I can imagine the remaining 25% will be trying to switch it off. It's bad enough trying to do something in Power Automate without Copilot popping up all over the place like a hyperactive Clippy.
Posts by mhoulden
279 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Dec 2009
75% of enterprise coders will use AI helpers by 2028. We didn't say productively
Trying out Microsoft's pre-release OS/2 2.0
Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway
They call me 'Growler'. I don't like you. Let's discuss your pay cut
Windows 3.11 trundles on as job site pleads for 'driver updates' on German trains
Bank's datacenter died after travelling back in time to 1970
Re: Priorities
One time someone asked me to call round to get rid of a virus on his home computer. He didn't have broadband (this was quite a long time ago) so I had a CD full of security patches and virus checkers. It would have been pretty straightforward if he wasn't looking over my shoulder all the time and sounding like Stan Laurel just after he'd pushed Oliver Hardy out of a window. In the end I sent him away by asking him to get me a cup of coffee and not to rush back. By the time he did return I'd removed the virus and was installing the latest service pack. I also had words with him about the importance of backups that you can use on another computer.
Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater
Gauss we've all got a fresh option for a gen AI handheld: A Samsung device
Ask a builder to fix a server and out come the vastly inappropriate power tools
Scripted shortcut caused double-click disaster of sysadmin's own making
Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely
A few years ago someone got locked in a branch of Waterstones: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/17/us-tourist-locked-inside-london-waterstones-book-shop. The idea of being locked in a bookshop with only sofas and a café for company proved so popular that they ran a charity sleepover a short while later.
Dialup-era developer writes ChatGPT client for Windows 3.1
There's an "evil" version of Eliza called Azile: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/areas/classics/eliza/azile/0.html. You ask it questions and it finds creative ways to insult you. Needs a classic Mac (or an emulator) to run.
A toast to being in the right place at the right time
Re: He's toast
A few times we had a fire drill while the regional facilities manager was on site. She made extra sure everyone used their swipe card to get back into the building. They could show their ID cards if they didn't have one. Assuming they hadn't put them in their wallet and left it upstairs...
Microsoft finally gets around to supporting rar, gz and tar files in Windows
I'll definitely not hear a bad word said about 7 Zip. WinZip did stuff that Windows built in zip handling didn't but it's otherwise pretty terrible. I know there are command line utilities for tar and gz files but I can never remember the incantations to use them.
Phil Katz died in 2000. If he hadn't published the Zip file format we might be using something else now. I wonder what he'd be doing now if he was still around.
If you have a fan, and want this company to stay in business, bring it to IT now
One hot summer our office air con broke down. Quite a few people plus a couple of server rooms meant it wasn't the coolest at the best of times. We hired a few temporary free standing coolers to make the place a bit more workable. I was talking to someone next to one of them when it decided to spring a leak. When a cloud of white gas starts coming towards you, you move. A couple of minutes later it tripped the fire alarm and the place was evacuated.
Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000
I used to have the Protect and Survive jingle as an SMS alert. Then someone sent me a text when I wasn't expecting it and gave me a nasty surprise. I now have something a bit more neutral.
The FCC had to specify that the EBS test should be spoken with no background music because at least one radio station did it as a catchy jingle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YRHAro1iTE.
If your Start menu or apps are freezing up on Windows, Microsoft has a suggestion
This can’t be a real bomb threat: You've called a modem, not a phone
Story I read ages ago somewhere...
In among all the university buildings on Oxford Road in Manchester is (or was) the National Computing Centre. It was a fairly high profile building and an occasional target during the Troubles in the 70s and 80s. One day someone went past, dropped a bag full of batteries and wires, and ran off. They called the police and got the bomb squad out. After a brief investigation they were allowed back in. It wasn't someone trying to blow the place up, but a shoplifter who had nicked a load of stuff from Maplin just up the road.
Swatting suspects charged with subverting Ring doorbell cams and calling cops
WhatsApp boss says no to AI filters policing encrypted chat
Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?
