Tip: Always write over things you don’t want seen in the same color they were originally written in, if you can’t completely redact it. This fucks with our brain’s ability to distinguish a pattern, which is all reading really is anyway.

Good on you for calling your Mom.

What they mean is normally when something isn’t being paid for, you are the actual product. It’s why people should never use free password managers, for instance.

Proton may be unique in that the free tier might actually be exactly what it says it is: A product for you. Not a product OF you.

I’m already interested. Anywhere I can get more information that is not on Proton’s website?

Good luck. It wasn’t a post, it was a top level comment and I have a dim memory of it only being slightly related to the post topic.

@PixelOrange@lemmy.world got it mostly right from my research, though their backgrounds will still have that bar. If you use a black, or near black, background, especially one not at your native resolution, that gradient will be most noticeable. Using other backgrounds that do not have a black strip along the top you might still be able to see it if you squint.

For those of you curious: Change your background to a solid black from the background menu in settings, or grab something similar elsewhere. Then crank your brightness up. Chances are it’ll be there for you too if you’re not running a third party launcher.

I haven’t found a way to turn it off in native yet.

Alright… you’d be surprised how often a power button isn’t pressed, or tower/monitor is not plugged in. Sometimes the fix is the simplest possible solution.

Having worked in tech, though not as familiar with phones, I want to ask a question no one else has, which may be silly of me:

It’s not a background, is it?

I did say “some serious and not serious suggestions”. :P

There are lots of great answers here so I want to post something entirely silly and much much more recent:

About 8-9 years ago someone on Reddit transcribed and revised the entirety of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven to instead be about an Emu.

For the life of me I have never been able to find it again.

Dude, stop getting defensive. Most people aren’t trying to directly belittle you, they’re offering suggestions. It’s okay to take them at pace, my dude. You are allowed to say “I wasn’t able to pick it up due to some long term complications. Man though, dat price. Woo.”

Some serious and not serious suggestions: You could call to order and pay over the phone and then request someone bring it out and place it in the trunk. You could put a couple masks on which will filter a decent portion of the smell. Walk backwards into the wind while carrying it. If your daughter is old enough and you trust her, perhaps she could have gotten it.

There are options. You posted this to point out and complain about the pricing, then get defensive when others point out how to make it cheaper. Most of us are reasonably sure you didn’t apply a coupon, for instance. Did you consider calling and asking if they could wrap the box in plastic wrap to mostly eliminate the smell, and apologize while explaining why? All we got is “Pizza smell too strong. Daughter picky. So pricy.” We get you have an issue and that is shitty though like of course people will offer ways to deal.

That said, I am sorry you’re going through a difficult time. It’s clear we aren’t aware of everything you’ve had to give up. I hope it gets better.

I feel combining this with @PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca likely creates a fairly accurate sense for the place.

India is, well…despite their historical advances in medicine and continued strong cultural fascination with academia, at some point they became nothing but call centers, distribution points, and scam centers. There is certainly more to India, though when I think of hacking, I think of China and Russia. When I think of scams, unfortunately India is top of the list.

I’ve dealt with my share of PC issues and apart from digging in and writing scripts, I’m an advanced end user. One time le tired IT guy needed to remote in for some issue I didn’t have appropriate access to deal with. He seemed rather startled when I opened notepad and said “Hi!”

I also swear I began to get more difficult to recognize fake phishing attempts shortly after.

Dave, if you’re reading this you never caught me with one! Gotta try harder!

Give it a minute: Tech Jesus and his Nexus friends are having a great time with ASUS recently. I’m sincerely looking forward to how far they take things.

I’m on the fence about this as I agree and disagree with what you’re saying. Not because the elderly do have a disproportionate amount of potential time to vote (with other possible complications that come with it), you’re right that many of them won’t see the true effects that their votes cause. Having said that…

I also feel that this is a slippery slope. It’s not a far leap to deny voting rights to one group of people and then extend the denial of rights to another group.

