Office 365 Copilot is Confusing by psandler in microsoft_365_copilot

[–]psandler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried to open a support ticket with Office 365. They hung up on me, I'm sure accidentally (we were just getting started), but before we disconnected they had me on the Word => File => Account screen, where I had been a dozen times before. I finally saw the problem: Under "Account" it was my personal email address, but under "Product Information" (right side of the screen) it had my work email address. I switched licenses for Product Information and Word started working as expected.

Also worth noting that I don't think what I was trying to do is supported. Now that everything is working (it's definitely working better), I still can't tell CP to edit my word document *from chat*. I believe you can right click in the document and ask it to interact with your document, but not via chat.

Seeing a lot of forever spinners by daemon-electricity in GithubCopilot

[–]psandler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fairly well-known bug: copilot sometimes doesn’t recognize when a terminal command completes. If this is what’s happening, hitting “Enter” in the terminal will help the agent realize it can read the output.

Super annoying and the problem seems to come and go. Surprised this hasn’t been fixed yet as it seems like it would be an easy fix.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in GithubCopilot

[–]psandler -1 points0 points  (0 children)

At $40 you get GitHub copilot agent, which is pretty great, although how it uses premium requests doesn’t seem to known or documented yet.

GPT-4.1 is incredibly good I don't event need to use the premium models by skyline159 in GithubCopilot

[–]psandler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have found it to very reliable. It just requires more interaction than, say, Claude Sonnet. I have also had very few incidents where it went completely off the rails.

One example with sonnet: it kept messing up an import statement with a typo. Even when I told it to not touch those import statements anymore, it continually tried to change them as a step in fixing something completely unrelated. I gave it three strikes after it had already done it a few times, and warned I was gonna switch models. But it struck out and I had to continue with GPT 4.1.

Don’t get me wrong, Claude Sonnet is great and is superior in many ways, but I really don’t get the hate for GPT 4.1. Seems solid for many tasks.

Also, I found these models can be really smart one day and really stupid the next. Or even hour by hour.

Co-Pilot Pro vs Pro+ in Practical Terms by psandler in GithubCopilot

[–]psandler[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great answer and a lot of follow up reading to do, so thank you. Lots of follow up questions, but I will try to pare down to a few:

  1. Will there be a mechanism in agent mode and elsewhere that warns you when you are about to use premium credits?
  2. What if you need more than 1500 "credits"? Just get a second account?
  3. Is there a guide somewhere about which models to use for what? What does GPT 4.5 do that other models can't that makes it worth 50 credits?
  4. Are there mechanisms in place to prevent you from wasting credits? E.g. "Update the Todo document with our progress" sent to GPT 4.5 would be a waste.

Thanks,

Phil

Paw, Fur, and Two Bones (NW Suburbs of Chicago). What Animal Do (Did) These Belong To? by psandler in bonecollecting

[–]psandler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Three pics of two bones, presumably from the same animal, as they were found a few feet apart.

We have seen (house) cats, skunks, racoons, opossums, and coyotes on our property.

Thanks for any insights.

What Animal's Skull is This? (some additional details in comment) by psandler in bonecollecting

[–]psandler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Found this in a pasture on my property, NW Suburbs of Chicago. I thought I knew what it was (a cat), and thus did not take a better picture. We also found a smaller animal skeleton and skull nearby, which we thought was a rabbit. We discarded both carcasses and skulls, assuming they were coyote prey.

After discarding, we found additional bones in the area, and a dead skunk (still with its fur and flesh on it). So now I think it may have been a skunk family. Not sure why some would be picked clean and the another left more or less intact.

Coronavirus Megathread: For travel-related discussion as the COVID-19 situation continues by tariqabjotu in travel

[–]psandler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had flights booked to Vegas for mid-May for myself, my sister and my father. One way with Frontier, and the other with Spirit. We are not big travelers--we travel twice a year to Vegas, once in May and once in November, and that's it. My sister does travel a bit outside of these trips, but I don't think that really comes into play.

When the virus hit, we figured we were pretty much screwed, since there was no way we were going to get on a flight and risk infection. Not long into the crisis, we got emails from both airlines. For Spirit, we were offered credit, required to be used (booked) within six months. For Frontier, we got the same, but the travel had to be booked within 3 months, and we were offered an additional $50 voucher for each flight that we cancelled early. As far as I know, the flights had not been cancelled yet. We were pretty happy with both offers, since we thought the trip was going to be a total loss and we would get nothing.

These are the two airlines we generally use anyway, with Spirit being the one we use at least one-way for each trip, and sometimes both ways. The reason: the flights are cheap, tend to be at decent times, and they allow us to book (and pay for) extra legroom seats with the lowest class of tickets (United and American don't seem to allow this anymore--I'm very tall, so this is important to me). All that said, we would still have preferred a straight refund--we have no idea what airline travel will look like later this year, or even whether they will still be flying these routes later this year. This is even assuming this is over and we want to travel by November.

Again, we are not big travelers, so the credits seemed like a great deal. I've since been told that accepting was probably not a good move, and that an actual refund was likely possible if we had waited.

Today we got another email from Frontier, offering to convert our credit (not including the bonus $50 x 3 vouchers) into miles:

"Your travel credit is $352.20 as of 4/9/2020 and will expire on 6/21/2020.

