Can someone help me with the home-buying process?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I'm no expert, but I've bought and sold two houses in my life. Just finished selling one (and buying it not long before that; long story), so the process is somewhat fresh in my mind.

    A counterpoint to @SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org's advice: find a realtor you really trust and then just let them handle everything. Do whatever they tell you to do. Maybe you pay another $10-20k than if you had absolutely optimized everything, but who cares? More likely than not, in trying to figure everything out yourself, you'd screw up something and end up losing way more than that, not to mention your well-being.

    I met my last realtor in a Toastmasters group. Fantastic guy. I asked him about everything. I still reasoned about things myself and ultimately made the decisions myself, but it was incredibly reassuring to have his expertise to lean on. I never once got a sense he was working for the highest commission he could get. No decent realtor is going to risk pissing you off and having you tell your friends bad things about them for another $300 commission on top of the $8-15k they're going to make regardless. It's not even worth fighting about it for $300 when they could just get the deal done, lose $300 in potential commissions, and move on to the next deal.

    Are there bad realtors? Yes. My advice on that is just not to hire one of them (or fire them if you accidentally do) 😉, but the idea that you're going to be able to cross all your 't's and dot your 'i's (or even figure out enough to know where the 't's and 'i's are) doing it yourself on your first go-round sounds like a bit of a long-shot to me.

    Oh, and @wheeville@beehaw.org's advice to start by getting pre-approved is solid. Your realtor will probably want you to do this anyway before you start looking, so you'll be ahead of the game.

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  • Signed up but never got an email
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Thanks for checking into it. I PMed you.

    1
  • Signed up but never got an email
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Yep, I've been watching spam just in case. I have three emails there but nothing from VLemmy.

    1
  • Signed up but never got an email
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Yes. Just retried and it tells me my email exists. Email field is required.

    1
  • Signed up but never got an email
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Just checked spam. I have three emails there, but none are from VLemmy. I tried to register again in case I mis-typed the email, and it tells me the email exists. 🤔

    1
  • Hey there. My current home instance's performance is awful, so I tried last night to create an account on VLemmy. I saw the toast saying I would get an address verification email, but that email never came through. Is this a bug, or does that email maybe not actually send until my application has been approved?

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    9
    What are your list of essential iOS apps?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Here are the apps I used that I'm not seeing.

    • FoodNoms for calorie counting
    • Waking Up for guided meditation
    • Finch for gamified general mental health
    • Future for asynchronous virtual training
    • Tripsy for travel tracking
    • Organic Maps for offline mapping
    • Transit for navigating most US cities via public transit
    • Fastmail for personal email (Apple Mail for work email)
    • 1Password for password management
    • Elaho for browsing Gemini
    • Tidal for music
    • Vellum for cool backgrounds
    • SwiftScan for scanning documents
    • iPlum for a cheap business phone number
    • Kagi Search to set the Kagi search engine as the default in Safari
    • Parcel for package tracking
    • Mona for Mastodon

    And I'll second some others.

    • Overcast
    • Bookplayer
    • Reeder
    • AnyList
    • Sleep Cycle
    • Signal
    • Obsidian
    • Vinegar
    • Noir
    8
  • Good video game blogs/RSS feeds?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I rediscovered Blue's News recently, although the RSS experience leaves something to be desired. I just go to the web site instead.

    1
  • What is everyone getting this Steam sale?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    So far, I've got a cart loaded up with a few, mostly cheap, mostly under-the-radar games:

    Also looking hard at Weird RPG and TUNIC.

    2
  • Did anyone else get an email about ATM Surcharge Class Action Settlement?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I noticed the news stories link to the same URL that was in the email, so I'm with you. And I've gotten several of these class action lawsuit emails in the past. They always feel like they could be scams, but I've never received one that actually was a scam. I'm sure there will be one that is someday, but my point is that even the legit ones always feel a little off.

    1
  • Did anyone else get an email about ATM Surcharge Class Action Settlement?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I did a quick bit of research and found some news stories about it on reputable outlets. I believe it's legit. That said, it was a very quick bit of research, so be sure to do your own to your satisfaction (aside from just posting here).

    1
  • If You Were Asked to Recommend Just One Game, What Would It Be?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Yeah, definitely depends on who I'm recommending to. If it's someone who's pretty familiar with games, I think it would be Elden Ring. Love the sense of exploration and discovery in that game.

    3
  • US might finally force cable-TV firms to advertise their actual prices - Ars Technica
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Nice! Not sure why I attributed it to Trump. 🤔

    1
  • How do I learn to plan meals and cook?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Can you recommend any specific resources on either of those topics? Anything you’ve found particularly helpful?

    1
  • Recent change in life circumstances, and now I'm trying to figure out how to be an adult about food. I want to focus on eating healthy. I have very little foundational knowledge, so I need ELI5-level content. I'd love some online resources that I could use to learn. In-person classes are not a great fit. Anyone have any recommendations?

    40
    29
    Mint Mobile: Good or Bad?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I switched fairly recently. I was on Ting before, and they appear to be quietly sunsetting that service after Dish Network bought them a few years back. Hoping the same doesn't happen to Mint. It's been great so far. Incredible value!

