Welcome! Feel free to introduce yourself here in the c/main channel if you’d like.

  • eatdragons@midwest.social
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    11 hours ago

    Hi! Joining the Midwest group from just outside the St. Louis area. I’m a mom of 3, working in STEM. I found Lemmy on Reddit and am working on slowly transitioning over here. I like it so far (but still feel like a noob). Being a progressive in the Midwest can feel pretty isolating and I’ve come to appreciate some of the like minds I’ve encountered on Reddit. Hoping I can still find that here while moving away from centralized platforms.

  • head_socj@midwest.social
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    10 hours ago

    Hi everybody,

    I’m a transplant from the Mountain West, moved out here for school and have been living in the Great Lakes region for just over three years now. Deleted my social media accounts at the end of last year and have been making an intentional effort to have a more engaging, thoughtful, and curated Internet presence.

    I’m a bisexual, Spanish-soeaking immigrant, dating a trans man. Love learning and discussing science, history, and politics. Also into strength training (weightlifting and calisthenics) and looking for more cardio activities to rotate through. I was a chef in a past life so cooking and gardening are also big hobbies. Finally, I’m also getting into auto repair and photography in a big way, so hopefully I can meet some fellow enthusiasts in those realms! Glad to be here and thanks for having me.

  • MECHAGODZILLA2@midwest.social
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    17 hours ago

    hey midwest, I moved to the chicago “area” recently and I’m fucking miserable. So I’m fitting in well. Got my family to keep me busy, it’s an OK hobby. Hoping to see some regional progressive activity to direct some energy in to. I fuck with fighting games. That’s it, don’t meet your heroes. Skreeonk

  • Menthro@midwest.social
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    2 days ago

    Currently living in Minneapolis, been here for…8 years after moving from WV. Making the jump since the other link aggregation site has starting warning and potentially banning people for upvoting comments about Lugi. Probably just going to lurk.

  • milltertime_3227790@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    From Chicago. I made the plunge to Mastodon (and here) after the Reddit shenanigans and just seeing the repeated bad-faith policies by Twitter. I have been using redirector and libredirect for the last month or two to actively decide who I give my data to just as a fun experiment into best practices.

    I think it’s slowly starting to be clear that this type of setup will be the way forward for the more tech-savvy, privacy-focused users, and hopefully/eventually it hits the mainstream as well, but otherwise, it’s just self-selecting into the type of people I want to be around, which will probably be better for my mental health anyways.

    I’m into cycling, trading, sci-fi and FOSS. Currently reading The Expanse and taking a sabbatical year from work

    Edit: Just want to encourage people to engage w/ and create content over the next few weeks. Activity and friendly faces are probably the most determining factor in whether someone becomes an active user or just browses for a few minutes

  • miah@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Sup nerds. I’m Miah, I’m from Western Michigan. I’m a UNIX/Linux nerd, Right to Repair advocate, and transgender woman. I’ve been working on our cars by myself and would love to make some car nerd friends. My wife and I have 24 chickens, and a budding garden.

  • chase@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Hi, all! I signed up for Lemmy the other day using another instance, but thought this would be a better fit. I’m a 39 year old male who grew up in Ohio and currently resides in Michigan. By day, I’m a Technology & Strategic Project Manager at the University of Michigan. By night, I’m a technology-obsessed, music-loving vegan. I’ve been active on Reddit since 2010 and am disappointed to see the direction it’s going. I’m quite active on Mastodon, so feel free to connect with me there, as well!

  • wicked82 [ Ohio ]@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Hi!

    Ohioan here… I too am a recent reddit refugee… anyone else having digg deja vu?..

    Likes: Nerdy things, Video Games, Animals, Ohio sports teams, Music, Traveling

    Been on Mastodon for a few months (suck it twitter) and with Reddit’s recent money grab figured I’d check out other parts of the fediverse.

  • methodicalaspect@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Morning everyone. Chicago suburb native of 42 years who doesn’t really feel like leaving. Working at one of the many data centers in the Chicago area, if you can call it work, because I enjoy technology in general. I joined because I’ve been migrating from legacy social media to the Fediverse; Reddit’s API nonsense helped that process along.

