There’s an Aztec city building game called Tlatoani. It’s in early access, but has enough meat on the bone that it’s one of my goto games.
Out of curiosity I checked Steam DB for active player numbers. I have discovered at any given point I am 10% to 25% of the given player base BY MYSELF. I am 1 of 4 people playing this game right now in the world. With the prevalence of the internet I always assume whatever weird bullshit you’re into there’s at least a thousand people talking about it; making memes outsiders could never comprehend. It’s actually novel to fly under the radar for once.
What do you do that doesn’t have a community associated with it?
I like to analyse stickers stuck on traffic lights and road signs.
I plan on making an app someday where people can contribute to a database of stickers and compare the sticker culture of different regions.
look into infoe! dude posts literally everywhere I had to track him down on insta and ask the meaning lol. He’s from Miami but he goes all over the US (i think the world too)
Ha! COOL! I thought I was alone in this! Whenever I’m visiting a new place I love to examine and photograph the sticker bombs on the backs of signs and utility boxes and what have you.
I love that weird sense of culture and mystery wondering who placed it and what they’re about.
I remember while visiting the Pacific Northwest I kept seeing “Dingus” everywhere, and got a giggle out of one that said “Sorry I chazzed your banger.” Whatever that means LOL.
I like to rescue dogs. I just rescued one last week that I’m taking to get groomed. He’s sleeping in his crate right now. It’s not ideal, as I live in a small house with two cats, three people, and two dogs. But holy shit is it rewarding. Most of the time they just scamper away, although blessedly it’s usually to their home. Every once in a while you get a friend for a while, and someone else gets a friend for life. Dogs are lovely animals, and they exist as they do because of humans. It is our duty to take care of them.
This little guy needs to be housetrained and neutered but then he’s off to live a life on the open road as my trucker friend’s road companion. Or at least that’s the plan!
Idk how to attach pictures on this app so you’ll have to imagine a very sweet Yorkshire terrier who only has a few dreads left to snip! When I found him he had a dread that was legit like two feet long. Poor baby.
You’re a very good person!
My mother’s dog was a dog we gave “temporary” shelter to… Five years ago. She’s 10 now and we couldn’t be happier. She came to us from a very difficult home situation (her previous owner had just escaped from a violent marriage, and we think the dog might have been a victim too, but nobody was ever able to prove anything). She’s still a little monster and she’s still very afraid of everything, but there’s no comparing how she was when we adopted her and how she is now.
I had an ex who lived somewhere where people often went to to abandon their dogs once they grew too old, too big or too aggressive. Her family also took in as many as they could: when we broke up, they had something along the lines of 10 dogs. It was very rewarding, too, as she got a good friend in each and every one of them. But it really hurts my heart to imagine that someone could be so cruel as to just abandon a dog like that, even hurt them.
Thank you! I’m about to pick him up from the groomer. They warned me they might have to shave him down so he could look pretty silly. Might have to get the little guy a coat or something.
I have a friend who does temporary shelter for animals of people leaving abusive situations. It’s a very cool organization she’s part of and I kind of wish there was one around me. That said, I have too many pets as is to foster more.
I might just join you in that game, it looks cool.
I’ve been playing starbound again and feels like the game has been abandoned for the last 10 years, but steam db says there’s still about ~800 players so that’s not so bad.
I really like the souped up versions of mom cars that they make before there’s a model year redesign.
My dream car is Mercedes R 63 AMG.
Also a big fan of Station Wagons, but that’s not that rare among enthusiasts.
I low-key want a Toyota Previa so I can tell people I drive a manual transmission, AWD, turbocharged, mid-engine car… and then show up in a minivan.
(Although all of those features were available in various combinations, no individual car came actually came from the factory with all four of them at once. Unfortunately, you’d have to swap either the engine or the drivetrain to make such a super-Previa.)
you know. That reminds me that I like minivans when essentially no one does. I mean actively like them and prefer them to other motor vehicles (although im not a big fan of motor vehicles)
I have a friend who has used minivans for 50 years. She started with them for her kids, and now uses them for everything you can imagine on a ranch. She’s got trucks for some stuff, but a minivan can haul anything that won’t kill you with its smell or stains.
Minivans are basically spaceships now, and everyone sleeps on them.
I love me a good Odyssey.
Yo a fellow minivan fan. I wish there were ev versions already. It should be one of the main vehicles for that where it’s just running errands and kids but suvs have seemingly chomped that part of the market up.
I play the gatcha game Monster Strike, which is pretty rare in the West.
It only has a Japanese version after they ended support for the English version like 10 years ago.
I tried to find an in-person calligraphy meetup around my area and mind you, I live in one of the bigger metro areas in the country. Couldn’t find squat. Don’t know if my Google Fu was weak or I just don’t know what to actually look up but there’s nothing specifically for calligraphy as far as I can tell. Also, I don’t count online spaces.
If only you were an Arab or Chinese. I don’t think calligraphy ever had mass appeal the same way in the West.
I’ve actually met a few people who are into calligraphy but they don’t strike me as the “meet-up” type of people.
I’m into calligraphy! You on the east coast? been looking for a group as well
In some games, I tried to play the role of a black smith and was heavily into crafting items.
I tried to go all renewables in a nation game.
