Because my main site is on Ghost, you can now respond to posts like this billbennett.co.nz/gartners-… and your comments show up right across the Fediverse.
You can read my newsletter online at this site: billbennett.co.nz
Or you can subscribe for free and get the newsletter delivered to you inbox on a Friday morning.
And it is published on Scoop at this address: info.scoop.co.nz/Bill_Benn…
I have a good condition, barely used 3G emergency back-up phone, which I can send to someone reading for the cost of postage (first response gets it). Warning, the NZ 3G networks will switch off soon, so it could soon be a paperweight, although it may be of use overseas.
Apart from the obvious, the other awful thing about climate change is that weather forecasting is less accurate. We just had a sustained heavy downpour, but the forecasts said it would be a dry night.
I’m writing up my review of the, perfectly decent, HP EliteBook Ultra G1 laptop and came up with the following sentence, which sums up the state we are in.
Computer makers act as if it is impossible to sell upmarket laptops if they don’t include built-in AI features. I’m not sure that’s true, but I feel like a lonely voice in the wilderness for saying so.
Have you any idea how easy it is to lose an Apple Pencil?
I’m a volunteer for the Kaipatiki repair cafe on the North Shore. Today, we, collectively, fixed 75 items that might otherwise head to the landfill. Half the time the necessary fixes are trivial. It’s worth checking to see if there’s one near you.
Enhancement
If you see the word “enhance” or “enhancement” you know you’re either reading a press release or something that derives from a press release. Normal people just don’t speak that way.
It’s PR code for “we fixed something” or “we changed something” or, more hopefully, “our thing is now a tiny bit better than it was”.
Yet some “enhancements” are actually downgrades dressed up with that fancy word to make things sound more palatable.
How I used a chatbox to fix a few website niggles
I’ve been critical of Chat-GPT in the past, so it’s only fair I tell you about a good experience I’ve had with the chatbot.
Three years ago I moved my site from WordPress to Ghost.
It went smoothly enough, although that’s a story for another time.
I had a whole load of customisations that I’d made to the WordPress Theme’s PHP code over the years. I’m no programmer, but I did learn enough PHP and CSS to tweak the WordPress site to my taste.
Ghost uses something called Handlebars instead of PHP. And yes, I may not have used those names in a programmerly way. Did I mention I’m not a programmer?
When I saw Handlebars code, I realised repeating my WordPress tweaks on Ghost was not going to be straightforward. To put it bluntly, I don’t have a clue what is going on in Handlebars code even if, at times, it looks a lot like PHP.
Earlier today, I fed my PHP tweaks and the Handlebars code for my Ghost theme into Chat-GPT and asked how I could get the effect of this piece of code in that piece of code?
The answer looked too confusing for a non-programmer to deal with.
I tried again, one tweak at a time. So far Chat-GPT helped me fix three of the outstanding tweaks. This isn’t a complex task for a computer and AI, but it’s one I couldn’t handle myself and isn’t worth the expense of hiring a coder to handle on my behalf.
It’s quite possible that as I work through some of the other tweaks, I’ll get more of a grip on Handlebars as I look closely to understand what the chatbot does. Or maybe not.
Either way, I’ve finally found a practical use for ChatGPT.
AI is not completely useless. Yet almost every example I read of the good things it does are related to medicine.
and my story:
I pulled my story about the goings on at InternetNZ from the main newsletter this morning and sent it out as a extra bulletin… It’s a longer read than the usual newsletter format, but an important one with plenty of context.
I presume I’m not the only person to have had this scam email:
Hi there!
I am a professional hacker and have successfully managed to hack your operating system. Currently I have gained fu! ll access to your account.
Our ten year old robot vacuum has given up the ghost. I replaced the battery a year ago and it is still failing, so we need a new one.
We want to get a bottom end model. We don’t need fancy features. Any recommendations?
Further to my earlier post about red kiwifruit.
Is there a technical reason you never see kiwifruit bubble tea or other exotic Asian-style drinks made with them?
Or is it just because the bubble tea drink innovators haven’t got around to it yet?
Took great pleasure seeing the Laser Kiwi flag so prominently on show before the All Whites game.
Not sure what New Caledonians would have made of it, but it could be a huge international hit and talking point if we rock it when we get to the World Cup.
Today I purchased a new pair of Dr Martens.
That would be 52 years after I got my first pair.
What is the point of a red Kiwifruit? It tastes fine, but not as full on as the gold ones.
A family member needs help with Excel and I’m immediately reminded why I have spent the last 25 years actively avoiding the software.
I have fully ActivityPubified my main work Ghost site Bill Bennett. It all seems to be working, but nothing appears to be happening. Perhaps it is all going on in the background. Or could it be that my readers, maybe even my audience in general, don’t do ActivityPub?
Five years ago New Zealand’s telecommunications sector was breaking all kinds of records as the nation went into lockdown.
At last I found a question worth asking ChatGPT where I was not disappointed by the answer:
“What where the names of the Kung Fu ‘stances’ that were shouted out in the fight scenes in the 1990s Hong Kong film ‘Iron Monkey’?”
Linkrot has been a problem for years now, but this weekend is one of the worst yet, more than 40 outbound links from my site died in the last 24 hours and a similar number look like they are about to snuff it at any moment.
I dislike science fiction and fantasy because everything is so implausible. Yet I love kung fu movies where fighters are not even remotely subject to the laws of gravity.
No… I can’t figure this out either.
Barely a cloud in the sky all day, and now there’s a lunar eclipse going there’s nothing to see but clouds.
Between now and Easter I anticipate Hot Cross Buns will be my main source of carbohydrates. They may even be my main source of nutrition.