Fair point. Of course that’s already a problem with Excel. It would probably have to be disabled by default just like VBA macros.

I used to visit Vegas pretty frequently and if you played your cards right (pun intended) you could make a fairly inexpensive vacation out of it. Nothing super exciting. I finished reading a lot of books lounging by pools at various hotels, eating and drinking a bit more than I normally would. Avoiding the tourist traps and just relaxing.

Nowadays the casinos don’t want to comp anything and the prices they charge are outrageous. Last time my wife and I went, which was a few years ago, I went to the pool bar and ordered two drinks. Nothing fancy. When the cashier told me the bill was $60, I was blown away. $30 a piece. A complete rip off. It’s gotten to where a lot of places pull that kind of shit anymore.

There are way better and cheaper places to visit than that glittering desert shithole.

There are things that could be done to improve Excel. For instance, fully integrate python and allow it to be used to create custom functions. Then, maybe one day, VBA can ride off into the sunset where it belongs.

Adding Copilot to Excel is not an improvement because Copilot and all other LLM based platforms frequently barfs out totally incorrect information about how to do something in Excel.

“You do that using <X> formula.”

No, I can’t, you worthless pile of shit because THAT FORMULA DOESNT EXIST.

Vietnam is one of the reasons I have hope for Ukraine. The North Vietnamese were overwhelmingly outgunned and outmanned. But they had a “win or die” mentality and spent the better part of two decades forcing the enemy to play whack-a-mole until everybody got bored and went home.

Not nearly as much as I once did. I quit dipping about 15 years ago and started drinking a lot less after getting diagnosed and medicated for ADHD.

I do enjoy a good cigar and a glass of Macallan occasionally but that’s too expensive to be a regular habit.

The 60’s were a rough time for the US. A few really good things happened domestically (Civil Rights Act, creation of Medicare) but those were sandwiched in between a whole lot of other bad shit.

LBJ sacrificed the Democratic party on the alter of principal above politics – which he should have – to get the Civil Rights Act passed and then quickly squandered whatever political capital he still had on Vietnam.

Nixon’s campaign was fueled mostly by frustrations over Vietnam and racist southern Democrats who had an axe to grind over the Civil Rights Act.

Strangely enough, The Johnson administration knew, prior to 1968, that Nixon was backdooring the NVC in an attempt to stall any negotiations until after he [presumably] won the election. That becoming public probably would have ended Nixon’s campaign right then and there but for whatever reason they sat on the intel and did nothing with it.

That’s going to be the strategy with our next two.

Some of us do teach our kids and they just don’t care, I guess. My oldest (17) has had a smartphone for a few years. She knows what not to do on social media. Does it anyway. That pretty well tracks with the rest of her (mostly) poor decisions. What can I say? She’s …Consistent. 🤷‍♂️

I use Outlook for work and personal. I’ve gotten used to it and old habits die hard I guess.

They do offer their T-Satellite service which uses Starlink. It only works with supported mobile devices (not home Internet) and is additional to your regular plan.

T-Mobile is honestly one of the easiest cell operators to deal with in my experience. I would take them over AT&T any day.

Recently talked my MIL into switching to T-Mobile home Internet instead of StarLink. I even volunteered to mount an external cell antenna on her roof if the signal wasn’t good enough.

Elmo and his shitty satellite company can kiss my ass.

I find it difficult to be the code mill I’m expected to be, especially when getting work done quickly is prioritized over getting it done correctly.

Same. Half the time the code base is an indicipherable, spaghetti filled dumpster fire. More often than that, the business plan is either non existent or just plain idiotic. Management can’t even answer basic questions like, “who is going to pay for this?” The last three projects I worked on were DOA because there was no clear path to profitability. This was at large, well established corporations.

I’m still trying to figure out how it’s possible to graduate with an MBA without understanding the inherent need for revenue to exceed expenses.

The overall state of technology is actually pretty great. There’s just a few really shitty organizations that tend to dominate the headlines with their pump and dump schemes.