    5
  • Does anyone else sometimes feel overwhelmed by (big) games?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    Yeah, come to think of it, I think this is a larger issue I have in life: I always have to be working toward a goal or else I feel guilty. I can see your point of view too though. If there's no beginning and end, there's no minimum amount of time you need to play. The goal is just to enjoy.

    My perspective is basically the inverse: if there's no beginning and end, there's no maximum amount of time I need to play. 😅

    3
  • Does anyone else sometimes feel overwhelmed by (big) games?
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I don't feel this way about open-world games because they do usually have an end and you can skip a lot of the open-world filler content. I get this anxiety about sandbox games. I hate it because I really enjoy games like Cities Skylines and I'd love to get into Dwarf Fortress, but I can't play them anymore because I could spend 1,000 hours in one of them and never finish. That open-endedness keeps me from playing.

    4
  • US might finally force cable-TV firms to advertise their actual prices - Ars Technica
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 66%

    Greater transparency under capitalism is always a good thing. I have to admit, one thing Trump did that I liked was to force hospitals to publish their prices. I can't think of a good reason people buying a thing shouldn't know how much it costs beforehand.

    1
  • YSK: This service needs more content creators, and you can invite them.
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    All great points, and you're definitely right that it's not black and white.

    2
  • YSK: This service needs more content creators, and you can invite them.
  • RadDevon RadDevon Now 100%

    I would like to make a distinction between a “content creator” in the literal sense — just a person who creates content — and a “content creator” as the phrase is commonly used today — a person who makes a living by selling content or by giving away content to market something else.

    I, for one, would be very interested in seeing more people on the fediverse creating content, but I’m not super interested in the fediverse becoming a marketing channel for professional content creators.

    Of course, it’s an open platform, so pro content creators are more than welcome to join. I’m just not super excited about approaching them and saying, “please come hock your wares to us on the fediverse!”

    19
  • If you're like me, you're accustomed to setting up 2FA by having 1Password detect a QR code on-screen, but this doesn't work with Lemmy's 2FA since it never displays a QR code. Here's what you should do instead. Start in Lemmy by enabling 2FA in your settings. When you save, scroll down again to the bottom of your settings. You'll now see a 2FA installation button. My first inclination was to click this button, but my Mac wanted to open it in the macOS keychain instead of 1Password. Instead, right click the button and copy the link. (It's styled as a button, but it's really just a plain link.) Now, in 1Password, add a one-time password field to your Lemmy login. Paste the URL you copied from the button into the one-time password field. Save the login, and you should now see the one-time password displayed in 1Password. You're actually done at this point. One thing that threw me off is that Lemmy's 2FA does *not* require a code validation step like many 2FA systems do. I validated it manually by logging out and logging back in. Lemmy asked me to enter the 2FA code, and I was able to copy/paste it from 1Password to log back in. Hope this helps others who are confused like I was!

    24
    3

    I've thought about giving Fitness+ a try, but I wonder if it will be the right fit. One of my main criteria around a fitness app is, "does it make me think?" If I use Fitness+, does it give me the next workout I should do, or am I presented with a library of workouts and asked to pick? This will make the difference for me between whether I actually do a workout or spend 45 minutes browsing workouts before realizing I no longer have time to do one. If it does suggest the next workout, some more questions follow: - How is the variety in the suggestions? Am I going to be cycling through the same 5-7 workouts on repeat, or does it mix things up for me? - Does it "evolve" my program so that I can keep getting stronger? - Does it know and care about what equipment I have available? - Can it care about other criteria, like if I need to do workouts that don't make noise for downstairs neighbors?

    1
    0
    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearAW
    Cute aggression: a metal song about loving your cat
    youtu.be
    16
    2

    I've enjoyed the influx of new users over the past week or so. Hope things continue to stay awesome around here even with lots of new faces. So far, it's been pretty great! Thank you all!

    97
    14
    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearRE
    Reddit RadDevon Now 100%
    Reddit now says it will allow free API access for developers of accessibility apps
    www.neowin.net
    93
    46
    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearOL
    OldWeb RadDevon Now 100%
    MetaFilter: The Community Weblog
    https://www.metafilter.com/

    This site has been around forever. It gained popularity for a while when the Google search algorithm had it ranking highly for a lot of terms. That went away for some unknown reason with an algorithm update, but the site is still plugging along, its users cranking out quality posts every single day.

    10
    4
    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearOL
    OldWeb RadDevon Now 100%
    My own tiny contribution to making the old web visible again
    https://devon.lol/blog/the-old-web/

    I put together a list of onramps to the old web. Very excited to find this community so that maybe I can grow my list!

    12
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    "Initials" by "Florian Körner", licensed under "CC0 1.0". / Remix of the original. - Created with dicebear.comInitialsFlorian Körnerhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearLE
    Lemmy Support RadDevon Now 100%
    What does "Subscribe Pending" actually mean?

    I've attempted to subscribe to a couple of communities on other instances. When I'm looking at the list of communities, those both say "Subscribe Pending." What is actually happening here? Is there a manual approval process? Some handshaking between instances? The most confusing part is that some communities on other instances just subscribe instantly. These two didn't. 🤷‍♂️

    3
    3
    RadDevon Now
    10 93

    RadDevon

    lemmy.ml

    🚨 My active profile is on Lemmy.zip. 🚨

    Still figuring things out here. In the world, I mean.