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[Shadowlord]

The internal logic of the program is just fine, the fact that it doesn't automatically pick up on Windows' settings is not a failure because that's something the user controls anyway.

Which url was that? I didn't click any of them.

Also: Are you suggesting that programs should require users to change their windows locale to match the standard for where the program was written? What happens when they have multiple programs that don't bother to check with Windows to find out what the decimal/comma settings are, but expect different locales? :V

(You could use http://xupefei.github.io/Locale-Emulator/ but you have to remember to use it every time you run something that needs it)

[Criptfeind]

I'm unconvinced that a someone who's job is to memorize poems memorizing poems is more impressive then my ability to get far far far more poems from a machine in my pocket. Or that it somehow reduces my humanity.

[Frumple]

snip

More like no need

The staggering amount of memorization was pretty impressive, but, y'know. Both you and me have gigantic chunks of the entirety of humanity's collective intellectual and cultural efforts at our fingertips, now. The bards were impressive, no doubt, no argument; our external storage (print/digital mediums, etc., etc.) is orders of magnitude more so, and available to significantly more people to boot. It's not that humanity has declined (though it's definitely changed a bit, sure, perhaps even notably to adapt old biological systems to new tools), it's that the machines are just... better at what they do, at least in a lot of areas. They do come with problems, but the consistent picture I, at least, have seen is that we almost always take those problems over the ones they're replacing for tremendously good reasons. Even at our best -- and we're very much aware of those limits, both past and current, and that those'll only change with bloody genetic engineering any time soon -- we're kinda' only so-so at a lot of things, and only so many of us are particularly capable of being that best, thanks to how much biology and genetics loves to screw us. Machines trend towards being a lot more consistent, even when they're inconsistent.

Though yeah, be fine with holding companies accountable for not keeping an eye on the software they're using, or something along those lines. That's badly needed, in all honesty, both for the company using it and whoever made it. Give us a legal incentive to make sure our shit is working, yeah?* And substantiative recourse for those impacted when it doesn't, not the teeth-pulling bullshit that characterizes everything, computer related or not, we have now. Those kinds of software are just as, if not even more, important as that basic spreadsheet and database software, but if the companies are allowed to be lazy with 'em, they'll go back to being barely any better than the years previous, and bugger that with a cactus. We're not just doing this to save time, damnit.

*Maybe not necessarily punitive if it's found that the error is, in fact, error and not deliberately skimping on paying attention, but as per cases noted, if it's causing all sorts of irritation and distress, even if it's being made with conceptual best intentions (i.e. following the information the company had at hand), there should be some of renumeration involved. And exempt FOSS projects, of course -- let burden fall solely on the company in those cases.

[Teneb]

Truean, on the greek bards thing "in an age without writing": untrue. Greeks had writing like pretty much everyone else. Just because only a few people (mostly accountants, ironically enough) knew how to read/write, didn't mean there wasn't any text. /historiannitpick

[TheBiggerFish]

Which url was that? I didn't click any of them.

Also: Are you suggesting that programs should require users to change their windows locale to match the standard for where the program was written? What happens when they have multiple programs that don't bother to check with Windows to find out what the decimal/comma settings are, but expect different locales? :V

I think it was the first one.

No.  I'm suggesting that it is the user's job to select the right localization.

[Reelya]

floating point numbers don't just "misplace decimal points". That's due to human error in cutting and pasting spreadsheet values, not a computation issue.

The issue was that they had data stored in number of cents, and they cut and paste that value and paid it out as Euros. So it was a copy paste error. The irony was that they were using a 64-bit integer number of cents, to avoid rounding errors, but if they'd been using 64-bit floating point numbers, this error would never had happened. A 64-bit floating point value has a rounding error of 1 part in 4 quadrillion (a 4 followed by 15 zeros), because it uses 52 bits to store the main value. So to be inaccurate to the level of 1 cent off, you'd need to be dealing with money larger than $40 trillion dollars.

What this actually shows is that it's the wrong way to use a computer system to hobble together your own manually-operated number-conversion system. If they'd just used 64-bit floats in Euros across the whole system, then conversion would have been automatic. a 1 part in 4 quadrillion "error" is within tolerance for financial systems.

