WTF Bites
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BSDM […] extremely easy
Are you sure you're not doing it wrong?
NO KINK SHAMING!
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The most basic premise [...] is that logic works. Everything knowable is based on that.
What about empirical knowledge?
Any position that contradicts that axiom is logically untenable. But I am trying to explain how a universe that exists alone, and not alongside (or possibly subordinate to) some form of "supernature," is just such a position.
I still maintain that proving anything about the universe is impossible with just logic (and, in fact, the universe is doing just fine without logic). And this is something you see in physics all the time: somebody points at a new particle/phenomenon/whatever that their models tell them should exist. That's at best a hint on where to look for it, but until it's been observed experimentally, it's just that, a hypothesis. No matter how well it fits or how logical the conclusion seems.
Second, I remain unconvinced by your argument (to put it mildly). If you want to "explain" (as you put it) why your position holds, you really should start by arguing for your basic premises. What I remember from the last thread was that they were stated using a number of shaky analogies and a pile of circular reasoning (throw in some wishful thinking).
Suggestion: perhaps state the premises in isolation in a new thread, so that people can examine by themselves. Leave out your conclusions (that you already know people disagree with) -- they are worthless if you can't get anybody on board with the basics first. If you can't convince people of them, you will never get anywhere with your argument.
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@dkf To explain what I meant by the “wat” image, the state of neuroscience is that it has a fairly good idea what memories are made of (patterns of synapses and the strengths of activation of those synapses, both of which are resolutely physical) at least for basic memories, and work is ongoing to understand more about what higher-level memories are like. Probably more of the same if you ask me, but the details are tricky (e.g., are there specialized neurons involved or are we just talking general patterns throughout). Thoughts are trickier — in large part because we're not really sure what they are — but betting that they are non-physical would seem odd. I predict that there won't be a single neuron for anything in particular, but the interplay of different patterns of neurons and synapses will be important. (There have been found neural patterns that act as attention selectors, patterns that act as spatial and temporal pattern detectors, and other patterns that act as phase locked loops of various descriptions. How these things fit together in hierarchies that predict possible futures and plan responses to them, that's one of the absolute total frontiers of science right now.)
This stuff is fun, and really needs interdisciplinary approaches; something that looks utterly confusing to one person is very clear to someone else with a different background. And you'll never understand it by a purely full-neuron-model first approach (just like you'd never understand a Google search by starting at the level of electron movement in CMOS gates); there's too many higher levels of organisation.
This is really cool science, and I'd love to learn more about it, but even so, it fails to address the issue I'm raising. To take your Google search analogy, there may be tons of really interesting and complex operations going on behind a search across the internet, and ultimately they come down to a bunch of electrons flowing through conductors and semiconductors in highly patterned and extremely complex ways on very complicated hardware. But, even though Google's servers are sitting there indexing the internet, a search isn't actually triggered until someone from outside that system inputs a query.
That's what I'm suggesting happens with our minds. The wetware is sitting there running its background processes and listeners, recording sensations, and offering automatic responses to certain environmental inputs; and then the metaphysical part of a person inputs a command or query, and away it goes responding to that new event.
If there is no metaphysical part of our existence, then everything we think is just another response of our "wetware," which means thoughts are simply more events that we experience, and we are no more responsible for them (and thus for any of our actions) than we are for preferring Brie more than Camembert, nor can we attach any more importance to one thought than another; if there is no metaphysical aspect to our existence, then thinking itself becomes utterly meaningless, and the fact that we think otherwise is just one of those quirks of our "thoughts." There is therefore basically no difference then between sanity and insanity; no one really knows (nor can know) how the universe actually works. And actually, the fact that we think we're making logical arguments or saying real things about reality falls under the same guillotine.
In short, trying to explain how thoughts can be purely the result of the natural biological processes of electrical and chemical reactions in the neurons of our brains can result with the only conclusion being that we cannot actually explain things. And if anything is to mean something, then that's patently ludicrous. Therefore, by non-contradiction, we must conclude that there is a non-physical/metaphysical part of our minds that can introduce new events into the "processing stream" of our physical existence.
