Great source! Thank you very much for sharing, I’ll check it out more 😊

As much as I’d love to know more about my car, I just don’t know how to ascertain the information to do so. Even if I did, the tribal knowledge that a mechanic has from working in a shop, personal investment in their own vehicle(s) assists greatly in literacy here.

Do you have a video of an engine tear down? How would you learn about cars? I don’t think this type of response is too conducive to keeping people curious. This could also help one communicate with their mechanic and increase literacy.

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As much as I would like to turn to professional developers for nearly every solution, I would like to learn how a professional developer operates.

My assumption is that Lemmy has many professionals who may be benevolent enough to lend some time and discussion regarding FOSS development. I would gladly assist, as it would improve my knowledge. My career is in hardware manufacturing, so maybe I can be useful for them as well.

A clear and transparent discussion of even the “developer tool chain” and open configurations + hotkey and macro suggestions would be great. Sometimes UX is enough to put people off from programming. This is a slight detour, but coding is as fundamental as literacy with all the semiconductor devices that surround us. I’m talking out of my ass when it comes to how a washing machine or computer console in a car is programmed, but I’m sure the concepts would be just as helpful as knowing how to wash dishes or mop ones floor.

Not everyone needs a DIY fab in their home, but as technology miniaturizes, we can achieve much more. Some of the tools when they were pioneered had their calculations performed on computers as large as an entire room. Nowadays it can fit on a table top.

I grew up under the poverty line and am sickened by how people are being screwed by software. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel are a couple to name of these monopolists that the general person is not really able to sever out of their lives. Don’t like that banking, travel, etc are all being relegated to an app.

Does this make some of my goals a bit clearer? I would like to do as much as we can as a community, as simple as possible. Arch and Gentoo are great as DIY examples, but software libraries and solutions created by others start to sound like fantasy when no actual English words are used to describe dependencies and abstract programs.

I’m not too sure about this one. No brands stick out. I will do a quick bit of searching, but this is what I’ve found on the surface level.

https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/the-worlds-first-risc-v-laptop-gets-a-big-update-deepcomputing-doubled-the-core-count-increased-clocks-to-2-ghz-and-added-ai-capabilities

I love your phrasing of “behind the back punishment”. Working in an office long enough and hearing the gossip about others makes me realize that myself personally is not exempt from being gossiped about.

I’d rather not say a “no-no” by accident when showing my candid self, which gets me grouped into being an odd ball. I have a mask personality that quite frankly I hate. He’s boring, plain, and can’t show any of his ultra specific interests or adeptness without coming off as a show off. It’s hard to talk about how I can play multiple instruments, speak many languages, and enjoy electronics and gardening without coming off as some bougie pretentious fuck. Hopefully I’m far from that, but a lot of the times my non chalantness with how I’ve taught myself all these skills make people think I’m over inflating my abilities or I’m just trying to brag.

Generally I’ve been a confidante to many people because they are willing to open up to me. But I think once I learn such deep information about someone so early in a friendship, this person regrets sharing the candid side of themselves and then distances themself from me.

I like being avant- Garde and over the top when I want to get someone’s attention… This seems to break people out of their robotic work responses, and it gives others a chance to show their fun side.

Giving compliments is fun, but I feel sometimes people think I’m complimenting them for one in return!

Agreed with not wanting to exchange superficialities… It just feels like the other person is trying to mine for a particular type of interaction when the conversation is all hot air. This isn’t a prejudice I impose on all, but if the talk is about someone’s significant other, bragging about their child, or something about a celebrity or trend I don’t necessarily see eye to eye with, these are examples of off putting topics.

Lately I have wanted to improve my own fashion sense. After getting my first career, I was able to get my teeth straightened, so this has improved confidence with smiling and showing my teeth. Agree with the smiling wrong sentiment though. It’s evident I’m autistic from how wide my face will perk up. People who know me enjoy my bubbliness, but it triggers something in strangers usually.

When I’m being trained by other professionals, I can tell I’m one of the more engaging folks in the group. If there are 3 or 4 other engineers with me, predominantly I’ll be given eye contact (which drains my social battery) and this leads to me being the most inquisitive up until my social level collapses and I nearly become non verbal. I’ll stop comprehending what the other person is telling me, start sweating, and the words start sounding like muffled noise. This can immediately change a new persons opinion with me, as 1 out of the 10 people I met got to see this during a first impression, and has a permanent burn in of that side of myself as his perception of my general personality. Sucks, but you can’t change that!

