Posts by Andy Non 1885 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jul 2014
I've used Word and LibreOffice extensively over the years, but when it came to writing a novel I used Notepad. It just allowed me to type without it interrupting my train of thought with complaints about any spelling or grammar oddities. Clean up came later if necessary while reviewing the text.
and find them around 95% accurate for route planning. The other 5% can be problematic, being guided into dead end roads in housing estates because it can't figure out the last mile. It once guided me in heavy traffic into a (buses only) bus station with a bus driver shaking his head at me in disapproval, thankfully I didn't get a fine. Another situation they struggle with is when a mini-roundabout connects directly onto another mini-roundabout and it is still reading instructions for the first leaving me to guess where to go on the second. Some of the instructions are bizarre, like "take the 2nd exit on the roundabout then turn left", but the left turn is another mile up the road! Still, far better and less stressful than the wife navigating a physical map and saying turn left, just after we've passed the turn.
It's not just amateur DIYers, a family member has just had his dream home built, including a very expensive bathroom with eye watering prices for the sink and fittings. While the builder was putting up a bespoke mirror above the sink it slipped, smashing the mirror and the sink. Oops. Expensive day for the builder.
Last year we moved house. Tried to update DVLA online with my new address, utter nightmare trying to get a one-login ID. After a vast amount of time online on my desktop computer then with my mobile using their app etc for self-photos, I simply got a message, unable to verify your identity with a third party. And that was the end of that. Eventually I had to do everything the old way, physical paperwork mailed to them. Similar problems dealing with HMRC / DWP, just can't get past the one-login wall to access any online services, so have to find phone numbers to speak directly to people. Government websites are virtually unusable nowadays, for me anyway.
I needed to ask a general question of a local hospital. An NHS website gave an email contact address for such enquiries. I sent an email and got an automated reply back saying the email address had been discontinued and to email a different address. Tried the new address. Never got a reply. Sigh.
I'm quite fluent with French now but when we first moved there I was a beginner with the language. The French government introduced an initiative to help the influx of British to learn French, and they offered free courses. All you had to do was phone a particular number to arrange to attend a course. Only problem, the fonctionnaire on the other end of the phone only spoke French. Catch-22. You needed to speak fluent French to arrange a course to speak basic French. I managed on my own, lots of other alternatives.
I lived there for a decade and the level of bureaucratic incompetence was staggering. Many "official" jobs are created just so people can claim to be working, they serve no real purpose or benefit to anyone. The jobs revolve around employees completing forms to pass onto other departments to generate more forms which are passed on to other departments to generate more forms etc... at each step the data becomes more and more distorted with information lost and fictional data added. The French have a word to describe such people. "scribes", the nearest English translation, which really doesn't do it justice, is "pen pushers".
Yes, I used to do that, however Zoom in their wisdom changed the browser interface so you could only get "speaker view" and not "group view (all participants)". This was pretty crap as you never knew who was in the meeting unless they spoke. Zoom has reached the enshitification stage.
I left Windows 11 on my new computer as a dual-boot option. I haven't actively used Windows for more than a decade, using Linux Mint instead. However, for the last few months Zoom has been problematic on Linux, taking 100% CPU and the graphics slow and stuttering, so I've started booting into Win 11 for Zoom which works fine. But my god, the Windows updates! Before booting into Windows I always do a backup of my Linux files, I got bitten once by a Windows update years ago which trashed the dual boot and took over the entire computer. It won't get me like that again. I leave Windows to update overnight every few weeks and typically the following morning it is sitting there waiting for me to enter the Motherboard level password. Then it requires several cycles of spinning circles, updating your computer, don't turn it off, shutdown, motherboard password, reboot etc. Windows update is such a pain compared to Linux updates. All because Zoom has become a bloated sack of rocks on Linux.
I can't buy from McD. Only been in their stores three times over the last sixty odd years while travelling somewhere and on all three occasions I was refused a big mac cheese burger because they were still serving the breakfast menu. I just go elsewhere. I thought the manager's head was going to explode at one of them when I just said "No problem, I'll buy a cheese burger from the burger van in the car park outside". He was absolutely livid that someone else was selling burgers near his store.
On TV recently, they showed a massive (organised crime) illegal dump that had been filling up for over a year, and during all this time the environment agency were aware of the situation but failed to act in a decisive manner, instead doing more "investigations" and progressing the matter through legal avenues. In short, they did sod all to stop it. Can't understand why the cops didn't just arrest the truck drivers going there on a daily basis and charge them and shut down the site straight away. There is "due process" and "doing feck all".
Drone footage is useless unless it is acted upon. The environment agency already knows were most of these illegal dumps are, local residents are quick to report them. This just sounds like a gimmick or more toys for the boys.
I did something similar in my youth. Had a very difficult mathematical modelling problem to solve while on my college work placement. Struggled for days getting nowhere, then one night I awoke at something like 3 am with the solution. Got out of bed, scribbled a few notes and programmed it the following day (Fortran 77) and it worked! My subconscious mind solved what my conscious mind could not.
I quit Windows when Windows 8.2 came out well over a decade ago. Not missed Windows at all with one recent minor exception. For some reason Zoom is in the process of enshitification. The Zoom desktop app for Linux Mint is faulty and has been for some months now. My computer protests about high CPU usage and Zoom graphics go into slow motion making it unusable. Using Zoom in a browser was a reasonable workaround until the other day when Zoom removed the gallery view option, restricting it to speaker view only which is crap when there are a dozen people in the meeting. Reluctantly I fired up Windows 11 as the almost forgotten dual boot alternative on this PC and (spit) the Zoom desktop app works fine on it. I wish they'd fix Zoom for Linux so I don't need to boot up the dumpster fire that is Windows 11.
I remember the days when installations took many hours and an hour or two in there would be the inevitable and highly annoying "Click OK to proceed". Worse still, they would sometimes appear as a pop-under so you didn't even know nothing was happening. Seems to be less of an issue nowadays where all the relevant questions are asked prior to installations commencing.
Undoubtedly. Though saying that, you keep hearing stories in the news of substantial frauds occurring due to lack of communication between different government departments. I know from my own experience that different government depts don't talk to each other. We needed to download proof of my wife's pension income from the state to pass on to... a different government department! I'm sure they could have bypassed the entire arduous process in the middle that didn't work anyway. We were unable to provide the information required, so simply gave up.
Its similar for some people with the government's "One login" scheme. My elderly wife needed me to do something online for her regarding her state pension, but she needed a "One login" account to proceed. However, after 45 minutes effort and filling in endless online forms we had to give up. She no longer has any valid photo ID so the site offered other avenues... nope. Finally after much gnashing of teeth, the site rejected her attempt to have a "one login" account as they were "unable to verify her identity with a third party". So they effectively said "feck off, you don't exist." They offered no way to appeal or alternative avenue to resolve the problem.
A few years ago I foolishly explored the idea of having a Gmail account as my primary email account. It didn't go well. I like all my emails stored locally so set up POP3 access as documented by Google so I could send and receive email locally via Thunderbird. I sent and received a few email tests without problem ... and a few hours later google suspended my account for "suspicious activity". So that was the end of that.
Never share your card information with anyone else or give them your pin number, yet you would be doing this with a so called AI agent?
Who is to blame when it buys the wrong thing or at an inflated priced etc? Will the banks just shrug and say "tough shit" you shared your card details?
