Computer Hope

I see poor Allan is on a lot and I suspect "poor Allan" gets very lonely around here. I suppose there is that need to check for bad folks posting bad stuff, but where are all the good folks? I'll admit I haven't exactly been participating in a regular manner over the years, but part of that is due to focusing on health issues. A very nasty relapse and then the cancer moved up around some membrane thingy in my head, as if my head needed more trouble. Already I'm a nutcase. BUT I'm wondering where everyone is? Even you folks that almost hate me would be refreshing to see showing up.

Oh well, just trying. This sort of reminds me of those western flics I watched many years ago when they wanted to show an empty town where all you could see was dust/sand blowing around - - - then way down at the other end of town that Clint Eastwood fella would be standing looking for the bad guy (which isn't me). I'm the guy peering from the swinging door of the pub or bar or watering hole (whatever that is called). I'm the coward that hides.

I'm here every day...

Yes, I should be careful, shouldn't I? I am not here that long most of the time. Nor very often each day. So I reckon many folks come through here, but don't post. I was just going by new posts, I suppose. Just seemed like it used to be busier a bit back.

And I am just noticing, patio, you sure have a whole bunch of 'thank you's'. You've been mighty helpful to a lot of folks over the years, eh? Well, I assume it took a few years. Not a few months. I don't go poking around checking how long folks have been around the community, so not sure about how long. But that sure seems a large number of helps to folks. You should get a special Community Appreciation Award. A CAA. Reads kind of neat, eh? CAA!

 

As for me, I wish more humans would answer the help desk phone. All I ever get is some kind of  recorded script tat tells my to press a number. Os  so hard to have a human answer the phone?   

I check in every day to see if my help is needed.

Hey, I do still pop in occasionally.

They say AI is the coming thing. Your automobile will really be auto. 

10 Vehicles That Are Almost Self-Driving in 2023

https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/cars-that-are-almost-self-driving

I think I will wait awhile.   

Still good support here even if lesser people on. I myself use to be on here daily but now its checking in on things when able to.

Having twin boys last May has made my life crazy. They just had their 1 year birthday the other day. 

I posted a question to a problem not that long ago and had help from multiple people here.

As far as AI goes I tried out ChatGPT where I gave it a task to see if it will stump it by asking for it to show source code for the game Farkle in C++. It quickly produced source code and I was able to copy paste that into my C++ IDE and compile it. Upon compiling it I found a serious problem where it set an integer to a constant and so the game was broken. When telling the AI of this problem it said I was absolutely correct that the integer cant be a constant for its use in the game and then it generated code that was able to compile. However the program was so poorly created that it listed 63 combinations to score by the roll of the 5 die and wanted me to give it a value of the combination index to make my scoring selection. Upon selecting a index number the program crashed into an input loop. I didnt dig further into the code to see why I seen enough in that while its almost good it isnt quite good at programming on the fly and making a product that is flawless and good. However it is impressive that it was able to make a hokey Farkle program even if poor design construction for user interface.

I dont see AI replacing us here as the information given by it in response could send someone down a path of lost data or other damages. The fact that it didnt see initially that setting a variable to a constant in a game where it needed to vary in value is a pretty big mistake. If the compiler allowed it to compile without warning and it was something else destructive in nature it could be bad for whoever runs the program suggested if the code isnt looked over before hand to make sure its not accidentally destructive.

I heard of college students having the ChatGPT writing their term papers and programs for them and was like I need to see what kind of quality its able to create. Impressed but also not impressed by the flaw in the original code of using a const int where it should have been just an int. Maybe I should have asked it why it felt the need to make the ints constants   

Twins!    Congrats DaveLembke!

I haven't been here in a long time - but I do really enjoy the smart people who used to hang out here.
Was motivated to return because I found out that a favorite Graphics program I used to use daily converted to "rental" use. (called "Arts & Letters Express.) It doesn't work for me to "rent" the use of this program!!
What this A&L does that I cannot live without is it can be set to print a HUGE image on multiple sheets of paper that I can tape together and use as a pattern for a very large piece of artwork - that's straight & proportional, unlike enlarging with an opaque projector.
I'd abandon it in a minute if any other graphics program had that feature - but I've never found one that does.
I still have the original Win10 install files - but now I can't put A&L Express on any replacement laptop because the owners stopped recognizing my user name and password to the original installation....that I'd paid to upgrade for FOUR versions of windows over the years.

So - this motivates me to resurrect an old laptop that I'd abandoned when it got a trojan months ago. I've gotten it a new battery and am cleaning it so I can post for help with it.
Thus, I'm back on ComputerHope because I cannot reinstall my fave vector graphics program!!

I lurk quite a bit. I feel like most topics are sufficiently answered in a couple responses.

QuoteI feel like most topics are sufficiently answered in a couple responses.

The most common stuff has solutions everywhere on the net, and so they may not show up here when Google has it as Google has had many years to crawl the web and accumulate solutions including those from here that someone can use as a solution without messaging here about it, as well as more users are computer savy these days than 17 years ago when I joined here and so cheap personal computers and peers assisting others brought people forward to knowing how to operate them better.

I feel those with odd issues that don't fit a cookie cut solution already out there on the web, abstract or custom code/software/hardware problems, or those who don't check with google first with proper key words will continue to show up here for assistance.