Where does this weird idea come from that our thoughts have to “mean something”. That’s the patently ridiculous part.
But... they do... (Many of them, anyways. There's always the thoughts of wishful thinking, prejudices, and insane delusions.)
How else could we communicate?What??
That is not at all related. Thoughts being perfectly deterministic (which is stronger than "based purely on physical phenomena", as that's not really known yet) doesn't conflict with the ability to communicate. And is also unrelated to whether or not there's some magical higher "meaning" to them.
I'm not referring to a "magical higher" meaning. I mean the plain meanings of the sort you can find in a dictionary.
Computer programs can communicate.
Because programmers tell them how to interpret and respond to various inputs.
Data in Star Trek can communicate.
Because his programmers "told" him how to interpret and respond to various inputs (including how he can change his programming in response to various inputs). Data is a really interesting response to the question (even while raising more questions, like whether an AI can really desire something) of whether we can make an AI indistinguishable from a human, and whether such an AI should be treated as human.
Whether a computer program / Data was “told” what to do or not is entirely irrelevant to your objection that there needs to be a meta-physical / non-deterministic process involved, since there clearly isn’t.
Besides, computer programs can actually be made to “evolve” in an optimization process, tooThe point is that an intelligence gave their communication meaning. The computer program/AI was crafted to respond in particular ways, and those responses encode meaning as defined by their programmers.
You’re trying to do a shaky proof by contradiction on something arbitrary, ill defined and unfounded.
Not at all. It's only shaky, arbitrary, ill-defined, and unfounded (ungrounded) if the physical world encompasses all of existence.
That also doesn't make sense, but okay. So in the universe you're trying to disprove your proof is invalid and only in the one you're assuming your proof it is maybe not invalid. Thus, it's still not a useful proof.
Truth is a totally separate claim than usefulness. After all, lies might be more useful in some situations than truths, depending on one's goal. And the claim that the physical world is all that exists is a truth-claim. Yet at the same time, it says that truth claims are produced entirely by irrational processes, which (by the nature of logical proofs) invalidates the claims. At best, it says that truth claims are unknowable. Therefore, a claim that avoids this conundrum and allows truth claims to actually be true or false is an infinitely more useful theory.
I should’ve left out the last sentence, or simply said “wrong” instead of “useless”, since you clearly failed to realize your so called proof was assuming the conclusion.
You're starting to see the point!
Proofs that there are no proofs are self-destructive nonsense, and proofs that there are proofs are also self-destructive nonsense.We have to start with the axiom that logical thinking is logical. Then we have to see whether the position allows that axiom. The position of solely physical existence leads ultimately to the conclusion that thinking is simply an irrational or a-rational sequence of states of the brain, and therefore, no thinking can be actually logical. But that violates the axiom, so it cannot be a valid position.
So perhaps we then propose that truth is an unnecessary aspect of logical thought and usefulness is the primary motivating factor. After all, abstract philosophical discussions usually tend to go nowhere and produce nothing important. But that also means that we still cannot claim that existence consists of only physicalities, since that position is itself an abstraction of general observation, and the original position claimed it to be a truth.
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@Applied-Mediocrity it probably doesn't surprise anybody that I'm unable to understand the joke in a comic strip drawn years before I was even born.
Bob the Dinosaur was able to sneak around unnoticed because he was wearing tennis shoes, or "sneakers."
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Though actually that doesn't apply here. These are mathematical empty sets, and in mathematics any two sets with the same contents are considered equal.
TIL mathematical sets don't have static typing.
But seriously, it doesn't make much sense in my head that eg. the empty set of real numbers I've successfully divided by zero is equal to the empty set of living dinosaurs I've met last night.
Equal ≠ equivalent.
So what you're saying is they are not identical.
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@Zecc they are identical. Identical ≠ equivalent.
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Proofs that there are no proofs are self-destructive nonsense,
They're pure BS because they just show that the arguer fucked up and produced a “proof” that truth is falsity.
proofs that there are proofs are also self-destructive nonsense.
More technically, they're exercises in academic masturbation as they're possibly fun at the time but don't really lead anywhere and are pretty unsatisfying in the long run. In particular, proving an obvious premise is worthless and a good way to get laughed at by logicians.
