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FRIST POAST < used speech recognition for this comment
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FUR STOP HOST!
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So, was the radio singing about guns and bombs...or was she discussing such things with another contact!?
dun dun DUUUUUN!
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A classical Friday the 13th ticket.
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Quite unnerving, considering the time that this happened...
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Speech recognition software wasn't supplied as part of Windows in 2001...
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And notepad??
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And notepad??
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Not in Excel, it doesn't. Word had (limited) SR support in Office 2003.
Windows has built-in SR support in Vista and Windows 7, but Excel didn't implement Text Services Framework support (and still doesn't), so dictation didn't work in Excel until Windows 7.
They might have had Dragon Naturally Speaking installed; I don't know if DNS works with Excel.
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Yes! Yes! A thousand times YES!
I had a neighbor with exactly the same problem. It was back in the late 90s. It was the damnedest thing. Random words being typed in, wherever you try to enter text.
I figured it was Netbus / Back Orifice, as both were popular hacks at the time, and there was a person messing with the PC. As I went about finding and stopping the software, I was hindered at every step by this punk on the other end of the wire. I wanted to catch him in the act, so I tried to download "Netbuster", which I related to my friend next to me. Sure enough, "neck buster" appears in the search box, and I'm like, "oh, crap, he's listening to us right now!"
Several paranoid minutes later, we figured out what was happening.
What had confused the issue was that it was picking up background static and occasionally converting that to words, so it didn't directly correspond to people talking.
It was some stupid bloatware app from the PC manufacturer that, of course, should start automatically and render all your words into speech, because who wouldn't want that?
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That happened to me once. Had one that booted with the computer and could be used to start programs. It came to me with the complaint that some programs started by themselves and the client wanted me to uninstall the "malware".
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Yep has happened to me once - a bunch of several developers and consultants gathered round the offending laptop, bemused by the seemingly random ghostly sentences that were appearing in multiple applications...noone had the faintest idea at first, and ethernet cables were disconnected, wireless adapters were disabled...task manager was checked for rogue processes; took a while for it to click!
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Is this site going down tomorrow as part of the SOPA protests?
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She probably was listening to the news on the radio which was talking about terrorism. As soon as he mentioned the background music I knew exactly what the cause was. This also reminded me of the Dilbert strip... http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-04-24
And apparantly making a reference to Dilbert triggers post as spam
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Yes, speech recognition did ship in Windows XP (originally on by default). This led to a bug titled, "Windows XP is haunted."
Basically, people did not know that speech recognition was on, and a microphone would from time to time pick up random noise and interpret it as commands. Windows would suddenly gain or lose focus, applications would open or close, and it really appeared as though there was a poltergeist inside.
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Yeah, I've often thought, what if I'm using speech recognition software, and then a co-worker wanders into my office and says something like, "Hey, where's the new travel expense FORM AT?" And I answer, "SEE, it's right here."
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So the speech recognition wasn't Apple's Siri then?
"I've found a list of terrorist cells that are quite close to you"
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I have seen computers from schools that have Dragon Naturally Speaking installed for a student and then when the student leaves the computer was passed over to someone else who knew nothing about the extra software.
Computers that were originally configured for special students usual were not handled by the same network-admin lists as the rest of the computers so some would slip thru the cracks and get to users without being re-imaged to the school standard.
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"help help, my computer keeps changing what I type..."
I don't think this article is a real WTF. Certainly not against poor Wendy G anyway.
Application programmers seem to be a typical bunch who make assumptions for you, in particular things starting up with your computer that you never asked to, so all her reboot attempts didn't stop this horrible thing from starting up, and no doubt it was running in the background somewhere
Applications that use loads of CPU and memory. After all you must have plenty. Well maybe I do, but I also have other apps running on my computer and don't want yours to hog all my resouces....
Apps that start up when I didn't ask them do, and don't shut down completely when I do.
Apps that put on auto-correct features by default.
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In typical Microsoft manner, the new "feature" was enabled without telling the users and without any visible indication.
But God forbid they would enable LargeLBA mode in the IDE driver. Many a hard drive (greated than 137 GB) has been corrupted by the stupid driver wrapping the LBA around to 0.
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I thought it was going to be someone nearby with a wireless keyboard on the same frequency.
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Absolutely brilliant.
