What communities, online or offline, have made you feel most like you've entered/found a parallel dimension in a positive way?
What communities, online or offline, have made you feel most like you've entered/found a parallel dimension in a positive way?
Excluding, say, here or the fediverse more broadly.
There have been some nice corners of the internet that have somehow kept going along their way that I've enjoyed lurking around like some alien observer. They are the few spaces I dare not pop in and ask, out of fear it would somehow break things.
All the Chaos Computer Events are like a different dimension. You can leave your laptop somewhere unattended and the worst thing that may happen to it, is that someone plugs it in to charge.
I heard about CCC all the way in my UK university! Wish we had something that big in the UK. I remember beards, lots of beards!
EMF Camp is the UK equivalent. A lot smaller, but still 3500 geeks in a field.
Well.. beards and dresses. Maybe some cat ears. It’s often very diverse (as in LGTBQ+)
Going by the title it sounded like a place where you can destroy a laptop in different ways - smashing, falls, crush, blender.
GeoCaching for offline (semi-online). When I learnt about it, it blew my mind. There's literally trillions of hidden 'stashes' all around the world that people have hidden. In bushes, up poles, behind signs, etc. Every city. Fields, forests, everywhere!
In the stashes you'd find anything from a piece of paper to mini figures or a bullet! You write your name on the paper and date it. Then you hide it and go hunting for more using the Geocaching app.
Geocaching is great! I haven't done it actively in a while but occasionally I'll find a cache that someone else must have found and not understood what they had uncovered. I try to find the cache online and then rehide it.
When you say hide it, do you mean back where you found it or elsewhere? Are there some that encourage you to add/move parts of the caches around from one to another?
Afaik you can swap (you out one thing in and take one thing out). Usually in the same spot, yeah
Shout-out to r/TESLore. I remember the exact moment I was hooked: Someone started her comment with the phrase: "We all know what the enatiomorph is, where it comes from, and how it's formed, but..." and I've gleefully been indulging with those other weirdos ever since.
Also, truestuhl.
Makerspaces/hackerspaces
Basically a bunch of fellow geeks nerds and makers. A few joking comments can spiral into awesome discussions or insane projects.
The biggest bit is just having somewhere you can geek out and have people's eyes light up, rather than glaze over.
On top of this, you gain access to a bunch of awesome tools, as well as people who know how to use them, and often want to teach and share. It varies a lot from space to space, but most have a laser cutter and 3D printers at least.
I'll put my vote to Deep Rock Galactic for online. It's a game (that you MUST check out) with one of the most wholesome communities ever. Most people are super nice in the chat and I've made a friend or two (for me that's a lot - I'm extremely picky cause I feel very nice with the amount of friends I have already)
I just bought it (this past weekend) and I'm really loving it so far!
wait till you start the deep dives - it just gets better and better
rock and stone to the bone
Is it mainly voice chat? I tend to prefer text chat as I don't like fussing with audio settings nor hearing roughly handled mics (albeit I know you can often mute those players).
Both of mine are offline and involve something in an everyday space that others wouldn't understand the significance of or possibly notice at all
First, the Hash House Harriers, the self-proclaimed "drinking club with a running problem". It's fun seeing chalk marks on pavement and knowing that a hash had recently passed by, even if it's been some time since I've been.
Second, geocaching. Tons and tons of containers hidden around you that you might never see if not actively looking for it. It's always a blast running into another person suspiciously looking about under a bench or whatever.
When someone I know who I went to different schools together with invites me to their school (as someone who never liked my own).
who I went to different schools together with
This is one of the most confusing clauses I've ever read.
What does this mean?
Visiting a school that you yourself are not a student at by accompanying someone who is a student at that school. I think the “together” was not necessary in the strict sense.
I exactly remember that feeling and I haven’t been a student for 15 years now lol It’s indeed a parallel universe experience.
NeoCities always feels like a portal to an older internet
Tell me more?
I see it allows you to create your own site. How is the hosting done? As in who pays?
How do you find other cool sites etc. I like the idea just not sure on all the deets.
Neocities came up in another question I asked, and so I looked into it. They have a couple ways they handle funding, via donations or becoming a supporter and subscribing for a little each month.
You may have already looked this up by now, but for anyone else that comes across this and was wondering too, there ya go!
I'm guessing it's a spin-off of the original GeoCities back in early 2000s which was also mainly for free site hosting.
This seems like where you can browse/search: https://neocities.org/browse
Its a free site builder, if you search there is an option to browse and a lot of sites have links to other sites and you can kind of get lost. I'm actually working on my own neocities right now.
https://clubnintendoarchives.neocities.org/
^Thats the first neocities site I found and that introduced me to the idea.
Offline: a martial arts dojo. A bunch of goofballs wearing Japanese undies play fighting and smiling.
Offline: kink spaces. A bunch of goofballs in fancy undies play torturing and smiling.
midnight.pub - Chill place for people to write extremely niche and detailed blog posts.
IRC - Lots of technically competent people who are fun to talk to.
rawtext.club - I haven't joined this because I don't think I would really contribute much but it is a good idea.
Or just Gemini/gopher in general are cool places to be.
vogons.org - we're all stuck in the 90's, tinkering with old computers.