#automating software

[benotafraid111]

[lazeecomet]

The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes

Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background

WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent

As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.

the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file

later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.

this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.

now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us

so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!

select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]

if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.

You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers

NOBODY in the field like this.

But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue

see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate

This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.

this gave me an idea

and i checked

and Power Automate had hooks for KQL

KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs

I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did

the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.

it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams

it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too

it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs

it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV

it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint

it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)

if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min

it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files

it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)

and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully

I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.

about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file

it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage

SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job

now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).

im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it

[ovaryacted]

Randomly ranting about AI.

The thing that’s so fucking frustrating to me when it comes to chat ai bots and the amount of people that use those platforms for whatever godamn reason, whether it be to engage with the bots or make them, is that they’ll complain that reading/creating fanfic is cringe or they don’t like reader-inserts or roleplaying with others in fandom spaces. Yet the very bots they’re using are mimicking the same methods they complain about as a base to create spaces for people to interact with characters they like. Where do you think the bots learned to respond like that? Why do you think you have to “train” AI to tailor responses you’re more inclined to like? It’s actively ripping off of your creativity and ideas, even if you don’t write, you are taking control of the scenario you want to reenact, the same things writers do in general.

Some people literally take ideas that you find from fics online, word for word bar for bar, taking from individuals who have the capacity to think with their brains and imagination, and they’ll put it into the damn ai summary, and then put it on a separate platform for others so they can rummage through mediocre responses that lack human emotion and sensuality. Not only are the chat bots a problem, AI being in writing software and platforms too are another thing. AI shouldn’t be anywhere near the arts, because ultimately all it does is copy and mimic other people’s creations under the guise of creating content for consumption. There’s nothing appealing or original or interesting about what AI does, but with how quickly people are getting used to being forced to used AI because it’s being put into everything we use and do, people don’t care enough to do the labor of reading and researching on their own, it’s all through ChatGPT and that’s intentional.

I shouldn’t have to manually turn off AI learning software on my phone or laptop or any device I use, and they make it difficult to do so. I shouldn’t have to code my own damn things just to avoid using it. Like when you really sit down and think about how much AI is in our day to day life especially when you compare the different of the frequency of AI usage from 2 years ago to now, it’s actually ridiculous how we can’t escape it, and it’s only causing more problems.

People’s attention spans are deteriorating, their capacity to come up with original ideas and to be invested in storytelling is going down the drain along with their media literacy. It hurts more than anything cause we really didn’t have to go into this direction in society, but of course rich people are more inclined to make sure everybody on the planet are mindless robots and take whatever mechanical slop is fucking thrown at them while repressing everything that has to deal with creativity and passion and human expression.

The frequency of AI and the fact that it’s literally everywhere and you can’t escape it is a symptom of late stage capitalism and ties to the rise of fascism as the corporations/individuals who create, manage, and distribute these AI systems could care less about the harmful biases that are fed into these systems. They also don’t care about the fact that the data centers that hold this technology need so much water and energy to manage it it’s ruining our ecosystems and speeding up climate change that will have us experience climate disasters like with what’s happening in Los Angeles as it burns.

I pray for the downfall and complete shutdown of all ai chat bot apps and websites. It’s not worth it, and the fact that there’s so many people using it without realizing the damage it’s causing it’s so frustrating.

[mechanicx]

[evg]

in so deep into modding sims 3 that I made a script to mass change 2000 cc files' hex header 😭😭😭😭😭

[champagnemoon]

Jobs not even bothering to formally reject you after three rounds of interviews is so crazy…like lowkey what’s going on in Human Resources departments lmaooo

[abathurofficial]

Abathur

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[queen-mabs-revenge]

ok the second last chapter was the best one because in fairness it actually did address encoded biases in both generative and predictive AI datasets and violent outcomes for oppressed groups in policing, healthcare, resource distribution, etc. and it did make mention of the horrific exploitation of workers in the neocolonial world in cleaning datasets, moderating virtual spaces, tagging, transcribing, and other digital sweatshop work.

but the problem is that the solutions offered are more women in STEM and better regulations... with the end goal always always always of accepting and facilitating the existence and forward motion of these technologies, just with more equitable working conditions and outcomes. early in the book, there's a great aside about how generative AI being used for new forms of image based sexual abuse causes incredible harm to those who experience misogyny and also is gobbling up energy and water at exponential rates to do so. but that environmental angle gets a few sentences and is never spoken of again in favour of boosting a kinder, more inclusive inevitable AI inundated future.

but like — the assumption that these technologies are both inevitable and reformable makes all the solutions offered untethered and idealistic!

profit is mentioned throughout the book, but the system of profit generation isn't mentioned by name once. so the problems of some machine learning systems get attributed to patriarchy and profit as if those two things are separate and ahistorical, instead of products of class society with its most recent expression in capitalism.

but yeah I mean it's not presenting itself as a Marxist analysis of AI and gendered violence so I know I'm asking it to do things it was never setting out to do. but still, it's wild how when you start to criticise technology as having class character it becomes glaring how few critiques of AI, both generative and predictive, are brave enough to actual state the obvious conclusions: not all technology can be harnessed to help the collective working class. some technology is at its root created to be harmful to the collective wellbeing of the working class and the natural ecosystems we are in and of.

technology isn't inherently agnostic. it isn't neutral and then progressive if harnessed correctly, and that idealist vision is only going to throw the people and entities capitalism most exploits into the furnace of the steam engine powering the technocapitalist death drive.

you can't build a future without misogyny using tools designed to capitalise on increasingly granular data gathered from ever-increasing tools of surveillance, to black-box algorithmic substitutions for human interaction and knowledge, to predate on marginalised communities to privatise and destroy their natural resources and public services, and to function on exploited labour of unending exposure to the most traumatising and community-destroying content. and we have to be ruthless in our analysis to determine which AI technologies are designed and reliant on those structures — because not all are!

you have to be brave enough to go through all that analysis and say the thing: if we want a future of technological progress that is actually free from misogyny, we can't build it with those tools that are built by and for the capitalist class and are inextricable from their interests and the oppression of other groups of people that capitalism needs to perpetuate.

some technology is not fit for purpose if our purpose is collective liberation.

[smilyboyy]

🚀 I Built AutoFillix – A Smart Chrome Extension to Autofill Forms Instantly

Like many developers, I was tired of filling out the same details over and over — name, email, phone number — every time I submitted a job form, Google Form, or sign-up page.

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Autofills common fields (name, email, phone, etc.)

Works on Google Forms and regular web forms

Stores your data locally (no login, no cloud)

Is completely free and easy to use

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AutoFillix respects your privacy. Your data stays in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.

🧩 Try It Out:

👉 Install AutoFillix from the Chrome Web Store

💬 Feedback Welcome:

This is just the beginning! If you have suggestions or ideas, feel free to comment. 😊

[magtecbusinesssolutions]

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[benotafraid111]

[apnalead]

Apnalead CRM – Your All-in-One Solution to Convert More Leads, Faster

[asteamtechnosolutions]

AVEVA (Wonderware) System Platform

SCADA, HMI, MES, and IIoT applications, AVEVA System Platform (previously Wonderware System Platform) is a unified operations center solution that offers an open, adaptable, and scalable architecture. In manufacturing and infrastructure operations, it provides a common basis for supervisory control, data collection, and real-time display.

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[mechanicx]

[chatbotteam001]

How to Bold, Italicise, Underline, and Strikethrough Text in WhatsApp (2025)

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