- Anki - flashcard app. Handy to memorize things
- Wikipedia - lots of casual reading
- lichess - no compromise open-source chess app with online matchmaking, puzzles, and analysis tools
- Gauguin - sudoku-ish puzzle game
- AntennaPod - podcast app
- Satori Reader - Japanese short stories
- Waistline - calorie tracker
- Voyager - mobile Lemmy client that I actually miss when I'm on desktop
Casual Conversation
Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.
RULES (updated 01/22/25)
- Be respectful: no harassment, hate speech, bigotry, and/or trolling. To be concise, disrespect is defined by escalation.
- Encourage conversation in your OP. This means including heavily implicative subject matter when you can and also engaging in your thread when possible. You won't be punished for trying.
- Avoid controversial topics (politics or societal debates come to mind, though we are not saying not to talk about anything that resembles these). There's a guide in the protocol book offered as a mod model that can be used for that; it's vague until you realize it was made for things like the rule in question. At least four purple answers must apply to a "controversial" message for it to be allowed.
- Keep it clean and SFW: No illegal content or anything gross and inappropriate. A rule of thumb is if a recording of a conversation put on another platform would get someone a COPPA violation response, that exact exchange should be avoided when possible.
- No solicitation such as ads, promotional content, spam, surveys etc. The chart redirected to above applies to spam material as well, which is one of the reasons its wording is vague, as it applies to a few things. Again, a "spammy" message must be applicable to four purple answers before it's allowed.
- Respect privacy as well as truth: Don’t ask for or share any personal information or slander anyone. A rule of thumb is if something is enough info to go by that it "would be a copyright violation if the info was art" as another group put it, or that it alone can be used to narrow someone down to 150 physical humans (Dunbar's Number) or less, it's considered an excess breach of privacy. Slander is defined by intentional utilitarian misguidance at the expense (positive or negative) of a sentient entity. This often links back to or mixes with rule one, which implies, for example, that even something that is true can still amount to what slander is trying to achieve, and that will be looked down upon.
Casual conversation communities:
Related discussion-focused communities
- !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca
- !askmenover30@lemm.ee
- !dads@feddit.uk
- !letstalkaboutgames@feddit.uk
- !movies@lemm.ee
If just in general it might be PipePipe for watching YouTube.
the one i use most? Voyager.
- Fossify Messages - Free open source way to filter text message spam, got this after another app put that feature behind a paywall
- Kiwi Browser - Way to use arbitrary browser extensions on mobile
- Chwazi - Straw drawing app, everyone puts their finger on the screen and it picks one person at random, very simple, useful, and satisfying
Adaway, for ad blocking, until I set up either a pihole or adguard
Aegis, auth for 2fa
LocalSend, to transfer files back and forth between my PC and phone
Scrambled Exif, to remove identifying data from pictures I share online
Yet another call blocker, block unwanted calls such as afs and scams and whatnot
Social: Mlem, Mona, Popsky, Letterboxd
News: Feeeed, Flipboard
Other: Apple Podcasts, Signal, Skylight, Loops (if it ever gets fixed, that would be great)
I've got morning diary, which doesn't seem to exist on the app store anymore. I list 3 positive things in the morning and 3 at night, not every day is good but there's something good in every day! It helps me think positively
- Mlem
- Tailscale
- Apple News
- Apple Podcasts
- Safari (though if I didn’t have have heavy ad/tracking blocking at the DNS level I’d switch to Orion with UBlock Origin)
I currently use Joplin and Voyager for Lemmy the most (if you don't count Firefox), so I'd say those two.
Voyager is such a nice app to browse lemmy. It's simple and hides a lot of the stuff behind menus so you are not overwhelmed.
I started de-microsofting and de-googling awhile back and was looking for onenote alternative and found Joplin. Been using it for 4 months now and love it so far.