Re: The title is optional
British Gas has form. In 2009 someone sued them for stalking because their billing system wouldn't accept that she didn't have an account with them any more and didn't owe them money: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/46.html.
You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too
When product names go bad: Microsoft's Raymond Chen on the cringe behind WinCE
You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?
Next day delivery a bit of a pain? We have just the thing... nestled deep in the terms and conditions
UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal
First impressions count when the world is taken by surprise by an exciting new (macro) virus
Re: I Love You
I got sent a copy when I was at uni. It seemed a bit odd that a lecturer I didn't know very well would send me a personal note in a Javascript file so I just ignored it. I spoke to a friend about it a bit later. He promptly turned white, ran back to his room and emerged about half an hour later looking pretty shaken. He used email a lot more than I did and he had a lot of contacts.
Flying taxis? That'll be AFTER you've launched light sabres and anti-gravity skateboards
Huygens if true: Dutch police break up bulletproof hosting outfit and kill Mirai botnet
Dry patch? Have you considered peppering your flirts with emojis?
Bulb smart meters in England wake up from comas miraculously speaking fluent Welsh
The Windows Terminal turns up in the Microsoft Store
Planes, fails and automobiles: Overseas callout saved by gentle thrust of server CD tray
Thank you, your DNA data will help secure your… oh dear, we've lost that too
Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too
Spent your week box-ticking? It can't be as bad as the folk at this firm
CIMON says: Say hello to your new AI pal-bot, space station 'nauts
Agile development exposed as techie superstition
Department of Work and Pensions internal docs reveal troubled history of Universal Credit
Re: Hmm
I'm happy for someone to tell me why I'm wrong, but isn't it just a glorified payroll system with a heavy dose of the workhouse test and the old Victorian attitude of the undeserving poor? A good start might be to use a company that specializes in doing such things rather than the usual suspects, and ditching the political condescension that makes it so expensive.
So you accidentally told a million people they are going to die: What next? Your essential guide...
Anyone can make one mistake. However, if one person kept making the same mistake over and over again on a life-critical system like this, I'd want to know how they were put in a position where they could do so. Why was no one supervising him when he sent the incorrect alert? Did no one check it before it was sent? Did anyone else try using the system to make sure it was foolproof and fail safe? If someone else made the same mistake, what actions were taken to stop it happening again? Scapegoating one person is easy but it looks like there are serious management issues that they'd rather not go into.
Engineer named Jason told to re-write the calendar
O Christmas wreath, O Christmas wreath, thy potent skunk's in bunches
Re: Note to self...
A few years ago a girl set up a stall selling Girl Scout cookies outside a pot dispensary. She sold 117 boxes of cookies in 2 hours and to had restock 45 minutes into her shift.
A certain millennial turned 30 recently: Welcome to middle age, Microsoft Excel v2
30 years on...
...and Excel still won't let you open two documents with the same name. I know why (VBA uses the name as a reference) but it's still incredibly annoying if you're trying to compare two files. And as for whoever decided to implement copy & paste in a completely different way to other apps...
Microsoft faces Dutch crunch over Windows 10 private data slurp
User left unable to type passwords after 'tropical island stress therapy'
50th anniversary of the ATM opens debate about mobile payments
Searching for PPRO Group brings up this as the description for the top link: "PPRO is a full-service partner for PSPs and payment providers in the e-payment environment as well as an e-money specialist for corporates and consumers." They also issue a lot of press releases saying how their products will replace cash, including the one quoted in this article.
I still haven't found what I'm malloc()ing for: U2 tops poll of music today's devs code to
I wonder what % of developers would like to work in silence but can't because they're in an open plan office with a noisy project manager holding conference calls at the other end. Add in the relatively high incidence of autism spectrum disorders among developers (which can include a tendency to be distracted by things like background noise) and it's not surprising people sometimes want to put some music on.