[OT]Why do you trust computers?

Why do you trust computers? Because they are used to kill?

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Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
Why do you trust computers? Because they are used to kill?


Yes, kill time.

When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
obeys. You just have to ask nicely.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal. *Please* "

See how easy that is ?

Paul

On 2020-03-25 1:02 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
Why do you trust computers? Because they are used to kill?


Yes, kill time.

When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
obeys. You just have to ask nicely.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal. *Please* "

See how easy that is ?

Â*Â* Paul

You have a pod bay on your computer? WOW! :-)

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-03-25 1:02 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
Why do you trust computers? Because they are used to kill?


Yes, kill time.

When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
obeys. You just have to ask nicely.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal. *Please* "

See how easy that is ?

Paul

You have a pod bay on your computer? WOW! :-)

Rene


Doesn't everybody ?

Paul

On 2020-03-25 1:42 p.m., Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-03-25 1:02 p.m., Paul wrote:
Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
Why do you trust computers? Because they are used to kill?


Yes, kill time.

When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
obeys. You just have to ask nicely.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal. *Please* "

See how easy that is ?

Â*Â*Â* Paul

You have a pod bay on your computer?Â* WOW!Â* :-)

Rene


Doesn't everybody ?

Â*Â* Paul

I don't think mine has, let me double check, Yep Found it, it was hiding
behind the hydroponics garden.

Rene

"Paul" wrote

| When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
| obeys. You just have to ask nicely.
|

That's a great characterization. I used to have
a neighbor who would ge very exasperated. Several
trim pieces went vmissing from his Mac. He once threw
his monitor out of a 3rd story window in a fit of rage,
then expressed great satisfaction. One day I was with
him at his computer and he said something like, "I
hate these things. They're like ants. You tell them
to do something and they don't listen!"

On 2020-03-25 2:07 p.m., Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote

| When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
| obeys. You just have to ask nicely.
|

That's a great characterization. I used to have
a neighbor who would ge very exasperated. Several
trim pieces went vmissing from his Mac. He once threw
his monitor out of a 3rd story window in a fit of rage,
then expressed great satisfaction. One day I was with
him at his computer and he said something like, "I
hate these things. They're like ants. You tell them
to do something and they don't listen!"



We have one poster here who seems to have great success talking to his
computer, Just can't think of his name, it could be John Doe?

Rene

On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 15:07:01, Mayayana
wrote:

"Paul" wrote

| When I ask my computer to open the pod bay doors, it always
| obeys. You just have to ask nicely.
|

That's a great characterization. I used to have
a neighbor who would ge very exasperated. Several
trim pieces went vmissing from his Mac. He once threw
his monitor out of a 3rd story window in a fit of rage,
then expressed great satisfaction. One day I was with

CRT?

him at his computer and he said something like, "I
hate these things. They're like ants. You tell them
to do something and they don't listen!"


Oh how I hate this damn machine;
oh how I wish they'd sell it.
It never does quite what I want -
but only what I tell it.

Can't remember where I got the above. It's many years old, though.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Sarcasm: Barbed ire

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| his monitor out of a 3rd story window in a fit of rage,
| then expressed great satisfaction. One day I was with
|
| CRT?
|

Yes.

| Oh how I hate this damn machine;
| oh how I wish they'd sell it.
| It never does quite what I want -
| but only what I tell it.

Exactly. That's what I told my neighbor. It's doing
just what you tell it to, but you have to know what
instruction you're giving.

People tend to project an animistic persona onto
all but the simplest tools. I noticed that when I started
writing software and people would crash it. They were
clicking buttons until they saw an effect. Like an
undisciplined child repeatedly tugging at it's mother's
dress: "Mom?...Mom?...Mom?..."

I had to reprogram each button function with a boolean
flag:

If IsRunning = True then exit Sub
IsRunning = True
' do something here like writing a file....
IsRunning = False

That prevents the repeated clicks from having an
effect.

Yesterday I had a call from my doctor's office to say
that my annual physical is cancelled but would I like a Zoom
checkup? It's especially good for problems like high blood
pressure. Huh?! How absurd. Zoom is a phone call with a
picture, not a checkup.

The childish female voice on the phone seemed unresponsive
to anything but expected responses to her statements. After
I hung up it suddenly hit me that I might have been talking to a bot.
I can't throw it out the window for insulting my intelligence.
But who knows? Maybe I could do something like say, "perform
full reboot" or tell it I was born in 2172, causing the doctors'
office computers to crash.

In article , J. P. Gilliver (John)
wrote:

Reminds me of an - I fear probably untrue - account I heard of the early
days of speech recognition, back in DOS days, of a demonstration of it:
at the end of the talk, the proud presenter invited the audience to try
it out, and some wag at the back of the room shouted out "format space C
colon enter Y enter".

almost certainly true, although likely not exactly as described. ****
like that happens a lot, still to this day.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/exploits_of_a_mom.png

"nospam" wrote in message news:260320201009536701%

almost certainly true, although likely not exactly as described.

Pretty much though:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-commands.html

I myself trust the 'puter, though not the programs that are put* on it.

*by the "we know best" companies, or careless "it will not do anything bad,
I'm sure" (clueless) users.

The problem is that most companies do that and most users do not care.

Regards,
Rud Wieser

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Yesterday I had a call from my doctor's office to say
| that my annual physical is cancelled but would I like a Zoom
| checkup? It's especially good for problems like high blood
| pressure. Huh?! How absurd. Zoom is a phone call with a
| picture, not a checkup.
|
| Agreed, but at least they're offering something; in the circumstances,
| what would you do? (I keep hearing mention of Zoom - is it like Skype,
| but MS-independent? Maybe not involving a server?) OK, not as good as a
| face-to-face checkup, but you could still show them (depending on the
| quality of your webcam) things like a rash.

