Having a monthly "Show HN-athon" would be nice (or is that already a thing and I always miss them?).
- I did some woodworking at the start of lockdown. It was very therapeutic. Built a small table with a flip-top back where charging accessories can be stored: https://imgur.com/ea67ANO
- A new image hashing algorithm that can recognize matching photos even in extreme cases like disparate crops from a parent image. Used it to help my friend dedupe their school's yearbook: https://blog.hmac.io/2020/06/10/writing-new-image-hashing-al...
- Currently building an escape room for my wife's birthday. Poor little 3D printer is working overtime this quarantine :)
Back in college I got the bug for woodworking, so I went to the local big-box, bought a hand saw, screws, an electric drill/driver, and some wood. I built a spice rack using just that. It came out _terrible_. Lopsided, broken drill bits inside it, brackets holding it together. I had no idea how stain worked, so I bought a can of stain and threw the whole thing into a trash bag with the wood to leave it for a day.
I still have that ugly spice rack. Sometimes the best way to learn is to just do.
Many years later I got the bug again and that time I started spending more time on YouTube. I find videos to be an incredible resources, whether I'm browsing for something specific or just watching good content and learning secondarily. Matthias Wandel has a channel with a variety of content that's worth watching just on its own, but you'll learn endless amounts of woodworking skills as well. Steve Ramsey's channel is great, though his videos can definitely be a bit annoying to watch. Really there are too many great channels to name. Best bet is to figure out what kind of thing you _want_ to build and then search for videos on how to build that. I guarantee there will be hundreds of great, simple tutorials.
If you've got a woodworking store nearby (e.g. Rockler) they often have free or cheap classes that can be great even for newcomers. Those are great because you don't need any tools; they provide everything. And they cover a wide range of stuff so you can figure out what kind of woodworking you like. Maybe you like turning wood, or working with a scroll saw to build small decorative pieces. I attend a Father's Day class where we made a wooden bow tie. It was free and introduced me to scroll saws, inlays, and spray varnish. Best of all, I got a great gift to give my father at the end of it.
Thanks, already subscribed to those channels. Thing is, much like a lot of comments here where devs want to learn new tech but struggle to come up with a side project idea, I can’t really think of anything useful that’d be within a beginner’s skillset. Anyways, thanks for the thoughtful reply and maybe watching a few videos will spark my creativity!
- I did some woodworking at the start of lockdown. It was very therapeutic. Built a small table with a flip-top back where charging accessories can be stored: https://imgur.com/ea67ANO
- And some more woodworking to build a shoe rack (never enough room for all our shoes): https://i.imgur.com/ihw12YT.jpg
- A Raspberry Pi using BigGAN to constantly "daydream" weird, artistic photos: https://blog.hmac.io/2020/06/08/a-daydreaming-ai-for-my-desk...
- A new image hashing algorithm that can recognize matching photos even in extreme cases like disparate crops from a parent image. Used it to help my friend dedupe their school's yearbook: https://blog.hmac.io/2020/06/10/writing-new-image-hashing-al...
- Currently building an escape room for my wife's birthday. Poor little 3D printer is working overtime this quarantine :)