plactagonicWhat is your "inexpensive" hobby that turned out to be expensive/ you gradually invested lots of money into?
ickplantKnitting. Super cheap to start, you can pick up a set of needles and some acrylic yarn for under $20. But when you start getting into nice yarns and bigger pieces, you are spending hundreds of dollars on yarn alone for a blanket or a sweater. And you want nice needles in all sizes as well as all types (double pointed, regular and circular)… more hundreds of dollars.
Moral of the story is if a friend knits you something with nice yarn, please appreciate it. Lots of effort and thought went into it.
Dharma CuriousI really, really love knitting. I’m not good, and I have a hard time finishing projects (tragic case of batterscain. I jump from thing to thing.), but the actual knitting itself? OMG, I love having something to do with my hands, and that something actual makes a real, tangible thing? Somehow magically out of a ball of string? What‽ It’s lovely.
It’s insane, though, how people who don’t knit/crochet will just treat a knitted or crocheted item like it’s a cheap Walmart graphic tee. They do not respect the work put into it.
Nice interrobang usage
Thank you for noticing!
MrsDoyleYeah. I knitted gorgeous socks and scarves in hand-dyed merino for some good friends. Come Christmas they obviously thought, oh MrsDoyle likes knitting, let’s get her something knitting related! A selection of the cheapest, nastiest acrylic in hideous colours and some needles. Oooooh. Thank you so much.
Ouch… Yeah. As a general rule of thumb, if I’m buying someone something craft related it’s either because I know enough about the craft to get them something truly nice, or I get them a gift card to their favorite craft related place. Outside of that, I’ll just ask them what they want. Lol. I enjoy a bunch of different crafts, including wood working. A friend once got me a set of chisels when they found out I liked wood working. … They were plastic with just the very ends being metal, and would break if you looked at the harshly. Lol. The thought behind it was sweet, but they had no idea what they were doing. Lol.
The story had a bit of a happy ending - I paired the yarn and needles with a “learn to knit” book, and donated it to a raffle a club I belong to was holding. The winner of the kit was thrilled!
Oh that’s an awesome idea!
We’ve been discussing the need to get some of our yarn to a new home. There’s so much, and it’s just never going to be used as there’s just literally too much.
HSLKnitting is expensive for me because I love to start projects but I’m not great at finishing them. Good quality yarn really isn’t cheap.
Weaving in the ends is the devil. I hate finishing, but I really enjoy starting 😭
Oh yes. Yes. I went to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival a few years back. I live nearby, but met people there who’d come from all over - Europe, Japan, the US. All three days sold out. The yarns were so beautiful! And oh so expensive. But you were there in person, fan-girling with you favourite dyers and pattern designers! Spend spend spend. The nearest cash machine ran dry. Such an expensive hobby. But I can’t stop.
Just started crocheting, and I’m just holding myself back from buying all the yarn, it’s gonna get bad
Whatever you do, don’t go looking for yarn on Etsy. Fuck, I’ve said too much.
TOO LATE.
My mom knits and she spends way more time unraveling thrift store finds to salvage the yarn than she does actually knitting stuff.
I’ve found my people… as I cry into this shawl project on my lap, of merino fingering yarn I paid to have imported because “you want to support small yarn producers” telling myself, “it’s not soft enough. Just throw it away and buy that cashmere/silk blend that you know feels like butter.” 🫠
Growing cannabis (legal here in Canada)
…anyone can grow weed. Growing GOOD weed is an art.
I unintentionally grow weed because I made some tincture for grandma.
Now it just grows on my garden and I can’t get rid of it.
One of it’s many nicknames is ditchweed for a reason. It’s a weed like any other. The US spends millions per year burning it out of ditches on the side of the road all around the country.
I’d be happy to burn it for them!
A little bit at a time!
We call it “The Granny choice” variety.
And trust me it is horrible, for tinctures it is great, but for anything else not.
2000 into my fully automated hydroponic weed factory. Another 500 to make my nutrient solutions from scratch. Mind you that 500 dollars when making from scratch likely last 20 years of crops. It does make a good 1.5 pounds of dry weed every 3 to 4 months with the for legal plants allowed in Canada. I barely smoke so give nearly all away.
