That sounds entirely reasonable.

Does anyone have any clue?

My best guess would be some relatively passive notification stealing focus.

As reddeadhead mentioned, there’s specific “don’t steal focus” settings. I’ve had good luck with them.

Isn’t project Gutenberg just for older classic books(not that there’s anything wrong with that)?

Oh, yes. I’m most cases, really old books.

I used to always use Minecraft for this. Sure, they can’t do everything immediately, but I put the game on peaceful and let them explore at their own pace.

I say “used to” because Luanti (formerly MineTest, an open source Minecraft Clone*) is finished and free.

(Okay, Luanti is a lot more than a Minecraft clone. But for this discussion that’s all one needs to know.)

Nice. Minecraft used to be my go to answer for a first WASD game, too.

Lately, I recommend Mineclonia on Luanti, because it’s free and has stronger optimizations supporting weak laptops and big multiplayer servers. (It’s a popular Free Open Source Minecraft Clone).

Where do you get books for the Kindle if not at Amazon?

• BAEN sells eBooks directly.
• Libby has various options to check out eBooks from local libraries.
• Project Gutenberg has free and DRM free eBooks for most books in the public domain. A huge number of classics are available this way.

When I look for a specific book, I usually find that simply searching for "BOOK NAME purchase DRM free” results in plenty of results.

Sadly, I find it dramatically easier to find a free DRM free copy of most eBooks than to find somewhere to legally purchase a paid licensed DRM-free copy.

As a flawless upstanding citizen, I never partake of such amazing convenience, myself, of course.

I bought a “fixer-upper” recently, so I fill most days off with minor home repair projects. I’m using it as an excuse to build a decent little project workbench, though.

Thank you! You’re doing Lliira’s work!

Nothing anotger fireball won’t solve…

the low rollers having been filtered out by dart traps, lucky kobolds, etc.

True. That’s mage survivor bias, right there.

Jeff Bezos never smashed the window on my car to steal my speakers,

True.

he doesnt come out vandalising public transport or parks and he isnt the reason my wife doesnt feel safe walking around at night.

If we could even comprehend the scale of his unpaid taxes, or their impact on our parks, we might discuss this at length…

Movie theaters are really expensive, so I’m not paying attention to what Hollywood is making right now.

• Have you also experienced this worsening of DuckDuckGo?

Yes.

• Which other more privacy-respecting alternatives do you recommend?

I’m in the same boat. I’ll be trying out these answers.

The surprisingly deep copy of Balatro in “Dave the Diver” is pretty good.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be buying one at the first opportunity.

My other action figures are going to have to stand in the shadow of the glory of “it’s just Jack Black, I guess”.

(No sarcasm. I’m really going to buy this. I love the idea of Jack Black just playing “Jack Black”.)