Nusm

Me. It is me. For my friends I am that person!

One word - Apollo. Reddit killed it, and I left and came to Lemmy. Much happier here with more authentic engagement, and Voyager gets the job done.

I can’t say I never go back over there, but it’s almost always for live sports threads. Those just haven’t caught on yet here, though it slowly seems to be happening.

Sorry, my bad. Here you go:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/2d68cb1ee7b84f08ace2fd600b9855b5

If you’re on iOS, there’s a shortcut that dims your screen, begins recording video, and sends the video to anyone you choose from your contact list. Pretty basic, but also free.

Nope, nope, nope, he’s not taking it from me. It was my favorite color back when he was only bankrupting casinos…. and universities…. and alcohol… and steaks.

Orange. My students used to ask me why, and I would tell them that I like bright colors, but red is a mad color - STOP sign, fire, angry emoji. Orange on the other hand is cheery, it’s a happy red!

My mother passed away, and as an only child with very little other family, it fell on my wife and me to deal with her estate. After everything was settled, we took a getaway trip to unwind and decompress. While on the trip, we were offered a chance to go to a sales pitch meeting one morning. We would be given some really good gifts if we listen to their one hour presentation. We went in with the firm understanding that we were going to say “NO“ to everything, get our free gifts, and leave.

It was a pitch for a Hotel club. You were supposed to get great deals on any hotel anywhere in the world. Just call up, give them the company name and member number, and collect your discounts. They even offered us enough extra memberships that we could give one to each of our kids. It was quite pricey, but we actually had some money from my mother‘s estate, and what they offered was a great deal. We would have eventually over time gotten back in savings the money we spent.

When we got home and began researching it, it turns out that we had been lied to (shocker I know). They just said yes to any question I asked even if it was a bold faced lie. The discounts were only on exotic resorts in places like Key West, Cabo, etc., and for weeks long to months long stays. That’s definitely not us, which made this a complete waste of money. Luckily I kept the contract and followed the cancellation policy to a T. I stopped payment on the check I wrote them, and interestingly, they sent me a check in the mail for the same amount a couple weeks later. Had I not had any morals, I could’ve doubled my money by cashing it, but, while it would have served them right, I didn’t want to be a scammer like they were.

On the upside, we got the “gifts”, so there’s that.

I’m dead serious about my pens. Some want expensive tennis shoes, some will get by with cheap ones. Some want the nicest, fanciest, sportiest cars, some just want basic transportation. Some want a mansion, others just need a roof over their heads. It’s all in what you put emphasis on. For me it’s pens, something I use all day every day during work. My wife will use whatever plastic pen with a broken clip that she finds on the floor, but I want something a little nicer that feels good in the hand.

And while you think $100 is a lot, it’s really not in the machined pen community. Fellhoelter pens can go for hundreds or even a thousand. The best thing that happened to me was for my wife to go with me to a pen show (yes, they have pen shows). Fountain pen prices can be insane, and she saw some for $20,000 and $25,000. It made my $100-$200 machined pens not look so bad! She’s still not happy about me spending money on pens, but after the pen show she knows that it could be SO much worse!

There’s a good sized market for metal machined pens that take standard refills like Parker-style or Pilot G2. If you use one once, you’ll either get it or think it’s stupid. If you get it, the rabbit hole can be deeeeeeeep.

When I pay $100 for a pen, I don’t lose it!

Seriously, I’ve never lost one in the years that I’ve carried them. And the writing experience is drastically different than writing with a cheap plastic one.

I’m a big fan of the Tactile Turn machined pens. They are made in titanium, copper, and bronze, and they have microgrooves for grip. They make bolt and click pens in standard and slim width. They take either Pilot G2 refills, Parker-style refills, or (in the case of the mini) Pilot G2 mini refills.

http://www.tactileturn.com/

I was on .world too, but I’m from Georgia, so I like being on yall.theatl.social much better. It’s a smaller, more tight knit community, and it’s in Atlanta, so it’s more-or-less local for me.

I used Apollo to browse Reddit. It was really a great app, and it made browsing Reddit enjoyable. The dev, Christian, listened to his users, frequently updated and improved the app, was active in the subreddit, and seemed to care about making it a positive experience. It really was like being a part of a club.

It wasn’t just that Reddit shut down the API, but the way they boldfaced lied about Christian and their interactions with him. He was feverishly in talks with them to save the app, but Reddit not only wasn’t negotiating in good faith, but even worse, lying about the interactions to try to smear Christian and make him look like the villain. It was then that I knew that Reddit would never be the same, and I started looking for alternatives.

I tried several, but Lemmy seemed to be the closest to Reddit and scratched the itch. Not only that, an amazing dev created Voyager, which is heavily inspired by Apollo, (pretty much a direct copy), and makes me feel at home. There’s not as many communities here as subreddits over there, but I have curated a great Home feed, which includes most of my interests and that I enjoy browsing. I can honestly say the comments here are much better and more authentic. On the whole I get real replies and have better conversations instead of trolls and confrontations like I frequently did at Reddit. I do stop in over there sometimes out of boredom and browse, but it’s really not the same as before. (And maybe it is, and I was just fooling myself and not seeing it.) I don’t think I’ve posted or commented on Reddit since Apollo died except on live sports game feeds, which I do miss over here. I found a regional instance that I like, and, on the whole, I really enjoy it here.

TLDR: API killed Apollo.

As far as puzzle games, SevenBloks is my most played game by FAR. I play on Toughness mode, and the games are pretty quick. It’s a combination of equal parts strategy and luck.

For sports games, Retro Bowl & Retro Bowl College (American football) are the best $1 per game I’ve ever spent. I’ve lost track of the number of seasons I’ve played on both.

Wow, this is actually simple but strategic. Thanks for posting it!

I use 2 online savings sites.

One is Acorns, which connects to your bank account and takes the roundup amounts when you buy something and puts it into an account. For example, if you buy something that’s $2.79, it puts the roundup $.11 in your account, then invests that money to help it grow. You can choose whether your investment is safe and produces low relatively safe returns, moderate risk/return, or high risk that can produce high return or can lose money. I have mine set to moderate, and I get decent returns.

The other used to be called Digit, but now it’s called Oportun. You connect it to your bank account, and it monitors your spending. It takes some out and puts it in savings based on how much you have in your account and how much it thinks you can spare. The thing I like is that it all happens in the background, and I don’t have to do anything. It just saves money for me. Right after I get paid it takes larger chunks than at the end of the month when it might only take a few cents.

If I need my money back, Acorns takes about a week because they have to sell off my stocks and then transfer the money back to my bank account. Oportun usually has any money I withdraw back in my bank account on the next business day. Both of them are FDIC insured.

I mean, yeah, but the question was about what do I wish was on Lemmy.

There’s a whole sports server at fanatacus.social, but it doesn’t seem to get much engagement for some reason.

I wish there was more sports engagement, specifically college and pro football. It’s about the only thing that keeps me going back over to the other place.

Yes please