Ah, I see.

Cornflakes is cereal. AoE is Age of Empires, you might have heard about it. The comment I replied to was talking about games being released in cereal boxes. Where is the context lacking?

When I grew up AoE was put in cornflakes.

These summary bots are pretty shit. I find they leave out heaps of context and just make me click on the article.

I think it is safe to assume that the percentage of Lemmy users that actively use/d Twitter is quite low. Even Reddit was dominated by anti-Twitter/Meta sentiment, which has been further concentrated here.

The only mainstream platform I would say a large percentage of Lemmings use would be LinkedIn, and even then it’s recognised as a necessary evil rather than an additive service.

It can run at a loss. I believe the real motive here was to deplatform some users, or at least limit the functionality and usefulness of the platform. Twitter’s reach was vast, and activists were using its reach to speak out against oppressive Governments (amongst other things). The previous two US elections also demonstrated the power and influence of Social media. Elon can run X at a loss, funded by Saudi (and others) as long as it stays larger than competitors.

As much as we’d like them to be, Mastodon et al are not nearly big enough to compete at the moment, and it will take some time to match the critical mass of X. Thus, as much as users might complain, those that require a loudspeaker platform (journalists, celebrities, politicians, academics) are compelled to still use X lest they themselves become irrelevant.

It seems as though it was more a part of the Bing deal. In that MS said you can have Bing if you allow Bing and LinkedIn trackers. DDG were then able to negotiate a subsequent agreement that now blocks those trackers.

The failure to disclose the original MS tracker deal is slightly concerning but personally when I use DDG and just clear everything each session anyway and for the most part use Firefox with extensions for anything needing logins.

In my experience DDG breaks less sites than FF.

No, that’s a misconception. See news story here.

Unsure why DDG isn’t mentioned but they work well for me across devices.

It’s tricky and of course context dependent. It’d be much easier if there was no apparent motive (massive debt, impending arrest, history of fraud etc). I’ve often thought a holiday to a developing country with porous borders would be your best bet. If you are in a western nation it’s quite difficult to disappear within your own borders, and it is hard to survive without an identity. Even then, most western nations will send someone/s to investigate your disappearance or pursue the matter via Interpol etc. Add to this your appearance is likely to raise attention if you are obviously not a local (in my case I am a white AF guy with tattoos who would not melt into the background in India). Further, no matter the money you have you ultimately want some type of identity and passport in case your current situation gets hot. In my scenario I would travel to country A using my legitimate credentials, then disappear (drowning is a good one, cheers Harold). I’d then leg it to the neighbouring country (country B) where I’d attempt to get a new identity using forgeries I’d already organised from another country different to my home. Once I can establish my identity in country B (residency over months/years etc) I’d then move to my final destination and keep my head down.

There’s plenty of stories of those who try to restart and get caught (Nick Rossi, John Darwin). Common thread is they don’t completely break from their previous life, or they move somewhere too obvious. Another key point is having to deal with some real sketchy people to make all of this happen properly. You’d essentially need to be smuggled across borders and acquire forged documents.

I’d be keen to hear others back-of-napkin plans.

Isn’t this the narrative of the cat in Sabrina?

Yeah I know man, just the first thing I think of when people mention sleeping on a Greyhound.

If you ever have to do this buy yourself lots of benadryl and just sleep as much as possible.

Err, nah fuck that; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean#:~:text=On 30 July 2008%2C Tim,of Portage la Prairie%2C Manitoba.

According to witnesses, McLean was sleeping with his headphones on when the man sitting next to him suddenly produced a large knife and began stabbing him in the neck and chest. After the attack began, the bus driver pulled to the side of the road, and he and all the other passengers fled the vehicle. The driver and two other men made an attempt to rescue McLean, but were chased away by Li, who slashed at them from behind the locked bus doors. Li ultimately decapitated McLean and displayed his severed head to those standing outside the bus, then returned to McLean’s body and began severing other parts and consuming some of McLean’s flesh.

Yeah nah I got that. I understand they describe a deal that most likely at the upper end for most working Americans, but still below the minimum guarantees in EU and ANZ.

I don’t tend to agree. A similar sentence could be; “Owner of Maserati found drunk in river charged with disorderly conduct.” Similar structure but less confusing because the Maserati can’t be drunk so the statement re charges must relate to the owner. In the present headline the “locked in barn” could equally relate to both parents or children, it is only the fact that child negligence is mentioned that you can surmise that the kids were the ones locked in. Grammatically, the sentence could be better as I write above.

It’s a confusing headline that forces the reader to consider context.

A better headline would have been;

Adoptive parents facing felony child neglect charges after 2 children found locked inside a barn in West Virginia, authorities say.

Even by Australian standards that is still pretty good, except it’s generally 20-30 days annual leave here in any permanent FT job and 10-15 sick days, some of which is already accrued at beginning of employment.

I use Google to turn on my TV by saying ‘turn on TV’, easily done. But then when I ask it to adjust volume it asks me which TV… I only have one TV online and it had just turned it on.

I referred to them as examples of societal mainstays that have been/are being phased out generationally. But true, it’s near impossible to find a good comparison.