I first tried obsidian, which is way fancier, but ended up moving everything to Joplin. I don't remember my exact logic for choosing Joplin over obsidian but I recall it had something to do with licensing and Joplin being a more open ecosystem. I don't need all the stuff from Obsidian and love that I can sync my Joplin notes fully E2E encrypted on my cloud storage provider.
I've not thought of voyager I'm on jerboa but I don't love it
Highly recommend checking out few of the other apps too! Voyager is my personal favourite, but Thunder was also quite nice.
The only downside of finding a lemmy app that suits you the best is that you'll just spend more time on lemmy and on your phone... Oh well.
Haha it's already my second home
Same! I was kinda hoping that when I left reddit my phone usage would decline - nope! :)
Omg I'm on voyager now it's so much better
Happy if my comment helped you to find it! Don't be afraid to checkout Voyager's settings at some point; defaults are already really good but there are so many small things that you can tweak to make it your own!
Great tip! I hope you have a lovely day
Thanks, you too! :)
Kinscreen - Nifty little app that uses your phone's sensors to control the backlight and screen locking. So the screen will never dim as long as you're holding your phone in your hands and will lock itself about 10 seconds after being put onto a flat surface. It cost about as much as a cup of coffee years ago and I feel like smartphones aren't quite as 'smart' without it.
Mixplorer - Great file manager that was free for years on XDA. I didn't have to but I bought the Play Store version just to support the dev. Highly configurable UI, capability to add network drives, Google drive etc. Its own in built text editor, code editor, pdf / ebook reader, video player etc. It's like the crown jewel of Android apps in my opinion.
Poweramp - I prefer having my own mp3 collection to using streaming services. Especially when I'm on the move and using mobile data. So this music player app is one of my most used apps of all. I love the absolute sea of options to play with.
Pocket Casts, for listening to podcasts. Got fed up with Apple Podcasts and heard good things about this one. I forgot what I disliked of AP, I just remember that it was something related to managing the episodes. Wikiloc, for hiking. The premium subscription is almost nothing, can find and follow routes easily.
Taobao. Definitely Taobao. I buy about 85% of my stuff through it and its paired TMall app.
What's Taobao? I've never heard of it
The world's largest digital souq. A huge B2C and C2C conglomerate in which, basically, if it can be sold at all it's available. I have seen for sale on Taobao the usual things like clothing, toys, food and drink, etc. But here are some other things I have seen sold:
- real estate
- cars
- buses
- a decommissioned jet liner
- Asian giant hornet nests (hornets still living)
- rent-a-boy/girlfriend
- sex dolls (almost RealDoll™ levels of realism) for pets
- soap dispensers shaped like Jackie Chan's (or other celebrities') nose
- breast milk soap
- bowls with integrated phone holders so you can use your phone while eating
- bottled flatulence (no, really!)
It's a wild, wacky, weird, woolly place that has some embarrassing issues related to its recommendation system. (Ask me about "airplane cups"...) And it's simply the best place to buy anything. Even jet liners.
Tell me about airplane cups!
OK, let's go with an analogy.
Someone with a decent English vocabulary comes to North America. They have a good vocabulary ... but not a good grasp of idiomatic expressions.¹ And sometimes they use the wrong synonym here and there.² It's a quaint and charming thing. So they want to buy a gift for a friend. A little pocket-sized stuffed animal. Specifically a cat. So they go to Amazon and look for a "pocket pussy".
飞机杯 (fēijī bēi or "airplane cup") is not, as I thought, a travel mug for use in aircraft. It's a masturbatory aid. That means the same thing as a pocket-sized plush cat.
And after one search, followed by uncomprehending staring at the pictures of a few entries (because the text wasn't easily decoded, being full of euphemisms), I got male masturbatory aids recommended to me for a good five months.
¹ They think, for example, that "horseplay" and "pony play" are basically the same thing.
² For example they might talk about reading a book from beginning to terminal.
Hahaha that really is wild and whacky!