Good try, but I much prefer this Luce mascot: https://www.tenutaluce.com/en/

"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

How many military orphanages, military preschools and military press tents are they planning to strike this time? Are military supermarkets, military food banks and military temples also on the target list, or not this time?

And I bet at least one of them had a Hamas command center hidden in his back pocket too!

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…

I made a live wallpaper using an Android app called Magic Fluids (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magicfluids) that is fully black, but creates a flame effect every time I tap the screen or slide my finger across it. Yeah, edgy and tacky AF, but it really is a pretty cool effect and I’ve been using it for years, so whatever.

Put it on the pile: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

Amen to that. I’m not a busy CEO of four companies, I don’t need or want an assistant, digital or otherwise. I want to read through articles and watch videos, I can scroll/fast-forward through myself if I feel like it. And while we’re at it, I don’t really need or want personalized anything - just give me ALL the search results and I’ll sort through them myself. Luddite? Maybe, but I literally cannot think of a case where this would be useful or helpful to me…

Same. Here’s the l8nk to it: https://github.com/InfinityLoop1308/PipePipe/

A big reason I replaced my old S10+ with a battery that wouldn’t even hold half a day with Xperia 1 VI is that it has both the headphone jack AND an SD card slot. Might be the only flagship left that has both…

They used to have invite threads on Reddit - that’s how I got mine when the API changes were announced. I think it was in Reddit alternatives subreddit? Not sure, haven’t been back since. If there’s still a thread (and if the subreddit even exists still), asking there might work.

I don’t know (or, frankly, care much) about the “why”, and I like Lemmy the way it is, but if your looking for deeper discussion and longer posts I do recommend Tildes, if you can get an invite: https://tildes.net/ It’s not open to the public, so the post volume is quite low, but most responses are well thought out, longer and often thought-provoking. I don’t post much there, but enjoy reading it a lot.

Server doesn’t really matter much (to me), but I’m on toot.community because I’m mentally a child and like the funny name :)

App-wise, I really enjoy Moshidon, been using the nightly version for a while now: https://github.com/LucasGGamerM/moshidon

To be honest, they probably are. My pet theory is that they’re trying to do what do many politicians are doing - drive away everyone but the strongest base electorate that will stay with them no matter what they do. And then, the grift starts. I’m reasonably sure sooner rather than later they’ll start charging a subscription fee to use Windows, and people and companies will bend over and pay it…

I solved this issue by following multiple tags that interest me. People tend to tag their posts on Mastodon it seems, so discovering posts about, say, wine and cacti is as easy as following #wine #cactus #cacti #redwine #oragewine and so on and so forth - it’s working pretty good for me without an algorithm recommending stuff to me, maybe it’s worth a try?

Malaka!

Too bad there are no Tossel or Buggel engines though…