Maybe something you learned the hard way, or something you found out right before making a huge mistake.
E.g., for audiophiles: don’t buy subwoofers from speaker companies, and don’t buy speakers from subwoofer companies.
Servers: it doesn’t have to be built for the purpose. In a pinch, any PC will do.
Chess: Fried liver attack doesn’t work above 700 ELO and is easily countered with a possibility for a smothered mate.
Guitar: Playing 5 minutes every day is better than playing an hour once a week.
EDIT: I added a few things… can anyone tell I have ADHD yet?
When keeping a plant alive, you need to look up how it likes to be in the wild, and try to EMULATE that best you can. Monstera deliciosa has root rot? Well in the wild their roots are very compacted, maybe that gallon sized pot needs to be downsized. They also grow on trees, give it some support, etc
Cast iron cookware: when seasoning the item you need to apply the thinnest layer of oil possible. It should look almost like you’re trying to wipe the oil away or clean it.
PC building: your local electronics recycler is an amazing place to get simple fundamental equipment. You won’t find a 5090 in the bin, but you’ll find cheap ram, any cable you need is 1$, hell, my NAS is a 22tb (after redundancy) raid array where I paid 7$ for each 2tb drive. Sure, it’s slower and clicks like hell sometimes, but it’s in a closet, and I can lose a few drives before I lose my data.
Car/motorcycle repairs: your local chain auto shop probably loans/rents specialty tools. (This is pretty well known but still) need a tool to compress your brake cylinders when changing pads? It’ll cost 10$ rather than like 80$.
Gardening: mulch. In my area the sun is an absolute killer in the day while I’m working, so laying mulch over the soil keeps it from drying as fast
Cooking: following recipes isn’t that hard for most things, the way you know that you’ve really leveled up is when you start to realize how certain flavors and textures interact, and come up with something new or, more often, start modifying and improving recipes
Terrariums: the most crucial aspect is the amount of water. It will easily make or break (or kill) your plants and design. A good drainage layer, followed by chunkyish soil, and a layer of peat moss is the way to go most times. Also, BUGS. springtails and isopods are a learning curve but are an insanely helpful group of fellas.
VX hobbyists- I’ve noticed a lot of people start off by configuring their encabulators with the original series of kleinhoffer cam ratios, trying to get maximum deltas with the least vacuum pressure possible. It’s really better to start with dylomatic induction coefficients even if it initially seems more complicated, you’ll have an easier time later with the more commonly available j-discs.
For camping, in cold weather switching from being active to resting can be miserably cold. To combat this you can fill a heat tolerant water bottle with some boiled water, wrap it in a shirt or sweater to prevent burning, and put it into your sleeping bag to warm it up quickly. You can also sort of do the reverse for when you wake up. You can put your clothes for the next day in a small bag and sleep with them in your sleeping bag. That way they won’t be frigid when you’re trying to dress.
Better yet understand that none of your gear makes heat, you do. Think of your sleeping bag and clothes as batteries that need to be recharged periodically and your body is a generator. When you shiver that is your body trying to burn calories to produce heat. You can stay much warmer by keeping busy and moving around than you will by standing around a fire. When you wake up cold in the middle of the night, move your legs like you’re riding a bicycle while laying on your side. It won’t take long to warm up. Also keep an isolating layer between you and the ground like a foam sleeping pad. It also works for when standing on frozen ground.
To combat this you can fill a heat tolerant water bottle with some boiled water, wrap it in a shirt or sweater to prevent burning, and put it into your sleeping bag to warm it up quickly.
The first time I did this I ended up so hot that I had to take it out. Its a wonderful trick and I have woken up spooning the cool water bottle in the morning
I have an old school hot water bottle that I use like this… In my house.
The best way to write a good story, for me, is to write a story I want to read. That seems obvious but bear with me. If I plan out all the details, it’s like someone spoiled the book for me, I just can’t get into it. I have to create characters I’m interested, plunk them in a situation, and just start seeing what happens. I dont fret the little details unless they start getting me into a place I’m not enjoying. Later on I go back to the early parts and tie them together with whatever happened. Done this way, writing a story feels like reading a story, one that is specifically tailored to your own interests (and that none of your friends have read, so they can’t talk to you about it)
A fun way to get started with a story is to take two actors and put them together.
