The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[John F]

You gotta love companies and spin ...

I recently called Amazon about the verbosity of some of its replies after a recent update, asking/complaining about it. After a long back and forth, they say, "I'm sorry, but it can't be done". Really? it didn't do it in the previous version and now it does it, so it can't be disabled? No, you (Amazon) chose to make it that way, don't say that it can't be undone.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by John F

You gotta love companies and spin ...

I recently called Amazon about the verbosity of some of its replies after a recent update, asking/complaining about it. After a long back and forth, they say, "I'm sorry, but it can't be done". Really? it didn't do it in the previous version and now it does it, so it can't be disabled? No, you (Amazon) chose to make it that way, don't say that it can't be undone.

I've run into this response the last two or three times I've contacted Amazon about Kindle issues. "Can't be fixed" I think they put it. No appeal to someone higher up the chain, no resolution. They've obviously updated the script to reflect a "the buck stops here" practice.

[BetterRed]

Amazon merged the Kindle and Air Fryer support teams

[BetterRed]

Where's this intelligence that has supposedly been incorporated into Google search. Almost every search I do with it continues to put links to TV shows at the top of the list - I haven't had a TV for decades. DDG and Bing aren't much better.

There should be a separate section for TV, Movies & Games like there is for News, Shopping… and Books!

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Where's this intelligence that has supposedly been incorporated into Google search. Almost every search I do with it continues to put links to TV shows at the top of the list - I haven't had a TV for decades. DDG and Bing aren't much better.

There should be a separate section for TV, Movies & Games like there is for News, Shopping… and Books!

It seems like a solution is to add old-fashioned limiters on search terms. As an example:

• "+" before the search term will require it to be in the search results.
• "-" before the search item will exclude that item from the search results.
• Putting several words within quotes will require that exact phrase to be in the results or will exclude it from the results (depending if it is preceded by + or -).

This would solve the problems I've had trying to search for the artist "Harriet". The problem is, it brings up all pages featuring "Harriet". Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to exclude items from the search. With the above limiters I could enter "+Harriet" and "+Singer" and "+British" to cull the search results. In the OP's above post, putting "-TV" would exclude TV entries.

[BetterRed]

Many of my searches are initiated by selecting text, e.g. a place name, pressing the context menu key and selecting desired search engine from the Context Search list, viz:



But, mostly I'm lazy and just press 'S' which uses the default search engine. Now that I've rediscovered how to make DDG always open links in new tabs I should switch back to it as my default. And I might see if I can coerce Context Search into being more effective.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

It seems like a solution is to add old-fashioned limiters on search terms. As an example:

• "+" before the search term will require it to be in the search results.
• "-" before the search item will exclude that item from the search results.
• Putting several words within quotes will require that exact phrase to be in the results or will exclude it from the results (depending if it is preceded by + or -.

This would solve the problems I've had trying to search for the artist "Harriet". The problem is, it brings up all pages featuring "Harriet". Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to exclude items from the search. With the above limiters I could enter "+Harriet" and "+Singer" and "+British" to cull the search results. In the OP's above post, putting "-TV" would exclude TV entries.

I was so pleased to learn that over 20 years ago and so disappointed that it hasn't worked for years and years.

[ownedbycats]

For a while I was using either "quotes around everything" or verbatim searches (from advanced settings) but in the last few years I've noticed Google also messing with that.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

For a while I was using either "quotes around everything" or verbatim searches (from advanced settings) but in the last few years I've noticed Google also messing with that.

Yeah, that too. I don't know which upsets me more, that, or that C compilers, by default, feel free to ignore arithmetic operator precedence, even when parentheses are used to (attempt to) force operation order.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Yeah, that too. I don't know which upsets me more, that, or that C compilers, by default, feel free to ignore arithmetic operator precedence, even when parentheses are used to (attempt to) force operation order.

