# Quirky hobbies/pastimes which you suspect only you partake in **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 27, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278 "2015-07-27T00:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/41 "2015-07-30T21:59:23Z")
I grew up in Philadelphia. The transit system had an elaborate system of transfers (usable only once and only on trolleys or subways), exchanges (also valid for busses), which you could use and request a special exchange, which you could also use and request another special exchange,… Each one had printed on it a list of things you could transfer to and whether further exchanges were available. Some trolleys and busses had trays of 4 or 5 different exchanges and special exchanges depending on where you got on an what exchange (or cash) you used. Well, I collected them. And read them. And once worked out a route that you could theoretically travel forever on one fare. Or at least until they changed the rules. I followed that route and got off where I got on, but I could have kept going. This was in the 50s, BTW. It is all much simpler now. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/42 "2015-07-30T22:05:01Z")
I’m the only person I know who has a collection of round things. They’re spheroids actually. People come by and look them over, then ask me why I’m doing that. I just started by putting some round things together on a shelf and now there’s a whole bookcase full of them. I thought maybe others would start their own round thing collections, or other shapes, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on. Maybe I should make a website for people who have pointless collections of round things. If they have a collection of square things they can start their own site, I don’t like to associate with square thing collectors. Triangular stuff would be ok. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/43 "2015-07-30T23:40:16Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’ve discussed my [Lube Smithying](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=734657) pastime before. Didn’t get a lot of traction. Maybe because it involved lube? Have you spoken with your Physician, or a man of the cloth? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/44 "2015-07-31T04:00:30Z")
I determine possible schedules for (mostly) round-robin “tournaments” where certain pairings are forbidden, in which each player has one opponent each round, each player has one round off for each other competitor they are forbidden to play, and all the rounds off are given such that there is an equal number of actual matches each round, and the extra rounds off are given starting from the first round and continuing down the line until all rounds have an equal number of actual matches again. It’s a very straightforward problem to solve if there are no forbidden matches, or if you can give people the round off if they would otherwise participate in a forbidden match, but requiring the rounds off be given in a very specific pattern makes it rather non-trivial. I started at the real-world-inspired (although the real world example is actually quite different) example of 16 players (15 rounds), and determined just about everything I believed was necessary to come up with something resembling an algorithm, although I don’t think I could get it implemented fully on a computer because there’s issues where you kinda have to see what works and I don’t really know how I would guide an algorithm in the way my thinking works in those cases. I then expanded to a greater number of players and tried to use the same basic ideas, but found there was one pattern that worked perfectly for 16 due to it being a power of 2 that doesn’t work for arbitrary-sized competitions. I suppose I just like to be able to solve abstract puzzles, and this hobby allows me to create an endless number of puzzles (by modifying the structure of what matches are forbidden as well as the number of participants) that I’m fairly sure have to have at least some solution, and the tricky part is figuring out how to do it at least semi-algorithmically. If there’s anyone else in the world with the same hobby, I’d be absolutely shocked. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/45 "2015-07-31T10:44:07Z")
Do you use Boolean algebra? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/46 "2015-07-31T10:58:02Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Have you spoken with your Physician, or a man of the cloth? > :dubious: How could a tailor help?:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/47 "2015-07-31T11:23:04Z")
> [@Bumbershoot](#): > > I know I’m not the only experienced skydiver on the boards, there are a few others but not too many. > > I like to visit ghost towns here in New Mexico. I have a book on the subject and I enjoy reading about their history and visiting what’s left of them. There are quite a few mining towns that sprung up almost overnight, thrived for a few decades then died when the mine stopped producing. Some of them had thousands of residents, saloons, banks, brothels, hotels etc. > > Some of them look like the stereotypical ghost town from movies, some have nothing remaining except the foundations of a few buildings. It’s interesting to me how a town can spring up from nothing, attract thousands of people, have thriving businesses and then completely die out with almost no one and nothing left, in just a few decades. Have you read John McPhee’s _Assembling California_? It’s one of his popular science works on geology. He visits and talks about such towns; they grew up around “supergene enrichments”, widespread but shallow deposits of gold or silver ore. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/48 "2015-07-31T12:04:17Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > How could a tailor help?:dubious: Some kind of curtain to mask the unusual hobby from on lookers. ---
**Author:** ![BaldDudePeekskill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@BaldDudePeekskill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaldDudePeekskill)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/49 "2015-08-02T02:27:54Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I have found a kindred spirit. 🙂 > > In cleaning out some old boxes last winter I came across some of my old maps. Not sure what to do with them - I don’t really want to toss them, but I don’t think I want to share them, either. I’d love them! I liked SimCity, but used cheat codes to avoid annoying Sim people and disasters and such. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/50 "2015-08-02T10:39:03Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > **Laggard** ; I have almost no pictures, but I will try to upload the (crappy) video of the critters crawling on the lens this weekend. It’s large and I’ll need to tie up the computer for awhile to upload it. I promise to get to it in a few days though. I don’t know what they were, but they were small, out of focus (on the lens) and numerous. It made me rethink an earlier desire to scuba dive on these spots. ☹ Finally uploaded [here](http://vid11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/rbp2/boat_stuff/20141008_120734_zpssbv2kbia.mp4). Warning, the video’s crappy and I couldn’t get the critters in focus since they were on the lens. It gets a little better in the last half as I get the focus/light improved. At that point it becomes obvious the movement is purposeful (not bubbles or somesuch). ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/51 "2015-08-02T13:07:49Z")
I kept waiting for a joke-scare moment there, **pullin**! ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/52 "2015-08-04T09:02:05Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > This sounds a bit like a real-life version of a quirky hobby that I’ve developed recently. I’ve discovered that I am perhaps a budding roadgeek, and lately I’ve started to get into watching driving videos. > > These are videos that people post on YouTube, filmed with dashboard cameras, of drives they have taken on various highways. The footage will be speeded up by a couple factors, so it’s not exactly real time, and be accompanied by music. Often they’ll also add little trivia notes about the highway being driven or the cities being passed through. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Wm1f1zBvQ) is a typical example (YouTube link). > > Understand that these are not dashcam videos of crashes or traffic stops or anything particularly exciting. They’re just videos of perfectly ordinary drives on perfectly ordinary roads. There are hundreds of such videos on YouTube, and gobs of people making them. > > It’s remarkable enough that such things exist, but what’s even more remarkable is that I have become ridiculously fond of watching them! Hey, I did that on my last trip. I stuck a GoPro to the windshield and set it to take one picture every two seconds while I drove up and down Hokkaido in Japan. I have to finish editing the footage and upload somewhere, I’ve been procrastinating because I though “Who would want to watch that anyway?”. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/53 "2015-08-04T09:15:21Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > **Laggard** ; I have almost no pictures, but I will try to upload the (crappy) video of the critters crawling on the lens this weekend. It’s large and I’ll need to tie up the computer for awhile to upload it. I promise to get to it in a few days though. I don’t know what they were, but they were small, out of focus (on the lens) and numerous. It made me rethink an earlier desire to scuba dive on these spots. ☹ I saw the video you posted, they look, or rather move, like shrimp to me. Don’t let that keep you from jumping in to see by yourself; one of the most fascinating things I’ve experienced is to hang still during night dives when the water is full of little critters like those, swarming around my torch light, it’s absolutely mesmerizing… and they tickle! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/54 "2015-08-04T10:23:02Z")
For some reason, they give me the creeps (I imagined them swarming on my feet and ankles while walking on the bottom). :o They were at about 45-50 ft depth and I don’t know how to scuba dive though. I guess I should add it to the list of things to do in retirement. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Theodore\_Striker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Theodore\_Striker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theodore_Striker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/55 "2015-08-04T16:40:30Z")
I know other people in the far flung reaches do as well, but I collect playing cards. They don’t have to be from a casino, or really from anywhere that most people would recognize, or be valuable at all, they just have to have some reason to appeal to me. I’m right around 300 decks at this point, but have to find a way to display them. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/56 "2015-08-04T18:11:26Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Hey, I did that on my last trip. I stuck a GoPro to the windshield and set it to take one picture every two seconds while I drove up and down Hokkaido in Japan. > I have to finish editing the footage and upload somewhere, I’ve been procrastinating because I though “Who would want to watch that anyway?”. You’d be surprised! Put some music with it, though. The commenters will tear you apart if you don’t have music. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/57 "2015-08-04T18:19:47Z")
Well, I play FRPGs, which I guess is no longer weird, but it was when I started. I do one odd thing sometimes. I get military surplus/camping supplies/etc catalogs and play a game where “could I survive on just the stuff from this catalog”. ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/58 "2015-08-04T20:43:36Z")
I’m an 18th Century Reenactor who plays a Loyalist soldier enlisted as a member of the King’s Rangers (Breakenridge Coy). Our unit is based in New Hampshire, but we go to events from Canada to the mid-Atlantic. The historical unit was raised by Robert Rogers in the late end of the Revolutionary War. I also have built 2 (and need to rebuild one of them) cob ovens out of nothing but clay & sand, with a little straw mixed in for strength… then I bake bread in them. Not hobbies that “only I” partake in, but they are certainly not what I’d call mainstream. ---
**Author:** ![Bumbershoot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bumbershoot/32/3428_2.png) [@Bumbershoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbershoot)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/59 "2015-08-04T23:12:58Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Have you read John McPhee’s _Assembling California_? It’s one of his popular science works on geology. He visits and talks about such towns; they grew up around “supergene enrichments”, widespread but shallow deposits of gold or silver ore. Sorry for the late reply; I just got back from a fishing vacation in the north woods of Minnesota. I am not familiar with _Assembling California_- or John McPhee for that matter! But I googled him, his book and ‘supergene enrichments’ and it all looks very interesting. My brother has a book about the geology of New Mexico; I think I’ll borrow it and give it a read. ---
**Author:** ![Hedda\_Rosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hedda_rosa/32/1204_2.png) [@Hedda\_Rosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hedda_Rosa)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278/60 "2015-08-04T23:25:09Z")
I collect old church/club/organization fundraising cookbooks. Like those published by the Junior League of Peoria, or the Mountain Riding Club of Bozeman. Where each recipe is contributed by a different person (usually named something like Mrs Enid Beyersdorf…or more accurately Mrs Walter Beyersdorf) and usually include gelatin, liver, or both. I don’t even actually make the recipes, but enjoy the look inside the culinary habits of a certain time and place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quirky-hobbies-pastimes-which-you-suspect-only-you-partake-in/726278.md?page=4)