Modern Vespa

I have to admit I did hear an M2 fire up the other day and it made me smile.

I think it had gills and fins like a fish.

looking at issues on github it says unhelpful things like 'commented last week'. was that last friday or last monday or?

it's as dumb as the developers of the kotlin* programming language replying to a report I made with "I have to confess that we have intentional approximation at this point". (there's multiple other bug reports talking about approximations in the compiler)

why can't we get some precision in programming tools? it's this lack of professionalism is why I have stopped working - it's seriously not been good for my mental health.


* kotlin is the main/modern language used in android app development

Instagram Scammers who can't be bothered to 1, Learn English and 2, Be original.

Must try harder.

We've had random database crashes for the last couple of months. Suddenly they stopped being random. The database started to crash every night at 01:00. It took the IT geniuses two weeks to figure out that the network monitoring software they've been testing and then permanently scheduled to run reports at 01:00 every night was the culprit.

Taxes today.

Let's not push the scammers to be original. I've been getting What's App phishing messages for months that are invariably along the lines of "I have your number in my contacts, but I don't remember where we met, can you remind me?" and it's accompanied by a profile picture of a gorgeous 20 year old in a wet bikini.

Gee "lady", I'm pretty sure I'd remember giving you my number, but thanks for the pretty picture.

I rarely get an unknown number on Whattsap, but when I do I usually get a generic Asian lady smiling at me and the number starts with a 9.

I've also had an "Employment Agency" asking if I was still interested in a job with a pretty blonde lady in the profile.

The Instagram ones seem to ask for pictures initially and then ask where you live then in a bizarre coincidence live in the same country* after recently moving from Hong Kong.

They also import rare "whatevers" but need some money to pay for their customs charges and all that bollocks.

Because I'm a little prankster I can't help stringing them along to fill a couple of hours but even that's become boring.

*I'll often lie badly as to where I am.

Gmail. I never use the stuff.

So my Dad calls me at work today. He's 83. He's also in Louisiana. He calls to tell me that something has changed on his $12 Android tablet when he clicks on his Gmail icon. Did I mention this is to his hotmail account?

The conversation begins with me explaining to my Dad (whom I love very much) again the difference between an email client and an email server and why it would be difficult for me to diagnose or fix anything without his tablet in-hand. Meanwhile I'm logging into his email account from my laptop at work because this happens frequently enough that I have to be able to. Everything looks fine on the server end, just like it has for years. I'm half laughing, half crying at the futility of trying to walk him through anything on his end over the phone.

There was a time, several years ago before Mom passed away, Dad called me in a panic. Mom was showing some signs of dementia. He called me when he realized Mom had been on the phone and her laptop with someone for nearly five hours. I told him to call the bank, call the credit card companies and anyone else he can think of and tell them what happened.

Nothing ever came of it. I laughed, because I know what it was like being on the phone with my Mom. All I could picture was the poor guy on the other end hanging up the phone and drinking heavily. Half an hour and I was ready for therapy.

So, yeah. I guess not Gmail so much, but troubleshooting things over the phone.

It's probably fine (though I feel like I'm never entirely sure). Lately the ADHD feels like it's winning most of the battles. I think I've done a lot of positive growth in terms of learning to work with it instead of against it over the years, but augh. It just never ends. I wish it was something I could take a vacation from sometimes. I'm so over it.

Having done more than my fair share of troubleshooting over the phone, you have my sympathy. I've done it extensively for family members, but it was also my job for a while, in my early days as a software engineer before I landed the gig at Apple. I worked in a medical billing software company, and we spent a lot of time on the phone with the staff at various doctor's offices trying to troubleshoot.

One of the things I learned quickly is to be rigorous about eliminating ambiguity. The things we say can often be interpreted many different ways, usually not what you intended.

Type period.

(typing -- p e r i o d) okay

Now hit enter

It says "syntax error"

It's maddening. But you learn.

I feel for you. Watching our kid struggle with it has really helped me understand...and I don't envy them. I'm impressed at how much they've learned to cope with it, but it doesn't seem possible to just coast either.

Hang in there.

My Dad still refers to the Wifi icon as the "little fan shaped thing". I keep a pillow close by to scream into.

The first rule of tech support is to accept that your knowledge and experience is not universal.

Oh, for sure. One thing I have to give my Mom, she was not afraid of tech. I remember her sitting in the den converting all of the ledger sheets for the farm from paper to a spreadsheet program on our IIGS. You should have seen her when I bought her MusicTime for the Performa. She would take an eight part music score and play each part in individually through MIDI and print them out to avoid any copyright issues. She even published a book about the history of her hometown.

