While the fee itself is overall dumb, it wasn't a fee for just "unplugging a cord". It was a fee for unplugging a very specific cord to the equipment that monitors the for-purchase, in-room snacks/accessories (like a minibar fridge but not a fridge). That piece of equipment uses pressure-sensitive triggers to charge guests for items that are removed, so if it's unplugged, presumably, it wouldn't accurately monitor those things or know what to charge for.

Yes, still, the fee is absurd for what it is, but those people would have been totally find if they had unplugged the lamp instead of that thing.

And that hotel should absolutely do a better job of either making that fee known or hiding/securing that plug (but why would they bother to do that when they can make $50 every time someone mistakenly unplugs it).

The way this guy is hammering the same point again and again kinda smacks of desperation. Yes, I've seen amazing coders with no degrees, but i have yet to see anyone without a degree knowing quantum field theory. And yes, quantum field theory has very limited uses and also yes, over 50% of people with degrees could do their jobs without a degree, but I wouldn't want a medical doctor that learned their trade on the job. Why does this guy needs to show his disdain towards people with degrees I don't know, but he seems to have a problem with that.

I just switched both of our lines from T-Mobile to US Mobile - and so far, so good. Got a promo that was basically 2 unlimited lines (1 "premium" and 1 "starter") for 1 year for $390. Yes, we paid for the full year up front - but it works out to just a hair over $16/mo. total. We were paying $144/mo. with T-Mobile. Outrageous - even with all of the "perks" that T-Mobile offered.

For all practical purposes, until our actual voting system changes, voting 3rd party is probably the worst option. The math essentially makes a third party vote one for the person you like the least.

I've always liked this video on FPTP (first past the post) voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (especially at about the 5 min mark and the "spoiler effect")
And then some additional detail on the "alternative vote": https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Not that the AV is necessarily the "right" answer - but FPTP isn't it. People in the US are obviously free to vote for whichever candidate they choose, but our system will basically never allow a third party candidate any kind of reasonable chance to win without a drastic overhaul.

They've FINALLY restarted construction on the Jeddah Tower - why not get that done first and the whole "economic city" around it and then worry about the next one. It's taken them almost a decade just to start building again.

is to wipe my arse and wash me when I'm too old to do so myself. Because this is what is the really udignified part of being old and I would hate to impose on humans to do so... And sounds easier and less likely to go wrong than operations....

In addition about how technically unfeasible this is for various reasons mentioned above: by now we have learned how evolution works. They limited advanced chips and DeepSeek come with advanced methods. They tried to limit Huawei and it is stronger than even. You limit the chips and Chinese will learn how to make good enough replacements. And in 10 years their replacements will be competitive, while if you just let them buy the chips they would remain dependent on your tech.

You can go to "Customize GPT" and explain under traits and it should be polite and patient, but not sycopanthic, to never congratulate me on my question and to not ask follow-up questions. Then it becomes saner.

This could genuinely be useful. I often find myself paying $5 more for the same product on amazon vs retyping my address and CC number of umpteenth time. If an AI agent could do it for me, I would pick the cheaper option. (only as long as MC is willing to pick up the tab, when AI screws up)

If would be very cunning for EU to offer to host it for N years, fully fund its base operations and *shield it from any political interference*, i.e. own it but give it absolute and unrevokable editoral freedom.

I have never ever seen anybody exiting Performance Improvement Plan (and I have seen a few) and survive with a job. The sole purpose of PIP is to shield the company / institution from being sued for wrongful dismissal.
The moment you are on PIP you should be looking for a new job. No point even in trying, just cash in the last few salaries.

I haven't completely deactivated mine as I have a club page that I occasionally need to admin on - but I've stopped using it for myself for at least the past 18 months or so. The thing was that I wasn't missing "updates" from friends or family or anything - because almost no one actually posts updates about themselves or what's going on in their lives anymore (at least not in my circles).

Almost everything I was seeing was just sharing of generic memes and stories from the alphabet soup of "funny" Facebook pages. I don't need FB to see memes. Or to see anything funny. There was just no value in anything in my feed anymore. Just that and the ever-increasing number of ads, "do you know these people" blocks, irrelevant stories, suggestions, etc. So why bother? All of that on top of the things you mention like mental health, tech bros, and so on.

I work for a big national lab and I can make a few observations:

a) Postdocs that have already accepted a job are having second thoughts. Statistically speaking, the likelihood of being detained by the ICE with a valid visa is probably about the same as the airplane suffering a catastrophic issue, but for human perception this does not matter. US is just not attractive any more. Nobody wants to enter a country where you are looked up with suspicion. The fact that the salary just dropped 10% in EUR is also not promising.

b) You would be shocked just how much US research institutions rely on foreigners. It seems immigrants support both ends of the economic chain: slaughterhouses and agri jobs on one end and high tech jobs at the other with natives filling in the middle. There are grants for which you need to be a citizen and they are so much easier to get simply because there are so few of them.

c) The mood is totally depressed. We had cuts this year despite CR with draconiam further cuts next year. And I'm talking about physics, not sociology of woke people. Everybody is sniffing for an exit.

It is not more accurate than GPS. It is more accurate than " traditional GPS backup systems (like Inertial Navigation Systems or INS)" as per f'in summary on slashdot. INS basically means take accelerometers and integrate in time twice.
So, no, I'm not going out of bed for this.

I was decent coder before entering university. And I could probably pick up some skills and some maths along the way while doing stuff.

But to really understand how Fourier transforms work you need to go to college. And spend real time thinking about it vs picking something as you go along.

So, no, I would not recommend this to anyone who wants to be something more than a coding monkey.