They are trying to find the breaking point in fleecing gamers, and I sincerely hope they find it in the most painful (for them) way imaginable.

In reality they probably won’t, because it seems the younger gamer generations enjoy being fleeced, but one can dream…

I mean, it’s Nintendo - if there was a way to somehow automatically charge your card every time you say, hear or think the words “Nintendo”, “Mario” and such, they’d do it without hesitation…

…because if I’m not interested in something, I might change my mind after I see it a bunch more times on the same fucking page - what a brilliant idea! Hell, put the ad in 50 different spots and make me click no less than 7 times to close each one - who knows, maybe that will encourage me to buy whatever shit you’re peddling!

Seems an alternative, easier method was found: https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/an-even-better-microsoft-account-bypass-for-windows-11-has-already-been-discovered

Relevant part:

But fret not, as a new, perhaps better bypass has already been discovered that still uses the command prompt (which you can open with Shift + F10) and makes skipping the Microsoft Account sign-in step a total breeze.

Discovered by user @witherornot1337 on X, typing “start ms-cxh:localonly” into the command prompt during the Windows 11 setup experience will allow you to create a local account directly without needing to skip connecting to the internet first.

“Users who in the past would type ‘free online file converter’ into a search engine are vulnerable, as the algorithms used for results now often include paid results, which might be scams.”

Nooo, you mean turning search engines into monetization and ad delivery engines had downsides? Who would have thought!

Fucking greed at the root of another goddamned issue…

That’s good and I’m genuinely glad they’re trying to clarify it, but it proves yet again that their top management is out of touch with reality and their users: somebody (most likely more than one person actually) had to sign off on these changes and the message they sent out - this whole thing could have been avoided if they understood their users better (and/or if they actually cared nore about what users think).

That’s the advanced cutting edge AI recommendation system for you. Oh, you just bought a fridge and a large TV? Here are fifty more fridges and large TVs that would be great for your fridge and large TV collection! And also a cheap Chinese knockoff impact drill, because they paid us to show it to people searching for fridges, TVs, jewelry, mineral water and potting soil!

“When it detects a user may be under 18, Google will notify them that it has changed some of their settings and will offer information about how users can verify their age with a selfie, credit card, or government ID.”

This will definitely not be used to get a massive amount of face and ID data from users who get misclassified as underage due to “glitches” and suddenly locked out from their Gmail accounts or Android phones. Nope, no sirree, that will never happen at all, Google wouldn’t do such an unethical and evil thing!

I was half expecting a “deal” along the lines of “all Ukrainians fuck off somewhere else and don’t ever come back, and me and my boss pal Vlad are going to turn Ukraine into a luxury riviera” - this shit is pretty close…

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Problem is, unless you’re rich and powerful crimes tend to have consequences - they only “just let you do it” when your account balance already has a certain number of digits…

Wish people would start calling them “invaders” instead of “settlers” since that’s what they are…

I have no complaints about Lemmy, but posting on Mastodon is basically screaming into the void - I’ve been trying for more than a year, and I basically hardly ever get any reaction at all. In comparison, in the first week on Bluesky I found multiple people following me, commenting on my silly wine and cactuses posts, and in general just interacting.

Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer Mastodon technically and ethically, but it’s just so goddamned barren and dead I feel completely unmotivated to post there…

Zorin has a pro tier that costs money but it’s supposed to have the look and feel of classic Windows - maybe it’s that?

Amen. Basically this survey reads to me as “we decided to focus on AI and we need some pretty graphs to show it’s an awesome idea - please tell us why you think AI is the best thing ever!”

"A new eye-opening report (that we are not going to link, or even give you a title of, because trust us bro) has revealed something surprising about our social media platforms

Thanks, here’s hoping! I love it as a phone, but I suspect it might be another app showing the icon - there should be no way for a disabled app to do so…

Anyway, I’ll keep casually digging, maybe start disabling apps one by one to see which one is the culprit or something :)

Factory reset is out of the question - I spent way too much time installing and setting everything up after changing phones to nuke it all (because Google sucks and doesn’t allow backing all the settings and such without root, but that’s a rant for another day).

I did reboot the phone, yes, multiple times - after turning calendar notifications off, disabling the app and so on. No dice, the icon keeps coming back. Oh well, guess I’ll have to get used to it - it’s a distracting eyesore, but the phone is working fine. Maybe it fixes itself after the update to Android 15…

Thanks a bunch for all the suggestions and willingness to help - appreciate it!

That didn’t work unfortunately - my Google calendar is actually completely empty, no tasks, notifications or anything. Cleared app data, even tried force stopping and disabling the app completely (can’t fully uninstall it, since it’s system), but the darn icon is still there. Maybe I just need to learn to live with it, even though it annoys me…

That’s a great find, thanks! The problem is, I don’t actually have any tasks scheduled right now, and the icon never disappears. Disabling calendar notifications completely doesn’t hide it either, I even tried disabling the calendar app completely, and still nothing…