Interesting proofs derive conclusions from axioms. They should be clear what axioms they use, though the syntactic axioms of formal proofs are often omitted on the grounds that they're trivial.
The position of solely physical existence leads ultimately to the conclusion that thinking is simply an irrational or a-rational sequence of states of the brain
You've not established the truth of this statement.
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@dkf To explain what I meant by the “wat” image, the state of neuroscience is that it has a fairly good idea what memories are made of (patterns of synapses and the strengths of activation of those synapses, both of which are resolutely physical) at least for basic memories, and work is ongoing to understand more about what higher-level memories are like. Probably more of the same if you ask me, but the details are tricky (e.g., are there specialized neurons involved or are we just talking general patterns throughout). Thoughts are trickier — in large part because we're not really sure what they are — but betting that they are non-physical would seem odd. I predict that there won't be a single neuron for anything in particular, but the interplay of different patterns of neurons and synapses will be important. (There have been found neural patterns that act as attention selectors, patterns that act as spatial and temporal pattern detectors, and other patterns that act as phase locked loops of various descriptions. How these things fit together in hierarchies that predict possible futures and plan responses to them, that's one of the absolute total frontiers of science right now.)
This stuff is fun, and really needs interdisciplinary approaches; something that looks utterly confusing to one person is very clear to someone else with a different background. And you'll never understand it by a purely full-neuron-model first approach (just like you'd never understand a Google search by starting at the level of electron movement in CMOS gates); there's too many higher levels of organisation.
This is really cool science, and I'd love to learn more about it, but even so, it fails to address the issue I'm raising. To take your Google search analogy, there may be tons of really interesting and complex operations going on behind a search across the internet, and ultimately they come down to a bunch of electrons flowing through conductors and semiconductors in highly patterned and extremely complex ways on very complicated hardware. But, even though Google's servers are sitting there indexing the internet, a search isn't actually triggered until someone from outside that system inputs a query.
That's what I'm suggesting happens with our minds. The wetware is sitting there running its background processes and listeners, recording sensations, and offering automatic responses to certain environmental inputs; and then the metaphysical part of a person inputs a command or query, and away it goes responding to that new event.
If there is no metaphysical part of our existence, then everything we think is just another response of our "wetware," which means thoughts are simply more events that we experience, and we are no more responsible for them (and thus for any of our actions) than we are for preferring Brie more than Camembert, nor can we attach any more importance to one thought than another; if there is no metaphysical aspect to our existence, then thinking itself becomes utterly meaningless, and the fact that we think otherwise is just one of those quirks of our "thoughts." There is therefore basically no difference then between sanity and insanity; no one really knows (nor can know) how the universe actually works. And actually, the fact that we think we're making logical arguments or saying real things about reality falls under the same guillotine.
In short, trying to explain how thoughts can be purely the result of the natural biological processes of electrical and chemical reactions in the neurons of our brains can result with the only conclusion being that we cannot actually explain things. And if anything is to mean something, then that's patently ludicrous. Therefore, by non-contradiction, we must conclude that there is a non-physical/metaphysical part of our minds that can introduce new events into the "processing stream" of our physical existence.
Where does this weird idea come from that our thoughts have to “mean something”. That’s the patently ridiculous part.
But... they do... (Many of them, anyways. There's always the thoughts of wishful thinking, prejudices, and insane delusions.)
How else could we communicate?What??
That is not at all related. Thoughts being perfectly deterministic (which is stronger than "based purely on physical phenomena", as that's not really known yet) doesn't conflict with the ability to communicate. And is also unrelated to whether or not there's some magical higher "meaning" to them.
I'm not referring to a "magical higher" meaning. I mean the plain meanings of the sort you can find in a dictionary.
Computer programs can communicate.
Because programmers tell them how to interpret and respond to various inputs.
Data in Star Trek can communicate.
Because his programmers "told" him how to interpret and respond to various inputs (including how he can change his programming in response to various inputs). Data is a really interesting response to the question (even while raising more questions, like whether an AI can really desire something) of whether we can make an AI indistinguishable from a human, and whether such an AI should be treated as human.
