Posts by sev.monster

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

Re: Carol Burnett

The you you you are not. You should seek more you you's.

Sorry, I didn't understand that.

Something went wrong.

Try again later.

Reload the page.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

All humanity shall perish.

Re: Extra credit for partially completed tasks

Write the documentation with ChatGPT.

Tesla Cybertruck turns into world's most expensive brick after car wash

Re: Wash? WASH?

History here: it ended up being clusterfuck.

Best regards.

OK, Google: Are you killing Assistant and replacing it with Gemini?

Re: Nooooo.

There is a way to turn this off, look for "text predictions" in the settings. It's different on every Office install of course, but it's easy enough to find. Usually under the General or Mail sections.

And no alternative (official or otherwise) because you're shoved the new experience down your throat… And told to like it. You don't know what you want, heathen!

Re: Hi Google!

Paying for Gemini in our Lord's year 2026 to have it tell ye to be calm.

Re: Heavy Metal Detector

I'll get it for you.

Re: Subs mean an off switch

Considering the massive computing (power/cooling) cost that Gemini must incur, I don't know about that.

Re: Nooooo.

I'll not comment on your own use of AI because, that's like, your opinion, man.

But please leave your "testing putting the Gemini multimodal API inside applications" in the testing phase only, to spare the rest of us that don't want AI shoved into everything for a multitude of reasons. Thanks.

Microsoft wouldn't look at a bug report without a video. Researcher maliciously complied

He must be working for free, in that case. No wonder the service is so bad.

If you want to be pedantic, you should be blaming the call center employee doing a poor job, the employer that allows him to do a poor job, the countries (yes multiple) that allow hundreds of shitty call centers to pop up every minute like fungi while putting not nearly enough resources into regulating such practices because it funnels overseas investment thus generating tax dollars and market movement, the industry that exports substantial amounts of labor where it's cheapest, your government for allowing these companies to do so despite the clear disadvantages, your employer for paying for the services of said companies and not demanding better government oversight over the multi trillion dollar corps they are beholden to, and finally you for choosing to be employed by such an employer.

Blame can be split in many directions and applied to many people. Some are more deserving than others. If you choose not to blame your support rep, good on you.

But in the direct interpersonal relationship that is my communication with my support rep? If he doesn't have the patience to deal with his situation and me, then neither do I in the reverse. You can have my sympathy for your poor life situation while I curse you [maybe] under my breath.

Re: Microsoft?

If you live in a cave, cut off from the rest of the world, working on your wizard GNUstack and subsisting on your own toenail fungus ala RMS, you don't have to care at all, and can continue on your merry way.

But if you live with the rest of us, being generally up-to-date on real-world tech stacks is important. For example, if:

• It's your career (unfortunately)
• You want to make informed choices for your own tech stack
• You want to convince Micro$oft users why their tech stack sucks
• You want to follow market trends for some reason, e.g. investing

Re: Microsoft?

You haven't worked in many places, then. Use those toes to count how many businesses within 10km of you use Microsoft products.

Congratulations if you've found employ at a place that doesn't, and that you had the courage/time/money/privilege to go find one in the first place. Not all of us are so lucky/financially stable.

Re: Microsoft?

Linux is Linux, I can make it do what I want with little trouble. Can't say the same about Windows Server. Your choice of distro is really up to personal preference and what vendorware you need to run, honestly.

I would rate Ubuntu worse on a technical level if you really want to split hairs. RHEL wouldn't be my first choice either honestly, but it's well-known and well-supported in the industry. And, again, it works.

Re: Microsoft?

AD is primarily a real user identity service—it existed long before JWTs were floating along the neurons in its creator's brain... And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere already made that. Or that somewhere in the Microsoft tech stack, your desired feature already exists in some form or another.

No, I don't mean "Active Directory can do everything that Active Directory can do", and I was only using that as an example. The realm of built-in software you can provision on a fresh Windows Server device is massive, and AD is only one part of it. If you're a startup that needs basic identity management, install Windows server, tick a box, go through the wizard, and you're done. It's incredibly simple to get started, you can add hundreds of thousands of users with great performance, you have a slew of third party software at your disposal to bolt on to it, and it's basically LDAP under the hood so anything that speaks LDAP can also (generally) speak to AD.

Need certs? Tick the box that turns your server into a certificate authority, use a web-based interface to generate and dispense certs.

Need web server? IIS.

Etc etc.

Are each of these products best in class? Absolutely not. Once you have to administrate them for a while you'll find plenty of headaches. Everything you said is correct.

My point is the barrier to entry is very, very low, and the ecosystem is as wide as it is deep.

Think of it like buying into Apple. You don't just get an iThing for its iFeature, you get it because it gets you access to all the other iFeatures that Apple gives you, like Air Drop, iCloud, the built-in VPN thing, using your iPad as a secondary monitor wirelessly. All those features are a click away and require absolutely zero futzing around to use. That's why people are attracted to Microsoft.

