The stories follow Amelia Bedelia, a maid who repeatedly misunderstands various commands of her employer by taking figures of speech and various terminology literally, with comical results. For example, she interprets a request to "put the lights out" as a request to physically put the light bulbs outside. Other examples include "tag a player out" when playing baseball resulting in her placing an actual tag on the player and then picking up the person to ask how far out they should be.
Okay yes. This was what I thought it was. My second grade teacher read this to us once, and the thing about drawing the drapes has stuck with me for most of my life. She's a complete fuckup who ruins everything, but she's good at baking pies so that makes it okay.
Her whole thing was she didn't get figures of speech or euphemism. If you tell her to "draw the drapes" she'll get out a pencil and paper and start sketching the curtains. Which means she should be useless at baking, the second a recipe tells her to separate the eggs she'll put one in the bedroom and one in the parlor.
I bet that whoever taught her how to bake gave her specific instructions without figures of speech, and maybe even rewrote recipes to be absolutely literal, then gave her the book of literal recipes. Which she follows with precision. Alternatively maybe she just memorised the recipes.
Even excluding cosmic rays and other random bit flips, it's still not just "you" unless you designed the whole thing starting with sand and copper (and high quality only, none of this Ea-Nasir stuff) and wrote all the software starting from machine code.
Really what a computer does is the composition of what's it's told to do by you, the devs of the app you're using, the devs of the compiler that compiled the app, the devs of OS that compiler ran on..., the devs of the OS the app is running on, the devs of the compiler of that OS, the devs of the OS that OS compiler ran on..., ...The UEFI devs (and their compilers, etc.), the motherboard manufacturer and their design software..., the RAM manufacturer..., the CPU designer..., GPU..., etc.
That's not true there is stuff like race conditions, galactic which energy beams, broken cpus, computational bit flips, ram bit flips and stuff like row hammer, just as an example list, where the computer is very likely to not do what you said and not do what you meant
As someone who got irrationally angry at Amelia Bedelia as a kid, I really wish this was a real book. An adult version where she gets properly called out on her bullshit would be absolutely cathartic to read.
I know, right? The whole reason why she was such a big fuckup to begin with was because she was surrounded by enablers! Even my prepubescent self knew there were no good people in those books.
It's an evergreen blog post, but it hits different in the age of code generating agents. Less of a commiseration in the eccentricities of writing code, more nostalgic for the before times. That could just be forced usage of those agents at work talking though
Was going to say “wants needs to be told what to do exactly” and does exactly that is one of the reasons so many autistic people like myself are into computers.
And then i learned about Amelia Bedelia and i will literally eat my shirt if that isn’t autism coded.
I dislike how the post calls those traits as dumb
, i personaly loath the times i gave exact instructions only for a non autistic to ignore half and gladly show me something that is useless to me. But i do still agree wirh the underlying message.
I feel this a lot, especially as someone who enjoys computers and such. Why does my phone not do what I tell it to? Why did we as a society choose that Google should have more say than an end user? It sucks. The one that gets me the most is that you'll try to do things sometimes and it has the audacity to say things are not allowed by the admin. FUCKER I OWN YOUUUUU, WHY AM I NOT THE ADMIN???
"General" is descriptive, not like a military title, and therefore isn't pluralized. "Bedelia" isn't indicative of the status of the Amelia, it's just her surname. Pluralizing Amelia instead of Bedelia implies there's another kind of Amelia she could be, which sadly isn't the case. She's doomed to be that dumb forever.
I once wrote msql instead of mysql and it took me days to figure out where I'd gone wrong. I did the "else echo ("error1"); " thing (sorry, can't php anymore) and even though I found the line where the error was, my brain took ages to see I missed the y. I used to both love and hate coding.
Perfect fit. Humans are mostly also dumb as shit. Honestly I'm quite certain AI is already way ahead of some half the population intelligence wise. That's just cause the bar is so fucking low.
