Random Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Go Here

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Not ever really messing with AI on that sort of stuff, I would have ignorantly figured the workaround would be asking it from a news reporting approach (like "why did Disney file suit about DeSantis")

Nope. Worded it exactly as you said. Copilot won’t “talk about elections.”

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I like how I can get microsoft's AI to talk to me about the differences between white and black basketball players but it won't touch hard hitting questions like "what moves by ron desantis does disney disagree with to cause them to file suit." based on the grounds that it won't talk political.

Maybe you could ask the Microsoft AI what ChatGTP would say about the Desantis issue.

[Atocep]

My wife works for UW Medicine as a supervisor for one of the appointment teams. It's 100% telework and UW tracks nearly every productivity metric imaginable yet a couple of her employees think they can game the system. She had a formal sit down with one of her employees yesterday that included the union since it was a work avoidance reprimand that's considered a final conduct warning (this employee has been in trouble multiple times).

What she was doing was hanging up on patients by unplugging her ethernet cable to say she had an internet outage. The problem is their phone system used at home is also on ethernet and she was leaving that plugged in. So they could see data was still going to the phone. She did this 4 times. They sat her down and presented the evidence and explained it was a final warning and any additional zero tolerance actions would result in termination. She started crying halfway through this meeting and then shortly after had to call out the rest of the day because of a panic attack.

[thesloppy]

She sounds like a pro....at avoiding work

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

She sounds like a pro....at avoiding work

Sounds like a typical employee in 2024.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Atocep

My wife works for UW Medicine as a supervisor for one of the appointment teams. It's 100% telework and UW tracks nearly every productivity metric imaginable yet a couple of her employees think they can game the system. She had a formal sit down with one of her employees yesterday that included the union since it was a work avoidance reprimand that's considered a final conduct warning (this employee has been in trouble multiple times).

What she was doing was hanging up on patients by unplugging her ethernet cable to say she had an internet outage. The problem is their phone system used at home is also on ethernet and she was leaving that plugged in. So they could see data was still going to the phone. She did this 4 times. They sat her down and presented the evidence and explained it was a final warning and any additional zero tolerance actions would result in termination. She started crying halfway through this meeting and then shortly after had to call out the rest of the day because of a panic attack.

First off, Go UW!

Second off, sounds like she is trying to set up some sort of lawsuit for when she inevitably gets canned.

[flere-imsaho]

I work for a big employer in the area and there's literally a cottage industry devoted to gaming our leave system so as to avoid terminations.

[21C]

Whenever I wear a button-up shirt, I usually just unbutton the top one and slip it off over my head. I even wash them still buttoned up. I put on a shirt this morning getting ready for work and was about to leave home when I unconsciously reached down to check that my top button was done up. It felt weird so I looked down and realized that I had put it on inside-out.

I would hate to think of what I would have copped from the students at my high school if I made it all the way to work like that.

[NobodyHere]

Note to self, do not run servers running on outdated operating systems.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Note to self, do not run servers running on outdated operating systems.

The company I work for went through a cyberattack a couple years ago, which forced them to finally face up to how far behind the curve they were operating, and the entire IS department has been doing nothing but patching, updating and upgrading servers for two solid years now. Who needs new features?

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

The company I work for went through a cyberattack a couple years ago, which forced them to finally face up to how far behind the curve they were operating, and the entire IS department has been doing nothing but patching, updating and upgrading servers for two solid years now. Who needs new features?

Luckily we didn't suffer an (successful) attack. But for some reason our server got the blue screen of death when trying to boot to Windows 2012 Server. Cloning the hard drive and putting it in another computer results in the same error. And no one we can find has repair media for the OS.

[thesloppy]

Good times.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Luckily we didn't suffer an (successful) attack. But for some reason our server got the blue screen of death when trying to boot to Windows 2012 Server. Cloning the hard drive and putting it in another computer results in the same error. And no one we can find has repair media for the OS.

