Emulate classic games
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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slap a controller on that bad boy and practice your street fighter 2 combos. That's an easy half hour right there
Wikipedia. Ballz game.
Doomscroll the news, play some games, check if there are any updates to social media accounts. If I'm feeling ambitious I'll follow rabbit holes on wikipedia or google some obscure science subjects.
My daily habits are: Check Lemmy (repeatedly), do all of the daily NYT games, open two Pokémon TCG packs, and do a single lesson on DuoLingo.
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The Wikipedia app or Wikireader
Find the lesser posted contributors to your field/s of interest, read them, post them, share your thoughts.
This means you are actively using social media, actively considering different texts in subjects you already have an interest in, and actively using your brain to make considered contributions.
This is my go to. Take a look at my post history in aussie-enviro. I continually go out of my way to find environmental or conservation organisations themselves instead of waiting only for a news site like Guardian to do a write up themselves.
I'm finding my reading speed and attentiveness has improved, and i've better knowledge recall, especially on key details. Its of course fun as well.
Read books, comics, journalist articles, chess puzzles, crosswords
I have anki decks that i don't use on everyday basis especially for that. You can spend from 2 seconds to hours on this.
OpenSudoku. With extra puzzles :)
I discovered this app the other week. The UI is the best there is, and downloading extra puzzles is just awesome, and so easy. Now I have about half a million sudokus to solve. Other apps are what, a couple of hundred puzzles at most, and then it's over.
NYT Games: Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, Mini crossword puzzles. They refresh every day
Post on Lemmy between meetings
There's always some number of browser tabs, old apps, or miscellaneous files that accumulate on my phone. I like to clean those up during otherwise wasted time like waiting in line or while on public transport.
I do solitaire, cryprograms, crossword and mahjong, and sometimes I'll read creepypastas from the archive like I used to do in highschool
Other than that if I know I'll have to wait somewhere and occupy myself I bring a book with me.
I also just got back on the creepypasta archive!
Very nostalgic and some of them are, earnestly, very good!!
Physical Games
Not sure what your personal in-person social circle looks like but playing physical games (board/card, etc) with people is great. Spent 2 weeks with family and we had a blast playing some games every night.
A few I really enjoyed:
- 5 Crowns
- Phase 10
- Cribbage (good grief the rules are nuts)
- Hues and Cues
- Organ Attack
3D Printing
A time sink hobby is 3D Printing. It’s a challenge enough, and can be so low cost per part, that it’s fun. Starting with a lower cost 3D printer means the cost of entry is not much. Once you get a printer dialed printing things for people and functional prints for home is great. You can also learn 3D Modeling enough to design your own prints. Definitely gonna take some time to do so.
Retro Gaming
If you like retro games setting up a retro handheld is a ton of fun and then playing the games is great too. Handhelds from Anbernic, Retroid, or Powkiddy is a low cost of entry and much higher quality than you think, and they can run up to PS1/N64/Dreamcast. Took me ~1 month to go from never having done one to having a great OS with a tailored UI (Anbernic RG40XXV running Knulli OS). Going over guides from Retro Game Corps (YouTube and website) was easy but took long enough to teach me a ton.
Gardening
Obviously depends on your personal circumstances but even if you’re in a city/apartment a lot of cities/towns have community gardens. Setting up a raised garden is pretty easy and doesn’t have to cost a ton. Maintaining it is a challenge based on your location and takes learning many different skills. We grow Lettuce, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Green Beans. We had no success with Tomatoes in our climate (although a lot of people have no issue growing them). We’ve had limited success with potatoes (another really easy to grow crop, that we suck at, lol).
Canning
My wife LOVES canning. That’s a massive rabbit hole in its own right. Cost of entry is decently mid due to having to buy canning supplies like the glass jars (called cans), lids, rings, canning pots, pressure cooker, etc. You’ll get incredible quality vegetables and fruits out of it and can can meats and other things. My wife has been canning for 5 years now and we don’t buy store bought canned vegetables and fruits anymore. You wont really save any costs but you will know exactly what you’re eating. Does take having access to fresh produce at local markets to make it as cheap as the grocery store.
I actually made a great setup for retro gaming at home. I have my Linux PC connected to a KVM over LAN to the living room TV. Hyprland lets me set keybinds to run scripts to turn off my computer monitors, turn on the TV, switch audio (still working out a few kinda with audio actually), and then launch emulationstation-DE which is a front end for launching the games on each emulator.
It's great running everything on a PC with decent specs, I have a 5800x and 6700 XT. It can do all the old games obviously, and up to PS3 and switch games, upscaled to 4K and with a bangin audio system.
Surprisingly, there's very little latency issues or lag over the kvm. Or if there are I can't notice them.
It might be worth a go to play the handheld ones on my phone however. Playing GBA and DS games on my big living room TV seems a bit silly haha
A few reasons I prefer the exclusive handheld game route.
- Gets you away from your internet connected device. No distracting notifications coming in
- It’s dedicated to it so it’s really good at it.
- No battery life hit to your phone.
- Higher learning curve (this goes to time filler which is what you wanted).
- Sitting on the couch, playing it outside/while traveling is great with it.
Organ attacks a good one.
Same here, Manga and lemmy. I've been slowly trying to add discord to the rotation but I find it taxing. It's so hard to keep track of which friend group is which and I can't label servers with my own label
I mean, people were fine without social media before, I dont think we need those. :) At least not the big tech ones.
I only technically have smartphone. its either not on me or turned off in a foil pouch.
The pouch also lets people know that you’re totally sane.
not only my phone case but my wallet. Not sure how someone could tell at a glance though.
wait does this mean your head/brain are unprotected?? risky
No its not made to do wireless communication.
guys he doesn’t know
Tighrope most days https://www.britannica.com/quiz/tightrope
Other than that just Lemmy.
Keep meaning to try learning Chess so I can play it online a little.
Is this Phil Dunphy?
Who?
A Modern Family reference. Nevermind, its a bit dated now i guess.
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I play 20questions, and then get upset at the contradictions in my answers to others'
Read using REadEra, play Forge of Empires - plus Lemmy via Voyager.
I read comics/manga, browse Lemmy and read news mostly, and not in any particular order. Otherwise I do games like Wordle or just look up how to do home projects on YouTube.
So go into learning more about your hobbies?