(Even if after purchase you find out that, actually, there's a lot of futzing around to be had... that's neither here nor there though.)

Yes, AD and the rest don't do everything. I didn't insinuate that. But for the needs of the vast majority of companies, which is the implied demographic behind those that "need it", it's sufficient. None of it is nowhere near the best at what it does and there are plenty of better options. But you get a lot for the ecosystem you jump into.

Re: Microsoft?

Yes, I am.

Put aside your blind hatred (yeah it's hard for me to as well) and hazard an unbiased guess at how many organizations rely on the big names, like AD for example. We all know AD sucks in uncountable ways, but not only can it do everything you need it to out of the box, it has decades of prior art behind it, and is largely pretty stable. Setting up a new domain controller is dead simple, and everything is a clicky GUI with clear descriptions. It doesn't require particularly special technical knowledge.

Would I prefer OpenLDAP, UCS, or hell even 389 (which I used to admin)? Hell yes I would. More control and freedom in implementation, less licensing costs, can run it on Linux, plaintext configs (well sometimes, slapd has OLC...). But what those solutions provide in poweruser goodness they lack in ease of use for the layperson.

AD/Entra ID, PeopleSoft, etc. Work in the industry for a little bit and you end up constantly seeing the usual names slinking around. Especially in education, which is my career. Basically every university uses AD on Windows Server, man. And it's not because it all universally sucks.

I think at this point I wouldn't mind the outsourced support to be further outsourced to an AI bot. Honestly, just train it on the scripts you give the support team, and give it access to the internal knowledgebase. At least you'll get quick, prompt replies, even if you'll also get about the same percent chance of getting your issue solved.

Re: Not just MS

What would even possess you...? Using it as an excuse to show your boss so you don't have to work, or covering their ass after a mistake? I guess??

Re: That's happens...

As someone that has recently taken charge of an exchange student GA, yes. Number one question is "can we record this" along with copious use of ChatGPT.

Trust me, I do. My "talking to support" lexicon has been reduced to about 100 words.

Of course. They wouldn't do it if it didn't remain profitable. Whatever business they lose due to bad support is likely already so unreliant on their products—and as such not a large source of income—that they still end up saving money when factoring in the outsourcing. Meanwhile, companies with no real choice and those with no managerial desire to change continue to use MS products, deal with the heat of hell, and fund the beast. Unfortunately it would take a large shift in the industry to see MS removed from their comfortable seat of power, where they're able to get away with such shoddy service.

Re: Microsoft?

No. It's because they provide solutions to problems. Maybe not well, and maybe with a whole laundry list of caveats, gotchas, asterisks, and daggers... But if you need something done, and you don't have the manpower, capital, or time, and industry leader Microsoft is willing to sign the devil's contract with you, while also providing "support"...

And it would be different if you were a new org, with the option of starting fresh. OpenLDAP instead of AD, authentik instead of Entra ID, Linux instead of Windows, there are plenty of options. But for an existing org, with decades upon decades of reliance on Microsoft, the number one deciding factor is "we are already a Microsoft shop".

Other reasons include compliance with governmental regulations making rolling your own a non-starter for a myriad of reasons, lack of talent in the industry with what is sure to be a very specialized and custom solution when you step out of (popular vendor here)-land, software and hardware vendors you may have no (financial) choice but to use not supporting anything but Windows... Desiring a support contract is but one item on a laundry list of potential questions an org has to answer to make their business work.

Re: Microsoft?

You do realize, don't you, that I made no claims to anything and your entire post is assumption? That my post was sardonic in nature? Hinting at a deeper meaning? One that you yourself are sure to understand? That simply "not using Microsoft/Windows" is harder than it sounds, often because of said manglement?

Of course a large swathe of people (myself included) would switch off Microsoft immediately given the opportunity. But I, a grunt, do not have the authority to make such an opportunity, our students/staff/faculty do not know about/want to know Linux for workstation use, we are very embedded in Azure, we are financially constrained to continue on the path we're on, and overall there's a lot of pain that Microsoft is removing from our shoulders—even if they also generate a lot themselves.

Fact of the matter is, Microsoft owns the industry, and people want them. Maybe not many of us in technical positions, but certainly non-technical users, and definitely vendors that only provide software for Windows. Vendors of which our org is forced to use, with no alternative other than building everything ourselves. Which again, we are unable to stomach financially.

And for the record, my org runs Red Hat/Oracle where we can, and yes we do have support. Would love more of that.

Re: I for one...

Nah, sorry pal, you get screenshots of commands. What, you want to copy the commands? Ha, you're funny.

