• 5 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Instead of visiting the Mall of America and shopping at only what the mall will offer, using outdated infrastructure-- you can instead visit a variety of towns (“instances”) which each host their own cute boutiques (“communities”) specializing in a particular sort of item (whatever the topic of the community is). The instances can have their own rules that apply to its communities, but communities can also make their own rules, like a shop can. Skip the crowds and barely functional Supermall experience and find a better place to engage in discussion and get information.




  • My opinion is likely outdated. I was really excited for the stream deck, but it struggled to work properly when I received it. And there were often issues with the clock and wifi that made it nearly impossible to use. Throw in some issues with audio not playing over tv speakers…

    It ended up becoming an expensive paperweight over the last few months as it brought me memories of frustration and buyers regret rather than joy.

    I’m not trying to make anyone angry or anything. Many people here seem to love it, so maybe I should give it another go. I hope some updates have maybe increased its performance. Just wanted to share my honest experience…









  • After seeing the new and the campy old Dune movies, I’ve been listening to the first book. About 1/3 through. I love the writing, but I find myself exhausted with the trope of “creepy bad fat man loves to abuse young boys”. I imagine that this book influenced the same character archetype in the first Eve Online novel. But, as a gay man, it feels very frustrating like gay pedophilia is somehow being characterized as /the worst pedophilia/ when ALL of it is abhorrent. The gay themes just added to increase the “ick” factor for the common straight reader even more? To really seal in the evilness? Idk, it’s annoying, especially when there’s so much anti-lgbt hate being spread with accusations of pedophilia and grooming, but it seems non-lgbt individuals are making these art… Rant about harmful tropes aside, I am surprised by how well both movies stuck to the main events, although the book is much more likeable than either. The audio file is… Around online.




  • I like the new location, due to the principle of federation itself. It’s interesting to see how theaet many smaller communities will evolve, especially those of identical interests on different instances. There’s an inherent messiness to the situation as we’re mostly humans, so all the “baggage” I wish would stay on Reddit is someone else’s entire enjoyment here…

    I’ve also been surprised how many people are eagerly becoming moderators – there are many communities I’d like to see, but am not convinced I could even moderate effectively, so it’s impressive.

    That said, I worry some of the excitement is due to novelty and self-convincing, like when people say “This is fun, right?” But maybe I’m just a bit too skeptical. Regardless, I’m enjoying the ride thusfar, and love seeing people’s effort on instances, communities, apps be celebrated. It helps convince me that humans do enjoy cooperative success.





  • Sure thing. I was quite young, but I think it was multiple occurrences, none of them scary so I thought not too much of it.

    I was often in our kitchen from which extended a hallway, my room was on the hallway left. It was a very small house, so every room was off the hallway lol. I often would be sitting at the table eating, at the end of the table. I would have my back-left side to the hallway, and my mother would always complain about unnecessary lights being on, so the hallway lights would be off although the kitchen lights on, and brought enough to light half the hallway. See the attached image. I’m making a better version now, but this shittier version will help with the layout for now. Lol.

    Anyway, I would see this Dick Tracy type man watching me as I would eat or whatever, just inside the hallway and out of view of the others. I distinctly remember thinking, “Oh, he looks a bit of Dick Tracy.” Which was strange, as I never saw a movie about him. Just felt like the right words. Now, I can say–Same coat. Same hat. Always just a shadow person. NEVER the evil red or white eyes reported by some others. No eyes whatsoever. Never aggressive. Never intimidating. Just… unsettling and cold to realize one is watching you… I do believe it to be the same entity multiple times. I was never sleep-- although as a funny side story, I once left some laundry in a pile in my bed when I was young and lazy, and when I woke up and looked at it, I thought it was Abraham Lincoln shaped in my sleepy state and got scared haha.

    This happened occasionally until I aged. Fast forward to just this year, and someone I know on Mastodon posted about it. I watched a video, was shocked. I thought it was something my child brain had imagined. I’m not sure I even believe in ghosties. I’m agnostic. I couldn’t even have an imaginary friend because it made me feel silly like I was obviously making it up and trying to fool myself (later this has been my experience with org. religion as well).

    As I mentioned, hard to say it’s not a weird… Shared pareidolic experience due to the nature of the human brain. Or maybe he’s a System Admin making sure my code isn’t buggy in the simulation we live in (why not?). But it fills me with wild curiosity that I’ve experienced such a weird phenomenon. I’ve never “seen a ghost” otherwise.

    Regardless of the cause… It’s fun to tell my new parent friends to ask their children if they’ve seen a hat man…