Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Curiosity-driven “rabbit holes” are pulling technologists into everything from Neovim configs, NixOS, kernel tracing and USB internals to DIY audio, ham radio, figure skating, plant tissue culture, and homebuilt golf simulators. Many describe how a small question or constraint — needing better tooling, self-hosting services, fixing old hardware, or optimizing a hobby — snowballs into deep study, new skills, and sometimes entire career pivots. Alongside the fun and satisfaction, there’s a shared awareness of overengineering, time sinks, and how easily modern tools and communities make it to turn any niche interest into a long-term obsession.

Developer tools, OSes, and infrastructure

  • Many dove into editor and keyboard ecosystems: Neovim (often via ThePrimeagen), NvChad, custom layouts, Colemak(-DH), split/ortholinear boards, home-row mods, and ergonomic mice/trackpads.
  • Linux and Unix rabbit holes are common: NixOS and Nix package manager, Linux From Scratch, Gentoo→“something stable” arcs, BSDs, V7 Unix on a PDP-11 emulator, NetBSD/OpenBSD.
  • People rebuilt dev setups: Docker, self-hosted services, Matrix bots, local LLM frontends, and media servers (Jellyfin/Veso, Immich, Synapse).
  • Others dug into lower-level systems: Linux kernel networking, eBPF/XDP, io_uring, etcd and distributed systems basics, Spring Boot config walls, and Postgres query planner/EXPLAIN.

Hardware, embedded, and retro tech

  • Homebrew electronics: ESP32/MicroPython altimeters, Meshtastic/LoRa nodes, USB/PD and custom device classes, BLDC motor control (VESC), pan/tilt camera rigs, and custom PCBs.
  • Retro computing and consoles: CP/M/Z80 emulation, PS3 homebrew, 8080/8086-based synths, decompilation/delinking of binaries, vintage synth firmware, and HD44780 LCD history.
  • Time-nut pursuits: GPSDOs, OCXOs/TCXOs, counters, disciplining oscillators, and Influx/Grafana monitoring.

Making, CAD, and DIY audio

  • Strong interest in CAD: Fusion 360, Plasticity, SolveSpace, FreeCAD debates, and CAD→CNC/3D-printing workflows, including rapid prototyping, fixtures, and even injection-mold tooling.
  • DIY audio: building speakers, amps, DACs and synth modules; beating commercial speakers on cost/performance; extensive recommendations of designers, kits, and communities.

Science, history, and formal study

  • Deep dives into black holes, Hawking radiation, primordial black holes as dark-matter candidates, and loop quantum gravity “bounce” ideas.
  • Historical and religious rabbit holes: early Christianity, Gospel of Thomas/Judas, Exodus/Sea Peoples/Minoan genetics, and San Francisco politics of the 19th century.
  • Formal methods, group theory, Collatz conjecture, research identifiers (DOI/PubMed/Bibcode), music theory, kinesiology, and wealth-tax literature.

Food, drink, and physical hobbies

  • Culinary science: milk punch and food filtration/chemistry; cocktails and mixology patterns; coffee gear and carbon-steel pan seasoning.
  • Physical pursuits: figure skating, running/workout planning tools, golf simulators, e-bikes/motorcycles with experimental batteries, and rocketry.

Games, media, and entertainment tech

  • Gaming-related: Linux-as-escape-from-gaming that became a career, Texas Hold’em with equity/Kelly Criterion, FPV drones, retro Atari games, MH370 investigations, and PS2 DVRs.
  • Audio/visual tools: iOS music apps/AUv3, loopers, Suno/Udio music generation, film photography and Kodak manufacturing, and PDF performance profiling.

Life, careers, and meta

  • Several trace major life changes to “small” rabbit holes (installing Linux, joining hackerspaces, tinkering with servers).
  • Others reflect on motivation loss, gaming vs life’s “grind,” and how deep exploration shapes long-term skills and careers.