371–380 of 776 posts
https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=London
That suggests to me if the answer was not the obvious one and only London England, then the only sensible answer should have been a question asking which other London did you mean?
An actual assistant would have a lot of context. Do I know that you're going to travel to London, UK for a break next week and therefore I would naturally assume that you are interesting in the time there. However, are you planning to visit your parents in London, Canada this weekend? Then an assistant who would still answer with the time of London, UK would maybe also not be the smartest? So really context is everyt…
In the absence of context, the best answer is London, UK. You actually need to imagine additional context to make any other answer plausible. If you hear the sound of hooves clip-clopping nearby, you think horses, not zebras.
In Western PA, if I hear someone talk about Indiana or Washington, I'm inclined to think of the counties/boroughs first, because they're closer. If someone says they're going to college at Cal, I'd think of California University of Pennsylvania before the University of California, because that's one of the more popular state schools in the region and a lot of people go there.
London, Ontario is a weird case because it is closer, but not close enough to be the better answer.
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This is rather inconvenient when shopping for niche products. American website assumes that everyone on the internet is American, and you have to go through the shopping cart experience to learn that they don't ship to Canada or Europe.
And too many app developers assume that all their users have massive/unlimited data plans. This is usually correct for... most developed and developing countries, but: They forget that in the telecom-backwater of Canada, a 4 or 5gb/month plan is near the high end. I’m looking at you NPR One app for thinking buffering 300-400mb of content is a good idea.
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Can we please also take a moment to wish tiny inconveniences upon designers of applications which ignore my locale and present me with "11:06 AM" or worse, "04/05/2020"?
I actually didn't realize am/pm wasn't something Europeans did...
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I think almost everybody in European countries knows about AM/PM, but I certainly get confused by 11:59 AM vs 12:00 AM
I've never been able to keep 12 AM vs 12 PM straight in my head. If I have to put something on my calendar or set an alarm for that time, I always use 11:59 AM or PM. Is there a mnemonic or trick for remembering?
12PM is morning, 12AM is afternoon.
They had the same problem with Paris when Apple released the version of OS X that introduced widgets (was it 10.4 aka Tiger?). In their demo there were screenshots with the weather widget set to Paris and showing it will be sunny all week long. That's what tickled me. And indeed, "Paris" was equivalent to "Paris, Texas" for the weather widget.
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So do people just buy these to look cool? I tried using a Macbook many times, but often got frustrated and went back to my good old Linux laptop for development. Doesn't look quite as slick, but certainly gets the job done.
No, I don't think so. There are multiple aspects. I develop on this thing. It is running a great Unix os. I can't stand desktop Linux. The hardware quality was the best with a wide margin before the latest gen. Battery life is also great. I like them for development work when they are stable. A lot of people are also really invested into the ecosystem. My entire photo collection is on iCloud. I use an iPhone. I can c…
I think it's less that OS X is bad now, but more that it's finally degraded to a level of annoyance that people just have gotten enured to with Windows. It's not to say that that's a good thing, but at this point, I have known bugs and annoyances with all of the computers I work with, no matter the platform.
Some of it is also that Apple has a "real" integrated ecosystem. To what you say, you can easily move things between iOS and OS X. If you're watching stuff on your Mac, you can throw it to an Apple TV or your Airpods. Windows doesn't have a version of that that "just works". The closest you get is opting into Google's ecosystem and going Chromecast/Android, but I'd rather not trust Google with even more of my info.
I now have most of my adult years learning how to construct a phrase that gets the right results for Google, and later Assistant. It got to the point where I'm certain it must be a headache for whatever team is trying to support natural language processing in these - all proficient users ask for some artificial gibberish and get where they want to be. Here comes my favourite brain freeze moment - recently my parents…
90% of the time works fine, and it's essentially all I use Siri for. It's very convenient when cooking and my hands are dirty. But 10% of the time I get something along the lines of...
"I'm sorry, but you don't have the Timer app installed".
"I'm sorry, but you don't have the Timer app installed".
"I'm sorry, but you don't have the Timer app installed".
"I'm sorry, but you don't have the Timer app installed".
It's infuriating because I know Siri is dumb so I use the same exact simple phrases to avoid confusion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It always transcribes the command accurately though! I've actually lost my temper and smashed an Apple Watch before over this. This is in my house, on a very reliable network, always with my phone within a reasonable distance.
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I am from Poland, and while we understand 12-hour clock and use it interchangeably with 24-hour one (well, mostly old people, young people just use 24-hour clock) - nobody uses AM/PM. In Polish it's 8 rano (in the morning) vs 8 wieczorem (in the evening). I can't remember which is which in AM/PM, and have to check each time :) And the issues with midnight/noon are frustrating and 12-hour-clock should just die.
I am from the USA and whenever I travel to Europe (Poland, Germany, England, Scotland, etc.) I never quite grasp whether 24h is used for all purposes, or just "official" purposes (like train schedules) while casual conversation remains 12h. I wonder if the young/old divide you described is prevalent in most places. I assume some people (perhaps older people) wear analog 12h wrist watches, and wouldn't translate to 24…
In my experience in Finland, casual spoken discussion is usually 12h but written is 24h. The xx:xx format always means 24h, whether written or spoken.
When referring to a precise minute 24h is common even when spoken - "train leaves at sixteen thirty-four" - the 12h alternative is "train leaves at four past half five" or "twenty-six to five". Notably, one would never say "four thirty-four" as that refers to 04:34 (24h).
Also, 12h is used when casually written with letters - e.g. it would be "meet you at three" / "nähdään kolmelta", not "meet you at fifteen" / "nähdään viideltätoista".