It's true. I code a lot "by instinct", and when I need to explain to my co-workers why the way I suggest is better than the slop they coded, then I actually hesitate and sometimes struggle as my brain needs to first load all the logical reasons why my code is better, as well as putting all that abstract reasoning into words.

If you've done something long enough it becomes an instinct. Like playing an instrument or just walking - if you have to think about it, you will not be really good at it.

Counterfeiting, durability, even more plastic pollution in the environment... yes, plenty of reasons.

Tomorrow: "Intel integrated graphics beat NVidia in portable devices!"

Nvidia: Rock
Intel: Paper
AMD: Scissors

No amount of evidence is going to convince an idiot in an idiot-bubble.
It's all a conspiracy! Trump said so on "Truth Social", which is doublespeak for "Antisocial Misinformation".
What a dystopia we live in.

In case there was ever any doubt: Putin's Russia is a terrorist - mafia state.
Ever wonder why all terrorists and insurgents across the world are armed with AK rifles? Because the Russian government is only interested in making money and will sell their weapons to anyone.
After toppling Syrian dictator and Russian ally Assad, they uncovered his drug-labs and huge stockpiles of Captagon. He was one of the biggest drug dealers in the world.
Other allies of Russia are the worst regimes in the world, interested only in maintaining their hold on power, or terrorist organizations: North Korea, Iran, Hamas.
Russia also funds mercenaries in Africa to exploit resources like golds and diamonds, terrorizing locals, sometimes blackmailing governments.
If the current Russian regime went away and Russia become a normal democratic nation, the conflict level in the world would almost instantly drop by 50%.

PayPal is also a scummy company. They messed up a large payment of mine for airline tickets - they money was subtracted from my account, but not received by the airline, so I didn't get the tickets. I was then able to revert the payment on my bank account.
PayPal sent their lawyers after me, demanding repayment. Fortunately I made screenshots of everything (which I always do with large payments) showing all transactions and emails that no payment was received, sent all evidence to PayPal lawyers and in turn asked them for evidence that they did the payment to the airline.

I never received feedback, and they just silently closed my account.

The claim about windmills in this big-oil propaganda speech that he delivers is completely wrong.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018...

Here's a guy who drank all of Elon's kool-aid.

"Free Speech" is abused as a pretext to mean "don't regulate us, at all". Social media platforms like X thrive on engagement, so the more controversial assholes like Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, racists, bigots and other lunatics you have on the platform, the better. They post sensationalist nonsense, fake news, literal Russian propaganda, anything that will get the double whammy of enagement: words of approval from their fans, as well as the outrage from their detractors.
Social media has become a cancer of disinformation, addiction, and unhappiness. Elon Musks' X is the worst of all.

It's related to the halving and central bank liquidity cycles. Not political parties.
You can research all of that if you're interested.

You don't get it, do you? 20 years ago you could perfectly well buy the ticket on the train without issues. The correct assumption was that you're a "client" and were treated as such. It didn't really make sense to jump on the train without ticket with the intent to avoid the fare, since the ticket inspector would regularly cross the entire train and check all passengers.

Nowadays that is no more an option. No ticket - you're a fare dodger and be ready to be treated roughly. That is a severe deterioration in service.

There are all sorts of reasons why sometimes you might want to catch a train without having enough time to buy the ticket. Trains are ubiquitous in Germany and are used also for short travels. For sure getting a ticket is much easier now that there are apps, but that is missing the point, which is about the decline in service and hospitality towards passengers.

First of all, why are you so angry? Are you one of those people who confuses wisdom with being a cynical asshole?

Did you read what I wrote? Buying tickets inside the train (with a small surcharge) wasn't an issue 20 years ago. Sometimes you are in a hurry, the ticket machine is out of order and all the counters are busy, because only one of the five available is occupied, with a long line of people waiting to be serviced!

No, that is certainly not the reason for delays.
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys...
https://www.bundesrechnungshof...
https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

You should really grow up and work on your communication skills. Just being a cynical asshole calling people "asshole fuckwits" and accusing them of "fucked-up worldview" probably isn't the best way to get your arguments accross. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt now, but I'm beginning to be less patient and starting to just completely ignore and stop reading comments as soon as my sensors pick up a cynical, disparaging tone. Life's too short.

I've also consistently observed this in many areas: while things consistently get "bigger" and more expensive, the quality of service plummets. For example, the Deutsche Bahn. Railway tickets are so much more expensive than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago, even adjusted for inflation. But the service and quality has declined in several ways. 20 years ago you could board a train and buy the ticket inside the train, from the ticket inspector. Nowadays, if you're on the train without a ticket, you're treated like a criminal: they want your ID and all your details to send you the fine, and will hold you if you refuse to show them. There is also a real crisis of punctuality and infrastructure.

You'd think that with GDP rising almost every year and immense productivity increases of the last decades, things would get cheaper, service better, infrastructure would improve..., but instead in many areas there seems to be stagnation or even decline.
At the same time you hear the news that the extremely rich just keep getting richer. Not surprising when CEO's give themselves 50% wage increases, while employees are laid off for "cost savings" the next year, and inflation adjusted wages for the working class have declined since a generation. Or who can afford to buy a house and a car in a single earner family these days?

I suppose this answers the question of where all that wealth generation from efficiency and productivity increases ends up going.

I will look into it. Thanks!

Excel is great. It's needed.
But I will never understand why it so horribly mangles the data I copy pasted from SQL Server, so that I have to go into each column, change formatting, copy the data again, to fix it.
Just default to basic text format instead of trying to convert things into dates or exponential number representations or whatever you dumbass piece of shit software!

This recent article from The Atlantic is on point on the subject. Unfortunately behind a paywall, but I think you get one free read:

What's with all the Trump VC's?