What is a hobby you enjoy, but seems too quirky or obscure to bring up in most conversations?
What is a hobby you enjoy, but seems too quirky or obscure to bring up in most conversations?
Mine would be creating pen and paper ciphers for my made up secret communication needs.
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I am learning lockpicking for fun. It helps me relax. I used a practice lock at first, then a cheap real lock. I've just learned that my firearms lock...yup, can be picked open in about 10 seconds. Equal parts cool and terrifying. Locks are waaay less secure than people think.
It has the same "internet hacker" stigma so I avoid talking about it.
I miss lockpicking, it's so cathartic. I used to have a small set of picks and folks near my desk at the office would often try to pop a padlock I kept around when we were bored. I liked how everyone seemed so interested in the ease with which you can pop many locks.
So got a question for you. I have wanted to get in to this - just as a curiosity. Is there an inexpensive set of picks a person can buy to get started with to play around with?
I tried googling and ran across about a hundred different suggestions and Amazon was the usual (no help).
If you're familiar with the Lock Picking Lawyer, he has his own store and has some good kits.
https://covertinstruments.com/collections/lockpicks/products/learn-lockpicking-bundle
I'm not getting any sort of kickbacks from the link. I picked one of these bundles up and I like it. The lock it comes with is super handy because it's designed to be re-pinned. You can change the pins without disassembling the entire lock.
Ah thank you for the suggestion!
Covert Instruments sells a kit with a pick, rake, turning tool, and a practice lock for about $10
Thanks! I will check it out.
I've had this small 5 piece set in my backpack since before instructions for anything could be easily found on the internet. It had to have been $10 or less.
I bought the Covert Instruments FNG (* new guy) set for $10. The Genesis set is $28 and is more full featured.
You almost only need the tension prybar + like 2-3 pins IMO. U bought a whole kit (cheap) and I use only the orybar + one of the pins.
Well...I enjoy what I have. Some locks are smaller so smaller rakes and torsion bars would help.
Check out toool. It's where I started when I got into the hobby.
I got into it a bit during COVID and practiced a bit on a practice lock that I could repin myself. After being able to regularly open it without too much trouble, I decided to try my front door lock - thinking it would be a much harder challenge since it was a real lock.
Nope. Shit popped open almost instantly. It blew my mind! After watching Lock Picking Lawyer, I figured that a skilled attacker could get into most locks eventually, but I didn't realize that most house locks require virtually no skill to open. And it's literally easier (and significantly less attention grabbing) than breaking a window!
Sorry police officer, but the door was open ajar so hrem I just wanted to check if everything was alright you see?
Had a guy just being mind blown for the whole evening lock picking my way into my apartment, and then open some lock he had on his luggage (all very basic).
Saw him a year later when I had forgot about it and he still was startled about the evening 😁😅
Lol that just reminded me of something only vaguely related. Back in the day I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft with a friend. One day in the middle of a gaming session, he went "HOLY SHIT! There's a naked guy sleeping on my couch!"
A couple things to note:
- His couch and his gaming setup were both in his living room, barely 3 feet apart.
- We had been playing for at least 2 hours at this point.
My friend woke naked guy up, who was very drunk and confused. Apparently my friend kept his apartment door unlocked and naked guy stumbled in at some point, thinking it was his apartment, stripped down, and then passed out on the couch. Still don't know how long he was there for, but probably several hours before my friend noticed
So yeah, lock your doors people. They might not keep out a thief, but at least you won't have a random naked dude pass out on your furniture.
I love lockpicking! It's got a really nice tactile click when the lock opens. Too bad there's not a lot of locks to practice on (legally, anyways)
And yeah, I agree - locks are really more of a psychological hindrance rather than an actual hindrance. Although, for what it's worth, I don't know of that many people who can lockpick, so in that sense, a lock at least decreases the number of people who can get through