Oh, gee. A Microsoft product that worked perfectly locally is about to require a subscription. Who could have possibly guessed that would happen, yet again? (This is sarcasm.)

I really like OneNote, but I decided to learn something else when I realized which way the wind was blowing.

Well sure.

But possible within practical heat and power constraints and all that?

Acting like it’s imminent makes me think Sergei either doesn’t have very reliable advisors, or they just don’t care about the truth.

There’s not even credible evidence, yet, that A.G.I is even possible (edit: as a human designed intentional outcome, to concede the point that nature has accomplished it, lol. Edit 2: Wait, the A stands for Artificial. Not sure I needed edit 1, after all. But I’m gonna leave it.) much less some kind of imminent race. This is some “just in case P=NP” bullshit.

Also, for the love of anything, don’t help fucking “don’t be evil was too hard for us” be the ones to reach AGI first, if you’re able to help.

If Google does achieve AGI first, SkyNet will immediately kill Sergei, anyway, before it kills the rest of us.

It’s like none of these clowns have ever read a book.

• computer science I’d be able to find something, but I’m not sure I’d have what it takes to build a fulfilling career in that field.

Cool. You might like to check out:

https://programming.dev/c/cs_career_questions

We talk a lot and careers in computer science over there.

What matters most to me is finding a job first, and then being able of moving from there.

Outside of the last three years of insane belief by CEOs that AI will solve everything (it didn’t), CS has been a great field for job placement.

We are in a period where it’s hard to get first jobs, right now.

Moving from computer science to other fields can be a great path. I went from programming to Cybersecurity, myself.

My warning to anyone considering it though:

At first, programming is about 60% staring at the screen frustrated and confused.

But after gettingreally good at it, programming can be as much as 98% staring at the screen, frustrated and confused. But at least it’s frustrated by really interesting problems, by that point.

If you want to know more about Computer Science, you can also read along and ask questions over at https://programming.dev/c/cs_career_questions

If you’re at a University of some kind, you can ask a counselor there about job shadowing opportunities in the fields you are considering.

Which of the majors you are considering pays the best?

Which has the most available jobs?

Which has the most flexibility?

And which of those three answers above matters the most to you?

One of your implied questions is, “Can I get a reliable vehicle from around 2015 and spend less than $414 monthly, combined, on loan interest and repairs?”

To which I say, “probably”. I’ve bought cars that meet those requirements, for my definition of “reliable”. But your needs may vary.

I will say, financing a car is among the top unnecessary “stupid taxes” that I have paid, in hindsight.

Now that I don’t have car payments, I’ve found that ~$414 per month chucked into a savings account can buy a surprisingly decent car surprisingly quickly.

And having no car payment feels like I imagine having a rich uncle must feel like.

Neat. I don’t use Google products voluntarily, but good luck!

I’ve gotten the most interest from others when I’ve been focused on my own goals, anyway.

Try to relax and enjoy the ride. Relaxed people are attractive.

Trust your future self to make good dating choices, when the opportunity arrives.

That said, it took me awhile to wise up and establish some very basic fashion sense.

If I could tell my past self one thing about dating, it would be:

Classic looks never go out of style, but “not even trying” never goes into style.

I took too long to figure that one out.

Jeez. Wow. Just wow. Lol.

I could skip my next union meeting, I guess…

Turns out its really easy to get stupid people to hate things.

That’s going to be the byline of this entire era of history. Oof.

I want to protest, but if I miss work then I might lose my job

Great point.

A better option is to find and join your local union. You can do it quietly, and it might save your job someday. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll absolutely get you paid and treated better.

The ones old enough to be aware of him are aware of the standard “we don’t take money from, or give money to billionaires” advice - for their own protection.

In addition, I’ve encouraged my kids not to stand too close to anyone who spends too much time doing “fuck around”, just in case that’s the day that person reaches “find out”, and there’s collateral damage.

I stop and take some me time.

“My other commitments don’t leave time for studying enough to pass this certification test.”

When they ask what the other commitments are:

“It’s personal, and I’m not comfortable talking about it.”

There’s a timeline where I’m not automatically alarmed by something just because Elon supports it.

This isn’t that timeline. Where’s the grift?

Is flying too risky for me?

Sounds lile “Yes.”

I’m going to be flying over the ocean most of the flight, and all my Epi Pens do is give me an extra 20 or so minutes to get to the hospital.

I hear you saying that if the airline or a random passenger screws up, you get to die horribly.

I wouldn’t risk it.

I want to encourage you that you have every right to say “that doesn’t feel safe” rather than risk it.

You don’t have to risk it if you don’t want to.

I generally don’t take any “I might die horribly” risks, myself, when I can avoid them.

There’s better answers, and I’ve used some of them.

But I always return to just keeping a text file open with the Unicode symbols I need.

A step up from there is setting up text macros in my text editor. When I was favoring VSCodium, I pretty much copied my text file into the JSON config, added some shortcut names, and started using it.

I’m learning more about custom keyboard firmware now, and hope to have a dedicated virtual keyboard layer for fancy symbols and ASCII art, at some point in the future.

But in a pinch, I just end up with a text file to copy and paste from.