Dreaming Spanish. It’s an online video based approach, but their very early stage lessons basically do what the OP was talking about, in video form. They’ll tell a story about a kid who goes on an excursion at school and gets up to mischief, and they’ll flash in pictures and drawings to make sure you understand the context of what they’re saying.

The further you get in to it, the less they use images and drawings, but in the early stages, they’re a core part of the system

If only it wasn’t so cold! :)

I’ve never seen snow except through an airplane window

It depends on what those opposing viewpoints are. If they involve actively targeting and harming vulnerable people, I have no space at all for those viewpoints or the people that hold them.

For the other stuff, maybe a 7.

Speaking from my own experience, I would say it’s effective, but not fast, but leads to better results in the end.

None of that is why I use it though. I simply enjoy it more this way.

I’ve been learning Spanish though a similar method

Well, in that regards, they’re similar to blahaj, as in, our instance doesn’t just have trans communities. Our user base is focused on trans and gender diverse folk however. Hexbear, similarly, has all sorts of communities, but their userbase is focused on shared politics, even though their areas of discussion are not restricted to that.

Hexbear is very protective of it’s trans users and it has a lot of them. But its “specialist area” is politics.

I think it’s a good thing, because it discourages centralisation. If we end up with a bunch of specialist instances, then diversity suffers, because everyone looking for a specific area will end up on the one single specialist instance dedicated to it.

And I say that as the admin of an instance focused on the trans and gender diverse folk. There is a reason that we don’t enforce specialisation on those topics in our instance communities though. Even so, we still tend to be “the trans instance”, when I’d much prefer it if we were just one of many, like we are on the microblog part of the fediverse.

On the chance that you’re engaging honestly, rather than just trolling…

WhatsApp, Roblox and Signal all run fine in Linux.

This is the ProtonDB page for Roblox. https://www.protondb.com/app/2181790. ProtonDB is a database that assesses how well windows games run under linux, and in this case, Roblox is Gold rated.

There are numerous WhatsApp apps and wrappers that run under linux, and Signal has an official Linux version found here https://signal.org/download/linux/

Sorry, I was trying to be outright hostile, not passively.

There are no widely federated edgelord instances at this point in time

You’re right about that, and if I ever do go back, that will be why! But the sameness I was talking about is more the cultural identities of the countries. Every place we stayed felt like it could be transplanted to Australia, and fit right in. It might be different if I wasn’t Australian :)

I’ve never been to the US, so I can’t say I won’t go there again, but I can say I won’t go there at all.

But in terms of countries I have been to, probably New Zealand. There’s nothing wrong with New Zealand, but it feels too much like Australia, and baring me suddenly developing an unlimited amount of time and money, there are other places I would rather go

Piefed and lemmy are both group actor based activitypub platforms, and Piefed is explicitly designed to be compatible with lemmy, simply because lemmy has the traction/momentum in the activitypub niche they both exist in.

The difference isn’t protocol based, it’s just a piefed design decision and one that could easily be changed if a dev gets the chance to put some time in to it.

I use Kagi. Paying for a search engine isn’t something that I ever saw myself doing, but I do honestly believe it’s the only way they can exist that means the users are the customers instead of the product.

The thing that makes them right wing is the exclusions they place on their “progressive” policies. It’s always the vulnerable

Swedish right-wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna explicitly support that:

They don’t support housing for everyone because they don’t believe that non western foreigners should be allowed in to the country, and they don’t believe that people who aren’t “culturally Danish” are citizens.

So they don’t believe in housing for all

German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland is led by a lesbian who calls her party "the only real protective force for gays and lesbians in Germany

They’re an explicitly transphobic party who doesn’t extend queer rights to trans people, even if they’re gay or lesbian. They actively practice discrimination against LGBTQ folk.

See if there’s a front runners group in your area. They’re an international queer running group.