I like retro programming, in particular Windows 2000.
Now I’m making a little 3D toy now that works with OpenGL on Windows with WGL and on X11 with GLX (also on Cygwin). No third party abstractions!
I want to keep adding backends, like DX 7, 9, Vulkan, WebGL, bare Linux KMS, and then stuff like screen space reflections, shadows, materials, ray tracing where possible, maybe get it running on a console or two too.
That’s a cool hobby!
I have been thinking about getting into retroprogramming for a long time! Except with even older stuff than windows 2000. Stuff like MS-DOS or even c64 programs.
I still love Garry’s Mod animations. Basically using stop-motion-style tools to make low-effort animations with familiar characters on Source engine maps.
They don’t fit the YouTube algorithm now though; creators can’t just put up a new animation every few weeks. It was at its best when the whole community was just posting stuff in leapfrog formation, rather than competing for their audience every day.
kitty0706 was all I watched in high school, as a now 25+yo dude I still crack up at them.
Used to love the gmod collabs people would do too
My favorite thing in the whole world is dropping LSD, and listening to obscure music or watching weird shit…
Dude I can’t find ANYONE to hang out with me… I wave that flag in every social situation I find myself in. I really thought there would be more people into it.
Well, that or I’m completely unbearable to hang out with. If that’s the case I just wish people would tell me.
Watch Scavengers Reign and Common Side Effects - they’re absolutely terrific tv shows that should be right up your allley.
As someone who has never done LSD, but loves watching weird shit… I recommend checking out Aze Alter’s videos on the Capitol of Conformity. I think it starts with “Eyes for Sale” but don’t quote me. Might be a good time!
I mean that’s a giant leap for any new friend. Lsd isnt so common that the average person has experience with it. So how to have a good trip and trip safely is a necessary starting point. It’s also a multi hour to days long thing. Thats a heck of a lot of time for most People to spend not working, no family obligations, and no other needs/wants. Basically its a rare population who’s willing to trip and of those willing it’d probably be a once a year thing at best. That said of people willing to trip I would think the music and videos would be about par.
yeah taking psychedelics with someone else is like entering a relationship - you really gotta know the person and have good rapport built up, make sure all parties are prepared and on the same page, etc etc to guarantee you have a good time
or you could just roll the bones and risk having a very unpleasant 4-12 hours
I mean I’m not looking to cold open with drugs and strangers. Lol. I’d like proper friends with whom we’ve established mutual respect and trust for one another.
THEN go get weird at the Renaissance Festival, or concert, or shitty movie.
All anyone my age around here wants to do is drink shitty craft beers, hike, and watch football…
i hear you. its a hard subject to even bring up since it can be hard to gauge how others feel about it, i’d be lying if i said i didn’t also want to take psychedelics with friends. the only people i know who would even be a right fit don’t want to due to past personal experiences.
and hey, hiking is awesome! especially awesome with friends and/or drugs lol
I am big into old obscure media, love ubuweb, but I would still hesitate to join a kind of unknown person for an activity like that. It’s just a big plunge.
Oh, that’s just a risky proposition, that’s all!
I would wager most people don’t know themselves well enough on psychedelics to trust watching weird shit with someone who is also on psychedelics.
You should try a festival. You’ll find something fun to do and plenty of people go alone.
Keep waving that flag. If we were at the same baptism reception I’d drop acid with you.
Every few years I get a yearning to play through Daikatana.
The entire thing.
I’ve been doing this from before the community patch.
I dunno.
I know there are others out there, but I sometimes feel like I am the only person under 50 who loves opera. I have 2 streaming services that I mostly use for watching opera.
I honestly feel like many people would like opera if they gave it a chance. Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Avengers, but without the 30-min CGI fights (no disrespect to those who like fight scenes, but i get bored). My son and I love Mozart’s The Magic Flute; my wife’s favourite is Bizet’s Carmen.
I work in a technology field and I’m interested in “not AI” stuff. It’s a wild ride.
I’m right there with you. Unfortunately I’m looking for work so I might HAVE to do A.I. something.
Bash scripting, firewall config, vpn tunnelling, and containerization ( rootless Podman ).
I’m into combining these in interesting ways.
While it could be argued that there are tons of communities for these, combining them to run secure apps or automate their setups don’t seem to be as popular.
It’s a hot topic at social events, as you can imagine.
hmmm… I’m having some issues with VPN tunneling in my docker config. I wonder if you might have some advice?
That sounds a bit ambiguous, though I should have prefaced my previous comment with the fact that I am still very much learning about this stuff myself.
More recently, I am trying to wrap my head around containerized VPN connections through WireGuard using gluetun. The idea sounds great, in theory. Figuring out how to make it work will probably be less so.
If you mean just accessing a service through VPN from the outside world, then I might be able to help.
I’ve done it successfully a few times. Most of the issues I have ever had were usually with misconfigured firewall rules around NAT.
“space music” – I played Mass Effect 1 long ago and got hooked on the idea of musicians trying (and often failing) to make music for futuristic settings. This is like Star Trek episodes that reference classical music but some person has to predict what classical music will sound like in 2300. So they go with with future retro stuff and it just tickles me. So I seek out these sorts of experimental musical pre-trend predictions cause they’re often hilarious.