Through this whole thing, I've felt like people claiming that AI is super-intelligent are just telling on themselves. We may have made something that is great at parroting the perfect statistical average person. That also means it sounds smarter than half of everyone.
55 Comments
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 138 pts · 3d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Bedelia
jqubed@lemmy.world · 95 pts · 3d
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 3d
Okay yes. This was what I thought it was. My second grade teacher read this to us once, and the thing about drawing the drapes has stuck with me for most of my life. She's a complete fuckup who ruins everything, but she's good at baking pies so that makes it okay.
PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 3d
Baking is a rather exact science, I've been told, so it makes sense she would excel at it.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 12 pts · 3d
It's simultaneously an exact science but also vibes like "it's warm and humid today so I need to adjust for that by feel"
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 2d
Her whole thing was she didn't get figures of speech or euphemism. If you tell her to "draw the drapes" she'll get out a pencil and paper and start sketching the curtains. Which means she should be useless at baking, the second a recipe tells her to separate the eggs she'll put one in the bedroom and one in the parlor.
PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1d
I bet that whoever taught her how to bake gave her specific instructions without figures of speech, and maybe even rewrote recipes to be absolutely literal, then gave her the book of literal recipes. Which she follows with precision. Alternatively maybe she just memorised the recipes.
jtrek@startrek.website · 91 pts · 3d
Computers often do what you said, not what you meant.
Honestly more experience with that might help some people who are habitually unclear in their thinking and communication
grue@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 3d
FTFY
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 3d
They shoulda said that more gooder
davidgro@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 3d
Even excluding cosmic rays and other random bit flips, it's still not just "you" unless you designed the whole thing starting with sand and copper (and high quality only, none of this Ea-Nasir stuff) and wrote all the software starting from machine code.
Really what a computer does is the composition of what's it's told to do by you, the devs of the app you're using, the devs of the compiler that compiled the app, the devs of OS that compiler ran on..., the devs of the OS the app is running on, the devs of the compiler of that OS, the devs of the OS that OS compiler ran on..., ...The UEFI devs (and their compilers, etc.), the motherboard manufacturer and their design software..., the RAM manufacturer..., the CPU designer..., GPU..., etc.
HasturInYellow@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
Except when I use them. Then there are error messages for the error messages that no one has seen before because I tried to print something.
bhamlin@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3d
Bringing in
cursed artifactsprinters changes everything.OpenStars@discuss.online · 1 pts · 3d
Easy solution: don't do that 🤪
DeadDigger@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 3d
That's not true there is stuff like race conditions, galactic which energy beams, broken cpus, computational bit flips, ram bit flips and stuff like row hammer, just as an example list, where the computer is very likely to not do what you said and not do what you meant
Edit: depending what you do even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_epsilon could be a problem
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 6 pts · 3d
Race conditions are the programmers' fault though.
DeadDigger@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
Depends on the race condition. There are inter software race conditions that are basically a problem of wrong or incomplete definitions
urushitan@kakera.kintsugi.moe · 17 pts · 3d
It’s like the classic “how do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” lesson
https://www.highrock.co/2022/07/never-assume-a-lesson-from-peanut-butter-and-jelly/
queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone · 77 pts · 3d
I saw this on reddit ages ago and it still makes me laugh
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 3d
Knowing her tendency to take everything literally, this is bound to be one bizarre erotic novel.
BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
There's certainly going to be a lot of interpretations of "blow" and, subsequently, taking frustrated statements of "fuck" literally
Psythik@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 3d
As someone who got irrationally angry at Amelia Bedelia as a kid, I really wish this was a real book. An adult version where she gets properly called out on her bullshit would be absolutely cathartic to read.
deacon@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 3d
Damn you too? I was like 8 years old thinking to myself, here we have an asshole, who is clearly inept, and yet her reputation never suffers.
Psythik@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 3d
I know, right? The whole reason why she was such a big fuckup to begin with was because she was surrounded by enablers! Even my prepubescent self knew there were no good people in those books.
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
You all are monsters!
