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Admin
A real cliffhanger. I hope the rest of the story will be revealed to us frist thing tomorrow!
I just don't see a WTF in there, other than using Windows.
Admin
I see a WTF. Dr. Gates and Kely don't know how to use a computer.
If they'd think about it for a secundum, they'd find solution.
Admin
Thats not Dr. William Gates, I suppose?
Admin
Pressing the SHIFT key multiple times results in a "Do you wish to enable assistive technology?" sort of question. There may be a sub-option from that menu to enable speech.
Admin
I work in the tech support industry. This story is very familiar to me. Sadly, it wasn't with a client. My own PC at home. I became convinced that something nefarious was occurring. I uninstalled everything that had been added in that year, checked processes in task manager, tried typing back to the "intruder". Eventually noticed that the text sometimes matched the music playing in the background or my expletives. FWIW, if you have multiple keyboard layouts set up, the microphone isn't too many random/misplaced clicks away.
Admin
Déjà vu:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Terrorists!.aspx
Admin
Those who do not read thedailyWTF are doomed to repeat it
Admin
Yeah, first terrorists, now hackers. What next? Mad scientists who want to dominate the world?
Admin
Admin
Aliens!
Admin
Just your unfriendly neighbourhood forum software who wants to dominate TheDailyWTF.
Admin
the answer's simple: the speech recognition was activated by terrorists!
Admin
Similarly, those who do not read the last few minute's posts before submitting are bound to repeat them. ahem
Admin
Heh. This happened to me once while I was writing a report. Every time I sh ifted in my chair, it would squak and Word would insert a line break. It took a whi le to connect the two and figure out that speech reco gnitio n was enabled. Since then, I never turned it of f.
-V
Admin
Who else had nailed it midway the second paragraph?
Admin
I guess that all regular readers had an "Ahh! Speech recognition!" moment there and started to look for the old article.
Admin
Dr Scott?
Admin
Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor not a transcriptionist!
Admin
Next is: "it could be uhhh, virus?" which was the favorite default answer for our first line techs if they couldn't diagnose the problem.
Admin
Client: "Of course I didn't!"
Translation: Yes you did.
Admin
TRWTF is that no one bothered to figure out what really happened. Most likely cause: Dr. turned it on because he wanted to see if he could use it for dictation. Unlikely but utterly not ruled out cause: an attacker turned on the mic to capture office conversations ("Would you like to put that on your Visa? OK, let me read the number back to you..."). But since no one cared to figure out the root cause, we'll never know.
Admin
Exactly.
Admin
Installing some version of MS Office (98?) used to do that for you.
Admin
Neither will get you to speech recognition.
CAPTCHA: causa - Sticky keys has been known to causa ruckus in the office.
Admin
I was halfway there. I knew it sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it and wasn't able to think of what the problem was. Being forgetful can be great sometimes, lets me experience things as new again!
Admin
Sometimes bits just flip, either in memory or on disk. I've seen it in my source code, when a bit flip changed a character that fortunately created an invalid symbol. Fortunate in that the compiler screamed when the next build ran. And memory errors are pretty common. Usually you get a crash. In my last job I had to diagnose an infinitely looping for-loop that was pegging a CPU. The code was formally verifiable as correct, the class files were running correctly on other deployments, and breaking in using a debugger showed that the data state should cause termination within a few iterations of the given algorithm regardless. We never examined the state of the JITed code but I'd wager a bit was flipped either in the conditional-branch instruction or the destination address such that the looping would continue on.
Admin
But he's not a real doctor. He dropped out, remember?
When his professor discovered that he had dropped out to go work on programming microcomputers, the professor thought "What a waste."
Admin
I know a friend whose mother and her neighbor both have dementia. Every morning they have the same conversation about the same events that happened long ago, and will tell you afterwards about the nicest, intelligent person they just met today!
Admin
Yep, and it's entirely possible a luser clicked random buttons to make the popups go away.
Admin
Never done this on a desktop, but I've seen it happen regularly on smartphones where there's a "microphone" button on the on-screen keyboard which activates voice recognition. It's a nuisance... I don't think I've ever seen someone activate it intentionally.
Admin
But doctor, they really do. The flip all the time! Did you know that 15546.89 bits are flipped every second in the world? The worst bits are those that flip at runtime. It happens to me all the time in demos! The code works fine (take that straitjacket away from me!) on my workstation, the tests pass, and come demo time the bits flip. Bits and pieces. Only last week I identified 15 flipped bits and... doc!!! Doc!!!! It's true! THEY FLIP!! I SWEAR TO GOD THAT THEY FLIIIPPPP!!!! DOOOOCCCCCCCC!!!!!!! DOOOOCCCCCCCC!!!!!!!
Admin
I use the voice recognition on my android phone all the time, don't activate via the microphone button though. I just say "OK Google". Use "OK Glass" from time to time too. I'll let you figure out how one types text into a fancy new smart watch.
Admin
It is the year 2003, or thereabouts. I receive a call from Eric (not his real name), a web admin for a company which sells equipment to colleges and chemistry labs. He had worked with these guys as an intern since his college days, and I worried a bit that he was accumulating what I'd call the wrong kind of on-the-job experience at this place. My place of business provided server hosting for their web site.
"Hi Sammy," says Eric. "Steve asked me to give you a call." Steve is the big boss at his company. "Do you have any reason to think we've been hacked?"
I sit up a little straighter and start going through server logs, looking at traffic statistics, trying to find something that looks suspicious. "I... uh. No? No, I don't. Why, what's up?"
"Well," says Eric. "You know that we sell things on the web site, right?" I did, in fact, know that. "Well, we have a lot of pictures on the site, of the things that we sell." Uh huh. "And some of these pictures are in black and white. But they used to be in color."
There's a long pause in the conversation, and I realize that he's done explaining the problem. "Eric," I asked slowly, "are you suggesting that hackers broke into your site and replaced your color product images with black and white ones?"
Another long pause, and now I can hear the pain in his voice. "I told you," Eric said, "HE wanted me to call you." And that was basically the end of the conversation.
Admin
Found it!
I could get to like this game, you know...
Admin
flick ponytail back over shoulder, sit back in chair with a smug grin, start Vim and continue to chastise co-workers for having to use a GUI
Admin
I often hold a Shift key down for a long time, while I'm thinking... I also sometimes press one of the Shift keys multiple times.
Of course, whenever I set up a new system for myself, I turn off all of the keyboard shortcuts for assistive things. "No, I don't need help! I was just holding down the Shift key while my thoughts were coalescing!"
Admin
I wouldn't trust people who don't turn on their microphones. They look shiftless.
Admin
Your mum.
Admin
My thoughts where "Either it's a wireless keyboard interfering or the speech recognition is enabled". And that's exactly how the story went on. LAME!
Admin
Something like this just happened to me. Came back from a meeting, re-docked my laptop, and the mouse started acting funny. Cursor moving by itself, right-clicking at random. Took me far too long to realize I hadn't turned off my little wireless mouse and it was still in my pocket.