I’m all for high speed rail in the US, but comparing the land area of the two countries is not really that relevant.

China’s network is really focused on about a third of the land area. US could do the same, but the big population hubs are separated and on opposite sides of the country, so it’s less ideal - lot of track to connect the two. It’s like 2-3x the distance to connect LA/NYC vs Chongqing/Shanghai.

China also has 4x the population of the US. So the cost/benefit to build this out is simply much more favorable for china.

Most importantly, China’s autocratic government can clear the red tape to get big projects like this done. Just getting the land rights to build the right track could kill a transcontinental project in the US. But that decision is consolidated in the Chinese government. This cuts time and cost immensely.

I have the premium lite or whatever. If a video is coded as a “music video”, they still have commercials.

Total bullshit. First, why is that a distinction? I should get commercial free regardless of the type of video.

Second, they consider a lot of normal videos to be “music videos”. Basically if there is a substantial amount of music, it’s a “music video”. This includes visualizations with generic music in the background.

Third, I’ve still gotten some ads on mobile for some reason. It’s crazy to me.

Idk phones are a lot better these days. My 14 Pro is going very strong. I’m not to 5 years yet, but think it’s got 1-2 years left easily, maybe more.

The battery is definitely not as good as new, but it easily lasts a day, which is all you really need.

And no complaints about performance either. Honestly there’s nothing about the new phones that appeals to me.

Paid by whom? Lmao how completely bizarre.

That’s not true. It’s only a competition if we have a decent chance at winning.

We could switch to Big Gulp sizing?

Yeah I’ve done that in a few cases where python is the better tool for the job (pulling new data, cleaning up in a consistent way, and generating reports), but it’s not a great solution for certain workstreams. Especially if you are collaborating with other people who aren’t tech savvy

Probably. Even the Mac version of Office is slightly shittier.

And it works. I’d love to have a Mac at work, but I absolutely need the windows version of excel to do my job effectively

I’ve tried a bunch of spreadsheet programs. They are all painful to use compared to excel.

Sure, you can type up some basic calcs in LibreOffice or Numbers or whatever, but none of these could replicate the stuff I do daily for work in excel unfortunately.

That said, the lack of suitable alternatives did get me to learn Python for personal use. And that opened up a whole new world for things I do at work too. Things that would have been a headache in excel are a couple lines in Python. It’s great (obviously very different use cases from typical spreadsheets)

Oh I’m not talking about those gambling sites. That’s just my personal view on the odds for this race.

Lot of support for Talarico - I’ve seen maybe 30+ Talarico signs for every Paxton sign (I’ve seen only one Paxton sign so far…)

But I just still think the guy with an R next to his name will win.

I’d say it’s the best chance in decades, but Talarico is still <50%.

I’ve used GIMP in the past. I don’t understand it, but it’s free and can do stuff so I’m not going to complain.

But I’d also say that using/being good at GIMP is solidly not “normal” lol. And being on Lemmy is even less normal, so here we are.

It is not, in fact, mathing.

It’s not a technicality. We’re discussing whether chess is a “solved game” or not.

That’s a much different standard than whether Stockfish can reliably beat Magnus Carlsen. Of course the engines are better than humans. They have been for a long time at this point.

Chess is not a solved game. If there was a bot that could provably always draw, that would mean it’s solved (as a draw). To be clear, I’m not saying that the bot would just have a perfect drawing record - I’m saying that it literally could never lose, even when playing against the absolute best possible moves.

This is hilarious

No there is no algorithm that can guarantee a draw.

Aeropress would probably be better than a French press in an office setting. More compact and significantly easier to clean

I just use instant at my office though. I rarely use it, but I prefer it to Keurig or the drip machine in our office.

But I mainly just drive in with a cup of coffee from home.

Eh I always end up with fines and they really bother me.

There are definitely quality levels of filter brewing too. From cheap drip machines that don’t get to the right temperature to really fancy drip machines can effectively simulate a pourover.

Just depends what you like really. Would say that a $20 French press setup will almost certainly produce better coffee than a $20 drip machine, but a better comp is a $20 pour over setup imo.

Idk how you are estimating the “coffee equivalent”, but I’ve found that the generic caffeine estimates for a cup of coffee are too low.

Would recommend looking up how much caffeine is in the amount of beans you use. Caffeine extraction is practically 100% in water.

I think typical estimate is 90-100 mg caffeine in a cup of coffee. With my coffee/water ratio, I think it was ~20% higher. And then the mug I use was much much bigger than a “cup”.

Same in the US. It’s called a homestead exemption