Spyke

Replies

Comment on

After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

Reply in thread

You can choose not to connect a Roku TV to the Internet during the initial setup, and you just get access to live TV and the HDMI inputs with (obviously) no streaming channels or updates. It works fine as a dumb TV.

And the credit card thing? That's after you create your account on their website, you can just close the browser window. Or click the button saying "skip" or "later" or whatever it is.

Comment on

[How is your day going?]

Reply in thread

I've managed to go about 4 years or so without crushing one of my fingers. The last time was pretty bad: a group of friends were piling into a minibus/large taxi to go to a gig, and my girlfriend decided to slam the sliding door shut onto my hand. It was pretty unpleasant.

The nail blackened just like yours, but didn't pop off immediately. For a month or so it sort of dried out and went yellow, then one day it peeled off to reveal a healthy new one underneath.

So good luck with that, mate.

science

Comment on

Many people have no mental imagery. What’s going on in their brains? - A Nature news feature on aphantasia

Reply in thread

Thanks for sharing, I'm tremendously intrigued by this. I really can't imagine your experience.

When think of a song I like, I almost automatically "hear" it in my mind. It doesn't interfere with my actual ears, it's kind of on a separate plane of existence. Other noises in the real world can be distracting but I can (with a little effort) ignore one and focus on the other. Are we on the same page here?

With visual stuff it's exactly the same. If I think about a person I know, I immediately see their face. Not with my eyes, but on a separate plane again. It doesn't interfere with what my eyes are seeing but can require some concentration to focus on details. My internal monologue might say their name or I'll hear something they once said to me, and I'll experience certain emotions depending on the person. What happens when you think about a person?

Comment on

Mentorship

Reply in thread

Seconded. I bought a Merkur handle, 25 blades and some soap about 15-18 years ago. Since then I've bought maybe 3 more soaps and a pack of 100 more blades. I probably get through moisturizer faster than I get through any of my other shaving stuff.

Shaving is basically free if you use a safety razor. It makes me wonder what other basic necessities stolen by capitalism are actually easily reclaimed.

Comment on

You'll never see them again

Reply in thread

The one where the whole thing is just Walter chasing a fly around the lab. I've even got a vague memory of Vince Gilligan admitting it was only there because they were an episode short of whatever they were contractually obliged to produce but had very little budget left.

Comment on

Volume [Mr Lovenstein]

Reply in thread

My TV has a "Night" mode that caps the volume at a certain level, so you can make the dialogue audible without having action be way louder. And also a "Volume Levelling" setting that has a similar effect, by trying to make all the sounds roughly the same volume rather than only quieting the ones that were louder to begin with.