Spyke
general·General DiscussionbyElectroVagrant

Welcome! Newcomer Resources and Help

Thanks for checking this out! Below you'll find a few different resources to help you figure things out around here, but also feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. The aim of this post is to provide a reference point for new and returning people, so save or bookmark it and return to it either to ask questions or simply refresh your memory.

Is there an app?
For sites using Lemmy, yes, several in fact. One of the more often recommended ones for both iOS and Android is the Voyager app. Another cross-platform option is the Thunder app. For questions and discussions of other apps for sites using Lemmy, you may check out [email protected].

For sites using Mbin, and for Android and Linux there's currently the Interstellar app.

For sites using Piefed, there are no apps, but it's built to work well as a Progressive Web App.

Where's support?
Each site and app may have its respective support community and/or support contact info, which will differ accordingly, so this is out of scope for this post. Nevertheless you may ask for guidance below, and there's also the following community for people new to Lemmy in particular: [email protected]

For help and feedback on the software behind the sites, it's a little easier:

Where do I find new communities/subreddits?
Ask here, or [email protected]! You may also browse the front page of your chosen site (such as Lemmy World, Piefed Social, Kbin Earth, or the like), which will usually display the variety of communities people there may have subscribed to.

Otherwise, you may subscribe to the following communities:

Lastly, you may check out Lemmyverse to search even more broadly.

Can I make my own community?
It depends on the site you signed up on, but usually yes. Generally it's better to do so from a computer than a smartphone though, as you're less likely to run into odd issues that way. If you find you can't for some reason, ask below (mentioning whether trying from computer/smartphone and using apps or not) and someone may try to help you out, directing you to your site's support or otherwise.

If all has gone well, you may want to subscribe to [email protected] to talk to others working on building up communities.

Why is it asking me to sign in to post a comment?
You may have followed a link to a different site using Lemmy (or the like) than the one you registered on without realizing it, which at present is an unfortunate rough edge of things here. Signing up to one site doesn't provide a single sign-on to other sites using Lemmy or similar.

What's federation?
Without getting into the weeds, it's different websites sharing content between themselves to enable interaction with each other. Unless you're deep into all this or issues arise, ideally this should fade into the background. It's talked about a lot currently because many here are deep into it, and a lot of the software built around it is still developing, so unfortunately issues do still occur.

Any other questions or resources to add, the comments are open!

View original on lemmy.world
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Comments1
general·General DiscussionbyElectroVagrant

Highlighting Creative, Humanities, Entertainment, and Sports Communities.

This is not a comprehensive list by any means, and is why I'm featuring this post and leaving it open to comments. I may update this as people make suggestions, and I encourage others to make their own variations on this list in the comments or in their respective versions of this community.

Also to clarify some terms here, by active I'm aiming for at least some commenting on recent-ish posts, not merely recent posts, and by the topic names...I'll let the linked communities serve as examples.

::: spoiler 🎨 Creative Communities 🎨
Fabricraft

Music

Photography

Visual

Writing

Food

Wood

::: spoiler 🗿 Humanities 🗿
Visual Art

Literary Art

History & Anthropology

Language/Linguistics

Philosophy

Religion & Spirituality

::: spoiler 😄 Entertainment 😄 and 😌 Relaxation 😌 Playing

Watching

Reading and Listening

Multimedia

Music

Growing

Aww Animals

::: spoiler 🏅 Sports 🏅

Hope this helps any newcomers find some different communities to join and participate in!

p.s. also keep an eye on this post as a useful resource for a broader range of communities than those listed here, and recently, more regularly updated.

View original on lemmy.world
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Comments9
general·General DiscussionbyCactus_Head

Phones are not "Just a Tool"

A Tank is a tool, a Gun is a tool, that doesn't tell you anything about the nature of the thing being described. A casino Machine is a tool, a Knife is a tool, a hair brush is a tool, still doesn't tell you anything about what the thing being described, except for that it is an object that a person can use to make an impact somehow.

It drives me crazy that when people are talking about the problems with modern technology, someone will always reply with "Its just a tool"

"AI slop is plaguing the internet"
"Its just a Tool"

"Google search results are becoming unusable" "Its just a Tool"

"Phone are negatively impacting peoples health " "Its just a Tool"

No questions about the design behind those tools, who owns them, who has access to them, should they be regulated, what impact they are making, or how people are using them

It reminds me alot of discussions around equality,(gender, race, Disability etc )

"Women should have Equal Rights " So you think they are no biological differences between Men and Women?

A fact is stated(regardless of whether it related to what's being discussed), such that any arguments that come after it automatically Collapses, Shutting down the discussion.

Or, arguments about Cultural Appropriation

"Black hip-hop culture and music is being exploited by a largely white industry"

"So you think that a white boy can't sing to his favorite Rap song"

Its such an individualist view of the world. No-one talks about phone at that scale, otherwise what you have is just a Dumb Phone. No-one talks about TV in terms of just the hardware in your house. You have a device that is actively and in real-time being shaped by Corporations that are more powerful than entire countries. You access to medical health, your access to Information, your Job prospects, your Data, Your access to education, all are shaped and modeled by forces beyond your power and anyone else in your Community. isn't it worth considering the impact of that.

