qupada

Just this past Friday I had a pile of boxes I had to scan barcodes on. Two barcodes per box.

The issue was the form did nothing when you pressed enter, and required tab to get from the first field to the second (a 2nd tab would start a new row, so it was at least equipped for multiple entries).

Most barcode scanners, if you're unfamiliar, insert a linefeed character (ASCII 0x0A) after each successful scan.

It took me an unbearably long time to read through the 250 page user guide / programming manual for our barcode scanner to figure out how to change this to tab (0x09). It required no fewer than SIX barcodes to be scanned; enter programming mode / modify suffix / 0 / 9 / validate / save, which were spread across three pages of the manual (fortunately it had links, because also >100 pages apart).

It was worth it in the end, but it would have taken 5 minutes for them to code it to allow enter to switch between fields. This workflow is the only thing this site does, it's unreasonable to expect people wouldn't be using a barcode scanner.

Same thing with whatshisface that runs Microsoft.

There was an article recently about how he "enjoys podcasts"... by feeding the transcript of the podcast into the AI, letting it summarise it, and having a conversation with the AI about the podcast on his commute to work.

Comically missing the point that a podcast is a performative medium; the presenter(s) telling you the story is a part of the artform, which you've just lost. Turn off tech-bro brain, just for a minute, and actually engage in the product as it was intended.

It just boggles the mind, do they really think they've stumbled on some sort of secret the rest of us have been sleeping on?

This was about the only non-tabloid source I found, though they're just quoting the other article.

https://onemileatatime.com/news/british-airways-crew-milan-sex-dungeon-motel/

Fortunately, even that tide is shifting.

I've been talking to Dell about it recently, they've just announced new servers (releasing later this year) which can have either Nvidia's B300 or AMD's MI355x GPUs. Available in a hilarious 19" 10RU air-cooled form factor (XE9685), or ORv3 3OU water-cooled (XE9685L).

It's the first time they've offered a system using both CPU and GPU from AMD - previously they had some Intel CPU / AMD GPU options, and AMD CPU / Nvidia GPU, but never before AMD / AMD.

With AMD promising release day support for PyTorch and other popular programming libraries, we're also part-way there on software. I'm not going to pretend like needing CUDA isn't still a massive hump in the road, but "everyone uses CUDA" <-> "everyone needs CUDA" is one hell of a chicken-and-egg problem which isn't getting solved overnight.

Realistically facing that kind of uphill battle, AMD is just going to have to compete on price - they're quoting 40% performance/dollar improvement over Nvidia for these upcoming GPUs, so perhaps they are - and trying to win hearts and minds with rock-solid driver/software support so people who do have the option (ie in-house code, not 3rd-party software) look to write it with not-CUDA.

To note, this is the 3rd generation of the MI3xx series (MI300, MI325, now MI350/355). I think it might be the first one to make the market splash that AMD has been hoping for.

When I got my new phone recently, I asked of it what is by a wide margin my most common voice task; setting a timer for something I was cooking.

It presented a UI suggesting it had understood the assignment, but utterly failed to actually set the timer.

It was at that point I reverted to Assistant and forgot it existed.

This feels par for the course though; a bunch of effort spent on a few "hard" tasks to make it seem impressive, but zero on maintaining existing functionality that normal people actually use on a regular basis.

If this is something you do often, you might consider Firefox with the multi-account containers extension: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

It allows unique/isolated profiles on a per-tab basis.

I've found it great for work, for the many things that require me to be logged into both the me@example.com and me@example.onmicrosoft.com accounts simultanously, to manage MS 365 things. But restricting social media to an isolated profile, multiple Google/Microsoft/whatever accounts, these are all possible.

Make Asbestos Great Again?

Yeah... about that. It would appear the company was founded after the book was published, which makes it so, so much worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale "Publication date: April 17, 1985"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilead_Sciences "Founded: June 22, 1987"

I rescued mine - an A3 colour laser with network and auto duplex, no less - from work's e-waste pile after "the purge" where they eliminated all single-user "personal" printers and moved to only shared printers with swipe card print release.

Have enough toner cartridges to last a lifetime too; its, or mine (either way).

I clicked on this, and it's immediately asking for my email. No big surprises there.

This however is the copy:

EXCLUSIVE
Unlock your surprise
Sign up to receive your surprise and start sleeping better today

With the big glowing confirm button labelled "Get my surprise" and the dark pattern barely visible skip link "I don't want a surprise".

I was aware of the existence of these things but had never paid them the slightest mind, this is just.. ick.

I have a plastic desk toy of this dumpster.

https://100soft.shop/products/dumpster-fire-vinyl-figure

Truly an object worthy to represent these troubled times.

In my extended circle of acquaintences and colleagues I know around eight people with folding phones. I have seen ONE of them ever use it open - even in situations where you'd think it'd be great, like sitting at the tables in the office kitchen at lunchtime browsing, almost never used unfolded.

It seems like it should be a great idea, but for the majority of people the majority of the time, it appears to be an otherwise normal phone that's just twice as thick as it needed to be. One of the owners of these devices - who had it bought for them rather than choosing it themself - made that exact complaint to me, in fact.

That said, don't let this put you off. If it's a thing you think you would like, the technology has definitely progressed to the point where the more glaring issues (of reliability, mostly) have been worked out. But definitely spend some time playing with one in a store before committing if you can.