My hobbies (not nececcarily in priority order):
- Computers and Software
- Archery
- Listening to music
- Sci-fi movies and series
- Reading IT-bullshit
- Programming
- Folding@Home
- E-cigarettes
I have computers and software as a hobby and I run
at the moment just one machine, my desktop and workstation:
#1 A Jimm's Business Class President
(assembled initially in Jimm's PC Store) Xeon E3-1230v3 3,3GHz, 32GB
RAM, 250GB Samsung EVO SSD main OS & software storage, 1TB
Western Digital Caviar Black HDD, Asus RoG STRIX GTX 1060 OC 6GB GPU,
additional Gigabit PCI-e Intel Pro Desktop NIC for networking instead
of the default mainboard NIC, and a Dell U3415W 34" Ultawide QHD
display, OS: Windows 10 Professional.
The rest are history or not currently in use:
#2 A Raspberry Pi 3 B running Unbound, a forwarding
DNS server for my LAN and for Irssi (IRC client), OS: Raspbian
(latest stable release, "Stretch" at the moment);
#3 A now removed LibVirt/KVM VM with a Ubuntu 14.04
LTS based NIDS/HIDS/NSM/SIEM distro named
Security Onion.
Has 4 3.3GHz Haswsell-NoTSX cores, 12GB RAM, 500GB raw-format virtio
bus mass storage and two virtualized & brigded Intel Pro GBE NICs,
one for network connection, the other dedicated for packet sniffing.
Has for example Suricata, Bro, Netsniff-NG (pcap), OSSEC, Sguild, ELSA
and other network security tools and web-based user interfaces for
monitoring and analysis. I also connect with Sguil from my workstation
for SIEM (I guess that's what it is called?);
#4 A LibVirt/KVM VM with OpenBSD-stable for Unbound,
a forwarding DNS server for my LAN. Has 1 3.3GHz Haswell-NoTSX core,
512MB RAM, 8GB qcow2-format with virtio bus mass storage and bridged
virtio networking;
The mentioned virtual machines ran 24/7, suspending on workstation shutdowns and reboots and resuming at workstations OS boot. This was when I had Ubuntu LTS as my workstarion OS. I haven't tried Microsoft Hyper-V yet, but do have a Debian userland installed under Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for a SSH connection to a shell server running Irssi for using IRC. Locally in Debian under WSL I use Vim in its more native environment with jedi-python and other addons for hobbyist and practise for studies Python development.
#5, 486SX worked before as a firewall/router for my ADSL-connection, afterwards it became my LAN's secondary nameserver (just because I can ;)) and it was running fine until I took the little devil offline, but after a while I took it back to use as the DNS server on my LAN. Well, now it was time for it's original 100MB hard drive to fail after a long power outage which my UPS couldn't handle and forced a shutdown. It is sitting in my stereo rack unused and silently for now :'(
I also play a little with other virtual machines, having guest operating system like Minix, FreeBSD or FreeDOS. I test whatever perks my interest from the world of open source operating systems. Learning more about OpenSolaris-based distributions is on my list also, I have done some testing with OmniOS in the past and it seemed like a decent UNIX for server deployment, but this is just a preliminary impression.
Archery is a new hobby of mine and I joined Puijo Archery Club, (or in Finnish "Puijon Jousi ry") in April 2018. I shoot a budget friendly target compound bow, a Diamond Archery Medalist 38. For now I've found archery to be very relaxing, enhancing my focus at least for the time I'm shooting and for some time after a practice session. When all goes well one can find a really calm place while shooting, it's like there's nothing else but the excersise and even the missed or failed shots go by and a new arrow takes flight. I'm starting to get a hand of the form, instinctive release and such! I also feel my posture has become better, i can keep my shoulders with poise. Archery definately helps with posture, one needs to use the muscles in ones back (core muscles). Only "problem" I had with this hobby was aching fingers and finger joints from pulling the arrows from the target backings made from laminated rubber foam. The arrows seem to burn tightly and deep to the backing, no matter if I apply some silicone to them or not, so an arrow puller is a must it seems (which I've acquired now and it helps). I think I finally found a hobby which i can enjoy for the rest of my life with joy, improvements and interest. What a rush this archery is for me!
I also need arrows for my bow, these are Gold Tip Kinetic Pierce Target spine 400 with nock pins and Easton G pin nocks, nock collars, 140gr TopHat points and 50mm low profile XS Wings spin vaness. Other stuff I have for my bow are a Sure Loc Challenger 550 sight, a Mybo Ten Zone scope with a 0.75 diopter lens with a green 0.029" pin and a Ripcord X-Factor blade rest with a narrow 0.008" "Best" launcher blade. I also have a narrow 0.010" stiffness blade which may or may not be better, will see if I'll get to fine tuning my bow. Also need a quiver to keep my arrows while shooting, an Easton QH-100 Hip Quiver in red and black. A release aid is useful with a compound bow, I've got two handheld type with the same anchor and point of impact, a Tru-Fire Synapse thumb button and a Tru-Fire Sear hinge. I need to move the bow safely and For that I've got a Legend Everest 44 compound bow case which includes a Legend arrow tube inside for safe arrow transport.
I listen to a wide range of musical genres from Black Metal to Classical, Techno and Ambient. My audio gear is comprised of Yamaha NX-N500 active speaker pair, a Cambridge Audio DACmagic XS USB DAC/headphone amp and Bose QuietComfort 35 II headphones.
From Sci-fi movies my favorites are for example Bladerunner, Minority Report and Star Wars (especially the three last and oldest episodes). Movies based on Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories are always to my liking. From series I've watched Star Treks, Babylon 5, Stargates, Eureka, Farscape etc. Most of the time my video player is mpv.
I program with Java, Perl, Python and POSIX sh, for web sites also a little with PHP (not really, I've forgotten that ;D). Still, I'm just a beginner or intermediate in all these languages. Perl and shell scripting skills are my strongest point.
I read mainly IT literature if I can. "Sinuhe the Egyptian", or just "The Egyptian" in Finnish from Mika Waltari is in my never-will-finish readings...
If you are interested in learning Perl programming, then I suggest you read Learning Perl book from O'Reilly, very fun and interesting basic Perl programming guidebook.
I was participating in Folding@Home with my Xeon workstation, statistics at the bottom of this page.
E-cigarettes, well, i stopped smoking years ago and turned to E-cigarettes (no tar, no carbon monoxide and all the other carcinogens). You'll see my stats on that too at the bottom of this page.