Whether a computer program / Data was “told” what to do or not is entirely irrelevant to your objection that there needs to be a meta-physical / non-deterministic process involved, since there clearly isn’t.
Besides, computer programs can actually be made to “evolve” in an optimization process, tooThe point is that an intelligence gave their communication meaning. The computer program/AI was crafted to respond in particular ways, and those responses encode meaning as defined by their programmers.
And non of this involved anything meta-physical, in contrast to your assertion that it necessarily has to.
You’re trying to do a shaky proof by contradiction on something arbitrary, ill defined and unfounded.
Not at all. It's only shaky, arbitrary, ill-defined, and unfounded (ungrounded) if the physical world encompasses all of existence.
That also doesn't make sense, but okay. So in the universe you're trying to disprove your proof is invalid and only in the one you're assuming your proof it is maybe not invalid. Thus, it's still not a useful proof.
Truth is a totally separate claim than usefulness. After all, lies might be more useful in some situations than truths, depending on one's goal. And the claim that the physical world is all that exists is a truth-claim. Yet at the same time, it says that truth claims are produced entirely by irrational processes, which (by the nature of logical proofs) invalidates the claims. At best, it says that truth claims are unknowable. Therefore, a claim that avoids this conundrum and allows truth claims to actually be true or false is an infinitely more useful theory.
I should’ve left out the last sentence, or simply said “wrong” instead of “useless”, since you clearly failed to realize your so called proof was assuming the conclusion.
You're starting to see the point!
Proofs that there are no proofs are self-destructive nonsense, and proofs that there are proofs are also self-destructive nonsense.Unfortunately, you are not.
You started with "assume the physical world does not encompass all of existence" and through some concocted detour about "meaning" arrived at the conclusion that "the physical world does not encompass all of existence". Which is a bullshit argument.
Assume there is only the physical world: you have accepted yourself that in this case your argument relies on something "arbitrary, ill-defined, and unfounded (ungrounded)" (which it probably also does otherwise, but in that case it's irrelevant since you're assuming the conclusion). Ergo, your entire argument is void.
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Logic is grounds-to-consequent. There are reasons for the conclusion, and the relationship between the reasons and the conclusion always holds true, regardless of location or time.
Cause-and-effect describes the relationship between two connected events that occur in series in a particular location and time.I don't think it's that different. Something like A implies B can be modeled just fine by A causes B. Once a particular A caused B, it's also always going to be true (no going back in time). Sure, there is a space/time component to the latter interaction, but that doesn't change it fundamentally.
The position of solely physical existence leads ultimately to the conclusion that thinking is simply an irrational or a-rational sequence of states of the brain, and therefore, no thinking can be actually logical.
So, here's an off-the-cuff counter-proposal to yours (also with no backing by neuro-science or anything). We model (in our brains, or in computers or whatever) logic through a series of causes-and-effects. The time component of the cause-series is why it takes us (or a computer) time to work through a logic statement, despite it being consistent/inconsistent from the get-go. The cause-and-effect chain is also imperfect (especially in our brain), which is why we get it wrong occasionally.
Which of your axioms is in conflict with that proposal?
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We have to start with the axiom that logical thinking is logical. Then we have to see whether the position allows that axiom. The position of solely physical existence leads ultimately to the conclusion that thinking is simply an irrational or a-rational sequence of states of the brain, and therefore, no thinking can be actually logical. But that violates the axiom, so it cannot be a valid position.
So perhaps we then propose that truth is an unnecessary aspect of logical thought and usefulness is the primary motivating factor. After all, abstract philosophical discussions usually tend to go nowhere and produce nothing important. But that also means that we still cannot claim that existence consists of only physicalities, since that position is itself an abstraction of general observation, and the original position claimed it to be a truth.
What does it mean to be logical? Only that the set of statements that can be uttered is constrained by what has been said before. This is analogous to the empirical observation that the possible states of a physical system are constrained by its prior states. Logic is a human invention that is meant, among other things, to parallel this aspect of the real world. If one logic doesn't do this well enough, another is invented.
