I have a ok laptop but its not the greatest, i want to have something such as a creative outlet that i can do in a simple manner? Ive thought about many of things but im unsure if i should try them? Im stuck inside alot and im bored alot aswell. I just want something to do other than light gaming and watching youtube.
What would you advise and why so?
Go outside more
Soldering. You don’t need a huge amount of space. A desk and a box to keep stuff in. You can buy reference kits which allows you to build your own devices like headphones amplifiers. The reference kit should come with instructions and the PBC board will show which components go where. Kind of like painting with numbers.
Once your confident with it then it’s also useful. Replace bad caps on monitors, motherboards, anything really.
For the love of all that’s holy, get a proper ventilation though. A lot of people who soldered with leaded solder for years will tell you that it’s not necessary, and that alone should tell you everything.
Yes agree. I go for the lead-free solder. I know people say it’s not as good but I’ve not had problems with it.
Fuck yeah, soldering is incredibly empowering. Getting into it is crazy cheap compared to many other hobbies.
Programming. You need to have a project in mind to get motivated, but it’s cool being able to built an app you can run on your mobile device.
Crochet, knitting, sewing and general ropecraft are some of the best ways to build dexterity, focus hand eye coordination, and train your brain at the same time.
It doesn’t require electricity, the bar to entry is so low you can knit with two chopsticks, some twine, and a book from the library.
Added bonus of anyone who says knitting is for old biddies and women will only ever say that kind of shit when you’re not holding two footlong metal spikes.
As an added bonus you get a whole physical item that you created yourself.
OpenStreetMap
Blender, 3d modeling, vfx, drawing, etc. Whatever you like. I spent like a year learning blender when I was broke, jobless, and had a lot of free time. (last year lol) I got into simracing and bought a bundle a few months ago a d hve been mostly doing that lately tho.
if you’re into vr, making particle effects in unity and setting up gesture triggers for them is like making magic for yourself, can get pretty fun.
Most of my stuff is mediocre since I’m not very consistent, still a fun hobby if you don’t try to make money off it (competing with ppl tht have many years of experience) https://sketchfab.com/DilroopGill https://hardlysleep.ing/ (website showing my tiktok videos)
I just got into tying knots! It’s a useful skill. You can pick it up in a couple of minutes and then improve continuously. There are a lot of books on the subject. It’s cheap. You can use cord you might already have lying around the house, or you can get paracord at the hardware store, or you can go somewhere fancy like Paracord Galaxy if you want some extra special colors or patterns. It’s soothing and leaves you with something tangible at the end.
Here’s a monkey’s fist knot I just finished! I’ve been giving them to friends to use as keychains.
Ayy, nice monkey’s fist. If you’re getting real into it a sailor’s knife with a marlinspike (blade has no pointy tip and there’s a fold out metal spike to help push rope through knots/lever rope out of knots)
Additional recommendation towards Dyneema (brand name of a type of High Molecular Weight PolyEthylene or UHWMPE rope) that’s about 50x stronger than paracord and quite cheap if you get it as an offcut from a small chandlery, plenty of them about on ebay.
I picked up some 0.8mm or 1/32inch stuff that can lift 65kgs or 220lbs and some 4mm that can lift 2000kg, because of course I need it to be strong enough to tow a car lmao.Flying Dutchman is proud
Factorio
So other than light gaming and YouTube, op can be sucked into a rabbit hole of deep gaming, spreadsheets and YouTube to figure out what the hell is happening?
Exactly! I literally laughed reading your comment. Way to funny and true.
Satisfactory.
If you like being broke, Warhammer 40000
Blender. Free and incredibly versatile 3D modelling software. Learning curve is a bit steep but YT has tons of tutorials to help you stumble along.
I second 3D modeling, it’s super fun and entertaining. Blender is the software.
Thirded. If you eventually get a 3D printer, too, that can be a good time sink - as long as you are happy to spend time tweaking and fiddling with things to keep it working.
That way, your 3D blender designs can come to the real world.
I need to learn blender. I got into 3D printers and learnt FreeCAD for parts. It’s very good and easy to use but it lacks complex modelling and I think it runs on one thread only.
I use freecad for designs that need to be specific sizes and shapes, and Blender for things that don’t need to be too exact…
Even the pro systems have single threaded portions for modelling. Multi thread, multi processor is only taken advantage of in a few areas, and even then the performance improvement is not drastically different in most tasks
As long as you don’t need CAD levels of precision, Blender is fine. I still need to use FreeCAD when making enclosures and assemblies but Blender works well if it’s more of a decorative piece. I think they are making an actual CAD mode soon so this might be outdated!
Indie game development. Tons of great, free (even foss), frameworks out there these days. Try ebitengine for an awesome 2d framework.
Ive thought about many of things but im unsure if i should try them?
You should definitely try them. What have you got to lose?
Since you’re a creative sort, why not make zines? Scribus is a free layout tool you could use to build them and there are plenty of free templates available.
I used to co-edit an indie magazine in the 00s using Scribus.
whenever we accidentally misclicked and it showed the error message “the program GIMP is missing!” the rule was you had to stand up and read the error message out loud
“The gimp’s asleep.”
“Well wake him up!”
That’s an extremely open ended question with countless answers…
- speedrun your favorite game
- become a youtuber and play games while streaming
- play a game with just your feet
- play a game blindfolded
- play a game randomizer
- learn to program
- program shit
- learn an instrument
- play music and post it online
- make shitposts
- learn to draw
- draw porn
- draw not porn
- write poems
- film solo comedy skits
- do multiple of these things at once
…do anything because you want to do it.
That’s all I could think of while on the toilet.
I like writing stories.
With a little help of AI you can also try indie game dev. My advice - use it as an interactive tutorial and better search engine. You can learn a lot when AI gives you examples and then do your own thing.
