From Iowa, moved to Wisconsin a few years ago after graduating college with my BSN. Most of my family has always been involved with the Democratic Party and have had a liberal, progressive views. I grew up loving history and current events which turned into an interest in politics that only grew once I got in high school. I’d say my liberal to leftist conversion began after the 2016 election and just started to learn how outdated the dems were and incompetent they have always been. I’ve only gotten more and more leftist as the years have gone by to the point where it’s hard to talk to people who only hold milquetoast liberal beliefs.

Why I’m on the fediverse? Curiosity: I had a random tab that lead to a link that explained the fediverse and just went down a rabbit hole about it today. After doing a bit of research, I finally looked into the platform and its quirks. Always been intimidated because it seemed too techy for me to grasp (still don’t have a total idea on how this all works just yet but I’m getting there) but realized the importance and the freedom that comes along with it. I was also a bit concerned about using the fediverse when I learned that it’s popular because it supposedly upholds “freedom of speech” to its truest form which I have always interpreted as a dog whistle for right wing lunatics to use slurs like an 8 year old. So it’s a massive relief to see a strong left wing presence here without having to utilize an algorithm to see such a community.

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

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.

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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.

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.

55/m from the Downriver Detroit area, Michigan. 17-year R*ddit user, been around forever (started with BBSes, moved on to Usenet). Black Guy on the Internet. a2.mi.social member.

Used to run a freeform streaming radio station. Apple user since the ][+, love music.

Hey everyone, started exploring Lemmy the other week and really jumped in after the Apollo news broke.

I’m gamer/podcaster/dad/wannabe bourbon enthusiast from Michigan.

I have a tech role in logistics and am just looking for a chill community to be a part of.

Currently consumed with exploring Hyrule.

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

Hello! I live in Kalamazoo, MI and grew up in Muskegon, MI. I’m a part of the mass exodus from reddit. So far I’m enjoying the fediverse and was glad to see an instance dedicated to midwesterners. I work in mental health and enjoy cooking/baking, crafting, painting, kayaking, gardening, gaming (DnD, Zelda, board games) and spending time with my loved ones. Excited to be here!

Hello! Quad Citizen reporting in, pretty active in the /r/Iowa and /r/QuadCities subreddits and poking around to see who’s popped up in Lemmy.

MOST of our buildings are solid.

Yet another reddit refugee, but the only thing I will miss is the niche animal husbandry subreddits.

My main interests are critter genetics & habitat management, and a lot of husbandry n enrichment on the side. Always been a bit of a pain to be lefty & interested in livestock, most of the old forums such as they still exist are full of people that are pretty aggressive in their disapproval of my sort. But maybe I’ll find a niche eventually!

I do other science n tech reading and cruise some of the hobby stuff (carpentry, mini terrain, jewelry making… I like a little bit of a lot of things) but don’t usually post as much as lurk those areas.

Another former reddit user from the Twin Cities here. Enjoying learning about lemmy so far, still trying to figure out how it works! Big fan of disc golf, board games, books, and video games.

Howdy! I’m Evan, I’m from STL, and recently graduated from S&T with a BS in CS, going back for an MS. I’m a linguist, software engineer, musician, FOSS contributor, and Fediverse enthusiast. I build computers, run servers, write music, and get angry at the US/MO on the daily.

P.S.: call me scum, because I’ve only ever used Reddit via their official app, but at least I jumped ship!

Hey, all. Like many, I’m bailing on Reddit given the drama and sheer disrespect for everyone, trying this community with a few friends.

I’m an Iowan, soon-to-be dad, equally-avid gardener and range time enthusiast, software engineer, gamer, etc. Based on the other intros, seems like I’ll fit in well enough.

I wish I was consumed with exploring Hyrule; the pre-baby DIY crunch is too time-consuming.