4 ms·

Kind of a counterpoint: I've heard countless stories (albeit, in Japan) of people doing things like "manually" doing additions of numbers they already have in a

Kind of a counterpoint: I've heard countless stories (albeit, in Japan) of people doing things like "manually" doing additions of numbers they already have in a spreadsheet instead of just asking Excel to do the addition in what, two clicks, because they "can't trust the computer to do it right" which sounds like a BS rationalization to justify that they wouldn't have much of a job if the computer was doing it.

cratermoon 3y ago
Perhaps some folks here are too young to remember the Pentium FDIV bug[1], but it's not complete BS to distrust the calculations. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I’m sure FDIV-like bugs are absolutely eclipsed by typos and misclicks from doing things manually.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Yeah, but typos and misclicks don't scale. What was that saying? "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer."
RajT88 3y ago
Back in 2009, I visited Tokyo for work. What I learned from the folks in my local office is the deployment software my company made tooling for was not very popular. The reasons were mainly that most of that software was made by Western (English speaking, specifically) countries and they did not trust it. They were not exactly wrong - software tends to work best on English systems, unless it was developed by a local company. I heard of some really embarrassing Korean translation issues that even as a person just with Google as my Korean language skill, I could validate the translation issue. Like Korean 101 kinda mistakes. So Japanese companies were using vastly inferior deployment software, which would basically RDP into an interactive session and replay inputs, because that software worked fine in Japanese. ...Or also very common was sneakernet deployment with DVD's and thumbdrives, making the lowest workers do the running around. *I do not know the current state of software deployment in the Japanese market.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  If I was a busy decision maker at a major Japanese firm with a dozen direct reports and a hundred balls in the air simultaneously, and if I could even spot translation issues in a few minutes on the polished demo presented to upper management, then there's no way I would ever assume anything is correct with the software when I'm not looking. Let alone my subordinate's subordinate's subordinate who would actually be using the software day in day out with their job on the line. So it's a very sensible heuristic. If it's supposed to be a serious enterprise software product, offered for sale in Japan, then spending a few million dollars to hire expert technical translators to double check everything should not be an issue.
SoftTalker 3y ago
I mean not exactly the same thing but just last night Apple Maps was directing me to turn down a street that had clearly been closed for some time. Computers "make mistakes" all the time in most peoples' experience and after you get burned a few times (especially if you get badly burned, like getting fired over the "mistake") you learn to not blindy trust computers.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Being a developer for a number of decades has firmly taught me to never blindly trust computers. Even if the software is flawless (which is literally never the case), there's still the GIGO problem which your Apple Maps example demonstrates.
- genewitch 3y ago
  I once got fired because i upgraded a company's wifi network from a single apple wifi bridge (the residential one!) to a managed linksys or netgear deployment, and there was a bug in the firmware. I don't recall the bug, but it made the chief lawyer's apple laptop drop connectivity to their printer or something a few times the first day. I opened a support ticket, and got confirmation of the bug - at around 8PM, forwarded the email to my boss, and was fired the next afternoon. what a crap company. They folded within 4 months IIRC, and listed me as the "financial contact" for the fiber optic internet links - got a bunch of nasty phone calls later in the year about needing to pay 5 digits in billing arrears!
gavinhoward 3y ago
IIRC, Excel uses floating point for calculations, so they're not wrong.
- ben_w 3y ago
  It also uses them for phone numbers, if you're not careful. I have, in real life, received an SMS from… let's see… 4.4786e+11 welcoming me to Germany and giving me a link to the German COVID quarantine and testing rules (I was already in Germany at the time, I just turned off Airplane mode for the first time in 6 months).
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Anyone who trusts computers to do non-integer math correctly does not know anything about floating point numbers.
- fomine3 3y ago
  I trust, but they compute in a different form of numbers

cratermoon 3y ago

Perhaps some folks here are too young to remember the Pentium FDIV bug[1], but it's not complete BS to distrust the calculations. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

bee_rider 3y ago
I’m sure FDIV-like bugs are absolutely eclipsed by typos and misclicks from doing things manually.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Yeah, but typos and misclicks don't scale. What was that saying? "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer."

RajT88 3y ago

Back in 2009, I visited Tokyo for work. What I learned from the folks in my local office is the deployment software my company made tooling for was not very popular. The reasons were mainly that most of that software was made by Western (English speaking, specifically) countries and they did not trust it. They were not exactly wrong - software tends to work best on English systems, unless it was developed by a local company. I heard of some really embarrassing Korean translation issues that even as a person just with Google as my Korean language skill, I could validate the translation issue. Like Korean 101 kinda mistakes. So Japanese companies were using vastly inferior deployment software, which would basically RDP into an interactive session and replay inputs, because that software worked fine in Japanese. ...Or also very common was sneakernet deployment with DVD's and thumbdrives, making the lowest workers do the running around. *I do not know the current state of software deployment in the Japanese market.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
If I was a busy decision maker at a major Japanese firm with a dozen direct reports and a hundred balls in the air simultaneously, and if I could even spot translation issues in a few minutes on the polished demo presented to upper management, then there's no way I would ever assume anything is correct with the software when I'm not looking. Let alone my subordinate's subordinate's subordinate who would actually be using the software day in day out with their job on the line. So it's a very sensible heuristic. If it's supposed to be a serious enterprise software product, offered for sale in Japan, then spending a few million dollars to hire expert technical translators to double check everything should not be an issue.

SoftTalker 3y ago

I mean not exactly the same thing but just last night Apple Maps was directing me to turn down a street that had clearly been closed for some time. Computers "make mistakes" all the time in most peoples' experience and after you get burned a few times (especially if you get badly burned, like getting fired over the "mistake") you learn to not blindy trust computers.

JohnFen 3y ago
Being a developer for a number of decades has firmly taught me to never blindly trust computers. Even if the software is flawless (which is literally never the case), there's still the GIGO problem which your Apple Maps example demonstrates.
genewitch 3y ago
I once got fired because i upgraded a company's wifi network from a single apple wifi bridge (the residential one!) to a managed linksys or netgear deployment, and there was a bug in the firmware. I don't recall the bug, but it made the chief lawyer's apple laptop drop connectivity to their printer or something a few times the first day. I opened a support ticket, and got confirmation of the bug - at around 8PM, forwarded the email to my boss, and was fired the next afternoon. what a crap company. They folded within 4 months IIRC, and listed me as the "financial contact" for the fiber optic internet links - got a bunch of nasty phone calls later in the year about needing to pay 5 digits in billing arrears!

gavinhoward 3y ago

IIRC, Excel uses floating point for calculations, so they're not wrong.

ben_w 3y ago
It also uses them for phone numbers, if you're not careful. I have, in real life, received an SMS from… let's see… 4.4786e+11 welcoming me to Germany and giving me a link to the German COVID quarantine and testing rules (I was already in Germany at the time, I just turned off Airplane mode for the first time in 6 months).

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Anyone who trusts computers to do non-integer math correctly does not know anything about floating point numbers.

fomine3 3y ago
I trust, but they compute in a different form of numbers