I guess now we finally know why Babbage never finished building the Analytical Engine.

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[–] 29 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Legitimately, about 1/3 of the time my mere presence seems to magically fix the issue.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    There was a thread on Reddit where people likewise noted that having another person try problematic software solved the issue. So one commenter regaled how a dude sidestepped the whole rigmarole by saying to his colleague “look, this thing's broken again”, and then before the other guy could step in, he clicked the thing himself, and it worked.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Sometimes I wonder if people really do affect their environment with their thoughts and attitudes and maybe people who believe in ghosts but don't believe in technology can see ghosts and have their tech fail in unexplainable ways, but the presence of someone who understands and believes in it changes the way it works and doesn't see paranormal shit because they don't believe in it.

    Like my ex believed in paranormal stuff and apparently experienced some herself and also had her tech stuff fail spectacularly in ways I couldn't replicate if I tried but would otherwise work fine for me.

    Though I do have a feeling that if their activity on the PC was recorded, it would actually turn out to be just them lying about (or not even knowing) what they did and the behavior of the tech being as logical as usual, given their actions. Or they just ran into a rare race condition and the correct actions fail like 0.3% of the time.

    But it would be more interesting if it was the other thing.

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