Love to hear that living your truth and with your natural neurotype is helping you 😊 I feel the same learning about my autism more and understanding the lapses in consciousness and gaps in emotional awareness…

Just posted a follow-up, but you bring up some good points.

Getting people to speak to me generally is an easy part. I don’t have trouble approaching others or initiating some sort of conversation. Usually this will be about a clearly visible article of clothing, cool earrings, pride apparel, hairstyle, the common small talk topics.

The back and forth will last generally for 2-6 sentences, where some type of awkwardness will insert itself into the situation. Maybe I don’t know how to respond after someone has shared something about an actor or singer they like. Maybe there’s an online trend I’ve missed, or they’re shocked that I’m in my early 20s and have no mainstream social media platforms. It’s not like my intention is to reveal that I’m a crazed Linux weirdo to everyone I know, but my interests are hyper specific. I could read up about what others like, but that would remove the authenticity from the conversation.

I know that depth like this doesn’t apply to smalltalk, and I don’t want to seem like an emotional weirdo to others, but I generally will also get happy and excited when others share my interests, which can be off putting in a different sense, maybe 10 minutes into a short chat.

My tendency to delve into historical facts, geography, electronics, scientific history, in order to connect something someone said about a building or a roof can also put people off. This is what I mean about being a chatterbox. I could never run out of things to say, so this oftentimes isn’t the problem. I’ve had wonderful and fulfilling conversation for hours over food and drinks with others who don’t mind this facet of me.

Once people get to know my character and who I am, this tends not to be an issue. But developing a working acquaintanceship is the difficult part so I don’t come off as a weirdo.

So let’s start off with small talk I.e 1-3 minute interactions, and branch into medium length office chats, then conclude with a lunch or dinner conversation.

Usually when I try this strategy, I might fall flat on my face by not knowing anything at all what I just asked about. Should one thing of every small talk excursion as an onion?

What I mean by an onion is to be able to organize the depth of the conversation by extent of discussion. To transform the comment into a dialogue is most desirable. Small talk is the goal here, just not the robotic:

“I like your Kansas City Chiefs Jersey!”

“Oh thanks, did you see how Frank Footballer did that pass against the Steelers?”

“Not really, but my grandmother always had the TV on and loved the Super Bowl!”

“Cool, buddy!”

After this, it’s like a game over screen is flashed before my eyes. Not to be dramatic, but this situation happens in many domains of conversation for me.

Do you have any extended advice for this?

That sounds simple enough for me to remember! Focusing on being a better listener is what I should be working on.

But what if there are no immediate things to talk about? What if the conversation falls flat? Do you have a 3 strikes rule before you walk away from the interaction?

Maybe I’m getting too much in my head about things. Thanks for the reassurance 😊 This community always makes me feel more secure with some of my inner concerns about socializing and my perception in the eyes of others.

I relate to this viscerally. Throughout my life, the easiest way for me to genuinely connect with others has been through a setting where we don’t have in-person body language.

In real life I’ve usually been quite bubbly, but that’s because I’m usually quite happy and enjoy spreading positive energy. It’s much better to uplift others than to break them down.

My friend groups have ebbed and flown over the years, but ultimately something drives us apart. Most of the time I’m clueless as to why. I think it’s because people don’t want to hurt my feelings because I’m polite and they have a history with me, but don’t want to continue a friendship.

I prefer to slide in social situations where we are in a small group or one-on-one. It usually feels more substantive and brings people who don’t mind info-dumping, obsessions, and more often than not, they enjoy the impact of my neurotype on my personality. It’s not like people can’t enjoy my personality… Just a specific subset. However, I’ve never felt like I’ve truly belonged in any group either. Nerdy, but not in the archetype to where I fit in with a traditional nerd. Enjoy outdoor things, but not to the point where it defines my life, as I enjoy electronics, linguistics, and musicianship. Broad range of interests that are too esoteric can put people off from a lack of relatability.

