So... During covid lockdowns I pretty much didn't leave my house. I did contract work that required zero human interaction, my groceries were contactless pickup, and none of my hobbies required other people. I recently started a new job and my social skills are downright awful. What are you supposed to do with your hands when you talk? What facial expressions should you make? How is your voice supposed to sound?

I did some internet research and found out I'm not the only one who lost their social skills after being isolated for 3 years. But anything I can find for advice is either generic/unhelpful, leads down the alt right rabbit hole, or is ungodly expensive. I'm hoping to find some basic introductory acting courses - voice training, method acting, improv, etc - that could help me stay flexible in conversations without freezing up. Is that possible? Are there any acting courses available to torrent?

Or at least, can the delete button get a confirmation? I'm not the best typer and edit most of my posts 3-4 times. I've also deleted a ton of them by accident.

I've been going back and watching earlier seasons, which - I thought - had a smaller budget and less recognition. But after taking a closer look at the credits I realized there's a lot of celebrity heads that are voiced by the actual celebrities. The star trek episode actually had the full original cast - and those weren't bit parts! I get that the show's a social commentary, but wouldn't it have been easier to get sound alikes? Is there a story behind the show's giant special appearances list?

I love the new tag feature. So far I've seen:

• YOU
• OP
• ADMIN
• BANNED

I'm wondering what that last one means though. Did the person get banned after writing that comment, or is it a warning that they're banned elsewhere? Did I accidentally block a user?

There are a lot of communities I haven't subscribed to since there were only 1-2 other users. I've also noticed that some communities started out strong and seemed to practically die.

But today I was looking for a community and searched through lemmy.world instead of my own instance. Turns out the subscribers never left - I just can't see them. For example:

• if I search !dccomics@lemmy.ml using my home instance on liftoff, I see 2 subscribers
• if I look up the same community using lemmy.world, I see 58 subscribers
• if I look up the community in Google (not logged in), I see 58 subscribers
• if I click on the !dccomics@lemmy.ml link in my own post, I see 110 subscribers
• if I search using my home instance for new communities, say !curatedtumblr@sh.itjust.works , there's 1 subscriber and no posts
• if I access !curatedtumblr@sh.itjust.works through my saved committees list, I can see posts

I've noticed the same issues on !lemmy.world and !sh.itjust.works , but I can only say that for sure because I know those instances should have more traffic. I don't think my instance has defederated with theirs.

Does anyone know of this is an issue with liftoff, lemmy, or simple defederation?

I haven't updated my music instrument library in years, especially since newer software doesn't play well with pirated plugins. The last time I downloaded VSTs was 2012ish, back when PB and KAT were still good sources. Music technology (and the instruments people like to listen to) have taken a huge leap since then. I do mostly pop and jazz, so I've got East West, Session Horns, Session Strings, Broadway Big Band, Kontact, and a couple miscellaneous Native Instruments plugins. Does anyone know of production level VST sources for newer versions of these or better software?

My apartment complex is very dog friendly. It's just shy of 100 units and I'd guess around 80% of people have at least one dog. I'm one of those people that doesn't - but only because I can't handle having a pet with my work schedule right now.

So needless to say I see a lot of dogs in the hallways. Every time I cross paths with one, they stand in my way and expect pets. No matter how much their owner tugs on their leash and calls their name, they'll stand firm. They won't jump, or bark, or do anything bad, but they won't move! The only thing that works is to give them a pat on the head and tell them what a good boy/girl they are. Then they wag their tail and go on their merry way.

I don't know how this culture started, but it's been around a lot longer than I have. Every dog knows if they meet someone in the hallway, they're gonna get pets. So they wait. And you gotta, it's the rule.

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to post. I'm moving over to Jerboa from rif and I'm having a hard time changing my phone settings. I'm on Android 10. When I used rif, I could open reddit links - and only reddit links - within rif and stay in the app. With Jerboa, clicking on instances, communities, or user pages in comments automatically starts up Gmail. I get that fediverse is based on the same concept as email, but how do I get my phone to stop assuming every @ is an email address?