Natalie Portman and Keanu Reeves are the stars of the story. Now tell me the plot.
Just buy a good 3d printer for your first. Sure, it’ll cost money, but the heartache of constant troubleshooting and tweaking can just suck the fun out of the hobby if you just need this print to succeed.
Prusa Mini+ (I think) Bambu A1 Mini (this would be my #1 starter printer before the security updates they done)
But if you get a cheap one you get a free crash course on everything that could possibly go wrong on a print and how to avoid it.
Ender 3 btw
One of those hobbies where starting cheap actually makes it not worth it. Kind of like a cheap camera can make you feel discouraged once you get pretty good at photography. A $500 camera can get you started, but a $1500+ (or refurbished more expensive option) will unlock a whole new level of creative abilities (speaking from experience!)
What would you say the gap between the “this 3d printer will do the job but make you lose your mind” and “this is a reliable 3d printer that is reasonably priced for hobbies”?
Boardgames
Its easier to make gamers into friends than it is to make friends into gamers
Woodworking
Measure twice cut once is rookie numbers. Measure 10 times, cut a test piece 5 times, measure twice after each, then do your real cut.
This is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
Also, measure after each operation to check your work as you go so you can spot mistakes as early as possible. This includes checking for square, doing test fits, and all manner of sanity checks to ensure that your operations are achieving the desired results before you repeat them on other pieces or move on to do more work on those same pieces that may already be ruined or need fixing.
For glue up, always always always dry fit first. Then plan ahead. Put all your clamps on and have them adjusted before you add glue. Once the glue is on the time is short and you need to have everything ready and waiting.
If you use a table saw, take it seriously. Always use your riving knife when possible, be mindful of the control you have over the pieces, use push sticks and sleds and jigs to improve stability and safety, always wear ppe. Check that your blade is aligned to your miter slots and your fence. Having a slight relief angle on your fence can be good, but never have it canted towards the blade. That can be dangerous. Also make a crosscut sled, they’re amazing.
Beware of dust. It causes cancer and it lingers in the air. Wear a respirator and use ventilation when possible.
Make or buy a workbench with a vise and some hold down capabilities. Being able to hold your work easily is a huge benefit.
If you are looking to improve your accuracy and precision, buy a nice hand plane and learn how set it up, sharpen it, and how to use it. They are absolute game changers. Also make or buy a shooting board for it. Also, buy a machinist’s square, a set of feeler gauges, and a nice 36in aluminum straight edge and learn to use them.
Etc
Obviously that’s a lot, and a lot of it it depends on what you’re actually trying to do, but those are all things that have helped me a lot in my journey towards making furniture, picture frames, cutting boards, etc
Another woodworker:
Huge +1 for a bench plane and a shooting board. Even in a mainly power tool shop, you can make things much more precisely square or mitered if you shoot them.
For marking cuts, use a knife not a pencil. When you use a pencil to mark your cuts, you limit yourself to guiding your tools with only your vision, not unlike a Tesla. When you score the line with a knife, you create a reference surface (one of the two sides of the cut, hopefully the one against your square) that has no thickness, and you can feel when a knife or chisel clicks against that surface. For saw cuts, you can use a chisel to pare away a little bit from the waste side to form a knife wall, which forms a little ramp that will guide a saw against your reference surface.
Wax literally everything. Wax your work surfaces, tablesaw top, jointer beds, planer bed, fences, plane soles, bikini lines, saw plates, screw threads…wax literally everything.
Learn how to do most common operations by hand. Square some rough lumber by hand with a bench plane. Chop a mortise with a chisel. Cut a tenon with a backsaw. Make dovetails by hand. Even if you’re a power tool woodworker and you’ve got a jointer and a thickness planer and a table saw and a rapidly growing number of routers, knowing how to do things by hand will help you understand just what it is you’re doing.