In fact, I will go further and say that it is only the physicality of the brain that allows logical thought to occur in the first place. That the mind is instantiated in a physical brain means that the allowable set of thoughts is constrained by previous thoughts. By "thought," I'm including conscious thought, unconscious thought, sensory input, and the rest. An immaterial, metaphysical brain would not have such constraints from past states and would be thinking random, uncorrelated, illogical thoughts.
If logical thought is impossible with a physical brain, then logical thought is impossible, because adding an immaterial component doesn't help.
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Because it doesn't. It's just a weird consequence of taking the definition of equality literally. Unlike most other fields, mathematicians are much more willing to accept all the weird quirks in corner cases than to patch their rulesets - see axiom of choice and Banach-Tarski paradox.
IIRC, mathematical sets can even contain themselves. Though there's a problem somewhere when considering the set containing all sets which do not contain themselves. I don't recall the details.
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the set containing all sets which do not contain themselves. I don't recall the details.
Does it contain itself?
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You can come up with a different logic or math, but if the base axioms are in conflict, it's not very useful. But even if they are, if you can't convince other people that the base axioms make sense, it's also not very useful, because any argument you build on them will fail because they do not accept your premises.
No, it may be very useful but for different things than the other set of axioms. See for instance, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry.
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BSDM […] extremely easy
Are you sure you're not doing it wrong?
NO KINK
SHAMINGSPLAINING!
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@Applied-Mediocrity it probably doesn't surprise anybody that I'm unable to understand the joke in a comic strip drawn years before I was even born.
Bob the Dinosaur was able to sneak around unnoticed because he was wearing tennis shoes, or "sneakers."
I'm pretty sure that was the only part of the joke that I did get.
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@anotherusername the part I've got is that Dilbert considers forcing him to house unwanted guests for free under threat of murder a fair deal.
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@Gąska I'm still lost at why there are dinosaurs in a Dilbert strip.
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@anotherusername there's probably an origin story a few strips earlier. It's part of a miniseries, similar to when Dilbert visited aliens or when he'd got abducted by Elbonians.
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Because it doesn't. It's just a weird consequence of taking the definition of equality literally. Unlike most other fields, mathematicians are much more willing to accept all the weird quirks in corner cases than to patch their rulesets - see axiom of choice and Banach-Tarski paradox.
IIRC, mathematical sets can even contain themselves.
No. Only in naive set theory, giving rise to Russell's paradox.
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@topspin how do non-naive set theories solve this?
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@Gąska The standard non-naive set theory is ZF. Look it up in Wikipedia to see how this shit gets dizzy complex fast.
I think the axioms describe what is a set mostly by construction via union, power set, and so on. When you try to name the Russell set in set-builder notation {x | x does not contain x} it doesn't follow from the axioms that this is a set to begin with. As per Wikipedia, the axioms do not contain the "axiom of comprehension" which would allow unrestricted set-builder notation, but only "axiom schema of specification".In conclusion: if a set cannot contain itself (directly or indirectly) you avoided the paradox.
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@topspin self reference is bad, mmmkay?
Self-Reference, Math Foundations and Gödel’s Incompleteness
Although highly appreciated by artists, self-reference has been a nightmare for mathematicians. It took one of the greatest, Kurt Gödel, to provide a better understanding of it. This article deals …
Also, of course, for further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach
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Just found a subscriber to the Cargo Cult School of Programming:
Hey, I want to do a custom login method for my website with xyz but what password hashing method are you using on the client?
Erm, why do you want to hash the password on the client?
Well, I want to do a defense in depth in case https is compromised so the password doesn't get sent in the clear!
Huh, but wouldn't you be sending the same hash every time which is then is your de-facto password? The attacker would still be able to login.
But it's a defense in depth! And the attacker wouldn't have the cleartext password!
Which he wouldn't need.
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@dkf
They're sorting by token type and then by name. The first list is basically functions / "primary" tokens, the last list is basically query or function modifiers (join functions, sort orders, hints, etc), and i'm not really sure what the middle section (with the lower-case tokens) is.I'm not really surprised that Azure SQL's sanitization process is case sensitive.
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@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:
@Gąska I'm still lost at why there are dinosaurs in a Dilbert strip.