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Hahahah, nice one. When I read "references to guns and bombs and terrorists" I first thought it was changing to the Wingdings font... Didn't saw that coming.
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Speach Recognition issues like this is so 2001. In 2011 the world has moved on to a new breed of hackers... I ran across this trouble ticket out on the LogMeIn site awhile back: <URL Removed> (Akismet thinks this was spam so I won't post after all, oh well.)
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In what way is it not a WTF that the speech recognition on this computer was set to come up on its own? Not Wendy G's fault, I agree, but it's still WTF. And I think the first thing I'd say when I saw it happen would be, literally, "WTF?"
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There ... Job done ... Oh damn ...
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you sound like big liar.
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Back in the day a lot of DOS based computers shipped without any way to recognize the new F11 and F12 keys. The task fell to me to create some kind of keyboard driver that did. This was easy as MS published the existing code. I just had to tweak it. So there I was with modifiable keyboard driver code. What to do with it? Modify it to make a random typo and put it on a co-worker's computer, of course. :-)
"Look! My keyboard did it again!" exclaimed R when I was in his office. Something about the look on my face gave me away. R raised a finger and the look on his face said "I'm going to kill you" ... then his face went vacant for a moment as he stared into space. Then he got a different look on his face that told said "I'm going to put this on someone else's computer."
Ah! Pay it forward. >:-)
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No, it's: "... where's the new travel expense FORM AT?" Points: "SEE?" Reply: "YES!"
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"Got that fire built FOR MATT?" (Points) "SEE? COAL ON." (Points to door, irritated at being disturbed, indicates that interrupter should go back to his/her cubicle.) "RETURN!" "YES!"
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We swapped the M and N keys on a co-worker's keyboard once. (Physically exchanged the plastic caps.) He never noticed. We were disappointed - it turned out he was too competent a touch-typist ever to need to look at the keyboard.
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Oh yeah, and I was going to say "TRWTF is that Bach never composed any symphonies", but then J.C.Bach and C.P.E.Bach did, so I'm glad I didn't after all, it would have made me look even stupider than I did when I forgot to put water in the egg-poacher this evening.
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Some of my coworkers did the M and N key swap with one of our senior developers who was a hunt and peck typist. He was so confused and took him almost 30 minutes to figure out what was wrong, everyone was trying so hard not to kill over laughing, and when he did figure it out his facial expression was great (The facial expression was a mix of I am an idiot with I am going to kill you).
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HAHA that's f'ing funny. Most of these make me scratch my head and go "wtf were they thinking", but this one had me in stitches. GG.
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If only our work computers had built in microphones. I don't think I could attach one and point it at the radio without it getting noticed.
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Similar thing happened at one of my internships back in college. I worked at my desk when my mouse suddenly started moving on its own. I worried that I may of had some adware or virus installed, so I immediately disconnected, ran virus scans and checked backups to make sure. Everything was clean and seemed to be alright.
Sure enough a few minutes later, the mouse started up again. I was starting to get freaked out when I looked out my office door and saw my coworker working at his desk. It was then I noticed that the movements on my screen corresponded with his mouse movements. "J'accuse!" I yelled at him as realization hit me...
You see, A few days ago I had traded out my crappy PS/2 keyboard for a wireless one from our store room. Apparently it was actually one half of a mouse/keyboard wireless combo with a receiver in the keyboard. I didn't grab the mouse at the time (I wasn't aware there was one at the time), but sure enough my co-worker happened to just need a new mouse that very day. He already had a receiver, so he just had to do pairing. Turns out it our receivers were running on the same channel, thus he unknowingly became my "Phantom Hacker".
Suffice it to say, I will now always check around me to see who else is using a wireless keyboard should a phantom "hack" me again.
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I hate apps that don't shut down completely when I shut down completely. I just hate that.
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I don't get it.
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FORM AT = FORMAT SEE = C
If you need more help then go Start -> Run
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About 15 years ago we had a bunch of new Macs installed that had speach recognition turned on by default. When my boss discovered the possibilities, he went out in the middle of the office and shouted in a clear voice, "Computer! Shut down! Now! Yes!"
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Just remember the first famous phrase created by Microsoft's voice wreckognition: "Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all."
Not that there's much better out there, but it just goes to show how far from "Hello, computer" we are.
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Wouldn't it have been interesting if the worker had Turrets?
But but but, my computer is cursing at me! <sob>
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