notvplez's comments

notvplez | 2 years ago | on: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

I finally caved in and switched the Siri language to English on all my devices, after trying and failing to keep it in my native language on my iThings while simultaneously keeping my new MacBook in English (because I prefer it on computers, and I wanted the read time out loud at the hour-function turned on - it kept reading it out in a mixture of both languages, wtf?). Turns out it is much better in US English, but still completely useless .

I just set timers using the crown on my watch now, combined with custom google assistant commands to control what I need (lights, tv) through my Nest. Playing and controlling music is too much of an extreme sport for my taste on either assistant, and I've stopped using it for calls too as there's always a 5% chance it will call up some random person I knew decades ago but haven't removed from my contact list because reasons. The name is of course totally different from the few persons I do call on a regular basis.

It's great for joking around with my kid though, laughing at the misinterpretations and stuff like that. And that's about it.

notvplez | 2 years ago | on: LSD: Not Even Once

Count me in the camp of people experiencing this, I associate it with childhood fever dreams. And much later, I encountered the exact same feeling through psychedelic experimenting. Never knew it was such a common experience either, and as you say it's very reassuring.

notvplez | 2 years ago | on: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

For what it's worth: as a fellow parent and handicapped of sorts - thankfully from a corner of the world with a better social safety net than you seem to "enjoy" over there - I always get tremendous value out of reading your posts. I'm pretty handle-blind on this site, so your name is one of the few that stands out, not only because of your excellent writing style but just as much your against the grain-views that quite frankly helps _a lot_ in keeping my "stupid Americans"-bias in check. Thank you!

notvplez | 5 years ago | on: Pixar in a Box: the art of storytelling

I like this. The feature film brings me to tears every single I watch it without fail, and then I am always thoroughly entertained back to a pretty good moood by the following movie.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: A Lonely Plea: ‘Anybody Need a Grandma for Christmas?’

Honestly I would feel more comfortable managing my mothers online dating accounts until the day she dies(not that she has any that I know of anyway) than attending yet another christmas dinner. And I don't have any problems with seeing my family, it's just christmas is such an awkward time all around - to me at least.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: Apple TV, Apple TV, Apple TV, and Apple TV+

I use the remote control you can add to the Control Center. It can be used without unlocking the phone, and some time ago they finally added a feature that makes the remote controls available immediately (if the phone has gone to sleep while the remote was active) just by raising the phone to wake it. Feels like an actual remote now, to the point that I no longer bother searching for the real remote and just use my phone all the time. The pop up-keyboard and keychain access to automatically input passwords are also nice.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

If your Big Mac comes with sliced tomatoes and/or french fries you actually do have to intake some nicotine if you want to eat the whole thing. ;)

I agree with the parent, banning nicotine outright because of its perceived risk/benefit ratio while still allowing Coca Cola to advertise and sell bottled diabetes and tooth decay is a blatant double standard, and the fact that drinking water is essential for survival doesn't change that.

Not that I'm in favor of banning (so called) unhealthy life choices, I think that every adult individual should be given enough information to be able to decide themselves whether the rewards outweighs the risks in each case. I see no reason why drug dealers of any kind should be allowed to run ad campaigns though, so I'm fine with banning that.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: TV detector van

Well your Norwegian friend was wrong about that. All they could do was knock on your door and ask you if you had a TV, and you could more or less politely tell them you didn't and that would be the end of it, even if you did own one and it was on and both you and the license guy was able to hear it playing in the background. :)

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: TV detector van

Norway is doing the same thing starting next year, and I really like it, even though the content is increasingly getting predictably all-consuming right wing as each year goes by. ;)

I actually bought my very first TV (since I discovered I was able to download South Park and The Simpsons and watch it on my computer in the early 2000s) a few months ago hoping to make the cut off so I would be able to say I'd paid the old license at least once in my lifetime (the license is divided into two payments per year), but it seems like the webshop I bought it from was nice enough to not supply my address info to the licensing office in time as I haven't received any bill. Oh well.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: Why do people mock vegans?

This sounds more like a problem with people jumping to unfounded conclusions than with vegans, doesn't it? I'll admit I used to be one of those even though I'd never even met a vegan, and now that I have met literally hundreds (used to work in a vegetarian coffee shop) I've yet to meet a single one of these so called militant vegans who won't leave you alone before you've listened to all their arguments about what a bad person you are.

Where I'm at there's a tendency to think of (US) Americans as fat, obnoxious people who will sue their own mother if that will get them some of the money they are so obsessed with, would you say this a problem with Americans or (as I believe) a problem rooted in lazy thinking, stereotyping and general prejudice?

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

I'll consider this though I it would be probably be sitting unused after trying it anyway as I really have no need for it. Thank you for the information. Just to clarify, we're both talking about a late 2013 macbook pro retina? The other helpful commenter mentions the 2015.

notvplez | 6 years ago | on: Kuo: Apple to include new scissor switch keyboard in MacBook

Could you share some details about how you do this? Do you need displayport on both ends, and is it a monitor or TV? I have the same machine and a 4K TV with only HDMI-inputs and am curious if I can achieve this is in some way. Switchresx looks really useful anyway, so thank you for that. :)

notvplez | 7 years ago | on: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

I spend lots of time with my kid every day, and I've never noticed any difference in behavior when he eats lots of sugary stuff (usually once a week). Also, at every birthday party some parent will always start espousing this theory while pointing to the kids playing as evidence, and I've learned not to point out that their kid acted exactly the same way last week while visiting my kid with no sugar served at all... My pet theory is that people who claim this connection are mostly exposed to children running around and acting like children do at events where incidentally there's a lot of soda, cakes and candy.

notvplez | 7 years ago | on: Inventor May Have Cured Motion Sickness Without Drugs

Yeah ymmv, but to me it's night and day - with lenses I'm in your first group, without them I'm in the other. Of course I've never cut more than maybe 20-30 onions at a time, but I never felt much of anything doing that. A single cut without lenses on had my tears flowing instantly. I finally got what all the fuss was about - turns out it's not fussing at all. :)

notvplez | 7 years ago | on: Inventor May Have Cured Motion Sickness Without Drugs

> You can also wear goggles.

Or even just contact lenses. At least for me it eliminates onion tears completely. I had been using them for at least a decade before I started to cook my own proper food, I'll never forget that one time I tried cutting up onions wearing my glasses instead...

notvplez | 7 years ago | on: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

I managed to break a seventeen year old cigarette habit by switching to vaping (after dozens of failed attempts either going cold turkey or with nicotinine gum/snus), and have now vaped exclusively for almost seven years. In my opinion his comment is 100% spot on.
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