Sunday Thoughts September 10, 2023

Microsoft decided that my computer needed an update, so it must have rebooted in the middle of the night. I turn off the automatic updates, but a feature of many updates is to turn that back on without telling you. I try to remember to check but I often forget as I should not have to do this. Think about the arrogance of the people on the other side. It is a part of bourgeois entitlement that probably deserves a post or even a show about it.

I use my computer as an alarm clock. I wanted to get an early start, so I set the alarm for six, but the machine rebooted, and the alarm only works when I am logged in for some reason. I wound up getting up later than I wanted which started the day off on a sour note. I settled in to record the show and the playback was weird, like I was speaking from a cave. I realized that the update had scrambled my settling again, so I had to put those back before I started.

This is a well-known feature of Windows. Whenever there is an update, which is weekly at this point, the update randomly changes your settings. I notice the sound settings because I use them a few times a week, but I am told it is other things as well. I have noticed that if I use Microsoft Teams, a terrible application, it messes up the audio for other apps like Zoom and GotToMeeting. Windows has not fundamentally changed in decades and this nonsense continues.

This is an issue all over. Telegram ships a bug fix a few times a week. This means that their bug fixes are actually fixing bugs from prior bug fixes. It is recursive bug fixing. Since so much code is now written by poor people in India, it is bug fixes all the way down.  Even old code bases like Windows are hopelessly caught in the web of bug fixes. It is no wonder we are seeing systemic failure like that which struck United Airlines last week. Nothing works and fixing only makes it worse.

Topics

* Travel Plans

* Nothing Works Properly

* Nothing Is Happening

* The Fat Cow Problem

* Gun Grabbers

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