Ask Lemmy

I am so overjoyed to see that the phenomenon of computer problems magically disappearing around my presense isnt exclusive to me.

Clippy was cool

I believe artists have an negative technology field around them that electronic hardware doesn't work for them the same way it does everyone else.

Some people have an aura around them that computers disrespect, its why we have repeat idiots that log faults and we send a tech down and get them to do it again and it works. In the presence of IT support they tend to behave

Printers must be treated with intimidation for them to behave, because they smell fear and only respect violent hierarchy.

I keep a hammer on hand when I need to print something for this reason.

My work computer runs better because I listen to music and browse the Internet not just work work work. I keep it entertained, and in return it runs better than those of my fellow employees, I have far fewer problems.

ETA reading below, I do restart each day. Maybe that is all that is happening to keep it happy. How disappointing. Do people really not do that? On their WORK machines?

Zelda BOTW knows when you're climbing a big cliff and it's more likely to rain.

The internet was better when it was just the nerds on it

Modern computers struggle to do tasks they did even faster 45 years ago because modern people don't know how to do anything except use 3 trillion lines of code that was written by other people.

I have a little foundation for this:

I've seen a lineup of hundreds of identical PCs all get the exact same OS image, and inevitably you'll get one or two that are significantly slower than the rest.

Its my belief that sometimes there's some sort of deeply embedded hardware flaw that makes some computers suck and there's no amount of tweaks or reinstalling an OS that will fix it.

Windows knows when I'm asleep which is why my pc wakes up randomly in the night and flashbangs the whole room (it has RGB lights on it).

Giving a piece of technology a name and then cursing at it using said name will make it function better...

It’s not without foundation, but I feel like I have a magical power to make computers work. Someone will be having a problem and when I walk over it starts working. And then when I walk away it happens again.

And I think this power is hereditary because one of my kids appears to have it.

That I've got a special click when I specifically need something to work. It involves a lot of deliberation on the mouse, a small pause before starting to click, and a ~0.5s longer click time. That's my "okay carefully now..." Click.

Reserved for tasks like a bank transfer, an important form filling out, etc

I need more ram

A belief without anything to base it off? CPU's shouldn't have tried so hard to get faster and should just have gotten more cores a decade ago. Why bother with fancy branch prediction systems to make one thing faster than it should when it's switching between hundreds of tasks anyway.

Waiting 8 seconds after turning off a device, before turning it back on. Any electronics, really.

Turning the TV on off? Wait 8 seconds.
Blender not working? Unplug, 8 seconds, replug.
Replacing batteries? 8 seconds.

10 seconds is too long, 5 seconds isn't enough sometimes. 8 seconds is perfect.

Some people - even technologically literate ones - just want computers and operating systems to work straight out of the box with no building or tinkering and there's nothing wrong with that.

I work with fixing specialised software and hardware.

I belive that there is truth to the Tom Knight and the Lisp machine koan. Several times per year I bill customers for doing this.

If you've not heard it before: A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.

My first gaming PC I built in 2004 is still the fastest computer that has ever been.

Desktops are for gaming. Laptops are for browsing the Internet.

Does my laptop have a decent GPU? Sure does. Great for browsing the Internet.

Bonus:

Some tasks are phone tasks while bigger things are computer tasks. Think buying a movie ticket versus buying plane tickets.

I have seen machines develop ghosts and I believe all electronic devices could develop said ghosts but only if built with quality components that have large tolerance between normal operation values (voltage, current, etc) and fail values. If not then they fully fail to function before they start operating outside of normal parameters.

With the rise of bio computing currently by using rat neurons which I think will collide with LLMs with their hallucinations to produce full on machine spirits within the next 20 years.

I say this has no foundation as the only "evidence" I have is my own anecdotes and the rest is merely a hypothesis.

In order to keep printers working properly they require regular blood sacrifices, tears are also acceptable. Most printers get these by accident as people clear paper jams, refill ink or toner cartridges, etc. Some printers clearly behave and perform better long term than others. More complexity (colors, 2 sided printing, large format, etc.) usually correlates to a larger thirst for blood/stress/anxiety. Remember Colin Robinson, the psychic vampire from "What We Do in the Shadows"? I'm pretty sure his spirit animal would be a color inkjet printer/scanner combo from late 90's.

If I hold a keyboard button down harder it will work faster.

Videogames taste better after midnight.

The RNG detects me at my PC or console, and proceeds to dole out shit rolls.