Notices by Future Sprog (futuresprog@mastodon.nzoss.nz)

Tired: “Return to Office mandates”

Wired: “Mandatory Commute Policy”

@chris

We've been given paid API keys to various AI products at work.

I was told, "try this out, maybe it'll help with that thorny problem".

After spending some time rephrasing and reformulating my query I realised I was getting pretty close to just reimplementing my original 200+ lines of Python with extensive comments but this time entirely in English and the results were worse.

So I stopped using it.

How are those ostriches looking? Ever get a pink one on a suspension bridge?

@chris

@bitshifter

This is why I followed.

Instructions for turning off Gemini as best as you can:

CG-NAT is bulllllllllllshiiiiiiiiit.

@rimu @lightweight

You’re right. We do kind of do that here.

Some of it is that we’ve worked on these tools and the veil has been lifted. I’m no longer under the illusion that “enterprise” software is better. It just means the price tag is bigger.

@chris

Bloody hell will the USpol nutters please tone it down or properly tag your nonsense.

I’ve had to add another dozen perfectly good words into the block list today.

Good luck discussing Senator Palpatine and other details of the galactic empire now. I won’t see any of it.

The #USpol filter is working well. Added another three perfectly good but now corrupted phrases into the list this morning.

If you’re curious, there has never been an instance where I’ve clicked that “Show anyway” link and it’s been worth reading. Never.

Also please include appropriate alt text with your screenshot-only dunks so that they can be filtered out. That nonsense should stay on Gab and Parler.

Please, if you’re discussing US politics please include #USpol in your toot for improved reach

and also so that I can filter your rubbish out and don’t have to look at it.

I’m going to have to add some more perfectly good words to my filter list today. If you want to have brunch with me at Robert H■rris then you’ll need to message me because that word is going into the list.

One or both of you have server clock issues.

You’re chatting backwards and forwards through time.

Can the one in the future please tell us the answer from AT&T because I was betting on Cyber Squirrel.

@woody @GossiTheDog

Pretty sure IBM Websphere uses these characters in message queue encoding. When parsing raw messages from the MQ that were dropped in the logs I had an alias for ‘tr’ to convert them into printable ASCII to make them easier to understand.

I think I also delved into these for a `find -printf` command where the remote might have more than just spaces in their file names.

All still running in production right now.

@rimu @tychotithonus @gvwilson

@lightweight

Computer nearly went sailing out the window.

My partner was trying to show me a letter she was drafting on her computer and pretty reliably every 5-10 seconds a new alert would pop up and cover the screen.

“Windows Defender has found no threats”

“Use Edge as your default browser”

“Buy a subscription to Office”

Absolute garbage. Then it wasn’t clear how to get Windows into “shut the hell up” mode because they’ve sneakily moved that about 3 levels deep in the overflow menu “.

@lightweight

@mcc
This is starting to bite at the local library where I teach Code Club (Scratch for kids).

Most of the Chromebooks were purchased about 3 years ago and they’re showing “final update” alerts. Now websites are no longer validating because the Let’s Encrypt certificates are signed by an expired root and they don’t have the new root.

Perfectly serviceable laptops but Google just needed to kill something and so they killed working Chromebooks.