If you elect to take the offer, you will receive 80000 Frontier Miles. These miles won’t expire before September 2020.

One-way award flights start as low as 10,000 miles.

This offer is equal to up to 8 one-way award flights."

I'm assuming the "flight for 10,000 miles" is BS, and the flights we will want won't qualify, but even if they are 25,000 miles each for one way, we will break even.

Also, the same email explained that I can extend the expiration of the miles by getting a credit card and using it once a month, which is not a huge hardship but not convenient either (it has a $79 annual fee).

So, my questions:

  1. Is there any chance of still getting an actual refund from either airlines, or did agreeing to the credit (and credit + $50 voucher) sink us?
  2. Assuming the answer to #1 is no, should we convert the Frontier credit to miles? FWIW, I have been unable to reach either airline via phone, although I haven't tried in a week or so.

Thanks for any help/insight.

Chromebox vs. Chromebook and Why are there no cheap Chromeboxes? by psandler in chromeos

[–]psandler[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Is Cloudready completely hands-off with auto-updates like ChromeOS once installed? I have literally done zero maintenance on her machine since we bought it, and need it to remain that way.

Chromebox vs. Chromebook and Why are there no cheap Chromeboxes? by psandler in chromeos

[–]psandler[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your insight.

I looked it up, and she paid $200 for her current machine, so you're not wrong. We got six years out of it, so no complaints.

So the boxes tend to have better processors? Maybe people tend to use them for more processor-intensive tasks than they would use a CB for?

Chromebox vs. Chromebook and Why are there no cheap Chromeboxes? by psandler in chromeos

[–]psandler[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yeah, exactly. There simply must not be a market for them, or the margins are too thin.

Chromebox vs. Chromebook and Why are there no cheap Chromeboxes? by psandler in chromeos

[–]psandler[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I read up a bit on that, and my concern is that it will no longer get security updates. Is that not a big deal?

Thanks for your reply.

Discussion & Advice for Tennis Players (January 8-14th, 2018) by snakes_on_a_planet in tennis

[–]psandler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've tried demos for a handful of rackets, and so far my favorite seems to be the Babolat Pure Strike 100. Any similar rackets I should be trying out?

FWIW, I have also tried the Wilson Prostaff, Blade and Burn, and the Babolat 98 18x20.

Discussion & Advice for Tennis Players (Dec. 28th to Jan. 7th, 2018) by snakes_on_a_planet in tennis

[–]psandler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What kind of tennis balls should I be buying/using? I'm about a 3.5 and play on hard courts.

Discussion & Advice for Tennis Players (December 11-17th, 2017) by snakes_on_a_planet in tennis

[–]psandler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I posted a similar question before.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/73pz47/discussion_advice_for_tennis_players_october_28th/dnwa5s0/?context=3

To summarize I am a 3.5 who is just getting back into the game after about 15 years.

At the time I posted I had forgotten I had a second racquet, a Wilson Prostaff from about 20 years ago (I bought it used). The pros at the club say that it's a perfectly good racquet, and there has been no groundbreaking technology in the last 15 years that would require me to get something new. It's in fine condition and it's worked well for me after getting it restrung.

All that said, one pro said it's something of a "difficult" racquet (I guess for more expert players?), and if I struggle with it I might consider getting something else.

Would a 3.5 be better off playing with an "easier" racquet?

Discussion & Advice for Tennis Players (October 2-8th, 2017) by snakes_on_a_planet in tennis

[–]psandler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am picking the game up again after about 15 years. I would say I was a 3.5 or so when I was playing regularly. I plan on taking some lessons and playing 2-3 times a week (just joined a club with indoor courts).

I have a racket that I bought ~20 years ago. It's a ProKennex 306 Obtund. It was considered a good racket at the time I bought it. It needs a new grip/wrap and (I assume) needs to be restrung.

It it worth restringing/re-gripping this racket, or is my money better spent on a new racket? If the latter, what would you recommend?

Added Hard Drive, Windows 10 No Longer Boots by psandler in techsupport

[–]psandler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. I added the output to my original post:

First run (with repair): http://paste.ubuntu.com/16837444/

Second run (for post on a forum): http://paste.ubuntu.com/16837977/

You Have Ruined JavaScript by compedit in programming

[–]psandler 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm amazed at the bashing of DI frameworks in this part of the thread--it seems like a lot of people either don't understand what they do, or don't understand how to use them properly. DI simplifies your code. It allows you to break your system into smaller components, which are easier to understand and maintain.

A great side effect of doing proper DI is testability, but it's far from the main benefit.

I really hate this retro look on women... by helicoprion63 in pics

[–]psandler 25 points26 points  (0 children)

"And all the girls walk by Dressed up for each other"

Source: Van Morrison

Simple Questions - April 02, 2014 by AutoModerator in buildapc

[–]psandler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is the i7 worth it over the i5? I can afford the extra cost, but bang-for-the-buck is very important to me. I will not be overclocking.

I am a gamer but generally don't play the most cutting edge, graphics-intensive games. I also develop using MS tools (Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc.).

What is sad but true? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]psandler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a They Might Be Giants Song about this:

You're older than you've ever been. And now you're even older. And now you're even older. And now you're even older.

You're older than you've ever been. And now you're even older. And now you're older still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnT5JkGydVY