Do not suffer a dull tool to live. If your tool is getting dull, sharpen it. Sharpening is kinda personal, I think if cilantro tastes like soap to you you’ll prefer oilstones, if you have that tendon in your wrist you’ll like waterstones, if you can roll your tongue you’ll prefer diamond plates and if you have more money than god you’ll buy a Tormach. They’ll all sharpen a blade. Find the system you like and use it. If your tool is dull, sharpen it. Put it away sharp, don’t put it away dull.
Use your ears. You can tell a lot about what’s going on with a tool by listening to it.
Me, “Measures 50 times and it still doesn’t fit just right” “WTF!!!??”
Lol. Been there for sure.
The worst is building something perfectly square, and then realizing the space you need to put it into is very not square.
This is why I hired someone to do my bathroom shower remodel. My house is old and has no 90 degree angles left lol. I call it the “Dr Suess House”
If you have to count beats in your head, you’re already failing as a DJ. Knowing when to drop the next tune should come naturally.
Read some music theory if you have to, and definitely spend time listening more closely to your tunes. Try to think about how your music is structured as you’re listening to it. Identify the intro, chorus, verses, bridge(s), etc.
With enough critical listening (and practice on the decks), you’ll no longer have to count beats to know where you are in the song and when to start the mix. It’ll eventually become second nature for you.
Buying a cheap 2nd hand E-bike (right now) means the same as buying any other broken bike: You need to know how to switch a chain and adjust brakes. The electronics themselves however are surprisingly resilient.
In Magic the Gathering it’s usually correct to wait to play instant spells until your opponent’s turn, either on their upkeep or end step in most cases. Waiting as long as you can gives you more information to make the best play.
a percolator can be used as a Soxhlet extractor
I made some spicy ginger extract.
also be really careful if you’re going to be an idiot like me and use a flammable solvent like grain alcohol.
Foraging! Don’t eat things unless you are 100% sure.
I’d say consider where things are growing, too. If you are foraging near roadsides, pipelines, powerlines, houses, or old dump sites, there are things to consider. If you are in somewhere like Appalachia, it’s shocking how common "artisanal " mining sites are when you can recognize them.
Herbicides are often used to keep growth down in those places.
Old houses often have lead paint falling into soil, and leaded gas polluted a lot of roadsides. You don’t want to eat roots/tubers or low growing leafy veggies in those places. Luckily, plants apparently don’t accumulate lead.
If it has gills, flaky skin, and bleeds blue, then put down the knife and walk away - you’ve just killed a member of the scottish nobility
Or you could be in Arkham.
One of the biggest things that most amateur filmmakers or video makers make is not getting sufficient tone.
Before shooting, record a fairly long stretch of just the ambient sound in the area where you’re filming so that when you are editing, it can be laid under the audio tracks and help to smooth out the jumps in audio from different clips.
This makes a lot of sense and I wouldn’t have thought about it.
Could you offer any tips about recording ambient tone? Just like some omnidirectional mics in the space for 5-10 minutes? Or just the same mics you use for performers or the field recording (eg shotgun mics)?
I’ve always just used the same ones that I use for performers because I’m poor.
If possible, make sure there’s no recognizable voices or anything like that because the tone will be repeated through the scene, so any voices are going to repeat as well. So when you’re doing it, tell your actors/crew to be quiet.
Why wouldn’t you buy a sub from a speaker company? Here’s one for audiophiles: if you want real good sound look at studio equipment rather than expensive hifi stuff. A high end studio interface plus a pair of full range studio monitors will sound more accurate than any hifi setup.
And another one: listening experience is 95% acoustics. Don’t bother with speakers above say 2k if you’re not willing to invest money and space into proper acoustic treatment.
First, I agree with your comment about the room. It’s the most important part of how good a system sounds, neck and neck with speakers.
Second, while I don’t have a wide variety of experience with studio gear or a variety of audiophile speakers I can say this: I have been a Magnepan guy for decades and currently have the 1.7i’s. But I recently got some Yamaha HS7s for my computer and I have really been enjoying them.
Maggies are legendary for how well they reproduce female vocals (and they deserve that reputation) but I was listening to Cowboy Junkies this morning and just really enjoyed how Margo Timmins voice sounded as well as the imaging (and they aren’t set up really well for imaging given I have three monitors on my desk).
So, yeah, try studio monitors if you are looking for powered speakers.
