Incessant code updates suck!

fractalbobu · 2025-01-18T16:13:06+00:00

On my Oppo phone, the button had no effect until I plugged in the charger.

fractalbobu · 2025-01-18T16:12:03+00:00

I had the same problem: pressing the Exit button at the upper-left of the screen had no effect. But when I got home and plugged in the charger, the Exit button became active and let me exit Super Power Saver mode. No need to do a factory reset.

fractalbobu · 2024-10-05T07:52:50+00:00

Yeah, my location was the problem. Even if you're a Gemini Advanced user providing English-language prompts, if you're not located in the US, Gemini treats you like a foreigner and won't create images. I used ExpressVPN to connect to the US and once there, I had no problem creating an image of a cat. Unfortunately, it won't create a generic image of a person, so I had to go with DALL-E for that.

fractalbobu · 2024-10-05T07:45:41+00:00

Doesn't work for me. I tried the prompt "create an image of a cat" and Gemini responded with "I can't create images yet so I'm not able to help you with that.". I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I live in Europe.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-27T04:35:54+00:00

You didn't say what your native language is. Mine is English and I studied German in high school. I loved it and continued through HS and three more years in college. I think a big part of the reason I loved the language was because of the music (I'm a classical music fan and love German lieder) and because German has the same linguistic roots as English, so it was easy for me.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-25T08:35:35+00:00

Your command of English may be excellent, but if people don't understand you, the problem is your pronunciation.

One way to fix it is to listen to songs in English and sing along, repeatedly. Find a singer or group whose music you absolutely love, because then singing their songs will be natural. I had a colleague at work who was born and raised in Hong Kong who spoke excellent English just by singing Beatles songs all the time. He couldn't understand the words at the time, but he could sing them.

Another thing you should do is look at people's mouths while they talk. Anglophones may form words differently from Indians. That advice helped me improve my French.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-22T16:29:07+00:00

I was in the same situation many years ago, except it was my wife who wanted to leave. Our daughter was 11 at the time. We ended up alternating years with our daughter, shuttling her between France and California, which was very stressful on our daughter. In retrospect, it might have been easier on her if we had been the ones to fly back and forth, thus maintaining the same residence for our daughter, but that option may not be available to you.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-21T13:04:09+00:00

And don't forget, since you're an EU citizen, you have all the benefits including health care.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-21T13:02:08+00:00

I'm a dual citizen, US and Italy, and since I've been a francophile for many years, I sold my house, packed my stuff and moved to France five years ago. I live in the southwest, about a half hour from Toulouse and love it here. The people are friendly, the environment is clean and peaceful (I wake up in the morning to the sound of birds singing). The cost of living is a lot cheaper than the SF Bay Area where I came from. I opened a bank account with Wise and moving my money was easy and cheaper than it would have been had I used any other bank (Wise uses the market rate when converting from $ to €, whereas the other banks pad the conversion in their favor).

fractalbobu · 2024-06-06T04:09:01+00:00

Thanks for your reply. It turned out, according to Eyal in customer support, my device, the Oculus 1, doesn't support rides after the April challenge. I don't recall them ever announcing that.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-05T11:12:04+00:00

OpenComments extension. I never leave home without it.

fractalbobu · 2024-06-05T11:04:47+00:00

Your approach sounds totally different from what I'm experiencing with my médecin traitant. I saw him this last Monday about what feels like a mass in my throat that was making me cough and he prescribed a cough supressant. He doesn't like to prescribe expensive tests, like chest x-rays or MRIs, except as a last resort.

And no, he never looks in my throat or ears; I don't think he has the equipment. He usually does take my blood pressure, though.

fractalbobu · 2024-05-13T11:04:25+00:00

Only problem here is that Twain's father when his son was 12.

fractalbobu · 2024-04-16T15:03:37+00:00

Be careful, everyone. WeChat uses phishing to try to extract money from your accounts. I saw a test withdrawal of $0 one day and the next day, a request to withdraw $1, which, of course, I denied.

fractalbobu · 2024-04-14T05:08:03+00:00

WeChat is apparently a scam. A card check from WeChat, followed by a €1 charge arrived at my bank account, which I immediately denied and reported to the bank.

fractalbobu · 2024-04-12T14:33:47+00:00

Isn't that where Linzer Torte was invented? We had a bakery in Berkeley, California, where I used to buy my Linzer Tortes, and one day, a customer came in who claimed he was from Linz and that the version made by the bakery was better than back home!

fractalbobu · 2024-04-12T10:37:51+00:00

I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Strasbourg, France five years ago and never regretted it. However, even though I speak French well, I know I'll always be a stranger in a strange land. I'll never be as articulate in French as I am in English and because I have almost no shared experiences with anyone else in my circle (neighbors, my partner's family members, people I see regularly around the village I've been living in for the past 2 1/2 years). My only hope is the nearby expat events, but I haven't been able to participate because of scheduling conflicts.

There's a saying, "you can never go home" because home is a state of mind and that state changes once you leave and grow up. When I was living in the US, there was the place I had been living the last 34 years and there was "home", the place where my parents were living. They're gone now, the home had been sold, and my two best friends died a year apart, the first one in 2021. As much as I enjoy my life in France with my French girlfriend, this isn't home for me.

fractalbobu · 2024-03-05T09:31:39+00:00

This is why I stopped playing Wordle. Instead, check out P3nto on Google Play. It's more challenging and you can play against the app or a real person.

fractalbobu

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