig, used, was $4000. My second rig, new, was just over $8000. I have 4500 jumps most of which I paid ~ $20 each for. I don’t want to do that math.
The best decision I can think of to make when someone asks me if I would like to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and plumet toward the ground at high speeds would be to say “No thanks.”
Former skydiver here. The best response I ever heard to the “why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane” question was, “you should see the planes we jump out of.”
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Do you really need a good plane when you are all skydivers? It doesn’t even need to land for you to do what you came for.
$103,200, including gear and training. You’re welcome.
used rig
😮😮😮
I am still amazed about how much money you can spend on making coffee at home. 300€ for a manual grinder - “that’s the cheao chinese stuff” wtf
Love coffee as a hobby for this reason. You can start with $20 to get simple pour over equipment or even nicer venas but you can go far and high with it eventually or stop at the $20
There’s coffee, and then there’s espresso. The former is much more sane, and unfortunately I’m into the latter…
I’ve purposely avoided getting into espresso because my wife already thinks i’m crazy for wanting to spend $6-700 on a new grinder and drip machine when our current ones “work fine”.
You can spend that much on a competent espresso setup with a Flair 58 and 1Zpresso K Plus/Ultra, or J-Max if you want something more modern and less traditional! However, you run the risk of the endless accessory game, and the urge to upgrade to something like a Zerno…
Yea, I have extreme fomo when it comes to hobbies, so i inevitable “have” to upgrade. I think it’s better I stick to my coffee. But, it’s nice to know I can start lower if I ever change my mind.
Yea, I understand that! You can go even cheaper if you are willing to sacrifice workflow, like using a Nomad or cheaper Flair model, or Cafelat Robot. Espresso hand grinders are really affordable now if you’re willing to hand grind too.
Workflow? Jesus Christ I just want a coffee that’s nicer than the instant powder.
And that’s perfectly fine. Coffee isn’t that complicated to make. Espresso on the other hand takes a lot of work to get right, and even if you can make it with a couple hundred bucks, it will take 20 minutes of work for a single shot, rather than 3-4.
I’ve got a £1000 espresso machine and that the cheap one. We also have all the pour over shite - scales, grinder, gooseneck kettle, Hario… It adds up quickly.
And when you invite a bunch people over and tell them yeah we’re into coffee and they ask you for coffee and you’re like… Ok I am incapable of making coffee for more than 2 people in under 15 minutes, I need to pull out the senseo pad machine.
Absolutely… someone at work was like, grab a coffee, see you in 5. Dude, it takes at least 15 minutes to make a coffee in this house.
Imagining making 3 cappucinos with a flair neo or picopresso is killing my soul
We have a ROK and my husband once did 3 espressos for guests in a row, it did break his soul a little bit.
Oh God, I’m sorry for your loss… haha
Thank you xD
You know what the most painful part is? When your guests try the coffee and are like “aaah wow yeah that’s… nice! It’s really, uhm, intense” because they are so used to their crap coffee and don’t get the flowery berry fresh aroma of specialty coffee and you’re just smiling and dying inside. I mean I would have hated this kind of coffee 10 years ago myself so I get it but man…
This is why I still have a senseo pad machine. I’m not wasting my time, energy and coffee to make fancy hand filter coffee or manual espressos for people who really don’t care (unless they ask for it, in that case, waste away).
I feel that exactly! Haha. My partner hates coffee, but will occasionally sip espresso just to contort her face into a brand new form of disgust I’ve never seen before, just to humor me. I have lots of non-coffee nut family members as well, so it’s usually just me loving it.
I’ve been thinking about getting an easy bulk coffee maker for guests, all I currently have are single dose hand grinders and whatnot. One day…
Billiards
