[MrVandemar]

> I understand passion projects and the article hints that might be the reason, but I just don’t understand why people would spend such enormous amounts of effort on such weird projects.

There's a great side-effect to these quirky projects. There's a Christian/Bible story called The Unmoved Rock. Essentially God tells some guy to go push against a huge boulder and he damn well near kills himself trying to move it over and over. After a while he complains and God points out that he never asked him to move the rock, just to push it, and now the guy is totally ripped and strong as an ox.

Essentially, however useless or niche these things are, you yourself grow with the making and crafting of them. You exercise and develop your creative thinking, and your problem solving skills.

[NateEag]

> There's a Christian/Bible story called The Unmoved Rock.

Where did you learn this story?

I'm curious, because it's a cute little anecdote/illustration, but I'm fairly confident it's not in the Protestant Bible, having read that several times.

[MrVandemar]

No idea where I learned that story. I'm an athiest so it was something that bubbled up out of the broader culture that stuck, rather than a result of specific study. A bit like the footprints-in-the-sand story I guess.

It's called "The Unmoved Rock", and available on-line.