Being German American with my heritage mostly detached, I’d say this is the case in both Germany and the US. I grew up teaching myself the language, and have held a semblance of being “German” as an ethnicity, but am very clearly culturally distinct from real German people. It’s weird to observe that both cultures forego their norms and cave into their humanity when it comes to socializing. All folks follow different strokes.

It just seems like whenever you want to put yourself out there, there’s some intangible barrier that blocks a true friendship from forming. Is it ineptness? Am I perceived as selfish by talking too much about an interest? What about the questions I ask? My responses… As I’ve gotten older I’ve cared far less about the opinions of others. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t yearn for some form of involvement. Hope you feel okay. This community has made me feel far less alien than I ever have.

Amazing post! I’ve been wanting to do the same… Have you found a CLI .csv file editor? One of the points of friction for me is finding how to replace Excel’s functionality past Libreoffice. I’m more curious to see what that workflow can do when one uses no GUI whatsoever.

That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:

After implementing what you’ve said in the past couple of my interactions, I noticed that people were more likely to smile and attentively listen after they’ve shared something themselves. Eliciting that initial interest from the other person removed a lot of the awkward silences, as it was filled with them talking more than myself. As I’ve been focusing more on what the person emphasizes, I’m able to find out more about what excites them to talk about, so I’m able to draw more attention to their interests and make them feel heard. Very good advice here.

Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.

To solidify this advice… Are there any “baskets” that questions generally could be sorted into? The open-ended type sometimes falls flat if I ask it from the “wrong” basket. Exactly as you mentioned with not wanting to talk about your own parents, but asking about them anyways and then not having much to say directly afterwards. Not to neg on details, but would it be unhealthy to think a certain amount of steps “ahead” in a conversation? This has been on my mind lately, but I’m not sure how to describe it other than I’d like to engage the person and get them to think about things rather than be a captive listener or have them monologue about themselves.

I feel like I don’t understand eye contact or body language too well. We all know the awkward feeling of seeing someone far away in a hallway. I’ve never quite got this one down… If I know the person, it’s usually okay to make some strange handmotions and tease a bit as you get closer. But sometimes, I can tell the other person doesn’t want to look at me, but will raise their head to say hi as we are within 5 ish feet of each other. A strange autistic detail, but I just want to be more charismatic in general, and appreciate you taking the time to write these comments!

Someone is going to need to pull a lot of weight in planning, organizing, and leading these meetings, presentations, and projects.

I’ve never managed a project before, but assume we should gather everyone who is interested by sending out some sort of survey. It would be good to have knowledge about what people are interested in learning, send out my ideas of how this should be structured, and ask for general comments. These could be about the final project, individual time commitment, references, philosophy of learning, etc. I’m thinking 8 weeks could be a good place to start. How should this survey be sent out to others? I want to choose a service that doesn’t encroach on user privacy since we are on Lemmy. The same is to be asked of a communal repository. I don’t want to use Google Drive.

What would we need to do on our first meeting together?

Saturday mornings or Monday evenings (Pacific US Time) are some thoughts. The sessions could be between 1 and 2 hours depending on the engagement.

This is a what I mean by someone pulling a lot of weight, a teacher carousel has a slim to none chance of working out. One person is going to need to define and implement the vast majority of the curriculum. They’ll need to do a lot of research and work in advance.

I’d like to ascertain this information in the survey if anyone with expertise in particular programming domains would like to lend their expertise and put together a short slide deck. Otherwise, I’m okay to deep-dive on topics we agree on, find a healthy amount of literature as resources, and brainstorm a way that each subtopic could be useful in the grander scheme of the project. So that there is some type of cohesive narrative to this endeavor.

Hope that’s a good starting point.

This is great advice! I’ll try to implement it over the next couple of times I’m chatting with these same people. Oftentimes, I find it hard to gauge what the other person might “want” to talk about. This can be challenging with people who are more shy or not necessarily big conversationalists from what I’ve experienced.

My follow-up would be… How do you engage in a dialogue? Do you adhere to any principles as to how long you are talking, the uniqueness of words that you use to describe your ideas…? How do you balance what you’re going to say with active listening? Because sometimes I feel like I attentively listen TOO much, and I’m just there nodding and dispensing a digitized voice-line of “wow!” “awesome” “fun” “cool” “Oh that’s interesting” and so forth…