Those devices and networks, in my opinion, are more complex than any Bureaucratic Government System, operating on a scale, larger than any country. They are not "Just a tool", not a Screwdriver, or a Microwave, or a Jar. Just because you can abstract away the industries behind the app you use, doesn't diminish their size

Those companies have real incentives to keep you on their platforms, regardless of how that effects you. Your interests and their, aren't just misaligned but are at odds with one another

View original on programming.dev
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Comments2
general·General DiscussionbyFlashMobOfOne

Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to appeal against fraud conviction in FTX case

Sam Bankman-Fried on Friday lost his bid to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence over the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded.

The decision was handed down by a three-judge panel of the New York-based second US circuit court of appeals.

Bankman-Fried, who had been one of the cryptocurrency sector’s most influential figures and a multibillionaire before FTX’s spectacular collapse in 2022, was found guilty on seven felony charges by a federal jury in Manhattan in 2023.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan US attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, said he stole $8bn from FTX customers in what they termed a “fraud of epic proportions”.

Bankman-Fried had pleaded not guilty to the two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy that he faced. At his trial, he admitted to making mistakes running FTX, but testified that he never stole funds.

Sam Bankman-Fried loses bid to appeal against fraud conviction in FTX casehttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/12/sam-bankman-fried-loses-appealOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
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Comments
general·General DiscussionbyFlashMobOfOne

Broken speaker? Finicky zipper? Anticonsumerist Repair Cafes urge you to fix it instead of pitch it

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) — On a drizzly Saturday morning late last month, the basement of the New Paltz United Methodist Church filled with old lamps, blunt knives, malfunctioning sound mixers and balky zippers.

About a dozen volunteers welcomed the broken goods and their owners to a worldwide movement that’s evangelizing new relationships between people and their things.

Repair Cafes — free events where volunteers with technical know-how help neighbors fix myriad household items — are part of a new brand of anticonsumerism that’s trying to offer an alternative to the mass-produced disposable goods that have dominated the global economy for the last half-century. Helping fuel that move to repairing, not buying, are U.S. consumer prices, which climbed sharply again last month as the war with Iran delivered higher gasoline prices and more pain for Americans.

Broken speaker? Finicky zipper? Anticonsumerist Repair Cafes urge you to fix it instead of pitch ithttps://apnews.com/article/repair-cafes-economy-anticonsumerism-affordability-buy-nothing-d3acac3ec2aae5e85294b34f0f4764b8Open linkView original on lemmy.world
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Comments5
general·General DiscussionbyMadeInDex 📰🌎

Corruption in the "West"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47165348

I noticed many people believe, that Western countries ranking low on corruption indexes, shows they aren't corrupt as hell.

To me this just means it's at a higher, much harder to prove level.

Instead of starting at the cop level (which is still possible with connections), it starts at the points where multi-millions can be made without anyone really noticing.

E.g. farm land > residential use, construction projects, sale of government properties, favors for corps etc.

View original on lemmy.world
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Comments5
general·General DiscussionbyRetiredtoflorida

Alabama is a hot bed of Bigfoot activity.

So back when I worked in Huntsville I had a friend named Ron and a coworker whose name escapes me. Let's call him Bob. Even though it annoys me not to be able to remember bob's real name.

So bob was a hunter, and had a deer stand across the river somewhere near Laceys Spring. When you cross the river and head south, you hear banjo's really quickly. I've seen entire valleys covered in nothing but kudzu over there. It was like an alien horror movie. Really weird vibe.

But that was where the deer were, so that is where Bob hunted.

One day Bob confessed to Ron that he'd seen some really weird stuff out there. He refused to really elaborate, but we got the impression it was really hair and made weird vocalizations. Maybe a black bear walking on it's hind legs?

Now you have to realize, this isn't that far from Arab Alabama. One of the most racist, hairy and vocal populations in a state full of rednecks. They like to ride around waving the confederate battle flag and doing the rebel yell. So hearing weird noises echoing off the hills not that surprising.

But Ron did some internet digging, and found some web pages that handle weird shit and printed them out and handed them to Bob.

Bob really freaked, and started babbling about things that walked like a man but were all hairy and definitely not human.

He got really really upset and never went back.

I don't blame him, even driving my ford explorer through all those back roads gave me the creeps. Deserted homesteads, shacks with confederate flags. You couldn't pay me enough to get out of the SUV and walk into those woods.

Ron's dead now, cancer, and I think so is Bob. But I thought I'd share their story. If I remember more I'll post them.

View original on lemmy.world
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general·General DiscussionbyMadeInDex 📰🌎

Are natural resources really a blessing?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46788659

Looking at how much conflict natural resource-rich countries (oil, gold, diamonds..) seem to attract, I wonder whether such wealth is more a curse than a blessing.

Many regions with scarce natural resources, adapted & perform very well. Some of the richest are examples (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore..)

Looks to me like the greed for them attracts conflicts: civil wars, invasions etc. Cultural, ethnic, religious reasons often just seem to be used to cover it.

Plus all the environmental destruction / pollution that come with the extraction & processing.

View original on lemmy.world
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Comments4