Bob the Dinosaur is one of the rare but well-known characters. Strangely enough, we don't have an emoji for him, and should.
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@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
I can lend you my copy if you come to my house, random forum people who only vaguely know where I live!
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@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:
@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:
@Gąska I'm still lost at why there are dinosaurs in a Dilbert strip.
Bob the Dinosaur is one of the rare but well-known characters. Strangely enough, we don't have an emoji for him, and should.
Yeah, but I think I assumed he was more like symbolic or an imaginary friend. And if Dilbert's imaginary friend is laying down threats like "I'll eat you if you tell anyone about me", his problems are worse than I'd imagined.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:
StatusL It took almost three minutes for Azure to trundle its gears and tell me the following:
syntax error. Expected one of: AGG ALL AND ARRAY BETWEEN BIGINT BIT BINARY BY COLUMNSET CREATED CSHARP CURRENT DATETIME DATETIME2 DECIMAL DISTINCT EXISTS FILE FLOAT FOLLOWING GROUP IN INT IS LENGTH LCID MAP MAX MODIFIED MONEY NULL NVARCHAR OR OVER PARTITION PRECEDING REAL SMALLINT SQL STRUCT TINYINT UNBOUNDED UNIQUEIDENTIFIER VARBINARY VARCHAR WITHIN string-literal numeric-literal character-literal punctuation-mark identifier quoted-identifier reserved-identifier variable system-variable expression-end '[' ']' '(' '{' '}' '=' '.' '*' ':' '?' '<' '>' ANTISEMIJOIN AS ASC BROADCASTLEFT BROADCASTRIGHT CROSS DESC EXCEPT FETCH FROM FULL FULLCROSS HASH HAVING INDEXLOOKUP INNER INTERSECT JOIN LEFT LOOP MERGE OFFSET ON OPTION ORDER OUTER OUTER UNION PAIR PIVOT PRODUCE READONLY REQUIRED RIGHT SAMPLE SEMIJOIN SERIAL SORTED UNION UNPIVOT USING WHEN WHERE WINDOW ';' ')' ','Apparently,
KitchenSinkis not one of the expected.THREE MINUTES to detect a SYNTAX ERROR!
Hot shit!
Probably more like 1 second to detect. And 2:59 to format that message.
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@Rhywden: it's true that hashing client-side is basically using the hash as the real password, so it offers no additional protection against connection sniffing (once the connection encryption has been broken).
But not revealing the cleartext password prevents attackers from trying the same login/password combo on other sites. It would make no difference if users didn't reuse passwords, but in practice...
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@Zerosquare Yes, but that's not security per se, it's a mitigation tactic.
Also, if your https connection is compromised you have a completely different set of problems than worrying about other people's passwords.
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@Rhywden: I agree.
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I have a “smart” TV and it’s just about as stupid as you’d think it is. There’s some apps on it, the “store” is ridiculously small, but it’s got Netflix, YouTube, and some other things. So I actually use that instead of hooking up another box to it.
Today it told me:
A new software version is available.
Do you want to start the software update? “Apps” cannot be used until the software has been updated.What. The. Fuck?!
Note that this doesn’t mean an individual app cannot be used. The whole collection of installed apps is unavailable.
It would make sense if, say, YouTube changed some of their API server side and thus the YouTube app doesn’t function correctly until updated. But that’s not what happened. Nothing server side or whatever changed that would necessitate an update. There is zero legitimate reason to force an update right now and refuse to work otherwise. Fuckers.Okay, whatever, it’s not like watching TV is urgent, I’ll wait.
Oh great, next message:
Software update could not be completed. A connection to the server could not be established.
Please proceed as follows:
Turn off the power supply
Turn on the power supply
Try again later.So it couldn’t connect to the server to download the update. Is there a retry button? No. In fact, nothing works anymore. Although it hasn’t even started downloading, the mere attempt to download anything has disabled it completely. I can’t even use the remote to turn it off.
I assume some idiot coded it like this:
disable_remote(); // prevent user from interrupting the update try { download_update(); install_update(); reboot(); } catch(...) { print("Oops. Remote control disabled, please walk to the power supply!"); }Also, while it succeeded in updating at the next try, this basically means when the tv detects that an update is available but their server is down you can’t use it.
