As a former Apollo user, using wefwef for lemmy has made adoption so easy. 10/10, it's basically an Apollo clone in-browser and has been working great. https://wefwef.app/

You gotta follow some people, and also hashtags. Following hashtags made a huge difference populating my feed. There's no algorithm so you get to/have to choose what you want to see.

I also use the ice cubes app for mastodon, which has a trending option also for when I want to see what's gaining traction outside of my follows.

This barely qualifies as a hobby, but at some point I decided to learn how to count in binary on my fingers. It's handy if you need to hold a number in your head for a bit and can't write things down, or to count past 10 visually on your fingers for somebody. There are probably YouTube videos on it. I literally can't remember where I learned, but I practiced a lot when bored in church. It's relatively non-disruptive and practicing can eat a decent amount of time.

0 materials. Just takes time. Literally free.

I recently got a used low-mileage Nissan Leaf and it's been fantastic! I didn't realize it was my dream car til I had it

I confess to having an iPhone and other apple products, but they will Always have that "finish setting up" message forever because I will NEVER turn Siri on. Ever.

Join a composting co-op if you don't have room to compost. Mine is a couple bucks a month, and they pick up the compost bucket every other week. Twice a year I can get back processed compost ready for my backyard garden. As a city-dweller with a very small yard and no space to compost, it's been fantastic.

As someone considering moving and new cities, nowhere on the sun belt is on my list for this exact reason.

Since it's browser-based, do you have a setting that auto refreshes your cookies, or are you using a privacy mode browser?

Battlestar Galactica and X-Files are comfort watches to have on in the background

I am currently rereading Parable of the Sower because it starts in 2024 and I remembered it being very prescient, but WOW I had forgotten how powerful it really was.

Very cool project! I'll admit my first thought was "not worth the trouble to fix" but I appreciate being challenged. The final product kept the knives out of a landfill and seem to be working great for you!

I'm really enjoying Ice Cubes for Mastodon. It really fits in with other iOS stuff well. And I'm using wefwef for lemmy too.

That's a great and compelling case for Pittsburgh, and I think it will fit in great to the map I'm working on for this trip! Thank you for the recommendation

We don't live in Chicago, but would use it as our starting point due to the rail connections. The biggest obstacle as I see it is the travel times, but I feel like it's still within a doable range, as we don't mind sleeping on the train. So our idea of "reasonable distance" might be questionable lol.

As far as destinations, we are interested in visiting Philadelphia, DC, NYC, and maybe Boston, which all have decent transit networks and a downtown core where we could book hotels near train stations, etc. We also aren't afraid of using buses in cities we don't live in, and a certain degree of transit trial and error to get around.

Some destinations are likely going to require some uber trips or other creative solutions to get around, like Niagara Falls and Cincinnati. And I have some family near Albany NY who we'd probably go to stay with for a bit, and would depend on them driving us around in the area. But aside from that, the east coast cities I'd really like to hit seem like they are the closest we could approximate to the sort of trip we wish we could take. It just seems counterproductive to take a plane to Europe to then take trains around.

Oh absolutely, you just gotta be careful who you direct those 4s toward

Image description: a screenshot from Amtrak's website.

Page title: USA Rail Pass

Subtitle: Explore the country with the USA Rail Pass

Body text: The USA Rail Pass is your ticket to tour the country. 10 rides (segments) over 30 days to your choice of over 500 destinations. At just $499, that’s less than $50 per segment.

Craving some adventure? Hop from town to town as you travel across the country. Or, just want to spend your weekends away from home? Go from downtown to out-of-town as soon as the workday ends. Whether you’re looking to discover hidden gems or just want to visit some friends in the next city over, the USA Rail Pass makes it easy to get more getaways.

I wish I could recognize different kinds of trees qams common plants while I'm on a walk

That's a shame to hear, I never test drove one of the newer leaf models since we had decided on a 2016-2017 leaf and ended up getting one. I'm hoping mine lasts a long time, the e-golf looks great too!

That's a hugely relevant point, especially in the US. It's so much longer, and not cheaper either, to travel by rail for farther trips and planes keep winning out on the convenience factor because we don't get enough vacation time for a 3 day amtrak ride.

I can't understand how some Texas cities are attracting so many new residents right now. It's just insanity to me.