The only time i tried online dating apps to the point of actually talking to another human i met a young woman and we exchanged a few messages then arranged a phone call. On the phone she wouldn’t stop talking. It was pretty amazing, this flood of words pouring from her. I supposed it was because she was nervous, but still - being pretty pessimistic about the whole online dating thing to begin with - figured this would never work out because her non-stop talking was starting to weird me out a little. Not in a terrible way, just a little.

Anyway, she was going on and on about her job but was carefully avoiding any details that might identify where she worked, i guess so as to stay safe by not revealing too many personal details to a stranger. Somehow, though, I figured it out. She told me what area of the city she lived in, and i got enough details about the kind of work she did that i said something like: “Oh, you work at the Goodwill on blahblah street” and then there was dead silence. The flood of words stopped. We hung up soon after that. I felt really cool about guessing her workplace, like a detective, thinking i’d impressed her with my mind, but it wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me that i’d weirded her out even more than she weirded me out. A double oblivious weird out.

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I just started using this one today: https://docs.searxng.org/ and it did a great job for what i needed. I never heard of it before, but found the link on an old Lemmy post.

I don’t know how it would work for other people with other needs, but i needed to find graphic designers to help me with a project. DuckDuckGo kept giving me hundreds of results from a handful of big companies, but i wanted small companies and individuals. Found exactly what i needed on the first search using this engine.

Just by coincidence i’m watching a gameranx video about the 10 worst AAA games, and Falcon says the same thing about games as a service (subscriptions, micro-transactions, etc.): “it seems like they’re playing a game of chicken with the consumer to see what they can get away with”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8jDgkikylY

(start at 19:45)

Me too. This video helped a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Df5_cojAs

I got them on Firefox with Ublock Origin but only with my VPN on US or Canadian servers. Then a few days later, even on those servers they disappeared. Haven’t seen one since those first few.

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More likely because researchers, professors, and even grad students are desperate to publish because their jobs require it in the new research-for-profit model of universities and colleges, so they work too quickly and take shortcuts to make their publishing quotas and deadlines.

https://archive.ph/Kfqpw

True. I once considered subscribing, some years ago, but customer reviews of OST convinced me not to. Looks like i made the right decision.

Any of thousands of people can say this but i don’t see it in the comments below so: I’ve been using a Linux Mint / Windows dual boot system for over 10 years and love it. I think a lot of people see Linux as highly technical, but versions like Mint and Ubuntu are more carefree than Windows nowadays.

I thought i pasted the archived version but the link goes to the original. weird. anyway, here’s the archived version

https://archive.fo/wk3fE

And archive: https://archive.fo/

Is it about helping out workers any more? Or is about companies - often big, profitable companies - not paying their employees a livable wage and pressuring customers to come to the rescue? At the very least, the situation is so confusing now that it’s impossible to tell whether a tip is a legitimate thing to do, or whether it’s giving in to corporate greed and cynicism.

Just to clarify, I worked in food service as a tipped employee from age 15 into my late 20s. I totally get it, and I always tip waiters, taxi drivers, and other traditionally-tipped employees. But I don’t know what to do when everybody expects a tip. And when corporate money-lords add their voices to pressure me, it just sounds too cynical.

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I can’t reach it on my Windows 11 computer when the vpn is turned on, but can reach it using Windows when the vpn is turned off (i tried servers in Europe, Americas, Asia).

But on my linux computer i can reach it with the vpn on or off (same vpn company, login, servers). So … weird.

For some reason i don’t know ipleak.net won’t load for me. These work too though: https://ipleak.org/, https://browserleaks.com/ip.