Posts by Code For Broke 266 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Feb 2015
Sorry. Nope. I have an iPad here that is less than 10 years old. It is entirely useless because Apple has turned it out of the walled garden. I can't even update basic stuff like the browser. With an aged browser, many current websites don't work. I could go on. Please trust me, the device is entirely useless. Can't do anything useful with it at all. Folks overuse the term "doorstop", but this really is one.
A similar aged Android tablet might be slow and unable to run stuff using the absolute latest APIs, but generally they are still usable and take updates to Chrome and so on.
So... No, I don't agree that Apple provider "solid long-term support." On the contrary, once they nix something, it's dead as a usable device.
Because it happened as a temporary malfunction is not the same as what was implied: that the system is routinely fantastically incorrect.
I have already openly admitted that I have experienced ChatGPT be very wrong about very cut and dry factual matters. It isn't perfect.
But it does seem as those most of the hate here is based on fear and 1 in 1m type examples of a bad outcome.
Bullshit.
ChatGPT 3.5
User
What is a computer?
ChatGPT
A computer is an electronic device that can receive, store, process, and output data. It operates under the control of instructions stored in its memory, and it can perform a variety of tasks, ranging from simple calculations to complex computations and data manipulation.
I was not trolling and I am grateful for your thoughtful reply. Thank you.
I find ChatGPT helpful. I am frustrated sometimes by the results I get from it, but I am much more often astonished at the thorough and on-point replies I get, even to very short or poorly worded prompts. I often prompt with my own prejudices and cynicism and I am offered a more well rounded perspective. I like it. Just saying.
Mostly people seem pissed about the salesmanship of AI, but that's just salesmanship. It could be a car or vitamins or any number of other items which, in themselves, are useful and desirable. You are welcome to pissed at how people spin lies about technology in order to sell something that isn't real.
But ChatGPT is real. Perfect, no way. But very, very real. It's a game changer and I think being pissy about it and pretending it's all horribly broken and fake is just a foolish kind of sour grapes.
Wow, there is some serious hate for ChatGPT in the room. While I also enjoyed some schadenfreude while reading the article, and also concur with the judge, I don't think that using ChatGPT is inherently foolish.
Since much has been made about jumping here, I'll go there too: In my opinion, ChatGPT is an excellent starting point for research and ideas, much as Wikipedia was before every single editor ran away. BUT, you need to know when to jump off, take what your learned, and then dig in with more factual sources and with your own scrutiny for the truth.
I do wonder if some of the hate here today is stemming from fear? If you are honest enough to admit it, does anyone care to explain what they are so afraid of?
What I fail to understand is how Oracle convinces anyone to buy their stuff. Their reputation for fantastic over-promise/under-deliver is profound.
Yes, they have the best sales people on the planet, with very large credit limits on their corporate card. Who doesn't like free drinks, a day on the greens and a steak dinner to top it off.
But is that really all it takes? Are there really no leaders who care about the devastating impact that Oracle will have on their ability to perform basic tasks, and the enormous bloat of additional contracted labor and interminable post-implementation extensions of service by the implementor to (wishfully) mitigate the awfulness?
I do believe that most "real estate bros" are evil (we've got a rather notorious one here in the USA), I gave you a downvote because I don't believe that RTW, at a government level, is all just a rescue for that lot.
I do believe it's also about keeping people moving in an economy that expects motion.
So, @A. Coatsworth:
No matter how terribly exclusive your enormous house in the pristine wilderness of the previous unaltered Earth may be, my point wasn't to start a dick measuing contest.
My point is that WFH entails a lot of encounters the artefacts (if not loved ones corporeal) of personal life. When I'm at stress about something work related, I don't like having that stress in my house and among the people I love. And the opposite is also just as true.
YouTube videos to replace in-person contact... And ChatGPT in place of the flawed and oft misleading art of human conversation. What else you got?
@elsergiovolador, you write pretty but your rebuttal terrifies me.
I do appreciate the tip on "raise a hand and wait to be called on" in webcalls. Do you work for the Royal Family or something? Surely not anywhere in Northeast US. We don't play that.
Wah.