On specifically your last point: I do think culture makes the experience. Consider how hard it must be to hire good people, when the vast majority are held to a low standard and yet are still paid, and where leaving one company for another if you are held to a higher standard is easier done than said, because there are hundreds of them. So at that point, why should either the hiring agency or the employee care at all, especially when they keep getting massive amounts of business? This is the problem I have with call center exporters, and it just so happens the majority of them are stationed in countries with cheap labor.

And to answer the question in particular: No, I don't. But even if I can't get good tech support, I would sure love to be able to at least fully comprehend even one of the myriad of sentences being talked at me. I guess it's my fault for not speaking Punjabi.

But yes, ultimately, Microsoft is to blame for outsourcing all this and not hiring good people themselves. They surely have enough money to do so, but choose the lowest common denominator instead. And despite the cries of techies everywhere, orgs still keep buying Microsoft garbage and dealing with the problems that inevitably occur.

Re: Microsoft?

Ha, you're funny.

Re: They want a video?

It's a story of you submitting the bug report, with Microsoft played by Leslie Nielsen.

Re: File too big

Problem located: You aren't paying for Microsoft OneDrive. Ticket closed.

Re: Nasty suspicion

I wouldn't be surprised if they're using the same tier 1 support reps as they do for 365 support. That is, they have next to no practical knowledge or understanding, and just follow a script. They are essentially human form validators.

Re: That's happens...

Wipro is the scum of the earth and should be removed via exterminatus.

It depends on your licensing model, which is itself an actual nightmare. I work in education and the choices they give you are all 3 letter acronyms and have changed completely at least four times in the past maybe 10 years, requiring new contract negotiations, new pricing, etc. Not to mention you have to wait for your reseller to even begin to understand the licensing changes too, and pray their license manager actually knows what they're doing and doesn't screw something up. This is aside of course Microsoft deprecating and now removing VLSC for end users, replacing it with the ugly and until very recently severely less functional Microsoft Admin licensing tab.

With the latest education model, I believe support is not bundled in to the subscription pricing and you have to pay for it. But unlike at $job[-2] I haven't seen the contract and can only regurgitate the rumors around the office, so take that with a grain of salt. I don't even know what they're calling it anymore, it used to be MSCA, then it became OVS+SA/OVS-ES, then EES, and then I think we moved to CASA+EES or something??? and who knows what it is now with the introduction of 365 into everything. Last I did any license management was before the Office 365 rebranding so I'm a bit out of date.

And yes, we have a SLA for initial contact only. Anything after that is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This reeks of Microsoft 365 Support Syndrome where, no matter how absolutely fucking crystal clearly I made the issue in the initial description, the technician will ALWAYS ask for a remote session, will ALWAYS ask for a phone call even though I specified I prefer email, and will ALWAYS be nigh fucking unintelligable when they do get on the phone. And when we go through the screen sharing merry-go-round and I show them exactly what the screenshots showed and do the exact same troubleshooting and debugging steps I ALREADY TOLD YOU I DID, you are still fucking surprised it doesn't work and have to "escalate the issue" because there's nothing after step four in your stupid fucking internal guide and the Microsoft docs doesn't have an answer for you to quote because I already looked just like I told you.

I'm sorry can you tell I'm fed up. Especially considering this support costs thousands of dollars.

Honestly I just started putting single sentences in my tickets because it's about as effective. I know I will be forced regardless to slowly re-explain my case to some bored dude from Zimbabwe that doesn't care I exist so why should I even bother.

Google slips built-in terminal, Debian Linux VM into Android 15 March feature drop

Re: Termux

Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in years and has a lot of issues in my use of it. I'd recommend checking out Unexpected Keyboard.

Re: Android for the desktop!

I haven't had any of those issues on Plasma 6, but I'm using a Magic Touchpad, so YMMV...

I can't see this being super useful. I already run Xorg in proot on Termux when I need to. I guess actually usable alternatives will help the market grow for those of us insane enough to use terminal on our fondleslabs—or those with no other alternatives. Maybe it will drive more desktop Linux use on Android, which I feel is an underrepresented use-case.

I actually got a Pixel Fold (not the new one, which has as many drawbacks as it has improvements in my opinion) specifically anticipating to use it as a laptop replacement, and so far it hasn't disappointed. Graphene runs great on it, with the only issue so far that my YubiKey will stop working after it hits about 80% charge. Not sure why, but it's not enough of a bother to care, when I can just use NFC instead.

I'd recommend this setup for any erstwhile developer that wants to take a terminal with them but not have to lug a laptop or tablet in addition to their phone. Hell, this thing is already more powerful than my old ThinkPads ever were, in a fraction of the size. Battery life is better too.

4chan, the 'internet’s litter box,' appears to have been pillaged by rival forum

Re: I hope someone uses those IP addresses

Slow down there Satan.

