LLMs are cool up to a point. It is pretty neat to see something imitate human speech so convincingly. But that’s it: neat. Like a phone shaped like a hamburger.

For me to be impressed beyond that, your thing needs to either do something that I can’t do better or do something i don’t want to do. I can write a pretty good grade 8 essay. I can summarize a paragraph. I can write a dirty limerick. I can complete my own sentence without punctuation suggestions.

When I want to create something, I want to do it myself. Putting my ideas in order and finding the words to say something meaningful is the fun part. Even when I write a work email or a cover letter, I’m not really interested in help. Either I have something to say (don’t want help), or I rattle it off in one go (don’t need help).

Microsoft, I don’t owe you my attention or my money. Make something useful that doesn’t suck. Impress me.

thanks for answering! that is interesting.

i traveled business class for a job interview one time (the employer paid). what a difference! i got a meal, and it was actually good.

side note: i ate chicken tikka masala in my white interview shirt (nerve-wracking), but i managed to avoid spilling :)

in my country, the black market marijuana trade is run by the same gangs that trade weapons and traffic minors. i buy my weed from the guv’ment store even though it is more expensive, because it supports legitimate retailers and growers. everyone along the supply chain (including me, the buyer) pays taxes to support good schools, hospital, transit…

can you elaborate on what makes it better? i am just curious

Someone downvoted you, but i get it. I’ve used both android and apple. i liked apple better. i can afford to pay a little extra to use the one i prefer.

i must admit, though, that the gap is closing. apple’s edge for convenience and good design has been eroding for 10 years.

They got a lot of stuff wrong, TBH. President Camacho, for all his superficial similarity to Trump, is sincerely invested in helping his country. Reality is way, way worse.

For me, the uniform was liberating. People who wanted to bully me needed to find something more substantive than just my clothes. Bullies tend to be stupid, so this was hard for them.

If your individuality is all tied up in your physical appearance, try to develop your mind a bit. I am nonconformist in a thousand ways, each of which is more important than how i dress.

Damn that’s a slick joke.

if you drop the file in word, it almost looks like you’re working

Vietnamese.

Almost always order the Phở Dặc Biệt. Not sure what it means but it seems to be the deluxe or variety version of pho. Always tasty, and no stomach ache - which is the inevitable result of fast food in my case.

Maybe it depends on the workplace, but i would say no. Everyone in my office is pretty chill and there are no exclusive cliques; there are friend groups but they are much more permeable. Unlike my high school friends, I rarely see my colleagues after work. The people are also more homogeneous- in high school you’re lumped in with a bunch of kids from all different backgrounds: some are headed to college, others to jail, etc. At the office, everyone but the support staff might have advanced degrees (for example). The policy on harassment also makes bullying a very dangerous proposition- way stricter than any school i attended.

You mean subjectively. in countries where circumcision is rare, people think cut dicks look weird.

I am this way. People think i’m being negative, but i don’t mean to be. Problems just jump out at me. Luckily, I found a job where this tendency is valuable.

People who write good documentation never know how much they are appreciated.

I know there are others out there, but I sometimes feel like I am the only person under 50 who loves opera. I have 2 streaming services that I mostly use for watching opera.

I honestly feel like many people would like opera if they gave it a chance. Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Avengers, but without the 30-min CGI fights (no disrespect to those who like fight scenes, but i get bored). My son and I love Mozart’s The Magic Flute; my wife’s favourite is Bizet’s Carmen.

It has started to make me question my sanity. Every week there is a headline like “Tesla sales collapse in Europe and Asia” or “Huge class action suit filed against Tesla” and the result is always the same: TSLA stock goes up.

Fortunately, thou hast not even come close

It’s partly because of how the German elections work. They are a multi-party system and have runoffs when no one wins more than 50% of the vote. The AfD might be the top polling party with only, say, 30%. They win the first round of elections because the opposition is split between many parties, but in the runoff, voters must choose between AfD and the second most popular party. Voters who don’t like the AfD can coalesce to elect the second party, regardless of how they voted in round 1.

That’s how I fixed it too! We can still watch videos on a desktop if there is something specific we want to see, but I never let the algorithm do its work. Youtube recommends this video? Nah.

If I wanted AI I could go to some shit website and use it. Just like I don’t want a “useful free” toilet in my car, I don’t want brain-damaging spyware in my notepad.