That's why full & incremental backups are done ...

... they were they done, right?

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Edward64

That's why full & incremental backups are done ...

... they were they done, right?

Actually I learned a lesson as an IT guy.

Don't Assume.

So our customer facing webserver crashed. Our paid experts determined it was a Window Server 2012 problem and we could recover if we had recovery media for that OS. Nobody had it since it is no longer supported.

So we moved the webserver to a standby desktop (which was purchased shortly after the server). I thought it would be slower but we expanded the RAM and that computer performed better than the server. Also it is just running Windows 10 pro which can act as a webserver. I plan on giving it a solid state drive on tuesday.

[Ksyrup]

I'm sure this is a bit of information I knew at some point in the last 40 years or so, but I just read that Tippi Hedren is Don Johnson's mother. She's 94.

I love being so old that I learn new information every day, even if it's probably not new information to me.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I'm sure this is a bit of information I knew at some point in the last 40 years or so, but I just read that Tippi Hedren is Don Johnson's mother. She's 94.

I love being so old that I learn new information every day, even if it's probably not new information to me.

His ex-wife's mother. Melanie Griffith.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

His ex-wife's mother. Melanie Griffith.

Ah. Did I know that? Now I do. Again?.

[jcard]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

She sounds like a pro....at avoiding work

I remember my father telling me that if some people worked as hard at doing their jobs as they worked trying to avoid doing their jobs they would find that it made their work lives a lot easier.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Ah. Did I know that? Now I do. Again?.

That and Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield is always feels weird. Like that old Hollywood should be further distant than that.



Of course, you also have Dakota Johnson is the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. She is in her mid-30's, a pretty big star on her own, and that all makes me feel ancient.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

That and Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield is always feels weird. Like that old Hollywood should be further distant than that.



Of course, you also have Dakota Johnson is the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. She is in her mid-30's, a pretty big star on her own, and that all makes me feel ancient.

Mine as of a couple years ago was finding out that Jason Patric is the grandson of Jackie Gleason

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Mine as of a couple years ago was finding out that Jason Patric is the grandson of Jackie Gleason

Oh my God! I did not know that. Crazy.

[CrimsonFox]

My brother is in surgery/ He was hit by a car on his bicycle today.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

My brother is in surgery/ He was hit by a car on his bicycle today.

Oh man! Prayers everything goes ok.

[CrimsonFox]

Don't know much about it. Was told he uses a bicycling app wherew he and a friend from chicago both bike and talk at the same time. The friend realized something had happened and called his wife.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

Don't know much about it. Was told he uses a bicycling app wherew he and a friend from chicago both bike and talk at the same time. The friend realized something had happened and called his wife.

So possible hit and run? That's messed up.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

So possible hit and run? That's messed up.

i don't know. We know nothing about it. he's in st louis and i guess doesn't usually bike far from home

[Edward64]

Sorry to hear. My wife and son bike a lot and that's always been one of my fears.

Hope he comes out of surgery okay and best wishes to family.

[CrimsonFox]

This is why I spend my life in front of the computer

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

This is why I spend my life in front of the computer

Me too. I won't be hit by a car. My heart will just clog up and kill me like God intended.

[Ksyrup]

I rarely run outside. 99.9% of my runs are on a treadmill. Three years ago, in preparation for a half marathon, I ran 2-3 times outside to get used to it. The first or second time, I'm crossing a street on a red light while a guy in a pickup is in the RH turn lane, STARING AT/THROUGH/PAST ME, looking for cars coming, and I swear I caught his eye so I kept running to pass in front of him, and right as I came up on his left front bumper he pulls out to turn right and almost hit me. I flew in a rage, got up to his driver side window, screamed at him, and hit the side of his door as hard as I could with both palms. I hope I left a dent.

So yeah, I greatly prefer my treadmill.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

My brother is in surgery/ He was hit by a car on his bicycle today.

Oh man, sending good thoughts your way.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

That and Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield is always feels weird. Like that old Hollywood should be further distant than that.