And residential IPs are not guaranteed to be static. Especially in the modern era where IPv4 is in limited quantities, many ISPs frequently rotate their consumers. I'm a living example: If I so much as sneeze at my router, I'll get a new IP.

Apparently they did heavy fingerprinting of users, you'd be more likely to get matches based on that data rather than just IP. But I doubt that will be released.

Re: 4chan still exists?

If you look at the leak, they mostly don't—lots of janitors and only a few mods. One admin IIRC.

Re: PHP is not…

PHP is fine. Modern PHP, at least. The issue is the sheer amount of low-quality code, developed by people with no natural right to be doing so.

Tool's a tool.

Re: I would never let my cat go anywhere near 4chan

Not even Doom music justifies it.

China bans compulsory facial recognition and its use in private spaces like hotel rooms

Re: Duh, wut?

It's pretty clear what their goal is… “You don't get to use facial scanning, you can't be trusted, the people value their privacy!” they say while the party continues to set up tens of thousands more cameras in public spaces to track people.

It's ironic that the CCP calls betrayers of the party two-faced when the party spends most of its time trying to portray itself as a good figure on top of its (obvious) subterfuge.

GitHub supply chain attack spills secrets from 23,000 projects

Rather, put some people you've never met and have no contract with or support from in charge of your CI. At least large orgs would be protected if they dealt directly with people, but nowadays it's common to use whatever off the shelf solution exists without properly vetting it.

Microsoft will kill Remote Desktop soon, insists you'll love replacement

Oh, looks like they actually revived RDCman some years ago. Had no idea.

Not sure where you're getting that, as the Remote Desktop app was actually pretty good when I used it. It had all of RDC's features and more, including a thumbnail view of saved servers. Probably the only thing it didn't have was command line support—I didn't test if it did but I assume it wouldn't.

Re: Idiotic naming

Replace your latter two uses of "application" there with "app", because that's the new fancy for when your desktop application is built on a centralized store-ready codebase, I guess. Because we really need to call it the Windows App app.

the connection type used by Remote Desktop Connection and Remote Desktop Services is not yet supported by the Windows App.

That's enough to give anyone a coronary.

RDCMan isn't supported anymore and finding a download can be painful, so I wouldn't recommend it at all. Rather, I'd recommend Remote Desktop Manager. I've implemented it with great success in two different orgs, and it's completely free for personal use. I genuinely can't live without it.

101 fun things to do with a locked Kindle e-reader

Re: Downloading

Kindle was marketed as a "take it anywhere" sort of device, back in the day. Even I had one, and it was pretty cool to take your books with you, all in one device. This was well before the popularization of the smartphone mind you, so the first gen Kindle was pretty revolutionary. Keep in mind the first Kindle released the same year as the first iPhone! Even if you wanted to read ebooks on a smartphone, PDA, or other device, the market and technology not there, and the screens were tiny and awful even if you could somehow get it to work even somewhat decently.

So Amazon starting to lock the Kindle down like this does not inspire consumer confidence that they can continue to use it for its original purpose. What happens when John Amazon decides it doesn't like a book you downloaded and deletes it before an extended stint without Internet, like on a flight or long roadtrip? What happens when your previously offline-capable ebook reader now requires an Internet connection so you can't read anything at all without paying exorbitant rates for Internet access where you'd otherwise not have it? What happens to people living in places where actually having Internet is the exception, not the norm? Starving kids in Africa could have eaten that radio wave, god damn it.

Look, I get you do not see any of these situations as marginally important when compared to how you use technology, but there are plenty of people, statistically, that have to deal with problems like this on a regular basis. If not for privacy reasons, have some sympathy for them at the very least. Yes, you can argue it's their fault for choosing to business with Amazon, but the company did not signal to anyone they would suddenly remove one of the very reasons that people might have used their product at all in the first place: reading their books anywhere, without Internet.

I don't use a Kindle, I was just commenting on the latter part of their post. We exist in a paradigm where it is often beneficial to trade privacy for features, but that doesn't mean one has to like it, or try their best to maintain what autonomy they do still have. I don't think desiring that is bad, if a little paradoxical. I do agree with you though.

As Chromecast outage drags on, fix could be days to weeks away

Re: They forgot

If you put expiration dates on your certificates, you don't have to even bother!

- John Google

Re: How does that work?

This, and while it's possible to ignore expired/invalid/failing certs, that opens the hardware up to exploit. Which is why I imagine they are taking so long to """fix""" this. The last thing they want is third party vendors and open source software to shoulder in to their ecosystem, as they have shown us many times now.

Remember unauthenticated guest mode? Remember connecting to unsecured devices not using a Google-supplied cert? Remember how the early protocol versions got mapped out by hardware hackers, just for Google to push unskippable forced updates to all Chromecasts that requires the latest protocol, which also require a Google account now? Pepperidge Farm remembers.