On this day, 4 years ago the site was first launched (then a day later the first post made), Formed from chapotraphouse remnants, the old admins decided to make a site using Lemmy as its base. Originally called chapo.chat, Hexbear has grown into one of the biggest instances in the lemmyverse.
Despite various sitewide struggle sessions, wrecker incursions from other forums and federation drama, Hexbear has keep growing strong in its 4th year, now with 4 megathreads, over 4 million comments, 300k posts and much more.
Its being great running the general megathread for a bit over 3 years, since i took over i have tried to get it mostly in time and just one unlike during the old times, i like to think i have done a decent job, plus i have also added a bit of reading material to them so you nerds can learn from them and i like to think you have been reading them 
, its also nice to see the new megathreads how they have slowing grown up to the size to the old general mega in the time of the old admins.
dont have much else to say so have a good day nerd. also
Whats has been your favorite post/event from last year (july 2023-july 2024)?
I wont lie, all the fedidrama has been fun to read, especially when libs wander here
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- π Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- π₯ Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
- β Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread
- β¨ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread
reminders:
- π You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- π Hexbearβs algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- π Sorting by new you nerd
- π If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
- πΆ Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
- β€οΈFoundations of Leninism
- β€οΈAnarchism and Other Essays
Also 24 hours after this is posted the admins are closing the site for a day, sorry
I really hate that my special interests are in shit people don't care about or worse, actively hate. Really makes it hard to engage with people and talk about them. There's so few of them too
Name your special interests, I have the curiosity of a toddler most days
The big two (especially these days) are reptiles (mostly snakes), and ai. I got my first reptile as a small child and was first introduced to ai around 10~ years ago and damn if they don't both hold a place in my mind most days. I'd love to answer questions :)
something cool about both... snakes can live a very long time without eating, my ball python has gone up to nine months before. In ai news I just found out about this, a new reward models. It is very easy to run but is extremely good at labeling data to train models with. Better then gpt4, basically the best on the market.
edit: to clarify, my ball python was refusing food, I was really trying.
Another interesting thing about snakes, some localitities of boa are hypo or hyper melanistic. Usually those are random mutations, but are just how these boas in these areas naturally look. Hog islands are the hypo, I forget the name of the hypermelonistic locality.
I've had multiple ball pythons. 9mo refusing food is so normal it's the worst part of the cute lil things. Neurodivergent ass reptile can't eat if the food is the wrong colour or they missed the first strike
Aghhh it's the worst! And they're so perfect otherwise. But 9 months without eating is so stressful. Plus when she's not eating, I'm not handling. Sucks wanting to hold her and feel her and I can't.
Is there a reason you can't hold her if she doesn't eat?
So usually when they aren't eating, they're stressed. And obviously hungry. A hungry and stressed snake is a lot more likely to be a bitey snake :ohnoes: all of the times I've been bit I knew the snake was one of those but held it anyway. Also, if stress is why they aren't eating, I don't want to make that worse. Handling is at least a little bit stressful for snakes, even if with more exposure it's less so. Better to give them the best chances of eating.
Does your snake recognize you as its owner or at least a non threat?
And if they do, are their bites more gentle?
Was your snake visibly losing weight while not eating?
And why didn't it want to eat? Was it a seasonal thing or were they just chilling
So I didn't see her while she weren't eating, but after she started (and I could handle again) she had lost weight and got skinny. Not like emaciated skinny, but smaller then I would like her to be. Fortunately she got back up to a regular weight once she started eating again though. I've heard stories of them not eating for up to two years and being fine on the other side, so
their bodies are super efficient with calories.
I think some of it was seasonal, some was stress. This past year she also went off feed, but for less time. I got her as an adult from a breeder who kept all their snakes in a rack system, think those big under bed shoe boxes. Ball pythons live in tunnels underground basically their whole lives and don't move a whole lot so its actually fine for them. Anyway I moved her to a nice big terrarium but I think it being a little more open made her feel less secure then the dark tubs (I have also added more stuff to hide in since then). But the fact she went on and then back off feeding at the same time this year makes me think baby season just messes with her (poor girl). Its pretty common for them to take a break from eating in the winter/spring, but usually its more like 3-4 months.
I have also changed up my feeding practices a little bit, now I let the rodent defrost in her tank and I think the smell for longer gets her more in the mood to eat.
Poor baby, too horny to function