Edit: if this post does not meet the general quality standards of Tildes, I absolutely understand and apologize. Likewise if I should have posted this in a different subsection - ~misc or ~talk maybe?

So, recently I've been annoyed by this new thing in Gmail (and yes, I should be transitioning away from Google services) where this field pops up at the top of my email list called 'Happening Soon'. It mostly has shipping / tracking notifications saying 'hey, this thing with a tracking number is arriving tomorrow'.

I've been annoyed by it because there wasn't an easy way to disable this 'feature' and that perceived loss of agency (and reminding me that my Gmail account isn't really 'mine') was frustration inducing.

So I googled it (I recognize the irony here) - "disable "happening soon" gmail" - and found a Gmail help / community post with a bunch of people expressing the same desire to not have this forced upon them: https://support.google.com/mail/thread/346511942/how-to-disable-happening-soon-for-those-who-see-it-on-gmail-inbox-which-is-related-to-an-amazon-pu?hl=en but while plenty of people shared my frustration, I wasn't finding definitive answers on how to properly disable it.

So I decided to poke around inside of settings. There actually was a section for smart tracking reminders but that was not enabled. Then I saw a rather vague 'Smart Features' that was enabled that I didn't remember seeing before. I disabled that, Gmail had to restart, and then those notifications were gone.

I wanted to share this how-to with all the other people who posted to that Gmail support thread. I simply replied with "To disable this on desktop, go into settings and disable 'Smart Features'. That seems to fix it."

Suddenly I understood why no one else had posted the fix. My post was flagged instantly for 'content policy violations'. Specifically it said "Failed to post. Content violates Community Policy."

Yes, helping other Gmail users figure out how to turn off experimental 'features' we never asked for violates their policy of, I presume, being able to experiment on their userbase. Arg. That ticked me off.

I started this in ~life even though my own response is a tech service, to enable more diverse conversation.

For example, this could be something people normally pay for but you'd rather DIY, or a subscription service you use but don't see the point in paying for.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Ok, so my computer is starting to fail in a way I can't fix (never get an Alienware, folks. It's not easily user serviceable, and the parts are very specific to fit in the fancy case so you can't easily replace things when they fail,) and so I'm back on the market for something new. Given the impending forced transition to Windows 11, I'm thinking this is the right time to also switch from Windows to some Linux distro, so I can have all the fun of figuring out a new OS on new hardware.

Given that I'm stepping into unknown territory here, is there anything specific that the fine people of Tildes can suggest/advise/warn me about when it comes to getting a new computer with Linux? I know there's a bunch of different flavors of Linux, and most of the major computer brands seem to offer Ubuntu as a default OS if desired, but I'm just hoping y'all can help me avoid any really obvious pitfalls.

I use my PC for a combination of work and gaming, but the work is all entirely online, so Firefox is all I need on that end. I play a bunch of games, but from what I can see most games can be played in Linux these days?

I guess I'm mostly hoping to not get caught out by anything I don't know I don't know. Help?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like feudalism.techno, gmail and the oatmeal. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was truly bamboozled.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

Hi, Tildes. Another rambly post in an attempt to get authentic advice. Thanks in advance. :)

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I'd like to crowdsource your experiences before making a big purchase (a camera made for selfies). If anyone was in a similar situation did you like having your phone and your camera separate, etc. I currently have an iPhone SE 2022 to provide more context.

Why I'm considering buying a camera:

• preserving high quality moments with high quality digital photos of people I'm with, don't care so much for all the fancy settings to get the perfect shot of a landscape (but that's a welcome bonus of course)
• provides a way to be less dependent on a phone
• maybe eventually taking videos or vlogs with it

Why I'm hesitating:

• is a smartphone already enough? + two devices may be a bit cumbersome but maybe worth it for the difference in quality?
• is it annoying to always have to bring it?
• too expensive for what a phone already does?

I've done SOME research as well into this while I've been back and forth this idea for months: If I crack and decide to get a proper camera (without your advice of course), it would be a Sony ZV-1F. But open to suggestions for other models too! It's just to give an idea for people to understand what I'm sorta kinda looking for.

Can you pivot to other tasks, or are you dead in the water? What about others? Your team/department? Tell us what its like for those minutes/hours.

How often does the internet drop for you (if at all)?

If you don't ever lose internet at work (lucky you!), answer hypothetically about what would happen.