Dad has a masters in education and a bachelors in math/science.

And yet ...

"Little fan shaped thing". All conversations start at square one.

I still have nightmares about some of the people I had to support as a young IT guy, but sometimes it's just very smart people making very foolish mistakes. Case in point, a 3:00am call from a hospital;

"We've had a power failure. The power is back on now, and everything is working except the computer in my office".

"I'm sorry to hear that. When you tried to turn it on, did anything display on the screen, or did the computer make any sounds?"

"Oh, do i have to do that?"

"Yes Doctor, if you want to use a piece of electronic equipment, you will have to turn it on first."

I had a girlfriend like that once.

in the bios settings of my workstation there is an option for this. can set it to not turn on when it gets mains power can also set it to turn itself on when it gets mains power.

Exactly the way I feel about Tinnitus. Stay, whatever helps.

So where is Kate Middleton ?

Well duh, she's at photography school.

I heard she's working on her arms.

I just don't get the point of the Kate Konspiracy Theeries.

Seems some people have too much time on their hands.

Yup and idol hands make work for the Devil.

Not been seen for 72 days and an official photo was heavily photoshopped to the point where AP withdrew it as not being credible.

Kinda weird.

Three kids, all smiling and looking at the camera? How dumb does she think we are?

Ps, I actually think she is awesome and hope she is recovering well from whatever befell her.

Apparently Conspiracy Theories start when people can't actually come to terms with the truth.

It happened again.

A friend of mine (who has been connected to a full blown scandal in the UK Automotive Industry ) and I went out for a coffee and because much of the conversation was going to be somewhat secretive we picked the biggest but most quiet Coffee Shop we could.

When we arrived the place was empty which was ideal and so the conversation flowed freely.

Within 5 minutes a Senior sits next to our table when he had the choice of about 60 other seats.

Great work.

Have you thought about making coffee at home? You'd be much happier.

I'll never be much happier.

My life is one long protracted act of misery.

I think the hands were what gave it away.

Freaking engineers.

We have a part (third stop lamp) we've been making for years. We have a huge issue with the customer right now because they are carrying it over to another vehicle. No biggie. Happens all the time.

I've been tasked by our manufacturing engineering manager to scan and report on three parts. I stood right here and told him these are issues that I have layout reports for dating back to 2016. That's at least four quality managers and at least as many engineering managers ago. I told him what the results will be and why. I told him this isn't information we will want to share with the customer because we continue to not fix our issues despite being given the information that would help us do so.

tl;dr

The automotive industry.

It could be worse. You could have been working on the Apple EV.

Heavy handed bureaucrats.

As part of my work in Cyber Security at a Canadian hospital, I sit through regular briefings from our government's Cyber Center to make sure I'm up to date with the latest threats. Today's briefing was almost entirely about the latest phishing messages being seen around Canada, how they're harder to spot because AI means they no longer have the obvious errors that have accompanied phishing messages in the past, and how to recognize them as phishing messages anyway. Valuable information to share with my users in case anything gets by our filters. Or at least it would be, if the dumb-asses at our cyber center hadn't had all the information classified. Seriously? Details about phishing campaigns? The only way this information has ANY value is if it's shared, and they've classified it? And when someone pointed out the issue, they suggested we review the classification system so we know what can be shared.

Good enough, it's allowed to be shared on a 'need-to-know' basis. Now I just have to figure out how to show that every executive, clinician, administrator, janitor, plumber, etc. in my hospital 'needs-to-know'.

Would be so much easier if they just didn't bother to classify information that should be widely shared.

Send a general e-mail that says:

"Don't tell anyone, but..."

Every one will know in around ten minutes.

You don't even know.

Sore point ? Sorry.

I could be worse, you could have been working on the Dyson EV.

That sucked.

Not personally sore, no. I wasn't affected. I did pick up a new hire from the fallout of the first reorg, and he was great. I worked with some other people who were also, erm... diaspora of the project. They were also great people to work with, really smart. So really, I benefitted from the blowout.

But not everyone was that lucky.

The real point I was trying to make is that you can't even fathom how many billions of dollars just went up in smoke.

But that is the Apple way. Not to deliberately blow money, but more... that they would rather set the money on fire than ship something that wasn't actually right. Apple is generally not susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy.

Generally.

I heard it was 10 Billion $'s

I think it depends on how you count it. I could easily imagine a number twice that if they were honest about it.

Just Wow.

I think Dyson" only" lost 605 Million $'s before going Naaaaaa.