grumblepeet

My bath hot tap suddenly broke apart and was spilling hot water into the bath. I photographed everything and ChatGPT told me step by step what bits to get to fix it, and how to reassemble it.

A few weeks later some kids in the area were bending the wiper arms in cars in my terraced street, including my car. I thought, I wonder if ChatGPT can help? It explained to me where to get the parts online, an indication of a decent price, and how to fit the replacement parts.

In work we had struggled with filling out the myriad of forms that we need to do to get enrolled on a government framework to apply for contracts. Not only did it do that and explained what we needed to say, but it also told us in detail the steps we needed to follow to get the certification that was a prerequisite. It has genuinely transformed our business as a result.

They have just done the same to me. I spent nearly two hours on the phone with Apple support before I find they will not accept a UK passport as valid ID. They will only accept the national ID card that I also don’t have. I don’t have or want a credit card. I’m 65 so me being now unable to verify my age is embarrassing and insulting. And the way Apple messed me about earlier has put me off them now. I won’t buy another product or service from them ever again.

Tom Scott visited a similar facility in Poland, Port Iława, where he got to pilot one of the scale models there under the guidance of the instructor. https://youtu.be/jplrbxI5GN8

I would love a full sized keyboard made with those keys.

That aside, I will probably buy one of these. It is the ultimate nerd fiddle toy. Brilliantly done.

Two years before I moved across into IT. This was when I was a graphic designer making magazines and nursing journals using tools like Aldus PageMaker and QuarkXpress. Those were fantastic times. It felt like we could do anything with computers.

I was eyeing a career in IT and moved across soon after, and was dumped into Novell Netware 3.12 land which was an eye opener (Fire Phasers anyone?).

I live in south Bristol where the “Bristol stool scale” and the “pubs that need your help” overlap distressingly.

That was hilarious, the XKCD-esque comic was funny however it did me with a beard (im a woman) but I did belly laugh at the jokes.

Building an app that scans file systems prior to being migrated into M365. Looks for common governance issues and file and folder trees that won’t play nice in SharePoint. Not a migration tool as such, just something to scratch a consultancy itch. Python and Tkinter for now until I hit something that requires more complexity. Also a command line version that I’ll use more often. This probably could have been a PowerShell script but this is more fun.

I did despite being quite resistant to the idea at first. Eventually I didn't have a choice, as many things I wanted to read were suddenly hidden. I am paranoid however and worry that the VPN maker is tracking me, but there is only so much I can be paranoid about in the day.

‘Siri turn on torch’. Used to work, now all I get is “sorry, Torch isn’t available right now” this is at night when it is plugged in and I need to work as a nightlight to go open the bedroom door to let the dog in or out without blasting myself awake with the main phaser array next to my bed.

Ahh thanks. I see it in the article now. This why I’m not a scientist!

I came here to say the same thing. I’ve seen this multiple times today in several places and thought exactly that. Maybe they should have said clockwise (starting at the head) or counterclockwise?

I wonder what will break as a result of this?

Will it be possible I wonder to have a M365 that doesn’t have annoying CoPilot forced down our necks in every app and screen?

And interested to see how the licences and costs pan out.

I totally agree with this. When I worked at a University (mumbles) years ago I wrote a build system for rebuilding the OS and apps on student lab PC's and I used VB6 as the front end. It seemed in those days we could do anything, and nobody told us we couldnt do it.

I also made a simple two button menu app for use on repurposed 386's that we were using as thin client pc's. Years later I went back to see they had been replaced with tiny HP thin client devices but my menu was still being used!

As an artist Turner has inspired me not just with his use of colour, which was masterful, but with his readiness to break normal painting rules. We would scratch at his paintings with a specially long fingernail, stab at them with brushes, use watercolour almost like oils, do anything to get the image that he needed. We get most of this from looking at the paintings and from anecdotal evidence because as the article says he painted in secrecy behind closed doors.

His later works are truly amazing, given the time in which they were made. Many of the later images we know him for were from sketchbooks and studies, and not necessarily for sale or to be seen by others (code snippets?) but are impressionist years before that became a thing.

You can go to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and go to the Print Room (you have to book) and ask to see some. I'm told by a friend I've not done that.

Some of those drawings are copies of Edward Lear illustrations. I recognised the style. I didnt see that mentioned in the article although I might have missed it. I like the little drawings though very cute.

Ha! I had forgotten that message.Thank you for reminding me. I used to read comp.lang.lisp for the extensive and increasingly bizarre flame wars and for the wider philosophical discussions. Eventually I got to the point where I thought "OK I'm done now" and left and never went back.

Until relatively recently I worked with JANET (or Janet - lower case - as it is now) as part of Jisc, the UK's NREN. I also worked with the wider European org, GEANT, that runs the academic networks across Europe. We were (and still are ) very proud of Janet.

The few golden years when the kids were little, we’d all sit around the TV and play console games and when a hard bit came along, like a puzzle or a jump or a big boss with loads of guns, I’d be handed the controls to do the difficult bits. I got to be the family hero. We had great fun. A few years later, they all had way faster reaction times, and their own PC’s and games, and played them in their rooms. But for a few glorious Christmas’ we all came together and it was great. I miss those times, but on the other hand I helped them build their own PC systems, and set them off on the own paths. I helped them grow.

I worked in Nuremberg for a while and was kindly invited along to the English Stammtisch which at the time was in different bars on a few nights throughout the month. Lots of English people but also lots of German folk who wanted to work on their English language skills. I made some good friends on those boozy nights and tons of fascinating conversations were had.

I used to walk my dog there occasionally and he hates it and was always edgy. I took my cue from him and we go elsewhere now.

Yes my bad. It was nitroglycerin.

You only choose the galls with the hole in the bottom that indicates that the wasp has eaten its way out and gone. It is pretty obvious which ones still have a wasp in them.

My father was involved in this, he didn’t have a choice and it was dangerous work as even then most of the munitions were unstable. Shells etc sweated tnt which got absorbed into their skin. He hated it. They also had to contend with the rolling North Sea whilst dumping live ammunition overboard.

Sadly didnt run for me on Windows on this Arm laptop although in mitigation I didnt try that hard & was in a hurry. I might have another look at it later. Uninstalled for now.

After reading about this and the methodologies many years ago I implemented many of the precepts into my practice at the time (visual programming using a variety of workflow tools) and it really helped to prevent sprawl that is common with drag and drop workflow interfaces. It helps to enforce that discipline of not straying too far away from the desired path and handling exceptions. If it strays too far to the right then you know you need to look at things again and refactor. Worth reading.

I’ve noticed that the Microsoft Azure portal is down effectively preventing us from running admin tasks.

My partner’s great uncle Perce (Blackborow) was one of the crew. He was the one you see in the pictures with Mrs Chippy the ship’s cat sat on his shoulder. Originally a stowaway he became steward. Lost quite a few toes to frostbite. When he returned to Newport he declared that he would never leave it again and as far as I know never did.

Not a water computer as in the article, but here is an analogue computer for predicting tides for a whole year. https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/11/15/2020/

Happy New Year all. HN has been there for me to read, learn, get cross with comments, and generally entertaining me for several years. I may not always agree with or understand articles that are linked, but I come back every day. So Happy New Year and thanks all. Esp dang for keeping the place civil.