What a bunch of anti-social shut-ins we've all become.
Personally, I long to look people in the eye when I speak to them, know when I am about to interrupt someone, sense emotion before it comes out sideways (in myself and others), so on and so on.
And, my house is tiny and filled with the distractions, both pleasant and unpleasant, of my personal life.
WFH was fine when we thought we would murder someone by breathing near them, but you all can have it now.
So the downvotes represent comfort with the idea that -any- educational concept should be wrapped around gendered stereotypes (let alone STEM), segregated similarly, and that a teacher who tends to think that girls alone would be drawn to a dollhouse (etc.) is well prepared to welcome and meet a diverse group of learners where their interests intersect with the course material.
Nice. I really had no idea that Reg Readers were such an ignorant and out of touch bunch of idiots.
Sorry, DV, but that last sentence makes me want to puke. The dollhouse is the best vector for teaching girls, eh?
I wouldn't just not send my kids, I would actively discourage others from sending theirs if your "dojo" was in my neighborhood.
You are completely missing the point.
I said I'm not an apologist for M$, and I did not say anything to suggest that I think they have successfully realized their slogan. All I said is that it's a good slogan, and it does represent that way a really human-centered organization, such as a large university, likes to think about their own mission, which is likely to also guide how they select partners.
What is your evidence that "Mr. Basecamp" is being bullied by Duke? Duke says, "We don't share your values, Mr. Basecamp, we're out."
When I perceive that a leader's values are mistaken, I tend to also perceive that there are likely other flaws in the overall design of the work of their organization. It's like, "Hey, if you are short-sighted on DEI, you might also not be adequately considering how to build project management software."
I'm not an apologist for M$, but their slogan about unlocking people's potential is really, really, really on-point. That's what good software should do. If I think a company isn't so sure about my approach to helping unlock people's potential (DEI), then I'm naturally going to have doubts about their software's ability to do the same.
For whatever it's worth, every time I use Oracle ERP (damn it, the horse is NOT dead, I tell you!), I am very aware that it was created by a company ruled by a culture of fear wrought by their fairly psychotic and micromanaging leader. Right?
Hasn't "Poker Face" just described about 2/3 of the tickets handled by break/fix teams? The lawyer adds some comical flair, I suppose. But he's also kind of an archetype, no?
So what if the problem included a feral monkey who was doing the unplugging? And the lawyer worked defence for an adult toy company and the office was filled with samples...
Aside from being a dick-measuring contest, what is the point of these computers? How many new drugs or distant galaxies or whatever have they actually discovered and what is the value of that output?
And 24 megawatts!?! That's a lot of friggin Christmas lights. And at least actual lights look pretty for the public unlike the blinking of an acre or two of racks in some super-secure HPC data center.
I don't get it.
Ok, so some hate for Oracle here. And SAP hasn't lasted long without being added to the insults.
Question for all you seasoned IT pros: What is a GOOD ERP these days? And was there ever an ERP that was more-or-less consistently well implemented and appreciated by its end users and support staff? Bonus points if the supplier wasn't pure evil.
What is this word, "governance" that the author keeps using? In all seriousness, as a business-side techie, I represent all of the possible bad outcomes of so-called democratization. I have access dbs and power apps and VBA kluges a-plenty. But I have never sincerely been approached with an introduction or "sales pitch" for working within the governance of my organization or "teaming up" with IT to solve my many niggling techie challenges. At best, I get lengthy QnA calls and no follow up.
What governance models exist that do a good job of educating the consumer and making it practical for the consumer to arrive at a truly collaborative outcome with their IT department?
I'm sure the Oracle Sales team is working tirelessly to reassure Birmingham that they made the right choice.
I'm sure that the implementor is working beyond the limits of human capacity to string together customizations and PaaS solutions to give Oracle the outward appearance of being 'safe and complaint' (by the standards described in Indian technical colleges).
I'm thinking Lee D's company must be in the UK? Because I work for a biggish US employer with close ties to health and public safety, and when we have a fire, there's no list taking. It's just a blistering alarm, some flashing lights, and everyone to the far end of the parking lot to look at each other and be reminded of high school.
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