Eh, when I think of Mansfield I think of the famous photo of her and Sophia Loren (still around) giving her noobs the side eye, which was apparently taken in 1957. I don’t think of that era as “old Hollywood”; to me that’s more the 1930s (say, Jean Harlow or Carole Lombard).

I had no idea on Gleason/Patric.

[CrimsonFox]

I know this won't help at all but I"m gonna type it anyway. He didn't make it. I am floored. What the hell...

[GrantDawg]

I'm so sorry.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Edward64]

Very sorry about your brother.

Best wishes to you and brother's family.

[Kodos]

So sorry to hear that, CF. Sorry for your family’s loss.

[Ksyrup]

That's awful. I'm so sorry.

[thesloppy]

Oh man, how awful. Sorry, CF.

[CrimsonFox]

So it was at a park. There are no details. Even his wife doesn't know. But she had an app to track him. The ambulance was there when she arrived. Sesriously what the hell kkind of surgeons were on him. THey can pretty much keep every part of the body running by machine nowadays. THere is no excuse for this.

[bob]

Buying an appliance at a place like Home Depot has always been a funny experience to me.

Step 1 - Picking the appliance

Salesman: "This is an amazing fridge and you should buy it."

Step 2 - Finalizing the purchase

Salesman: "This fridge is the biggest piece of shit you could ever own and if you don't buy the extended warranty, you will remember this moment as the worst mistake you ever made in your life."

[stevew]

How do I go about getting a photo enhanced, cropped and turned into a locket photo? It’s a pretty low-quality old photo and I need to have someone cropped out of it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

How do I go about getting a photo enhanced, cropped and turned into a locket photo? It’s a pretty low-quality old photo and I need to have someone cropped out of it.

There are online options that'll do it, you should also be able to find a number of people (photographers, studios, etc) that can do it in your area

Just google something like "photo enhancement" or "photo retouching" near me, should give you options

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by bob

Buying an appliance at a place like Home Depot has always been a funny experience to me.

Step 1 - Picking the appliance

Salesman: "This is an amazing fridge and you should buy it."

Step 2 - Finalizing the purchase

Salesman: "This fridge is the biggest piece of shit you could ever own and if you don't buy the extended warranty, you will remember this moment as the worst mistake you ever made in your life."

Our last frig lasted two years. The freezer stopped freezing and it would have cost as much as a new one to repair without any warranty. I absolutely bought an extended warranty on the replacement.

[Ksyrup]

I work in the service contract industry. It's just low-scale insurance (well, quasi-insurance) to hedge against the cost of repairing or replacing big ticket items. If you can afford the hit, you don't need a service contract. If you can't, then you should consider it. Some are better than others. Rule of thumb is to pay no more than 10% of the product price for a service contract. I've bought one here or there when I knew there was a greater than usual chance I'd need it. I've also got a home warranty because our house is 18 years old and one of our AC units is still original.

Prices can vary greatly since they are not regulated. The way it works is insurance companies/obligor companies use core insurance actuarial concepts to price them out, but then we sell them to marketing companies, adminsitrators, retailers, etc., who are free to mark them up as much as they want to sell them to consumers. So if the book runs the loss ratio we think it should, we make a decent profit but the big money is at the next level where everything above what we sell it to the retailers/administrators is the margin they get to keep. And that can be a huge number.

Some companies' entire existence is built on service contract plans. One of the big reasons companies like CompUSA and Circuit City went out of business was because of the decline in service contract sales. They were basically treading water on the sale of actual product and making all of their money on these plans. Same for some jewelry companies.

[GrantDawg]

Someone needs to check on the hamsters that runs the servers. The board has been running slow last couple of days.

[Ksyrup]

Last night and early this morning especially. It's gotten bad.

[GrantDawg]

I watched this and just was struck on hos old Connie Chung acts. Then I realized she is almost 80.