Three year prior, harvested a crop down right before going to Mexico for three month trip. Was still some shoots barely growing so for shits and giggles I turn the lights back to 22 hours per day to see if they would go back to the veg state. Have camera so can watch it remotely. Shit starts fully growing like a new plant. Anyhow COVID puts a wrinkle in my return. Ended up in Mexico for 18 months. Over that time, thing kept growing like nuts. Automation on water replacement and nutrient injection along with pH monitoring. Became sort of a how long can this thing go with near zero human intervention. Had only to send my brother in law in three times to cut it down and refill my nutrient injectors from solutions I made before leaving.
Right? When you grow, you really get an appreciation for what an amazing, and resilient plant it is.
I used to grow, but never smoked except to taste my harvest. My spouse smoked daily and heavily. I didn’t, but I LOVED coming home from work to my grow room. It was so therapeutic! Still is, but I miss my old HPS & MH lights.
Well it is called weed for a reason. Is definately therapeutic for me too. I started with MH lights. Without question they resulted in a better crop. I am now all LED but I had to double the specified wattage equivalence. In other words if you’re taking out a 1000 watt MH light, you need to put in 2000 watts of LED equivalence. More or less all the LED manufacturers lie when they state what the equivalence is for growing. Still worth it as you will save on power within two or three years and you are not dealing with excessive heat or burning your tops. I forgot about that full cost now that I think of it. Likely spent more than I said.
MaggiWuerzeIn Germany we will be allowed to grow some for private use come next year. I have no idea what to get yet, but I will just plant it in a planter in the garden and hope that it works I guess :D
Thats growing weed.
Any tips for good weed?
If you can grow indoor and force into flower (8 to 12 per day light and lower the temp a bit) that will give you the most consistent crops. Bugs are likely the number one problem particularly with normal soil grown plants. I recommend doing smaller shorter grows but more per year. The shorter grows time means less likely you will have an infestation problem. Well mean smaller harvests but you can do more per year. This kind of control requires a location you can entirely remove any light sources but your grow lights.
Overall it is really hard to kill a weed plant. They grow like a weed. Thus the name. In my case, I able leave them in the here stage for a month then flip the lights to 10 hours days. At that point they might be a foot high but even in flower they will grow another 3 feet over the next two months. Clean out any dead or crappy branches. Also at some point about half way thru I start to remove bottom leaves and thin out a bit. 90 percent of your harvest will be from the top. They will get super sticky if you do it right. Leaves on the bottom typically get little light and use up energy. Stressing your plant is part of the cycle. Basically the low light and leaves being cut off tells the plant fall is coming and I am struggling a bit so start to flower heavily to carry on my species.
And for God’s sake, don’t over fertilizer. Most soils are good by themself or only require a small amount of nutrients. I don’t know how many people grew but get these crappy returns as they over fertilizer and as it hurts their growth, they keep think even more will make it better.
Anyhow this is just part of a good crop advice. Lots of videos. Mostly keep a clean room and other than water and a bit of love, you will get good crops.
Forgot one thing. Get feminized seeds. You can’t have males. You don’t even want your neighbors to have males. Burn their house.
“You don’t even want your neighbors to have males. Burn their house.”
This is actually quite reasonable, IMO.
(No. Please don’t actually!)
I hope you’ll be able to get seeds and strains imported from the US and Canada. I smoked weed in Germany while I was living there in 2015 a few times and it was the worst weed I’ve ever smoked. It tasted weird, smelled bad, and didn’t even get me high. When I asked someone about it they were just like “weed isn’t as strong here as it is in the U.S.”
There are European based seed banks. Also they share a border with the Netherlands.
I think that’s still up for debate. Let’s see.
But I haven’t been smoking for quite some time, so maybe my first batch is fine being on the weak side
Have you smoked outside of Germany? I only ever smoked in Germany so I don’t know how it is anywhere else in Europe so maybe my experience is the problem, but I have friends who have come to the US and said weed is way stronger here.