The Black community doesn’t really…

Native Americans don’t do…

This minority shouldn’t impact this majority because…

These are the very things that the Right Wing has spent years, and millions of dollars, promoting in bad faith. Essentially brainwashing far too many people into believing they are correct to hide behind racism and hate and “patriotism” if it means not allowing some group or person they don’t agree with to win, even if it hurts them.

Let older people vote. Restrict age and experience to mentor status - allowed to sit in and support revisions by guidance, not through official acts, and only if they have acted throughout their time in office for the good of the people within their station, and even then for X years, such as say two. That’s my compromise.

No. I do support conditional retirement. What I don’t want to do is remove those individuals who are older and have the connections and experience to get things done, and actually do the job they are there to do. I’m at work and don’t have time to expand on the how, though a system should be put in place so that those conditions need to be followed, and locked in requiring majority approval through the normal process, with a subclause to be revisited every single damn year if it is temporarily unrestricted due to some issue or another.

It isn’t even paranoia. That’s the pattern. Back before the Great Reddit Enshittification people were noticing and posting. Controversial bills getting fast-laned in single sessions. Stuff being pushed on weekends. News Stations yelling about some story for a week while a shitty footnote was thrown into some funding bill. Then all too often around nationwide voting periods a major conflict being headlined.

It divides us. Using the most recent conflict, Gaza: Pretty much everyone who isn’t evil agrees that’s a terrible situation. Though it is sowing discourse. The exact same tactics Republicans use to work disagreements are being used to trample on people who beg for us to not let Trump succeed.

I’m just worried, I guess. This happens nearly every time. The Right bands together last minute to shit on the other guy and the left is too busy arguing amongst themselves to notice. Then we all talk about it and the process repeats.

Fuck.

It’s more than that, I’m afraid. After all, conflicts that always seem to be perfect to capture the attention of the masses, amazingly timed just well enough that other systemic issues get swept under its rug, well…

Let’s just say that it seems exciting problems appear to happen right as things like incredibly controversial bills are passed in an afternoon.

Bit tinfoily, so take from this what you will.

He’s not earned my vote, he just hasn’t lost it because of the potential loss we may suffer at the hands of the current GOP. I believe that Biden has done quite a bit. He also seems oddly stubborn regarding Gaza, which is obviously a pretty big mistake. However, I foresee an entire world negatively impacted by Trump becoming President once again. Yeah, I heavily dislike feeling forced to vote for Biden over someone else. Yet I have seen Biden roll over on many issues and take many positive steps. At least with him there seems to be a way forward where we will still be able to voice our concerns and where the people within our borders who are not white and others who are not straight don’t have to fear for their lives or their freedom.

With Biden in for a second term we will have something we desperately need now that we seem to have finally begun coming together to some degree: Time. With Trump there is a real possibility that Gaza will become lower on everyone’s list as people we consider friends, family, and neighbors are targeted. It isn’t that the terrible situation in Gaza isn’t important. I just recognize it’s being used to divide us and risks us falling into the trap of dictatorship.

This is the situation we’re in, even if you don’t like it. Yes, communities can take care of a lot. Yet for so many people the creation process and love of a product is why they create, not the money. I cannot blame the devs for wanting their game to reach as many people as possible. Nor can I blame Sony for wanting to make money, without that desire we wouldn’t have as many opportunities to play amazing titles as we do, though we can absolutely blame the way that money is made.

So perhaps you may have gone a different route. Maybe it would have worked, maybe not. Maybe many of us only recognize John Deere, and maybe people in the industry know of alternatives. Point is, I am hesitant to blame devs for nearly anything nowadays. Because this isn’t 1999, these titles aren’t for the PS1, Dreamcast, or even PS2 or original Xbox. It’s 2024 my dude and they had to make a choice: Get the resources, finagle some barely working alternative, or get help. I think many of us would have done the same.

Go shit on the big companies who are almost always the problem. Everyone else, man… they’re just making the shit they want because many of them love the process. We’re lucky we see so many projects reach the light of day, especially when for every successfully finished one I’d bet there are a 100 which are scrapped part way through.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Get something so bad that everyone comes together to make fun of it, making the night more fun in general.