The Official Status Thread
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@Arantor said in The Official Status Thread:
brokenness is less a byproduct and almost a norm
Ah yes, before computers came along papers were always in order, filled correctly, timely, and were never lost on the way. Computers have many problems (like data retention and reliance on electricity), but data correctness is just as good as the people entering data.
Ranging from blissful ignorance of childhood to rose-tinted glasses of the past, to the fallacy where we don't notice things above the mean (the formal name escapes me), to shit-tinted glasses of the present and future, it's worth considering that perhaps it always has been broken, and a norm, but you didn't notice it as much. It piles up with time, you know.
You’re right that people are ultimately the cause. Maybe we need less of them.
And that's where you fall into a trap thinking that it can be fixed. Less of them, more of them, none of them, better them.
All we can do is individually strive to be better. Will you, every day, to the best of your ability and, equally important, not above your ability? Probably not, but I won't judge. That said, even if you did, you'd depend on the work of others. And there will always be careless, lazy and outright bad people.
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@Applied-Mediocrity with one huge difference: computers enable mass failure at speed in ways our predecessors could only hope to have nightmares of.
Take the recent chaos of the airport system. Could that have been a thing, say, 30 years ago? Would it have been anywhere near as bad?
As ever, to err is human, to really fuck it up takes a computer.
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@Applied-Mediocrity: if the expectations for other engineering disciplines were the same as for the software industry, we'd have multiple buildings falling down and chemical plants blowing up every week. And people would just shrug and go "that's just the way things are".
Can you imagine this?
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@Parody said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
Also shit on them again for not supporting Windows,
Oh yeah, that reminds me, I was eventually going to start writing support for Square just in case PayPal continued further down the dumb. Should revisit that again...
Is Square up? Two times recently I wanted to buy something from people that use Square and it was down. Green paper still worked, though.
Before I read anything further (I assume somebody mentioned the outage that happened last week and didn't affect me), I wonder if they're being stupid with AI due to the response I just got. As I said, I told them I didn't appreciate that setting changing, I don't like their site because of the confusing UI, removing info from notifications makes them noise, and they should support Windows because it's not that difficult. Keep in mind also that I was able to run cards all weekend, received a deposit yesterday, and downloaded most of my records to CSV last night.
"Andrea R" tells me they weren't able to approve me to accept card payments with Square. Due to regulatory purposes, they need to verify information but cannot see what I entered when I applied. If I'd like to reapply, I need to provide SSN/EIN, name history, address history, etc. And of course they're happy to answer any questions I have about the process.
What's scary is that I can't tell from this alone if it's retaliation over hurt feefees or a form response from a support robot. There's no way this makes sense if you read my complaint about secretly changing settings, having a confusing UI, and not supporting Windows. But my account is also still active. Stupid either way.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
Ah yes, before computers came along papers were always in order, filled correctly, timely, and were never lost on the way. Computers have many problems (like data retention and reliance on electricity), but data correctness is just as good as the people entering data.
What I find increasingly pervasive is that when a computer fucks up, that's the end of the road. There's zero support and no way to report a problem. You just put up with broken until it's eventually "fixed" or move on if it's not. GMail, for instance, if you can find the phone number (no small feat in and of itself), it's just a recording that says "sorry, can't help you" and sings the goodbye song from The Sound of Music before hanging up because those assholes think it's cute. At least when you dealt with a live person, they might be able to work around the rules a little, to reprint a form, tell you where else to go, or refund/exchange from what they had on hand.
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@Arantor said in The Official Status Thread:
Why can’t our industry do better?
Because it's obviously "acceptable".
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
@Arantor said in The Official Status Thread:
brokenness is less a byproduct and almost a norm
Ah yes, before computers came along papers were always in order, filled correctly, timely, and were never lost on the way. .
Don't forget that things like forgery didn't exist either!
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
@Arantor said in The Official Status Thread:
brokenness is less a byproduct and almost a norm
Ah yes, before computers came along papers were always in order, filled correctly, timely, and were never lost on the way. .
Don't forget that things like forgery didn't exist either!
It’s not like that went away but now there are ever more choices of layers at which to forge.
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Why does specifying an NFS mount in my /etc/fstab cause my desktop to kernel panic on boot because the Wi-Fi card spits out a firmware panic when systemd tries to wait for my network devices before mounting my devices..... i don't even have the Wi-Fi card configured to connect to the network since this is a desktop and therefore hard lined into my network......
also, i suspect Blakeyrat will lose his cool if he learns i've been willingly using Archlinux as my desktop OS for 9 months now, for work and play.
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
Blakeyrat
No worries, he's vanished around the same time you did.
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@Zerosquare said in The Official Status Thread:
@Applied-Mediocrity: if the expectations for other engineering disciplines were the same as for the software industry, we'd have multiple buildings falling down and chemical plants blowing up every week. And people would just shrug and go "that's just the way things are".
Can you imagine this?
It's a bit excessive, don't you think? Computers also control these very same chemical plants now, and computers are used in every step of the way when building things, one way or another.
Instead consider this: what does every electrician, plumber, etc. say about the work done before them by someone else? Most likely that it's all wrong, and that person was an idiot. It would seem that everybody knows how to do it right (some even teach others!), but for some reason nobody can do it right, so that two people are in complete agreement.
@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
What I find increasingly pervasive is that when a computer fucks up, that's the end of the road.
True, but the devil-may-care attitude is still a human problem.
I see your point, folks, I do. I believe that enforcing consumer warrranties instead of the "as is" bullshit was the crucial step to prevent it from being a decades long free-wheeling fuck-up. But here we are.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
Computers also control these very same chemical plants now, and computers are used in every step of the way when building things, one way or another.
