Dead, burnt, and blown up kids in Afghanistan. I’m an atheist now. I wish people didn’t need first hand experience to change their minds, myself included.
I don't believe we had any right to be there. While I don't know too many war veterans, a handful I met were absolutely head fucked from going to war. They went in wanting money for school, and they came out feeling like they got scammed all the way. Or fucked up permanently from some accident. Only one I ever met who was a decent human being that wasn't bitter was a cop. And I swear to god he walked the line because he was a cop. And 10/10 he was a good guy. But I would hate everything. I would scorch the Earth around me and walk with tears. I come from a military family, but was so very gay. Which stopped me from enlisting. And I am so thankful that my queer ass stayed out because I for sure would have been destroyed had I enlisted. Big hugs, and big sorrows. If you have the ability and the heart, you should find a way to spread your story. Through some kind of publication. Something that can be documented. Perhaps not now, but even when you're older (I know a lot of people tend to share their stories that could get them in trouble later in life to sort of gloss over mitigation). They're important to share, because you witness the atrocities of man. I didn't grow up during the AIDS crisis, but in hearing the stories passed on it really changed my feelings about the world and the way it works. I am still moved by the stories, as I am moved by yours. So I hope you get a chance to share on a larger scale at some point in your life. And that it doesn't harm you too much in doing so. Safe healing, tender heart.
i used to really enjoy CasualUK on Reddit, but those mods, and actually some of the other Redditors, just felt like they were in some sort of ‘click’, and if they deemed you not cool enough, then you were made not to feel very welcome, you know?
First and foremost welcome to the threadiverse, the long-form version of the fediverse or simply, the Reddit alternative bka Lemmy.
Disclaimer, I’m very active in this community, so I’m not really the man to do your induction.
What I will tell you though, is that Lemmy is 100% what you make it. My advice to you is to stay away from ALL and also to stay away from Lemmy World. You will eventually find your way to both, but let it be on your terms and not your default interaction. Lemmy World is the biggest instance and so comes with the baggage of a lot of people dying to be heard and accepted by any means possible. ALL is the worst of that. If you stick to the communities you want, you’ll be fine. You’ll quickly notice some of the same names, but they’re all independent. You can be aligned with someone on something one minute and total against them in another topic and that’s healthy.
But as of right now, you’re the coolest person in this thread, so you’ve started well.
I love that I was fortunate to get a home in an old urban neighborhood in a city that’s pretty good. The tree coverage in my hood is nuts. I see a few mature black walnuts and a ton of mature pines among all the other smaller trees. I can walk to the grocery store with 80% canopy coverage the entire way.
I used to do HVAC work. About twenty years ago, I had to fix something in an attic, and the only entrance to that attic was through a large, messy room that obviously belonged to a teenage boy. At first, it seemed normal. Eventually, though, I realized everything in that boy’s room was kinda outdated. The CDs and magazines lying around had all come out a few years before, for example.
After finishing the job, I asked my boss about it. He told me that the kid had died a few years before from autoerotic asphyxiation (he accidentally strangled himself to death while jerking off), and his mother had found his body. She insisted that his room remain just as it was. She maintained it as some kind of shrine, unmade bed, jeans on the floor and all.
I couldn’t even imagine the emotional toll that must have taken on the family. Every. Single. Day. She refused to let them heal and move on. I only met the mother briefly, before I knew the whole story. I never met the husband or sister. I’m glad. Even if I was bribed to go back in that house, you couldn’t pay me enough to go upstairs. That kid’s room was, without exaggeration, the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Yeah. So sad that I didn’t like writing about it, but HAD to get it right, ya know?
The daughter’s room was way at the end of the hallway, so she had to walk past it every day. She was the younger of the two, but had become older than her brother was when he died. In fact, she was ready for college. I hope she got out of there and lived on campus.
Not me but an HVAC associate I dealt with. We had a shared customer that was a Masonic Temple. HVAC guy had to tour the building checking steam traps. Caretaker of the place is visibly uncomfortable as he has to unlock a door. Inside is an altar with a skeleton on it
Isopods like beer. When I had so many slugs I couldn't start lettuce without them eating the seed sprouts, I started an extended Oktoberfest in my back yard. My beer traps caught slugs and isopods. They can't resist. I can grow veggies again.
Mods are typically the people running - and paying for - the instance in most cases on Lemmy, and they tend to be active on the instances they run, so if you report a post it may well be to the person that made it.
Expect less active moderation and less content.
You’ll probably see a lot of reposts and batches of posts from the same communities if you sort by “New”.
Make liberal use of the “block” functions, for both users and communities.
Trolls, spam, DDOS attacks, etc etc, can be pretty common. Bugs seem to have smoothed out and are rarer than in the early days.
The Voyager client (on Android 14 at least) will reload if you switch away for more than a few seconds at a time. It’ll save your text if you have a comment in progress, but make sure you have a way to get back to what you were reading (save, upvote, etc) if you switch away to find a GIF or link or something so you can pick up where you left off.
Well, probably not what you’re looking for but I used to work yard maintenance for a property management company.
I was sent to rake and tidy up the back yard of some house. In the back, there was an entrance to a root cellar that was separate from the house and had crappy wooden doors covering it. I was told to open it up and sweep the steps leading down to the cellar.
I don’t have a problem with dark places, or bugs. But that was the first time I’d seen camel crickets. They were big, hump backed and striped. And there were dozens of them. I dutifully swept the steps, from the dead center of them, my eyes darting around constantly trying to gauge whether or not the weird ass bugs were about to launch themselves onto me. They didn’t. They were super chill.
I told my dad about it later and he laughed at me for not knowing what the crickets were because they were so common. I’ve only seen a few more since then, and they still kinda weird me out.
As a teenager, my parents would only let me have a PC if it was situated outside of my room, so naturally, I put my setup in my basement. I was excited to play games in the coolest (temp-wise) room in the house, up until the day a camel cricket decided to jump up my pants and continue to work its way up until I smashed it against myself.
I kept expecting one to jump from the walls above me as I went downstairs, get into the back of my shirt, and get squished as I try to get it out. It’s happened with house centipedes, and it’s not fun. Especially when their legs keep moving after their dead.
I've only ever seen camel crickets in one location, a house we moved into when I was around 12 or 13. None of us had ever seen one before. We called them spider crickets because at a glance they look very spidery.
You got lucky. Their mode of defense is actually to launch themselves directly at the threat. So we used to have to mentally prepare ourselves before walking into the basement because there would always be at least one spider cricket jumping right at us.
kbin.life
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