[Truean]

Parts of it were before writing. Also you made the literacy rate argument for me. That's like saying America is wealthy: income inequality. Only here, it would be way worse because as you said, "few" knew how to read. If you'd really want to get into the nitpick and say only a very small amount of the people could write, fine. O well....

Put it to a popular vote. Let's see if people can be convinced to doom themselves to poverty and irrelevance by obliterating their ability to sustain themselves. Progress drives the human race forward. Exiling the human race from the equation is regress, not progress. No, I think I'm correct on this, thank you. If keeping the human race involved should be illegal, then hello machine overlord. where is my EMP? 

I like accountants with spreadsheets. I'm in favor of keeping the accountant. <--- This is far from a crazy idea.

Obsoleting humanity is absurdity. That should be illegal and severely beaten; enough people out of work and it will be. It is not progress.

To repeatedly bang the savage drum of "CHEAPER! FASTER!" is foolish. We have an economy to support people (yes we do, disagree and I won't care). We make things for people, and that's who should be supported. We call them customers when they buy things from us and hate them when we buy things from them (labor). Until the robots start buying things, then economy is not truly served by them.

"But Mr. Ford, how many cars does that machine buy?"

[Egan_BW]

Refusing to obsolete humans is the very definition of refusing progress. Progress is all well and good, until it forces you to change, right? We should progress right up until about where things are now, and then stop, is that it? Or maybe we should take a few steps back, things have just gotten a bit out of hand recently, haven't they?

[TheBiggerFish]

Basic minimum incomes are a thing.

[NullForceOmega]

Machines are tools, not a goal in and of themselves, promoting the development of machines to the point that they make their users irrelevant is flat-out bonkers and frankly extremely stupid.

Further, if the people using the machines don't improve as well, then the tool becomes less useful, as it fails to drive development.  Don't understand what I mean?  Look at the cultural and technological development of the past couple of centuries, after nineteen fifty it basically bottoms out, unless the only thing you count is computers.

[Frumple]

... have you paid zero attention to every other facet of scientific development that's been made since 1950? It's freaking ridiculous, we've been making huge strides in basically every facet of human existence, from medicine (hello, we have basic functioning cybernetic eyes now -- we have started giving sight to the blind) to material science (all sorts of crazy junk are coming out of labs right now). Cultural development has exploded just in the last thirty years, even -- we're seeing shit happen in years what would have taken decades a century or two ago, and producing more raw material than bloody centuries managed.

And personally, I don't call making all the annoying work go away crazy or stupid. The whole point is so we can do other things -- be with friends and family, be creative, work out of desire instead of necessity, whatever -- instead of having to constantly spend effort on things we can just have some machine do. Crazy and stupid is not having some sort of framework to support folks by when they don't actually have to work (or at least not nearly as much) to keep humanity fed and sheltered, though, that's definitely true.

[NullForceOmega]

We sent people to the moon with the power of a fucking pocket calculator and long-hand math, and now people can't get to a damned neighboring town without GPS.  You want to mouth off about development then how about we compare the actual accomplishments, not the applications.

Materials science still hasn't moved us out of the iron age, none of the so called 'ages' since are actually anything but hubris, there is no 'industrial age' no 'atomic age' and certainly no 'information age', we have accomplished fuck-all since the moon landings.

[Sergarr]

There were thousands of professions that were obsoleted by technological progress before, like horse cab driving; and the civilization didn't perish after they were gone.

Look at the cultural and technological development of the past couple of centuries, after nineteen fifty it basically bottoms out, unless the only thing you count is computers.

m8 you're so wrong it's not even funny

in my field (nuclear science), most achievements has been made after 1950

in the fields that I know about (artificial intelligence, warfare, cosmology) there have been so much progress from 1950 that its not even funny

we've fucking sent a man to space and beyond to the moon after fucking 1950

"bottoms out" WTF

[penguinofhonor]

If the worth of humans is measured in how well we can memorize lists, we deserve to be obsoleted.

[NullForceOmega]

Rocketry and transistors are nineteen forties tech, so is atomic energy.  You haven't managed to actually get fusion power viable have you?