This is a related issue involving Order of Operations. An issue with it is that two different calculators can work the same expression and come up with different answers. This is due to one calculator using implied multiplication and the other not using implied multiplication. Due to this, you have to use the right calculator, otherwise you might get the wrong answer.

The following video will explain the problem better than I can:

Due to this, I will use the following first step before applying PEMDAS which will fix the problem:

Conversion: Convert all of the divisions to multiplications, and all of the subtractions to additions.

Since addition and multiplication are commutative it simplifies the issue and eliminates some incorrect answers. As an example:

With the expression "3/2(4+8)" I'd first convert it to "3*0.5(4+8)" and then work it as follows:

- 3*0.5(12)
- 1.5*12
- 18

Although the video mentions it, it seems odd to me that all calculators don't work expressions the same way.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by John F

You gotta love companies and spin ...

I recently called Amazon about the verbosity of some of its replies after a recent update, asking/complaining about it. After a long back and forth, they say, "I'm sorry, but it can't be done". Really? it didn't do it in the previous version and now it does it, so it can't be disabled? No, you (Amazon) chose to make it that way, don't say that it can't be undone.

This reminds me of an issue I had with the old Professional Write word processor. The problem I had was that if I typed at the beginning of a paragraph a number or letter followed by a period (such as "1." or "a.") it would automatically indent the paragraph. I searched the settings and checked the Instruction Book but found nothing to help me. I called Tech Support and they could not help me, saying that there's nothing that can be done. In the end, I figured out how to stop it from automatically indenting numbered/lettered paragraphs: Put a hard space after the period. It seems odd that I could figure out what Tech Support could not.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

C compilers, by default, feel free to ignore arithmetic operator precedence, even when parentheses are used to (attempt to) force operation order.

No non-broken C compiler should ignore operator precedence. It just might not mean what you think it does - e.g. it doesn't control the order of evaluation of operands, only the order of execution of the operators (and even then compilers are allowed to reorder expressions so long as it doesn't alter the observable behaviour of the program). K&R C gave a bit more latitude around reordering expressions that were mathematically associative or commutative, but not necessarily computationally so, but ANSI/ISO C tightened that up.

Obviously, if your program has undefined behaviour, then the compiler can do whatever it wants, but the problem there is with the undefined behaviour, not the reordering!

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

C compilers, by default, feel free to ignore arithmetic operator precedence, even when parentheses are used to (attempt to) force operation order.

Originally Posted by jbjb

No non-broken C compiler should ignore operator precedence. It just might not mean what you think it does - e.g. it doesn't control the order of evaluation of operands, only the order of execution of the operators (and even then compilers are allowed to reorder expressions so long as it doesn't alter the observable behaviour of the program). K&R C gave a bit more latitude around reordering expressions that were mathematically associative or commutative, but not necessarily computationally so, but ANSI/ISO C tightened that up.

Obviously, if your program has undefined behaviour, then the compiler can do whatever it wants, but the problem there is with the undefined behaviour, not the reordering!

Sorry, I miswrote what I was trying to express. I wasn't thinking about precedence at all, but indeed order of evaluation.

Reordering can be mathematically equivalent but still give significantly different computed results, especially if large and small quantities are present in the same expression.

I think that parentheses should be sacred unless an optimization flag to the contrary is explicitly set.

[Hitch]

Speaking of Tech V&R:

Anybody else having a weird thing with MR, in the browser, where it seems to take a long time to render and it bogs? I mean, not just affecting its own browser, but all others, too?

Has a noticeable lag?

Hitch

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Reordering can be mathematically equivalent but still give significantly different computed results, especially if large and small quantities are present in the same expression.

Under the "as-if" rule, reordering shouldn't affect the computed results (so long as there's no undefined behaviour, such as signed overflow, going on). Some compilers have options to enable unsafe optimisations which might affect things if you're e.g. operating at the limits of floating point precision, so rounding errors mount up, and some may even default to those being turned on, but they must have a way of turning them off or they're not conforming.