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Message: <blockquote data-quote="1Mac" data-source="post: 5996911" data-attributes="member: 48998">What can you tell us about geeky hobbies that are outside what is commonly considered "geek culture?" By "geek culture", I mean the nexus between hobby gaming and genre fandom, with some overlapping interest in science and technology. By a geeky hobby, I mean a hobby that may seem strange to people outside the hobby because of the arcana or specificity of its focus, but which attracts a lot of intense devotion to those on the inside. This obviously includes RPGs and similar games, but it also includes many activities and interests that don't fit the mainstream idea of what a geek is. Examples of what I mean possibly include fantasy sports, bird watching, or dollhouse building. If it's a geeky hobby that isn't a common topic on "The Big Bang Theory," it's probably something that fits with the topic of this thread.The point here isn't to sneer, but to perhaps realize that there are many people who we wouldn't necessarily consider geeks who have the same love for a hobby that we do for RPGs and other stereotypically geeky interests. Consider it a search for common ground between niche groups that otherwise wouldn't think to associate. If you can teach us something about a hobby that we would be unlikely to know, even better.I'll start with a hobby I was into for many years as a young person and still take an interest in. We all probably know a little bit about model railroading. We definitely have heard about the archetypal train set around the Christmas tree. We may have seen the detailed, realistic layouts people build to run their model trains through. What I think few people outside the hobby have heard of is what model railroaders call "operation." That's when you build your model railroad as though it were an actual railroad, servicing various industries by hauling goods from one to-scale client to another. You can get a bunch of buddies together, assign one guy to be the dispatcher, and have everyone else be an engineer of their own train. You then run your trains in accordance with invoices, timetables, maintenance, and any other aspect of running a railroad you can think of. Operation is basically LARPing for model railroaders.</blockquote>

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