Addfwyn

I have never really liked talking on the phone, even before the advent of cell phones. The fact that it seems to be fading more and more as a common communication tool is something I am honestly pretty happy about. Sure it means I have like 4 messaging apps on my phone, but I don't really mind. Even work is all text via Teams.

It has probably been at least a year since I have made/received an actual audio call on my phone.

Your spouse actually calls you? I just use Line with my partner.

Can you be more specific as to what you mean? Considering Beijing has a LGBTQ Center, that's not strictly true.

I mean, there are medical centers that specialize in sexual resassignment surgery.

Rights can definitely be better, but I don't see it as being accepting of LGBTQ rights is banned.

I have been thinking about a new MBA for a while now, my laptop is secondary (I still have an Intel iMac as my main desktop) but my current one is a...2015 12 inch Macbook, so I could use the upgrade. It would actually be my first Apple Silicon machine.

However, my country's currency is really struggling right now, so I have to pay functionally $2000 USD for one of the baseline 15 inch models, which is a lot.

Most MOBAs are pretty notoriously bad, though Heroes of Newerth was definitely the worst one of those i had played.

Anecdotally, my personal worst experience was with FFXIV, which was probably exacerbated by how much praise that community gets otherwise. The Novice Network system they have is a mess, new players are put into a channel with a bunch of "mentors" that don't really want to help anyone, at least on the server I was on. They either wanted a global chat channel for their own use, or just wanted the cosmetic rewards mentors had on offer. I remember one actively trying to get new players to quit if he found out they had come from WoW. The channel is entirely self-moderated, and mentors would kick people out just for fun. It's an AWFUL first impression for newer players.

One thing WoW definitely does better with their Guide channel is giving literally no tangible rewards to guides, if somebody is opting into being a Guide it is only because they want to help new players, they get nothing else for it.

One can only hope that without the “cloudy” connection the thing will continue to function on a “dumb” level.

I actually like smart products, but this is a requirement for me. It needs to be a functional "dumb" product if internet connections/servers fail, I usually won't buy anything I can't verify that for (or will return it if I find out that is not the case when I test it). I never want to be stuck in a situation where I can't turn my house lights on because the router went down, or the blinds become inoperable.

Smart features should always be on top of basic functionality, they shouldn't be a requirement just to remove a couple physical buttons.

Things I use it for with almost 100% accuracy: Timers, Alarms, Lights, Pausing/Playing TV.

Things I use it for with like 70% accuracy: Weather and anything interfacing with maps. To be entirely fair to it though, I live in a non-English speaking country and use voice assistants in English usually, so city/place names REALLY throw it. If I change the voice assistant to my local language and use it, it works a lot better.

I have honestly never tried setting a reminder because my brain is still rooted in early voice control tech where something like that would never conceivably work.

Most social media.

I used to use reddit, I have moved all my presence over here. That's about it.
I have a FB Messenger account because that is how a lot of my family keeps in touch with me, and I have this. I had a proper FB account back when I was in uni and Facebook was still only for uni students, but I think I dropped it shortly after that.

It's not some grand principled stance, I just don't get most of them because I am apparently an old man. Like Instagram, why do I want to share pictures with just random people? How am I networking with anybody by doing so? I honestly don't get why it is so popular.

Kind of similar situation, I am [sole] IT for a 24/7 business so I am never fully off-duty. Getting Teams notifications routed to my watch saves me from having to look at my phone as much as I otherwise probably would be. It actually reduces my overall phone time, which is a honestly a plus.

We do have a ticketing system, but execs like to ping me directly to look at the ticket they just submitted.

The health stuff on the Apple Watch is basically just for entertainment at this point. Which isn't to say it can't be useful, I definitely know people who have gotten more active because of the "gamification" of things like the activity rings.

If your watch reports say, a single atrial fibrillation event in any otherwise healthy individual, it doesn't do a whole lot for you. Even if you bring that information to your doctor, they can't be expected to do much with it. They could strap some additional monitors on you, but if it is a very rare event there isn't much chance of it recurring when they are actively looking at it. In some cases, the anxiety caused by worrying about it can actually cause more issues than just not knowing.

I actually like my watch a lot, but more for just a notification device/convenient payment interface rather than a health tracker.