I cannot wait for Connie Chung’s memoir which is out on September 17.

“I’ve written my memoir and I’d like you to buy it. I don’t want to sponge off Maury anymore and I need to make some money.” pic.twitter.com/tcdFF4EmKD

— Yashar Ali �� (@yashar) September 5, 2024

[Ksyrup]

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the credit card "perks" I get for DoorDash and Uber are just utter BS when you don't live in a big city. I get $25 a month for Uber, and of course I have no need for actual Uber rides living where I live, so I've been trying to use them on Uber Eats. Key word - try. Most of the time, the orders are wrong, take way too long to deliver, and are almost not worth the effort.

Today, for the second time, I watched on the app as a driver went the wrong way to try to get to our neighborhood but went into an adjacent neighborhood that does not connect by road to ours. It's 10 minutes away by car, but you can probably walk between the two in less than 10 minutes. The guy actually called me and argued that he was at an address number as close to mine as he could find... except it wasn't the same street. But hey, he found 123 on the map, nevermind that it was on Main Street and not Johnson Avenue! I ordered dinner at 4:05 and it showed up at 5:45.

We wanted to order wings from a local place but apparently they refuse to do to-go/Uber Eats wings orders on football days because the menu on the app had a bunch of stuff, but no wings. Mind you, this is a fucking wings place! So we ended up ordering BBQ, and it took 100 minutes to get delivered. When we have ordered wings from the local wings place, 2/3rds of the time something is wrong - sometimes they don't come sauced, sometimes they are missing a sauce flavor we ordered, sometimes it's missing a salad, etc. Or the local Mexican place forgets to add chips and salsa, or doesn't provide tortillas with fajitas, etc.

Is this normal for those of you who regularly use these apps? Because I'm really getting sick of the crappy service from either/both the driver or restaurant.

[thesloppy]

I have had a few bad experiences, but not at that rate, or to that level.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the credit card "perks" I get for DoorDash and Uber are just utter BS when you don't live in a big city. I get $25 a month for Uber, and of course I have no need for actual Uber rides living where I live, so I've been trying to use them on Uber Eats. Key word - try. Most of the time, the orders are wrong, take way too long to deliver, and are almost not worth the effort.

Today, for the second time, I watched on the app as a driver went the wrong way to try to get to our neighborhood but went into an adjacent neighborhood that does not connect by road to ours. It's 10 minutes away by car, but you can probably walk between the two in less than 10 minutes. The guy actually called me and argued that he was at an address number as close to mine as he could find... except it wasn't the same street. But hey, he found 123 on the map, nevermind that it was on Main Street and not Johnson Avenue! I ordered dinner at 4:05 and it showed up at 5:45.

We wanted to order wings from a local place but apparently they refuse to do to-go/Uber Eats wings orders on football days because the menu on the app had a bunch of stuff, but no wings. Mind you, this is a fucking wings place! So we ended up ordering BBQ, and it took 100 minutes to get delivered. When we have ordered wings from the local wings place, 2/3rds of the time something is wrong - sometimes they don't come sauced, sometimes they are missing a sauce flavor we ordered, sometimes it's missing a salad, etc. Or the local Mexican place forgets to add chips and salsa, or doesn't provide tortillas with fajitas, etc.

Is this normal for those of you who regularly use these apps? Because I'm really getting sick of the crappy service from either/both the driver or restaurant.

Seems like a certain ebb & flow, even my traditional horrible luck with food anywhere. I think I had 4 wrong orders in a row (or 3 in a row and like 4/5) but then I'll

I've learn, with some trial & error, which places can never get it right and which ones at least have reasonable success unless I'm just in one of those "everything will be wrong" runs.

And those who can't ever get it right after 2-3 tries, I just eliminate from consideration. Sadly, even the best of the bunch eventually go into that state, forcing me to find new hoping-against-hope choices.

I've also learned that you can't really do ubereats here on certain days, and damned sure not on Saturday during football season. That's just asking for trouble.