    Contrary to what my parents and sisters drilled into my head as I was growing up, I’ve been leaning more and more left as I age. At some point, someone decided that giving our children a better life meant making them suffer. Seems like teaching my kids to be grateful for the opportunities they have, respect others’ beliefs, accept people from all walks of life, stand up for marginalized groups, foster positive mental health outcomes, not expect anything to be handed to them, and just be good people in general makes me a communist in the eyes of many, including my own parents. I’m gonna have to pass on whatever ideology came up with that and work toward dismantling it.

    Beyond that … I’m pretty low key most of the time. I like PC (Linux) gaming, physical computing, 3D printing, video editing, analog media preservation, listening to open source-related podcasts, road trips, dogs, glamping, grilling, beer, grilling while glamping and drinking beer and hanging out with my dogs, etc. I listen to metal but have been on a Sleep Token kick since the newest album was released.

    I don’t speak up often because someone else typically said what I want to say first, posting responses like “This” is annoying, and upvotes are silent. At any rate, nice to meet everyone, hope to be able to contribute something useful at some point.

  • hrimfaxi sopuli acct
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    2 years ago

    Are folks from other instances welcome here? Still figuring out etiquette or whatever. I got impatient over the weekend and jumped into Lemmy through sopuli.xyz due to a lower barrier to entry.

    I’m a Minnesota person living in St. Paul. I coordinate graduate programs, which basically means I’m a nanny for graduate students. Movie nerd and sweet tooth haver. 1 dog and 3 cats. I used to be a forklift operator and a freight railroad conductor. Formerly UFCW, BLET, and AFSCME. Now I’m IWW IU620.

  • senatorpresident@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Hey all. Twin Cities native here, enjoys android, books, fountain pens, and more. I’ve always meant to dig deeper into the fediverse but mastodon wasn’t calling to me. I’m glad to have the reason (reddit) to explore this one now.

  • feidry@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Hey all, small town Illinoisan here. I’ve been in IT for over a decade, but I’m trying to transition to pretty much anything else at this point.

    I’m also a game developer, solo in my free time. Anybody know of any good gamedev communities here?

  • downhomechunk@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    I of course found my way here from reddit. I started lurking on mastodon occasionally when musk first took over Twitter, but I didn’t get into it. I wasn’t a Twitter user either. This looks more like my jam though.

    I’m a lifelong chicagoan (nw side). I’ve been daily driving slackware since the late 90s. I play a mean bass. I smoke meat when the mood strikes. I bought a fixer upper without the skills or budget to fix it up. I have a 4 year old daughter. I work in international logistics.

  • corwin@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    Hi, I’m Corwin! TL;DR: wordy nerd for MN; lotsa kids, cats, GNU vol.

    I’m yet-another-new-user bc Reddit; glad for the mass troop move toward FOSS and federated things, social especially. Over the last few years, I’ve been weaning myself off mass-media social: forgive me, hacker, it’s been (only) three days since my last reddit/twitter/FB post. RE FOSS, I volunteer with some projects like EmacsConf and GNU Savannah. If you are looking to get involved with FOSS volunteering but aren’t sure where you can get started HMU :)

    Ahem. Meanwhile, in the interest of full disclosure. About Emacs…

    Passion for Emacs has been likened (variously derisively or with found amusement) to religious fervor.

    I help with the annual conf, like I mentioned. I make official binaries for Emacs available from GNU FTP servers/mirrors. I help with ERC, one of the IRC clients that ships with Emacs. I’m making an RPG engine for Emacs called dungeon-mode. I feel that this post will be incomplete unless I tell you even more about Emacs right now:

    Emacs is a text editor built around a lisp machine. Most of it is implemented in Emacs Lisp (elisp). It can be customized using menus, like a normal program. Or using code, programs full of code, auto-generated programs, self-modifying programs, and so on… such nonsense for a text editor to be doing any of this, of course.

    Hopefully, you can see where I occasionally get myself in trouble. Every once in a while I need someone to tell me “no”. To say “Corwin. Oh, Corwin. The X forum doesn’t want to hear about how you integrated X into Emacs.” “STFU about Emacs please Corwin”, And so forth.

    TIA if that’s you.

    In conclusion, when you are ready to talk about Emacs, find me on IRC corwin@libera.chat#emacs.

    MN; 48/wm/2 partners 17y/5y, 5kids, 5cats. emacs4evah