To add to this, it is literally impossible to capture 100% of wind power, even in theory, because that would mean bringing the air to a full stop, halting flow. The air must retain some of its energy to continue moving through the system. The theoretical maximum is a little under 60% according to Betz’s Law. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz’s_law

My grandfather used to half-jokingly call them the CIA’s press wing.

Most Republicans don’t. Never have in my lifetime, honestly, but with how hard they fight these days against e.g. feeding the hungry and treating the sick, it’s more glaringly obvious than ever.

Or perhaps you do not understand how Discord is commonly used.

People join dozens of servers. Maybe one for every game they play, every TV show they watch, every podcast they listen to. Everything has a Discord.

Even small Discord servers have many channels. Bigger ones will have dozens or hundreds of channels.

Some servers have millions of users. Most of the servers I’m in have thousands.

Many channels are default for all users in the server.

Not sure what the mathematical average is, but this is certainly common at least, and any alternative that can’t handle this is no alternative at all.

If we’re talking about Matrix as a Discord alternative, then that would mean thousands of channels, each with hundreds or thousands of users, many with constant activity.

I’m not sure if anybody actually uses Matrix at the scale of the average Discord user. Sliding sync is supposed to help, but I don’t think the Matrix architecture can realistically scale that high.

I set up their accounts

Setup is the hardest part. Syncing multiple devices and device migration are also hard. I’ll bet you’re going to act as tech support every time they get a new phone. That’s fine for your family, but it’s hardly going to scale.

The performance issues show up when dealing with large groups syncing between instances. You might just not be using it that way, but that’s what needs to work seamlessly for a viable substitute for Discord.

Matrix is notorious for its poor performance with large/numerous groups. They keep claiming to improve it, but it’s still bad.

I mean, it’s great that it works for you, but be honest: isn’t your tolerance for technological friction a bit higher than the average bear’s? People complain that Mastodon is too hard, and Matrix is ten times worse to sign up for and use.

I hate to say it, but Matrix is never going to be mainstream. Its UX is bad and it seems like it’s too bloated to fix. If I tried to get people to move from Discord to Matrix, they’d never take me seriously again. It was hard enough getting people to move from Facebook Messenger to Signal.

I don’t see how it could possibly be unintentional. It’s too bizarre.

Hmm. According to Wikipedia you are correct, and the original SEQUEL was simply renamed to SQL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#History

I’m not sure how much that original SEQUEL/SQL has in common with later publicly-available SQL implementations. I never personally worked with SEQUEL but I was under the impression it was more of a spiritual predecessor to SQL than a direct ancestor. But I trust Wikipedia more than I trust my my memory here, so I guess I was wrong.

Something like that, yes. More info at https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/431329/what-is-the-correct-pronunciation-of-sqlite with links to videos of Richard Hipp (creator of SQLite) pronouncing it.

I actually couldn’t find a section on pronunciation in the official FAQ, though I think it was there in the past. Still, they do use phrases such as “an SQLite database”, indicating that “SQLite” starts with a vowel sound.

SQL is not traditionally pronounced like “sequel”. Sequel was a whole different language.

Official pronunciation for MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL all pronounce each letter.

But “sequel” is probably more common at this point and some of them include it as an alternate pronunciation now.

Yes, his name is Headmaster Gandalf.

No love for cvs?

Are we so desperate that we want what is basically malware ported to Linux? Ew. I didn’t tolerate that shit when I was running Windows, and I’m sure not going to start now.

I’ll just keep on voting with my wallet, and not pay money for such user-hostile products.

Mathematicians: “First time?”

First Palantir, now Sauron.

Relevant: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

Depends on the industry. If you’re in an industry where your bottom line is sufficiently insulated from the quality of your goods or services, then you’ll be fine! Just gotta be an illegal monopoly, or form illegal trusts to gain equivalent monopoly power, or benefit from regulatory capture.

Like, say, health insurance. What could go wrong?!

Where was all this coming from? Well, I don’t know what Stern or Esquire’s source was. But I know Navarro-Cardenas’, because she had a follow-up message for critics: “Take it up with Chat GPT.”

The absolute gall of this woman to blame her own negligence and incompetence on a tool she grossly misused.

That article was even weirder and creepier than I expected. By a lot.

Also some interesting bits from a different Austrian tradition:

The Krampuses are now encouraged to only symbolically brush festival-goers, and not actually whip them.

I spent more money on music during the Napster days than any other time in my life. I discovered so much that I otherwise never would have been exposed to. I bought CDs, I went to concerts, I bought the T-shirts of bands I only listen to because of Napster.