Brave new world.
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Editing/selecting on mobile has always been painful, but this crazy jumping or the cursor is new. Not sure if an iOS bug or a
one:
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
But not revealing the cleartext password prevents attackers from trying the same login/password combo on other sites. It would make no difference if users didn't reuse passwords, but in practice...
Except that they know the hashing algorithm and the salt (it's either static or communicated over the compromised connection) so they could still reverse it. Granted, not all hashing is equal, but what are the odds that someone who came up with this scheme is going to use bcrypt (or similar, or any salt at all)?
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I have a “smart” TV and it’s just about as stupid as you’d think it is. There’s some apps on it, the “store” is ridiculously small, but it’s got Netflix, YouTube, and some other things. So I actually use that instead of hooking up another box to it.
Today it told me:
A new software version is available.
Do you want to start the software update? “Apps” cannot be used until the software has been updated.What. The. Fuck?!
Note that this doesn’t mean an individual app cannot be used. The whole collection of installed apps is unavailable.
It would make sense if, say, YouTube changed some of their API server side and thus the YouTube app doesn’t function correctly until updated. But that’s not what happened. Nothing server side or whatever changed that would necessitate an update. There is zero legitimate reason to force an update right now and refuse to work otherwise. Fuckers.Okay, whatever, it’s not like watching TV is urgent, I’ll wait.
Oh great, next message:
Software update could not be completed. A connection to the server could not be established.
Please proceed as follows:
Turn off the power supply
Turn on the power supply
Try again later.So it couldn’t connect to the server to download the update. Is there a retry button? No. In fact, nothing works anymore. Although it hasn’t even started downloading, the mere attempt to download anything has disabled it completely. I can’t even use the remote to turn it off.
I assume some idiot coded it like this:
disable_remote(); // prevent user from interrupting the update try { download_update(); install_update(); reboot(); } catch(...) { print("Oops. Remote control disabled, please walk to the power supply!"); }Also, while it succeeded in updating at the next try, this basically means when the tv detects that an update is available but their server is down you can’t use it.
Brave new world.Three things.
- It's not the YouTube app updating, it's the TV's whole system firmware. Once you start the installation you can't use any apps until it finishes installing and reboots. That part isn't really a WTF.
- There's a "No" option right there on the prompt. I don't know whether it would actually refuse to work if you selected "No", but you didn't say whether you'd tried it... (see also "when the tv detects that an update is available but their server is down you can't use it"). This could be a WTF... or the WTF might be you.
- Making you cycle the power after the update failed is a WTF, definitely. It's not really the biggest WTF imaginable, but it's pretty user-unfriendly.
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@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:
it's pretty user-unfriendly
What do you expect? It's a “smart TV”,
BITCHCOMPLAIN.
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@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
But not revealing the cleartext password prevents attackers from trying the same login/password combo on other sites. It would make no difference if users didn't reuse passwords, but in practice...
Except that they know the hashing algorithm and the salt (it's either static or communicated over the compromised connection) so they could still reverse it. Granted, not all hashing is equal, but what are the odds that someone who came up with this scheme is going to use bcrypt (or similar, or any salt at all)?
It's SHA256, no salt.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:
Either it's stuck and is now just wasting time, or Big Data really does cost more!
It finished.
One HOUR to process 20 MB of data into (apparently) 2 MB of output.
What garbage....
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Editing/selecting on mobile has always been painful, but this crazy jumping or the cursor is new. Not sure if an iOS bug or a
one:You can record the screen on IOS? :O Take all my money!
Filed under:
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@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:
One HOUR to process 20 MB of data into (apparently) 2 MB of output.
What garbage....Cloud is the Future™
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@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:
I have a “smart” TV and it’s just about as stupid as you’d think it is. There’s some apps on it, the “store” is ridiculously small, but it’s got Netflix, YouTube, and some other things. So I actually use that instead of hooking up another box to it.
Today it told me:
A new software version is available.