No, only ever smoked in Germany. That would explain how it is shown in american media
TigwykWhen I first got into VRChat to hang out with some friends, I thought maybe I could survive just playing on desktop for free. Now, a couple thousand dollars later, I own a Valve Index, extra base stations and 4 sensors for full-body tracking.
Flight simming. Started out with a cheap joystick. Now I have an expensive one, throttle quadrants, rudder pedals, a vr headset and I’ve built myself a button box and a flight seat. And I’m now I want a helicopter collective. Oh well…
lol at some point is is cheaper to take flying lessons?
And you didn’t even get into the software.
Aircraft, scenery, support software like Navigraph, it all adds up. Fortunately aircraft and scenery are “buy it for life” and anyone who tries otherwise is liable to have rocks thrown at them.
VATSIM is free however, and that’s part of why it’s so great.
ThirdWorldOrderSim racing is very similar. Started off with a $150 wheel, then $300 with $300 “rig” and $200 pedals.
Now I have something like a $8-10k rig with bass shakers, hue lights and the works.
I just dick around in dirt rally and ATS
I bet it still doesn’t come close to simulating real driving.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean but even Max Verstappen and a lot of real life drivers all use SimRacing to learn tracks and hone skills.
Conversely there’s also been SimRacers who went on to become real race car drivers.
You’re not going to feel g forces but there are motion kits out there that will really bring it to the next level. Just look up dbox simracing
Admiral PatrickSelf-hosting apps / homelab
Getting used enterprise gear is not prohibitively expensive, but the electric bills balloon very quickly.
How much do you pay for electricity and how much for internet and what speeds?
anteatersI’m glad I quickly stopped “homelab” after my old laptop that I used as a server in a cupboard died. Switched to a rented root server for all my selfhosting needs since.
PlexSheepI currently bought an old desktop from a friend that I use as my Homeserver.
- I bought 3 HDDs for storage
- I rent a VPS
- I rented Proton to host mail for my domain, but switched to netcup groupware because that sucked.
- Some domains
- Electricity
Wow I thought it was way more.
One time costs: ~500€ Monthly costs: ~15€ Plus electricity, but I have solar. I assume it’s about 150€/year
But I’m a cheap selfhosted, but eventually, I will have a huge ass Enterprise Level Rack in my basement.
AppoxoWe need a r/homeDatacenter on lemmy!
Pretty sure I’ve seen a few home lab communities already, one on lemmy.world even
Already aware of some of those! They are really cool.
But homelab aint datacenter (yet) ;)
But homelab aint datacenter (yet) ;)
Would be cool if we found some kind of use for the community of people that likes to host network infrastructure. We could be a cdn or share compute, with the power of the federation!
davefischerI ran a “midrange” Sun at home for about ten years. The electric bill was painful, but I never had to turn on the heat in the winter.
But the summers :(
27°C at home during the hotter days was atrocious.
27°C at home during the hotter days was atrocious.
Yeah, hot days were bad.
Yep. Half height rack, a couple servers, UPS, switch, etc.
And I still keep looking at used gear. Being in Silicon Valley there is always a deal to be had.
Fountain pens - I started with a 30 euro Parker but it seems like just one is never enough.
Started with a $50 aluminum Lamy, now I have a brass Kaweco that was about $220. I have a shelf full of inks now.
Help me….
Truth. I started with some disposable Pilot Varsity fountain pens because someone I worked with was forging my signature on paperwork. I haven’t worked there for 12 years, and now I have a collection of different fountain pens and ink.
Scrolled down for this, hi all!
This. At first you’re like “oh geez, $20 for a pen?” Then it’s “oh, I absolutely need to spend $400 for a custom handmade Edison or (insert your favorite brand)” sure it writes a little better than the $20 pen, but holy schnikes does it look and feel so much better.
One is never enough. I mean, you gotta have one for each ink, right? RIGHT??
There are so many options to try to see what you like. Plus, the fountain pen community is honestly one of the best. Dangerous for the wallet…
PatternYeah. I had to start pinching myself when I started to look at a $400 pen as a “bargain”. Still love my fountain pens, though.
Oh shit that’s like 3 hobbies in this one thread. I stopped at a (very) decent Lamy 2000 and Iroshizuku inks.