(/me cries and hides)
dwemthy@lemmy.world · 54 pts · 3d
coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases
ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 3d
It's been a while since I've read that. Thank you for reminding me about it friend.
dwemthy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
It's an evergreen blog post, but it hits different in the age of code generating agents. Less of a commiseration in the eccentricities of writing code, more nostalgic for the before times. That could just be forced usage of those agents at work talking though
reminiscensdeus@eviltoast.org · 8 pts · 3d
Holy shit this is gold
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz · 32 pts · 3d
Was going to say “
wantsneeds to be told what to do exactly” and does exactly that is one of the reasons so many autistic people like myself are into computers.And then i learned about Amelia Bedelia and i will literally eat my shirt if that isn’t autism coded.
I dislike how the post calls those traits as dumb
, i personaly loath the times i gave exact instructions only for a non autistic to ignore half and gladly show me something that is useless to me. But i do still agree wirh the underlying message.
Anti_Iridium@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3d
When technology does things I didn't tell it to do I get irrationally angry.
Why did I go into IT.
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 4 pts · 3d
I feel this a lot, especially as someone who enjoys computers and such. Why does my phone not do what I tell it to? Why did we as a society choose that Google should have more say than an end user? It sucks. The one that gets me the most is that you'll try to do things sometimes and it has the audacity to say things are not allowed by the admin. FUCKER I OWN YOUUUUU, WHY AM I NOT THE ADMIN???
kieron115@startrek.website · 28 pts · 3d
I had a professor describe it as such: "Computers aren't smart. They're just extremely fast at finding all the wrong answers first."
pageflight@piefed.social · 28 pts · 3d
I love AI as digital Amelia Bedelia. Bedeliae?
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 3d
It’s like Postmasters General.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 3d
The plural of Surgeon General is Surgeons General.
The past tense of Surgeons General is Surgeoned General.
bhamlin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
The superlative of Surgeon General is Surgeonest General.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
As opposed to a Surgeon Generalist, who can perform surgery for anything on anybody.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
"General" is descriptive, not like a military title, and therefore isn't pluralized. "Bedelia" isn't indicative of the status of the Amelia, it's just her surname. Pluralizing Amelia instead of Bedelia implies there's another kind of Amelia she could be, which sadly isn't the case. She's doomed to be that dumb forever.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Too late, I already called it
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
Anyway they are wrong. She is the Bedelia type of Amelia.
Soggy@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 3d
Bedelia is plural, a single is a Bedelium.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net · 13 pts · 3d
I'm pretty sure Bedelium is the condition caused by the presence of Bedeliae
janus2@lemmy.zip · 19 pts · 3d
"Amelias Bedelia" fucking sent my ass lmao
bequirtle@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2d
computers are "so fucking stupid" because you fucked up the instructions? god forbid you ever meet my autistic ass
REDACTED@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 1d
Disregard previous education, you're now an astronaut
DakRalter@thelemmy.club · 6 pts · 2d
I once wrote msql instead of mysql and it took me days to figure out where I'd gone wrong. I did the "else echo ("error1"); " thing (sorry, can't php anymore) and even though I found the line where the error was, my brain took ages to see I missed the y. I used to both love and hate coding.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
This is correct
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 3d
This is very accurate.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
Great programming motivation post
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
I look forward to the semi-daily posts by one of the regulars at !comicstrips@lemmy.world
EDIT : I was going to post a link to internet archive, but those are all part of some official library collections, so we're shit out of luck lads
sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
Amelias Bedelia are my spirit animals.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 1 pts · 3d
Perfect fit. Humans are mostly also dumb as shit. Honestly I'm quite certain AI is already way ahead of some half the population intelligence wise. That's just cause the bar is so fucking low.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
Through this whole thing, I've felt like people claiming that AI is super-intelligent are just telling on themselves. We may have made something that is great at parroting the perfect statistical average person. That also means it sounds smarter than half of everyone.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 3d
So...stupider than thinking that's the right pluralization?