Mak'

I mean, who was it that recently said that he alone (and, well, his AG, too, maybe) is the sole authority in interpreting law? It sure as hell wasn’t Zelensky…

Edit: Accidentally ate a word.

I’m certainly thick as a brick…

OP asked for the worst thing you’ve seen Excel used for…

One has to have a conscience to be bothered by it…

To shreds, you say?

To shreds, you say?

My dad smoked Camels while I was growing up, and, to this day, I still like the smell of them. Reminds me so much of him, and all the little opportunities he took to light up.

Absolutely hated how my clothes would smell after going back to my mom’s, though. Just awful…

I never know what to think when I come across a comment like this one—which does describe, even if only at a surface level, how an LLM works—with 50% downvotes. Like, are people angry at reality, is that it?

It may well be a matter of opinion whether Tesla, even operating at its highest potential, could now overtake the likes of BYD, which is getting extensive help from its government. But, it’s reasonably clear that Tesla’s chances get thinner with every bad decision of Musk’s.

He fucked with the engineering, chasing pennies on critical components, like the lidar. He fucked with the crown jewel of the company—its Supercharger network—by destroying the team, and thereby slowing down rollouts and critical maintenance. He ran his mouth off and chased away folks—like me—who would have otherwise bought, by espousing pants-on-head-crazy crypto-bro viewpoints. Hell, his idea of PR is a poop emoji auto-responder.

It’s just frustrating to see such a great concept—the ubiquitous electric car—be fucked up so badly by the person with the most means to succeed.

What’s hilariously tragic is that he could very likely have his full self-driving if he would just shut his shit-spewing asshole of a mouth for a hot second, and spend some of his ungodly billions on the problem.

There are incredibly bright people out there who can make this stuff a reality. But, it takes paying them well, not shit-talking or overruling them, and giving them the environment for success—e.g., not taking away the radar from the cars.

He just wants to talk a big game without spending any real effort or money on the problem. And, it’s just sad, because he could have his FSD and look like a genius.

Put simply: They’re being lied to. Consistently and perniciously.

The lie is that their vote is going to benefit them somehow. Or that it’s going to hurt someone else exclusively. And, sometimes, it’s both—that it’ll hurt someone else, while bringing a benefit.

In all three cases, the real truth—that they themselves will still suffer—is neatly hidden away.

I’ve recently switched from a Java-exclusive team to a Python-exclusive one, and this is the one thing I truly miss: An actively-maintained library for clear, extensible, fluent assertions. Being back to the likes of assertEquals is fine and all, but not as powerful or concise.

Yay! I can finally afford a hous-… and Blackrock just bought it out from underneath me…

I use ChatGPT and Copilot as search engines, particularly for programming concepts or technical documentation. The way I figure, since these AI companies are scraping the internet to train these models, it’s incredibly likely that they’ve picked up some bit of information that Google and DDG won’t surface because SEO.

I’m getting strong Hide the Pain Harold vibes.…

You know, I don’t actually know. Have been conditioned to avoid using them that I don’t even think about them.

Oh, I acknowledge that.

However, there are two things I get hung up on. One, can’t pay by check—Costco doesn’t accept checks. And, two, the traditional no-limits cards are generally Amex, which they don’t accept—only Visa.

So, yes, while nothing else you said was wrong per se, I’m still left to ponder just how the transaction would go down.

I know everyone’s general focus is on the cost of the thing and how ridiculous it seems, completely ignoring that it’s a Scotch that was aged longer than the overwhelming majority of us—me included—have been alive, and that there are some people for whom that taste is very much worth it.

Me, I’ve wrangled with exactly how you’re meant to pay for the thing and walk out the door with it. Am I bringing $27K—plus tax—worth of cash—three straps of hundos?—to Costco and having the cashier count it? Do I get pulled into the manager’s office instead? Or, do I put this on my Costco Citi Visa? Will they decline it, even if I have the credit limit? Can I sub in another Visa, since that’s all they take? Do I get walked out the door, or do I get a receipt for the checker to sharpie a line through?

The first time I encountered this, it scared the shit out of me. Only by rationally eliminating possibilities was I able to calmly dig in, learn about the Epley Maneuver, and get some relief.

It still pops up on occasion, but a couple of rounds of the Maneuver and I’m usually back to normal.

It’s one of those movies that I put on for giggles one boring evening many moons ago, and spent the whole time going “what the fuck?”