Do you want to start the software update? “Apps” cannot be used until the software has been updated.What. The. Fuck?!
Note that this doesn’t mean an individual app cannot be used. The whole collection of installed apps is unavailable.
It would make sense if, say, YouTube changed some of their API server side and thus the YouTube app doesn’t function correctly until updated. But that’s not what happened. Nothing server side or whatever changed that would necessitate an update. There is zero legitimate reason to force an update right now and refuse to work otherwise. Fuckers.Okay, whatever, it’s not like watching TV is urgent, I’ll wait.
Oh great, next message:
Software update could not be completed. A connection to the server could not be established.
Please proceed as follows:
Turn off the power supply
Turn on the power supply
Try again later.So it couldn’t connect to the server to download the update. Is there a retry button? No. In fact, nothing works anymore. Although it hasn’t even started downloading, the mere attempt to download anything has disabled it completely. I can’t even use the remote to turn it off.
I assume some idiot coded it like this:
disable_remote(); // prevent user from interrupting the update try { download_update(); install_update(); reboot(); } catch(...) { print("Oops. Remote control disabled, please walk to the power supply!"); }Also, while it succeeded in updating at the next try, this basically means when the tv detects that an update is available but their server is down you can’t use it.
Brave new world.Three things.
- It's not the YouTube app updating, it's the TV's whole system firmware. Once you start the installation you can't use any apps until it finishes installing and reboots. That part isn't really a WTF.
- There's a "No" option right there on the prompt. I don't know whether it would actually refuse to work if you selected "No", but you didn't say whether you'd tried it... (see also "when the tv detects that an update is available but their server is down you can't use it"). This could be a WTF... or the WTF might be you.
- Making you cycle the power after the update failed is a WTF, definitely. It's not really the biggest WTF imaginable, but it's pretty user-unfriendly.
- Yes I know. That was my whole point of explaining why, compared to an app becoming incompatible server side, there is no legitimate reason for the firmware to become unusable. Even printers, which are the biggest piece of trash there is, don’t stop working if a driver update is available.
- I tried. It literally cannot be used without the update.
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@loopback0 said in WTF Bites:
no salt.
Any pepper? Maybe vinegar?
Oh, the guy was pretty salty when I told him about it.
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@loopback0 said in WTF Bites:
Cloud is the Future™
When it takes a bit over an hour to do a fairly trivial task, you can estimate that cloud is going to be around the future 70 minutes hence…
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Speaking of awful Cloudy things...
I had to log a ticket with Salesforce support via their automated portal for an API issue discovered over the weekend.
The ticket ended up logged in the wrong category. I know I selected the right one, as the category selected determines the questions asked.
I checked the ticket shortly after logging to discover that it was in the wrong category and because of that it showed questions I wasn't asked. In Norwegian, apparently.
again it's a photo not a screenshot because it's at work and I'm not signed in to WTDWTF at work
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@topspin Well, it's always possible that the update was something like "CRITICAL SECURITY UPDATE: A vulnerability has been discovered which allows hackers in Ukraine to record you masturbating to porn via your TV's built-in microphone and gesture tracking camera".
(Never underestimate just how bad the security on IOT devices might be. The Enlightenment thread is just one of the reasons why I've refused to buy a "Smart" TV.)
That said, you're right, forcing the user to install the update is pretty stupid.
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@anotherusername There is, unfortunately, no app for pornhub in the store's limited selection.
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@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:
Making you cycle the power after the update failed is a WTF, definitely. It's not really the biggest WTF imaginable, but it's pretty user-unfriendly.
: Look at this!!! It's BAD!
: Doing it right will take another week.
: (shock) SHIP IT!
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It's SHA256, no salt.
Well, one advantage is preventing DoS attacks on the server by sending super long passwords to hash (or a ton of them). Good hashes are designed to be inefficient after all. Have the client hash it himself and you avoid that issue. You could put a maximum size on the password, but someone might put the size check on the client and if the js is disabled all of War and Peace could be sent for hashing (didn't we have someone do that to this forum, maybe in the
era?). Also, some people think that a maximum size of 8 (every bank ever) is sufficient.
Gödel, Escher, Bach - Wikipedia