I don't see it as offering something. I had an appt for a
yearly physical. Lots of tests. They didn't even suggest
I go to the hospital to have the blood tests. They were
just offering that I could look at my doctor on a screen.
I see it as a way to bill for an appt without having the
appt. Yes, I could show her a rash. But I don't have a
rash. So Zoom would be no better than a phone call,
except that she probably bills for the former as a full appt
and for the latter as a phone consultation.

Psychotherapists are doing the same thing. But physical
proximity and body language count for something. You
can't get that on Zoom. You can just get a low quality
image of a person's face, usually a bit choppy.

Zoom is done by a program you download. Then you
need a webcam and microphone. It's like video
conferencing. You join a group chat. People are
even doing it on phones, which is silly, because they
could have a conference call. I don't know if Skype
can do conference calls. I've only seen it used for
direct phone calls.

Mayayana wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Yesterday I had a call from my doctor's office to say
| that my annual physical is cancelled but would I like a Zoom
| checkup? It's especially good for problems like high blood
| pressure. Huh?! How absurd. Zoom is a phone call with a
| picture, not a checkup.
|
| Agreed, but at least they're offering something; in the circumstances,
| what would you do? (I keep hearing mention of Zoom - is it like Skype,
| but MS-independent? Maybe not involving a server?) OK, not as good as a
| face-to-face checkup, but you could still show them (depending on the
| quality of your webcam) things like a rash.

I don't see it as offering something. I had an appt for a
yearly physical. Lots of tests. They didn't even suggest
I go to the hospital to have the blood tests. They were
just offering that I could look at my doctor on a screen.
I see it as a way to bill for an appt without having the
appt. Yes, I could show her a rash. But I don't have a
rash. So Zoom would be no better than a phone call,
except that she probably bills for the former as a full appt
and for the latter as a phone consultation.

I've received a request from a new doctor to do one of
these video phone calls (just yesterday). The dude is
"working from home" and isn't even at the hospital these days.
His secretary said "when your time comes, we don't know where he'll be".
If things are sane at the hospital, he'll still be working
at home, but if some "all hands" call goes out, he'll have to
go back to work. He's not in emerg, so doesn't have to
hang out there.

Same comments about the rash thing. A 640x480 video call
is a hell of a way to do an exam.

The "normal" equipment for these calls, is the call is done
in a clinic "studio", to a doctor five hours drive away.
So the patient doesn't have to do anything techie to get
it to work. Just show up at the office and be ushered into
a room. Those setups have two cameras, at least one with
PTZ capability.

But in our current situation, I will be setting up a webcam
for this. Fortunately, there is a test channel, so I can
check how well it works in advance. When I was talking to
the doctors secretary, she said "we don't tell patients
about any details of setting this up, because if we did
tell them, some of the people would freak out" [generous
paraphrasing there]. Leaving it to me, to debug the thing
and make sure it's going to work on my end.

The net effect, is like getting medical services while
you're sitting on the surface of the Moon.

"Doctor, it hurts right there"
doctor "Where exactly"
"Where the camera isn't pointed, that's the spot."

I can see me putting my foot on the desk, so we can
zoom in at 640x480 and take a closeup of my big toe :-)

Paul

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 11:46:24 -0400, Paul wrote:

I've received a request from a new doctor to do one of
these video phone calls (just yesterday). The dude is
"working from home" and isn't even at the hospital these days.
His secretary said "when your time comes, we don't know where he'll be".
If things are sane at the hospital, he'll still be working
at home, but if some "all hands" call goes out, he'll have to
go back to work. He's not in emerg, so doesn't have to
hang out there.

Same comments about the rash thing. A 640x480 video call
is a hell of a way to do an exam.

I haven't had a need to shop for a web cam lately, but can you still get a
640x480 model or did they disappear from store shelves around 1992?

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 11:46:24 -0400, Paul wrote:

I've received a request from a new doctor to do one of
these video phone calls (just yesterday). The dude is
"working from home" and isn't even at the hospital these days.
His secretary said "when your time comes, we don't know where he'll be".
If things are sane at the hospital, he'll still be working
at home, but if some "all hands" call goes out, he'll have to
go back to work. He's not in emerg, so doesn't have to
hang out there.

Same comments about the rash thing. A 640x480 video call
is a hell of a way to do an exam.

I haven't had a need to shop for a web cam lately, but can you still get a
640x480 model or did they disappear from store shelves around 1992?


My situation is constrained by upload bandwidth.

My expectation is 640x480 will fit into the envelope,
and high res, won't.

The camera is higher res than that. It also has
a focus motor and auto-focus. It's constrained
by the "normal" performance table for USB2. I think
the compression is MJPEG or something (it has multiple
options, and that's the one I remember). The stream
will be compressed with a different codec for this session.
MJPEG just gets it down the USB2 cable, to the computer
for processing.

1600x1200 @ 5FPS (not gonna happen)
640x480 @ 30FPS === upload bandwidth starting point

The camera will do macro to around five inches, so I could
if necessary, shoot a close-up of my big toe. But
that's not the plan. There will be no closeups or
goofy ****.

My Internet is 15/1 ADSL2+, and the ISP is not taking
orders right now. I can't upgrade it with them at least,
even if I wanted to. COVID-19 rules. I could get an upgrade
by changing providers, so it's still possible to fix this.

So what can I shove up a 1Mbit/sec pipe ? Probably
more than what I stated above, but I expect the server
and session software to step that down and use maybe
a third of that.

Paul