There are people these days who do not know how it could be possible to automatically vent excess pressure (EG in a steam tank) without using a sensor, microchip, and solenoid.
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@PleegWat said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
Blakeyrat
No worries, he's vanished around the same time you did.
for much the same reason i think.
to be honest i'm not sure if i'm back myself.... we'll see if the problems that made me leave are still here or if the house has been cleaned.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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@accalia Also, welcome back!
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
we'll see if the problems that made me leave are still here or if the house has been cleaned.
The house hasn't been totally cleared, but most of the worst of the mess is in the garage. The kitchen and living room are fine, and the bedroom... is private.
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
i suspect Blakeyrat will lose his cool
Only on days that end with y.
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@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
we'll see if the problems that made me leave are still here or if the house has been cleaned.
The house hasn't been totally cleared, but most of the worst of the mess is in the garage. The kitchen and living room are fine, and the bedroom... is private.
NSFW threads should not be visited from work, but are mostly idle anyway.
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@PleegWat said in The Official Status Thread:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
Computers also control these very same chemical plants now, and computers are used in every step of the way when building things, one way or another.
There are people these days who do not know how it could be possible to automatically vent excess pressure (EG in a steam tank) without using a sensor, microchip, and solenoid.
Are there? I suspect these days some people also don't know how to weave assorted fabrics, skin an animal or find North in a forest.
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@PleegWat said in The Official Status Thread:
NSFW threads should not be visited from work
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
@PleegWat said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
Blakeyrat
No worries, he's vanished around the same time you did.
for much the same reason i think.
to be honest i'm not sure if i'm back myself.... we'll see if the problems that made me leave are still here or if the house has been cleaned.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A couple of the more combative members have left or rejoined as slightly less combative. The Lounge hasn’t see a ruckus for a while and even the garage is a little less tempemental. Garage is still enter at your own risk. Mostly memes at the moment though. The grammar nazis and resident pendants are more vicious than ever though.
Hope you stay a while.
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@DogsB We haven't had any pro/anti trump shouting matches recently.
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@PleegWat said in The Official Status Thread:
@DogsB We haven't had any pro/anti trump shouting matches recently.
Its not really going to kick of until next year. I like to sneak my favourite tax slogan in every now and then though.
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@DogsB said in The Official Status Thread:
The grammar nazis and resident pendants are more vicious than ever though.
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@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
GMail, for instance, if you can find the phone number (no small feat in and of itself), it's just a recording that says "sorry, can't help you" and sings the goodbye song from The Sound of Music before hanging up because those assholes think it's cute.
That's likely a troll. There is no phone support, and anyone who claims otherwise is looking to hurt you.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
GMail, for instance, if you can find the phone number (no small feat in and of itself), it's just a recording that says "sorry, can't help you" and sings the goodbye song from The Sound of Music before hanging up because those assholes think it's cute.
That's likely a troll. There is no phone support, and anyone who claims otherwise is looking to hurt you.
You have called 1-800 EAT SHIT!
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@accalia Holy fuck, welcome back!
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia Holy fuck, welcome back!
holy? nope. not holy at all.
fuck? you have my attention, but not here. the mods get mad if i do that in public.
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
the mods get mad if i do that in public.
Yeah, well, ya know...
I seem to be tolerated, for the most part.
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@Arantor said in The Official Status Thread:
fuck money, do it because it’s the right thing to do
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@TimeBandit i mean...... according to the media that's corrct ain't it?
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Status: Heavy rain and thunderstorm has started.
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@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia Holy fuck, welcome back!
you have my attention, but not here.
You realize he’s like the
humanandroid version of olive oil, right?Filed under: extra virgin
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@topspin said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:
@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@accalia Holy fuck, welcome back!
you have my attention, but not here.
You realize he’s like the
humanandroid version of olive oil, right?Filed under: extra virgin
H-hey! That can technically be called untrue! I have documentation!
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@Tsaukpaetra keep that in the man pages.
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Status: Hey, I’ve seen this one!
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
GMail, for instance, if you can find the phone number (no small feat in and of itself), it's just a recording that says "sorry, can't help you" and sings the goodbye song from The Sound of Music before hanging up because those assholes think it's cute.
That's likely a troll. There is no phone support, and anyone who claims otherwise is looking to hurt you.
No, it's real, but they really bury the information deep in what passes for their help pages. The message is a bit wordier than what I said but that was the gist of it and it does end with the song. I only managed to get back into the account because an old tablet was set as a trusted device. Otherwise it would've kept sending me in circles forever.
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@Zenith said in The Official Status Thread:
No, it's real, but they really bury the information deep in what passes for their help pages.
I'll hold on to this for a while....
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@topspin I very much approve. Am slightly jealous even.
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Wondering what I missed
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Wondering what happened to @RTapeLoadingError.
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@Banzyni said in The Official Status Thread:
Wondering what I missed
Not very much. A small venture into dystopia which we haven't fully escaped, time travel, a few small wars, a virus that wasn't a virus, some expected failures and one or two unexpected wins.
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If only I could share my posts from a hidden place without serious repercussions. You’d get to see all the drama you’d missed.
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status: someone is probably making toast.
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JIRA ticket: integrate (not existing yet) component with (not existing yet) WS
Not sure what the fuck I'm supposed to be working on, considering neither of the things I'm supposed to be integrating with each other exist.
Status: confused
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
status: someone is probably making toast.
Can confirm. The probability that somebody somewhere is making toast is nearly 1.
Alternatively, if you're smelling toast, you might be having a stroke.
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@error Wherever I see the word "stroke" involving @Tsaukpaetra, blood flow is not—
Well, actually—
You know what, let's not go there.